Haunted Hearts (eBook)

Liza Del Rey (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
187 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-0-00-096913-2 (ISBN)

Infos

After an industrial tragedy, the small working-class town was empty and abandoned for many years, but one travel company decided to organize tours to the safest part of the area.

Claire buys one of these tours to find her lost biological mother, who was supposed to be waiting for her in the city.The girl separates from the group and quickly gets lost in the fog. She meets one of the guards who was supposed to take her out of the city. Lost tourists rarely find their way back from this area.

Сan love be born in fog and fear?

Textauszug

Haunted Hearts

Ⅰ. New Beginning

5th October 2007

Again. This city. It never changes. Grey clouds cover the sky, and there is not a single ray of sunshine in this routine of days. Like faceless, similar stones, tall buildings line up one after another. Dilapidated bare trees decorated this gloomy landscape only slightly until a girl with dark hair gathered in a ponytail walked out of the house into the cold autumn air. She was only 22 years old before the unpredictable situation happened in her life. Claire looked with her gray eyes over the familiar yard. She threw a denim bag over her shoulder, ready to start her working day at the flower shop.

A flock of crows circles high in the sky. One of them flies past and lands on the block of mailboxes near the entrance to the house. For some unknown reason, Claire decided to check the mailbox, which she had forgotten for several weeks. A small stack of paper letters falls out. Quickly throwing them into her bag, the brunette looks at the flock of crows and walks towards the store.

Claire Millers was the most ordinary girl at first glance. She lived alone in a small studio in a residential area of the city, spending her weekdays in a flower shop and behind a canvas. After school, Claire graduated from an art university, but she never became an art teacher. One summer day, she accidentally came across a vacancy for a florist, and she liked changing the water in vases and putting together bizarre flower arrangements. And her quiet, calm life would have been ideal if not for these terrible nightmares.

Trying to drive away thoughts of terrible dreams, Claire opened the door of the flower shop with a silver key and entered the small room. Throwing her bag and leather jacket on the coat rack, she spent half the day cleaning and replacing old flowers with new ones, as well as assembling flower arrangements to order for the city festival. Sometimes people came into the shop asking for something absolutely standard, like a bouquet of red roses. Claire's fingers folded one flower to another, tied ribbons, and carefully wrapped the arrangements in shiny paper. She handed over the bouquet, smiling at strangers and returning to business only after lunch. Over a cup of tea, when she sat at the table to check the bills in the mailbox, she discovered something strange among the letters.

The autumn rain begins to quietly tap out a melody on the glass windows. She places the hot mug on the table, carefully opening a letter from an unknown person whose name is not indicated on the envelope. The letter contains only two papers. Someone in very neat handwriting addressed her as his daughter and put in the envelope a portrait of an unknown woman. At first, the girl thought it was someone's evil joke. She is reading the words perfectly engraved with a black pen,

" Dear Claire,

Perhaps when you receive this letter, you will be very surprised. We have not communicated for many years. You do not know my name or my face. However, you and I are much closer than it may seem. A long time ago, I waited for your birth with special trepidation, but life turned out in such a way that I never saw you. The year of your birth coincided with a terrible date when the city we lived in ceased to be a safe place. I was left alone under the rubble of a destroyed house, never having found you.

If only everything were simpler. If only I could at least get out of here, but everything was much more complicated, Claire. I do not think that you will understand me, but please try. For many years, I was looking for a way to leave, but I could not get out - immediately after the leak of biochemical substances at the plant, the city was cordoned off by the military. Everyone who did not manage to evacuate and was susceptible to mutations was taken to the hospital for further treatment, although these people could function and communicate normally. I managed to avoid this, and the accident had little effect on me.

However, I lost the most precious thing I had. I lost my family. Only many years later, when I was finally able to regain my strength and get a job at a local souvenir shop, which opened this year, I was able to find you! Do you believe in miracles? Now I do. Please, come to me. I will be waiting for you at the souvenir shop in Lost Lake City. One part of the city has been reconstructed, and we even have bus routes here. I hope for the best. And I am really looking forward to seeing you. I don't know if you will find the strength to forgive me and meet me, at least for a short time.

