My journey into paranormal started long before I started writing books about it. Growing up in a haunted house, I just assumed what I experienced was normal. It wasn't until later in life that I discovered people didn't experience things the way I did. I guess I was about three, that's my first recollection of strange things happening at my grandmother's house. Chairs rocking back and forth, entities that came and went at will. Like I said, I just thought these were normal occurrences. It wasn't until a tragedy happened in my teen years that I became frightened of the things going on.
I remember the night of that event vividly. One of our neighbors committed suicide. My baby sister, who must have been nine or so at the time, woke up screaming that man was standing by her bed with a bandage around his head. We were sleeping together and after she finally settled down, I was still terrified by her nightmare. Then the most god awful roar sounded, the back door flung open, and these pounding footsteps moved through the house, waking the entire family. After that happened my grandmother got the call from the neighbor about the suicide. It was a night I won't ever forget.
There had always been strange things in my Granny's house but after that night they escalated. A little girl without a face, my mother saw her often. Objects disappearing, that were later found in the attic. A feeling of being touched, or pushed, never uncommon. Doors slamming, glasses falling out of cabinets, and strange feelings of dread that would just overcome you at times for no reason at all. Still to this day, I blame my grandfather's suicide which happened years later, on the things going on in that house. My grandmother's death as well because while hers was ruled accidental overdose of insulin, it never made sense. Obviously those deaths were very traumatic for me, so I can accept that my opinion might be a touch biased.
My grandfather before that horrific event, claimed that there were people in our home trying to steal things. He would constantly ask if we saw them. His physician chalked that up to his illness, but seeing the thing I'd grown up around, that never seemed valid. My grandmother in her last days talked about aliens and spirits constantly and again, it was ruled as part of her illness. I think the last straw for me was when my twins were born. Having them covered up by invisible hands was impossible to ignore and I wouldn't set foot in that place again for all the money in the world. That house was sold, and surrounding neighbors had their own haunting experiences. It would be a ghost hunters dream if they ever did decide to investigate, I just won't be part of it.
I guess you might be asking yourself how vampires and the other forms of supernatural came from a haunting? That's an interesting story in itself! When all those tragedies were taking place in my life, I couldn't cope and suffered severe depression. I was fifteen at the time, and dealing with puberty on top of those horrible events. It's not something I talk about much today because I'm a very positive person, but during those days I was done with everything! That's when Rafe came to me in dreams. He was my salvation, literally. The dreams began with me standing in a beautiful field and a planet of brilliant white coming down from the heavens. I reached out to touch it in a dream, and my adventure with the man I consider my muse and guardian, began.
Every night for ten years, he would visit me in those dreams, taking me to a world that can't compare with anything I've seen here on earth. Other nights we'd walk the abandoned streets of New Orleans, which is somewhat strange because I'd never visited the city in those days. They were very passionate dreams and to me they were as real as me discussing this on the Tears site today. Tears of Crimson is based on those dreams and the beautiful, yet haunting paranormal world that Rafe opened my eyes to. Is any of it true? In my dreams it happened, and if you believe that dreams are simply our walk in an alternative world, then who knows? When you read Cara and Rafe, you're stepping inside the world that shaped who I am today. Cara was always one of my favorite names. I mentioned my twin daughters earlier, well what most people don't know is that I was supposed to have triplets. One of them didn't survive and she would have been Kara. So in my mind, I've immortalized her memory while sharing the story that's been with me all my life.
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