Anna, a ghost witch, lives in the attic of Waverly Manor with two ghosts, Boo and Tomfoolery. They don't like humans and frighten away everyone who tries to live there...
...until Jackie moves in with her parents. While Jackie's special needs make some things difficult for her, they also enable her to see Anna and the ghosts. After Jackie befriends Boo, things change in Anna's world, leading her on one adventure after another.
Excerpt:
Upstairs in the attic of Waverly Manor, Anna shouted to Boo, "What a disgustingly beautiful day outside today! Smell that fresh air!"
"Peeyuu!" Boo held his nose.
"Don't worry," Anna said. "I'll summon a gray cloud, or wait…" She thought to herself while she pressed the wooden wand tighter that she carried. "Dark rainy clouds to cover the old manor would be better." She turned to both ghosts.
"Right guys?"
"We've done the gray day clouds a bit too much, Anna." Boo floated to the window and back.
"Oh! How about bats flying through the area by the thousands to block out the sun?" Her rich red hair glistened in the light streaming through the attic window and her delicate features lit up at the new idea.
Tomfoolery grumbled from the back of the room. "You done the bat routine already."
"Oh, right!" Anna coughed and blew a cobweb free of its nest, sending the spider on a downward swirl of silk and mesh and setting its trapped captives free. A newly freed moth flew by Anna and said thanks. Anna sneezed out a greenish mist with her hot breath that smelled like a dirty gym sock and then coughed and wheezed.
"Are you okay, Anna?" Boo asked.
Anna headed back to the dusty, stale air in the attic that bettered her condition. "Better now. Thanks, little Boo." Anna grumbled while she carried her wand at her side. "It's always so sunny these days. I can't put a stop to them all, now can I?"
"Smells awful," Tomfoolery shouted. "Do something about the air at least, Anna."
"Hey, Anna, don't give up," Boo said. "You can summon something wicked or invoke something terrific. How’d that be?"
Anna cringed. "How can the living stand it?"
"You know those humans," Tomfoolery said.
Anna grumbled. "Yeah, most I do."
Tomfoolery and Boo looked up to Anna and in unison asked, "What?"
"They think everything is just so wonderful. Well, I'll put a stop to that!"
"That's our girl, Anna. Do the world in. Invoke a huge hairy beast to rip apart the earth." Tomfoolery and Boo worried they'd gone too far with the rip apart the earth bit and said, "We were just kidding."
"I've got it!" Anna shouted. "Where's my spell book?" She whistled for her trusted book. It rattled and shook from underneath its heavy load of piles of boxes.
"We hid it like you asked last time when your spell backfired and burned part of Tomfoolery's cloak," Boo said. "You really got a thing against the living, Anna."
"It's all that free goodwill," Anna commented, "that I can't stand. Happy little faces smiling at the world like they were somehow the creators of all its splendors. Ha-ha!"
Anna scrounged through the pile of old boxes filled with books, knickknacks, lamps, old clothes, shoes and winter boots, and looked at all the symbolic memories of time gone by. Memories had an almost magical power to evoke feelings, but she knew it was better not to stir up the emotions she once felt. They could inspire hope in a time of despair, courage in the face of danger, and belonging in the midst of loneliness—but they left her feeling nothing but hopeless.
Also by Jack Sorenson:
Alana Weatherbee (Book 1)
Jacks School of Shines
Spooks and Magic
