This was foolishness. Foster was eccentric, not dangerous, despite what Jerusa’s mother, her friends, and even Alicia thought. Jerusa twisted the knob. It turned freely in her hand. The door was made to swing outward. Jerusa tightened her grip and pulled.
The door didn’t move.
She twisted the knob the other direction, turning it as far as it would go, and then pulled again. The door remained firm in its jamb. She pushed the door just in case she had somehow misread the direction it opened, but it wouldn’t budge.
Jerusa stepped back and examined the door. It was a thick-looking paneled door, stained dark, like the floor and woodwork. The pins of the matching pewter hinges were visible, meaning the door should, in fact, swing outward. There were no locks visible that would impede its opening. It must have been braced from within. But how did Foster manage to lock the door from within when there was no other way into the basement?
Was someone else in the basement?
Jerusa pressed her ear against the door, but the thick oak blotted out all sound. She reached for the knob again, but before she could touch the metal a hand spilled through the door, snatching at her wrist.
Jerusa gave a startled cry and jumped backward. Alicia walked through the solid oak door as if it were not there.
Alicia’s face was drawn tight, her eyes bulging and distant. Her complexion had the grayish-yellow hue of old newspaper. What horrible thing could there be hidden in the darkness below that could frighten the dead?
Alicia turned her eyes on Jerusa, then backed up against the door with her arms spread wide. The message was clear enough: Don’t go to the basement.
Foster hurried into the kitchen, a knapsack full of clothes hanging from his arm.
“Is everything all right?” he asked. “I thought I heard you scream.”
“I’m fine,” Jerusa said. “Alicia startled me, that’s all.”
Foster dropped his shoulders in relief. “I thought she was the ghost that kept all the other ghosts from scaring you. Don’t tell me she’s picking up bad habits from the other spooks in your life.” There was no derision in his voice. He spoke it with the certainty of fact. Day follows night. Spring follows winter. Ghosts follow Jerusa.
How could she not love and trust him?
“What’s in the basement?” Jerusa asked, watching Foster’s face carefully.
Foster’s eyes remained unblinking as they drifted from Jerusa to the door then back again.
“Why is it locked from the inside? How is it locked from the inside?”
Foster cleared his throat. “Did Alicia tell you what was down there?”
“No. You know I can’t hear her. She’s just very adamant that I not go down there.”
“She’s a wise ghost, little rooster,” he said, and the tone in his voice sent a chill spilling down Jerusa’s spine. “But neither of you need to worry. What’s down there is leaving with me. When you return to claim this house, the basement will be safe.”
Jerusa could see by the look in his eyes that this was all the light Foster was going to shed on the mystery in the basement, so she nodded and said, “Thank you.”
Foster’s cheery smile returned and he handed her the bag. “Give my regards to Silvanus of the Woods.” Then he took her in his arms and hugged her tight. “I will miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too.” The words opened a deep hole inside her such as she had never felt.
Foster stepped back. “One more thing before you go. Stay inside tonight.” He read the quizzical look in her eyes and raised his hand, shushing her before she could ask. “I can’t tell you why. Just trust me. Be home before dusk and don’t go anywhere until dawn. Promise me.”
Jerusa wanted nothing more than to explore the depths of Foster’s mysteries, to lock her feet to the floor and refuse to leave until he spilled every secret, but she knew it would make no difference. Foster was leaving and taking his secrets with him.
“I promise,” she said. “But only if you promise that you’ll write to me. Don’t leave me here alone. You’re my only lifeline to the wide world.”
A strange look passed across Foster’s face. Jerusa couldn’t tell if it was despair or excitement. Perhaps a hybrid of both.
“I promise,” he said.
Foster walked her to the door, then stood on the porch and watched as she descended the driveway.
