The Prophet (Graveyard Queen)

by Amanda Stevens

  Once again, I passed through the lichgate and made my way to her grave, where I sat on the ground to await dusk. I did this with no small measure of trepidation. Not all graveyards were haunted, as evidenced by the lack of spirits in Oak Grove. But I felt certain that, despite the elaborate precautions taken before and after burials in this little community, come twilight, Chedathy would be rife with entities.

  It was very quiet there beside Shani’s grave. So silent, in fact, that I could hear the distant murmur of voices. As the sun slipped beneath the treetops, a group of men with shovels left the cemetery. I assumed they’d been there to dig Mr. Fremont’s grave, and that made me think of Robert’s final resting place forty miles north of Charleston in Coffeeville Cemetery.

  According to Tamira, he’d been buried there so that his spirit would be free of Mariama. But even with miles between them, he hadn’t been able to rest. What was distance and time behind the veil? Besides, it wasn’t Mariama who disturbed Robert’s sleep. He couldn’t rest until his killer was found and brought to justice.

  At sunset, the temperature dropped, and I started to shiver. I sat with my legs drawn up, chin resting on knees as the day came to a quiet end and dusk crept in from the marshes. The glow on the horizon began to fade, and in the rising wind, the dead leaves sounded like tiny clappers. There was a strange rhythm to the sound. A stirring of energy that made my heart quicken.

  A chant came to me then, the singsong of a child’s nursery rhyme. I lifted my head to listen.

  “Little Dicky Dilver

  Had a wife of silver.

  He took a stick and broke her back,

  And sold her to a miller.

  The Miller wouldn’t have her,

  So he threw her in the river.”

  I got up to follow the chant through the cemetery. It wasn’t Shani who summoned me, though. The voice was older and more earthly, without the metallic echo from the other side. But hearing the nursery rhyme in Chedathy Cemetery, of all places, most definitely meant something. One of those signs both Clementine and Essie had told me to watch out for.

  As I neared the spot where Tamira had taken me earlier, I moved cautiously, easing myself behind the same tree from which she’d spied on Robert and Mariama. I listened to the disturbing little song for a moment longer before chancing a peek around the trunk.

  Rhapsody sat on the ground poking through an old tin box as she sang. On the ground around her was an assortment of bagged roots and tiny jars of powders and herbs. Slipping one of the vials into her jacket pocket, she returned everything else and closed the lid. Then she stood and shoved the box into a hole in the tree as far as her arm could reach.

  She scurried off then but not toward home. Instead, she headed toward the back of the cemetery where I’d parked my car. I was torn between following her and investigating the contents of that tin box. I wasn’t particularly proud of myself for spying on a child, but the fact that she had been singing the nursery rhyme Shani had used to lure me into Clementine’s garden surely meant something. It was a clue. Perhaps even a message from the ghost child.

  I hurried to the tree and thrust my arm into the hole as far as I could reach until I felt the cool metal against my fingers. Then, box in hand, I knelt on the ground and opened the lid, gasping in shock at the contents. I was no expert in weapons, but I felt certain that I’d located Devlin’s .38. How it had come to be in Rhapsody’s possession, I couldn’t imagine. Surely she hadn’t somehow been involved in his murder. She was just a girl. Daunted by my findings, I closed the lid and returned the container to the tree hole. Then I went in search of Rhapsody.

  Twilight had deepened, but the moon had not yet risen. I could spot her slight silhouette now and then weaving in and out of the trees. In the distance came an eerie chanting and the seductive rhythm of a drum.

  Leaving Chedathy, Rhapsody jumped the ditch and crossed the road to disappear into the woods. I waited a moment, then followed.

  The forest was very dark. I could no longer catch even a glimpse of the girl. Instead, I followed those drumbeats through thick curtains of ivy and Spanish moss. The ground softened as I neared the marshes, and the air thickened with brine, smoke and a scent I couldn’t identify.

  The singing grew louder as the trees gave way to a clearing. A crowd had gathered, pounding the ground with sticks and poles to create a frantic tempo. Inside the clearing, dancers moved counterclockwise around the circle, stomping and clapping to the beat, sometimes shouting when the spirit moved them.

  It was a joyous celebration, and I shouldn’t have felt in the least threatened, but I did. Not by the ritual or the pounding of the sticks or the dancers, but by something else that lurked in those woods. I could feel the decadent chill of approaching spirits. I had no idea if they were being drawn by the ritual or by me. A little of both, I suspected, because the synergy generated by the ceremony was astounding.

  Maybe that relentless rhythm had somehow hypnotized me. Maybe that was why I didn’t see the tall shadow until he was almost upon me.

  I heard the nightingale a split second before a fine, shimmering dust settled over me. I tried to hold my breath, but already I could feel the powder tingling on my skin, and when I finally gasped for air, I tasted the bitterness of an alkaloid on my tongue.

