The Visitor (11 page)

Seventeen

A
brass key lay at my feet, the kind that would fit an ordinary door lock. Surely this couldn't be the key the blind ghost had demanded I find. How could something so nondescript be my salvation?

I supposed it was human nature that I should reach for it even as Papa's warning sounded in my head:
Leave it be, child. Remember the rules.
Never acknowledge the dead. Never stray far from hallowed ground. Never associate with the haunted. And never,
ever
tempt fate.

Too late. My fingers had already closed around the metal.

As I straightened, a shaft of sunlight from the doorway caught the brass. For a moment, the thing seemed to dance in my hand. The radiance mesmerized and I stood transfixed, helpless to combat whatever dark force had entered my life.

Put it back, Amelia. The door that can be unlocked by that key could very well lead to your destruction.
Return it and leave the cellar without looking back.

The spell broken by Papa's imagined warning, I uncurled my fingers, but the tingle in my mouth grew stronger, as if my every distressed thought had been read and another calming message sent. A presence was trying to communicate with me, but I had no idea if the entity was ghost, human or in-between. I was too afraid at that moment to allow it into my head.

Papa's phantom caution flitted away as my fist closed once more around the key. I somehow knew it was important, another clue. What did it matter if I took it? The rules had long since been broken. A door to the dead world had already been opened.

Call it instinct, call it desperation or even defiance, but I knew I couldn't fight destiny with only half-truths. I felt strongly that my greatest weapon still lay hidden in the secrets that had been kept from me since the terrifying night of my birth.

There was only one person who could help me uncover the past. Despite my fears and reservations, I had to go see Papa, and soon.

And with that resolve, the taste in my mouth faded. Sunlight once again spangled down through the open doorway. Everything returned to normal, and if I hadn't seen what I'd seen in my life, if I didn't know what I knew, I might have convinced myself the past few moments had been nothing more than a hallucination or a waking dream.

But I
did
know.

Eighteen

I
put the key and the stereoscope in a desk drawer and for the rest of the afternoon tried very hard to concentrate on work. Twilight slid in on a mild breeze, but as darkness descended, the wind picked up and the chime outside my office played an unnerving serenade. I sat with my back to the windows and didn't turn even when a tree limb scratched against the glass. I didn't want to know what waited in the deep shadows of my garden.

Around nine, I took a couple of pills for my headache and stretched out on the chaise, not yet ready for bed. I still had hopes that Devlin would call and kept the phone handy just in case.

I only meant to doze for a few minutes, but when I roused sometime later, the garden breeze had died away to an unnatural stillness. I tried to concentrate on the hum of the ceiling fan in my office and the pop of settling floorboards overhead as Macon moved about his apartment. The normal household sounds were reassuring and made me feel less alone. Pulling a soft throw over my legs, I closed my eyes and sank more deeply into slumber.

When the dreams came, they transported me back to a time in my childhood when I had not yet been aware of the ghosts. I was in Rosehill Cemetery with Papa. It was just getting on dusk and moths flitted through the air like dark-winged fairies. I sat in the grass and watched Mama's yellow tabby pounce once, twice and then disappear into the shelter of a rose thicket with something dangling from his sharp teeth.

The approach of twilight had always spooked me. Even with Papa nearby I felt the stir of an unknown fear. The day had been clear and warm, but now a chilly breeze swept through my hair, lifting the blond strands as though invisible hands were at play there. Papa didn't seem to notice the sudden nip. His head was bowed to his work and he didn't glance up even when the leaves overhead began to whisper.

Trying to ignore the tingles across my scalp, I removed a ribbon from around my neck so that I could admire the old key I'd found earlier on a headstone in the deepest recesses of Rosehill Cemetery. Shrouded in ivy and Spanish moss, that forgotten corner had become my hideaway. No visitors ever came along that way and even Papa rarely went back there. But I'd spent many an hour in the company of the forsaken, reading aloud from my Gothic romances and weaving daisy chains to adorn the crumbling headstones.

I was never to take anything from the graves. Papa had instilled that rule in me long ago, but I felt certain that key had been placed on the headstone for me to find. My aunt Lynrose was visiting from Charleston and she always brought little gifts—a book, a charm, a shiny silver dollar—which she slipped beneath my pillow or hid away in my favorite climbing tree.

Suspended from a pink satin ribbon, the key was ornate and beautiful, the kind that might open an ancient treasure box stuffed with toys and trinkets and deep, dark secrets. Draping a clover necklace over the headstone, I slipped the ribbon around my neck as a frisson of excitement coursed through me.

The key felt heavy and warm to the touch. Tucking it inside my sweater, I skipped off to find Papa.

