The Visitor (Graveyard Queen, #4)(66)

The keys tinkled overhead, an eerie serenade that tore at my nerves.

Turning my back to the sound, I pressed an ear to the door, tracking the creak of floorboards as Micah crossed the porch and stepped inside the house. I could imagine him pausing to scan the corners and niches for any telltale movement, then lifting his gaze to the second floor as he assessed the possibility of my having braved the broken staircase.

The footsteps came slowly down the hallway, halting outside the stairwell door to rattle the knob once, twice, three times before continuing on into the kitchen and out the rear door.

I hoped he’d keep going, back into the maze, the woods, anywhere but here. I even let out a breath of relief when I didn’t hear his returning footfalls. But I didn’t open the door. Instead, I fished a flashlight from my backpack. The light refused to come on at first, but after a couple of thumps, the bulb flickered on and I played the beam over the walls.

The hanging keys were certainly an oddity, but my great-grandmother had left behind another peculiarity. Another obsession. She’d scrawled numbers all over the walls in no apparent order or pattern.

My heart thudded in excitement and trepidation as I took a tentative tour around the room. In one of the darkened corners, the numbers were so tiny that I had to kneel and lean in closely to make them out. I could imagine Rose hunkered there on the floor, frantically scribbling out a coded message that only she could decipher while the ghosts swarmed her tiny house.

In another corner, a row of candles had been aligned on the floor before a cross that had been crudely fashioned from twigs and the same cotton twine used to hang the keys. Several stereograms had been stacked in front of the cross, and as I sifted through the cards, I decided that Rose must have used the cramped space as her sanctuary. A safe haven where she could hide away during the dark hours.

I spread the cards on the floor and held the flashlight over them. The shots were of Rose’s house, taken from different angles at various times of the day. I had no idea why she’d been so fascinated by the structure. Without a viewer through which to study them, the images didn’t reveal any secrets. But the photographs must have meant something to her or she wouldn’t have placed them at the makeshift altar.

I was still deeply engrossed by the images when the flashlight bulb sputtered out, leaving me in near darkness except for the light streaming through the tiny hole in the wall. Maybe the placement of that minuscule opening was just happenstance, but something niggled. I had a feeling that as random as everything in this room appeared to be, there was a method to Rose’s madness. Like Kroll Cemetery, the sanctuary was a carefully designed puzzle.

I tapped the flashlight back on and fanned the beam once more over the numbers. If the chaotic scribbling had order or reason, I couldn’t discern it. I gathered up all the cards and carefully placed them in my backpack. Then I moved the light around the room, searching for other clues. As the shadows dissolved, I saw a deeper form in the darkest corner.

My hand jerked violently and the flashlight crashed to the floor. The beam arced over the numbers and then went completely dead. I huddled in the dark, clutching my backpack and trying to convince myself that I was alone in the room. No one living or dead had followed me inside.

Just your imagination, I tried to convince myself as I crawled on all fours across the floor, feeling for the flashlight.

The rough planks creaked beneath my weight. The keys tinkled overhead as if stirred by an unseen hand.

Don’t look back.

A breeze brushed through my hair like the glacial fingers of a ghost. My jeans caught on a loose board and for a terrifying moment, I was certain something tugged at my leg. I jerked the fabric free, and then continued my search, flattening my hands over the dusty floor until I bumped up against the rubber housing. Grabbing the flashlight, I spun around while simultaneously flicking the switch.

Nothing happened.

As I frantically slapped the flashlight against my palm, the air suddenly grew cold and dank and a familiar scent drifted in. Not the dust and lavender that accompanied the blind ghost or the smell of ancient decay that heralded the withered in-between. This was an old-fashioned scent. Medicinal and not entirely unpleasant. It reminded me of the witch hazel Papa used to splash on after he shaved.

The scent grew stronger as the entity moved toward me, coming so close I could smell something fetid beneath the witch hazel. I didn’t dare move or even breathe. For the longest time, I cowered motionless as the presence crouched beside me. This was not a ghost that needed my help to move on. This was something more powerful. Something with a nefarious purpose. A malcontent that had used a familiar scent to disguise its foulness.

Despite Rose’s best effort, evil had found a way into her sanctuary.





Thirty-Eight

I hunkered in the dark until the scent faded and I knew without a doubt that I was alone. I had no idea where Micah had gone off to, and at the moment, I didn’t really care. My primary motivation was to get out of that house.

But as terrified and rattled as I was, I somehow had the presence of mind to lock the sanctuary door before I fled. The walls of numbers and any other clues contained within that room would need to be carefully examined and photographed at a later date, but not now, not alone, not with that thing lurking in the shadows.

I turned and dashed down the hallway, heedless of the creaking floorboards and grasping cobwebs. I didn’t stop to look behind me until I was at the edge of the yard and only halted then because I had to chart a course through the maze. The last thing I wanted was to stumble around aimlessly through those endless channels.