“Some li’l gal gwine tuh bed widout’uh suppuh tuh’night,” Essie warned.
“Sorry, Granny,” Rhapsody said contritely, but she shot me a cagey grin as she kicked a rock toward Tay-Tay’s house.
As we passed by the next house, a tethered mutt in the front yard let out a bloodcurdling yowl. Essie lifted her hand and the dog fell silent, much as I’d done back at the cemetery.
“That’s Granny’s house over there.” Rhapsody pointed to a tiny white cottage at the end of the road. It was easily the prettiest in the neighborhood, with a well-tended garden and fresh laundry flapping on the clothesline.
They led me up a set of concrete steps, across the porch with its plank flooring and blue ceiling—the sky color a Gullah tradition to keep away wasps and ghosts—and into a narrow hall that smelled of sage and lemon verbena. I noticed three things at once: a mirror that hung backward on the wall, a straw broom just inside the doorway and an arrangement of angel-wing seashells laid out across a small bench.
Essie bustled off to the kitchen, leaving Rhapsody to show me around the cozy parlor where every inch of table space was decorated with the most gorgeous sweetgrass baskets I’d ever seen. When I complimented them, Rhapsody said with an indifferent shrug, “Those old things? Granny makes them all the time.” She couldn’t have been less impressed.
She waved a hand toward a wall of fading portraits. “Those people are my kin, but don’t ask me their names. They passed a long time ago. Granny says we Goodwines have a habit of dying young. Except for her, I reckon. We’re probably cursed or something.”
Her granny, she told me, was in fact her great-grandmother. Her father and Mariama had been first cousins, but were more like brother and sister on account of they’d both been raised by Essie.
“What did you mean when you said your grandmother is a root doctor?”
“She’s a witch,” Rhapsody said with that same crafty smile I’d seen earlier. “And since I’m the only girl left in the family, I get to be her helper. That’s why I’m here for the summer. So I can start learning how to cast.”
“Sia! Tie yo’ mout’, gal!”
Essie had come up so quietly that Rhapsody and I both jumped and spun toward the door. She carried a tray with a pitcher of sweet tea, three glasses and a plate of sesame-seed cookies. Before either of us could offer to help, she turned and disappeared down the tiny hallway. A moment later, I heard the screech of the screen door.
Rhapsody and I followed her outside to the front porch where she settled herself in an ancient cane rocker and poured us each a glass of tea, taking a moment to swat Rhapsody’s hand when she reached for a cookie.
Essie offered me the plate and I took one because I had a feeling it would be a terrible insult if I refused. Besides, I liked benne wafers and they were said to bring good luck.
I sat down on the top step while Rhapsody perched precariously on the flimsy railing. I could taste honey and lemon and the barest hint of orange in the tea. Like my mother’s, it was sweet and delicious.
While Rhapsody and I nibbled on the wafers and sipped our drinks, Essie watched the sky. The sun had finally come out, and as the breeze died down, the heat index soared. I held the cold glass against my face and wondered how to broach the subject of Shani.
After a bit, I began to feel a little woozy in the syrupy heat. I leaned over to place my empty glass on the tray Essie had set beside her chair, and when I straightened, the porch started to spin. I gasped and clutched the newel post for support.
Rhapsody hopped down from the railing and came to squat in front of me, peering into my face. “What’s wrong?”
“I feel dizzy…”
She put a hand to my forehead. “She don’t look so good, Granny. Maybe you should give her a dose of Life Everlastin’.”
Suddenly, I felt an urgent need to get away from there. I tried to rise, but the porch spun faster.
Rhapsody placed her hands on my shoulders and pressed me back against the floorboards.
Seventeen
I swam up through a pounding headache.
It was only with a great deal of effort that I managed to open my eyes. Blurry faces peered down at me.
“She’s coming to,” someone said. I thought it was Rhapsody.
I tried to get up, but instead sank deeper into whatever softness had cushioned my fall.
