He nodded. “I understand. You still have issues with that detective. No one knows better than I do how hard it is to let go of memories. But the past is no place to live your life, and sometimes the best way to move on is to move on.”
“And if I’m not ready?”
“Then you’re not ready. I won’t push you. But I won’t go quietly away, either.”
“You won’t have to. Once the restoration is finished, I’ll be the one to go away.”
His eyes darkened as he stared down at me. “Charleston isn’t so far.”
Wasn’t it? At the moment, my beloved city—and my beloved Devlin—seemed a million miles from me. “Why me?” I asked softly.
He stroked a knuckle down my cheek. “Why not you?”
I closed my eyes on a shiver. “Ivy once told me that you would never choose me…an outsider.”
“She said that?” He sounded annoyed. “Ivy’s a troubled girl. I don’t think she has much family support. Her father is some high-powered attorney in Columbia and her mother is always traveling. Half the time, Ivy is left on her own. Poor kid’s starved for attention. That’s why I’ve tried to cut her some slack. But she knows nothing about my choices. Or anything else about me, for that matter.”
“But there is a caste system in this town. Sidra told me earlier that she’s not allowed to visit Tilly Pattershaw’s house because Tilly isn’t one of them.”
His hand dropped away, and I could sense his irritation. “She’s probably just parroting what she’s heard her mother say. Bryn’s an insufferable snob.”
“No. Catrice said something like that, too.” I glanced down at the blisters in my palms and thought of Tilly’s burned hands. “She said that Freya was always trying to fit in where she didn’t belong. I suppose that’s why she turned up in all those pictures. She wanted to be one of them.”
He sighed. “You do realize you’re sounding a little obsessed.”
“Yes.”
He watched me for a moment. “Why does this stuff matter to you so much? It’s ancient history.”
“You said the other day that you have a responsibility to find out who’s buried in that hidden grave because it’s located on Asher property. I feel a similar responsibility to Freya.”
“But why? You never even knew her. And she’s been dead for years.”
I thought of her ghost wavering at the end of the pier, right where we stood now, and I felt something well inside me, that deep sadness that wasn’t my own but had somehow become a part of me. “I don’t understand it myself, but I feel driven to find out what happened to her. To find out why no one will talk about her death.”
“That’s just the way it is around here. Folks tend to mind their own business.”
“Even when it comes to dog fighting and hidden graves,” I said bitterly.
“When it comes to anything.”
I stared down into those gloomy depths and envisioned Freya’s ghost. I could see her in my mind, dressed in her burial finery, hair blowing in the breeze. If I found out what happened to her, would she be able to rest? Would she leave me in peace?
Or would she come back at every twilight to feed on my warmth and energy so that she could sustain her presence in the world of the living?
Either way, I had to know.
Twenty-Seven
After Thane left, I stayed outside to watch the sunset. As late afternoon drifted toward evening, the air and light shifted, and the scattering of clouds across the western sky turned bloodred. Dusk dropped and I felt, not a vibration or even a ripple, but a waiting stillness. A held breath… .
And then she was there as I somehow knew she would be. Freya’s ghost.
Her shimmering form appeared to me a split second before Angus growled a warning. I didn’t turn toward her, of course. I couldn’t discard my father’s rules that easily. So I sat there quaking in that abnormal chill as I watched her from the corner of my eye.
She floated up from the lake, pausing on the stepping-stones as if some invisible barrier kept her from coming any closer. As I tracked her in my periphery, I talked soothingly to Angus, but he wouldn’t settle down. He paced in front of me, hair bristling in agitation.
“It’s all right,” I soothed. “We’re perfectly safe here.”
Perfectly safe. Was there even such a thing?
A few steps and we would at least be on hallowed ground. That was the one rule that hadn’t changed since my time with Devlin. My sanctuary had yet to be penetrated by ghosts. I had to believe that Freya’s spirit wouldn’t be able to breach my refuge, either.
But instead of retreating into the house, I turned my head slightly, pretending to gaze out over the lake. The first thing I noticed was her demeanor. She wasn’t staring up at me as she’d done on that first night. Nor did she challenge me as she had on the second. I didn’t feel her confusion or her anger or any other emotion. She was just…there, suspended in that strange in-between time when the glow of the sunset lingered even as the moon started to rise. Trapped in that eerie light, she hovered motionless until I looked at her. And then slowly she lifted her head and impaled me with her ghost eyes.
My heart tripped, and the air expelled from my lungs in a painful rush. There was no wind to speak of, but I felt the icy bite of a draft down my spine, the bristle of fear at my nape. Now I was desperate to retreat, but I couldn’t move. I sat frozen in terror, frozen in time as those nebulous tentacles reached out to me, connecting for one split second my mind to hers. In that fleeting moment of illumination, everything around me and inside me went very still, and yet the silence teemed with imagined noises. With moans and whispers and a million hellish sounds that threatened to blend at any moment into one very real scream.
