Eat, Pray, Hex (Crescent Moon Mysteries) by Tara Lush | Character Guest Post

When my aunt Shirley passed away, I traveled to Cypress Grove, Florida to settle her estate. I expected it to be a quick, straightforward trip, but I ended up discovering a bizarre psychic ability of my own.

No, this is not a metaphor for perimenopause. Or…is it?

Everything started when I arrived at the Crescent Moon Inn, which Shirley had left to me in her will. It was a spooky old place, with peeling paint and creepy knickknacks in the lobby. There were no guests, I’d later discover, because the place was haunted.

Just my luck. But I digress.

The moment I touched the staircase banister, I got an electric shock. Then suddenly, I had a vivid flashback to my childhood, visiting the inn when I was 6 years old with my brother and our parents.

This was extremely unusual, because until that moment at age 47, I had no memories from before I was 13. Yet touching this object unlocked a vivid buried memory I didn’t know existed. I tried to brush it off and blame jetlag at first.

But the weird events kept coming. They were so weird that I couldn’t bring myself to tell my daughter or my brother, for fear they’d think I’d gone batty. So I only talked about it with my new (and quite quirky) group of girlfriends in town. Since they’re the kind of midlife ladies who embrace new age things, they didn’t bat an eye when I told them of my ability.

Instead, they encouraged me to embrace my newfound power.

Soon after, I found a letter from Shirley explaining that I had a psychic gift called psychometry. That’s the ability to sense or access memories and information about people or events connected to an object just by touching it. Shirley believed I had this intuition as a child but repressed it.

Returning to Cypress Grove, which apparently is a place of great spiritual energy, reawakened this psychic sense within me. Because I started having vivid visions whenever I touched certain objects around the inn and the town.

Local historian Oliver Everhart has helped me research my newfound power. He’s been a true friend. I’m told he’s the most eligible, over-40 bachelor in town, but I don’t pay attention to men since my divorce.

Okay, perhaps I did notice Oliver’s muscular forearms while we were poring over books at the town library.

Sigh. I’m getting off track again.

When I picked up an old photograph in the historical society, I saw the people in it as living figures, almost like a video from the past. At a thrift shop, I touched an antique locket and suddenly knew it had belonged to a woman mourning her husband lost at war. These visions were disorienting yet illuminating.

The most profound experience happened at the old train station. When I placed my hands on a luggage cart, I was transported back in time. I could hear the bustling passengers, smell the locomotive fumes, feel the rumbling approach of the train. It was like time travel through tactile psychic imprints.

But the clincher happened when I stopped by the convenience store to grab some snacks. I was in the chip aisle when suddenly everything went black. Then bam, I was watching a movie about the entire lifecycle of a bag of corn chips.

I saw the corn being grown and harvested. I witnessed the chips being extruded, seasoned and cooked to perfection. I observed the bag being packed and sealed, then tossed into a snack delivery truck. Riveting stuff.

When I emerged from the vision, I realized I was cradling a bag of corn chips like a baby! Oops. A store clerk down the aisle eyed me suspiciously. Mortified, I tossed the back on the shelf and skedaddled out of there.

While unsettling at first, I’ve come to embrace this power known as psychometry. It has unlocked missing pieces of my own history and connected me with my new hometown’s storied past. I’m grateful to Shirley for bringing me to Cypress Grove, where touching objects as mundane as a banister now opens portals to times gone by.

Oh, and my power also helped me solve a decades-old cold case homicide. But that’s a story for another day, one that’s captured in the book EAT, PRAY, HEX by Tara Lush.

Just call me the psychic detective, unraveling history through senses long forgotten…