The Sinner

by Amanda Stevens

  We’d made some headway during the past year, but he wasn’t yet ready to accept me wholeheartedly. Until such time, I could do nothing but give him his space. The same as I had done for Devlin.

  Kneeling, I put out a hand so that he could catch my scent. He eyed me from a safe distance. When he finally ambled over, he didn’t relax as he once would have done, but instead held himself in rigid acquiescence as I stroked his scarred head and scratched behind his ear nubs.

  “I know,” I murmured, smoothing the fur on his back. “I know you don’t like the changes inside me. I don’t like them, either. But there’s nothing I can do about them.”

  Unless I located Rose’s long-lost key. Unless everything I’d heard about it was true. That still seemed a remote possibility, an improbable fairy tale, but if the key I wore around my neck could hold the ghosts at bay temporarily, who was to say another key couldn’t lock them out forever?

  Angus put up with my attention for as long as he could stand before trotting off to explore the front yard. He wouldn’t go beyond the ditch. No matter his reservations, he still felt protective of me and for that I was both humbled and grateful.

  I let him nose around for a bit and then called to him to follow me into the backyard. As I closed the gate and turned, my gaze lifted to the flat roof of the shed jutting up through the treetops. The outbuilding was located at the back of the property, separated from the marsh by a salt-tolerant forest of loblolly pines and from the backyard and house by a small grove of orange trees.

  As best I could tell from the windows and roofline, the shed was divided into three distinct rooms, one leading back into the other in the shotgun fashion of an old farmhouse. The structure looked to be in decent condition so I assumed someone had taken care of it over the years. It was painted white like the house with a high window on either side of the front room to allow in light. On a few occasions, I’d stood on tiptoes and taken a peek through the glass, but other than a jumble of old furniture, boxes and garden tools, I hadn’t been able to tell much about the interior.

  I sat down on the back porch steps, my gaze still fixed on the roof. As the horizon deepened, the moths came out, flitting among the bee balm and catmint that grew at the side of the porch. The breeze blowing in from the sea was cool and fragrant, and I could hear music somewhere in the distance. Closer in, cicadas and bullfrogs serenaded from the marsh as the bats flew out of their houses. It was a lovely time, a lonely time, with the last rays of the sunset valiantly staving off twilight.

  Angus and I sat there until the shadows thickened at the edge of the yard and dusk crept over the orchard. I felt nothing unnatural in the breeze, but there was a sense of wrongness about the house and yard that I had not experienced before.

  Perhaps it really was nothing more than my imagination fueled by Kendrick’s story. Or perhaps my finding those caged graves had somehow stirred a dormant evil. Whatever the reason, I found myself lingering on the steps and then on the screened porch because I didn’t want to enter the house.

  “Oh, just get it over with,” I muttered as I pushed open the back door and stepped across the threshold. Fumbling for the light switch, I paused just inside the doorway as my gaze darted about the kitchen.

  Most of the fixtures and cabinets were original to the house and created a vivid sense of time and place. I had a sudden vision of a woman in a black dress standing at the old farmhouse sink washing dishes. She wasn’t a ghost or a mirage or even one of Darius Goodwine’s illusions, but rather another product of my imagination. My gaze drifted to the table where a man with wire-rimmed glasses sat reading the Bible. What had driven a gentle, God-fearing man to murder his wife in her sleep and hide her body so well she’d yet to be found?

  I watched the Willoughbys for a moment longer before allowing them to fade back into the past.

  For the next few minutes, I busied myself attending to Angus’s dinner needs and then left him to his food as I walked slowly from room to room, searching for cold spots, listening for inexplicable sounds and sniffing the slightly musty air for peculiar scents.

  Nothing seemed amiss even in the large front bedroom, which I assumed had belonged to George and Mary. I’d chosen the space for myself because of the southern exposure, but I’d spent very little time in the room. On most nights, the summer heat chased me out to the back porch where I would lie in the hammock watching the stars until I grew drowsy.

  I wondered now if I had avoided the room because I’d subconsciously picked up on a disturbing feel—that sense of wrongness I’d experienced on the back steps. My gaze traveled over the room, searching every corner and crevice. If I peeled back the area rug at the end of the bed, would I find bloodstains on the floorboards? If I emptied my mind, would I feel the reverberation from Mary Willoughby’s screams?

  There was nothing here, I told myself. No ghosts. No evil presence. Just that slight fusty odor that came from aging places. The house remained at peace.

  Even so, I quickly packed up all my belongings and hauled my suitcase down the hallway to one of the smaller bedrooms at the rear of house. After I stored my things, I took a long, cool shower and put on a fresh nightgown before wandering back out to the kitchen.

  Angus had finished his dinner by this time. He seemed content to curl up in a corner and watch drowsily as I ate a bowl of cereal standing at the sink. Then fetching my laptop, I settled down at the table for an evening of research.

  So much had happened I hardly knew where to start. As on edge as I already was about the house, I decided to leave the topic of the Willoughbys for another day, concentrating instead on memento mori symbolism and the concept of triplism. I found a wealth of information on the transmigration of souls, but nothing at all on the Eternal Brotherhood of Resurrectionists or their enemy, the Congé. Finally putting all that aside, I searched through dozens of mortsafe images trying to find a duplicate or similar design to the cages in the clearing.

