“What...” He struggled to form the words. “What is...”
Katie dropped to one knee, sucking in a massive breath of air, fresh, clean night air, feeling as if she hadn’t taken a real breath in days. She’d been carrying that wicked spirit around inside of her all this time. It had been living inside of her, using her, feeding off her life.
She pitched forward, catching herself on one hand, her fingers curling into the soft dirt under the tangled mat of grass. Not for the first time since she came here, she fought back the urge to throw up.
“What is...” Mason was gagging again, his voice buzzing like his throat was stuffed with tin foil. “What...is happening? What...the hell is...happening?”
His eyes glowed with an inner light and when he looked at her, she could see death in that stare.
She knew the answer to his question. She understood, even if her mind didn’t want to wrap itself around the truth. The words of the book in the library came back to her, along with that whole spell that had rang like a song in her mind as she read it.
Those had been words of power. A spell that could transfer the essence of a person into the body of another.
A way to live forever.
Dorathea was using her descendant to come back from the dead.
He looked at her again, and now the light that had shone in his eyes was replaced with a darkness tinged with red. The color of blood. The color of death.
The color of evil.
“I am...” Mason coughed, and then his voice changed even more, to a higher pitch, a fuller sound. “I am returned.”
That was Dorathea speaking. Katie could hear it in the words. She was talking through Mason now, wearing his skin like a set of new clothes. The ghost had waited all these decades, waiting for what she needed to return. Not just someone who looked like her, like Katie did.
She needed a kindred soul. Someone with her own flesh and blood.
Her descendant.
Katie had only been Dorathea’s conduit. Mason Fieldman was the vessel the spell had poured Dorathea into.
Mason laughed in Dorathea’s voice, and stood up straight and tall. “Perfect. Thank you, little girl. Katie, wasn’t it? Yes. Thank you, Katie. You’ve made this all possible.”
Katie got up to her knees. The ghost in Mason’s body towered over her.
“My soul was trapped in that book,” Dorathea said. She was smiling, but it didn’t touch her--Mason's--eyes. “It’s been so long since I felt the breeze on my skin. Or felt anything at all, for that matter. It was my own personal hell that I trapped myself in for so long. It’s been so long!”
She looked down at Katie. “Such was the price of eternal life, my dear. I paid it without hesitation, and I would gladly pay it again. But now...now! I live again and I will walk the streets of Twilight Ridge once more. I will feel the sun and the wind and the earth beneath my feet.”
Katie took another breath. It was like she couldn’t get enough oxygen into her lungs. Almost like she’d been walking around dying for days, and now her body was fighting to be itself again.
Dorathea looked down at her through those eyes again. “Dear little woman. When you opened that book, I saw my own face reflected back at me, and in that moment I knew I could be free. I rode you until I could find my host. My blood! My own lineage! Now the promise of all those years of bondage are fulfilled and I will never die again!”
She raised Mason’s fist in the air, and from a cloudless sky came a bolt of jagged lightning. It struck the ground, right where Dorathea’s broken gravestone stood.
The smell of charred earth and dead things filled the air.
The woman inside the man’s body sneered down at Katie. “You know, I think Mason liked you. I really do. I can feel inside of him...yes. My great grandson was getting close to you.” Mason’s lips parted and the tip of his tongue licked suggestively at his lips. “He wanted me to slaughter everyone, except you. Somehow he was hoping you would be saved. For him. Like some kind of damned prize for his devotion to the family. He thought you might be for him.”
Katie trembled, and very very slowly, got to her feet. She was staring at her death, in the form of a witch’s ghost.
“Feelings are pointless,” the ghost declared. “Life is what matters. I will take whatever I need to have it again. And you, my darling, will be the first to die.”
Lightning struck again. And again. And then again. The sound of the thunder that followed made Katie’s ears pop with each blast.
Four times the lightning streaked down to the ground, and each time it struck one of the other graves just behind where Mason’s possessed body stood triumphantly outlined by the afterflash.
Each grave burst upward, clods of dirt and clumps of grass flying away from the impact of that much electrical energy. It was like the ground was tearing itself apart.
Or like something was tearing its way out.
“I won’t be stoned again,” Dorathea said through Mason’s lips. “I won’t let that happen again. No. I will live, and I will live forever!”
The ground split apart. Shadows began rising up, pushing their way into the night.
Katie screamed.
Dorathea reached for her.
And she ran.
Chapter 20
Katie ran through the trees surrounding the cemetery, not even sure if she was heading back toward town or away from it. The connection between her and Mason had disappeared when Dorathea came pouring out of her and she was free to escape now.
Branches slapped at her face as she tried to see in the dark of night. Several times she stumbled and slipped, and scrapes and cuts quickly covered her hands and arms.
