The Visitor(81)

“Or someone did.”

I glanced up. “You think she was murdered? You think her killer arranged for her headstone?”

“I don’t know about the headstone. But if Rose knew something about the deaths at Kroll Colony, I’d say murder is a distinct possibility. The mutilation... The blindness...” He stared down at the inscription. “Seems like a warning to me.”

“A warning? Then, why kill her so quickly?”

“Not a warning to Rose, but for anyone else who might have known what she knew.”

Or someone who might come along and try to solve her puzzle.

“That’s a disturbing theory,” I said with a shiver.

“More disturbing than blinding herself?” Devlin asked. “I’d say both scenarios are equally grim.”

I glanced out over the whimsical cemetery, letting Rose slip into my head as my gaze traveled from gravestone to gravestone. I thought about all those keys and numbers she’d left behind and her fascination for photography and stereoscopy. I pictured her crouched and scribbling in her sanctuary while the keys tinkled overhead. Cowering in that tiny dark room as something prowled the shadows beneath her house.

That tiny dark room...

Darkroom. Dark...room.

Just like that, a puzzle piece clicked into place and the revelation set my heart to pounding. How had I not seen it before? The answer had been right in front of me as I’d huddled in Rose’s sanctuary. A beauty far more bright than the noon’s cloudless light.





Forty-Five

I felt an urgency to return to Rose’s house at once, but if my calculations proved correct, we still had plenty of time. Rather than unveiling my revelation prematurely, I decided we should use the interval to explore Kroll Cemetery. Devlin sensed something was up. I could feel his curious gaze on me from time to time as we roamed the overgrown pathways.

As the hour approached, I took his hand and led him back into the maze. I’d always had a reliable sense of direction and I seemed to have instinctively committed the layout to memory. We followed a northerly course and after a false turn or two, eventually came to the entrance that opened into Rose’s overgrown yard.

“Have you been here before?” I asked as we stood gazing up at the house.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. We explored the ruins of the Colony pretty thoroughly back then, but I don’t remember stumbling across this place.”

“It wasn’t part of the Colony. This was Rose’s house. Ezra allowed her to live here in exchange for tutoring the twins.”

“I take it you’ve already been inside.” Devlin’s voice held a note of censure as he scanned the tumbledown structure. “Looks dangerous. No wonder Dr. Shaw was so worried. The whole place could have come down on top of you.”

“It’s sturdier than it looks. Come on.”

He followed me to the back of the house, where we paused once again so that he could reconnoiter. I could hear the eerie squeak of the weather vane on the outbuilding, and the sound raised goose bumps as my gaze dropped to the enclosure around the house. We seemed a million miles away from civilization, but I worried we weren’t alone.

“Smells as though something crawled up under there and died.” Devlin hunkered down to peer between the steps. “That’s a strange place for a gate. It’s barely accessible.”

I tried to rub away the chill bumps. “It’s a strange place for a fence, if you ask me.”

“It wasn’t uncommon to use the space beneath these old, raised houses for storage.” Before I knew what he was about, he dropped to his hands and knees and crawled up under the steps.

“What are you doing?” I asked in alarm.

“Just having a look around.” He withdrew the penlight from his pocket and angled the light toward the gate.

“Can you see anything?”

He voice came back muffled. “Not much. A bunch of boxes and trunks. Some kind of metal contraption.” He shook the fence. “There’s an old rusted lock on the gate.”

“Please don’t try to get inside,” I said uneasily. “And please stop rattling the fence. No point in announcing our presence.” Although I had no doubt that if the malcontent lurked in the shadows beneath the porch, it was well aware of our arrival.

Devlin backed out from under the steps and dusted his hands on his pants as he stood. “Relax,” he said. “There’s nothing under there that can hurt us.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I muttered.

“Should I check all around the house? Would that put your mind at ease?”

“Let’s just go inside. What time is it anyway?”

“Almost eleven. Still over an hour until noon if you’re going by the poem.”

“But we’re in daylight saving time. If I remember my state history correctly, South Carolina reverted to standard time after World War II. Which means if we were back in Rose’s day, the time would be nearing on noon. And as luck would have it, the sky is cloudless.”

“So we are here because of the poem,” he said.

“Yes, but the time doesn’t have anything to do with what happened at the Colony. I believe it’s a reference to what happens every day in Rose’s dark room. Dark room. Two words.”