“Are you sure she’s seen her, Granny?”
“She see huh all right.”
I recognized Essie’s voice and strangely, I could now understand her just fine. Whether she’d altered her manner of speaking or I was becoming accustomed to her Gullah-influenced words, I didn’t know.
“Can you cure her?”
“No, chile. No root can fix dis gal. She ent hexed. She ben on tuddah side. She crossed t’rue dat veil and back, and now her spirit don’ know weh it b’long.”
“Is that why she can see Shani?”
“I reckon it is.”
There was a long silence during which I had the impression of movement, like someone waving a hand back and forth in front of my face. I smelled something sweet, something acrid, then nothing at all.
“What’s wrong, Granny. What do you see?”
Another pause. Another strange scent.
“Somebody uh-comin’ for dis gal. Somebody with a soul black as midnight. Somebody dat walk with the dead.”
I tried to ask her what she meant by that, but I couldn’t speak. My tongue felt too thick and I couldn’t make my lips work.
My eyes closed and the voices faded.
When I roused the second time, I was fully alert, with only the faint throb of a headache to remind me that I’d been unwell.
I knew instantly where I was—in Essie’s house, lying on a bed in a room that had once been Mariama’s.
Propping myself on elbows, I glanced around.
The space was cramped with only a mahogany wardrobe in one corner, the iron bedstead in another. I lay atop a handmade quilt in a pattern that had probably been handed down from the Underground Railroad years.
I could see daylight outside the single window, but the sun that shone through the glass had the soft-focus filter of late afternoon. I got up, found my boots and carried them with me through the quiet house.
Essie was on the front porch piecing quilt blocks while Rhapsody played kick ball with some kids in the road. She was smaller and younger than the others, but I had a feeling she could more than hold her own.
Essie glanced up and gave me a once-over before going back to her work.
“Bettuh?”
“Yes, thank you. I don’t know what happened.”
“Sun hot down yuh for town gals.”
“No, it wasn’t that. I work out in the heat all the time. What was in that tea?”
“Nutt’n’ bad in dat tea. I mek it muhself.”
I wasn’t sure that was much comfort.
“Somethin’ else be drainin’ you,” she said with a knowing look.
I thought instantly of Devlin.
“Essie, can we talk about Shani now?”
Her hands were steady as she pulled the needle through the fabric. “Dat baby can’t git no rest.”
“Why not?”
“She dont want tuh leave huh daddy. She can’t pass on ’til he let huh go.”
I felt a pang deep inside as I gazed down at her.
I remembered the first time I’d seen Devlin’s ghosts—the way Shani had barely left his side.
“I don’t think he knows she’s here,” I said softly.
“He know.” Essie’s gray head lifted as she placed a hand over her heart. “In yuh, he know.”
I closed my eyes. “What does she want from me?”
“Fo’ you tuh tell him.”
“I can’t do that.”
Essie’s troubled gaze met mine. “Mebbe not yet you can’t, but dat day uh-comin’. Din he haffuh mek his choice.”
“What choice?”
“’Tween the livin’ and the d
ead.”
I turned and stared out over the yard, where Rhapsody and her friends were still playing ball. It was a remarkably normal sight.
Essie rose from her chair and taking both my hands in hers, pressed something into my palm.
I stared down at the tiny cloth pouch tied with a blue ribbon. “What is it?”
“Put it underneet yo’ pillow at night. Keep dem bad spirits away.” She pulled a packet of what looked to be dried herbs from her apron pocket and placed it in my other hand. “Life Everlastin’. Cures wut ails you.”
“Thank you.”
She made a shooing motion with her hand. “Now go. Somebody at home be worryin’.”
There was no one to worry, but I didn’t argue. I sat down on the top step and pulled on my boots. When I stood, Essie cast a worried glance at the sky.
“Mek haste, gal. Sundown uh-comin’.”