  I had hoped once I began my research, a pattern would emerge that would help define my investigation, but by the time I finally closed my laptop for the night, enlightenment still eluded me.

  Angus followed me out to the porch and I stood at the screen door, gazing into the darkness while he took care of business. I saw no ghosts hovering at the edge of the yard, no in-betweens skulking through the shadows, but the dead world seemed closer than it had in months.

  Little wonder I felt so unnerved. It wasn’t every day Darius Goodwine came to me with a dangerous proposition. I half expected to catch a glimpse of him lurking in the shadows, but nothing stirred. The night was calm and yet my heart continued to race.

  As if sensing my unease, Angus came trotting over to the door, whimpering to be let in. I placed a hand on his back and felt the bristle of his fur.

  “What’s out there?” I murmured.

  If only he had been able to warn me.

  * * *

  That night I dreamed about Devlin. He appeared to me in the cemetery in much the same way as Darius Goodwine had. I looked up from cleaning headstones and there he was, standing so deeply in the shadows of the old church ruins that I thought at first he must be a mirage. When I tried to speak to him, he lifted a finger to his lips to silence me. And when I would have gone to him, he shook his head as if to warn me away. The dream seemed so real and I felt his presence so strongly that, when I awakened, I almost expected to find him standing over me. Instead, I saw Annalee Nash peering down at me in the dark.

  I bolted upright in bed. The moonlight streaming in through the windows was so bright I didn’t bother with the lamp. Clutching the covers to my chest, I glanced around, certain I would find Annalee hiding in one of the corners, but no one was there. I must have still been dreaming when I saw her.

  Angus was nowhere to be found so I climbed out of bed and padded down the hallway to look for him. He stood on the back porch peering through the
screen into the yard. He didn’t seem alarmed or frightened, but when I opened the door to let him out, he wouldn’t go.

  I rested my hand on his head, gently scratching behind his ear nubs as I searched the yard. The night was still and quiet, perfumed by the lemony scent of the catmint. Moonlight spilled across the yard, cool and silvery, but the shadows along the orchard were impenetrable. I scanned the tree line once, twice, at least three times before I noticed a slight movement. When the outline of a crouching form took shape, my heart leaped to my throat and I reached for the hook on the screen door to make certain that I’d latched it.

  Even in the dark, I recognized her at once, and for a moment, I could have sworn she was the ten-year-old Annalee from Lucien Kendrick’s story.

  I started to call out to her and then thought better of it. She stared up at the house, but I didn’t think she’d seen me. I wasn’t even sure she was cognizant of her whereabouts. Whatever caused her to hunker in the shadows was something from her past. Something that only she could see.

  She watched the house for a moment longer and then rose tentatively as she glanced over her shoulder. Still half crouching, she backed deeper into the shadows and disappeared into the trees.

  I wondered if I should follow her, make sure she was all right, but the memory of that sly smile stopped me. I went back inside the stifling house, calling softly for Angus to come. With the doors and windows closed, the musty odor seemed stronger tonight and I detected a cloying under note that turned my stomach.

  Walking slowly through the darkened rooms, I opened closet doors and peered into murky corners. I didn’t know what I expected to find. I doubted that Annalee had actually been inside the house. Somehow, I must have picked up on her nearness in my sleep and manifested her face in a waking dream. Still, the very fact that she had come creeping around the property so late at night bothered me.

  The moldy odor was stronger in the front bedroom. The windows were closed here, too, and the closet was empty. There was nothing under the bed or behind the headboard. Nothing lurked in the corners. No one had been in that room since I’d moved out all my things earlier, but I sensed a presence as strongly as I’d felt Devlin’s in my sleep.

  “Show yourself,” I whispered.

  I heard something then that reminded me of a mewling kitten. The sound was so soft and distant I couldn’t be sure I’d heard anything at all. I held myself perfectly still, listening to the silence of that bedroom. The house didn’t creak and moan as would be expected in such an old structure. To the contrary, the quiet seemed uncanny.

  I’d had some experience with an entity that could scurry and scrabble through walls, but I didn’t think the sound had come from inside the house. Rather, the tinny, echoing quality made me think of a well or a tomb. Something deep underground. Something buried alive.

  My heart pounded as I turned to the doorway where Angus hovered. He wouldn’t come inside the room and his reluctance, even more than the sound, sent a warning thrill down my spine. I might have succumbed to my earlier curiosity and thrown back the rug to search for bloodstains, but my cell phone rang just then and I left the room in relief to hurry down the hallway to answer.

  A phone call in the middle of the night was never a good omen, but since I didn’t recognize the number, I expected it was just a misdial.

  “Hello?”

  Silence.

  “Hello?” I said, a trifle impatiently.

  Nothing. Not even so much as a hitched breath. But someone was there. Someone who knew that I was in the house alone.

