Light the Fire (Jackson's Hollow #1)

Chapter 1

Well, this was going to take some work.

Jo dropped the dusty painting cloth that had been covering the living room...couch? It was so small and breakable-looking, maybe she should've called it a loveseat instead. Waving a hand in the air, she tried to waft away the cloud of dust she had released. It glimmered in the sunlight that was streaming through the broken pane in the otherwise grimy window.

The old Scott house, originally built by her great-grandparents, hadn't been lived in for ten years, and it showed. It wasn't like the floorboards were rotting under her feet or anything, but the years of neglect were apparent in the moth-eaten furniture, the heavy smell of must, and the intricate spiderwebs built by generations of spiders.

Jo sat down on the couch and instantly regretted it as more dust poofed around her, the motes dancing and threatening her with a coughing fit. The couch/loveseat/whatever was uncomfortable anyways; she could feel the wooden frame even through the cushions, and it was worn and threadbare. It was going to have to go, like so many other things she had uncovered since moving in three days ago.

So far, she hadn't ventured out of the house, not even to explore the five acres of woodland and mountainside that came along with it. Normally she would've been all over that opportunity, hiking the trails her family had made over the years, but she didn't have the motivation. Instead she poured the energy she did have into sporadically cleaning the house and watching pre-downloaded episodes of Netflix trash shows on her laptop. She knew that eventually she would run out of episodes and have to call an Internet company and actually start living again, but right now, she was content with coasting along.

Her choices had certainly surprised her parents. She'd been so motivated and excited about going to college, her mother had argued. There was nothing for her in some isolated mountain town, her father had pointed out. They had been thinking about selling the family land anyway, her parents said, to help pay for her college. At an excellent university, her mother had added, the hinting not subtle at all.

Instead, here Jo was, cleaning out a half-abandoned family homestead as she prepared to start school at a community college in a small mountain town she'd only visited a few times. The sure-fire set up for a successful life and wide social circle Jo thought with a wry half-smile as she grabbed up the dust cloth and stood to add it to her pile in the corner of the room.

Mom and Dad would never understand, but it was better this way. Safer this way.

Jo brushed stands of dark hair off her sweaty face--most of it was successfully tied back in a ponytail, but the humidity here was making it a bit impossible to control.

That was another thing to add to her checklist--she pulled out her phone and opened the notes app. Check and see if AC could be installed. You'd think no one had lived here since the early 1900s or something, but it hadn't been that long. Guess she should be grateful there was at least indoor plumbing and electricity.

Jo sighed as she scanned down the list. She would need to stop by the store to pick up a number of things. Had to get cleaning supplies, more groceries, other items. College orientation was tomorrow too--had to pick up textbooks again.She closed her eyes. Looking at this never ending list was not helping. Instead, it seemed to be making an awfully good case for further procrastination.

Pocketing the phone again, she grimaced. Being an adult was not nearly as fun as she'd thought it would be back when she was playing house as a kid. Too bad she couldn't imagine a dishwasher into existence.

The dust cloud was still lingering, and all the hand waving she had tried wasn't really doing much to get rid of it. Getting up, Jo was about to head into the kitchen when she felt eyes on her. It was an undeniable sensation; someone was staring at her. She whirled around toward the front of the house to catch two pairs of eyes at the bottom of one of the windows before she heard a couple childish shouts.