The Restorer. Amanda Stevens

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СКАЧАТЬ had come up behind me. His hair was white, too, but he kept it cropped close to his head and his eyes were faded, his demeanor remote but not at all threatening.

      He seemed focused on some distant point, but I knew the ghost had caught his attention.

      “You see him, too, don’t you?” I whispered as my gaze strayed back to the gate.

      “Don’t look at him!”

      His harsh tone startled me, though I didn’t outwardly re act. “I’m not.”

      “Here.” He took my arm and turned me toward the angels. “Let’s sit a spell.”

      We sank to the ground, our backs to the ghost, just as we had when I was nine. For the longest time, neither of us spoke, but I could sense Papa’s tension and what I thought might be fear. I shivered in the gathering darkness and drew up my legs, resting my chin on my knees.

      “Papa, who is he? What is he?” I finally asked.

      He wouldn’t look at me, but fixed his gaze instead on the statues. “A harbinger…a messenger. I don’t know.”

      The chill inside me deepened. A harbinger of what? A messenger for whom? “Have you seen him before? I mean…since that day?”

      “No.”

      “Why has he come back? Why now after all these years?”

      “Maybe it’s a warning,” Papa said.

      “What kind of warning?”

      Slowly, he turned to face me. “You tell me, child. Has something happened?”

      And then I knew. Something had happened. Something had shifted in this world and the next. Everything had been changing from the moment John Devlin had stepped out of the mist.

      My arms tightened around my legs. I couldn’t stop shaking.

      Papa placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “What have you done, Amelia?”

      Now it was I who couldn’t look at him. “I met someone. A police detective named John Devlin. He’s haunted by two ghosts, a woman and a little girl. Last night the ghost child came to my garden. Papa, she knew I could see her. She tried to communicate with me. And then this morning, I found a tiny ring in the garden where I saw her disappear.”

      “What did you do with this ring?”

      “I buried it where I found it.”

      “You have to rid yourself of it,” he said, and then his voice took on an edge of something I’d never heard from him before. I couldn’t quite put a name to it. “You have to return it from where it came.”

      I looked at him, startled. “Return it…to the ghost?”

      “Take it to the place where the child died. Or to her grave. Just get rid of it. And promise me you will never see this man again.”

      “I’m not sure it’s that simple.”

      “It is that simple,” he insisted. “There are consequences to breaking the rules. You know that.”

      His stern voice put me on the defensive. “But I didn’t break the rules—”

      “Keep your distance from those who are haunted,” he recited. “If they seek you out, turn away from them, for they constitute a terrible threat and cannot be trusted.”

      I thought of Devlin asleep in my office, draining me of energy. I didn’t dare tell Papa about that.

      “You must not allow this man into your life,” he warned. “You must not tempt fate.”

      “Papa—”

      “Listen to me, Amelia. There are entities you’ve never seen before. Forces I dare not even speak of. They are colder, stronger, hungrier than any presence you can imagine.”

      I caught my breath. “What are you talking about? You mean…ghosts?”

      “I call them the Others,” he said and I had never heard so much dread and despair in a human voice.

      The Others. My heart knocked painfully against my chest. “Why can’t I see them?”

      “Be thankful that you can’t, child. And take care you don’t let them in. Once that door has opened…it cannot be closed.”

      I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Have you seen them, Papa?”

      He closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve seen them.”

      EIGHT

      The way Papa described the Others—colder, stronger, hungrier than any presence I’d ever known—was terrifying. And yet even on the drive home, a part of me wondered about the timing of such a revelation. Why was he only now telling me about another realm of ghosts that I couldn’t see?

      Was it because he feared the power of the forbidden, the allure of the taboo? Did he want to spook me so thoroughly I’d keep my distance from Devlin?

      It might have worked, too, if Camille Ashby hadn’t called the next day.

      At least that’s what I told myself.

      Not only was Camille my current employer, but she was also one of the most well-connected people in Charleston. In addition to her current position at Emerson University, she sat on the board of almost every historical preservation association in the city. A nod from her was a veritable PR gold mine in my field. So when she called and asked to meet at the cemetery, I knew better than to blow her off.

      I was nervous about seeing Devlin again—especially after Papa’s warning—but I had managed to disabuse myself of the notion that he’d somehow drained my energy while he lay sleeping in my office. Only a ghost could feed on human vitality and Devlin was no apparition. He was a flesh and blood man, handsome and darkly charismatic. The weakness I’d experienced in his presence was nothing more than a physical manifestation of my attraction to him.

      And I was attracted to him. I could admit that now, though I would never admit it to Papa. Devlin’s secretive eyes and brooding demeanor were powerful libations to a closet romantic like me. In spite of his modern trappings, he had an old-world air about him. An intoxicating fusion of Byron, Brontë and Poe with a modern twist.

      And like the fictional creations of the aforementioned, he had a deadly weakness. He was a haunted man.

      For obvious reasons, his ghost child had made a strong impression on me, but my thoughts turned now to the woman. I still wasn’t certain of her relationship to the little girl. I’d sensed a distance between them, an odd disconnect that seemed to belie a motherly bond. She seemed more guardian than maternal protector.

      It was all very mystifying and I had so many questions. Why had the little girl come alone to my garden? If she’d left the ring for me to find, what did it mean? And was Papa right? Should I find a way to return it?

      Now that СКАЧАТЬ