I saw her in my mind but not as a ghost. Gone was that ethereal façade, the otherworldly beauty of her specter, and in its place was the grotesque death mask of her corpse. She hadn’t perished in a tragic fire. She’d been murdered, her throat slashed from ear to ear. And as she lay prone on the ground, eyes open and sightless, I could see the outline of a pregnant belly through her bloody dress.
It happened in a heartbeat, that vision. As the breeze swept up from the lake, it was already starting to fade. But I remained in the grip of that terrible paralysis, unable to move, barely able to breathe. My fingers had automatically gone to the stone at my neck, and I clutched it frantically, trying to summon the protection of Rosehill Cemetery. Not just for me, but for Freya and her unborn child.
She was fading, too. I could see through her now, all the way to Bell Lake where mist swirled and writhed over the surface. Below, the bells started to ring as the dead began to stir.
The ghost turned toward the water, tilting her head as if listening to the phantom tolling. She looked back once, over her shoulder, and then she was gone.
* * *
I remained on the steps as the mist coiled over the lake. My disregard of the rules was reckless and stupid, and yet there I sat.
It was almost as if I was daring Freya’s ghost to come back. I didn’t understand my behavior. What was happening to me here? How could I be so drawn to and repelled by the same bizarre place?
Go home, a little voice prodded. Forget about this town. Forget about restless souls and Freya’s murder and that hidden grave in the laurel bald. Forget about Pell Asher and Luna Kemper and poor Tilly Pattershaw, with her wounded birds and burned hands. Forget about that presence in the mountains, those odd vibrations and the bells that toll for the dead beneath the lake. Forget that you have a connection to Asher Falls. Forget that you were ever here.
I drew a breath and slowly released it. But I couldn’t forget because now I knew that Freya had been murdered. I might be the only person other than the killer who did know. And no matter how many years had passed, justice would have to be served. Maybe that was why I’d been brought here.
Angus had been lying at my feet, but now he got up and trotted down the stepping-stones. He was too close to the water’s edge. To
o close to the mist. My heart started to pound in trepidation.
“Angus, come back here!”
He looked up at me and whimpered, his tail working furiously, but he didn’t obey and I didn’t want to go get him. Already the fog rolled toward the shoreline. The spirits would soon rise. All those restless souls reaching out for me… .
I shivered and called to him again. “Angus! Come, boy! Time to go in!”
Another mournful look, another whimper and then he began to paw frantically at the exact spot where the ghost had disappeared.
Dear God, what had he found? And did I really want to know?
Reluctantly, I got up and walked down the stepping-stones, my gaze on the lake, on that creeping, swirling mist.
“What is it, Angus?”
The offering lay on one of the stones.
I had almost expected to find a puddle of blood, but what she’d left instead was a rose and a bud, both severed from a thorny stem.
As I bent to pick them up, the rose started to wither.
* * *
Not surprisingly, I couldn’t sleep that night. I lay wide-awake for hours, contemplating Freya’s murder. She’d been pregnant when she was killed, and for whatever reason, she wanted me to know that she and her unborn child had been buried together in that hidden grave, not in the cemetery as Thane had said. Which begged the question, who was buried in the Thorngate grave? Who had perished in that fire?
And who had been caring for that hidden site in the laurel bald? The killer?
Luna’s voice drifted out of the darkness. Someone knows. Had she been talking about Freya’s murder?
The questions went on and on, and as I lay there wide- awake, I tried to think of possible suspects. As much as I wanted to pin the blame on Edward—someone already dead—I had a very bad feeling that the murderer still resided in Asher Falls. After all these years, they must have thought they were home free. Then I’d found that hidden grave. I’d started to ask questions about Freya, and now I’d made myself a target.
Angus whimpered in his sleep, the sound a manifestation of my own anxiety. It was only from total exhaustion that I finally drifted off, but my mind still wouldn’t rest. Visions swirled in my head of Freya and her unborn baby. Of someone lying in wait for her at the falls.
And then the whole dream shifted and I was in Thane’s arms in that same glade. I could feel the mist on my face as we lay entwined by the pool. I could feel my heart pounding even in sleep, and my whole body pulsated with the need to have him deeper, deeper inside me. I clutched at him frantically, my nails leaving marks on his back, and the pain seemed to excite him. For a moment, he didn’t look altogether human, but something savage, something beautiful, something not quite of this world.
“Soon,” he whispered. His mouth found my breast, and as I responded to his rhythm, the creatures stirred. One by one they crawled from their holes to stare down at us. Not ghosts this time, not the Others that had been awakened by Devlin and me, but abominations that belonged neither to the living world nor to the realm of the dead.
A wind blew down from the mountains, rippling leaves and carrying night scents, and the half-beings began to howl. Or was that noise coming from me?
