The wind shifted and the wind chimes tinkled. The smell of woodbine drifted over the graves, sweet and distinct.
But a darker note lurked. I didn’t let it frighten me away. Instead, I lifted my head and searched the shadows. The ghost child was nearby. I could sense her presence in the shiver that ran up my spine.
“Where are you?” I whispered. “Who are you?”
Silence, deep and abiding.
“I know what happened to you. I know about the music and the woodbine and the footsteps. You’ve been leaving clues from your very first manifestation, but I haven’t wanted to follow them. I’ve been too frightened by what I might find. But I’m ready now.”
The wind picked up, tangling the loose strands of hair around my face, and for a moment I could have sworn I felt the chill of her fingers sifting through the tendrils at my nape, the gentle brush of her hand against my cheek. Home, she seemed to whisper.
The poignancy of her missive tore at me, but the moment was fleeting. In the next instant, I sensed her anger and her impatience at my lack of understanding.
Mercy, she demanded.
“Mercy,” I whispered.
Loosened by the wind, a shower of colorful leaves rained down upon the clearing, settling like a patchwork quilt over the stone crib. Shivering, I tucked my hands in my pockets and waited, but the ghost child was gone.
Twenty-Five
After leaving the cemetery, I went straight home and took Angus for a quick walk before hopping in the shower and then dressing to go back out. I didn’t relish the idea of a visit with Jonathan Devlin, particularly in his domain, but I needed answers and he claimed to have them.
I’d had a suspicion since our first conversation in White Point Garden that the Woodbine ghost haunted him, as well. He was somehow connected to the murder of that child. He may not have been directly responsible for her death, but the entity obviously held him accountable. She may even have tried to kill him. And if she had tried it once, who, besides me, could stop her from trying it again?
I parked near the waterfront and made my way down East Bay Street as dusk slipped in from the sea. The air had cooled and I hugged my jacket around me as I approached the Devlin mansion. Like most of the houses along Battery Row, a wrought-iron fence enclosed the property and I expected to have to ring the bell to be admitted, but the gate hung open and waiting.
I placed my hand on the brass lever and pushed the gate wider, then paused halfway through as a strange sensation overwhelmed me. I felt as if I were stepping into a different world, into a glitzy, dangerous world that I’d ever only glimpsed from afar.
I glanced over my shoulder to the exact spot on the Battery where I’d stood watching Devlin on that rainy day. I could see myself there now, a once lost and lonely young woman, toughened from experiences and the weight of an unwanted legacy but still clinging to an impossible dream. Still hoping for a future that was never going to be.
I hadn’t asked for this life. I’d never wanted the ghosts. Never desired to entangle myself in their mysteries, much less to relinquish my warmth and energy to their hunger. With each new encounter, I told myself that if I could find a way to close the door to the dead world forever, I would finally be free. If I could find my great-grandmother’s long-lost key, a normal life would be mine.
But as I hovered in the gateway of the Devlin estate, I felt a shift. An almost peaceful acceptance of who I was and what I was. There was no magical key, no way to run or hide from my legacy. This was the life that had been given to me. What I made of it was up to me.
I stepped through the gate and latched it behind me.
As I moved up the walkway, I could hear waves crashing against the seawall and the tumultuous swirl of waters where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers joined in the harbor. But I felt calm inside.
Perhaps I should have taken my unnatural serenity as another sign. At that precise moment, however, my mind was on the night bird that trilled from a treetop and the scent of gardenias that drifted over the garden gate.
History was there with me, too. History and the weight of all those Devlin secrets.
I paused on the brick walkway to stare up at the looming facade, trailing my gaze along all those magnificent columns and balustrades, along the rooftop promenade and then back to the third-story balcony where I had seen Devlin. No one was up there tonight, but I had the same feeling standing on the walkway that I’d experienced on the road in front of Prosper Lamb’s house. The house watched me back.
And just like that, fear and dread returned. Tranquility fled and I had a momentary desire to turn back before it was too late. I had a very strong feeling that whatever I learned tonight might help free the ghost child, but it could cost me everything.
I took several deep breaths, striving for that elusive calm, but a single moment of weakness had eroded my composure. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see a dark figure in a long coat perched like a gargoyle on the edge of the promenade or a nebulous form hanging upside down from one of the balconies.
The house was beautiful, an architectural layer cake, but as twilight settled, it became oppressive, and I had the terrifying thought that the Devlin home might be a gateway. A portal through which dark and inhuman things had once crept.
Shaking off those murky fantasies, I stepped up on the checkerboard entryway and rang the bell. When no one came, I waited a moment and then pressed the button again. Still no one came.
Jonathan Devlin had assured me that we would be alone, so perhaps that explained why no one answered. The staff had been sent away and he hadn’t heard the bell. Placing my finger over the button, I pressed one last time and then knocked for good measure. The heavy wooden door swung inward without so much as a creak.