Now as I waited for him to finish his work, I grew more and more fascinated as I spun the ribbon around one finger, watching the brass catch the fading light. Faster and faster I twirled the ribbon until the knot worked loose and the key went flying.

“Oh!” I fell to my knees to search through the thick grass.

“What's wrong?” Papa called out to me.

“I lost my necklace. The one Aunt Lynrose left for me. I've looked and looked, but I can't find it anywhere.”

Papa abandoned his work and came over to kneel beside me on the ground. “Whereabouts did you drop it?”

I showed him the spot and he began to methodically comb through the grass with his gnarled fingers. We kept at it for a long time until I finally grew weary of the search.

“I'm tired, Papa. Can we come back tomorrow and look for it?”

“No!”

His sharp tone startled me. I glanced up at him in confusion. “Why not?”

His tired gaze met mine in the falling twilight. “You mustn't leave here until you find what you lost.”

“But why, Papa?”

“Remember what I told you, child. Take nothing, leave nothing behind.”

“I know, but—”

“Keep looking, Amelia.
Hurry.
We're losing the light.”

There was something strange in his voice and demeanor. Something almost frenzied about the way he applied himself to the search. In that moment, he didn't seem at all like my papa but a driven, secretive stranger.

Finally, he straightened and held out his hand so that I could see the key in his palm. “Is this yours?”

“Yes! Oh, thank you, Papa!”

“It looks very old, child. Are you sure your aunt gave this to you?”

As he studied my face, a guilty conscience niggled. I'd been certain earlier that Aunt Lynrose had left the key on the headstone, but Papa's strange behavior filled me with doubt. What if I'd taken something that didn't belong to me, something sacred from a grave? Papa would be very unhappy with me and I couldn't abide his disapproval. He and Mama meant everything to me. What if they decided to send me away? Ever since I'd learned of my adoption, I'd nursed a secret worry that I might someday be returned to the family that didn't want me. What if that someday was now?

All of this flashed through my mind in the blink of an eye as I answered Papa with a vague nod.

He took my arm and drew me to my feet. “Listen to me, Amelia. Whatever you bring into a cemetery, you must never, ever leave behind. Do you understand?” His grasp tightened. “I don't mean to frighten you, but this is important. That key has special meaning to you, does it not? It was given to you as a gift. Leaving it behind might be misconstrued as an offering or barter. Or worse, an invitation.”

“An invitation to what, Papa?”

His face grew even more somber. “It doesn't bear thinking about, child.”

An image of the clover chain I'd left on the headstone in exchange for the key necklace flashed through my head. I wanted desperately to tell Papa what I'd done, have him reassure me that all was well, but I was too afraid. Not of him. Never of him. But of something I didn't yet understand.

He looked beyond me to the cemetery entrance. His gaze lingered for only a split second before he lifted his face to the sky. As he watched the bats swoop overhead, he said softly, “Look over toward the gate, Amelia, and tell me what you see.”

His request puzzled me, but I did as he asked. “I don't see anything, Papa. Why? What's wrong?”

“Nothing, child. I thought for a moment we had a visitor, but it's just these old eyes playing tricks, I reckon. Now put that trinket safely in your pocket and let's go home. Your mother worries if we're not back by dark.”

As he gathered up his tools, I couldn't resist glancing over my shoulder. For a moment, I thought...

No. It was just a shadow. Nothing was there.

There's no such thing as ghosts.

But as Papa and I set off for home, that brass key was an unwelcome weight in my pocket.

* * *

I awakened with an unsettling certainty that the dream had not been a dream at all but a memory nudged loose by the incident in the cellar. I hadn't thought about that key necklace in years. Like so many things in my life that had once seemed important, the memory faded when the ghosts came.

Now I recalled how agitated I'd been after Papa's warning. I'd spent an uneasy night with the key underneath my pillow and the next morning I'd risen early to return that found treasure to the headstone. I'd gone back a few times to see if the key was still there, and it always was, waiting for me to slip the pink ribbon around my neck.

I never asked Aunt Lynrose if she was the one who had left it because I didn't want to know. After a while, I started avoiding that hidden corner of the graveyard. I found a new hideaway in the hallowed section of Rosehill Cemetery where I could read my books and play among the statuary. And other than a few pilfered stones, I had taken Papa's cardinal rule to heart:
Take nothing, leave nothing behind.

As I thought back to his strange behavior that day, I became certain that he'd seen a ghost at the gate. Maybe I had, too. The shadow I'd glimpsed may well have been my first sighting.

