Enjoy this sneak peek from THE VISITOR, book four in
The Graveyard Queen series by Amanda Stevens.
The blind ghost returned in the spring and with her, my nightmares. The days warmed, the magnolias opened and foreboding settled in like an unwelcome caller.
Night after night I lay in a dream-like state, worn out from the physical labor of my restorations and the mental anguish of my dark gift, but too frightened to succumb to a deeper sleep because she would come to me then. The specter that had followed me through the veil. I wanted to believe she was merely my namesake, the ghost of some long-dead ancestor, but I very much feared she was a vision of my future self. A projection of the tortured woman I would one day become.
Discomforted by my thoughts, I glanced over at John Devlin, the Charleston police detective who lay sleeping beside me. His ghosts were gone now. His daughter, Shani, had finally been able to move on, thus breaking the tie that had kept her mother—Devlin's dead wife—bound to him. In the ensuing months since their departure, I'd allowed myself a glimmer of hope that Devlin and I might finally be together. We'd forged a strong bond since that fateful day. An unbreakable connection that neither ghost nor human could sever. Or so I wanted to believe.
But as the temperature climbed and the days lengthened, my blood ran colder. A shift in the wind brought a whiff of something unnatural. Distorted shadows crept across my bedroom ceiling. As the pull from the other side grew stronger, I couldn't help but wonder if my visitor had brought with her a warning or prophecy.
On this moonlit evening, her presence seemed especially pervasive. I couldn't tune her out no matter how hard I tried. She'd only ever come to me in my dreams, but I was awake now and could still hear her calling to me. Amelia. Amelia Gray. Come to me!
Careful not to rouse Devlin, I rose and tiptoed from the room, slipping down the hallway, through the kitchen and out to my office, which was located at the very back of the house. The long windows afforded a view of the garden where moonlight dappled the freesia. I stood there probing the shadows, the flutter of every leaf, the quiver of every limb spiking my pulse.
A draft seeped in through the windows as the smell of dust and dried lavender permeated my office. I peered through the layers of moonlight and darkness until I saw her. I didn't outwardly react to her watery form, but everything inside of me stilled as a terrible acceptance stole over me. She was here. Not just in my memory, not just in my nightmares, but here. And now I could no longer deny that I was being haunted by a look-alike specter.
As she floated toward me, I became mesmerized by her grotesque thrashing, unable to wrench my gaze away even as terror stabbed through my chest with each painful stroke of my heart. She wore a white lace frock suitable for a wedding or burial. Moonlight shone upon and through her so that I had no trouble distinguishing her all-too familiar features—the straight nose, the high cheekbones, the slightly parted lips. The same quiet pretty that stared back at me from the mirror except for one notable exception. Her eyes were missing.
Beneath the empty sockets, her cheeks were darkly stained from an endless river of tears. Levitating outside my window, she placed a pale hand against the glass and a wintry chill shot through me, a bone frost that came only from the other side. The windows rimed and a crust of ice formed in the corners of the panes. Minuscule fissures fanned out from her splayed fingers as the glass crackled beneath the pressure of her brittle cold.
Why are you here? I wanted to cry out. What do you want from me?
But I already knew the answer. She wanted my essence, my life force, my humanness. She wanted what every ghost craved—to be alive. That's what made them so dangerous. That's what made them so voracious.
She drew ever closer, until her dead lips were pressed to the glass. The key. It's your only protection. Find it!
“What key?” I whispered.
Find it!
“Amelia?”
I might have jumped at the sound of my name, but after years of living with ghosts, I'd learned to quell my reflexes. I took a tentative step back, testing my freedom, but I could still feel the apparition's pull through the window even though she had faded.
Devlin moved up behind me. The power of his presence never failed to excite me, but I could take no pleasure in his warmth at that moment. I was too shaken by the look-alike revenant and the chilling message she had brought me.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I couldn't sleep.”
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lied.
He placed his hands on my shoulders. “My God, your skin is like ice.”
“It's cold in here.”
“Come back to bed. I'll keep you warm.” His fingers trailed down my arm, drawing shivers. “Come back to bed, Amelia.”
