The Unseen (27 page)

He looked at Reese, and there was no way to hide the naked fear on his face.  She responded with a sharp smile, as though she enjoyed his growing terror.

“
Let’s go,” he said. “I have to get out of here.”

“
No.  No talking, no
moving
or they’ll attack you.”

“
Really?”

“
You want to find out?”

Peyton did not, so he closed his mouth.  He tried to come up with some reason why he should be hearing nearly-human voices whispering from the ground.  He wished very much that he hadn’t agreed to come here, that they’d gone any other place tonight.  His legs were actually shaking inside his pants.

He heard a woman’s voice somewhere down a path to his right.  At first he thought she was choking, then it became clearer, and he realized she was sobbing.  That sound grew louder and closer.

The hint of a shape began to form at the edge of the little fountain plaza.  It was white and misty, thin and transparent, but definitely there.  Peyton couldn’t blink it away.  He felt the air around him grow cold, and goosebumps rose on his arms.  He was cold on the inside, too, dead frightened.  He didn’t want the white thing to grow any clearer.

But it did.

It became the curved, gauzy shape of a white veil.  A fringe of ribbon grew visible at one edge, and the suggestions of arms began to form, clasped at the figure’s chest as though in prayer.

“Make it stop,” Peyton whispered. “Please.”

“
I can’t,” Reese whispered back. “You’re just seeing what’s always been there, Peyton, the part of the world you normally don’t have the power to see.”

The ghost-woman’s fingers became visible, dripping with rotten lace, holding a bouquet of withered flowers.  Layers of white veil shrouded her, all of them misty and barely visible.  Peyton began to see a shadow inside the veil, suggesting the shape of a head.  He wanted to run away.  Only her warning that the ghosts could attack held him in place.

“Look,” Reese whispered.

“
I’m looking,” Peyton whispered back, almost too scared to speak.  He wanted to ask how to make the ghost bride go away, but he was afraid to ask it out loud.  The ghost might hear him and become angry. “Who is she?”

“
Her?  She’s nobody.  Look over here.” Reese took him by the chin and turned his head.

He was afraid to look away from the ghost and leave himself vulnerable to it, but what he saw next was worse.  It stood inside a nearby gated area, on a narrow flight of stone stairs that twisted out of sight around a granite mausoleum.  It resembled a man shrouded head to toe in black, leaving no skin exposed, visible only because it was so much darker than the shadows around it.  It did not move.  The little wrinkles and warps in its black cloth appeared frozen into place, unresponsive to the light breeze waving the leaves and branches around it.

Peyton first tried to tell himself it was a statue.  The bride ghost had been pale, transparent, and insubstantial, its edges fading and out of sight like curling mist, the grave inscriptions behind it still legible.  This figure gave the impression of being heavy and extremely dense.  Though it did not move and did not seem alive, he could definitely feel it watching him.  The gaze from the figure’s unseen eyes touched Peyton’s face like an icy breeze.

He was ready to take his chances running away.

“
We have to go,” Peyton whispered. He grabbed Reese’s hand.

“
Don’t you dare,” she hissed back. “Look, another one.”

Peyton didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help it.  A second figure draped in black, as dark and still as the first, stood by an ornate marble obelisk on the other side of them, right on the path that Peyton had intended to use for his escape.

“And there.” Reese pointed to a third shrouded figure, which stood on a crypt pediment on top of Corinthian columns, watching them from above. 

Reese’s hand trembled inside Peyton’s, and her palm grew clammy and sweaty.  She no longer had the strange supernatural look to her or the unnatural glow to her eye.  She was clearly afraid, no longer confidently in control, and that only fed his fear.

The bride ghost had vanished, as though she were afraid of the dark figures, too.  This did not comfort Peyton, either.

“
Three
of them,” Reese whispered, sounding as though she were in awe. “Maybe’s it’s true.”

“
What?”

Reese looked back at him. She whispered very softly: “Ever since I got involved with First Light, part of me has thought, you know, maybe it’s
me
.  Maybe I’m the one they’re looking for.  Maybe I’m their messiah.  My life would make so much more sense then, all that I’ve suffered...and now
three
of them are here watching me.  I must be important to them.”

“
What are they?”

“
The angels,” Reese said.  Her entire body was trembling.

Peyton didn’t think they looked like angels—if anything, they looked just the opposite.  He wouldn’t mind some actual angels dropping down about now to balance things out.

“We have to show respect.” Reese took his arm.  Bewildered, he stood with her.  She dropped slowly to her knees on the brick walkway and bowed her head at the unmoving dark figure on top of the mausoleum.  She nudged Peyton, clearly expecting him to do the same.

Peyton took her word for it and knelt alongside her as if praying.

“Great celestial beings,” Reese whispered. “We are your humble servants.  We are prepared to do as you wish.”

Peyton wasn’t sure he agreed with that, but he was ready to go along with whatever kept them safe until they got the hell out of this graveyard.  He forced himself to look down at the bricks in front of him.

No response came from the dark figures, as far as he could tell.  After a few seconds of waiting, Peyton looked up again.

All three of them were gone.  The cemetery suddenly felt warm again, as it should have on a July night in Georgia.  Peyton could still hear the whispering voices rising from here and there, but he wasn’t quite as scared of those anymore.

Beside him, Reese continued to kneel with her eye closed.  He touched her shoulder.

“
They left.”

“
Sh!  Wait, what?” Reese opened her eye, then stood up with him. “Why did they go?”

“
We should just be glad they did.”