I'd always wondered why the ghosts had come into my life. For the first nine years of my existence, I'd remained oblivious to their presence. I'd been born with the gift but blinded to the dead until a veil had been lifted from my eyes, allowing me to see that which had been unseen.

Had the key been the catalyst?

And if taking that key from the headstone had somehow opened a door allowing the ghosts into my world, what might I have unleashed by removing the key from the cellar?

Get rid of it, child. Return it to where you found it!

Panic chased up my spine at Papa's imagined warning. Grabbing the key from my desk, I went out into the garden, where the air smelled of dead leaves and spent roses. Moon bursts of datura hung heavy with dew and from shadowy beds, white agapanthus rose on spindly stems. The night was very still, so eerily static I could hear the pounding of blood through my veins.

I didn't need a flashlight. Clouds of artemisia floated on either side of the walkway, guiding me unerringly to the cellar stairs where I knelt. The rose that I'd dropped there earlier was gone.

For a moment, I tried to convince myself that Macon had removed it or the wind had blown it away, but deep down I knew better. Someone—something had taken the flower and tossed the key in the cellar in exchange.

“It wasn't a trade,” I whispered into the night, but I had no idea to what or to whom I spoke. “It wasn't an offering or an invitation or anything else. See? I'm returning the key.” As I placed it on the top step, the brass gleamed obscenely in the moribund moonlight.

From deep within the garden came a long, strident rattle followed by several short bursts. A warning? A rebuke?

Anger fought its way up through the fear. I felt like a mouse caught in a trap, once more a helpless pawn in some dark, mystical game. I picked up the key and curled my fingers tightly around the brass as I stood. For a moment, there was no sound at all beyond the soft swish of my breath. Then an ear-piercing whistle jolted the silence and I whirled toward the garden.

Before I had time to think, I flung the key into the night.

Cold and quaking, I waited for another whistle or an insect-like rattle, but the sound I heard was eerily metallic, like the squeak of a phantom wagon wheel.

For some reason, I flashed to the stereogram, to the strange, cart-like apparatus I'd noticed in the background. Maybe it was my imagination fired by the realness of that 3-D image, but I could have sworn I glimpsed a tiny humpback creature gliding backward through the shadows of my garden.

Nineteen

“P
erhaps we're reading too much into the timing,” Dr. Shaw said the next day when I met him at the Institute. “Louvenia Durant knew of my work with the committee. It's not so unusual that she would ask me to recommend a restorer.”

“Yes, I suppose that's true. Assuming she really is interested in my professional services.”

“I believe she's sincere about the restoration,” Dr. Shaw said as he sat back in his chair. “But for the sake of argument, let's assume our qualms are warranted and there really is something fishy about her and her sister's visit. What that something might be, I've no idea, but would it make a trip to Kroll Cemetery any less appealing? The other day you seemed quite intrigued by the notion of all those engraved keys.”

“I still am.” More so now than ever considering the events that had transpired in my cellar and garden. Intrigued...and increasingly frightened at the prospect of following all the ethereal clues being strewn before me. But follow them I must because I was being led to that cemetery for a reason. Ignoring the signs wasn't an option.

Dr. Shaw got up and began to rummage through a file drawer. “I'm certain I have some photos of Kroll Cemetery around here somewhere. Mrs. Durant had strict rules about filming and photographing the graves, but she allowed us to snap a few shots so long as we agreed that nothing would be published.”

“I'd love to see them.”

After a few minutes of searching, he gave up with a sigh. “The file must have been moved to storage. We've switched to digital photography almost exclusively in our fieldwork, but I distinctly remember taking those shots with my old camera. I'll ask Vivienne to have a look later for either the prints or the scans. When we find them, I'll have her drop them by your house.” He closed the file drawer and returned to his desk.

“Dr. Shaw, you said the other day that some people think the cemetery is a giant puzzle that has never been solved, but it seems to me that a far bigger mystery is how that stereogram ended up in my basement. Do you believe some things are preordained?”

“I don't believe the universe is random,” he said obliquely.

“Neither do I. There are no true coincidences. Everything happens for a reason. My finding that stereogram. Louvenia Durant and Nelda Toombs coming to see you.”

“Your resemblance to the mysterious Rose,” he added with a gentle smile.

“Exactly. That may be the greatest puzzle of all.”

“And you're certain no one in your family has ever mentioned the likeness?”

“No, never. But I'm driving up to Trinity tomorrow and I'm hoping my father will have some answers for me.”

Dr. Shaw rubbed a finger across his chin in deep thought. “You said the other day that the circumstances regarding your adoption were unusual. What did you mean by that? If you don't mind talking about it, that is.”

