The Awakening

by Amanda Stevens

  I heard her in my head, whispering to me longingly: Home.

  She moved past me to the gate, turning to glance over her shoulder as if willing me to follow. I wanted to start digging. The sooner we uncovered her remains, the sooner we could bring her killer to justice. But once again I felt compelled to do her bidding. It seemed as if I had no will of my own. I tried to shake off those unearthly shackles as I followed her through the gate.

  She drifted through the underbrush, trailing the faintest trace of woodbine. Presently, we came to the sagging gates of Duvall Place. She floated through the rungs, but I had to pause and wrestle with the rusted hinges. The gates opened with a squeal and I stepped inside, bracing myself against the dark aura of that house.

  The structure was plantation-style with heavy wooden shutters at the windows to block out the light and inclement weather. The house had been built on a raised basement and I could well imagine the condition of those dark, dank rooms. No doubt there would be several inches, perhaps even several feet, of murky water from the last rainstorm. There would be snakes, I thought with a shiver. And spiders by the thousands.

  I moved down the drive beneath the spreading arms of all those live oaks. Then I paused once again at the base of a wide staircase that led up to the veranda. The house was in very bad shape. Decades of neglect and salt air had taken a discouraging toll. I wasn’t at all sure the place was safe to enter, but the hazards of a dilapidated house had never stopped me before.

  To my surprise, the front door was open. That should have been my first warning that all was not well inside. The trap had been set, but I couldn’t turn back now. Mercy Duvall’s ghost had come here for a reason. She needed me to see something, find something. She needed me to finish this.

  I took a tentative step inside and then froze. The floorboards sagged beneath my weight, and I imagined myself falling through to the snaky water below. Steadying my nerves, I made my way over to the staircase, clinging to the banister as I gazed up at the landing. Mercy Duvall’s ghost hovered at the top. I understood now why she had brought me here. This was where it had happened, where she had fallen. Where she had drawn her last breath.

  I climbed the stairs slowly and when I got to the top, she momentarily faded until I moved away from the landing. Pressing against the wall, I stared at her diaphanous form as I opened my mind to whatever message or clue she might want to send me.

  As before, my attention seemed to embolden her and she once again appeared at the top of the stairs. I wanted to reach out to her, to somehow offer her comfort. But our surroundings had changed. We were still inside Duvall Place, but I knew instinctively that I was no longer gazing upon Mercy Duvall’s ghost. Instead, I had entered her memory. She stood on the landing staring up at her killer. I could see his face now. I could hear his voice berating her.

  “You miserable little brat. I warned you before about following me out here, but I’m the least of your worries. Father will have your hide for taking the boat without his permission.”

  “You won’t tell him,” she taunted. “Because if you do, I’ll tell him about you.”

  Rance Duvall merely laughed. “As if he would believe a word out of your lying mouth. Blood is thicker than water, little girl. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that? I’m a true Duvall. You’re just a nuisance that no one wanted, not even your own mother.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “Oh, it’s true all right. You’re nothing more than a business arrangement.”

  Her eyes glistened with tears, but she lifted her chin defiantly. “I know what you did to that girl. The one who disappeared. If Father won’t believe me, I’ll go to the police.”

  “And you think they’ll believe you?” He laughed again.

  “They’ll believe me if I have proof!”

  That seemed to stop him for a moment. Then eyes narrowing, he jerked her hands from behind her back and pried open her fingers, revealing a silver charm bracelet.

  “It belonged to her,” Mercy said. “You kept it as a souvenir, didn’t you? That’s what killers do.”

  “You’re very clever,” he said. “Too clever for your own good.” He took her by the shoulders, lifting and shaking her until the bracelet fell from her hand. Her eyes went wide with shock and her arms flailed helplessly as he flung her down the stairs.

  I gasped and ran to the banister, but she wasn’t there, of course. Only her ghost remained.

  “So it’s true what Jonathan Devlin told me about you.” I whirled to find Rance Duvall standing in one of the bedroom doorways peering out at me. I wasn’t surprised to see him. I realized I had been bracing all along for this confrontation.

  He came out into the hallway, smiling at me as if he were greeting an old friend. “Is she here with us now?” he asked.

  “Who?”

  “Let’s not play games. I suspected all along that you could see her. Claire said you even whispered her name that day we came to Woodbine. And just now I saw you at the cemetery. You went straight to her grave. There’s no way—no humanly way—you could have known where I buried her. Even Jonathan Devlin didn’t know.”

  I swallowed past the fear that threatened to choke me. “But he knew you killed her. Is that why you killed him? Because he threatened to expose you?”

  I could see his smile in the gloom. “You think I killed Jonathan Devlin?”

  “You seem to have a knack for eliminating threats. Mercy knew you killed that girl. She found something that would have incriminated you.”

  “Such a clever girl, little Mercy. Always snooping into my private affairs. Poking her nose in places it didn’t belong. I think Father was as relieved as I to be rid of her. He only agreed to take her in so that he’d have leverage over Jonathan Devlin. I’m not sure it was worth it. She was such an unpleasant child, even as an infant. Always sulking and glowering.”

