The Visitor(28)

And tell you what? That a sightless ghost followed me back from the other side and now something is nesting in my cellar, crawling through my walls, leaving insect husks on my nightstand?

“Sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason to dreams and nightmares,” I evaded. “You really don’t need to worry about me.”

“I wish that were true.” He lifted a hand to my bruised cheek, emotions warring on his face, feelings that made me too breathless to contemplate. After all this time, I still wasn’t used to the electric hum that raced through my veins at his slightest touch, the quiver in my stomach when he said my name. I’d never in my life experienced anyone like Devlin. I was certain that I never would again.

“It’s not just the nightmares,” he said. “It’s a look in your eyes. The way you stare out the window. It’s as if you’re waiting for something. Watching for someone. And yet you won’t talk to me.”

His hand slipped to the back of my neck, pulling me closer. I went without protest because the intensity of his dark gaze enthralled me. I couldn’t have drawn away at that moment if I’d wanted to, which, of course, I did not. I stood there frozen, mesmerized by the tiny flames dancing in his midnight eyes.

“Why is it that even with you in my arms, I can feel you slipping away from me?” he murmured.

“I sometimes feel the same about you. You’re here but you’re not here. There’s a distance. A part of you that won’t let me in.”

“I am here,” he insisted, his gaze so intense I had to look away. “When I’m with you, there’s nothing and no one else.”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

He took my chin and made me look up at him. “There are many things to wonder about in this world, but that’s not one of them.”

Dipping his head, he brushed his lips against mine, and I melted into him, letting his energy wrap me in a safe cocoon. He was warm, solid, human.

But even as I settled more deeply into his embrace, I had the strongest urge to glance over my shoulder. Something was out there even now. I could feel an unnatural presence lurking at the edge of the woods, slinking through the gloom where all the dark things thrived.





Sixteen

After leaving the cemetery, we dropped by police headquarters so that I could sign my statement, and then Devlin drove me home. After a quick search of the house to make sure everything was in order, he headed out, but whether to spend time with his grandfather or on some other errand, I had no idea.

Alone, I took another slow walk through all the rooms. Devlin had had someone in to clean up the broken glass and furniture, a service he trusted, but I remained uneasy. The echo of my footsteps seemed to punctuate the utter quiet of my sanctuary as I made my way down the hallway.

I tried to distract myself by puttering around in the kitchen, but the homey sounds of clinking glass and clattering pottery reminded me of all the times I’d watched my mother move gracefully about her kitchen. The memory didn’t soothe me. Our evening meals had often passed in uneasy silence. When the sun went down and the breeze picked up, the scent of roses from the cemetery would drift in through the open windows, a lush harbinger of the coming nightfall. My eyes would sometimes catch Papa’s and for an instant, there would be a spark, a fleeting acknowledgment of our mutual fear before he once again retreated into his dark place.

I’d often pondered the dynamics of our family. Despite Papa’s withdrawal, our “sight” had irrevocably bonded us while my mother had kept me at arm’s length even when she embraced me. It wasn’t until a trip to my birthplace that I understood why. Because of how I’d come into this world, she was afraid that I would be taken from her. And maybe a part of her was a little afraid of me, too.

One by one, the pieces of my life had fallen into place with that journey to Asher Falls. But there were still blank spaces, still too many secrets that had yet to be revealed. How it would all come together and where it would end remained a terrifying mystery.

And speaking of mysteries...

The stereogram once again beckoned. Succumbing to the lure, I put the card in the holder and rotated my chair toward the light, but this time, I concentrated my attention on the girls rather than the face in the window. As I studied their images, I detected a faint outline beneath the cloaks where their bodies were joined by the humps on their backs. Together forever.

My mind flashed back to the form I’d spotted in Oak Grove Cemetery and the smell of cloves when Nelda had leaned in. Given what Dr. Shaw had told me about the use of the spice by the living twin to cover the stench of her sister’s death, I wondered if the scent had been an attempt at contact by the dead twin.

Whatever that tiny creature was, she wasn’t a ghost. She had more substance, more lingering humanity than most of the apparitions I encountered, leaving me to wonder if the physical, spiritual and telepathic bond with her sister had somehow changed her death course. Perhaps she hadn’t made the full journey through the veil, but instead resided in an in-between space that allowed her passage into this world, into my cellar, even into my walls.

I returned the stereoscope to the desk, my thoughts racing. Something very strange was happening to and around me. I recognized a supernatural manipulation as surely as I could sense the icy chill of a ghostly presence. I was being guided—herded—to Kroll Cemetery, but to what end? The intrusion from beyond both angered and frightened me, but I couldn’t deny a certain fascination.