Something Strange and Deadly (Something Strange and Deadly #1)(8)

Whack, whack!

Around the table, the other guests watched us, but frightened, amused, or entertained, I didn’t know.

“Beloved Henry,” Mama called, “know that you are welcome in this house.”

“Help me!” I shrieked at the guests. “Stop her!”

“You are welcome to our bread,” Mama continued.

“Mrs. Fitt!” Clarence yelled.

Mama clasped her hands to her chest. “You are welcome to move among us.”

An icy wind blasted through the room, and with it came the smell of dark, moist, ancient soil. Grave dirt.

The air and the smell cloyed at my nose and slid into my throat. I wanted to gag, but I couldn’t breathe. Time had frozen, and it was as if I viewed the room from some distant place. Even the flames of the candles stood still. Then my breath returned with such force that I crumpled back onto my seat. Cries and whimpers burst out around the table.

The spirit had joined us.

Breaking the chain of clasped hands had done nothing, and this spirit felt strong—evil.

I lunged forward and grabbed a candle. What had Mama done? I should have stopped her.

I lifted the flame high and scanned the room.

“You’re not welcome here. Go back!” I waved the flame this way and that in search of the spirit’s location. “Go back!”

And then I saw it, crouched beside the door, an unnatural clot of black in the darkness—shapeless, sentient, and waiting.

Everyone was paralyzed. My own mind screamed, though no sound escaped. All I could do was stare.

Until it moved. The darkness elongated into the rough shape of man, but thinner and taller, with arms that stretched to the floor. I forced my body to move, my nerves refueled by terror. I brandished the candle toward the evil, and the flame almost sputtered out.

“Leave,” I rasped. “You’re not welcome here.”

The shape undulated forward—one moment like a man, the next like a gaping shadow.

And it was moving toward me.

A woman screamed. And then another and another until the whole room was a chorus of fear. People began to wiggle and tumble, and chairs groaned with the movement.

“My love!” Mama screeched. “Henry, oh Henry!” She moved forward, but Clarence bowed over the table and seized her by the arm.

“No!” He held her back, half his body sprawled across the table.

I felt a tingle in my ears, through my temples, and down my neck. A shivering, powerful pulse. Was the spirit doing this to me? I grabbed at my ear with my free hand, but the feeling only intensified.

“You must leave!” I shoved the candle forward. The spirit paused.

The shrieks of terror drowned me out, but I shouted again—“Go back!”—and stepped toward the spirit. My strength grew with each inch I gained.

I reached the end of the table. The terrible mass was only feet away, a shadow of death hanging motionless. For a moment I thought I was victorious. But my relief drained right back out as the spirit rushed at me in a furious streak of black, and the cold consumed me. It was the harshest chill I’d ever felt, a deeper ache than I thought possible. My mind, my bones, my soul were devoured by this cold.

Then, faster than my mind could process, it was gone.

By the time the room was illuminated again, the panic was out of control. Crying, hysterics, mumbling, and shock had taken the guests. My own hands trembled, and I couldn’t keep still. I used my anxious energy to soothe the situation.

“It was all a show!” I yelled. “Just theatrics!”

Some of the guests actually accepted my claims with surprising ease—despite the fact that Mama was collapsed in a dead faint.

She sat limp in her seat, draped across the table with her eyes closed. Though the spirit had scared her, I thought the realization that she wouldn’t see Father was what had snapped her nerves.

I was just grateful Clarence had kept her from injury when she toppled down.

For the next few minutes Mary, Jeremy, and I strained to get everyone else out as quickly as possible. Fortunately, they needed no urging.

Once the house was empty and I had gotten my mother’s unconscious form in bed, I collapsed in my own and cried.

I cried until my abdomen hurt and my nose was clogged. Until I had cried enough to realize tears weren’t making me feel better.

Where was Elijah? Why were the Dead rising in Philadelphia? Why was this happening to me? I just wanted my brother home. I wanted things to be exactly as they were three years ago, when Elijah would teach me his lessons from school or read Shakespeare aloud while we sat in our cherry tree. We’d dreamed of seeing exotic places—such as Venice, Verona, or Illyria—and when we dutifully visited our father’s grave, we would wander the nearby woods and pretend we were in the Forest of Arden.

I shuffled to my wardrobe and found the walking dress I’d worn that morning. From its pocket, I pulled out the wrinkled Philadelphia Bulletin article.

JOSEPH BOYER OF THE SPIRIT-HUNTERS STATED IN AN INTERVIEW: “The Laurel Hill corpses are under the necromancer’s control and do his bidding, but as of yet, we do not know the necromancer’s identity or aim.”

The Spirit-Hunters arrived a week ago to protect the thousands of Centennial Exhibition visitors from the Dead. They have installed alarms throughout the Exhibition buildings in case more corpses appear on the grounds....