I tried to push Thane away only to realize that he was already gone. I was alone in the glade, shivering in the mist from the falls. I drew my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms tightly around my legs. Never had I felt so lost, so alone. So afraid.
I glanced up and saw someone gazing down at me from the top of the cliff. Not Ivy this time, but Luna… .
Eyes gleaming like a cat in the moonlight, she lowered herself over the edge and slunk headfirst down the cliff. Then came Bryn and Catrice, and the unholy trio formed a circle around me as I buried my face in my arms.
I felt lips in my hair, a breath on my neck and the trail of icy fingers down my spine. They lifted me to my feet, touching and crooning as they dressed me. I looked down to find that I had on Freya’s burial frock. Through the diaphanous folds, I could see the swell of my belly, could feel the vibration of a second heartbeat inside me… .
My own gasp woke me up. Heart still pounding, I clutched my flat stomach. It took a moment to realize that I’d been dreaming. Oh, thank God.
The room had grown colder while I’d slept, and I pulled the covers to my chin as I pushed myself up against the headboard. Angus wasn’t in his makeshift bed, but instead had gone over to the window to stare out. He glanced around when he heard me stir, but then his head whipped back to the glass, as if he’d spied something in the dark that he needed to keep an eye on.
“What is it?” I whispered as I slipped out of bed.
I padded over to the window to look out. I saw nothing at first, but then at the very edge of the forest, my gaze lit on a shadow, deeper than the others, with a distinctly human shape. And I started to tremble.
Someone—or something—watched the house.
Twenty-Eight
Angus and I returned to the cemetery the next morning. The day was cloudless and so warm and peaceful I could hardly believe all that had transpired since I’d last been there. I now knew that Freya had been murdered, and she and her unborn baby were buried in the laurel bald.
But what could I do with the information? Going to the police was out of the question, and I wasn’t equipped to launch an investigation on my own. My interest in Freya and the hidden grave had already aroused suspicion, and I was being watched. From here on out, I had to be very, very careful. Until I could figure out how best to act on the ghost’s revelation, I had to continue the restoration as though I knew nothing. And as badly as I wanted to return to the hidden grave to look for clues, I didn’t dare go into the laurel bald alone. It was too remote. Too confusing. There are places up there where you could hide and not be found for days. If ever.
As I made my way through the gravestones, I kept an eye on the mausoleum. With my back to the gate, I relied on Angus to alert me if something—animal, human or otherwise—came up the road or through the woods.
Armed with clippers and a machete, I attacked the overgrowth near the fence with a vengeance. Kudzu had crept in from the woods and had a choke hold on some of the monuments. The elongated stems curled around tree branches and entangled with briars, making the grove nearly impenetrable.
As I worked, squirrels foraged in the underbrush and birds twittered from the treetops. Despite everything that had happened, I began to relax. Like Papa, I loved working with my hands, and I found nothing more satisfying than uncovering overgrown headstones and markers.
But as I chopped deeply into the thicket, a feeling of claustrophobia overtook me. The vegetation was dense and insidious, and the harder I worked, the more entangled I became. Vines wrapped around my arms and legs and half-inch thorns stabbed through my jeans. As the flora closed in on me, the silence deepened. It was troubling, that quiet. I heard nothing in the underbrush now, and the birds had all flitted away. The only sound was my labored breathing and the swish of the machete.
A shadow passed over the sun, and as my head came up to track a lone hawk, I caught a whiff of something dead, something rotting.
I told myself an animal had crawled into the thicket and died. But suddenly I remembered the smell that had seeped through my open car window that day on the hill when I’d passed the old man in the overcoat. He’d had an animal carcass in the wagon, but I remembered thinking that the smell might have come from his own decaying flesh.
As I lifted a hand to my nose, a vine caught my arm and a thorn tore through my shirt. I pressed fingers to the scratch and brought away blood.
There was something strange about that thicket. Something unnatural. I tried to fight my way out, but vines snaked around my ankles. As I bent to free them, another twisted around my neck, and suddenly I was yanked off my feet. Before I could utter a sound, I was being dragged backward into the thicket as brambles ripped through my clothing and tangled in my hair.
I tore at the snare around my neck
, tried to dig my heels into the ground to slow the momentum. Frantically, I clutched at the briars, oblivious now of the pricks. Inch by agonizing inch, I was being pulled into the heart of the copse… .
Angus was barking. The sound seemed a long way off. We were so deeply inside the thicket I could see nothing now but shadows. Nothing but darkness. The smell of rotting flesh grew stronger. I heard a rasping breath, and an image came to me of something not quite human towing me through the bushes… .
Oh, God, help me…someone help me, please….
Hands closed around my ankles. I felt a vicious tug and then another. Someone was pulling me back toward the edge of the thicket, and for a moment I was locked in a terrifying tug-of-war. The noose around my neck snapped, and I heard something that sounded like a squeal. Then silence. I lay still for a moment before I began to kick my way free.
The Kingdom Page 21
