The Visitor(62)

His absence niggled as I sat there. If something had delayed him, he would have alerted me or at the very least kept his phone handy so that I could call him.

I got out of the car and stood in the shade as I contemplated what I should do. On the surface, the countryside was quiet and still, but if I listened intently and concentrated hard enough, the forest came alive. An owl hooted in the distance as the underbrush rustled from the scurry of tiny feet. A flock of blackbirds took flight and circled for a moment before drifting back down into the leaves. I was so spellbound, my senses so heightened, I could hear the swish of their feathers and the click of tiny claws as they resettled themselves on the branches. I found it strange that I could be so attuned to my surroundings and still feel so completely out of my element, a million miles away from the safety net of my sanctuary.

Checking my phone for a signal, I placed another call to Dr. Shaw with the same result. The phone rang and rang. I was just about to hang up when I became aware of a new sound, distant but jarring in the hush of the woods. I lowered the phone and turned my ear to the trees, closing my eyes so that I could vector in on the disturbance. From somewhere deep in the woods came the sound of a ringtone.

I ended the connection and the ringing stopped. Then I called the same number and the sound came again, even fainter than before, as if Dr. Shaw was moving away from me.

An icy panic stole up my backbone. He was getting on in years, and the previous autumn he’d survived a terrible trauma. No doubt the stress had taken a toll. I had visions of him suffering a breakdown like poor Rose and wandering around lost in the woods or lying unconscious somewhere from a fall or a heart attack. Or even worse, what if Micah Durant had taken a shortcut through the woods and intercepted him at the cemetery or in the maze? Dr. Shaw would never have seen him coming.

I tamped down my runaway imagination as I pressed the call button yet again. I told myself there might be any number of reasons why he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. Maybe he wasn’t getting a signal. Maybe he’d set the phone down and forgotten to bring it with him when he came to meet me.

My first instinct was to hightail it back to the main road and get someone to help me search. Despite all my ghost sightings and years of working in isolated cemeteries, I didn’t want to be alone in that forest. Not after the terrifying incident on the trail. The foulness of an unknown presence and the opposing rush of wind had left me frightened, not to mention the fact that two of the keys had somehow come alive as I approached Kroll Cemetery. This did not bode well. I wanted nothing so much as to hurry off to the nearest bit of hallowed ground where I could protect myself from what was coming.

But I couldn’t shake a shivery premonition that the ghosts should be the least of my worries at the moment. Time might be of the essence for Dr. Shaw. If I left the woods only to find out later that something had happened to him, I’d never forgive myself.

Taking one last survey of my surroundings, I grabbed my backpack from the car after safely stowing the two loose keys in the zippered pocket. Then I locked the door before setting out on the footpath.

The closeness of the woods soon engulfed me. I could hear water dripping somewhere nearby, but I couldn’t pinpoint the source. If I stopped on the path and turned in a circle, the sound seemed to follow me. Working alone in remote locations as I had for so many years, I’d developed a good sense of direction. But Dr. Shaw was right. The lack of sunlight and the sameness of my surroundings proved disorienting.

I kept going, stopping periodically to take out my phone. No matter how many times I called or how far along the path I traveled, the ringing seemed to come from somewhere ahead of me.

But if the scenery could be disorienting, it stood to reason that sound might also be distorted. I wanted to call out to Dr. Shaw, shout his name at the top of my lungs, but my every instinct warned that it might not be wise to broadcast my whereabouts. If he was moving away from me, back toward the cemetery, then he must have a good reason.

The trees along the path grew ever denser, the hardwoods and evergreens gradually giving way to overgrown hedges of boxwood, honeysuckle and gardenia. The shrubbery formed a tunnel with narrow channels breaking off on either side. I stopped and glanced around with quickening breath. I had come to the entrance of the maze.

The opening was shrouded, but I could see where the vines and bushes had recently been chopped back to reveal bits of rusted metal beneath the greenery.

The maze was so much larger than I had expected. I could hardly imagine Rose in her state of confusion planning something so intricate. The planting alone would have taken a very long time, and I couldn’t help wondering about her original intent. Had she meant to thwart trespassers or to keep the ghosts trapped inside Kroll Cemetery?

As I stepped through the entrance, the untamed shrubbery rose twenty feet or more. The tapestry of leaves and limbs was so tightly interwoven that I could see nothing of the other channels. It had been cool and dim in the woods, but the dense vegetation constricted airflow. I started to perspire and soon found myself a little short-winded as I trudged along. I remembered Owen’s instructions and followed the path wherever it veered or broke left, keeping my eyes peeled for footprints in the dirt or broken twigs in the hedges that would let me know someone had passed this way before me.

Eventually, I came to a spot where the main path seemed to angle to the right, but there was no branching trail to the left. I had the strongest urge to keep going. It was almost like a magnet pulling me forward, but even as I felt that strange tug, I realized I was experiencing a very clever illusion. There was, indeed, a path to the left, another choice, but the hedge wall curved in such a way as to obscure the entrance. I would never have noticed without Owen’s warning.