  Nine

  I didn’t sleep much after that phone call. I returned briefly to the front bedroom, but I didn’t hear, smell or see anything untoward. Whatever I’d sensed earlier had faded with the interruption. I was glad for that. Still, I made another round through the house before going back to bed. When the alarm went off at dawn, I was tempted to burrow under the covers, but I dragged myself out of bed, showered and headed for the cemetery at my usual time.

  I was alone for the early part of the morning and the quiet gave me time to think. About those caged graves. About Darius Goodwine’s proposal. About the tattoo on the dead woman’s arm, the anonymous phone call in the middle of the night and Annalee Nash’s strange behavior at the edge of the orchard. So much for a peaceful summer.

  A little after midmorning, Malloy and another officer showed up to resume searching the woods and the area surrounding the circle. One of the officers the day before had found another route to the clearing without having to pass through the cemetery and I was grateful for that. They’d been respectful and mindful of the graves, but the constant disruptions left me unsettled. Now it was easier to pretend they weren’t there.

  I’d been working steadily for hours with only a brief break for lunch when I heard a shout erupt from the direction of the circle. The broken silence startled me and I lifted my head, momentarily struck by the unmistakable note of excitement in the officer’s voice. Then I returned resolutely to my work, reminding myself that I needed to keep a low profile. The less attention I drew to myself, the better, especially if I intended to conduct my own discreet investigation.

  A few minutes after I heard the shout, two police cars careered down the gravel road and crunched to a halt. Then came the coroner’s van. These new arrivals and the scurry of activity I sensed from the circle threatened my resolution. Curiosity and dread niggled but still I kept my head down and continued to scrape away at the layers of moss and lichen.

  Detective Kendrick arrived next with a man I recognized as James Rushing, a forensic anthropologist from Charleston. We’d never met, but I’d seen Rushing around town at various functions and Temple had spoken highly of him and his credentials when he’d replaced Ethan Shaw as consultant to the county coroner’s office. And Temple being Temple, she’d also noted how easy he was on the eyes. I’d never given James Rushing more than a passing thought, but his presence today, along with that of the coroner’s, could only mean one thing—human remains had been discovered, presumably in the caged grave where the body had been removed.

  Still, I kept myself in check until the sun hovered just above the treetops and then I could resist no longer. I tossed down the brush, peeled off my gloves and left the cemetery by way of the back gate. I told myself that a quick peek from a distance would do no harm. After all, it was only natural that I’d be curious. It might even seem more suspicious if I acted disinterested.

  The closer I got to the clearing, the more anxious I became. As I rounded the first bend, I could see the uniformed cops milling about the circle. I put a hand to my eyes as my gaze went around the cages, resting briefly on the second mortsafe, which remained open from the excavation. But the officers’ focus was no longer on the caged graves. Instead, Kendrick and the coroner stood in the center of the clearing staring down at something I couldn’t yet see.

  As if sensing my presence, Kendrick turned and nodded when he saw me. Then he motioned for me to join them. I hesitated for a moment before making my way through the tall weeds to his side.

  “Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here?” I asked reluctantly.

  “I wouldn’t have asked you over if it wasn’t.” He shifted his position to make room for me. Again, I braced myself for the possibility of recognizing the deceased, but I needn’t have worried. The remains were skeletal.

  The unmarked grave site had been carefully staked and gridded and now the skeleton lay completely exposed in a shallow grave. A tattered cloth had fallen away from the torso and I could see bits of old leather that might once have been shoes. I wasn’t particularly squeamish about bones, but these remains bothered me. My hand lifted automatically to the key at my neck as I realized why.

  “The skull is missing,” I said under my breath.

  I didn’t think I’d muttered it loud enough for even Kendrick to hear, but I felt
him tense beside me and Rushing glanced up from his work.

  His dark eyes took me in for a moment before he said, “I know you. Amelia Gray, right? The cemetery restorer. Temple Lee speaks very highly of you.”

  I murmured a polite response, trying to make myself as inconspicuous as I possibly could.

  Kendrick turned back to Rushing. “You were saying?”

  “You asked about scavengers. Always a likelihood, but the rest of the skeleton is in remarkably good shape for such a shallow burial and there isn’t as much evidence of predation as I would have expected.”

  “Can you tell how long it’s been here?”

  “A decade at least, probably closer to two, although the proximity to the marsh can speed up decomposition. I’ll have a better idea when I get him back to the lab.”

  “Him?”

  “The remains are definitely male,” Rushing said.

  Kendrick hunkered in the grass, putting himself closer to the skeleton. “Any chance the skull was removed before burial?”

  Rushing shifted his position so that he could point to the upper vertebrae. “Decapitation, either post-or perimortem, would leave deep cuts. Skulls have a natural tendency to disarticulate from the body. While I don’t rule out scavengers, there is evidence of a prior excavation, which leads me to believe the skull was intentionally removed after decomposition.”

  “What’s the evidence?” Kendrick asked.

  Rushing nodded toward the cloth that had fallen away from the torso. “As you might expect after all this time and in this environment, very little of the clothing remains. There’s some bits of leather and not much else. But this swath of linen is still mostly intact. My guess is, the shroud was added after the exhumation. Once the skull was removed from the grave, the remains were wrapped and reburied, which suggests a certain amount of respect, if not reverence, for the deceased.”