The Playground

---

The Playground - book excerpt

Willows Grove

A century-old evil resides by my side. Soul to soul we exist between earth and a spiritual plane, imprisoned inside decaying church walls. From sacred windows, I watch my eternally youthful daughters laughing and playing like living, breathing children on a condemned playground. He watches too, but for different reasons, to reap vengeance on people in town who dare trespass on cursed grounds. It was a year ago, my two daughters and I came to this place to start a new life after death befell my husband. The sea rolled in and swept him away one sunny day on an Atlantic beach, his body never recovered. He left us saddled with debt, and no real assets, our treasured items sold to sustain us. We traveled from coastal Florida, searching for a new start, stumbling on the town of Willows Grove.

I thought we’d found a new home, but instead, we found death. With no job or money, we lived precariously from street to car, until townspeople, ignoring our plight with shameless disregard drove us away with scathing remarks. One night we took shelter from a storm inside an old Episcopalian church. We knew not what lives inside—a soul of unrest, trapped for centuries. One restless night, I sat in the nave, sensing his presence in the transept’s shadows. I believed a guardian angel in this house of worship watches over me and the girls as we slept, but I was mistaken. Again, he arrived one quiet night, whispering sad hymns as I slept.

Harder yet may be the fight. Right may often yield to might. Wickedness awhile may reign. Satan's cause may seem to gain…

He filled my mind with old-world images and spoke poetically of lost love and the tragic death of his mistress and daughter. I woke sad and empathetic for an unknown entity. Several nights later, he revealed himself, a frightful cloaked figure glowed hellish red. Quickly he soothed our fear, with mental images of his true form.