Amanda Stevens - The Awakening

A night bird called from a treetop, coaxing me out of my reverie. The air had grown cooler and I pulled my sweater around me as I turned to go inside. Then I halted at the sound of an approaching car. Normally, this wouldn’t have alarmed me. Rutledge was a busy street. But I was certain the vehicle had slowed as it neared my house.

I was still hidden at the end of the porch, but I found myself sinking even deeper into the shadows as I peered across the garden to get a look at the long, sleek sedan with tinted windows. The vehicle pulled to the curb and stopped in front of my house. I caught my breath as the driver cut the engine. Was I being followed? Watched?

I wanted to believe paranoia was getting to me. After everything I’d been through, it would hardly be surprising. But was it really paranoia? I had enemies among the living, the dead and the possessed. All those malevolent faces flashed through my mind as I huddled in the dark and waited.

The back window slid down. I could see the shadowy profile of the passenger as he leaned forward to speak to the driver. I had the impression of a rigid posture and a sleek cap of silver hair. When he turned his head to stare up at my house, I caught my breath in astonishment. I knew him. As with Claire Bellefontaine, I’d never met him, had never even heard his voice. But I would have recognized Devlin’s grandfather anywhere.

This was turning out to be a night of unnerving firsts.

I pressed back against the wall as I tried to make myself invisible. I heard the click of a car door and a moment later, the driver came around to the open passenger window. He was a big man with wide shoulders and a menacing presence. I heard the soft murmur of their voices in the dark, but I couldn’t make out the conversation.

The driver left the car and came up the walkway, pausing with his hand on the gate as he tilted his head to stare up at the second-story windows. His behavior troubled me. I had the notion he was trying to determine whether or not the upstairs tenant was home. Another moment passed and then he opened the gate and stepped into the garden.

The night had gone deathly still. Even the songbird fell silent. Oddly, the scent of the gardenias deepened, as if Jonathan Devlin’s arrival had somehow stirred the heavenly scent. The driver’s footsteps were muffled as he strode up the walkway and climbed the porch steps.

I didn’t move a muscle as I tracked him. If he peered into the shadowy corner, he would spot me huddled and quivering, but he didn’t even look my way. Instead he paused on the top step as Angus barked a warning from inside. Then he turned to glance over his shoulder at the car.

“You hear that?” he called softly.

“You mean the dog? Yes, come away from the porch before the whole neighborhood is awakened,” Jonathan Devlin said gruffly. “We’ll wait until morning.”

The driver immediately turned and exited the premises as quickly and as quietly as he had come.

I cowered in my hiding place as my heartbeat thundered in my ears. Only when the sound of the car faded did I rise and clamor down the porch steps, rushing along the walkway, through the gate and out to the street. I even took a few steps toward those receding taillights before I came to my senses and halted. What was I doing?

If Dr. Shaw’s research and conjecture proved correct, then the elderly Devlin was not only a member of the Congé, but perhaps the leader. He could be every bit as dangerous as Claire Bellefontaine, perhaps even more so.

Why else would he have come to my house? Why now, if not on a mission for that dastardly faction?

Nine

Once inside the house, I calmed Angus as I locked the door, reset the alarm and then stood at the window for several minutes watching the street, my breath catching at the sound of every car engine. I didn’t see the black car again but I could imagine the sleek lines gliding through darkened alleyways back to the exclusive enclave south of Broad, back to that towering mansion on Battery Row.

Letting the curtain fall back into place, I knelt to stroke Angus’s back and scratch behind his battered ear nubs. Now that the outside threat had passed, he relaxed and pushed up against me. Since our time in Seven Gates Cemetery, we’d returned to our old friendship and I welcomed the ease and affection with which he now greeted me.

“I’m glad to see you, too,” I murmured, dropping all the way to the floor so that he could nuzzle my face. “You’ve no idea.”

After a few minutes in his calming company, I began to think a little more rationally. I even managed to consider the possibility that I had overreacted. The unexpected visit from Jonathan Devlin had thrown me for a loop, but if he were up to no good, would he have had his driver park in front of my house? Would he have sent the man up to my door? He was far too smart and seasoned to leave that kind of trail. No, whatever his motive, he hadn’t come here on business for the Congé. So why had he come?

My nerves still thrummed as I headed down the hallway to the kitchen, Angus at my heels. I put on the kettle and fixed a cup of chamomile before letting him out in the rear garden for his evening activities. I sat on the back steps and sipped the soothing brew as he made his rounds through the bushes and flower beds, sniffing here, pawing there before disappearing into the shadows to do his business.

The night was still clear, but the wind had risen since I got home, and I snuggled my sweater around me as I listened to the tinkle of the wind chime. The discordant notes were a comfort because they didn’t settle into a melody. I hoped that meant the ghost child hadn’t followed me home from the restaurant.

Even so, I remained jittery, my disquiet too easily summoning the images that had unfolded in that garden. I shuddered as I thought back on that horrifying tableau. Someone had killed that child. Murdered her in cold blood. I wondered about her assailant, why he had remained invisible to me. Was he—she—still alive? Had he gone unpunished all this time?

As I sat there puzzling over the child’s death, bits and pieces of last night’s dream mingled with the ghost’s revelations. In the back of my mind, I could see Mama and Aunt Lynrose at the edge of that open grave, rocking and sipping sweet tea as my aunt warned me not to poke my nose in places it didn’t belong.

Leave her be, Lyn. We should have tended to this business years ago. Now it’s up to Amelia to uncover the truth.

What business? What truth? How could that child’s murder be connected in any way to my family?

It couldn’t, I told myself firmly. Sometimes a dream could portend the future or unlock the past, but sometimes a dream was just a dream. It was pointless to try and infer anything from those disjointed images when I had concrete clues to decipher.

The prospect of another investigation so soon after my harrowing experiences in Seven Gates Cemetery overwhelmed and exhausted me. What choice did I have, though? The ghost had already latched on to me and she wouldn’t fade away of her own accord. I had learned that the hard way. Her tricks would only become more pernicious if I tried to ignore her. The sooner I started putting the pieces together, the sooner she would go back to her grave and we could both rest easy. That was the hope, at least.

Succumbing to my weariness, I yawned and called to Angus. He appeared at the edge of the shadows, head cocked as he regarded me across the garden. When I called to him again, he took a step toward me and then halted, his tail going up as he fixed his gaze on the steps beside me.

“What is it?” I murmured even as a thrill skirted along my spine. I turned to stare at the empty space beside me. There was no ghostly chill, no shimmer from a manifestation, only a quivering certainty that I was no longer alone.