Some say the ability of seeing ghosts is a gift, but after losing her job, Dumdie Swartz says, “Hogwash”.
Since she was a child, Dumdie has seen ghosts and has developed several quirks to cover the fact so she wouldn’t need to explain herself or be exploited. When her boss witnesses several of these occasions, he fires her, thinking that she suffers from a mental issue that could be a liability to his business.
Without a job and money, Dumdie becomes just another old, homeless woman living out of her car. As winter approaches, her luck changes, and she secures a private room in a homeless shelter, but it isn’t as private as she thinks. The ghost of the former owner of shelter haunts the room where she died, searching for the misplaced will that guarantees the shelter would continue to exist as she so desired.
Dumdie must make a decision. Does she continue to hide her gift in fear of upsetting people or appearing insane? Does she go out on a limb and try to save the shelter, the room they have given her, and herself in the process.
Targeted Age Group:: 18+
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
Just wondering about how a person who really did see ghosts would cope with the talent? But, the character immediately said seeing ghosts was a “pain in the arse”.
How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
I never really know. They are just sort of there most of the time when I start asking questions about a situation that intrigues me.
Book Sample
No sooner than she entered the Archinhauser Shelter for Homeless Women, Dumdie Swartz dug her fingernails into her palms. Nothing the social workers at Catholic Relief Services had said prepared her for the gut-wrenching chill churning in her gut. Dumdie closed her eyes and swayed.
You should’ve known there’d be some catch to getting out your car and into a building. Hope there’s nothing here to turn my grey hair white.
“You okay?” whispered Hanna, the friend from the gym’s back parking lot who had also survived the hit-and-run. “You’re as pale as a clean sheet.”
The comment drew Dumdie’s attention away from the shelter’s supervisor. After careful thought, she replied, “Don’t have f-flowers sc-scattered over my face.”
Tension wrapped around her spine as Dumdie struggled to appear normal. She had grown too comfortable living in her car behind the Tenth Street gym, out of sight of the traffic, after losing her job and apartment. Dumdie fought to meet the curious glances of her fellow inmates when the warden explained the rules for sharing the living room.
As if I care about the hours when I can turn on the TV. As usual, she kept up a running sass in her head, even though she seldom confronted people. I’m sure my room’ll be much more comfortable.
Hanna patted her shoulder, not minding when Dumdie stepped away. After years of studying how people reacted, she knew Hanna’s warm smiles meant she supported her. Other smiles were cold and hard, ready to stab her as if she were a target. Dumdie shook the thought out of her head. The Archinhauser Shelter offered her and Hanna a chance to get back on their feet.
Maybe in an apartment of our own. If we can ever find jobs again.
Dumdie pulled a vague mask over her face and pretended to listen. Her gaze wandered around the rooms they traveled through. Automatically, her mind began counting things in an attempt to calm itself.
Later, Dumdie glanced around the small room tucked in under the eaves with its large dormer windows. At least the shelter will be more comfortable than our cars. Her fingers clutched at her hands and twisted.
Turning her back on the sparsely furnished room, she stared out the third-story window at the sparkling snow. The hoopla was over, and the rooms assigned. Dumdie’s knees had protested at each stair she climbed, and though she appreciated having the room nearer the stairs, the place felt as cold as charity. Her nose wrinkled as she remembered the tour given by their warden.
The old house sat in the middle of a huge lawn sliding down to the river, for all it was in the middle of town. In the distance, the trees crowded together, and the moon shone above them.
Maybe I could ride the moon to Never-Never-Land, and no one would mind if I were different.
Smashing the fanciful thought down, Dumdie shook her head, knowing she had to fit in. Nothing but trouble came from letting her thoughts roam free. With a shudder she remembered swinging and singing to herself, “dum-de-dum-de-dum.” Her sisters took to teasing her and calling her Dumdie, a name she had never escaped. Ignoring the unhappy memory, she began to unpack and arrange the possessions she had salvaged from her former life.
The closet was colder than the room, making her shiver harder. Rather than hang a sweater on the rail, she put it on. It’s nice to be in a real room again even if it’s so small.
Though the ceiling was high enough Dumdie didn’t have to stoop, the room still felt like a straight jacket with its small desk and chair and the narrow bed and three-drawer dresser. Her shoulders hunched together as she tried to avoid the pressure of their presence. Dumdie plopped down on the bed and examined the room. Stared at the closet, a gaping hole in the faded flowers of the wallpaper.
Strange. Someone put wallpaper in an attic room? Dumdie thought hard as she tried to figure out an acceptable answer to her question. Oh, it was the maid’s room.
