Ignoring a family legacy can be dangerous. Embracing it can be deadly.
Still recovering from the loss of her family, college student Becca Moskowitz—who’s encouraged to believe she suffers from post-traumatic stress—finds friends and allies in two new roommates.
Psychic abilities haunt her along with her dead grandmother who charges her with the task of finding a box that contains an ancient evil.
Becca explores her ability with the help of her friends and attempts to complete the task her grandmother set for her before an unspeakable evil is let loose on an unsuspecting world.
Born and raised in suburban Philadelphia, Ane started writing at four years of age. Disappointed by the brevity of the daily comic strips, she extended the comics from Daddy's daily newspaper. Clearly her first job was editing. To the delight of her parents, Ane was a natural born storyteller. When she began telling tall tales to cover the hours she spent after school detained by hostile nuns who did not appreciate her incredible adventures, they were forced to restrict her creativity. Years later, Ane once again took up her writing and began recording adventures for posterity.
Becca has not been successful convincing anyone her precognitive dreams are warnings, or that her grandmother is trying to warn her about impending disasters.
I think this is true for many people who have the "gift". The problems this type of "gift" brings are often more difficult to deal with than knowing bad things will happen, and when.
Think about it, try to convince a psychiatrist that you know the future and are not crazy.
What words would you use?
Book Excerpt
The Dybbuk Box
“I’m having trouble sleeping.” She bit her lip and leaned toward the older woman, her voice a whisper suitable to the secret she was about to share. “It’s the dream again.” She let her gaze wander back to the dying fire. “I start out looking for something, and I don’t know what it is, but the…the thing, whatever it is, lurches out of the dark and chases me.” She peered down at her hands as they pulled on the hem of her sweater. She had unraveled the last row of stitches.
“Becca, you understand it takes time to accept the kind of loss you’ve suffered.” Her aunt stood and came to sit beside her in front of the desk. “No two people handle grief in quite the same way,” she admonished in a soft voice.
“It’s not grief.” Becca sucked in a breath, startled her voice had sounded so harsh. “Please,” she placed a hand on her Aunt’s forearm, “these dreams have nothing to do with my loss.”
Becca dropped her gaze and examined her sweater hem again, and her aunt placed a hand on her back, rubbing it in gentle circular motions like her mother used to do. Tears welled, but she cleared her throat to go on. “The dreams have come back. They’re so frightening, probably because they start out so normal. Then something is chasing me, haunting me—something dark, clammy, and ugly. It’s so scary. I don’t know what it is, but I feel like I should know. It’s something so close, but just out of my reach…” She shivered. “Thank God.”
“Tell me about your dream.”
“Like I said, they start out so normal. My grandmother is here, and she wants me to come with her. She stands in the hallway and waves me to her. I know she wants me to go outside and play with her. She’s smiling and happy. Happier than I’ve ever seen her. So, I run to her, and she takes my hand in hers, patting it. You know how she used to do? When I was little, she did that all the time, took my hand in hers and then patted with her other hand.” She took a deep breath, hesitated. She looked up at her aunt, and knew she couldn’t get out of it now, she’d have to tell her everything.
“When she pats my hand, hers begin to turn into…claws. Her fingers are long and crooked with fleshy knobs at the finger joints. She starts pulling me outside with her, she thinks I’m resisting her, and I guess I am. She hurts me, holding mine like that. Her fingers are so cold. I can barely stand it. She pulls me outside to the yard of our old house. She doesn’t stop even when I start crying and run away from her.
“She chases me. Now she’s all dressed in black, and she doesn’t look like my grandmother at all. She’s a hag, with a crooked nose, and she’s got a scarf all over her hair, but some of the white hairs are fanning out from her face, kinky and wild. Her eyes are red, blood red. She reaches out to grab me with those cold claw-like hands, and she’s laughing, cackling, and she gets closer every time I look back. I’m afraid I’ll die if she catches me.
“You need to believe me; the dreams will pass with time. Time is a great healer of all things.” Her aunt’s smile faltered, so sweet and sad at the same time.
“Do you know what the dreams mean?”
Her aunt looked down and then away. “I don’t want to encourage you in this. The dreams will pass. The sadness will fade. Your loss will never go completely away, but you will learn to live with it. Eventually, you will only remember the good things, the good times, and you will be glad for those memories”.
It made Becca want to weep for other things, for the losses of all the people she knew, not just her own loss.
“Do you think the dreams are manifesting now because you anticipate more change with leaving for school? If you need to postpone college for another year, no one will challenge your decision,” Aunt Sara said softly.
Maybe I should have told her about the dirt on my feet when I wake up, and how my fingers are white with blue nails from the cold. Becca sighed. It had been a hard year. “I can’t imagine what I would do for a whole year waiting to start college. If I postpone going, it might only get worse. I just want a chance to act normal for a change.”
“Act normal? Why would normalcy be an act?”
Becca pulled away and rose from the chair. “We should just go ahead as we planned. I need to start at school.” She forced a smile as she turned to her aunt. “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”
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