The Kingdom tgqs-2

by Amanda Stevens

  Hurrying down the back steps, I made my way across the yard and followed the footpath into the woods, using those desperate whimpers to guide me. But I didn’t call out to Angus again. I had no idea what might lie in wait for me in those trees. Stealth was my only friend. I kept the flashlight lowered to the ground as I slipped along the trail. Beyond the reach of the beam, the forest was a black, silent abyss. I would have welcomed the hoot of an owl or the patter of leaves to help mask my footsteps, but even the breeze had died away.

  About a hundred yards in, the trees thinned, and up ahead, I could see the pool of moonlight in a small clearing. In the center of that circle, a dark form waited. I told myself it was nothing more than a shadow or a bush. When it moved, I stumbled in shock, the hard kick of my heart snatching my breath. Then I played the light into the clearing and saw the familiar gleam of soulful eyes.

  “Angus.” I said his name on a gasp of relief. He’d been lying on the ground when I came up, but he rose when he heard my voice and rushed toward me, only to be jerked back so sharply he yelped in protest. An instant later, I saw why. He’d been tethered to a tree with a rope.

  Icy panic stopped me in my tracks as if I, too, had been bound. My limbs went watery, and no matter how much I wanted to go to Angus, I simply couldn’t make my muscles obey. Because in that moment, I was as afraid as I’d ever been. Which might sound strange coming from someone who had seen ghosts since childhood and who had been the target of a killer not so long ago. I’d known my share of fear, but the terror I felt now wasn’t for my physical safety or even for Angus. I was afraid of something…inside me. Some unknown part of myself that I was only now discovering. The puzzle piece that connected me to this strange, disturbing place.

  Drawing a shaky breath, I quieted my racing pulse and forced myself toward Angus, only to freeze once more, not in fear this time, but from the warning bristle of my every nerve ending. I didn’t know what had set off that alarm. Angus’s piteous whimper. Something in the wind. A dormant instinct come suddenly to life. Whatever the trigger, I paused there, one foot in front of the other as I slowly angled the beam along the path in front of me.

  I almost didn’t see the thing, the camouflage of leaves and pine needles was so clever. It was only by pure luck that the light caught the gleam of metal. So complete had been my absorption in the metaphysical that I’d lost track of the real menace. Someone had taken Angus from my porch and tied him to a tree in the woods. This was no random act of cruelty. There was a very dark purpose behind the action.

  Grabbing a stick from the forest floor, I swept aside the debris on the path to reveal the jagged teeth of a steel trap. An enormous one, much bigger than the size needed for a human leg. But in that first moment, I had no doubt about the motive. It had been placed at the end of the path directly between Angus and me. Someone had brought him here to lure me into the woods.

  But why?

  Instantly, I thought of that hidden grave and the reaction my revelation had provoked. I hadn’t imagined the tension at dinner, nor Hugh’s overly casual attempt to explain it away. I hadn’t imagined Luna’s response, either. I’d dropped a bombshell at that table and now someone felt threatened.

  I eased toward the trap as if sidling up to a coiled snake. Using the sharp end of the limb, I poked at the spring until the metal jaws snapped shut with a clatter that shook me to my core. The sound reverberated through the woods like the shock of an unexpected thunderclap, startling roosting birds from the treetops. I didn’t glance skyward. Instead, I peeled my gaze on the clearing and the surrounding woods. Was the perpetrator nearby, waiting to hear that sound?

  I felt vulnerable and exposed, armed with only that can of mace. The thought crossed my mind that I should take cover and wait to see who came out of the woods. But I had to get to Angus, and besides, whoever had set the trap might be long gone. For all I knew, the intent was to leave me until morning, giving wild animals a chance to pick up the scent of my blood.

  Taking a deep breath, I aimed the light across the clearing where the path resumed to Tilly Pattershaw’s house. Nothing stirred on the trail, so I shifted the light, only to jerk my hand back, fixing the beam on a telltale mound of leaves and pine needles where another trap had been concealed. I stepped into the clearing and turned in a slow circle with the flashlight. The traps were all around us.

