The Visitor

by Amanda Stevens

  Hope surged as I steeled my resolve, inching toward the body only to be propelled backward by an unnatural gust. I grabbed on to the nearest thing I could find, a wooden support beam, as that strange vortex swirled around me. Then the wind died away as suddenly as it had risen. I huddled in the dark, the air so stale and fetid I couldn’t breathe without retching. The entity was right there, squatting beside me, touching my hair, running a finger down my arm as it tried to find a way inside me.

  From outside the enclosure, I heard the abrasive rattle of a cicada. Almost at once, the entity retreated back into the shadows and I could sense its wariness. For whatever reason, it had a healthy respect for Mott’s power.

  I took advantage of the reprieve and eased back up to the body, running my hands over the stiffening torso, searching one pocket of Nelda’s smock and then the other. I wanted to scream in frustration. Where is it? Where is it? But then as I jostled the body, I heard the faint tinkle of metal.

  Mott’s diversion had been momentary. Already I could feel the entity creeping back in as the smell grew stronger. It was coming for me. Getting nearer with each passing moment...

  One hand pressed to my nose and mouth, I thrust the other hand back into Nelda’s pocket, searching, searching until my fingers finally grasped the skeleton key.

  I turned, clutching the key to my breast, but the talisman seemed to have no effect. Prowling and predatory, the malcontent kept coming. Closer and closer. Stroking its icy tentacles down my face, sliding feelers into my memories, seeking darkness or a weakness that would allow it to enter my soul.

  I wanted nothing so much as to roll over and vomit up the filth of its presence, but something inside me held fast. I gathered my strength and every ounce of my courage. I would not let that thing in. I would not.

  I sensed hesitation. Then frustration and rising anger.

  The tentacles snaked around me, poking, prodding and then finding no way in, they withdrew. The odor faded. The entity hunkered there in the darkness, thwarted and enraged.

  I kept moving. On and on until I reached the fence. Darkness had fallen outside and clouds drifted across the moon. I smelled rain in the air and I drew in a long, cleansing breath as I curled my fingers around the chain links and peered out. The maze was a dark outline against the horizon. I wanted to take comfort in the sight, but another scent drifted to me on the night air. Smoke.

  The acrid smell was hardly discernible at first, but the scent grew stronger as the wind rose. I could see wisps drifting up into the sky, and a fresh terror seized me. I realized then why Owen hadn’t bothered to finish me off. He’d intended all along to come back and burn down the house, turning the evidence of his dark deeds to ash along with Rose’s numbers and keys. Along with any clues still undiscovered in her sanctuary.

  I shook the fence in desperation and then lay on my back and tried to kick the supports loose. The enclosure held fast, and as smoke seeped down through the floorboards, hysteria bubbled.

  Turning, I crawled along the edge of the house. The back porch lay straight ahead, but I felt certain Owen would have locked the gate. Still, I had to try.

  Defeat bore down on me, and I could feel the entity slithering back through the haze of smoke as if attracted by a whiff of my vulnerability.

  Think. Think. There had to be a way out.

  The trio of keys had been left on my nightstand for a reason. Each served an important purpose in solving Rose’s puzzle. The plain door key had allowed me entrée into her sanctuary. The pointed teeth key had unlocked a secret compartment in Kroll Cemetery. The skeleton key had the power to keep the ghosts at bay, but might it also serve a real-world purpose?

  Even as all this flashed through my head, I was already scrambling for the gate. With trembling fingers, I inserted the teeth into the keyhole. The rusty latch clicked open and I crawled out of my prison as the floorboards over my head began to pop from the heat.

  Fifty

  I took only a moment to relock the gate and then I was up, half running, half stumbling away from the house. I could see smoke rolling from some of the broken windows. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. If Rose’s house burned to the ground, would the entity still be trapped or would it then be free to go in search of another conduit?