Still, the closet bothered her, a scratching on the back of her mind. Nothing strange should lurk in there. It was a bare nook with a rod running across it for hangers. She had counted thirty of them, snuggled up together as if they liked each other. Touching. Dumdie shivered. Though she tolerated Hanna being near her, people pawing at her bothered her. The walls of the room were almost as bad. If she stretched her arms out, it’d take two side steps to reach the wall. Maybe if the dresser were out of the room, it’d feel larger? The closet’s large enough to hold it since I don’t have many clothes.
The dresser rolled easily into the closet on its squeaky wheels. The shift opened up a long expanse of uninterrupted wall. Dumdie grabbed her two suitcases to pack the dresser when a bone-chilling fist hit her in the gut. Dumdie dropped the cases as she staggered back. The cold wrapped its fingers around her neck, and tears trickled down her cheeks. After months of controlling her fits, they had returned, as sharp as knives, to torture her.
Slumped on the narrow bed, shoulders hunched, Dumdie’s gaze stuck to the open closet door. Thin ribbons of cold snaked up her back. Tendrils of Arctic ice stabbed at her from across the room, pushing her knees hard against the mean excuse for a bed. She closed her eyes and struggled against the frigid weight. Sweat trickled down through her gray hair down to her wrinkled brow.
Memories of her last exit interview rose, her pale-faced boss hemming and hawing about her excessive daydreaming. What he really feared were my so-called TIAs, Dumdie harrumphed. Easier to think I was having small strokes rather than seeing things. Stupid man thought I’d increase the store’s health insurance premiums.
Knowing his books better than he did, she couldn’t bring herself to blame him. She took her Social Security early but couldn’t find another job. Without enough to live on, she lost her apartment when her poker winnings couldn’t make the rent even if her card counting put her ahead of the game. She didn’t dare win too much.
Dumdie shoved her anger under a mental rock. Displaying emotions got her into trouble, even as a child. She pushed the memories of screaming in frustration when nobody understood and of being locked in the broom closet, aside.
“Noooo.” Dumdie murmured. “Please don’t let me see something that’s not there. I can’t go into a crazy trance so soon after moving into the shelter. Only Hanna knows me here.”
All her hopes of staying warm through the coming winter shattered like icicles in the wind. A hot spike of fear shook her.
They put old men in jail for being weird. Maybe they’d put me in jail. Even Dumdie appreciated the humor. I would be warm in jail.
The thought didn’t comfort.
What if they lock me in an asylum this time?
While Dumdie clutched her knobby hands, her mind counted the steps to the closet door of the attic room, four normal paces away. Ten baby steps. Two leaps. Six feet by tape measure.
When the cold had attacked her, she had jumped back across the room, touching the floor once. The two, dropped suitcases, holding most of what she had salvaged from her life before the lay-off, lay open, her clothes scattered around the closet door. The two empty garbage bags that had held her sleeping bag, quilts, and towels lay on the floor where the three-drawer chest had crowded the cot. She refused to call the narrow sleeping device a bed, even though her mama’s quilt lay over the top.
Struggling to keep control, Dumdie peered through the open door into the pulsing darkness. No scenes appeared, but she didn’t relax.
But darkness shouldn’t move. The closet’s why this room gave me the creeps. Dumdie rubbed her thin arms to stop the shivers, fought to stay in touch with reality. I won’t go into a trance. I refuse to go into a trance.
With a shudder, Dumdie walked the four paces again, only to push against a wall of invisible ice. She shuddered. Living in the woman’s shelter might prove worse than sleeping in her minivan in the strip mall parking lot.
Luck of the draw or just more plain damn bad luck? Or, am I here for a purpose?
In Dumdie’s past experience, all were possibilities.
About the Author:
Hooked by comic books at an early age, M. K. Theodoratus’ fascination with fantasy solidified when she discovered the Oz books by L. Frank Baum with his strong female characters. She has traveled through many fantasy worlds since then. When she’s not reading about other writer’s worlds, she’s creating her own. Most of her tales are set in the Far Isles where she explores the political effects of genetic drift on a mixed elf human population. She also writes about gargoyles, magic, ghosts and other magical beings.
A sixth grade English assignment started her writing. The teacher assigned a short story. Theodoratus gave her an incomplete, 25-page Nancy Drew pastiche which turned into a full novel by the next summer. She’s been writing fantasy happily ever after ever since.
Links to Purchase eBooks
Link To Buy The Ghost in the Closet On Amazon
Link to The Ghost in the Closet on Barnes and Noble
Link to The Ghost in the Closet for sale on Smashwords
Link to The Ghost in the Closet for sale on iBooks
Link to The Ghost in the Closet eBook for sale via Kobo
Social Media:
Goodreads
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Have you read this book? Tell us what you thought!