  It hit me then. I wasn’t the quarry. Angus was being used as bait to lure something out of the woods. Something that could come from any direction. Something big enough to drag a body off without making a sound.

  I felt it in the wind then, that terrible dankness. The bone chill of an ancient evil. All around me, the leaves began to whisper and sigh, like the release of a pent-up breath. Amelia…Amelia…

  Everything went deathly still except for that whisper and the roar of rushing blood in my ears. And then the breeze gusted, swirling dead leaves across the clearing, and somehow I was released from the grip of my paralysis. I rushed to Angus and dropped to the ground beside him. He didn’t appear to be hurt, but when he pushed his nose against me, I smelled an odd chemical scent on his breath and wondered if he’d been drugged. That would explain how he’d been taken without rousing me.

  But…no time to worry about that now. The wind brought a fresh terror. A howling from deep inside the woods. I saw the hair rise up on Angus’s back as he turned to growl at the darkness.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered over and over as I worked to free him. The rope around his neck had been tied with multiple knots, none of which I could loosen. The wind was cold, but sweat trickled down my back from fear and tension, and I cursed myself for not having had the foresight to grab the utility knife from the pocket of my discarded cargoes. “Come on, come on.” I worked until my fingernails were in shreds, but I still couldn’t budge those knots.

  Behind me, one of the traps sprang shut, and as I jerked around in shock, I lost my balance and went sprawling to the ground. I watched in terror as a shadow detached from the deeper darkness of the woods and rushed into the clearing. Angus whirled and crouched, but he didn’t try to attack.

  As the shape took form, I thought the wraithlike creature before me must surely be a ghost. But as she moved into the moonlight, I glimpsed an aged face framed by a mane of unkempt gray hair and somehow I knew who she was. Tilly Pattershaw.

  Like me, she wore boots and a white nightgown topped with a heavy wool sweater. She was slight—frail, I thought at first—but in her gloved hand she wielded a knife, some long, fearsome thing that she swung over her head as she simultaneously grabbed the tether and pulled it taut. The knife slashed, cutting clean through the rope. I was so astonished by her sudden appearance and behavior, I hadn’t moved or uttered a sound. But now I scrambled to my feet as the howling grew louder.

  Her gaze went past me to the trees, and I thought I saw her shudder. “Get out of the woods, girl!” The wind whipped at her long, wiry hair and tore at the hem of her gown.

  “What about you?”

  Her eyes were luminous in the moonlight, her face like the wizened visage of an ancient shaman. But her speech was pure mountain folk. “It don’t come for me.”

  I turned to follow her gaze, my eyes scanning the woods. Even the trees were shivering, and the air hummed with the oddest vibration.

  “Go!” she screamed.

  “Angus, come!”

  He was right at my heels as I tore across the clearing.

  “Keep to the path!” I heard her call after us, but the sound died away quickly in the wind.

  I bolted blindly down the trail, tripping over a root that almost took me down. A nauseating fire shot up my leg, but I wouldn’t let a twisted ankle slow me. Not with that howling thing at our backs. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I raced along the path with Angus now at my side.

  Something swooped across the trail in front of us—a bat, I thought—and then I heard what sounded like the flap of bird wings, hundreds of them, but I didn’t dare look up even as a cloud p
assed over the moon.

  As we neared the edge of the woods, I grabbed the rope that still dangled from Angus’s neck, preparing for that final dash across the open yard. Instead, I drew up short and gazed in horror out over the water.

  Whatever had been lured down from the mountains had stirred the restless souls at the bottom of the lake. I could hear the bells—that hair-raising chorus of the dead—tolling from those murky depths. The discordant peals were muffled by water and a thick, writhing miasma that crept shoreward, up the stepping-stones and into the yard where Angus and I stood trembling.

  And from that wall of mist, diaphanous arms reached out for me. Exactly like the recurring nightmare of my childhood. Hands thrusting through walls to grab me. I knew in my dream, as I knew now, not to let them touch me. They would draw me into that mist, drag me underwater, pull me down, down, down to that sunken graveyard… .

