About my Ghost Perfume series
Ghost Perfume (Book 1)
Ghost Perfume (Book 1)
Ghost Perfume (Book 1)
In a world where the dead linger, one girl holds the key to helping them cross over. But Rose's quiet life is shattered when four mysterious brothers arrive with a dark secret.
As tensions rise and some ghosts prove more dangerous than others, the brothers only want to keep her safe. Can she trust them, or will the secrets between them be her undoing? And will she ever be able to break through their masks?
Ghost Silk (Book 2)
Ghost Perfume (Book 1)
Ghost Perfume (Book 1)
Rose grows into her ability to help ghosts and cross portals. The Alistairs pursue a bloody diplomacy in the soul realm. Between Rose and the Alistairs, love grows strong despite their secrets, the demons and nightmares that haunt them, and a power imbalance that Rose must find a way to overcome.
Ghost Thorns (Book 3)
Ghost Perfume (Book 1)
Ghost Thorns (Book 3)
The Alistairs admitted the truth: their fifth is Rose, both silver and gold-called, though her existence must remain a secret from those who'd imprison her or condemn the Alistairs for their change of heart. With Rose operating from the shadows, they fight to protect the living from the hunger of the worms.
Coming soon to screens near you.
Start reading Ghost Perfume
Chapter 1: Hear me
They smelled like the snow.
A fresh, cool whisper from an insubstantial friend.
They shivered and flickered into sight. Here with me. Now gone again. Only their perfume left behind.
Till it too wisped away to nothing.
"Go through the portal, Brenda, it's time,'' I persuaded her.
I slid into my boots and knelt to tighten the laces, frayed and dirty under my cold fingers.
The ghost hesitated. "But you really don't know what's behind it?''
"No,'' I said gently. I couldn't know. "But it's better if you pass through.''
I pulled on Tommy's old jacket and my mom's old oversized, red-checkered scarf, soft from its many years of washings. It fell heavily on my shoulders.
"Or else you're stuck on this side of things,'' I continued. "You don't want that, Brenda - you don't want to be stuck here.''
Many ghosts were lucid enough, but they could get indecisive, unstable, as if they were coming apart at the seams. They'd been stuck for too long. Their thread frayed under the weight of the knots that strained it.
My voice was my greatest weapon with them. I changed and shifted it for persuasion, sometimes softening it with honey, sometimes hardening it with steel. Once in a while, in the middle of talking with a more difficult ghost, I'd hear my own voice like it was a stranger's, with strange resonances to it.
A voice I never used with the living.
"I don't know,'' the ghost said, her lip trembling. "You made me better. Maybe I could be okay now.''
"Look, Brenda -''
An icy wind tore at my face as I stepped outside and locked up the house. I stuffed my keys in the outer pocket of my backpack and tugged the zipper shut.
"Look at me. I'm stuck -'' I gasped as I fell on the iced-over driveway. "I'm stuck on this side of things for real.'' My butt and palms throbbed. "And it's hell.''
Brenda hovered over me anxiously.
The winter wind howled around us. It swept down the suburban street, sounding creepily like a long vowel from a mammal's throat.
A warning. Stay home, back to the blankets.
I carefully stood up, brushing myself off. "But you're not like me. You have a choice. You can get out of this place, right, Brenda? Don't you have this amazing choice?''
My gaze connected with Alexander's, the neighbor. My heart jolted. He was coming out of his house in sweats and a robe, a large bag of salt in one hand.
He gave me a bored jerk of his head, and I thought he probably hadn't seen me talking to the air.
I nodded back and kept walking to the bus stop. I didn't know him very well. He'd moved into the house across from ours a few months ago, and since the first introductions, we only said hello once in a while.
He intimidated me, with his frowning hellos.
Brenda followed me.
"You're twisting things,'' she argued. "You're the one with the choice. I'm the one that's ... that's ...''
I glanced around to make sure I was alone but for her.
"Dead,'' I finished.
"Oh my god,'' she cried.
"You are dead though, Brenda.''
