Shaker Town (Taryn's Camera Book 4) Read Online Free Page A

diagnosed her with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder. On the plus side, it made her freakishly flexible and she could do “tricks” that both amazed and repulsed people. On the down side, it caused a whole host of problems that started with her head and went all the way down to her toes. It was responsible for her chronic pain (bursitis, tendinitis, osteoarthritis, scoliosis, hundreds of micro tears all over her body and a labral tear in her left hip) and fatigue–making her relieved she wasn't as lazy as she'd thought. (Well, she still was, but now she had an excuse.)
    When she returned to Nashville and saw the geneticist at Vanderbilt she'd been further diagnosed with crossover symptoms of Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a more serious form, and that was causing its own set of problems. She didn't have the genetic components to make it true VEDS, but still had worrying symptoms. Taryn had an aortic aneurysm they were keeping an eye on and varicose veins that were ugly more than anything else. She'd lost her appendix and spleen after Christmas due to ruptures. Her maternal grandmother had died of an arterial rupture in her sleep but she'd been in her eighties. Taryn still had a lot of living left to do. But she could do it tomorrow.
    In the meantime, she might as well enjoy some downtime before the real work started.
     

    T he cries woke her up. Deep and ragged, they were instantly recognizable to her; only someone who had experienced that much grief themselves knew them for what they were. She sat straight up in bed, the pillow under her dropping to the hardwood floor with a light “thump.” The room was coal black and she belatedly realized the television must have been set on a timer, going off in the middle of the night. She hated to be in a dark, quiet room alone. 
    Her heart pounding, she listened with curiosity to the uncontrollable sobs that sounded neither male nor female and her heart ached. Was it someone in another room? She didn’t think so; as far as she knew she was the only one staying in that particular building. Someone outside then?
    Quietly, Taryn slipped out of bed and tiptoed across the floor in her bare feet, the wood cold against her skin. The lacy curtains were a flimsy barrier between her and the night sky and before she’d even pushed them aside she could see the pale figure below, alone on the grass. It was a woman then, a slender woman of undecipherable age. Her long dark hair billowed out behind her, whipped by the wind, her white nightgown a contrast to the dark sky. Despite the security lamp above her, no shadow followed her on the ground.
    At first, the woman was motionless, only her sobs a testament to her presence. She could’ve been a statue, a pale tree swaying in the wind. But then, as her cries grew louder and swirled up towards Taryn, carried by the breeze, she began to sprint across the grounds. Taryn watched as she ran towards the old stone fence that surrounded the building and then gasped in surprise as she ran through it. The figure disappeared then; as suddenly as she’d materialized she was gone.
    With a leap back from the window, Taryn placed her hand on her chest, as if to manually steady her heartbeat. A ghost then, she thought, as the chills ran up her arms. The hairs on her head stood at attention. It would make sense that the grounds were haunted, if for no other reason than their age and the former spiritual nature of the compound. Just because there was a ghost, though, didn’t mean she had to do anything about it, she reminded herself.
    But as she climbed back into bed and flipped on the lamp for comfort, she shivered in dread and pulled the blanket around her like a shroud. She would have to do something about it. Because just before the figure passed through the fence like a puff of smoke she’d turned towards Taryn’s window and gazed right at her. The two had made contact.
    Game on.
     

    C reating the outside of the buildings would