The Kingdom (26 page)

“Not here.”

His gaze deepened. “Where?”

Tilly’s warning hammered in my head.
He covets what he can never have.
That makes him susceptible to Evil. That makes him dangerous to you.

I put a hand to my temple, trying to block her voice. “I don’t know. I can’t think…”

“Tonight,” he said urgently.

“I can’t. I’m meeting Sidra at the library.”

“Afterward.”

“I have to pack. I’m going home to Charleston this weekend.”

“I’m coming by,” he said. “You can send me away when I get there if that’s really what you want.”

“Thane—”

“I just want to see you before you go,” he said. “I want to make sure you’re coming back.”

“I’ve barely begun the restoration. Of course, I’ll be back.”

A shadow darkened his features. “Will you see
him
while you’re there?”

Devlin.
I drew an unsteady breath. “No. That’s over.”

Angus brushed up against the side of my leg, and I reached down to pet him, glad for the diversion.

Thane watched us together. “What will you do with Angus while you’re gone?”

“I’ll take him with me. Why?”

He pulled me back into his arms, and I didn’t resist. “I was hoping I might persuade you to leave him here. That way you’d have to come back to me,” he said against my lips.

Twenty-Nine

I
drove into Asher Falls late that afternoon to meet Sidra at the library. She was behind the counter when I came in and lifted a finger to her lips, then pointed to the office door to let me know that Luna was still around. I nodded and went back to the records I’d been sorting through the day before. I was leafing through one of the research books when she came to get me.

“Luna just left,” she said in a hushed voice.

“What now?”

“This way, but keep away from the windows, okay? The library is supposed to be closed. If anyone happens to glance in, I don’t want to be seen.”

“Won’t they just assume you haven’t left yet?”

“Maybe. But I don’t want to take any chances. Luna would be very angry if she knew you were here after hours.”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t be doing this.”

“No, it’s fine. Just stay behind me, okay?”

The clandestine nature of our rendezvous both worried and excited me. Why so secretive? I wondered.

Luna’s silver tabby was stretched out on the desk in her office, and he watched with suspicious eyes as we came through the door.

“What’s that cat’s name?”

“Whisper. Don’t mess with him,” Sidra warned. “He’s a biter.”

His baleful eyes tracked me as I crossed the room to the framed photographs on the wall. To Freya’s ghost. Now I knew why she looked so angry.

I felt Sidra’s gaze on me and turned.

“It’s through here.” She pointed to the narrow, arched door. Then, extracting a skeleton key from an ivory box on one of the shelves, she inserted it into the ornate lock and opened the door.

As I moved across the room, my gaze fell on the cabinet where Luna kept an assortment of treasures. The blown-glass figurines, the antique pocket watches and that collection of oddly shaped knives… .

“Is something wrong?” Sidra asked.

I tore my gaze from those blades. “No, everything’s fine.” I followed her into the dim little room, the only natural illumination spilling in from an octagonal window near the ceiling. Sidra turned on the light, and I glanced around curiously at the crowded bookcases, then walked over to peruse some of the titles:
Animatism in Polynesia. Belief and Practice. Magic and Religion. The Sleeping Giant.

“Why are these books in here and not outside?” I asked.

“I don’t know. My mother has some of the same titles at Pathway.”

“Does she keep them under lock and key?”

Sidra paused. “No. But she keeps other things locked up.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been able to find the key.”

I thought of that secret door in Catrice’s studio and shivered.

“So what did you want to show me?”

“You asked about those symbols carved into the cliff at the waterfall.”

“Yes. You told me I wouldn’t find any information about them at the library.”

“That’s not entirely true,” she said and lifted her eyes.

I followed her gaze and gasped. The
Drudenfuss
had been perfectly reproduced on the ceiling of Luna’s secret room.

“It’s like the pentagram in
Faust,
” Sidra said. “Mephistopheles was able to enter the study because one of the points was left open.”

“And in order for him to leave, the pentagram had to be destroyed.” I remembered what Thane had said about the Daughters of our Valiant Heroes and the old rumor that it was a coven.

