The Prophet (Graveyard Queen)

by Amanda Stevens

  Dr. Goodwine had done most of his fieldwork in the Gabonese Republic where he spent years studying as an apprentice to a Bwiti shaman. His sojourn to West Africa had inspired several books that delved into the complex relationship between certain cultures and plants, specifically those used in divination. Having resigned both his professorship at North Carolina State and a seat on the board of a large pharmaceutical company headquartered in Atlanta, Dr. Goodwine now spent most of his time in West Africa, writing and researching.

  He, too, had grown up in Beaufort County, in a tiny Gullah community near Hammond, which made me all the more certain that he was related to Mariama. She and a male cousin had been raised together by their grandmother.

  Darius was in his late thirties, so he was only a few years older. Strangely, the only photograph I could find was one blurry snapshot taken in Gabon. He appeared extremely tall, but I couldn’t be certain he was the same man I’d seen watching Devlin’s house.

  I moved on to gray dust. Here, I did run into a wall. One link led to a Cornell University piece about quasar environments and another to an online fantasy game. Nothing at all about a powerful hallucinogen that stopped the heart and caused people to die.

  Gray dust exhausted, I returned to Darius Goodwine, clicking through the rest of the articles in the hopes of turning up a clearer photograph. As I scanned the information, I copied and pasted and made copious notes on my legal pad as my chart evolved:

  Devlin > Shani > Mariama > Fremont

  Darius > Mariama > Devlin > Ethan

  Clementine > Isabel > Devlin

  Devlin was clearly connected to all the players, but it was hard for me to imagine that he’d ever been involved in drugs or the occult. He’d never made a secret of his disdain for Dr. Shaw’s work and had gone so far as to advise against an association with the man or the Institute.

  Yet, he had once been Dr. Shaw’s protégé. A gifted paranormal investigator according to Ethan. Devlin had married a woman with strong ties to her Gullah heritage, and he appeared to have some sort of relationship with Isabel Perilloux, a palmist. Which only served to remind me of how very little I knew of the real John Devlin. In so many ways, he was still a stranger to me, but rather than discouraging my affection, his secrecy only intensified my unrealistic fantasies.

  The office had grown cold as I sat there absorbed in my research. I’d cut off the air-conditioning when the temperature began to drop at night, and I wasn’t yet ready to turn on the heat. It was only a slight chill. Something on my arms was all I needed.

  I got up to grab a sweater, and as I walked down the hallway to my bedroom, I became aware of a subtle, yet unsettling background noise. I stopped in midstride to listen. The house was very quiet at night without the coming and going of my upstairs neighbor. I wondered briefly if he might have returned, but the dripping—as I had now identified the sound—was definitely coming from my own apartment. Despite the age of the house, I’d never had a problem with leaky pipes or faulty plumbing, so a dripping faucet caught my attention.

  Tracing the sound to the bathroom, I turned on the light and glanced around. The scent of rosemary lingered from my bath as I walked over to check the faucets in the shower and then at the sink. The beveled mirror was fogged over, and without thinking, I reached up to clear it. My hand froze.

  A pattern had formed in the mist. The barest trace of a heart.

  Shani. The ghost child’s basket name meant “my heart.”

  She’d chosen to communicate with me this way once before. She’d traced a heart on my office window to let me know she was there. To let me know who she was.

  I stared at that heart now as a dark dread descended. Never before had I seen evidence of a manifestation inside my house, inside my sanctuary. Hallowed ground had always been my safe haven.

  Was she still there?

  I resisted the urge to whirl and scour the shadowy spaces behind me as I warned myself to remain calm. That was always the key to dealing with ghosts. When I was little, my father had taken me to the cemetery every Sunday afternoon so that I could become accustomed to the specters that floated through the veil at dusk. He’d always stressed the importance of controlling my reaction. Show no fear, child, even when they manifest near you. Never acknowledge the dead even when they touch you.

  I’d developed quite the poker face over the years even when apparitions suddenly appeared before me. Even when they ran their icy fingers through my hair or down my spine. I knew how to suppress shudders and shivers and how to look through ghosts without looking at them.

  But this was different. Never had one invaded the sanctity of my protected space.

  I dropped my hand casually to my side and turned, bracing inwardly for what I might see. Nothing was there. No Shani. No aura. Not even a lingering shimmer.

  But as I moved back into the hallway, I couldn’t shake the notion that something trailed me. I went from room to room, making sure doors and windows were secure. Not that locks would keep out phantoms. I had to do something, though, because if my sanctuary had truly been violated…

  Mentally, I shook myself. I couldn’t allow myself to think about that. The heart traced on the mirror might have been there for ages and was only now showing up in the frost. I hadn’t noticed it before, but the outline was very faint. Of course, I’d cleaned that mirror any number of times since moving into the house… .

  Resisting the temptation to glance over my shoulder, I went back to my office. Angus had risen from his bed and stood growling at one of the windows. I’d heard him make that guttural sound once before when he’d been in the presence of a ghost. And in the presence of evil.