CHAPTER SEVEN
As Jerusa retraced her steps back to the man Foster had dubbed Silvanus of the Woods, Alicia’s behavior grew more erratic. Several times, Jerusa spotted the ghost running to and fro through the woods, passing through thick-trunked trees as though they were an illusion. After a bit, she resorted to materializing in front of Jerusa, her arms extended, as though her incorporeal presence could halt Jerusa’s physical form. After the fourth or fifth time, Jerusa just kept walking, never even missing a step, and passed through Alicia just as the ghost had done with the trees.
“What is your problem today? Are you having some kind of ghost PMS?”
Alicia’s only answer was to continue her attempts to stop Jerusa.
“I mean, I figured you’d be happy,” Jerusa continued. “For whatever reason, you’ve never liked Foster and now he’s walking out of our lives forever.” Saying it aloud drove a fresh dagger into her heart. She swallowed the pain and went on. “And Silvanus is just some poor guy with amnesia or something. I’ll give him the clothes and be gone. I just feel sorry for him, is all.”
Alicia had taken to waving her arms in alert as Jerusa passed through her.
“Besides,” Jerusa said, “what is there to be afraid of? Dying? You’re dead and you seem all right.” A dark giggle escaped her, but Alicia didn’t seem to appreciate the joke. “After all that I’ve been through, dying doesn’t scare me. Living does.”
Jerusa slowed to a stop, her mind reeling at her own admission. It was a foolish thing to say, but true none the less. Death was simplistic, unavoidable, as certain as the sun. But living — not just existing, but truly living — now that was a buzzing hornet’s nest.
Mundane things like driving a car or going on a date were as panic-inducing to her as the outdoors was to an agoraphobic. What made her think she actually had the nerve to leave her mother and move into Foster’s house?
Foster believed in her, though. Why else would he have given her the house?
Jerusa’s loathing of her own weakness churned within, pushing the bile up the back of her throat.
“Stop it!” Jerusa’s sudden outburst stunned Alicia — stunned Jerusa, as a matter of fact — and Alicia backed up a step. The hurt in her eyes brought shame to Jerusa and she had to look away. “You’re driving me crazy. I don’t know what you’re so frantic about, but I wish you’d take it somewhere else.”
Alicia crossed her arms over her chest.
“I know you think you need to protect me, but you don’t,” Jerusa said. “I owe you a lot and I’m thankful, but maybe it’s time you moved on to wherever it is you’re supposed to go.”
Alicia’s face pursed as though she were crying, but no tears fell. Jerusa gritted her teeth and walked on, passing right through Alicia. When she looked back over her shoulder, the ghost was gone.
Jerusa found the spot where she had spoken with Silvanus, naked man of the woods, but he was nowhere to be found. She stepped from the path, treading lightly through the scrub brush and ferns. The air felt close and heavy, making each breath a struggle. She looked around at the trees, at the path dwindling behind her. This seemed like the right spot when she had ventured in, but now she wasn’t so sure.
The sounds of nature — the rustling leaves, the singing birds, the whispering breeze — seemed somehow muted in the confines of the forest. Jerusa was very aware of her own raspy breathing. Her footsteps sounded as though an elephant were crashing through the trees. She sensed eyes upon her, following her, but from where, she could not say. Perhaps it was only Alicia, brooding and invisible, or another ghost afraid to make its presence known.
Jerusa shivered even though the air was warm. Alicia’s bizarre behavior and Foster’s enigmatic warnings swirled in her mind, bringing on a mild vertigo. Her knees were weak, her feet too heavy.
Something rattled the dead leaves behind her and Jerusa turned with a start. Nothing moved.
A thick gray cloud gripped the sun, burying the golden beams in shadow. The darkness in the forest seemed a tangible living entity — an inky creature stalking Jerusa for its own foul desires.
Jerusa turned in a circle, searching for the path, but this forest was not the one she had entered moments ago.
“Alicia,” Jerusa called out, but the ghost did not appear.
Had Alicia really moved on? She knew it was better for the lingering dead to pass on to the next spiritual level. To remain in the living world only brought perpetual sadness, an unquenchable thirst for indulgences no longer within grasp. That being said, Jerusa hoped that Alicia had not heeded her anger-filled admonishment to cross over.
