The Kingdom

Thane looked bemused…and wary. He glanced at his watch. “Shouldn’t you girls still be in school?” His tone was devoid of inflection, but I had a feeling the question was a conscious attempt to put Ivy in her place. A valiant effort, but one that seemed to sail right over the girl’s head as she twirled a dark strand of hair around one fingertip.

“We left early,” she said. “We had better things to do, right, Sid?” The two exchanged another glance, and Ivy grinned.

Thane’s gaze was on me, those green eyes gleaming with something dark. Something just for me. I didn’t know how to feel about that look. I was just as wary of him as he was of Ivy but for a very different reason. “And what part did you play in these shenanigans?”

“None at all. I’m just giving them a lift home.”

“Let’s hope the truant officer sees it your way,” he said ominously, but his eyes were still teasing. “How goes the cemetery restoration?”

“I’ve hardly begun. It’s only been one day.”

“Maybe I’ll drop by sometime. I haven’t been up there in years.”

Ivy’s grin faded, and she gave me a hard stare. She wasn’t the type of girl who would be comfortable sharing the spotlight, let alone relinquishing it to someone like me. “What is so fascinating about a bunch of old headstones?” she asked with an eye roll.

“It’s history,” Thane said. “How can you know who you are if you don’t know where you come from?”

How strange that his question should mirror the doubts and the uncertainties of my adoption that I’d pondered just last night. The insight made me uneasy.

I put a hand on the gearshift. “We should let you get back to that tire.”

His eyes lingered as he nodded. “You ladies take care.”

He stepped away from the curb, and as I drove off, I refused to look in the mirror. But I had a feeling he was staring after us. I was almost certain of it.

Ivy whirled. “How do you know Thane Asher?”

“I don’t really know him. We met yesterday on the ferry.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

I shrugged. “There was no reason to.”

She folded her arms. “I wouldn’t go getting any ideas if I were you. Thane would never choose someone like you.”

“Someone like me?”

“An outsider,” she said with disdain.

“I guess it’s lucky I’m not here to socialize, then. I just want to finish my job and go home.”

“You should do that. Go home, I mean.”

The whole conversation was starting to make me feel very uncomfortable. I couldn’t wait to drop them off and drive back to the Covey house. Although at that moment, I would have liked nothing more than to heed Ivy’s advice and head home to Charleston.

Something was seriously amiss in this town. I’d felt it the moment I crossed Bell Lake. The shadows seemed deeper, the nights longer, the secrets older. Even the wind felt different here. And I couldn’t forget the repugnant man in the cemetery who had mimicked my worst fears or the ghost who had somehow let me sense her confusion.

According to Ivy, Asher Falls was located near a thin place. Could that explain the bizarre nature of the town and the people who inhabited it? Maybe there was hyper supernatural activity in the area. I’d have to ask Dr. Shaw next time I went home. He ran the Charleston Institute for Parapsychology Studies and usually had answers for all my questions, whether or not they were the ones I wanted.

With an effort, I turned my attention back to the road. As we passed a gray stone building shrouded in vines, I noticed several girls dressed in the same uniform as Ivy and Sidra ambling out a side door.

“Is that your school?” I asked.

“Oh, damn!” Ivy slid down in her seat. “Hurry and get past before someone sees us. We’re supposed to be home sick.”

“Both of you?”

“There’s a bug going around. They were sending kids home all day. We left after lunch.”

“Pretending to be sick?”

“It’s easy enough to fake illness when the school nurse is half-blind.” She laughed at her own cleverness.

“So where did you go?”

“We’ve just been hanging out. But if Sid’s mother finds out we didn’t go straight home, we’re dead.”

“She probably already knows,” Sidra said gloomily. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into leaving school, much less going up there—”

“Shush.” Now it was Ivy who issued a warning look. “At least you won’t get expelled.”

“I almost wish I would,” Sidra muttered.

“Why would one of you get expelled and not the other?” I asked.

“Sid’s mother is the headmistress at Pathway,” Ivy explained. “A real witch, if you know what I mean. She’d like nothing better than to get rid of me. I’m such a bad influence and all.”

“And you left school, anyway? That was brave.” I glanced in the mirror to gauge Sidra’s reaction to such a harsh critique of her mother. She looked agitated, but I didn’t think the name-calling had much to do with it.

“It wasn’t brave, it was stupid,” she said.

Ivy shrugged. “No one twisted your arm. And, anyway, I don’t care if I do get expelled. I’ll just call my father. He’s a very important man. One of the most powerful lawyers in the state.” The last was said for my benefit, I was certain.

“Pathway is a private school?” I asked.

“Private and très exclusif,” Ivy said. “The local kids who can’t afford the tuition have to ride the ferry across the lake and catch the bus into Woodberry.”

So there was no public school, no veterinarian clinic and no supermarket in Asher Falls, but the withering town could support a private school for children of the privileged. The place was getting stranger and stranger by the minute.

We rode in silence after that until Sidra said from the backseat, “That’s my house on the corner. The white one.”

I pulled up to the curb in relief, and as the girls climbed out, I lowered my window to admire the three-story Victorian with spindle-work trim along the veranda. The garden was still lush and green, but the witch hazel had started to turn, and I could see squirrels foraging for fruit in the silver bell tree that grew at the corner of the porch. As my gaze lifted to the front gable, I saw a blonde woman in one of the upstairs windows a split second before the lace curtain fell back into place.

Uh-oh. The girls had been made, it seemed.

After a muttered thank-you, Ivy strode up the walkway without a backward glance, but to my surprise, Sidra came over to my window. Her eyes were very clear and very blue, her alabaster skin almost translucent in the afternoon sunlight. She wore no makeup, nor did she need any. Cosmetic enhancement would have only detracted from the ethereal quality that made her so arresting.

“Did you forget something?” I asked.