She inhaled and stumbled backward. Her shoulders hit a tree, and she pressed herself against it, her heart thundering, her head burning from the strain. For only a second, she’d seen them: Blighty Cemetery’s ghosts, deformed, discontent, and scattered among the graves, watching her. There had been dozens of them.
“Oh,” Keira whispered. Her lungs were burning, and she had to force herself to draw breath. The specters had faded as soon as she’d relaxed the second sight, but she knew they were still there, surrounding her, waiting to reach their long fingers through the mist and snag her limbs as she passed them.
Keira put her head down and ran. Despite the numbing cold and fear, her legs carried her in long lopes across the graveyard. She darted around the headstones and over long-dead flower beds, eyes squinted against the drizzling rain. She didn’t allow herself to think about what she was passing through, didn’t even try to look for it, as she raced for her home.
She hit the cottage’s door with a bang and fumbled to turn the handle. A draft of warm air welcomed her as she slipped inside. She closed and locked the door, then almost laughed at herself. Yes, because a latch will definitely keep the ghosts out.
Keira put a hand to her forehead and sucked in long, shaky breaths. Exhaustion and stress drained her. The headache, caused by opening her eyes to the spirits, continued to throb at the back of her skull.
Am I alone in here? Do I want to know if I’m not?
She ran a hand through her wet hair and groaned. She wouldn’t be able to sleep in the cottage if it contained ghosts. The headache flared when she flexed the muscle behind her eyes, but she forced it to work, pushing it as hard as she could.
Her room was empty.
It was agonizing to hold the sight, but she didn’t relax it immediately. Instead, she turned to the window and looked through. The cemetery’s spirits were barely visible. A few had almost-defined forms, but most were shimmers of light among the mist. They filled the graveyard, but none came past the cottage garden’s wall.
Perhaps the dead have a sense of respect for the living too. Keira exhaled as she relaxed her vision, and the shapes disappeared. She slumped against the wall, letting her eyes close. She felt wrung out and sore, as if she could sleep for a lifetime.
The rain wasn’t as intense as it had been the night before but fell in a slow, steady drizzle. She hoped it would be clear the next day. She wasn’t sure she wanted to spend much more time trapped in the cottage and surrounded by the graveyard.
As the headache subsided, Keira stumbled toward the fire. The coals were close to dead but still retained some of their heat. She managed to revive the blaze, in spite of her questionable method of just shoving in whatever wood was close to hand.
Keira put the kettle on as she passed it, then began pulling off her soaked outfit. She was grateful she’d accepted Adage’s donation of clothes. A thick sweater was included, and she pulled it on, along with a pair of black jeans that were a few sizes too large.
As she draped the wet clothes over the chair to dry, a faint noise reached her through the rain’s patter. Keira fell still and held her breath as she listened. The sound repeated, almost inaudible but horribly persistent. It sounded like fingernails being dragged across wood.
Keira turned toward the door. Her pulse kicked up again as the sound came once more. Slowly, rolling her feet to muffle her footsteps, she crept toward the window and craned her neck to look through.
Night had fallen, and the black clouds blotted out every hint of moonlight. She didn’t think anyone was outside the door, but it was hard to be sure when the window’s light only touched part of her stoop.
Is it a ghost? Keira moved away from the window, sickened by the idea that whoever or whatever was outside could watch her without being observed in turn. I didn’t think they could touch physical objects.
The scratching noise came louder. Whatever it was, it wanted to come in.
Chapter Nine
Keira stared at the door handle. Her instincts told her not to open it. Whatever was outside might not be human, and even if it was, that didn’t mean it was friendly.
But the only alternative was to ignore it, and she didn’t think that would fly. It knew the building was occupied; the lights in the windows and smoke from the chimney were more than enough evidence. And if it truly wanted to come inside, invited or not…
The scratching came again, more insistent. Then it was followed by a new sound: a tiny, peeping cry. It was at odds with the scratching noise, but all at once familiar. The tension drained out of Keira. She exhaled a shaky laugh as she unlocked and opened the door.
For a second, she saw nothing outside except inky black. Then two large yellow eyes blinked into view, followed by twitching ears and the long, lithe body of a scrawny black cat. It gave Keira the briefest glance possible, then trotted past her, aimed toward the fire like a heat-seeking missile.
Keira grinned and shook her head as she closed the door against the rain and cold. “You frightened me, little guy. What are you doing outside in weather like this?”
The ears twitched at her voice, but the cat didn’t turn around. It stopped in front of the fire, watching the flickering flames, then lay down in the most absurd way Keira had ever seen. The head went down first, thumping into the carpet, and the shoulders and torso followed, then finally the hind legs. The cat flopped out to its full length, exposing its belly to the heat, and released an audible exhale.
Keira couldn’t stop smiling at the sight. She went to the bathroom and found a towel, then gently approached the cat.
“Hey, little guy,” she said, keeping her voice light as she moved nearer. “You’re kinda wet. Will you let me dry you?”
He paid her no attention but stretched into the touch when Keira brushed the towel along his back. She knelt next to him and tried to dry the drenched black fur as well as she could. He must be someone’s pet to be this tame. But we’re pretty far from town. How’d he get out here?