  The glass was so fogged, I couldn’t see outside, couldn’t see the entity that lurked in the garden, but just like Angus, I sensed an unnatural presence.

  He growled again and eased himself over to my side. I reached down and put my hand on his back, stroking his ruffled fur as I took comfort in his warmth.

  The scent of jasmine came to me then, so strong I might have opened a window. But this time of year, the starry blooms had long since faded. The perfume came not from my garden, but from Shani’s ghost. She wanted me to know she was there.

  “You’re here,” I whispered. “Now what do you want?”

  The computer screen cast an eerie glow on the frosted windows, and for one split second, I thought I saw something outside, a featureless face peering into my office. It was there one moment, gone the next as another scent drifted in, almost masked by the jasmine. Sulfur.

  The knock of my heart was so painful at this point I could scarcely breathe. My hand stilled on Angus’s back as a terrible revelation came to me.

  Shani wasn’t alone. Something had followed her to my house. Something dark and malevolent. I could feel it out there in the garden even now.

  I heard a whimper as Angus pressed himself against me. I wanted to cry, too, but I didn’t make a sound. Instead, I just stood there clutching the polished stone at my throat, my thumb working frantically over the smooth surface. My gaze was riveted to the windows where a message began to appear. Not a heart this time. Not a request or a plea, but a bold, angry demand that repeated over and over in the frost:

  HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME

  Chapter Twelve

  Needless to say, I slept very little that night. Long after the frost on the windows melted, I’d remained in my office reeling from this new development. Never had I felt threatened by a ghost in my home. Never had the boundaries of my sanctuary been breached by any entity, and yet, somehow Shani had traced a heart on my bathroom mirror.

  Why on the mirror and not on the window? Did she want me to know that she had found a way into my haven? Was she making sure that I couldn’t ignore her?

  And what of that other presence?

  I really, really wanted to believe the face I’d glimpsed outside my window had been nothing more than a manifestation of my fear or a wine-induced hallucination. I hadn’t been sleeping
or eating properly, and by Fremont’s own admission, he’d been haunting me. Plus, after my trip to see Devlin, I’d hardly been in the most stable frame of mind, so it wasn’t hard to conclude that in such a state, my imagination could have played tricks.

  But on Angus, too?

  I kept a tense vigil in my office until well after midnight. Exhaustion finally drove me to bed where I tossed and turned for hours.

  Despite a restless night, I arose the next morning at my usual time even though I had no particular place to be. I didn’t have a restoration scheduled until the following month and, other than a few headstone repairs, nothing much else on the books. But between my savings and the ad revenue generated from Digging Graves, I was certain I could manage for a while.

  Actually, I could do more than manage. An unexpected legacy had provided me with a generous nest egg, but that money was safely tucked away until I could decide how and when I wanted to use it. Considering the circumstances of my birth, I’d wanted no part of any inheritance from my blood family, the Ashers, but then I reminded myself that my mother’s illness had likely depleted her and Papa’s savings. If I could help them out financially, perhaps everything I’d been through in Asher Falls would be worth it.

  Dressing for my morning walk, I donned a track jacket over a UNC T-shirt and then let Angus out into the backyard. The horizon glowed as I headed down Rutledge toward the harbor. I performed a few warm-ups and then picked up the pace. The morning was crisp and clear, and the jacket felt good all the way to Broad Street before I finally had to shed it.

  Tying it around my waist, I turned left on Meeting Street, striding past the parade of historic churches and grand old homes with barely a glance. Another left and I found myself on Tradd, the most scenic of all avenues in a city known for its beautiful boulevards and thoroughfares. It was the only street in Charleston where one could glimpse the Ashley and Cooper Rivers at the same time, but this morning, I looked neither right nor left as I made my way to East Bay Street, where the colorful row homes and stately mansions were still bathed in misty gray.

  I passed only a few early birds on the Battery. Migrating to my favorite spot, I stood facing the harbor as the sun broke the horizon and the sea burst into flames. It was a sight I never tired of.

  Against the background of tiny Fort Sumter, a formation of pelicans glided low across the water, searching for the telltale shimmer of silver beneath the surface. It was very quiet where I stood. I could hear the gulls out in the harbor and the murmur of voices from the tourists that had risen early to watch the sunrise, but the sounds were muted and easy enough to tune out.

  Someone appeared beside me at the railing. My gaze was still glued to the light show over the water, but I knew who he was. I slanted a glance at Fremont’s ghost. Right here on the Battery was where I’d first seen him months ago. Only then, I’d still thought he was a flesh-and-blood man. Perhaps even a murderer.

  “You don’t look so good,” he commented.

  “I just walked all the way from my house. I’m a bit winded.”

  “No, that’s not it. You look ill. What’s wrong with you?”

  I cut him a glance. “Oh, I don’t know. Could it be that you’re haunting me?” I asked with more than a shade of sarcasm.

  I couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark lenses, but I felt the frost from his gaze. The sensation was eerie and unsettling. “I’m not doing that to you.”