“
I thought they were reaching out to me.” She chewed her lip in thought. “Maybe they just wanted to show themselves to me.  Maybe they’ll only tell me a little at a time, right?  They want to prepare me so it’s not such a shock that I’m the messiah.” Reese nodded her head, as though everything she’d said made perfect sense. “That must be it.  They’re getting me ready.”

“
How obsessed are you with this messiah thing?” he asked.

“
It could be any of us, Peyton.  It could even be you.” She looked up at him with new interest, touching his face. “Maybe you’re the messiah.  Maybe they were here for you.  If I’m not the messiah, I could be his consort.”

“
Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with that.  Maybe they’re just creepy ghosts.”

“
Don’t say that!” she snapped. “Don’t offend them.”

“
I thought they left,” Peyton said. “Can
we
leave now?  I want to be somewhere with lots of light and loud music.  I wouldn’t even mind going to some cheesy sports bar if it’s full of people.”

“
Let’s wait.  Maybe they’ll come back.” Reese sounded like she hoped for that, while Peyton felt just the opposite.

“
They’ve probably got better things to do.  Come on.”

“
Just another minute.  Just in case.”

They stood together by the fountain.  After a few very long minutes, Peyton decided he couldn’t take it anymore.  He had to get out of there.

“I don’t think—” Peyton began.

“
Maybe it’s a sign about us.” Reese turned to him again. “Maybe together we’re part of the big picture.  Maybe they’re showing their approval, they want us together.”

“
Maybe...” Peyton said, not convinced and also not really caring what the dark things wanted, as long as it didn’t involve maiming or killing him.

Reese kissed him, a move he didn’t expect.  He went along with it, though, and they kissed for a few minutes.  His hands slid up to her breasts, and then under her shirt, his fingers just teasing her stiff nipples.

She backed away from him, gasping for air.

“
We can’t have sex,” she said. “That’s sacred.  You’re not even an initiated disciple.”

“
I’m not any kind of disciple.  I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“
I showed you all of this so you would understand,” Reese told him. “Now you know there’s an unseen world all around us.  Don’t you?”

“
It looks like it.  Or we’re both insane.”

“
We’re not.” She took his hands and pulled close, as if for another kiss. “I want you to come to church with me tomorrow.  I want you to begin your discipleship.”

“
Whoa, wait,” Peyton said.

“
Don’t decide right now.” She leaned her cheek against his chest as though to listen to his heart. “Now I just want to go and spend the night in your bed.  There are lots of non-sacred things we could do together, aren’t there?”

“
I can think of some
very
non-sacred things.  Profane things, even.”  Peyton kissed her again.  The voices of the unquiet dead seemed to settle around them, replaced by hooting owls in the sprawling old trees and rabbits sneaking their way through the flowers.

Cassidy was in no mood for a Sunday morning workout.  She grudgingly put on shorts and a t-shirt, plus her least-grungy pair of sneakers.  She drew her hair into a ponytail and was still lingering in the bathroom, fine-tuning her makeup, when Ibis knocked at her front door.  It was ten in the morning.

She dashed out to the second-floor landing, then made herself slow down and look calm as she descended the stairs to the front door.  She glanced through the window to see him outside, dressed casually in khaki shorts and a faded shirt, which made her feel relieved.  She’d been half-scared he would turn up in some cheesy all-Spandex workout clothes.

“
Hey, you’re early,” Cassidy said.

“
I’m doing you a favor.  It’ll be ninety-five degrees by noon.  No clouds.” Ibis held up his phone. “You can ask the Weather Channel.  You should have gone with my early-morning offer instead, but that offer has expired.”

“
Okay, let’s do it.  You want to come in for a minute?  Have some coffee?”

“
I want to get you walking without those crutches.” He pointed to the grassy lawn of the small park across the street. “That looks like a good soft spot to fall on your ass a few times.”

“
I can’t wait.” Cassidy eased her way down the stairs and hopped out to the sidewalk.  Cars passed in both directions. “Crap.  I usually just wait for an opening and run across.”

“
I could carry you.”

“
You’re not carrying me.  Let’s go down to the stupid crosswalk.” Cassidy hopped towards the nearest red light, which was annoyingly far away.

“
You aren’t putting much weight on Old Righty,” Ibis observed from behind her.

“
Stop pretending you’re just looking at my leg back there.”

“
Believe me, I’m watching your whole body.  All your weight’s on the left leg and the crutches.  You have to stop using those crutches as a crutch.”

Cassidy laughed and shook her head.

“Will there be lots of dorky jokes today?” she said.

“
Only if you earn them.”

The park wasn’t crowded, just a few dog-walkers, joggers, and some kids on the distant playground.  Ibis led her to a stretch of lawn shaded by a row of old pines.

“Look at me,” he said, and she did.  The sunlight was golden on his muscular arms.  His dark eyes gazed back at her. “Drop the crutches,” he said.

“
Already?  I’ll fall over.”

“
Only if you don’t let your right leg help you out.  You don’t need them, Cassidy.  It’s all in your head.”

“
Right.  It had nothing to do with my actual broken leg.”

“
Your leg isn’t broken anymore,” Ibis said. “I told you, it’s made of steel.”

Cassidy sighed, then let go of her crutches.  She tried putting the weight on her right leg, felt waves of pain from the stiff muscles, and toppled sideways.

Ibis moved lightning-fast, catching her in his arms.  His scent reminded her of sandalwood.  He set her on her feet, keeping her steady with a hand on her waist.