Weeping Willows

A 1,000 Words in One Shot

Chapter 53

The next morning Elizabeth was woken by her phone pinging an incoming text message. Sitting up from where she had been laying in the living room she groaned in pain. After they made it to the house last night, the three of them had stayed up to watch the videos they had all shot. None of them had caught a single thing. Not a ghost, not a shadow, not even a disembodied voice. Lauren had been overly disappointed but both Jan and Elizabeth had been relieved that they hadn't run into anything. Maybe it had been too early in the evening for the haunting to begin or perhaps the crying woman was too shy to be out around so many people. Whatever the reason Elizabeth was just thankful it had been an uneventful walk back to the house. It had been late by the time they got through all three videos and apparently, they had fallen asleep before making it to somewhere more comfortable. Elizabeth herself was sitting on the floor with her legs curled around her while her upper half had been propped up by the sofa. Her arms had been crossed on a cushion and her head had been nestled in her arms. She regretted falling asleep like that however as her body cracked and complained when she tried to move. It would have been better if she had just sprawled out on the floor instead.

Her cell chimed again reminding her she had a message waiting to be read. Reaching over to the coffee table Elizabeth grabbed the device off the top. As she sat up the throw blanket that had been draped over her fell to the floor to pool in a heap. Opening her phone, she didn't recognize the number that had sent her a text. Thinking it was spam she almost deleted it but something about it niggled her to open it. If it was some kind of virus, she could always send the phone to Courtney to fix she reasoned out as she opened up the message.

Hello Elizabeth. You don't know me but after I talked to Ryan last night, I felt I should contact you.

Elizabeth gasped in shock as her spine went pin straight and her eyes rounded wide. It must be from someone he was working with on the Bennett history that was getting in touch with her. Could it be the ex staking her claim or was it someone else? What if it was someone who saw the picture Jan had sent that shouldn't have. Groaning Elizabeth's face burned with mortification. She really needed to talk to her friends about sending pics of her out to anyone. She wasn't sure she could take the embarrassment that followed each time. Getting control of herself Elizabeth read on.

My name is Jessica Price and I am working with Ryan on his project. I must say when he first contacted me, I was very intrigued. As a fellow colleague I can vouch for his skills and the fact that this one had him stumped got me very excited to get my hands on it. Anyway, when he called you yesterday, we were about to meet with a historian from Main via video link and to say that I was angry that he was making a call right before would be an understatement. We have been working nonstop on this since he's gotten here, and I guess I felt he wasn't taking it seriously enough since he was making personal phone calls in the middle of our investigation. I must apologize for his short phone call and abrupt hang up it was my fault. Once I begin a project, I tend to forget everything else around me and expect the same from those I work with. Last night he had a hard time concentrating on work, he was so worried about you and how you must have felt. I told him to just call you and explain but he wasn't sure you would answer him if you were really mad. So, I apologize for any misunderstandings I may have caused with my demanding work ethic. Ryan is a dear friend and I would hate to cause him heart ache due to my actions.

Elizabeth sat there reading the text a couple of times before the words began to sink in. She felt really bad for jumping to conclusions and now felt like she too owed him an apology for going off the rails. It was a bit of a bad habit of hers that she really needed to work on. She didn't know if it was because she was a passionate person in general or if it was just a short temper. Perhaps it was a bit of both. Opening up a text she began to type her response.