  “Really? Because as I recall, you admitted to draining my energy so that you could sustain your presence in the living world. That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

  “That was then. I needed a way to get your attention. I had to make sure you would agree to help me. But now that we’ve come to an arrangement, I’ve backed off.”

  I merely lifted a brow.

  “I’ve purposely kept my distance so that you could build your strength back up.” He paused, and I felt that icy stare yet again. “You’ll need every ounce of it.”

  “Is that a prediction?”

  “You can take it as such.”

  Ignoring his ominous tone, I leaned against the railing. “If you’re not draining me, then who is? Or should I say what?”

  “Another ghost would be my guess.”

  Another ghost. I didn’t know why, but it struck me as significant that, despite his humanlike appearance, he thought of himself as a ghost. He was under no delusions of remaining in the living world. Far from it. He just wanted to solve his murder and move on.

  I tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. “You don’t look like any of the other ghosts I see. You have no aura, no transparency. How do you manifest after dawn and before twilight? Don’t you have to wait for the veil to thin? How are you here now, when the sun is coming up?”

  “It takes a lot of energy and concentration.”

  “If you’re not draining me, where do you get your energy?”

  “Why does it matter?” he asked tersely. “It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Everything about our arrangement concerns me. You came to me, remember? And for all I know, you brought something with you that is draining me.” I thought of that lurking shadow outside my window and shivered. “I know you’re probably tired of answering all my questions, but this is important. My house is built on hallowed ground and yet you were sitting on my front porch. You were able to breach my sanctuary and now something else has, too.”

  “I told you it wasn’t me.”

  “I know that’s what you said, but assuming you wanted to, could you manifest inside my house?”

  “No, not inside.”

  I paused in relief. Then glanced at him doubtfully. “Is that the truth or are you just telling me what I want to hear?”

  “The real truth? I’ve never tried.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, believe it or not, I’m not looking to inconvenience you any more than I have to.”

  Inconvenience me? That was certainly an interesting way of putting it.

  “I appreciate your consideration,” I said. “But unfortunately, my sanctuary has been violated. A heart was traced in the frost on my bathroom mirror. I don’t see how it could have been done unless a ghost entered my home.”

  “Psychokinesis,” he said.

  “You can do that?”

  “On occasion. If you’re worried about a visitation, try burning some sage in the house. You can use the ashes to smudge the mirrors and windows.”

  “That actually works? Sage will repel you?”

  I saw a thin smile. “Me? No. But it might discourage a lesser manifestation.”

  “Like a ghost child?”

  He shrugged.

  “If you’re not draining me, then it must be Shani,” I mused.

  His voice sharpened. “Shani?”

  “John Devlin’s daughter. She seems to have latched onto me.”

  “She drowned,” he said.

  I whirled in surprise. “Have you seen her?” A woman walking by on the Battery slanted me a curious glance, and I turned back to the harbor, lowering my voice. “You’ve seen Shani Devlin?”

  “I told you I keep my distance from the other ghosts.”

  “Then how do you know about the drowning?”

  “Someone must have told me.”

  I was silent for a moment. “You say you have no recollection of the shooting or of the time preceding it. You don’t even know why you were in the cemetery or the identity of the woman you met sometime earlier, the one whose perfume you still wear. Yet you know about a death that occurred just hours before yours. The accident happened at around twilight. The car Shani was riding in went through a guardrail into a river, and she and her mother were trapped inside. You were shot sometime between two and four in the morning. In the hours in between, you somehow learned about Shani’s death. This could be important because it would help establish a timeline. Did someone call to tell you about the accident?”

  “I remember nothing,” he said.

  “Not true. Yo
u remembered she drowned. That must mean something.”

  “I was a cop, remember? It wasn’t unusual to hear about accidents, especially one involving another detective’s kid.”

  A man sidled up to the railing to admire the bloodred sunrise. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, lovely,” I murmured.

  “I’ve watched sunrises all over the world,” he said. “Nothing beats the one over Charleston Harbor.”

  I smiled noncommittally as I watched one of the pelicans break formation and dive, emerging from the sea a moment later with a flash of quicksilver in its beak.

  “Have a nice day,” the stranger murmured and sauntered away.

  I glanced over to make certain Fremont was still beside me. He was.

  “Something about that girl’s death,” he muttered.

  “What?” I asked anxiously.

  “I don’t know. Tell me more about her ghost. You say she’s latched onto you?”

  “Like you, she can’t move on. She wants my help, but I’m not sure what it is I’m supposed to do.”

  He said, very softly, “You still don’t know who you are, do you? You still don’t understand why we come to you.”

  His ghostly voice swept over me. “You come because I can see you.” And because I broke Papa’s rules.

  He nodded vaguely as he turned back to the harbor. “Why can’t the child move on?”

  I took a deep breath, trying to quell a rising foreboding. “I can’t say for sure. She was only four years old when she died. She doesn’t converse with me the way you do, but she can communicate.”

  “You mean the heart?”