Eighteen
Rhapsody and her friends walked me to the cemetery, but they would go no farther than the entrance. I moved alone through the modest headstones, pausing at Mariama’s and Shani’s graves to glance back. Rhapsody stood on the side of the road, staring after me. Something in her anxious expression reminded me of the conversation I’d overheard between her and Essie.
Somebody uh-comin’ for dis gal. Somebody with a soul black as midnight. Somebody dat walk with the dead.
A chill settled over me, followed by a sinking sensation.
Then I scoffed at myself for taking her words so literally. I was making too much of the whole thing. Essie might have the ability to cure certain ailments with her roots and berries and her Life Everlasting, but that didn’t mean she had the gift of second sight.
Nevertheless, I picked up my pace, anxious to be well away from the graveyard before dusk. The sun still hovered at treetop level, spangling down through the oak leaves like long streamers of glitter. I had plenty of time, but already I could feel the budding prickles of unease that always accompanied twilight.
Pressing the remote to unlock the car doors, I scrambled down a small embankment and jumped the ditch to the road. But as I approached the SUV, my steps slowed and I swore under my breath.
The front tire on the driver’s side was completely flat. Not an uncommon occurrence on the back roads I traveled, which was why I always took care to keep my spare aired up and my jack working properly.
Tamping down my impatience and just a tinge of panic, I hauled around the necessary equipment and set to work, the light at my back.
The lug nuts were always the hardest part for me. Each one took extra effort to loosen. By the time I finally got the car jacked up and the tire off, the sun had dipped below the treetops.
Somewhere in the woods behind me, a loon wailed, the eerie sound running a cold finger up my spine.
Feeling exposed and vulnerable with my back to the trees, I positioned the spare onto the wheel studs, fumbling the lug nuts in my haste. Then I lowered the jack. Tightened the lugs. Glanced over my shoulder. All clear.
But I heard the loon again, a tremolo this time, which Papa always said indicated agitation or fear.
Throwing everything into the back of the SUV, I climbed behind the wheel and left the same way I’d come in.
The trees on either side of the gravel road grew inward, creating an impenetrable tent dripping with Spanish moss. My headlights came on automatically, and now and then I saw the gleam of wary eyes from the underbrush, the scurry of some small creature along the ditches.
As much as I wanted to be away from the cemetery, away from Essie’s warning, I took it slow over the bumpy road. But once I reached the highway, I stomped on the accelerator. With every mile, the sun sank lower, flaming out as it slid toward the marshes, leaving a comet’s tail of gilded crimson just above the treetops.
I’d gone less than five miles when I heard a telltale thump.
No!
No, no, no. No!
This could not be happening. Not another flat. Not here. Not now.
Fighting back panic, I tried to assess the situation.
I could keep driving, get as far down the road as I possibly could before the tire came completely off the rim. Or I could turn around and try to make it to Hammond, which was probably seven or eight miles the other way.
From the sound of the flapping rubber, I doubted I’d get very far in either direction.
Hobbling to the shoulder, I parked and checked my phone for a signal. A solitary bar flashed in and out.
I got out, climbed onto the hood and then scrambled up to the roof where I turned in a slow circle, my eyes glued to the signal.
The light was fading fast. All around me, utter stillness. The hush of twilight. That end-of-day moment when the ghosts came out.
There!
Another bar!
Quickly, I placed a call to my roadside service and managed to ramble off the directions before the signal faded. Whether a tow truck would be forthcoming, I had no idea.
I kept turning, hoping for a stronger signal. As I finished a second rotation, I saw a flicker of movement just beyond a row of trees.
The hair bristled at the back of my neck, but I didn’t outwardly react. Instead, I made another circle, surveilling the woods from the corner of my eye.
I saw it there, hiding in the gloom.
Whatever it was, it had followed me all the way to Beaufort County. And now it hunkered among the trees, watching me.
I didn’t move, didn’t even dare breathe.
