The Kingdom tgqs-2

by Amanda Stevens

  But why?

  As I hurried along the path, my nerve endings tingled with an awareness I didn’t understand. It was as if some long-dormant instinct had suddenly come alive, and I could feel the forest reaching out to me, hear the leaves whispering to me once again. Even the screams of the hawks somehow seemed familiar.

  I was so attuned to my surroundings that even the miniscule sound of a snapping twig brought me to an abrupt halt. I told myself it was nothing, just an animal rustling in the underbrush. A bird flitting in the treetops. I didn’t believe it, of course. Someone was out there.

  The silence seemed palpable as I stood on the trail holding my breath. My heart began to hammer, and I could feel the blood pulsing in my ears. So many things rushed through my head. Wayne’s warning about wild animals. The face wavering in the pool at the waterfall. The chill of the wind, that awful howling. I had the sense that I was being stalked, but was the tracker human, animal…or something from the other side?

  I took a few tentative steps along the trail and heard the rustle of leaves as the pursuer moved with me. Now I really was scared. I considered turning and making a run for the studio, but how could I be sure it wasn’t one of them?

  Swallowing hard, I willed my pulse to slow. The last thing I needed was to succumb to a full-blown panic. My father had grown up in woods like these. I tried to remember everything he’d told me about wild animals. The moment they sense your fear, you become prey.

  Prey.

  The very word sent a shiver of dread up my spine. I hadn’t understood before, but it came to me clearly in that moment. I’d been watched at the cemetery, lured into the woods, followed to the laurel bald and now something was stalking me up this trail. I’d been prey ever since I arrived in Asher Falls.

  And with that thought, I gave up all pretense of calm. I whirled and plunged headlong up the path, my footsteps pounding in time to my heartbeats. I didn’t know if I was pursued. I had the sense of something rushing through the woods, but I didn’t look back until I rounded the corner to Catrice’s house, and even then I spared only a brief glance over my shoulder.

  He came out of nowhere.

  In the split second my attention was diverted, he appeared on the path in front of me and put out his hands to stop me.

  If not for years of suppressing fear, I would have shrieked louder than the hawks, but instead I gulped back the scream and wrenched myself free of him. I heard him laugh, and in my agitated state, the sound took on a sinister connotation. But when he spoke, his voice was almost pleasant. “Whoa,” Hugh said. “Where’s the fire?”

  “I—”

  He gazed down at me in bemusement. “Are you all right?”

  Even in broad daylight with the pine boughs stippling the sunlight, Hugh Asher’s looks rendered me speechless. Everything about him, from the casual but elegant attire to the way he carried himself, was so excessively perfect.

  Once again, I searched for the flaws, and this time they were easy to spot—a faint tinge of yellow beneath the jawbone where a bruise had almost faded and a scab above his left eyebrow where the skin had been split. He’d been in a fight recently, and the thought was so incongruous as to take my breath away. My mind shifted at once to Thane’s cut temple, his bruised knuckles. Had he and Hugh fought?

  I tore my gaze from his face. “I was just coming up from the studio. I thought I heard something in the woods.”

  He looked past me down the path. “Probably a deer. Could have been a coyote but they don’t normally come out until dusk.”

  Like ghosts.

  “I’m a city girl,” I tried to say lightly. “I’m not used to the wildlife around here.”

  “It does take some getting used to.”

  The way he stared down at me made me increasingly uncomfortable, and I had to wonder why he was there. Had he come to observe me, too?

  “How’s the restoration coming along?” he asked, still in that pleasing cadence. But no matter how agreeable or personable he seemed, I had no wish to make small talk. I really just wanted to go home, and I glanced longingly toward my car.

  “Fine.”

  Still he lingered, but I didn’t think he was as relaxed as I’d first thought. There was something about him, some tension or excitement that made his eyes overly bright. “When I was a kid, we used to play hide-and-seek up on that hill. Not a game for the faint of heart. It could get a little hairy after dark.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “There are places up there where you could hide and not be found for days. If ever.”

  Like the laurel bald, I thought with a shiver. “Speaking of the cemetery…I should get going,” I said, latching onto the first excuse I could think of.

  “I won’t keep you. But you’ll have to come to dinner soon. Maris has gone away for a few days and it gets dull in that big house with just us three men.”

  “I’m sure Luna will be more than happy to accommodate,” I said, surprising myself as much as him.

  He lifted a brow, eyes gleaming in amusement. “I think Father may have underestimated you,” he murmured.

  “What does that mean?”

  Something dark flashed across that handsome face. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. If you’ll excuse me…I have work to do.”

  I brushed past him and headed toward my car. This time, I did glance back, but Hugh Asher had vanished.

  Twenty-Five

  That afternoon Thane came by to see me. I let Angus out the back door, and he prowled the yard while we sat on the steps in the sunshine. Neither of us talked much at first. I was too preoccupied and disturbed by what I’d heard at Catrice’s studio and by that brief clash with Hugh. I still couldn’t understand why he thought Pell Asher had underestimated me. You really don’t know, do you?