  I still didn’t understand how or why Rose had been able to confine the malcontent beneath her house. Somehow she must have used the skeleton key to contain it, but then Nelda had come along, hiding her own malicious nature beneath a vulnerable facade. She’d given the entity a way out once, but her death under the house had imprisoned it again.

  I glanced over my shoulder as I ran and a dangerous thought came to me. Smoke billowed from the upstairs windows, but I couldn’t yet see any flames. Rose’s sanctuary might still be safe. All those numbers that she’d painstakingly scribbled on the walls...what if they really were map coordinates that could lead me to her long-lost key? To a future without ghosts and malcontents and those incessant voices in my head? How could I leave it all to burn? I needed to photograph those numbers, copy the map, do something, anything to preserve the clues that Rose had left for me.

  Whether I would have had the nerve to enter the house, let alone Rose’s sanctuary, I would never be certain. As I slowed my steps contemplating the foolhardy move, Owen Dowling came around the corner of the house and stopped cold when he spotted me.

  He had been carrying a gas can, but now he tossed it aside as he started toward me, slowly and deliberately at first and then accelerating as I backed away from him. I sensed no hesitation in him now. Gone was the reluctant man who had knelt at my side as his aunt had goaded him to violence.

  Head lowered resolutely, he circled around to block me from the maze, where I might have been able to lose him. When I would have turned and darted toward the woods, he sprang forward with the same speed and agility that I’d witnessed from the intruder in my office.

  I knew then that he had been the one to break into my home and attack me. Nelda had sent him to retrieve the stereoscope and card, and the adrenaline must have gotten the better of him. Or like Nelda, he knew how to hide his true nature.

  I tried to dodge him, but shock and fear made me clumsy. I tripped over something in the weeds and before I could regain my balance, he lunged.

  The momentum of his body knocked me to the ground and then he was on me in a flash, pinning my arms to my sides with his knees so that I could do nothing but thrash helplessly beneath him.

  He was stronger that I would have guessed, or maybe my injuries had weakened me. No matter how hard I bucked and kicked, I couldn’t dislodge him.

  His hands closed around my throat and tightened. The pressure against my windpipe made my eyes feel as though they might pop from my head. The pain made me struggle even harder, but only for a moment. A dangerous lethargy crept over me and my muscles went limp. I was barely conscious now, but I could have sworn I heard someone call my name and then Owen’s. A shot rang out and the pressure on my neck eased as Owen toppled backward.

  The next thing I knew, Devlin was at my side. “Are you all right? Amelia, say something!”

  I couldn’t speak at first. My eyes still burned, and I put a hand to my aching throat as I gulped in air and coughed. “I’m okay,” I finally croaked.

  I tried to sit up, but Devlin pushed me gently back to the ground. “Take it easy. The police will be here soon and I’ve called for an ambulance.”

  I clutched his arm. “Owen—”

  “He’s alive, but he’s not going anywhere.” Devlin stroked a hand down the fading bruise on my cheek before gently tracing the fresh marks at my neck. “He won’t be going anywhere for a long, long time, I promise you that.”

  “He was in on it with Nelda,” I said. “It was her all along.”

  “Don’t talk. We’ll sort it out later. The only thing that ma
tters right now is you.”

  I lay back and closed my eyes. I could feel moisture on my face and I thought at first it was tears, but then I realized it had started to rain. I rose up on my elbows to gaze at the burning house. “All those numbers and keys... I don’t know yet what they mean. What if they really are clues or coordinates on a map?”

  “Doesn’t matter now,” Devlin said. “It’s too late. The place is gone.”

  “But—”

  “Let it go, Amelia. It’s over.”

  I might yet have struggled, but at that very moment, flames exploded through the upstairs windows and licked along the roofline. Devlin helped me to my feet and we took refuge at the edge of the maze as ash and embers swirled down upon us.

  The rain was coming down harder now. It would protect the surrounding woods and the cemetery, but Devlin was right. The house was already gone.