Oh, what the drawl of my name could do to me!
“In a minute,” I said.
He rested his chin on my head with a sigh. “Something's bothering you. Tell me.”
I hesitated, my gaze scanning the darkness. The ghost was gone, but I sensed another presence in the darkness. An unseen watcher that I hoped was nothing more than a conjuring of my troubled subconscious. I wanted so much to confide my fears to Devlin, lay all my cards on the table, but that would mean telling him about the ghosts. That would mean revealing my gift.
If he remembered anything of his time on the other side, perhaps he would have been more receptive to my secrets. But he'd awakened from his coma without any memory of those moments before and after his heart had stopped beating. As his wounds healed, his disdain for the supernatural returned, stronger than ever, leaving me to wonder if he used his denial as a means of protection in much the same way that I'd once clung to my father's rules.
“I thought I saw something in the garden,” I told him.
He was instantly alert. “Just now?”
“A few minutes ago.”
He turned me to face him. “Why didn't you wake me?”
“Because it was probably nothing more than a shadow.” Why had I even mentioned it? Was I testing him? Prodding him to admit that he, too, could sense an otherworldly presence?
“I'll take a look around,” he said.
“You're wasting your time. You won't find anything.”
His expression remained stoic, but I felt the same stir of exhilaration and trepidation that I'd experienced upon our first meeting. I suspected I would always find myself a little disconcerted in his company. The power of his charisma could be overwhelming, and yet his manner remained formal and reserved. He was a beguiling puzzle, my Devlin. An enigma to his very core.
“It's not a waste if it puts your mind at ease,” he said, lightly kissing my forehead. He disappeared into the kitchen and I heard the back door close behind him. A moment later, he was in the garden, the beam of his flashlight outing tree trunks and exposing dark corners. Moonlight glinted in the new silver at his temples—a souvenir from his near-death experience—and bathed his face and shoulders in an ethereal glow.
My breath quickened as I watched him in the garden. Without ghosts feeding on his energy, he'd lost that gaunt, desolate look. His eyes were no longer sunken, his cheeks no longer hollow, but regardless of his physical well-being, he would always be tormented by memories. There would always be an empty space inside his heart that I could never fill.
He lingered in the garden, his shoulders rigid as he lifted his face to the moon before turning—with a shudder, I could have sworn—back to the house.
“All clear,” he said as he came into my office. “Nothing to worry about.”
I let out a breath. “Thank you for checking. I'm glad you're here tonight.”
“I'm glad, too.” He moved back to the windows and we stood gazing out into the moonlit garden where the early yarrow gleamed like silver. Garlands of wild roses cascaded down from the tree branches, adding a touch of old-world romance to the night as nothing else ever could.
Devlin slipped his arms around my waist, pulling me against him once more. “I've missed you so,” he murmured against my ear. “I'm sorry I haven't been around much lately.”
I dropped my head against his shoulder and turned my face up to his, scouring his profile in the dark. Marveling yet again that after all this time, after all we'd been through, he could remain so unknown to me. A stranger still in so many ways.
“You've nothing to apologize for,” I said. “Your job is important.”
“This case…” Dread crept into his voice. “It's a bad one.”
“You've still no leads?”
“Nothing substantial. It's as if that little girl vanished into thin air.”
“But she didn't.” I flicked my gaze back to the garden. “She's out there somewhere, and if anyone can find her, it's you.”
There was a heartbreaking silence, a grim moment of reflection before he said in resignation, “I hope you're right.”
“That child is your priority right now and I wouldn't have it any other way. When all of this is over, we'll have our time.”
But would we?
With Devlin's arms so tightly around me, I didn't want to think about the past or the future. The only certainty we could ever have was in the moment. It was a lesson I'd learned the hard way.
But even when he kissed me, I couldn't shake the feeling of doom that had been building for weeks. Even as I clung to him, I couldn't help glancing over my shoulder to scour the shadows.
Something bad was headed our way. Something from the other side was coming to tear us apart.
Visit www.AmandaStevens.com now to learn more about THE VISITOR and other novels in The Graveyard Queen series.