  My heartbeat slowed as my movements became sluggish. I felt no pain or fear. Instead, I was cocooned in a dreamy tranquility that reached all the way down to my core. My ears buzzed with a myriad of noises. If I listened closely, I could separate them from the pounding and singing. Up in the tree, the trill of the nightingale. Farther away, the sound of deep laughter. I even heard Essie calling for Rhapsody.

  The sounds were real and not imagined. I wasn’t hallucinating or tripping. I must have entered some altered state because, as I floated upward, I saw my body on the ground.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I found myself at the edge of the crowd, swaying to that hypnotic beat. At first, I worried that I might be asked to leave, but no one paid me the slightest attention. The ceremony continued, the drumming and dancing becoming more frenzied as the night wore on.

  As I looked around that circle, I spotted some familiar faces. Rhapsody had joined the dancers, her bare feet thumping the ground as her body writhed and shimmied, her arms extended toward the sky. Across the clearing, I saw Layla swaying to the music. Her presence made me think that Darius must be nearby, but I wasn’t particularly concerned by this notion. I felt no fear at all, just a quivering excitement that brushed along every nerve ending.

  Away from the main clearing, a fire had been built, and as people grew exhausted, they left the circle to gather around the blaze. As I stared into the flames, the image of an embracing couple formed. They were naked and entwined, their bodies pulsating to the beat. I could see the sway of Mariama’s hair against her bare back, the gleam of her skin in the firelight. She splayed her fingers over Devlin’s heart, and he put his hand over hers, whether to shove her away or pull her to him, I couldn’t tell.

  She turned to stare at me as she always did in my dreams. But this time there was no seductive smile or taunting invitation. In that moment, I saw nothing but rage in her face, and it frightened me in a way that it never had before because I wasn’t just worried for myself. I was terrified for Devlin.

  Robert Fremont appeared at my side. He, too, stared into the flames.

  “You see them, too,” I said.

  “Yes, I see them.”

  “She’ll never let him go, will she?”

  “Not unless you find a way to stop her.”

  “How?”

  Flames danced in his dark glasses as he turned to me. “Tell Devlin what she’s done.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know.”

  Yes, I did know. The evidence had been there all along. I just hadn’t wanted to see it. I hadn’t wanted to believe that anyone could be capable of such an abomination, of such an unspeakable act of cruelty. “You met Mariama the da
y before you were shot in Chedathy Cemetery. It was her perfume you smelled on your clothes when you died,” I said numbly.

  “Yes.”

  “You argued. You told her that you had no room in your life for a wife, much less one with a child. And when she left you, she purposefully drove her car through that guardrail. Ethan Shaw told me that she called for help from the sinking vehicle. But she couldn’t have because there is no signal on the bridge or in the water. She must have placed those calls from the cemetery. She already knew what she was going to do when she left you. But why has no one questioned any of this until now?”

  “Why would anyone question a call for help? Everyone thought it was a tragic accident. Even John.”

  “But you knew better.”

  “I knew her.” His voice sounded very cold, very distant. “She wasn’t the type to take her own life. She meant to swim ashore and leave Shani behind, but the seat belt trapped her. Mariama tried to rid herself of her only child, and now they are bound to each other forever.”

  “She took Devlin’s daughter from him,” I whispered. “The only thing that would have mattered to him.”

  “And now she feels threatened by you,” Fremont said. “Shani is her tie to the living world and you’re the only one that can set the child free.”

  “How?”

  “By convincing John to let her go.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “No one, least of all Shani, will have peace until you do.”

  * * *

  A tall figure came out of the shadows and walked toward me, topaz eyes gleaming in the firelight.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “I came to see you.”

  “Am I dead?”

  “You’re not dead, not yet.”

  “But you blew gray dust in my face.”

  “That was merely a harmless charm,” he said. “This is gray dust.” He took a vial from his pocket and I saw the shimmer of a very fine powder as he handed it to me. “Take it,” he urged. “You’ll need this for your journey.”

  I wanted to ask what good the powder would do me in a dream, but instead I accepted the vial and put it in my pocket. “You’ve had me followed,” I said. “Why?”

  The topaz eyes glittered. “Because of who you are. Because of what you are. You have so much untapped power, and you have no idea how to use it. But you’ll soon understand. I’ll teach you everything.”

  “And if I refuse? Will you kill me the way you killed Tom Gerrity?”

  “Do you think I killed him?” He sounded amused. “Why would I bother with someone so inconsequential?”

  “To pin the murder on Devlin.”

  “I have no interest in John Devlin. Unless he gets in my way again.”

  “Again?”

  “He once took something very valuable from me. And now at long last I’ve found a way to get it back.” His gaze moved past me, and I whirled to see Shani at the edge of the woods. She held her hand out to me, but when I started toward her, she vanished.

  Darius bent and put his lips to my ear. “You can’t help her in a dream. You’ll have to cross over. And I’ll be waiting for you on the other side.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  I heard Devlin calling my name and turned dreamily toward the sound, blinking to bring him into focus. He was staring down at me, and I realized now that he was shaking me.

  “Amelia! Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, I can hear you. How did you know where to find me?”