Entering any home without an invitation was never a good idea, let alone one of the mansions along Battery Row. I had no idea if an alarm had already been triggered. For all I knew, I was being monitored at the very moment. What would I do or say if the police came? Hopefully, Jonathan Devlin would back me up, but what if his invitation was nothing more than a ploy to somehow entrap me? A reach, perhaps, but what was I to make of his strange innuendoes about Mariama Goodwine’s death?
I glanced over my shoulder to scan the street as I furtively pushed open the door with my foot. I didn’t consider myself impulsive or one to take unnecessary risks. I usually had good reason for my behavior even when I knowingly put myself in danger. But apart from a niggling suspicion that something was very wrong inside the house, I found myself curious about Devlin’s ancestral home. How could I pass up the opportunity for at least a quick peek?
I pressed my foot against the door and let it swing wide enough so that I could slip through, then I braced myself for an ear-shattering alarm. The silence held and I let out a relieved breath as I glanced around. Sconces were lit on either side of the doorway, but the long hallway beyond lay in deep shadows.
The checkerboard pattern from the outer entry continued into the foyer, and tinkling glass drew my gaze to the vaulted ceiling, where a chandelier of Venetian crystals stirred in a draft. A wide staircase curved up to the second-story landing and I had a sudden vision of Jonathan Devlin up there in the shadows, chilled from the ghost’s manifestation, paralyzed by fear and yet somehow clinging to the banister as he endured her assault.
I stood motionless for the longest moment, peering up those stairs and searching the shadows as the feeling of being watched came over me once more. I wasn’t alone in the house, but whether the voyeur was real or imagined, I didn’t know.
The front door was still open and the normal sounds from the street drifted in. I closed my eyes for a moment and let them wash over me. The gun of car engines. The laughter of tourists as they strolled along the street. The clop of horse hooves from the carriages. And more distant, the crashing waves against the seawall.
&
nbsp; I turned my back to the ordinary world, to the real world, as I hovered on a threshold and a threshold. It was not too late, I told myself. Despite my resolve, I could still turn and run away. I could go home to Angus and wait out the night. I could hunker in my sanctuary, clutching my great-grandmother’s key until daybreak, when the ghosts and in-betweens drifted back through the veil. I could keep wondering about the murdered child and her connection to my family and I could keep pondering Devlin’s relationship with Claire Bellefontaine. I could hide behind my cemetery gates and let the living world pass me by or I could call out to Jonathan Devlin and demand that he give me the promised answers to all my questions.
I closed the door and moved deeper into the foyer but I didn’t call out. There was still the matter of being watched. I lifted my gaze once again to the landing, peering as far as I could along the upstairs hallway. Then I turned in a circle in the foyer, glimpsing mostly closed doors and another dark hallway. I could feel a slight breeze on my skin, undoubtedly from the same draft that stirred the chandelier. But I saw nothing suspicious. I heard nothing out of the ordinary. No stealthy footfalls. No labored breathing.
With the outside noises muted by the heavy door, I realized the house wasn’t so silent after all. I could hear the creak of settling floorboards and the pop of ancient timber. I could hear the tick of the grandfather clock on the landing and an electrical hum from somewhere deep in the house. The noises registered and then receded into the background as another sound captured my attention.
A music box played somewhere in the house.
I turned my ear to those tinkling strands as my scalp prickled and the hair at the back of my neck lifted. Dread descended and perhaps a fleeting triumph. I had been right after all. The entity that haunted Jonathan Devlin was the same ghost child that had manifested in Woodbine Cemetery. I had no idea the part he’d played in her murder, but it must have weighed heavily on his conscience all these years. And it had made the entity seek him out for revenge.
If a crime was committed, mine was of silence.
What had he covered up and for whom? And why had he kept quiet all these years?
Following those haunting strands, I slipped down that long hallway, glancing through open doors and over my shoulder. The house seemed at once cavernous and claustrophobic. The weight of all that history and all those dark secrets pressed down on me and I had to battle panic as the walls seemed to close in on me.
I was well past the staircase now and those prying eyes from above, but I could still hear the tick of the grandfather clock on the landing. The pendulums seemed to measure my trepidation. Go. Back. Go. Back. Go. Back.
But it was too late to flee now. Already, I’d passed the point of no return.
Another door stood ajar at the end of the hallway. As I crept closer the music grew louder. I proceeded in an almost dreamlike state, on and on, closer and closer, deeper and deeper into Jonathan Devlin’s lair.
Pausing again outside the door, I turned an ear to the opening and closed my eyes, concentrating my senses. The music tinkled on as I listened for footsteps or the murmur of voices. I heard nothing, saw nothing, and yet for the longest moment, I couldn’t lift my hand to push open the door; I couldn’t make myself take that first step.
As I hesitated, the blackest premonition descended and I knew that destiny awaited me inside. The sparrow and the starlings had come to me for a reason, to warn me of this moment. Someone else was about to pass. Someone close to me.
I thought of Devlin then and the bargain he’d made with Claire Bellefontaine. I thought about the contempt with which she’d looked at him in the cemetery and I wondered what she might be capable of if he crossed her.
