I tried to distract myself by puttering around in the kitchen, but the homey sounds of clinking glass and clattering pottery reminded me of all the times I’d watched my mother move gracefully about her kitchen. The memory didn’t soothe me. Our evening meals had often passed in uneasy silence. When the sun went down and the breeze picked up, the scent of roses from the cemetery would drift in through the open windows, a lush harbinger of the coming nightfall. My eyes would sometimes catch Papa’s and for an instant, there would be a spark, a fleeting acknowledgment of our mutual fear before he once again retreated into his dark place.
I’d often pondered the dynamics of our family. Despite Papa’s withdrawal, our “sight” had irrevocably bonded us while my mother had kept me at arm’s length even when she embraced me. It wasn’t until a trip to my birthplace that I understood why. Because of how I’d come into this world, she was afraid that I would be taken from her. And maybe a part of her was a little afraid of me, too.
One by one, the pieces of my life had fallen into place with that journey to Asher Falls. But there were still blank spaces, still too many secrets that had yet to be revealed. How it would all come together and where it would end remained a terrifying mystery.
And speaking of mysteries...
The stereogram once again beckoned. Succumbing to the lure, I put the card in the holder and rotated my chair toward the light, but this time, I concentrated my attention on the girls rather than the face in the window. As I studied their images, I detected a faint outline beneath the cloaks where their bodies were joined by the humps on their backs. Together forever.
My mind flashed back to the form I’d spotted in Oak Grove Cemetery and the smell of cloves when Nelda had leaned in. Given what Dr. Shaw had told me about the use of the spice by the living twin to cover the stench of her sister’s death, I wondered if the scent had been an attempt at contact by the dead twin.
Whatever that tiny creature was, she wasn’t a ghost. She had more substance, more lingering humanity than most of the apparitions I encountered, leaving me to wonder if the physical, spiritual and telepathic bond with her sister had somehow changed her death course. Perhaps she hadn’t made the full journey through the veil, but instead resided in an in-between space that allowed her passage into this world, into my cellar, even into my walls.
I returned the stereoscope to the desk, my thoughts racing. Something very strange was happening to and around me. I recognized a supernatural manipulation as surely as I could sense the icy chill of a ghostly presence. I was being guided—herded—to Kroll Cemetery, but to what end? The intrusion from beyond both angered and frightened me, but I couldn’t deny a certain fascination.
Dr. Shaw had suggested that I search the cellar for additional stereograms and I thought it was a good idea. If there were other cards to be found, maybe the images could provide more clues.
I wasn’t anxious to explore that murky cellar alone, but far better to go down there now with the sun still burning brightly in my garden. I would make quick work of the search. In and out. A matter of minutes.
It sounded so simple.
Changing into my work cargoes, I loaded my pockets with a flashlight, pepper spray and my cell phone. Then I went out into the yard and lingered among the flowers as I tried to bolster my courage.
Idling plucking a pink rose from a nearby bush, I twirled the stem between my fingers as I walked over to the cellar steps to stare down at the door while I sniffed the air for a musty odor. I smelled nothing but the sweet scent of the rose. Dropping the blossom on the top step, I slowly descended.
I unlocked the door and thrust my hand inside to grope for the light switch. The weak illumination cast by the bare bulb was hardly inviting so I hovered in the doorway, piercing the dreary corners with the flashlight beam. I saw nothing and smelled only the faintest trace of decay.
Propping open the door with a brick, I stepped inside. Macon had accomplished a lot after I’d fled. The shelves at the front of the cellar were all reinforced and neatly arranged, the discarded boxes and broken bric-a-brac piled to one side for easy transfer to the curb on trash day. I walked slowly through the gloom as I flicked the light over the crumbling brick walls, assuring myself that I was alone.
The old staircase was to the left and toward the back of the cellar in an area as yet untouched by Macon. The shelving that had been built over the boarded-up kitchen door was piled high with boxes and debris. I began to shuffle everything around, temporarily abandoning my stereogram search for a darker quest. How had something gained entrance to that stairwell from the cellar? Could there be a hidden passageway into the walls of my home?
Nothing seemed amiss at first, but then as I stood back and fanned the beam over the wall behind the now-empty shelves, I saw a crack near the floor. Dropping to my knees, I crawled under the lower shelf to get a better look, and then pried back one of the boards so that I could shine the flashlight up the rickety staircase.
Playing the beam over the kitchen door, I spotlighted the keyhole as I imagined a tiny humpback being peering in at me, somehow shriveling into something minuscule enough to scurry through my walls.