  “Essie sent me to look for you. She was worried about you.”

  “You drove all the way from Charleston to look for me?”

  “I was already here,” he said. “We just missed each other at Essie’s house.”

  “Oh.” I realized then that the pounding and dancing had stopped. The woods were completely silent as I lay on the ground peering up into the trees. “Did you hear it?” I asked Devlin.

  “Hear what?”

  “The nightingale. It always sings when Darius is around.”

  His voice hardened. “You’ve seen Darius?”

  “He blew powder in my face and then he came to me in a dream. Do you think he brought the nightingale back from Africa?”

  “It’s just another of his tricks. Here, ” Devlin said, taking my arm. “Can you sit up?”

  I tried, but the trees started to spin, and I lay back down. “I need a moment.”

  “Can you at least tell me why you came down here?”

  “I’m trying to find out who killed Robert Fremont.”

  “Why?”

  “I…don’t want you blamed for his murder.”

  “You let me worry about that.”

  “But I can help you,” I said excitedly. “I’ve found your missing gun.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true. I saw Rhapsody remove a box from a tree hollow. There was a gun inside. I don’t know much about weapons, but I’m certain it was yours.”

  He said in a strange voice, “Maybe you were still dreaming.”

  “No, that was before Darius came. I remember it clearly.”

  “And where is this tree hollow?”

  “In the cemetery. I can take you there if you want.”

  He helped me to my feet. “Are you strong enough to walk?”

  I took a wobbly step and he scooped me up into his arms. “Nevermind. I’ll carry you.”

  I buried my face in his shoulder without protest. “You’re very strong. Stronger than you look.”

  “You’re very light,” he said. “You’ve lost weight since last spring.”

  “That’s because I’m haunted.”

  “What haunts you?” he asked softly.

  “You do.”

  I heard the quick intake of his breath, but he said nothing else until we reached the road where my car was parked. Then he set me gently on my feet.

  “Where to now?”

  I pointed to the maze of headstones at the back of the cemetery. “Through there.”

  A breeze rippled the leaves as we moved silently along the pathway. Ghosts stirred, too. I sensed an icy presence behind us, but I didn’t look back. I wasn’t as frightened with Devlin beside me.

  When we got to the tree, I stuck my arm down the hollow, grappling for the box with my fingers. I felt nothing.

  “It was here a little while ago. Rhapsody must have moved it.”

  “I don’t understand how she came to be in possession of my gun,” Devlin said. “If it is my gun.”

  “I’ve thought about that. She must have been in the cemetery that night and stumbled upon the body. Maybe she suspected Darius was responsible and she took the gun to protect him.”

  “Are you sure she didn’t know you were following her?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I’ll need to talk to her,” Devlin said. “But I’m taking you home first where you’ll be safe.”

  “What if she gets rid of the gun while you’re gone? Or gives it to Darius?”

  “She probably already has,” Devlin said.

  “Still, you should talk to her. You don’t have to take me home. I’m not afraid. Not when I’m with you.”

  “No matter,” he said. “I’m afraid enough for the both of us.”

  But he didn’t seem frightened at all to me.

  We walked back to the car together and he held the door for me. Despite everything that had happened, I had the strongest urge to kiss him. To stake my claim in case Mariama lurked in the shadows. Which was foolish because I still had no idea what she could do to me. To us.

  “What about your car?” I asked.

  “I’ll pick it up later. You can’t drive home in your condition. Besides, I’m not leaving you alone until we know what Darius is up to.”

  He went around and climbed in on the other side. I turned my head on the seat so that I could stare at his profile.

  “It’s cold here,” I said. “Do you feel it?”

  “I’ll turn o
n the heat.”

  “It won’t help.”

  He scowled at the road. “Why do you say that?”

  Because it’s coming from her.

  I glanced over the backseat. Shani’s dark gaze met mine as she lifted a tiny finger to her lips.

  * * *

  I was still trembling when we got home even though Shani had already vanished. Devlin ran a hot bath for me and when he started to leave the room, I took his hand and drew him to me. Eyes dark and hooded, he undressed me and helped me into the water. Maybe it had something to so with all we’d been through or maybe I was still under the influence of Darius’s drug, but I wasn’t at all shy about my nakedness. I didn’t even blush when Devlin knelt beside the tub to bathe me.

  Afterward, we lay on the bed and I settled myself in the crook of his arm.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re trembling.”

  “Not from the cold.”

  His arm tightened around me. “Are you going to run away from me this time?”

  “I don’t want to, but I may not have a choice.” I gazed at him in the moonlight. “She’ll do everything she can to keep us apart.”

  “Who?”

  “Mariama.”

  He didn’t move, but I already felt distance between us. “Mariama is dead.”

  “But she’s still here. You know she is. You’ve felt the draft in your house. You’ve felt her. She hasn’t moved on and neither has Shani.”

  His whole body tensed. “What are you talking about? They’re dead. They can’t come back. I know that better than anyone.”

  “But they’re still here. I’ve seen them.”