“I don't mind, but it's a long story.” I glanced out the French doors. The scent of roses wafting in from the garden brought a pang of nostalgia. The heady fragrance always took me back to those lonely summer evenings in Trinity. “I found out last fall that the man I'd always thought of as my adoptive father is in actuality my biological grandfather. He had an affair with a midwife named Tilly Pattershaw, my maternal grandmother. They had a daughter named Freya, but Tilly never told Papa about Freya until years later when I came along.”

“Freya is your birth mother?”

“Was. Someone murdered her on the night I was born.”

“My dear, how tragic,” he said in a hushed voice.

I was a little uncomfortable accepting condolences for the loss of someone I'd never even known. The woman who raised me—Etta Gray—was my mother. Freya Pattershaw was just a name and a face in a photograph. And yet as I conjured her image, I felt the sting of tears behind my lids. “Actually, she died before I was born.”

“
Before
you were born?”

“As I said, it's a very long and unusual story.”

“Please go on.”

“Tilly found Freya just moments after she'd been murdered. The body was still warm, Tilly said. So she cut me from Freya's womb and resuscitated me.”

Dr. Shaw looked truly flabbergasted, which said a lot considering the tales he must have heard during his years at the Institute. “I don't know what to say, Amelia. What an extraordinary story.”

“Oh, there's more. I've barely scratched the surface.” Which was true, but I didn't know how to proceed. I'd sought Dr. Shaw's advice often in the past about various abnormal matters, but I'd never told him outright about the ghosts. Discretion had been ingrained in me for far too many years and walking on eggshells had become a habit.

But now I once again experienced that inexplicable urgency to lay bare my secrets. I had so many doubts and worries about my future, so many dark thoughts tumbling around in my head and no one to help me make sense of them. If I could unburden myself to anyone in the world without fear of ridicule, it would be Dr. Shaw, a man who had devoted his life to the study of strange goings-on.

Still, I hesitated. “I'm not sure what any of this has to do with the stereogram, let alone Louvenia Durant and Nelda Toombs.”

“Perhaps nothing,” he said. “But your resemblance to the woman in the window is remarkable, and as you said, there are no true coincidences. There must be a connection. We have to keep searching until we find one.”

I glanced at him doubtfully. “The thought of that frightens me.”

“Why?”

“Unless you know my whole life's history, you probably wouldn't understand.”

“You can tell me as much or as little as you like,” he said. “But I've always thought it far better to embrace the unknown than to fear it.”

Spoken like a man who'd never had a netherworld creature nesting in his cellar.

“Maybe you're right.” My voice dropped to a near whisper as my gaze flitted once more to the open door where a small shadow crept across the patio. I felt the tingle of cloves on my tongue, so weak and ephemeral I couldn't be certain the sensation was even real.

Dr. Shaw followed my gaze. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing. For a moment, I thought... Nothing. It was just a shadow,” I said with a shrug. Or a materialization of my fear. Maybe Dr. Shaw was right. Embracing the unknown could take away some of its power.

“You look as though you could use a little fortification,” he said. “Shall I ask Vivienne to bring us some tea? Or something a little stronger perhaps?”

“No, thank you.” Although a cup of chamomile would not have been unwelcome at that moment. “If I seem a little flustered, it's because I've never told this story to anyone. Some of it will sound far-fetched, but I hope you'll keep an open mind.”

“My dear, do you forget to whom you are speaking? My whole life's work is based upon the fantastic. Please continue. You have me enraptured already.”

“I hope you still feel that way when I'm finished.”

“So you were cut from Freya's womb,” he prompted.

I nodded, taking a moment to sort through my thoughts. “When Tilly resuscitated me—pulled me back from the other side, so to speak—she felt a presence...a force. She said it was as if something evil had hold of me on the other side and didn't want to let go. When she finally brought me back, she felt this terrible
rage
.”

A snowy brow peaked, but he said nothing.

“Tilly was so terrified she got in touch with Papa, a man she hadn't spoken to since he'd gone back to his other life seventeen years earlier. He drove up to Asher Falls, buried poor Freya's body and then he took me away from that place because he and Tilly were worried for my safety.”

“He believed her about this presence?”

“Oh, yes.”

Dr. Shaw leaned back in his chair, observing me intently. “Was Freya's killer ever caught?”

“Eventually.” I couldn't help but wonder what my life might have been like if my birth mother hadn't been murdered. Would I have grown up in the woods with Tilly and Freya, or would my birth father's family and their terrible legacy have claimed me at an early age? I hated to think of the person I might have become without Mama and Papa's gentle guidance.

Dr. Shaw still watched me thoughtfully.

“Do you know what a caul birth is?” I asked him.