  Owen was wounded and Nelda was dead, but what about the entity? Was it trapped beneath the burning house or had it escaped? Was it out there even now, searching for another conduit?

  I swept my gaze across the burning roof, over the yard and along the edge of the woods. As I peered into the trees, I realized with a start that something stared back at me.

  I could just make out the hump on Mott’s back as she separated from the shadows. She appeared to me as she had that day in Oak Grove Cemetery, a tiny, wizened in-between slinking through the darkness, turning to scrutinize me intently when she felt my gaze upon her. She watched me for the longest moment before throwing back her head and emitting that spine-tingling rattle.

  Glancing up into the dripping trees, I wondered if she meant to summon the cicadas. Something blew toward me through the maze. An unnatural gust that whipped at my hair as I clutched Rose’s key to my heart.

  The voices in my head started to chatter, the sound ebbing and flowing as the wind undulated through the hedges. I could feel that strange suction, as if the ghosts of Kroll Cemetery were being inexorably pulled toward the light inside me. But I no longer felt resistance from the malcontent. Whether Nelda’s dark visitor was gone for good, I had no idea. Maybe the ghosts had somehow overcome it in their frenzied quest for release.

  On and on they came, the forgotten and forlorn. I could see them now, wispy and ethereal as they swept toward me. Sparks erupted over the treetops as the veil thinned and the dead world grew closer. The moment was strangely beautiful. Like nothing I had ever experienced. I was frightened and awestruck by the power of the release. And perhaps for the first time, humbled by my gift.

  As the ghostly wave crashed over me, I thought for a moment I might be carried along with them to the afterlife. But the vertigo came and went quickly this time. The wind died away, the voices in my head faded and I felt a peaceful emptiness as I stood there with embers swirling overhead and raindrops clinging to my lashes.

  When it was all over, when the last of them had finally crossed over, I glanced back at Mott, remembering what Dr. Shaw had suggested about her purpose. If your calling is to help the dead move on, then maybe a being that is half in and half out is the means by which the door to the dead world can be opened.

  She turned toward the smoldering house, to the upstairs window where Rose’s ghost still lingered. I could see the spirit of my great-grandmother clearly through the smoke. She was young again, her eyes restored now that Ezra and the colonists had been freed.

  The wind wasn’t as strong this time, nor was the suction. Their release was over in the space of a heartbeat. As Rose’s form waned, Mott, too, began to wither, crumbling away to ashes that floated away on the breeze. But I somehow knew they were together. Walking hand in hand into the light.

  I turned to Devlin, wondering if he had sensed any of what had just taken place, but his attention was riveted on the burning house.

  I followed his gaze to the upstairs window where Rose’s ghost had hovered only a moment ago. His features were frozen, utterly devoid of animation. But there was something disturbing about his stillness, something almost frightening about the look on his face. I had never seen him like that before.

  “You saw her,” I whispered.

  He shifted his focus, staring down at me in the rain. I reached out a hand to him, but he backed away from my touch. His rejection was like an arrow through my heart.

  In that moment, I knew for certain that something had changed between us. Something I still didn’t understand. I felt cold all of a sudden and overwhelmed by the same feeling of loss that had plagued my dreams for weeks.

  Fifty-One

  The rest of the night passed in a blur. Once the local police and EMTs arrived on the scene, Devlin and I were quickly separated. I was taken first to the hospital and then later to police headquarters, where I gave a lengthy statement to one of the detectives assigned to the case.

  The story sounded far-fetched even to my own ears, but surprisingly, Owen Dowling corroborated my account from his hospital bed. He admitted to his part in my assault and abduction, but he claimed that Nelda’s death had been an accident. She’d lost her footing on the porch steps and the fall had broken her neck. He’d thought her dead when he’d put her underneath Rose’s house—or so he claimed. Maybe he was savvy enough even after having been shot to try to avoid murder charges, but I tended to believe him. His tale of a wayward and impressionable boy being groomed from an early age to do Nelda’s bidding held the ring of truth, especially given what I knew about her possession.