With love,

Mom. "

Claire stared in complete stupor at the text she had just read. She couldn't lie - the letter had touched her heart, but her mother? After so many years? It was strange. And very unusual. Millers glanced at the photograph. A rather old portrait of a young woman with dark hair, sadness streaming from her light eyes, and a medallion in the form of an ammonite around her neck. What a strange day.

The girl put the letter aside, but for the rest of the working day, collecting bouquets and tidying up, she continued to think about what she had read in the strange letter. In the rays of the setting sun, she went out, blown by a cold wind, and headed out of the store at a quick pace to her father's house. She needed to consult with him and find out if this was true or if someone had decided to play a very evil joke. She climbs the steps of a cozy apartment complex to the second floor. Her tiny fist knocks on the steel door. Again. And again. On the threshold, she sees a woman. A tall, stately, brown-haired woman with tanned skin only looks away, calling her husband.

'Oliver!' She called him, 'your daughter’s here!'

'Claire!' The father exclaimed joyfully, approaching the girl. ' How are you doing? '

'I need to talk to you, Dad.'

Oliver squeezed his daughter in a light embrace, patting her on the shoulder. They went into a small and simple kitchen with white and blue walls. Scarlett went into the living room, not wanting to communicate with Claire - the woman did not like her for her own special personal reasons. Claire's two half-sisters ran past, and Oliver held a baby in his arms. The girl looked at him, and a slight smile appeared on her face. It seemed to her that he was truly happy with his second wife.

Claire was not his biological daughter. Oliver adopted her along with his first wife when the girl was just born. In those years, they lived on a farm surrounded by cornfields, horses, and chickens. In addition to Claire, there were five more children in the family, some of whom were adopted, like her. And life seemed pleasant to her then, despite the same nightmares that repeated every few days. The girl knew nothing about her past. She did not know her biological parents. This information seemed absolutely unnecessary to her. And only now did she decide to find out the truth. Sitting at the dining table opposite her father, she opened her denim bag and handed him a letter with neat handwriting and a photograph of a woman.

'What is this, Claire?' Her father's frown ran over the lines of the letter, holding the letter in one hand, 'Who sent you this?'

'I don't know, Dad, I found this in the mailbox today. I've never wanted to know who my biological parents were before, but now I'm curious. Do you know anything about them?'

'To be honest, this all looks suspicious. A letter? From a woman? Did you really take this information seriously?'

'Read it more carefully. She writes quite understandable things! Is it possible that she didn't have a chance to contact me before?'

'And how did she find your address? This is creepy, Claire. You should move in with us for a while until we figure out where this letter came from and who wrote it.'

' Dad!' The daughter exclaimed in displeasure, taking the letter, 'I will not live in the same apartment with you, Scarlett does not like me, you know that. So you… know something about this woman?'

' Of course!' He turned the portrait over, reading the text printed in small letters, ' it says here that the portrait depicts a woman named Ada Wesler, 1978. This is someone's evil joke.'

' Do you think so?'

' If she really wanted to find you, she would have come herself or would have definitely put a new photo. Forget it, Claire.'

' And you don't know anything about my biological parents?' A small spark of hope flashed in the girl's eyes.

'Well... I know you were born in Lost Lakes, the same place where the unknown sender of the letter is calling you. This town used to exist very close to ours, but then there was an industrial accident, everyone was evacuated, and the town was closed. I don't know if it's possible to get there now, but I'm telling you that you need to forget about it and stay home. Did we agree, Claire?'

'Is that all you know?' His daughter asked sadly.

'Yes, that's all they told me. You were born there. In Lost Lakes, and do you know why the town is called like that? Because there is a lake nearby that is not on the map, and the town itself, as far as I know, does not exist on modern maps either. And why is she calling you? Stay with us for dinner. Scarlett made a delicious casserole!'

' Just not the food Scarlett made!' The girl's face distorted with disgust.

The girl thanked her father and hugged him and her half-sisters. She went out into the same cold air and headed for her house. Thoughts of Ada Wesler,...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.7.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• Themenwelt: Kinder- / Jugendbuch
• ISBN-10: 0-00-096913-3 / 0000969133
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-096913-2 / 9780000969132