“What do you think it means?” Sidra asked.

“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. The story is just a fable,” I said, but my mind had gone to those knives in Luna’s office and now my heart was racing.

“What if it’s not? Just a fable, I mean? Shouldn’t we destroy it?” she asked anxiously.

I glanced at her in surprise. “Destroy public property? We could get in a lot of trouble for that. Not to mention, we’re not even supposed to be in here.”

“I know, but…”

“But what, Sidra?”

“Nothing.

She looked very small in that room, and very, very frightened. “Is there something else you want to show me?” I gently grilled. “Or tell me?”

Her eyes went wide. “Someone’s coming.”

“Are you sure? I didn’t hear anything.”

“Shush.” She pulled the door closed with a slight click and turned off the light. A moment later, I heard Luna’s muffled voice through the wall. Someone was with her, and from the intimate laughter, I thought it must be Hugh.

In the muted light, I saw Sidra lift a finger to her lips. I nodded. We could do nothing but wait. Unlike the library, the room had no air shafts to magnify voices, but I had a pretty good idea of what they were up to. I was sure Sidra did, too.

Something drew my gaze upward. Instinct, perhaps, or a slight sound that barely registered. The gray tabby, perched on top of a bookcase, stared down at us. He must have slipped into the room when we first came in. He blinked slowly as he got to his feet and stretched. And then he meowed.

Sidra spun toward the sound. Then her head whipped back to me. We stared at each in horror for a moment as I pressed my ear to the door.

“Hush,” I heard Luna say.

“What is it?” Hugh asked.

“I heard something.”

“There’s no one here but us.”

“No, I heard a meow. It was Whisper.”

I held my breath in the ensuing silence.

“He’s probably down in the basement chasing rats. Shall I go look?”

“That’s very noble of you, but no. Stay here with me. We haven’t much time.”

“What do you mean, we haven’t much time? Maris won’t be back for days.”

“I’m not worried about
her.
”

I heard him laugh softly. “You shouldn’t be worried about the other one, either.”

“You’re a fool
not
to worry,” she said. “You know why he’s brought her here.”

“It’ll never happen.”

“How can you be so sure? I’ve seen them together.”

“Have you been spying on them, too?” he asked with a chuckle. “You always did like to watch. Shall we call Bryn and Catrice over? We could have a party like in our younger days.”

My gaze shot to Sidra, but she was still watching the cat.

“What’s the matter?” Hugh taunted. “A little competition never bothered you before. Of course, you are getting older. Is that a gray hair I see?”

I heard something that sounded like a slap.

He said angrily, “Why you vicious little witch.”

Now it was Luna who laughed. “Yes,” she said. “I am, aren’t I?”

During the whole of their conversation, I’d kept an eye on the cat. Now I let out a breath as he stretched and settled back down for a nap.

I moved my ear away from the door, not wanting to hear what might come next. But the rendezvous seemed to have run its course. The office door slammed, and I waited another moment, then said, “That was close.”

“Too close,” Sidra said. “We should probably get out of here. It’ll be dusk soon.”

Dusk.
My scalp was already tingling as I followed her into Luna’s office. She locked the door, returned the key to the ivory box, then took my arm. “Hurry!”

But it was too late. As we passed from Luna’s office into the library, I felt the all too familiar chill of a ghostly presence.

Thirty

H
er grip tightened on my arm as she pulled me through the library, the wooden floorboards moaning beneath our feet. I felt a chill breath at my neck, the brush of something cold against my arm, and I tried not to shiver.

We went through the front door, and Sidra locked it behind us, then turned toward the street. I went very still as I heard her draw a shaky breath.

Twilight was upon us.

“They’re coming,”
she whispered.

I understood then her urgency, the fear that shadowed her crystalline eyes and trembled at the corner of her lips. I felt her nails dig into my arm as I looked up and down the street. Pale faces appeared in every window. Diaphanous silhouettes drifted through doorways. Everywhere I looked,
ghosts.

And with them came the mist, chilled from the murky depths of Bell Lake.

“Don’t look at them,” Sidra warned.