The cat rolled onto his back and stretched his paws into the air. Keira felt a low, rapid rumble under her hands as he started to purr.
“You’re very cute,” she murmured, scratching under his chin. He responded by leaning his head back and sticking the tip of his tongue out between his teeth. “In a weird sort of way.”
She didn’t think he was fully grown. The cat’s body was long and bony, and he seemed to be in that intermediate stage where he wasn’t quite an adult cat but was past being a kitten. She hoped he would stay for the rest of the night. It would be nice to have some company, especially considering what was waiting outside.
The memory of the spirits hovering among the graves flashed through her mind, and Keira squeezed her lips together. She couldn’t do a thing about it, so she tried not to dwell on them and instead turned her mind toward the most persistent presence.
I have a name now: Emma Carthage. This is a small town; even though Emma died decades ago, someone should still remember her.
Her hand had fallen still, and the cat used its head to butt at the towel in a demand for more attention. She obliged.
I wonder why I could see her but not the other ghosts. Is she stronger? Or did she just really, really want to be seen? She snorted. Old Keira probably knew the hows and whys. Old Keira probably knew lots of things, like the most efficient way to shank someone.
“What am I going to do, cat?”
The black creature still had its tongue poking out. The pink contrasted fantastically with his black fur, and his pupils were gradually drifting in different directions as he relaxed. He looked truly demented. Keira bopped his nose, then rose to take the towel back to the laundry. It had developed a distinctive wet-cat smell, so she put it in the washer.
“What am I going to do?” she repeated to her reflection. Big, doleful eyes blinked back, and she narrowed them in an attempt to look fierce. The effect bordered on comedic, so she huffed a sigh and returned to the living room.
She’d told the ghost she
would try to help, but that was easier said than done. The spirit hadn’t been able to communicate what kept it trapped on earth, but Keira could make an educated guess. Emma had been murdered. She wanted her killer brought to justice.
Hunger gnawed at her, so Keira set up a pot with rice to boil, then checked on her guest. The cat had contorted into an awkward, yoga-esque pose but looked happy enough. Keira sat next to him and watched his whiskers twitch as he dreamed.
She died more than forty years ago. If the police didn’t catch the killer back then, what chance do I have of piecing together clues now? Everything will either be eroded by time or held at a police station. And there’s the very real chance that the killer might already be dead. Forty years is a long time.
“Stop complaining, Keira,” she told herself, and she stretched her bare feet toward the flames. “You’ve got something the police never had: the key witness.”
Although Emma couldn’t speak, she could move, point, nod, and shake her head. That would be plenty to help Keira narrow down the suspects. Once she identified them, at least.
First order of business: find out how much of Emma’s story was public knowledge. Adage would probably know, plus Mason had said he would visit the following morning, and, in a pinch, Zoe could probably throw around some wild theories.
The hardest part would be coming up with a convincing excuse for asking. “Hey, so a ghost wants me to figure out who killed her” probably wouldn’t get her investigation far.
A hissing noise sent her scrambling for the stove. The pot had boiled over while she was lost in thought, and Keira quickly dumped the steaming rice into a bowl. She didn’t notice until she sat back in front of the fire that it hadn’t fully cooked, and by then she was feeling too sleepy and lazy to put it back on to boil. The rice was crunchy but edible, so she finished the bowl while massaging the cat with her feet. He’d dried quickly in the fire’s heat and was pleasantly warm. She hoped his owner wasn’t missing him. He seemed comfortable in the cottage and had claimed the spot in front of the fire as though he slept there every night.
It must be nice to feel like you belong somewhere. That you’re not inconveniencing other people or taking things you don’t deserve.
She snorted a laugh. You’re getting awfully maudlin there, Keira. Time for some rest.
Chapter Ten
Sleep didn’t want to release Keira from its grip. Something was poking at her back, but she just batted it away and grumbled as she tried to fall back under. A cold, scratchy object touched her cheek. Groaning, Keira recoiled, then cracked her eyes open to see what was assaulting her.
Pale morning sunlight came through the cottage’s windows and painted the room in washed-out tones. She’d fallen asleep in the bed—something her back thanked her for—and the scrawny, big-eared cat perched on the mattress’s edge as it blinked its huge, liquid-amber eyes at her.
“Please, not yet,” she mumbled as the cold nose came in to nuzzle at her cheek again. “I’m tired.”
He responded by climbing onto her back and kneading at the space between her shoulder blades. Keira squeaked as the claws made it through her sweater and poked at her skin and carefully rolled him off. “Okay, okay, you win. Let’s go out.”
She rubbed sleep out of her eyes as she shuffled to the door. The cat followed her at a quick trot, tail held up like a flag, head swiveling as he watched her. Keira braced herself against the cold and opened the door. “There you go, buddy. Safe journey.”
He ignored the door and continued to stare at her. Keira shivered as cold air rushed through the opening. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
His mouth opened, and he exhaled the tiniest, squeakiest mewl imaginable. Keira grimaced and closed the door. Her brain was starting to wake up, and its deductions weren’t good news. The cat didn’t want to leave; he was hungry.