  The howls were getting closer. Over the frantic batter of my heart, I swore I could hear the ragged breath of some fierce creature racing up the path behind us.

  Entwining the rope around my hand, I gave it a tug. “Run!”

  I didn’t have to tell him twice. Spurred by fear and instinct, Angus leaped forward with so much power, the momentum nearly wrenched me off my feet. I found my balance and kept going. I didn’t glance back at the mist, but I could feel the abnormal chill as we sprinted across the yard, up the porch steps and into the house. Slamming the door, I slid to the floor and wrapped my arms around Angus, pulling him close as I waited for the cold to seep in through the cracks. But the house protected us. The hallowed ground on which it had been built gave us sanctuary. After a while, I got up to peek out the window. The mist had receded, and the trees were silent now that the wind had died away. The sparkle of moonlight on water was as lovely as I’d ever seen it.

  Fetching the utility knife, I hacked through the rope around Angus’s neck and tossed it in the trash. Then I checked again for wounds, but aside from that odd scent on his breath, he appeared no worse for the wear. I gave him some fresh water but decided to wait until morning to feed him in case of an upset stomach.

  “You’re sleeping inside tonight,” I told him.

  He whimpered gratefully and followed me down the hallway where I grabbed a blanket from the closet and spread it on the floor at the end of my bed. He lay down facing the door. I kicked off my boots and climbed under the covers, but even with Angus keeping watch, I didn’t sleep until daylight.

  Sixteen

  Except for a sore ankle and the slit in the screen door, last night’s drama might never have happened. I slept in and arose to sunshine. Angus was already awake and prowling through the house. When he heard me stir, he started to whine to let me know he needed to go out.

  I took a closer look at the damaged screen as we exited the porch, wondering how on earth I’d slept so soundly through the break-in. Angus must have been sedated or otherwise subdued because he surely would have alerted me to a prowler. I remembered now the way he’d sniffed the ground when I let him out after dinner and wondered if someone might have tossed a chunk of drugged meat into the yard. Still recovering from near-starvation, the poor dog likely would have gobbled it up despite a strange smell or taste.

  I checked the area for clues but found nothing other than a heel print in the dirt that I thought might be my own.

  A trio of squirrels foraging for acorns kept Angus entertained while I found a sunny spot on the steps where I could sit and keep an eye on him. He seemed perfectly fine this morning, but the sooner I took him in for a checkup and shots, the better I would feel.

  I’d already decided to make a trip back to Charleston soon, anyway. My mother hadn’t felt well enough to come to the phone the last two times I’d called, and I was starting to worry that the chemo might be taking too much of a toll. Aunt Lynrose had tried her best to reassure me, but I wouldn’t have peace of mind until I saw for myself. Maybe I would also drop in on Papa. Since my mother had been staying in Charleston for her treatments, I rarely saw him. I couldn’t even remember the last time we’d spoken, but that wasn’t unusual. Even though he was the one person I could talk to about the ghosts—we would always have that bond—I no longer tried to bridge the gulf between us. I had finally accepted that, for whatever reason, he needed his distance.

  Absently, I plucked a stem of bee balm that grew near the steps and lifted the purple blossom to my nose. The morning was impossibly peaceful, the lake a quiet mirror reflecting nothing more sinister than sun, sky and the wavering images of the evergreens. I got up and walked down the stepping-stones to the pier where I leaned over the rail to gaze into those still depths. I could see nothing, of course. The water was too cloudy. But it wasn’t hard to imagine the ruins of Thorngate Cemetery at the bottom. There was a faint hum in the air that I thought might be the echo of those bells. But when I listened closely, I heard only the gentle lap of water against wood pilings and the occasional thump of the boat.

  Tossing the flower into the lake, I went back up the steps to the yard where Angus sat watching the squirrels. I was tempted to pack him up and head back to Charleston today. Just abandon the restoration regardless of my contract and business reputation. I needed to get out of this place. Something very alarming was happening in Asher Falls, and somehow I’d become a part of it. Might even be the reason for it. I didn’t understand why or how, but I couldn’t help but think my role here was preordained. The anxiety I’d felt last night in the clearing—the fear of my own destiny—had left me shaken.