Behind her, she heard the voice of the witch. Dorathea’s scratchy pitch, twinned with Mason’s rich tenor. It taunted her, whispering and shouting lies and threats and creating images in her mind of horrific things that would be done to her. Images of blood. Images of fire. Of sharp things sliding through her insides.
Images of death.
Katie ran faster.
The voice was close behind her.
Then it was in front of her.
She turned to run the other way. She had to get out, she had to get out!
From in front of her, she heard the voice again.
She turned--
And the voice moved with her.
It was behind her. In front of her. From every side, everywhere. It was all around her.
Katie kept moving. It was all she could do.
Suddenly, she burst out from the trees and onto an open street in Twilight Ridge. At first she was just so grateful to be back where there were people that she didn’t notice anything else. She gasped and thanked God and looked up to see where she was.
Then she blinked against the sunlight that was hurting her eyes. It was daytime. The sun was up and wispy clouds scuttled across a blue sky. Just a second ago it had been night, and now...it was the middle of the day.
She stood there, looking around and letting her eyes adjust, wondering why she should be surprised by anything that happened to her in this place. She didn’t know if anything would ever be right again.
The whole damned town was haunted.
She didn’t hear the witch behind her, and she counted her blessings for small favors as she started up the street.
Several steps later she began to realize it was more than the time of day that was different.
Like how the street was now dirt and cobblestone, when it should be paved.
Katie stopped in her tracks, finally taking a moment to look at the houses and the businesses. Everything looked newly constructed, and yet old at the same time. They were all simple buildings, with white painted siding or gray stone walls and wood shingle roofs. The stores had simple signs with scrolling letters advertising things like “Hardware” and “Sundries.”
Over by the river, the gristmill was just being constructed.
There were no sidewalks, but people walked around town freely from pl
ace to place not worrying where they crossed the street. The men were in dark suits with stiff collars and high-topped hats. The women wore long dresses of somber colors. They greeted each other with a few words or a nod and went about their business, never stopping to chat or have any real conversation.
It was like they were afraid of each other. A whole town, afraid of themselves.
This was not the Twilight Ridge that she had stepped out of just an hour ago.
At the same time, it was still Twilight Ridge. She might not understand how, but she recognized the layout of the streets, and some of the buildings were the same ones that had been standing here when she had checked into the Harper Inn. They had been different when she came to town. Older, but updated.
Her brain was starting to hurt. It was a different pain from the headache she had carried when Dorathea’s spirit had been riding around inside of her. This was her brain working overtime trying to understand the impossible.
“Screw it, Katie,” she said to herself. “Just wait to see what happens next.”
Because really, why not?
Her hands trembled as she walked up the edge of the street, looking into windows and marveling at this scene from the past. Everything was different. Simpler, sort of.
With her next step, she bumped into a woman in a full-skirted dress. She turned on Katie with a blank expression.
Silence fell all around her. For just a moment every single person on those streets turned to look at her. All those eyes, staring right at her with the focused intensity of one mind.
Then they all turned away from her again, all at the same time, and went back to what they were doing. It was like they had noticed this intruder into their time for just a moment before she was gone from their memories again.
She had gone back in history. Back in time. She was here. Why couldn’t anyone see her?
“Help me,” she cried out to them. “Please, help me!”
She ran for the crowds, right up to the people, all of them ignoring her and gradually disappearing off the streets and into the buildings, one by one. Soon everyone was gone. It was just her standing there, pleading for someone to notice her.
Then there was someone else.
A tall, gaunt man strode up to her, his gray eyes examining her from head to toe as his thin lips twisted. He carried himself with an arrogant air. Disapproval swept off him in waves. “What have we here? What manner of woman be thou?”
He could see her. Of all the people in town, he hadn’t forgotten the woman standing here in the strange clothes begging for someone to help her. She reached out for him, hoping that here, at least, would be some help for her no matter where ‘here’ actually was.
The past, the present, or somewhere in between.
“Please, please sir, you have to help me. He’s coming. He’s coming for me and for all of us, and he’s going to kill us!” she was pleading with him, not afraid to beg if it meant he would help. “He’s possessed. The man who’s following me, there’s a witch...I mean a ghost...inside...of him...”
She recognized this man. She remembered his face from all of the photos in the books at the library.
“No,” she breathed. “It can’t be you.”
But it was.
Ebenezer Snidge.
He lifted a hand toward her, long fingers uncurling like the legs of a spider to brush against her cheek in a possessive way. “I know this face.” His nails scraped her skin. “Dorathea. My faithless wife who spurned the will of God and sought the powers of Satan! Was it not enough to lift our own son from the embrace of death? Now thou hast returned from the grave where I put thee! This is the worst of witchcraft. Thou speak of the Devil’s work! Death is coming for thee!”