That alone prodded me forward. I pushed open the door and the scent of woodbine came rushing out, along with a metallic smell that might have been blood.
I stepped across the threshold and froze as my gaze traveled over the unfamiliar space. A lamp had been turned on to ward off the coming darkness. I took in the tall bookcases, the heavy desk, the French doors that opened into a garden. One of the doors stood open and I could feel the chill of the evening breeze as I entered the room.
Despite the dim light, I had the impression of opulence. Thick rugs. Gilded paintings. Leather furnishings. Beneath the scent of the woodbine, I detected a hint of whiskey and a tantalizingly fresh fragrance that seemed out of place in that room.
The entity hovered nearby. The scent of woodbine deepened as the room grew colder.
“Mr. Devlin?” I called softly. “Are you in here? It’s Amelia Gray. You asked me to stop by at twilight. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”
The ghost’s anger was palpable, pulsing and throbbing like a heartbeat. She had manifested in the same white dress, with a bow in her hair and another at her waist. So sweet. So innocent. But she was not the spirit of a passive child. Even in life, she’d been dark. I sensed that now as images from her past strobed in my head. Somewhere in all those flashing memories was the visage of her killer.
“I know what happened to you,” I said. “Someone pushed you down those stairs. He hid your body, didn’t he? All these years you’ve been waiting for someone to find you, to free you so you can finally go home.”
I spoke softly, as if addressing a flesh-and-blood child. Could a ghost be soothed? Perhaps so. Unlike before when my attention seemed to embolden and imbue her, she remained transparent, wavering in and out of this world until I took a step toward her. “I’ll find you,” I promised. “I won’t rest until I do.”
She faded then as I inched around the desk. Perhaps her quick departure was another warning, but I didn’t understand the full extent of her anger until my foot bumped up against an obstacle and I glanced down. The light was so faint that it took me a moment to realize I was gazing at a body. Then I saw his pale face...
I gasped and stumbled back, putting a hand on the desk to steady my balance before I realized I shouldn’t touch anything.
Jonathan Devlin lay sprawled on his back, a silver letter opener protruding from a scarlet bloom on his chest. His eyes were open and glazed.
I took a breath and moved in closer, avoiding that cold gaze as I knelt beside the body to check for a pulse. Light sparked off a gold locket he clutched in his fist. Even in my state of high agitation, I noted that the chain was broken as if it had been snapped from his killer’s neck.
Across the end panel of his desk, Jonathan Devlin had scrawled a devastating clue in his own blood: “Mercy.”
Panic quickened my breath. I knew that I needed to call the police. Someone had murdered Devlin’s grandfather in cold blood and the longer I dithered, the colder the trail.
But I crouched beside the body unable to move, not out of fear but because I knew I was meant to find something. Another clue or a sign.
Emotions swirled in the room. I closed my eyes and tried to focus as a wave of rage swept over me, along with stinging notes of betrayal and disbelief.
The woodbine had faded with the ghost and now another scent drifted up from the body. That out-of-place fragrance that smelled of gardens and cedarwood and fresh linen. It was a scent straight from my childhood and it rocked me back on my heels, smothering me in all those clean notes as I stared down at Jonathan Devlin’s cold body.
That locket...all I had to do was open it and glance at the photograph inside. That would tell me something. Perhaps even show me the face of the killer. I would know my connection to all this. I would know what Jonathan Devlin had meant to tell me tonight.
A sound deep in the house stilled me yet again. I’d forgotten my earlier sensation of being watched, but now it came back, along with a certainty that the killer had not yet fled.
I crouched beside the body listening to those stealthy noises. Closing my eyes, I concentrated my senses as I tried to identify the sounds. The slide of a drawer. The click of
a door. Then footfalls on the stairway. Footfalls in the hallway.
All this time and I had yet to call the police. Now the killer was returning to the scene of the crime and I would be found hunched over the body.
The footsteps drew closer.
I became desperate and fear made me clumsy and dull. The thought crossed my mind that I should crawl under the desk so that I could see whoever came into the room, but that seemed too risky.
My gaze darted around the study, searching for concealment. I spotted the open French door. For all I knew the killer had entered the house through that very door and might plan to leave the same way. But I had to do something and the garden beckoned.
I scrambled to my feet, taking care as I stepped over the body. After slipping through the French door, I darted into the garden and found a hiding place behind a planter as I waited for the killer to follow me.
No one came through the door.
I hunkered in the shadows, willing my pulse to slow as I peered through the foliage. I could see nothing inside the house and tried to maneuver into a better position. Suddenly a silhouette appeared in the open door, blocking the light from the study. I caught my breath and ducked behind the shrubbery. A moment later, light once again spilled into the garden as the figure retreated from the doorway. I heard the office door close and then the distant click of the front door. I remained hidden as footsteps hurried past the garden wall. Somewhere down the street, a car engine started up and only then did I rise and slip back through the French door.
The lamp was still on and I noticed two things simultaneously. The lid on the music box was closed and the locket that Jonathan Devlin had clutched in his hand was gone.
The Awakening Page 21