The adventures of Brown Mortifer

Tome 1: Here we go!

Prologue

”And here we go again…”

I was more than a little frustrated, who would have guess that I had just failed, again, to correctly raise a dead person Well, on a second thought, nearly everyone who knew me, really. It was not that I had any illusions about my powers, but a lot of people did, and my father continued to hope. For my mother, I was already a lost cause. Apparently, when your last name was Mortifer, everyone expected you to be as talented as the other members of said family…

Which was not my case… because I may have inherited some of the powers, but certainly not the “gifted” part. “She is cursed” used to mutter my mother each time I failed one of my attempt… Well, I do raise the dead, but usually, only body parts by body parts. It is not really funny for the dead person I am trying to raise, or the members of her, or his, family… I mean, just imagine the scene. You asked for a complete rising, paid the fees for it, the result: your dead husband can just move the right side of his mouth and his right eye. Pretty creepy. Well, the whole business is not sunshine and roses but still… It’s… creepier. Why couldn’t I just call the spirit of the dead, like my sister do? Perfect, gentle, beautiful Sarah. My sister. My Opposite. It figured her name would mean princess while I had been called “Brown” because: brown eyes, brown hair, and even brown skin (some would say), so why not call her Brown? Sometimes my parents could show a disconcerting lack of imagination. I mean, it is true. I know I was not planned; it was a shock for my mother to be pregnant again. But still, “Brown”, who named their own daughter “Brown”? Why not just “Plain”: would have held the same meaning, and could be quite easily transformed to “Pain”. I am sure my mother must have thought about it in the years following my birth. Actually, I am sure she must think about it all the time now. I can already hear the beginning of that particular sentence “What a Pain…”

So here I am, a daughter of the main branch of the Mortifer family, unable to summon a dead soul if I couldn’t attach it to its body, and I couldn’t wake aforementioned body in its entirety… I really didn’t even understand why people wanted to literally raise the dead: people like my mother and my sister only needed to summon the spirit and the family could have a nice chat with their departed member! Or there were people like my father, who could be possessed with said spirit, allowing anyone to talk to it directly… Otherwise there were my cousins, who could raise dead people, the whole body of course, so easily it was nearly a crime! They usually needed the help of my sister or my mother to complete the linking of the body with its soul, so the fees were a bit higher, but still… No half a body raising up while the other half laid dead on the autopsy table, the two parts being torn apart in the process… I still remember the summoning of the whole family line that occurred after that little incident. Or the “You only know how to do things half-way, Bree!” from the jester of the family, my dear brother Bill. And let’s not talk about the repeated “Why me” mumbled by my mother each time she saw me.

It wasn’t my fault I couldn’t control it! I had tried a lot of times. And I didn’t want to be a part of the family business. My dream, when I was a child, was to be a normal person, with a normal job: like being a teacher, or an engineer! I was quite good at school! But did it matter to my family? Of course not! Bill was such a good poltergeist hunter! Sarah could summon dead spirit like no one else! Jim could talk with any spirits he encountered and helped them out! And I? I could raise a dead person partially… Oh, I also could see spirits, but they couldn’t see me! Usually spirits are invisible for normal people; they needed medium having the capacity to enhance their senses to see them. I am invisible for spirits. I can hear you laughing right now. A medium who cannot contact spirits because they can’t see or hear her. Nobody can explain why, we are supposed to be some kind of beckoning light for them! But not little old me… Of course not! I am the exact opposite. The only dead who can see me without the help of other mediums or ghosts are my forefathers and the one I have tried to rise. For the others? I am invisible woman. My brother Bill thought that could be useful, for someone else: “even poltergeists cannot see you, that’s quite an advantage. On second thought, you are such a klutz…” Mother wasn’t amused, neither was I. So when I reached teenage hood I decided I didn’t want to have anything to do with it anymore: if I couldn’t do it correctly, better not do it at all! But that way of thinking ended the day a moving hand entered my classroom when I was fourteen. Apparently, as I was not using my power, it had started leaking out. Hence the missing hand of the dead corpse lying in the street in front of the school. All of this because of a car accident.

So even if I was not really into the family business, and I owned quite a charming little flower shop, I still had to use my powers from times to times so that those kinds of incidents would not repeat themselves. And of course, when my clients learned that I belonged to “that” Mortifer family, and those clients were here for a burial… they usually asked me to do them a little favour. “Coming to your shop was a sign of destiny”, how many times did I hear that one? “It’s the proof that our dead friend/relative is not at peace, we must talk to him. You’ll help us out, won’t you?” Usually I succeeded in convincing them to use the skills of the other members of the family. My mother is quite glad with that side of my business. Sadly, this time, Mrs Dobson was adamant: she had been my customer for nearly a year, buying flowers regularly for her sick husband. Now that he was dead, she wanted a chance to talk to him about what he wrote in his will. She apparently didn’t agree with it. And as we don’t raise rotten corpses, too much of a messy business, she wanted to do it before he was buried and wanted no one else but me. Of course I did warn her about my abilities, or rather my lack of them, but nothing I said could change her mind.

And now that I am looking at her after I have just succeeded in making work the left arm, left eye and right leg of her husband, I can’t help wondering if she didn’t want to get revenge on him, and that’s why she used my services. Because she doesn’t seem upset at all, rather satisfied… Furthermore, nonplussed by the fact that he cannot speak, she is writing to him about the will… and putting a pen in his left hand to get an answer! The things people can do for money…

Well, after all, I may have still my place in the family business: Want to get revenge on someone already dead? Ask for Brown Mortifer, she’ll raise your enemies from death pieces by pieces! Contact information on the forum howtogetbackatadeadperson

Welcome to my life!

I didn’t know yet it could get much worse… and a lot weirder!