Haunted Heart 💗

you don't have to read this chapter but it will help you understand more about the story and is a little bit boring but just bear with me.

Giada Haydens perspective ~

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, dancing and moving my hips as my favorite old-school boy band (backstreet boys- everybody) blasted through my headphones.

I tidied up the dimly lit parlor straightening magazines and wiping off the coffee tables. Although the music was loud, there was a familiar silence-a silence that had been there since my mother died, that accompanied a stillness so unsettling it made its home deep in my bones, causing it to chill and shutter through my body-a chill that was always there, although sometimes it intensified. The sensations were overwhelming and could devour you if you let them; the sensations had nothing to do with sound-music could never erase them completely, although it did make it a bit easier.

These particular sensations often accompanied death, loss and grief. Only certain places could contain them, and only certain people who were sensitive-or, as my grandmother would say, gifted, like myself-could understand them.

Sadly those sensations had only grown stronger since my mother had supposedly been hit by a drunk driver 1 year earlier, taking one of her late night walks. It was most likely a hit and run the police said, they couldn't identify the driver or the vehicle all they could identify was the traces of blood and hair left on the road that DNA test confirmed was my mothers. Here it is 13 months later and still the sheriff suspicions haven't been proven and her body hasn't been found. All we know is it was a significant amount of blood so there's no way she is still alive but of course my father still has hope and as much as I don't want to believe it's true I haven't seen her spirit so I'm still without the closure I so desperately need, it still feels like it happened just yesterday.

Our family business-The Hayden Family Funeral Home & Crematory, thats been a cornerstone of this town for generations-might be in trouble. Just across the street, a shiny new establishment had opened its doors, all polished wood and sleek design, promising style and class. In contrast, we were the affordable family funeral home, a relic of tradition in an age that seemed to favor the extravagant. While the new place offered custom caskets, funerals, luxury hearses, and pretty much anything you're morbid little heart desires.

We couldn't compete. Dad always said people in small towns like ours, are like a big family. They dont like outsiders and are set in their ways, they like to keep things traditional and arent open to change they were too suspicious and untrusting, so we had nothing to worry about.

Sadly, since mom died she had been the one to take care of all the lipstick and rouge my dad would say. Designing caskets and decorating the funeral home was all her area of expertise and lately, Dad had been asking me to take her place in that arena. I couldn't fathom changing the curtains or the furniture because mom had been the last one to put them there. Changing things meant erasing the last traces of her warmth and style. i wasn't ready to let go and dont know if i ever would be. I remember the kind words we would tell our clients who were grieving, now they were just bullshit and meant nothing to me.

Being the only funeral home in our tiny town in the past, we had hosted every single funeral and embalmed or prepared nearly every person who had passed away here, helping families in their time of need-often when they had little more than heartache and empty pockets.

The hardest part: seeing familiar faces after they'd gone-their bewildered expressions lingering on their fixed, stone-like skin. Yes, i could see their spirits. And I would have to explain their presence to them-a heartbreaking task. Not every spirit lingered; usually, it was the young, unready, confused, or those with unfinished business-without a loved one to lead them. Yes, I knew it was cliché, but the movies had some of it right, and it was also my reality.

I have seen and heard spirits since I can remember. My great-grandmother had the gift, passing it on to her daughter. But it did skip my mother. My mother explained how it had skipped a generation.

Mom had never seen a spirit, and because of that, my ability seemed to have more potency than the women in my family before me. The first spirit I remember seeing was that of my grandmother, Milly.

I believe I am her unfinished business-and maybe that's a good thing, because she eased me into it. Of course, I didn't know she was a spirit at the time, which I think she did on purpose so she wouldn't freak me out. I didn't understand funerals then; I thought they were just sleeping, which made sense to my 5-year-old self, because I would often see their spirits lingering after their own funerals. I realized grandma was a spirit when seeing her move through doors and walls-and trying to do the same myself, which hurt me. My grandmother finally explained she was on a different plane-the afterlife, she called it.

Often, when people die, they appear the way they did at the moment of death; if they were bruised and bloodied, that's how they appeared, although that's not always the case they can appear however they want. If they didn't realize they had died, they appeared like everyone else-which can make it hard for me sometimes. In the beginning, when I first discovered my gift, I'd gotten them confused with the living. But most of them, after realizing they were dead and going to their own funeral, just appeared in their funeral garb.

Luckily, my grandmother is here to guide me."you missed a spot," grandma said taking her finger and running it along the counters. I huffed, rolling my eyes.when she wasn't being a smart-ass She would whisper words of encouragement and gently stroke my hair at first. Then I began to see more and more of her, and soon I realized what she truly was: My spirit Guide, Grandma Milly explained that the dead are often accompanied with very strong emotions, anger, guilt, sadness, and even happiness. She taught me how to differentiate my own emotions from theirs. Which helps me tell the difference. Eventually, grandma and I had pretend tea parties, and she began to explain my curse more as a gift.

I'm lucky to have Grandma Milly as a guide. If it had been anyone else, I don't think I would have been able to cope-and I'd probably be on several medications or in some institution by now. To this day, she's still here. I don't know why she thinks she still has unfinished business, but I won't complain. She's become my best friend, confidant, and the only person I really trust. But the most important thing she ever told me was to never confide in anyone about my gift because they just won't understand. And she's right-no one knows.

Although, I did tell one person when I was in high school, that led to me losing all my friends and boyfriend at the time. I became the ultimate School outcast. I was bullied so badly i ended up leaving public high school to take online classes instead.

Anyway here's my story so I hope you enjoy it.