The Visitor(51)

“A key? No, why?”

“Did Rose ever tell you about a key? It would have been special to her, I think.”

Papa looked at me strangely. “Where did you get this notion?”

“From Rose’s ghost. She told me to find a key. It’s my only salvation, she said.”

“She told you?”

“Not in words, not aloud, but I could hear her in my mind.”

Papa suddenly seemed overcome with emotion. He wiped a hand across his eyes as he stared out over the angels.

I laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Papa, Rose had all the headstones in the cemetery where she was buried engraved with key symbols. All except for her own. You don’t have any idea what those keys meant to her?”

“A key represents knowledge,” he said vaguely.

“Yes, but I think there’s more to it than that. I think she used those keys to leave a message or a riddle. It makes me wonder if...” I could still feel the weight of the skeleton key in my pocket. “When I was little, before the ghosts came, I found a key here in this cemetery. I told you that my aunt had given it to me, but I really found it on a headstone. I returned it the next day and tried to forget about it, but now I can’t help wondering if Rose left that key for me to find.”

Papa said softly, “She’d been dead a long time by then. Decades.”

“We both know she could have still found a way.”

His eyes closed briefly. “Why did you lie to me about that key?”

“I was afraid I’d done something very wrong. You said that I must never take or leave anything behind that could be misconstrued as an offering or invitation. But people leave flowers and mementos behind all the time in graveyards. That rule only applies to us, doesn’t it? To me.” I clutched his arm. “Why, Papa?”

His voice lowered to a ragged whisper. “It invites them in.”

“Into the living world?”

“Into you.”

I drew a sharp breath. “You mean possession?”

I could see the rising moon in his eyes and it made me shiver. “Before my mother left, she taught me how to protect myself from the ghosts. Just as I taught you. She told me about the ravenous spirits that feed on human warmth and energy, about the restless ghosts that can’t move on because of unfinished business. The day I went to see her, she told me about a different kind of entity, one that lingers in the living world for the sole purpose of creating chaos. Malcontents, she called them. Wraiths that prey on the weak and the innocent. They cajole and seduce and barter in order to find a conduit for their evil. Once they crawl inside you, child, the only way to rid yourself of them is death.”





Thirty

I sat in the grass, watching the bats as Papa gathered up his tools. It was pointless to try to continue our conversation because he’d already shut down, disappeared into that black space where no one could reach him.

I didn’t mind so much at the moment because I needed time to process all that he’d told me. Not only about Rose, but about those entities that preyed upon the innocent. I couldn’t stop thinking about the key I’d taken from the headstone and how, after all these years, it had turned up again on my nightstand. Had I been preyed upon by one of those ghosts? Had I unwittingly been selected to be the conduit of a malcontent’s evil?

Far better to believe that Rose had left that key for me to find, but as Papa had warned, aligning myself with my dead great-grandmother didn’t come without a price.

I was so lost in thought that the tingle down my spine was the first warning I had that we were no longer alone. I glanced up to see Devlin walking toward us on the path. As I watched him approach, a barn owl swooped down over the graves and flew across the flagstones in front of him. He stopped short, but instead of following the winged predator with his gaze, he glanced over his shoulder. When he turned back around, I could see his face in the moonlight and the intensity of his expression startled me.

As Devlin entered our realm of stone angels, Papa nodded a greeting before excusing himself and setting off toward the gate. I waited until he was out of sight before rising. I thought it odd that Devlin made no move to close the space between us. Perhaps not so odd, considering my conversation with Papa, that I keep my distance from him.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, in a voice I hardly recognized as my own.

“You said you were coming to see your father today. I took a chance you’d still be here.”

“Why? What’s wrong?” I asked anxiously.

“Nothing’s wrong. I was on my way back from Columbia and had the urge to see you.”

“Why were you in Columbia?”

“I had business to attend to.” He slanted his head, studying me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m just surprised to see you.”

“Are you sure that’s all it is?”

“Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know. All these questions are starting to feel a little like an interrogation.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And I can’t help wondering why you’re still standing all the way over there.”

“I could wonder the same about you.”

He closed the distance between us. “Better?”