  Thane leaned back, elbows propped on the top step as he looked out over the glistening surface of Bell Lake. I followed his gaze. The uninitiated would never guess at the darkness that lay beneath that silken shimmer, but my time with ghosts had given me nothing if not sufficient imagination to envision that sunken necropolis with its overturned monuments and encrusted angels. I could picture Freya down there, too, floating among the headstones.

  I turned back to Thane. “Can I ask you something?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.” His eyes were very clear and very green in the sunlight, but like Bell Lake, his secrets were hidden beneath that placid surface. In the short time I’d known him, I’d detected ripples of some underlying disturbance. Flashes of some deep-rooted anger.

  “Why did you tell me about the flooded cemetery that day on the ferry? Were you trying to scare me away?”

  He smiled, but his face remained impassive. “Not at all. I only meant to entertain you with a little local color. I figured a cemetery restorer would appreciate a good ghost story. Was I right?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “See? I knew it.” He closed his eyes, basking in the sunlight.

  “It’s funny to think about that conversation now,” I said. “I’d never set eyes on you or this place, and yet you already knew so much about me.”

  “Not enough.” He smiled teasingly. “Tell me your deepest, darkest secrets.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “How about your childhood? Or your teenage years? What were you like in high school? Did you have a lot of boyfriends? Were you popular?”

  I gave him a look. “Hardly.”

  “Late bloomer?”

  “You might say that.” A ghost had haunted the hallways of my school, making it impossible for me to participate in extracurricular activities after dusk. Not that I would have wanted to, anyway. By the time I entered high school, my reputation as a loner had become local canon. Rather than reinvent myself, I had embraced the solitude, retreating with my beloved books to the sanctuary of Rosehill Cemetery. “I grew up in a graveyard. You can imagine how popular I was.”

&nbs
p; He grinned. “Were you teased?”

  “Not really. I was pretty much just ignored.”

  “Were you lonely?”

  I hesitated. “Yes, sometimes. But being alone was all I ever knew. And in some ways, my childhood was idyllic. At least…for a time.” Until the ghosts came.

  “That’s more than most people can say.”

  I glanced at him curiously. “What about you? I can’t imagine that you were ever an introvert.”

  “No, not an introvert. I had too much to prove. Too much to live up to.”

  “Because you were an Asher?”

  A shadow flickered across his face. “Because I wasn’t an Asher.”

  “Was it hard when you first came here to live?”

  “Yes, but I survived. It was eat or be eaten at Pathway Academy. And at Asher House.”

  “That doesn’t sound very pleasant.”

  He squinted into the sun. “It is what it is. Survival of the fittest.”

  That made me think of Catrice’s hawks, and my mind turned once again to that troubling conversation I’d overheard. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered.

  “Cold?”

  “No…just someone walking over my grave.”

  “Cheery thought.”

  “Can I ask you about your stepfather?”

  “Edward? What about him?”

  “What was he like?”

  Thane considered the question for a moment. “He wasn’t like Hugh or Grandfather. He had the Asher charm, but he was quieter. More introspective. At least that’s the way I remember him.”

  “What did he do? For a living, I mean.”

  “I have no idea. He tried any number of things, but he always seemed to fall back on his trust money.”

  Was that bitterness I heard in his voice? I didn’t think so. More like resignation. He’d done more to restore the family’s holdings than either Edward or Hugh, his grandfather had told me. And yet he still had to fight for his place.

  “He wanted to break free of the Asher shackles,” Thane said. “He just never quite managed.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m not imprisoned. I like what I do.”

  “And what is it you do, exactly?”

  “I guess you could call me an overseer. The Ashers made their fortune in timber and mining, but these days, it’s mostly a matter of managing the investments, dwindling though they may be.” He paused. “I do understand why Edward left, though. Grandfather can be overbearing. Sometimes it’s hard to take.”

  “Like trying to end your relationship with Harper?”

  “Like trying to play God,” he said grimly.

  “Do you think Edward was involved with Freya?” I asked.

  He lifted a brow in surprise. “Where did that come from?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just curious.”

  He shrugged. “Given his reaction to her photograph, I’d say it’s a safe bet they had some sort of relationship, and I can’t imagine Grandfather being too happy about it.”

  “Do you think he broke them up?”

  “Does it matter? It was a long time ago and they’re both dead now.”

  “I know, but I find all these relationships fascinating. Freya and Edward. Edward and Bryn. Wayne and Luna. Luna and Hugh. It’s all so—”

  “Incestuous?”

  “I was going to say entangled.”

  “That’s the nature of a small town,” Thane said. “Especially one as isolated and insular as Asher Falls.”

  “You’ve never considered moving?”

  He frowned. “Why would I move? This is my home. This is where I belong.”

  I thought about the familiarity I’d felt in those woods, and I pulled up my legs, hugging them to my chest as I rested my chin on my knees. What an odd, scary place this was. So much dark history. So many lingering emotions bubbling beneath the pastoral façade. Yet here I was and here I would remain because I couldn’t leave without knowing the truth. Without finding my place.