It wasn’t like any apparition I’d ever encountered. There was no aura, no ethereal lightness. This thing was dark and dank, with no more substance than a shadow. But I could feel its presence. The evil that emanated from the woods was palpable.
Now the hairs on my arms rose, as well. I tried to take my time climbing down from the roof, but my feet slipped and I ended up on my butt, sliding down the windshield, bouncing off the hood and landing on my hands and knees in the dirt. Gravel and glass cut into my flesh, but I paid little mind to the sting. I leapt to my feet, jumped into the car, slammed and locked the door.
As if that would keep the thing out.
I reached into my pocket for my phone, found Essie’s amulet and clutched it in my hand.
A foul chill oozed through the closed windows, turning my stomach, making my heart pound even harder.
I saw a flash at the passenger window. There one moment, gone the next.
Pulling the mirror toward me, I watched the rear, almost expecting to find something peering in at me, but I saw nothing. No…there was something…
About two hundred yards back, a car had pulled to the shoulder.
I experienced a momentary elation before I realized that I hadn’t heard the engine or seen the lights.
Very odd. And creepy.
My eyes fastened on the mirror, I tried to detect movement.
Nothing.
But at least a car was real, the driver a flesh-and-blood person.
Climbing over the seat, I grabbed the tire iron I’d used earlier and then returned to my place behind the wheel. My gaze went again to the mirror and I wondered if I should go back there and ask for help.
I waited.
An eternity passed before I finally spotted a faint glimmer on the horizon that gradually morphed into twin pinpoints of light.
Whoever was in the car behind me must have seen the headlights, too, because I heard the engine start up. The next thing I knew, the vehicle was flying up the shoulder so fast I thought the driver meant to ram me.
I caught my breath and braced for a collision, but at the last moment, he veered onto the road and shot around me, still without lights. I could make out nothing more than a dark color and the boxy shape of a late-model sedan.
As the other car approached, I got out and stood shivering at the edge of the road. Terrified the driver might fail to stop, I dashed into the middle of the highway, screaming at the top of my lungs and waving my arms like a madwoman.
The vehicle slowed, stopped and
a door opened. I heard the crunch of shoes on gravel and then miraculously, my name.
“Amelia?”
My knees went weak with relief.
Nineteen
Devlin came around the car and I saw his ghosts then. I wasn’t surprised they were with him. It was full-on dusk and we were out in the middle of nowhere, far away from hallowed ground.
I hadn’t seen him since our encounter at Rapture, and all the things that I’d learned about him since that night flashed through my head. He was, in fact, one of the Devlins and was estranged from his grandfather because he’d pursued the wrong profession and married an unsuitable woman. That told me a lot about him, about the man he’d once been before tragedy and grief had made him so guarded.
It was strange, but the more I knew about him, the more remote he seemed to me. Which was probably a good thing, considering. Too many things had happened since he’d entered my life. His ghost child had appeared in my garden, his dead wife had taunted me at the graveyard, the old man’s entity had returned, perhaps as a warning, and a door had been opened, unleashing a cold, terrifying presence that now trailed me.
It was also a good thing I’d tempered my impulse when I first saw him tonight. I’d wanted to launch myself into his arms the way I had at Oak Grove, but his ghosts held me back. Already I could feel their consuming chill as Devlin walked toward me.
“What happened?” His gaze was narrowed as he focused on my face.
“Flat tire. Thank God you came along when you did. You have no idea how glad I am to see you.” I was proud of myself for the right amount of relief and nothing more in my voice.
He glanced around. “What are you doing way out here?”
Was that suspicion I heard in his voice?
“I came to look at a cemetery.” Not a lie, though I purposefully let him assume an untruth. “What about you?”
“Personal business.” His voice was as flat as my tire. “Do you have a spare?”
“It’s on the car. This is my second flat, lucky me. I must have picked up a couple of nails somewhere.”
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