  Anger pierced through my fear. “Perhaps she was unpleasant because she knew she wasn’t wanted.”

  He shrugged. “No matter. All water under the bridge, as they say.”

  I pressed back against the wall, inching away from him.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to kill you. Claire and I still need you. But you won’t be returning to the mainland, I’m afraid. We’ll stow you here on the island until she manages to get her reluctant fiancé to the altar. And just to prod things along, I’ll send John Devlin a finger or a toe—perhaps an eye. There’s nothing more pliable than a desperate man clinging to hope.”

  I had been easing away from him the whole time. He seemed to take note of the growing distance between us and moved toward me, only to halt at the top of the stairs. Mercy had manifested at his side. He turned, glancing around almost frantically.

  “You feel her, don’t you?”

  Fear fleeted across his features. He said in awe, “She’s here?”

  “Right beside you.”

  He put out a hand, but his fingers went right through her. “Where?” he demanded.

  “You’re touching her.”

  He recoiled. “How do I know you’re telling the truth? Maybe you don’t have any special abilities. Maybe you’re just good at reading people.”

  “Oh, I can read you all right. Mercy could, too.”

  A frigid draft swept down the hallway, blowing the tendrils of hair from my face as I moved back over to the railing. I could see down into the foyer where the floorboards had buckled. The whole house began to tremble under the weight of Mercy’s anger. I grabbed onto the bannister as the floor beneath me shifted.

  “Make her stop!” Rance Duvall screamed.

  “Mercy,” I whispered, but the wind only grew colder. I dropped to my knees, clinging now to the railing as I watched the ghost’s manifestation strengthen until I could have sworn she was flesh and blood. Rance Duvall screamed again and
tried to run away from her, but she kept him teetering at the top of the stairs for what seemed an eternity.

  Then arms flailing, he tumbled backward, bones snapping as he bounced off each step. His body rolled into the foyer as Claire Bellefontaine bolted through the front door. She stopped cold when she saw her stepbrother’s body. Even in the murky light, I could see the dull glow of his open eyes, the odd angle of his neck.

  Slowly, Claire lifted her glittering gaze to where I still hunkered on the landing, and I saw that she had a gun in her hand. “What have you done?”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  She took aim. “You killed him. In cold blood. I saw you.”

  “You don’t know what you saw.”

  “Liar! Get up and face me!”

  I rose slowly.

  “Come to the top of the stairs where I can see you,” she commanded. “Now!”

  I moved to the landing. “If you kill me, Devlin will never marry you,” I said, desperate to buy time.

  “Oh, I won’t kill you. At least not yet.” She gazed up at me, eyes shimmering in the gloom. “But before this is over, you’ll wish you were dead.”

  I drew a shaky breath. “You should probably just go while you still can. John is on his way here now, along with the police. They may already be on the island.”

  “How stupid do you think I am?” She gestured with the gun. “I made certain John would be occupied for the rest of the day before I followed Rance out here. He won’t miss me.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that.”

  For the first time, she allowed herself a smile. “John Devlin is all about doing the right thing. He won’t leave until his last guest has departed. And even if you did manage to convince the police you’ve stumbled onto something, they won’t be here for hours. So...” She moved to the bottom of the stairs. “Come down slowly and do as I say.”

  My mind raced as I started down the steps. Should I rush her? How good a shot was she?

  “Don’t try anything,” she warned.

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  “Exactly what Rance wanted to do from the start. I’ll put you away somewhere until I have what I want and then I’ll turn you over to the others.”

  “The others?”

  “You know who I mean.”

  The Congé, I thought.

  “They’ll know what to do with your kind.”

  “Claire!”

  My heart leaped at the sound of Devlin’s voice. He called again to her from the veranda. The front door hung open, but he didn’t come through. “Put the gun down before someone gets hurt. The police are here with me. It’s over, Claire.”

  She spun back to me, her eyes hard and gleaming. She knew it was over. I could see the defeat on her face. But she wouldn’t go quietly. She wouldn’t go until she’d had her revenge.

  As if the house itself had intuited her intentions, the floor heaved and the walls shuddered. I fell to my knees, clinging once more to the bannister. Claire’s eyes went wild as she crashed through the rotting planks. I heard a gunshot and then a split second later, a splash and a scream as she hit the standing water in the cellar.

  The house quieted as Mercy Duvall’s anger subsided. But something dark slinked out of the gloom. Shadowy forms surrounded Rance Duvall’s body while others slithered through the broken floorboards to claim Claire Bellefontaine.

  I watched it all as if from afar. I felt detached somehow. Calm. Then Devlin rushed into the house. He didn’t make any attempt to rescue Claire. Instead he bounded up the stairs as he called out my name.

  I couldn’t respond. Something was wrong. I looked down at my blood-soaked shirt in awe. Then I looked back at Devlin. I put out a hand.

  He called my name again as I crumpled. And then everything around me went white.

  Thirty-Four

  “Please, please, please,” Devlin muttered. He sounded winded and frightened.

  As I swam up out of that thick, white mist, I saw him running down the path toward the dock. I called out to him again and again, but he never looked back. He just kept running.