“Alicia,” she called again.
Alicia materialized off in the distance. She leaned against a tree, her arms folded over her chest, looking forlorn. Jerusa’s face broke into a wide smile. Alicia was still here, in this world. She was clearly mad at Jerusa, but she was still here, which meant there was still time to apologize.
Jerusa wanted to run to her, but a voice spoke from behind her, squeezing a scream from her throat.
“Who is Alicia?”
Jerusa turned and nearly tripped over her own feet. Standing ten feet away, leaning out from behind a black walnut tree, was her naked man of the woods.
Jerusa placed her hand upon her chest, as if this could calm the raging of her borrowed heart. The rubbery scar that stretched almost the length of her torso burned like an electrified wire. “Silvanus,” she whispered in a sigh of relief.
He tilted his head as an animal does when it hears a strange noise. “Is that my name?”
Jerusa felt the blood rush into her cheeks. “No. Well, um, I’m not sure. If you want it to be. It’s just a name.” She wanted to plug her mouth with her fist before the flood of nonsense spilling from her became uncontainable.
He pursed his lips as he considered the name. “Silvanus,” he repeated. “I like it, though it sounds too regal for me.”
“It’s the name of a Roman god.”
He smiled at that. “It is a wonderful name. A suitable replacement since I can’t remember my own.”
Jerusa felt dizzy and intoxicated by the man’s voice, his eyes, his beauty. The thought crossed her mind that this man might be the actual Silvanus and she had to suppress a roll of laughter.
“My friend, Foster, thought it up because I kept calling you the man in the woods.” She almost said naked man, but she just couldn’t force the word past her lips. She suddenly remembered the knapsack of clothing dangling from her arm. “Oh, here, these are for you.”
She held the sack out to him. He reached out, careful to keep his more uncomely parts hidden behind the trunk of the walnut tree. Jerusa had a sudden urge to take a step back, out of his range, and draw him from his hiding spot. The mischievous impulse dissipated quickly, but it left her feeling weak and chilled.
Silvanus took the knapsack from her, but not before stroking the back of her hand with his long, slender fingers. Jerusa gasped, every nerve ending firing in a simultaneous blast of pain and pleasure. It was as if, for the briefest of moments, she had plunged into icy waters. Even her hair and fingernails felt oddly charged … or was it drained?
She thought she detected a hint of surprise in Silvanus’s eyes, but he slipped behind the trunk of the walnut tree before she could evaluate it. Had he experienced the same sensation that she had? Jerusa was sure he had felt the spark ignited by their touch, but something about the look on his face made her think that his experience had been wholly different than hers.
“Where were you hiding at?” Jerusa asked as she waited for him to get dressed.
“I wasn’t hiding.”
“I looked behind this tree when I walked off the path and you weren’t behind it. Were you trying to startle me?”
“Of course not,” he said. “The spot where we first met is still up the path. You turned from the path too early. You seemed lost, so I came to you.”
It didn’t seem plausible, but Jerusa could detect no lie in his voice.
“How did you make it from there to here without me hearing you?”
“You were distracted, looking for your friend.”
“What friend?” Jerusa asked, unable to mask her embarrassment at being overheard.
“The friend that only you can see,” he said. “You called her Alicia.” He wasn’t mocking her. He seemed to just accept the fact as he did any law of nature. It reminded her of Foster so much that, for a moment, all she could do was stand and blink.
Silvanus stepped out from behind the walnut tree dressed in Foster’s clothes. They weren’t a perfect fit — the t-shirt stretched tight across his muscled torso and the jeans were too long and needed to be rolled — but it was close enough. He handed her the knapsack then held his arms out to the side.
“How do I look?” he asked and this time she did detect a playful tone to his question.
“Good enough,” she said.
“The shoes didn’t fit so I left them in the bag.”
Jerusa looked down, just now noticing his bare feet. “Oh, I’m sorry. I can try to find you a bigger pair.”