I couldn’t move. I stood there bracing myself against the death-frost as the entities hovered all around us. A frigid hand sifted through my hair, another slid up my spine. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a ghost child clutch Sidra’s hand as another hovered behind her and a third stared down at us from where he perched on a tree limb. The poor little Moultrie boys that Tilly had mentioned on the pier that day.

Clasping Sidra’s other hand, I pulled her with me into the street.

“You feel them?” she whispered. “You see them?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not just me, then.”

“It’s not just you.”

Her voice quivered. “We should go.”

“Where?”

“To the clock tower. It’s hallowed ground.”

We crossed the square among those floating phantoms, that endless parade of grasping souls.

Sidra gripped my hand, and I was glad for the warmth, glad not to have been alone when I made this discovery. Asher Falls no longer belonged to the world of the living. It was a ghost town, just as Sidra had warned me on that first day in Luna’s office.

The chill faded as we entered the clock tower. There was very little light, but I had the impression of iron grillwork and tiled floors as we made our way up the spiral staircases. The higher we climbed, the tighter the passageway until we reached the very top where long narrow windows gave us a 360-degree view of the town.

I stood at one of those windows gazing down. The pavement glistened beneath street lamps as the mist moved through town. Moonlight shimmered through the live oaks, silvering the Spanish moss that streamed like an old woman’s hair in the breeze. The town was very quiet, the sidewalks empty of the living.

“Where is everyone?”

“No one comes out after dark.”

I turned anxiously. “Why? They can’t see the ghosts, can they?”

“It’s not the ghosts. They’re afraid of each other.” Her back was to one of the windows, and the spill of moonlight washed out her face and darkened her eyes. She looked ethereal, otherworldly. Almost…ghostly.

And I was suddenly very frightened as the chill of her words and Tilly’s seeped through me.
Those who could left this place. Those who stayed learned to watch their backs.

I took a step toward Sidra, searching that pale profile. “You didn’t just want to show me the hex sign, did you? You wanted me to see the ghosts.”

She turned. “I had to know you could see them, too,” she said desperately.

“Why?”

“Because I’ve never met anyone like me.” Her eyes fluttered closed. “You can’t imagine how lonely I’ve been.”

Oh, I could.

“How long have you had this…gift?”

Her wan smile struck a chord. “Since I was five. That’s my earliest recollection. I went into cardiac arrest. When they brought me back, I saw a ghost in my room. He stood at the side of my bed gazing down at me. I think he was waiting for me to die so that he could take me back.”

Goose pimples prickled. “How did you know about me?”

“The same way you knew about me,” she said. “There’s a look in your eyes, a certain way you carry yourself. As if you’re constantly on guard.”

Because I was. “Why did you deny seeing Freya’s ghost in that photograph?”

“That’s what we do, isn’t it? We deny it even to ourselves.”

I moved up beside her at the window, staring down at that pale, writhing legion. “Have they always been here?”

“No. Not like this. I think some must have come through when the cemetery flooded. Maybe it opened a doorway. Every time I get sick, more gather around my bed. But there were never this many…” Her gaze dropped to the street. “They try to talk to me sometimes, especially the children. I think they want to tell me that my time is near.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’ve already been to the other side,” she said. “I think you have, too.”

“I’ve never had a near-death experience.”

“Maybe you have and you just don’t know it. Maybe you belong to the other side as much as you belong here. Maybe you’re an in-between just like me,” she said.

“An in-between?”

“A living ghost.”

I shuddered violently. “There isn’t such a thing.” But even as I denied it, Tilly’s words were already clawing at me.
You walk both sides of the veil, so that makes you dangerous.

“Why do you think there are so many of them now?” Sidra demanded.

“You said a door had been opened when the lake flooded.”

I saw a flash of pity in her eyes. It reminded me of the look on Papa’s face the first time I saw the old man’s specter in Rosehill. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “They’re here because of you, Amelia. They came when you came.”

Everything inside me went very still. With a trembling hand, I clasped the stone at my neck.

“You know it’s true, don’t you?” she said. “You’ve always known. You belong to them.”