  He carried someone in his arms and I realized that someone was me.

  But...how was that possible? How could I be in his arms, and yet somehow looking down on him?

  I watched from my strange vantage as he kept going, on and on, looking more panicked than I’d ever seen him.

  The floating sensation bewildered me at first and then a moment of clarity astounded me. My heart had stopped beating and my body and spirit had separated. I was there...and here.

  Now I knew why the birds had come to me. Now I knew why the evil from Asher Falls had knocked on my door. They knew something bad was about to happen. Someone close to me was about to die.

  I was that someone.

  Devlin kept running. I felt a very strong tug toward him, but an even stronger force pulled me backward into a thick mist. I found myself in a very strange place. Not in the Gray, not in the Dark or the Light, but in that gossamer space between the living world and the dead world.

  Familiar faces peered at me through the haze. The thing hanging upside down in my tree. The birdlike creature on Prosper Lamb’s roof. The old man in the overcoat from Asher Falls. I stared at them as if in a dream. And, indeed, maybe I was dreaming. Maybe I was trapped in a nightmare from which I would never awaken.

  I still didn’t understand the purpose of these entities. I thought they were guardians of sorts. They might even be protectors. But they did not welcome me into their domain.

  The Gray welcomed me. The ghosts behind the veil beckoned. I belonged with them. I had been born in their world and now they wanted me back. It wanted me back.

  I felt very frightened all of a sudden. Something lurked in the darkest part of the mist. A presence that had known me before I was born, before my mother’s death had left me trapped in her womb. It was still watching, still waiting. I could hear it in my head.

  You’re in my world now, Amelia. No one can save you.

  The voice was silky and seductive. So hypnotic I found myself floating deeper into the mist. A woman appeared at my side. She looked younger than I, but I somehow knew she was older, wiser. I was drawn to her, too. Her allure was even stronger than the waiting presence. I knew that she was a ghost, but when she took my hand, she didn’t feel cold. Quite the contrary—she radiated warmth.

  She moved in front of me, blocking my path, and the mist thickened and swirled, the gossamer strands weaving a cocoon of protection around us. The hush was so complete I could hear the sound of her heartbeat. But how could a ghost have a heartbeat?

  “There’s time,” she said. “You can still go back.”

  Her voice was sweet and pure and I closed my eyes, letting it wrap around me like an embrace. “I don’t think I can. I don’t think it will let me.”

  She turned to peer into the murky space where the presence hid. “You’re safe here with me. I won’t let anything happen to you. But you can’t stay.” She had the kindest eyes and the saddest smile. “You have to find your way back.”

  She let go of my hand and I drifted away. Floating, floating through the in-between space, back into the living world, where I observed my body. I was hooked up to all kinds of machines and there was a tube down my throat. Doctors and nurses hovered over me, oblivious to my spirit looking down on them.

  I drifted into the antiseptic hallway where my family had gathered. Head in hands, Devlin sat apart from the others, Mama and Aunt Lynrose huddled together. They were preoccupied with their thoughts and prayers, but not Papa. He looked right at me. He could see me. He could see my ghost.

  “Child,” he said softly. “You need to come back.”

  “I can’t, Papa. It won’t let me.”

  He looked stricken. “Yes,
you can. You once broke free of its hold. You can do it again. You’re strong. Stronger than my mother, stronger than me. Stronger than you even know. You have the power to come back, but you have to do it now before it’s too late.”

  His voice faded as I drifted away, but I was still in the hospital looking down upon another gurney, upon a dear, familiar face. Dr. Shaw’s voice said in my ear, “It’s okay, my dear. It’s for the best. It’s what I wanted.”

  “But—”

  “Hurry,” he said. “The door is still open. You can come back through. But you must hurry.”

  I floated away again and when the mist parted, I saw that the young woman’s ghost had waited for me on the pathway. “There’s still time,” she said. “But he’s right. You should hurry.”

  “Why?”

  I sensed her anxiety as she searched the shadows. “It’s coming for you.”

  I looked beyond her to where the mist roiled like a storm cloud, moving ever closer. I could feel the cold now. I could smell the foulness of its essence. Terror seized me. This was no mere ghost; this was no mischievous entity. This was Evil. And it was looking for me. Once trapped by the manifestation of its talons and teeth, I would never break free.

  I could see more faces in that turbid mist. Pel Asher and his sons—my blood kin that had succumbed to evil. But I was stronger than they. Papa’s blood also ran through my veins. Tilly Pattershaw’s blood ran through my veins. I had the power to end this now.

  Even as I braced myself for battle, I was being pulled deeper and deeper into the Gray. But someone else had taken my hand. My great-grandmother Rose. Her blood also ran through my veins.

  “I know you,” I said, searching her familiar features. She was young again and her eyes had been restored. I might have been staring at my reflection in a mirror.

  “We were very much alike,” she said. “We shared the same gift.”

  Her use of the past tense chilled me. “You tried to help me once. You tried to tell me where I could find the lost key. The one that could close the door to the dead world forever. But your house burned down and the numbers you left behind were destroyed. Now there’s no way to find your key,” I said sadly.