Silvanus waved off the offer. “No, I’m fine. You’ve done more than enough.”
“Won’t your feet hurt?”
He looked down at his toes and wiggled them in the mossy undergrowth. “They never hurt. Even in the cold mountains.”
“Cold mountains?” Jerusa asked. “Is that where you escaped from? Which mountains were they?”
Silvanus sniffed Foster’s shirt with bemused interest and made a little hmm noise as if something about its scent piqued his curiosity. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t really like the mountains, so I doubt that I’ll ever return there.”
Jerusa took a step toward Silvanus, but Alicia materialized next to him, her eyes aflame with fear, and Jerusa stopped just out of his reach.
“If you’re in trouble, come with me and I’ll get you to somewhere safe.”
Silvanus beheld her, clearly touched by her compassion. “I’m as safe now as I’ll ever be.”
“But you said they held you prisoner.”
“They wanted to study me,” he said. “I made them curious.”
Jerusa shook her head. “Study what? I don’t understand.”
“They wanted to know how I woke up,” Silvanus said. “How I broke free.”
Jerusa felt dizzy and confused. Silvanus’s soft voice pulled at her like unseen hands. His stormy green eyes seemed to pulse with living light, dulling her senses. He was drawing her closer, though Jerusa didn’t believe this was his intent. There was something intensely fantastic about this man, from his eyes to the beauty of his form, the glow of his olive skin, the melodic sound of his voice. She wanted to rush into his arms, yield herself to him.
Alicia stepped before her, their faces nearly touching, breaking Silvanus’s accidental hold on her. Jerusa took two steps back and would have made a third, but her legs felt suddenly limp with fear. What would have happened to her had she fallen into his arms like she had so longed to do?
“I’m sorry about that,” Silvanus said. Jerusa could hear the sorrow in his voice, but she didn’t dare look into his eyes again.
“What are you?” The question rose unbidden in Jerusa’s mind and exited her mouth before she had a chance to stop it. She knew, perhaps better than anyone, that there was more to this life than what appears on the surface. The world was by no means solid, but instead seemed a tenuous stack of layers, folding in and out and over one another, sometimes mingling or even collapsing all together. Her gift of seeing the lingering dead, her sister-like relationship with Alicia the ghos
t, gave her a perspective that few others were privy to.
Silvanus was not human, that much she was sure of, but neither was he a ghost. She had heard his voice, touched his hand. So she asked again, “What are you?”
“I don’t know.” Silvanus’s voice was low and tender. “You call me Silvanus, and it’s a name I mean to keep, but my true name, if I ever had one, is lost to me now. What I am and how I came to be is also a mystery. I swear it unto you.”
“What are you going to do?” Jerusa asked. “Are you going to hurt me?” Though she wasn’t afraid of dying, Jerusa knew there were worse things than death a person could suffer. Alicia stood beside her, faithful as ever. Why had she ignored the ghost’s warning?
Silvanus dropped to his knees in the carpet of moss and dead leaves so that he could stare into her face.
“It is true that I am a danger,” he said. “But not to you. Never to you. Sweet Jerusa Phoenix, you have given me nothing but compassion. I’d sooner cast myself into the fires of Hell than allow harm to come to you.”
“How poetic of you,” Jerusa said. Her voice sounded wispy to her own ears, and though she was not cold, she shivered uncontrollably. “Why are you here — in this place, I mean?”
“I was hoping to find another like myself. Someone to give me the answers that I seek.”
A startled excitement swept over Jerusa. “Did you find someone? Are they here?”
“I found … something.” Silvanus’s brows furrowed and her lips pressed into a firm line. Whatever he had found, it was clear that it troubled him. “But no one like me.” He reached up, took her by the hands, this time without the strange quickening charge, and without thinking, she pulled him to his feet.
Their hands remained clasped for a lingering moment before she reluctantly pulled away. A shadow of sadness passed over Silvanus’s face, but Jerusa felt it pass over her heart.
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