  Lifting my gaze to the highest summit of the mountain ridge, I listened for that whisper. That telltale ripple through the trees.

  Beside me, Thane caught his breath, and I turned to find his eyes on me. He looked pale and unsettled, though I hadn’t seen or heard anything to disturb the calm setting.

  “What is it?” I asked sharply.

  He reached out as if to touch me, then let his hand fall away before he made contact. “My God,” he whispered. “Who are you?”

  Twenty-Six

  A shiver ran up my spine at his stunned look. “What are you talking about? You know who I am.”

  “It’s like seeing—”

  “What?” Something inside me started to quake, and I tried to glance away, but the intensity of his gaze held me.

  He searched my face. “The way you were staring up at the mountains just now…your expression…” He trailed off. “This is crazy.”

  “What is? Please, just tell me.” But already I could feel myself withdrawing into my own head. For all my preoccupation with truth and destiny, I was terrified of what I might learn here, terrified of how it would change me. I sensed a connection to whatever waited for me on that mountain just as surely as I’d felt a suffocating tie to that hidden grave.

  There was a reason I saw ghosts. It wasn’t happenstance, and it couldn’t be heredity because I was adopted. So what was I? Where was my place? Why, after all these years, had I been led here to Asher Falls?

  He shook his head, as if trying to free himself of something unpleasant. “It was just one of those strange moments. Déjà vu or something.”

  “Your reaction seemed more than déjà vu. You were genuinely upset.”

  “No, not upset. Just…surprised.” He tried to laugh it off, but his voice sounded strained. “Sorry if I freaked you out. I’m seeing things, I guess. Like you did that day at the laurel bald, remember? You thought for a moment I was someone else.”

  “I remember.”

  “We concluded it was lack of sleep. The mind playing tricks.” He was trying very hard to convince himself. Who had he seen just now when he looked at me? What had he seen? “You called it something that day.”

  “A waking dream,” I murmured.

  “A waking dream. Yes, that’s exactly how it felt. Well.” He glanced at me. “That was interesting.”

  “You’re not going to tell me about it?”

  “No, I think we should just let it pass,” he said. “Moving on…”

  But we both fell silent, as if entrapped by the heavy weight of our secrets. The shadows lengthened at the edge of the woods, and the sunlight on the steps was dappled now, filtered through the branches of the evergreens. I felt bone-weary from all the physical labor at the cemetery, and yet an odd restlessness gripped me.

  Suddenly, I thought of that vision I’d had at the falls of the couple naked and entwined at the water’s edge as creatures looked on. As the very earth seemed to pulsate with dark, unspeakable passion… .

  I shuddered violently.

  “What’s wrong?”

  My cheeks colored as I glanced away, but he leaned forward, taking my chin in his hand to gently turn me to face him. “I’m sorry if I upset you just now. I don’t even know why I said that.”

  “It’s not that. I was thinking about something you said after dinner the other night when we were going through those pictures.” Not exactly what I’d been thinking about, but I could hardly tell him the truth. “You said there was a certain eccentricity about Luna and Bryn and Catrice. You called them witches. What did you mean by that?”

  “It was just a joke, but there’s always been an air of mystery about them,” he said. “An element of mysticism. Somehow they’ve managed to thrive while the rest of the town languishes. But I suspect that’s more a matter of smart investments and good genetics than witchcraft. Despite the talk.”

  I glanced at him. “What talk?”

  “The usual small-town gossip mixed with mountain folklore. />
  “There’s an old rumor that the Daughters of our Valiant Heroes was once a coven.”

  I glanced at him, startled. “I thought it was a historical society.”

  He shrugged. “Like I said, it’s an old rumor.”

  The breeze had a distinct chill now. “Why didn’t you say anything about these rumors when we were at the falls looking at the Drudenfuss?”

  “You already seemed a little spooked. And it’s no big deal. A town like this breeds superstition and gossip, especially when it comes to those three women. They’ve always been close, always a little different and now that they’ve reached a certain age with no families to speak of—”

  “What about Sidra?”

  “Ah, yes. Sidra.”

  “Why do you say it like that?”

  He was silent for a moment. “Sidra is a bit of an enigma herself, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “She is different,” I agreed. “But I like her. I think she has an old soul. She seems much more mature than other girls her age.”

  “Little wonder, given her condition. She was born with a severe heart defect. The doctors didn’t think she’d live past her twelfth birthday, but somehow she’s managed to defy the odds.”

  I thought of the girl’s pale complexion and those guarded eyes. She looked fragile, but I’d always sensed an inner strength. Now I knew why. I also wondered if her condition had something to do with her ability to see ghosts. But that wouldn’t explain my situation. There was nothing wrong with my heart. I’d always been the picture of health.

  “Where’s her father?” I asked.

  “He died years ago. Suddenly, as I recall. I don’t remember too much about him except that he had money and he was a good deal older than Bryn.” Thane watched the water for a moment. “Why all the questions about Luna and her cohorts?”

  “Is that how people around here refer to them? Luna and her cohorts?”