“Yes, of course. A baby born
en caul
has the amniotic sac still wholly or partially intact. It's not very common, but an infant born
with
a caul is even more rare. In those instances, a thin membrane actually loops around the ears and attaches to the face. But—” he paused “—something tells me you already know the distinction.”

I nodded. “Caul births run in my family.”

Curiosity flickered in his blue eyes. I could almost see the questions churning inside his head. “Do you know if the membrane was preserved?”

I hadn't expected
that
question. “I have no idea.” Such a thought had never occurred to me and, truthfully, I was a little repulsed by the notion.

Dr. Shaw chuckled. “I can appreciate your distaste, but it was once customary to save them as protection against witches and demons. Cauls were also highly valued by seamen because they were thought to prevent drowning.” He glanced at one of the bookshelves behind me. “I'm sure I have a copy of
David Copperfield
around here somewhere. You may remember that passage about his caul being advertised in the newspaper for the low price of fifteen guineas. He was offended that the only taker was an attorney rather than a sailor.” His eyes danced with merriment.

I wasn't quite as amused at the prospect of selling skin casings as he apparently was. “How does one go about preserving a caul anyway?”

“In the old days, the midwife rubbed a sheet of paper across the baby's head and face, pressing the membrane onto the parchment. Of course, given what you've told me of your birth, I doubt your grandmother had sufficient time even if she'd been so inclined. The veil would have been removed quickly in order to start resuscitation. I'm surprised you don't have scars from the attachment points.”

I touched a finger to my hairline. “Maybe they're just hidden.” Like so many things in my life.

“That's certainly possible. However, you've always been a keen observer so I can't imagine they would have escaped your notice. Nor do I think I'm telling you anything you don't already know.”

“Actually, I don't know that much about cauls. I only found out last fall about my birth and I've been busy with Oak Grove ever since.”

“I see. Well, apart from the membrane itself having magical properties, caulbearers are believed by some to be spiritual guides and healers, as well as seers.” His gaze on me deepened. “Are any of these attributes at all familiar to you?”

“Are you asking if I have ESP or the ability to heal? No. But ever since I found out about my birth I've had this odd sense of...” Again my gaze strayed to the garden doorway. I saw nothing this time but the brilliant flicker of sunlight through the live oaks.

“Go on.”

“Destiny,” I finished reluctantly. “As if my course has already been charted.”

“What do you think your destiny is?”

“I don't know.” I thought of all those ghost voices in my head at the hospital, all those grasping hands in my dreams. “I'm afraid to know. It's as if I've been waiting for something my whole life. Or something has been waiting for me. But I never realized it until now. Maybe because I was so sheltered and protected. Looking back, I'm convinced that every decision, every milestone, even my every thought and dream has led me down a predetermined pathway.” I paused, grappling with a concept I didn't fully understand. “It started with my birth, I think. I was brought back from the other side for a reason. I believe I was
chosen
.”

The word hung in the air, suspended on a stray gust that blew into the office, ruffling the papers on Dr. Shaw's desk.

“A loaded word,” he said softly. “Chosen for what?”

“I've no idea.” I rubbed my arms, trying to restore circulation to the frigid veins. “I was born dead to a dead mother. That has to mean something. I've been told I have power because I was born on the other side of the veil.”

“What kind of power?”

“I don't know.”

He looked at me in such a way that I felt almost breathless with anticipation. Or was it dread?

“What is it, Dr. Shaw?”

He hesitated, his thumb tapping an idle rhythm against the surface of his desk. “Tell me, Amelia, did you have imaginary playmates when you were a child? Did you see things others couldn't? Visions...apparitions...”

“You mean ghosts?” I asked.

“Yes, ghosts. As I said earlier, you can tell me as much or as little as you want, but I've always known there was something special about you. You have the inner radiance of someone attuned to the invisible world around us, and you seem to attract more than your share of unusual phenomena.”

“Which you've always been able to explain away,” I reminded him. “You're the one person who can help make sense of everything that's happened to me.”

“And there may well be an explanation for what you're experiencing now. I don't discount any possibility. You said you feel as if you've been waiting for something all your life. That you've been chosen.”

I drew a breath and nodded.

“In some cultures, people believe children who see visions and apparitions grow up to become death walkers.”

“But I never said—” I stopped short as another chill shot through me. “
Death
walkers?”

“You're not familiar with the term? It isn't as dire as it sounds, although I suppose it depends on one's perspective. Death walkers are those rare individuals who have the ability to help souls pass from this world to the next. They serve a unique and powerful purpose in the circle of life. Perhaps your unusual birth has bestowed upon you this gift.”