“No, please, you don’t understand.” Katie wanted to run away from him but if she did, would she just run herself right into the arms of the witch? “I’m not Dorathea! She’s...I mean he’s coming. Listen, you have to understand. You know about the witches in this town. You know--”
“Lies!” Ebenezer screamed in her face, loud enough that Katie jolted back from him. “Thou art a witch! That is the only danger here. Thou art the consort of the Devil, the very prince of lies! Thou shalt pay for thy sins!”
His hand came back up, and he slapped Katie as hard as he could.
This had to be real. There was no delusion that could hurt this much.
Her head snapped sideways as a sharp ringing started in her ear. Her teeth rattled against each other. It was the push she needed to get moving.
She was running again through the town. All the people were suddenly out in the streets again and they could see her now, oh yes they could!
And they all thought she was Dorathea. The cries were all around her. Witch. Witch!
Katie stumbled on the uneven stones of the street and went down to her knees but kept going, clawing her way forward until she could stand again, and run.
Run.
The edge of the town was there, and the trees would hide her, if only she could make it that far. Dorathea might be out there. She knew that. She also knew that behind her was a death she couldn’t even imagine. She was caught between one nightmare and another.
Something heavy whipped past her to bounce off the ground. A stone. Someone had thrown a stone at her.
The words she’d read in the library came back to her.
The infant son of Dorathea and Ebenezer had died shortly after she gave birth.
Dorathea had been accused of raising their child from the dead.
Her husband, Ebenezer, threw the first stone.
This was history. This was how things had happened the first time and now that she had stepped back through the years it was happening again.
This time, to her.
She had to get away, but in the trees were her only safety, and in the trees the witch waited.
Another stone hit the ground.
The next one hit her shoulder.
Chapter 21
There was no choice.
She ran into the trees and when she did the sunlight disappeared and it was night again. It was dark, and she couldn’t see anything as she ran through branches and bushes that tried to either knock her down or trip her up. She threw her arms up in front of her face to protect her eyes, and kept going.
Behind her, the screams calling for her death faded away. The shouts of anger at the witch were melting back into the past. She was back in her right time. Back where she belonged.
Finally she stopped, completely lost. She looked around but there was nothing for her eyes to see. The trees were blocking the moonlight and there was nothing out there. Nothing.
And then something caught her arms.
Hands grabbed her wrists and her shoulders and a cold, cold hand wrapped itself around her mouth. She was pulled down to the ground and then dragged by her arms and she felt her shirt ripping and she felt her skin tearing and she heard the muffled sound of her own screaming behind the hand over her face.
She couldn’t see anything, but she could hear them. There were women all around her. They were chanting. A rhythmic pulsing of sound made with their voices. Almost a song.
No. It actually was a song. She remembered the spell she had read, and how it had become a song in her mind, and then left her feeling sick all over. That was what she was hearing now.
The spell for everlasting life.
Only these voices weren’t from the living.
These were the ghosts of the other women from their graves. Dorathea was inhabiting Mason’s body. They were planning on doing the same thing to her.
Katie pulled at the hands holding her. She jerked her body, using all of her strength, straining against the deadly cold grip of fingers all over her. Nothing worked. She was still held fast. She couldn’t get free.
She tried to scream again.
“Now you see,” Dorathea’s voice came to her from somewhere in the gloom. A shadow stepped closer and stood over her, and she could almost make out t
hat it was Mason’s form, his body containing Dorathea’s ghost. “Now you see the power these other fools threw away. Now that I have returned, I can help my sisters do the same. Yours will be the next body we use.”
In the darkness, she leaned in closer to Katie to whisper, “Mason wanted me to kill everyone for revenge. This will be much more fun.”
Katie dug down deep and made one more strong surge against the spirits holding her captive. She put everything she had into it because she was going to get away. She was not going to let this happen. She was Katie Pearson, and she was not going to become a pawn in this craziness.
She fought for her freedom.
And she failed.
The hands still held her down. The ground was still pressing into her back.
She was trapped.
The chanting grew louder.
“Let her scream,” she heard Dorathea say in that bizarrely buzzing voice of hers. “I want to hear her scream.”
The hand over her face slithered away across her skin. Finally, she could take a deep breath and hold it in and then let it out in one long, fearful scream.
The dark pressed in on her.
Then, there was light.
It flared red and hot, sparking like a firecracker. The ghosts hissed at the light and flew away into the darkness, away from Katie.
All except Dorathea, safe inside Mason’s body from the brilliant burst of light.
Katie scrambled to her feet and started to run again, away from the ghosts, away from the dying light that lay on the ground like a cinder.
She ran blindly until another flare of red light blossomed right in front of her among the trees. In the backglow of that flare, she saw someone.
Riley.
Somehow, impossibly, her boyfriend was standing there in the woods and he was saving her life.
She threw herself into his arms and held onto him so tight that her shoulders ached. He was here. How was he here?
“How are you here?” she asked him out loud.
Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set Page 45
