My first instinct was to reach for the phone. I would call Devlin and have him rush back from the hospital. Then my hand fell away. This was no flesh-and-blood prowler. Already I’d caught a whiff of decay.
I could see nothing of substance in the dark, but I knew she was there just the same. She had come up from the basement and traveled through the walls to get to my hallway. The same intruder that, for whatever reason, had left a cicada husk on my nightstand in exchange for the bookmark. The same interloper that had tossed a key down into the cellar and made herself a nest in the stairwell. A squatter that was human but not human.
The flickering shadow vanished and the house once again fell into an intensified stillness. I sat transfixed, my breath coming quick and shallow as I waited.
Into that loaded silence I heard a flurry of scratching and scrabbling, as if something was clawing its way through the walls.
Slowly, I pushed back my chair and got up from the desk, mentally preparing myself for what I might find as I followed the sound through the kitchen, down the hallway and into my bedroom. As I stepped over the threshold and reached for the light, the noise in the walls stopped. In the half beat before I flipped the switch, I could have sworn I heard a hitched breath.
I stepped into the room and glanced around. I know you’re here.
My gaze raked the walls, searching every corner and crevice and taking inventory of the knickknacks on my bureau—silver hairbrush and mirror, a picture frame, my mother’s pearl necklace. And the basket of polished pebbles from Rosehill Cemetery that I had once been foolish enough to think would offer some protection against the dangers of the unknown.
My things were just as I’d left them and nothing else seemed out of place. If any of my belongings had been taken, I didn’t miss them.
I heard nothing, saw nothing, but I knew my visitor was there, just behind the plaster. Somehow she had found a way through the boarded-up stairwell and once again crawled into my walls. I could feel her presence in the shiver down my backbone.
I slipped across the room to the wastebasket where I’d tossed the cicada husk and bent to retrieve it. As I straightened with the twig between my fingers, lamplight poured through the transparent shell, turning the insect’s remains to amber. It was really quite lovely. As eye-catching in its own way as the bookmark.
Carefully, I placed the twig on top of the book jacket where I had found it and lifted my gaze to the wall behind my bed. “No more offerings,” I said firmly. “No more trading. Leave my things alone and get out of my house.”
Then slowly I walked to the door, turned off the light and went back to the office where I dropped, with a pounding heart, onto my chair and waited.
Twenty-Four
I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen. Certainly not the intense quiet that followed. For the longest time, I heard nothing more than the hum of the refrigerator, the swish of the ceiling fan. No scrabbling in the walls. No thud on the basement stairs or ping of a dropped key.
My ears were so acutely attuned to the loaded silence that the chime of my phone had the effect of a gunshot. It was all I could do not to jump.
I checked the display but didn’t recognize the number. Lifting the phone to my ear, I braced myself to hear a cicada rattle or that piercing whistle on the other end. Such an expectation undoubtedly spoke as much to the acceptance of my alternate reality as to my fear. Anything seemed possible in my world, even a phone call from beyond.
“Hello? Hello? Are you there?” inquired a concerned voice on the other end. “Amelia?”
“Dr. Shaw?” Thank God. I’d never been so happy to hear his voice. My grip relaxed on the phone as I let out a relieved breath. “Yes, I’m here. Sorry. I didn’t recognize the number.”
“I’m calling from my cell phone. Are you all right, my dear? You don’t sound yourself.”
“I’m fine, thank you. Just a little frayed around the edges. Too many things on my mind these days.”
“I hope our earlier conversation isn’t one of them. You looked distressed when you left the Institute this afternoon so I wanted to make sure you were okay. And I also want to apologize. All of that business about a calling was nothing more than speculation on my part. A bit of whimsical conjecture based upon what I know of your history. In hindsight, I feel I should have been more circumspect. Given all you’ve been through, I can see why you’d find even the suggestion of such a mission distressing, if not downright harrowing.”
“I admit, death walker is hardly the job I would aspire to,” I tried to say lightly. “But I’m not upset by the suggestion. I came to you for advice. You’re the only one I can talk to about these things and I value your counsel. So, please, no apology necessary. And anyway, our visit is the least of my concerns at the moment.”
“What’s the matter? And what can I do to help?”