  And yet…I didn’t leave. I sat there in the lemony scented sunshine as if I hadn’t a care in the world. Because somehow I knew that whatever—whoever—had led me here in the first place would find a way to bring me back.

  Alive or dead, Ashers are compelled to return home.

  Why that particular snippet popped into my head at that precise moment I couldn’t imagine. I tried to ignore it because I didn’t want to dwell on Pell Asher this morning. Despite his charisma, my time with him had been very disconcerting. How odd to think that our paths had crossed so long ago, and I’d never even known it. How stranger still that he’d seen me playing in Rosehill Cemetery as a child and remembered it after so many years.

  On the heels of that reflection, my own memory surfaced, hazy with time and distance and invoked, no doubt, by a combination of concern for my mother and the strange events that had unfolded since my arrival. Reacting to the stimuli, the shutter in my brain clicked once more, and an image slowly came into focus.

  I could see myself on the floor of our living room, legs drawn up, arms wrapped around my knees as I listened through an open window to Mama and Aunt Lynrose on the front porch, lulled as always by the lovely cadence of their Lowcountry drawls. I had been six or seven at the time and had yet to learn of the ghosts. But my world had always been guarded and insular, and those accents had given me a glimpse of the lush and exotic. My mother and aunt were very beautiful women, exuding a bygone femininity that smelled of honeysuckle, sandalwood and fresh linen. Papa, by contrast, smelled of the earth. Or was that me? To Mama’s horror, I often had little half moons of dirt beneath my nails, the odd leaf or twig stuck to my hair. Even wearing my Sunday best, a bit of the graveyard seemed to cling to me.

  I’d been sitting with my cheek resting on my knees, drowsy in the warm breeze that stirred the lace curtains. I even remembered the incessant drone of a bee trapped against the screen and the smell of freshly mown grass. It was a typical summer afternoon, dreamy and hypnotic, until the sudden anger in my aunt’s voice brought my head up. I’d never heard her speak to my mother in that tone.

  “Do you have any idea what I would give to be in your shoes? You have a husband and daughter who love you. What more do you want?”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “Oh, I understand. You always imagined yourself having the perfect life, the perfect husband, the perfect child. It was what everyone else expected of you, too. But dreams go awry, Etta, and life
gets messy. What’s done is done. You need to forget about the past.”

  “I thought I had,” Mama said wistfully. “But then I found myself driving up there the other day.”

  My aunt gasped. “After all these years? Why would you do such a thing?”

  “To visit the grave.”

  There was a long pause, during which I’d held my breath. I didn’t understand much of that conversation, but I knew it was serious because my aunt never raised her voice. She doted on Mama. Only a year or so separated them in age, but Aunt Lynrose had always seemed both younger and older to me. Younger because she still had the coquettish quality of a girl while my mother grew more solemn with each passing year. And older because she was so fiercely protective of Mama. Their closeness had always filled me with deep yearning because they shared secrets I could never be privy to. Sister secrets.

  “And?” Lynrose asked softly.

  My mother paused. “It was a very strange moment.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t explain it any more than I can put into words how I felt driving through that town.” Her voice dropped. “It’s as if the soul of that place has been eaten away. The people, the houses…even the very air seems befouled. I can’t stand to think of my little girl in such an awful place.”

  “You don’t have to. She’s right here with you. Exactly where she belongs.”

  “For now.” In the ensuing silence, I could imagine my mother’s hand going to her throat, plucking nervously at the gold cross she always wore. “Oh, Lyn. I’ve been so weak. I’ve never let that child fully into my heart because I was so afraid someone would come for her.”

  “They won’t. How can they?”

  “You know how.”

  “Too many years have passed. She’s ours now, Etta. Just accept it as a blessing and let that child into your heart,” Lynrose murmured, but I had heard something in my aunt’s voice—a palpable fear—that made me shudder now in memory.