All I have is rice and potatoes, and neither of those is remotely appropriate for cats.
She ran a hand over her face. The simplest solution would be to return the cat to its owner, but she had no idea who that was. She couldn’t go door-to-door searching, especially not at such an early hour, and double especially not while carrying the feline. It would be cruel to boot him out of the cottage and even crueler not to give him anything to eat. But she had no money left to buy him food.
There was only one option left, and it wasn’t remotely appealing. She would have to beg.
“Crap.” Keira collected her boots from the fireplace and pulled them on. They were still damp. It was another big tick in the “how to have a bad morning” checklist, and Keira scrunched up her face as she pulled a spare hoodie over her sweater and stepped into the freezing morning.
The rain had receded but left heavy, low clouds and thick, white mist in its place. Keira fixed her attention on the ground as she jogged through the cemetery. She found it easier to keep moving if her eyes weren’t trying to pick out shapes amid the swirling fog.
She kept her pace brisk, and her core had warmed by the time she reached the main stretch of road leading into town, even if her nose was dripping and her fingers were numb. She slowed to a walk and looked into the first store she passed, the florist. Bouquets covered every visible surface in the tiny shop, but the lights were off and the possibly-a-bank-robber pince-nez-wearing owner was nowhere to be seen.
I didn’t realize it was so early. What time do the Blighty stores open?
She turned toward the central fountain. The streets were empty, and she hoped she wouldn’t look too out of place if she sat on the fountain’s edge while she waited for the general store to open its doors.
To her surprise, a voice called her name just as she was crossing the street. Zoe, bundled in gloves, a beanie, and a long coat, waved to her from near the general store.
“Good morning!” Zoe’s round face was pink from the cold, but her grin was huge. “You’re up early.”
“I was about to say the same to you.”
“Eh, I like to get here before the crowds. I make a coffee and read the newspapers.” She winked as she unlocked the store’s door. “I’m working on a collage demonstrating how the U.S. government has been systematically infecting tofu in order to experiment on the vegan population, and you never know when you might find a piece of evidence in a seemingly innocent news article.”
Keira was tempted to laugh but didn’t want to offend her companion. “Wow. That sounds…intense.”
“Oh, it is. There’re hints that they were planning to use mass-spread hallucinogenics to fake the moon landing, but it ended up being cheaper to send someone to the moon for real. C’mon in. Were you after more rice or something?”
Keira flexed her shoulders as she entered the store. The lights came on in sporadic bursts, flickering as though reluctant to be woken. The cluttered space looked strange when it was void of other shoppers, as though it belonged in a dystopian world. “I found a little black cat last night. Well, technically, he found me. Could you keep an ear out for anyone who might have lost him?”
“Can do.” Zoe shed her jacket and dropped it behind the counter. She leaned against the counter as she flexed her shoulders. “Is it super fat? That might be the Torries’. Or if it had a white nose and paws, that’d be the Childs’.”
“Sorry, it’s completely black and small. Kind of scrawny.”
Zoe shrugged. “Doesn’t ring any bells, but I’ll ask around. Did you want some coffee or anything?”
Keira cleared her throat. She’d had the entire walk to decide how she should phrase herself, but the words were still difficult to say. “He needs something to eat. But I can’t afford to buy anything right now. Is it possible… I mean, would you consider giving me some food for him? Even meat scraps would be okay.”
Zoe’s expression was impossible to read. She tilted her head to one side and pursed her lips. After a second, she said, “How about a trade?”
Keira found it hard to meet the other woman’s eyes. “I…don’t have much to give. I could clean the
store. Or get you the money later—”
“Nah, I was thinking more along the lines of coffee.”
“Huh?”
Zoe shrugged artlessly. “Let me buy you a coffee again. I spent half of last night thinking up theories about how you ended up in Blighty, and I’m literally dying to run some of them past you.”
The offer seemed too good. Keira raised a skeptical eyebrow. “That’s all?”
“Look, you don’t even need to do it if you really don’t want to. I’ll still give you the cat food. I’m not a monster. Jeez.”
Before Keira could object, Zoe grabbed her sleeve and dragged her farther into the store. She snagged a basket on the way past and shoved it into Keira’s other hand. “We’ll get him some dry and some wet, so he can choose his favorite. And treats. Cats love treats.”
The anxiety bled out of Keira as she watched her basket being filled. “Hey, we don’t need all this. Just enough food to last a day or two until I can find his owner.”
Zoe plucked a pack of cat toys off the shelf and threw them on top of the food. “Better to be prepared.”
Keira shook her head incredulously. “Prepared for what? The zombie apocalypse?”
“Yeah, either that or the AI-sentience Armageddon. It’s really a toss-up for which will happen first.”
At that, Keira had no hope of holding in her laughter, but Zoe didn’t seem to care. She maintained her grip on Keira’s sleeve and pulled her back to the register. “I’ll get these bagged up for you. So is that a yes for coffee? The café doesn’t open for like half an hour, but I bet I can bust down the back door and disable the alarm—”
The Whispering Dead: Gravekeeper Book 1 Page 7