"It wasn't my fault,'' she wailed.
I could see she was about to launch again into the story of the car accident that had most definitely been her fault, so I brought her back on-topic. "So you're free, Brenda!''
"Free?''
"Free from the shackles of your earthly body,'' I said as we reached the corner, and there was the bus approaching, rounding the end of the street.
I stamped the snow off my boot. I thought I could feel a smidgen of ice on my toe. Was there a hole in the boot?
"Free from pain and suffering,'' I kept persuading, honey warming my voice. "Free to finally walk into the light. You know the longing has plagued you. A yearning you couldn't give a name to. Well, you're finally ready. Take the steps you've only ever taken in your dreams before. You're curious. You're dying of curiosity. So step into the portal. See the other side.''
How I wished I could.
But it always spat me out.
I looked up into the golden circle of the portal. Wider in diameter than the tallest man, filled with the cool and unobtrusive glow of a waning sunset, pretending to be so impartial, the portal looked back at me.
"Have I dreamed of it?'' she asked uncertainly.
The bus came to a stop before me, and the gateway to my gray little corner of hell creaked open. That's my cue to shut up, I thought, as I met the eyes of the bus driver frowning down at me.
Too crowded to sit alone.
I sat beside a girl I only knew by sight, squeezing my backpack between my legs and the seat in front. She sullenly moved over.
"I am curious,'' Brenda announced.
Bingo.
I couldn't turn to look at her obviously or smile or nod, but I sent her a silent goodbye.
"Goodbye, radiant one,'' she said. "You'll help me with this part too?''
She moved close.
I folded my hands and closed my eyes in the physical world, the better to focus. I opened wider the inner eye that saw everything with a dark and impersonal gaze. There was Brenda, and there the little scarlet string in the center of her being. It had been hopelessly tangled and knotted when she came to me. I'd already helped her untangle the worst of it; with her decision and goodbye, it had fully untangled and formed the circle that was her key through the death portal.
But the thread was so badly frayed from its long-held knots that the circle hardly stayed together.
With the inner hands whose fingers never trembled, not with the thinnest and most delicate thread, I took up the edge of golden thread from the spool in my chest and twisted it with the weak parts of her string.
I made her key durable and whole.
The bit of golden string I'd used I snipped off, leaving it with her.
And pain shredded into my chest.
The cut edge of my golden string bled and stung. Pain radiated out with the pumps of my heart, pushing down my bloodstream. A headache started up in my temples.
I made a tiny go on gesture.
Brenda approached the death portal. My inner eye swiveled, following her. The portal allowed her passage, and she was gone.
The bus rocked and groaned.
The stings and aches slowly faded.
When we got to school and I was at my locker, I glanced around to check that no one was near or watching me. I pulled out the death notebook and penned her in.
Brenda Soneng, passed January 1, 2022
The latest in a very long list.
About me
Hi, I'm Natali, reader-turned-writer! I love to travel the world, drink coffee, and read and watch most anything. I currently split my time between Irvine, California and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Hi, I'm Natali, reader-turned-writer! I love to travel the world, drink coffee, and read and watch most anything. I currently split my time between Irvine, California and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Hi, I'm Natali, reader-turned-writer! I love to travel the world, drink coffee, and read and watch most anything. I currently split my time between Irvine, California and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Hi, I'm Natali, reader-turned-writer! I love to travel the world, drink coffee, and read and watch most anything. I currently split my time between Irvine, California and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Hi, I'm Natali, reader-turned-writer! I love to travel the world, drink coffee, and read and watch most anything. I currently split my time between Irvine, California and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
My writing combines elements of classic paranormal fantasy with slowburn romance. Because there really aren't enough slowburns out there. I'm currently writing the third book in my reverse harem series, Ghost Perfume. I'm also writing the first book in a vampire-and-other-monsters romance called Cruel Desires. I share all my rough drafts on Wattpad; Ghost Perfume will also be available for sale in physical form next year.
Photo courtesy of Luis Fonseca
Contact me
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