  Louvenia Durant had also been called to the station, and I’d spoken to her briefly on my way out. She’d been distraught by the evening’s events, but not overly shocked. Her calm demeanor made me wonder if she’d suspected Nelda’s role in the Kroll Colony tragedy all along. Maybe Louvenia’s guilt for failing to protect her sisters had kept her silent and mentally fragile for decades.

  Even so, she’d seemed as determined as ever to go through with the restoration. “It’s the least I can do for those poor souls,” she’d said, and I had sensed her pain so strongly that I’d offered to meet with her before I left town.

  As for Micah Durant, he’d vanished before the police had had a chance to question him. Louvenia had appeared visibly relieved by her grandson’s sudden departure, and given what I knew of him, I could hardly blame her.

  After the police concluded the interviews, Devlin and I had found a nearby hotel room since the cottage was now a crime scene. Not that I would have wanted to go back there anyway. I was more than ready to put Nelda Toombs and her machinations behind me. Devlin must have felt the same way because we didn’t talk much about what had transpired. We were both so mentally and physically exhausted by that time that we’d fallen asleep almost immediately. The next morning, he’d risen before me, having once again been summoned to the police station. After a cup of tea and a brief stop at the hospital to check on Dr. Shaw, who was thankfully on the mend, I’d set out for Kroll Cemetery alone.

  And so here I was.

  I welcomed the solitude of the cemetery. I needed some time at Rose’s graveside to try to process everything that had happened. To try to make sense of our connection. I still didn’t completely understand my role in recent events. Nelda said that Rose had waited to make contact until the rules were broken, until I was strong enough to help her, but with what? Had she summoned me here to release all those lost souls? To uncover the real killer? Or had she wanted me to find and contain the entity?

  Why had she left the skeleton key in Rosehill Cemetery all those years ago? Would it have protected me from the ghosts if I’d kept it or would it have opened the door to the dead world even sooner?

  So many questions left unanswered.

  Kneeling at her grave, I traced a finger along the braille inscription. Our journeys were still intertwined, but where did I go from here? Where did I search for clues now that her house was gone?

  I felt oddly
bereft by the loss. I still didn’t know my purpose or place. The only thing I understood with any certainty was that my experiences in Kroll Cemetery had brought me closer to my destiny.

  The back of my neck tingled and I lifted a hand to my nape. When I drew back my fingers, a honeybee clung to one of my knuckles. I gazed around warily, searching the darkest corners of the cemetery. My gaze lit on a shadow at the top of the wall, moved on and then darted back as my heart started to hammer.

  Micah Durant crouched on top of the crumbling stones staring down at me through the amber glow of the cicada shells. As our gazes locked, I experienced the strangest chill at the small of my back, as though an icy fist had gripped my spine.

  An errant shaft of sunlight set his silvery-gold hair ablaze and I was once again struck by his ethereal appearance. But beneath the angelic facade, I detected something feral in the curl of his lips, something dark and bestial in those colorless eyes.

  I know you, I thought. And you know me.

  His smile broadened as if he’d read my mind. He shifted on the wall, squatting in the gloom as his arms hung loosely in front of him. He made no effort to hide the entity inside him. To the contrary, the malcontent wanted me to know that it had found a willing new vessel.

  I was unnerved by the encounter, but I wasn’t afraid because I knew they meant me no harm. Not at that moment. Micah Durant and his dark visitor had come there to taunt me. To challenge me. Come and find us if you dare.

  Someday, I silently promised.

  “Amelia?”

  I whirled at the sound of my name. I hadn’t heard Devlin come through the gate and my heart thudded at the sight of him. When I turned back to the wall, Micah Durant had vanished.

  “Are you all right?” Devlin asked as he approached. “What were you staring at so intently just now?”