The Kingdom

“No…I need to tell you something.”

Her gaze met mine and I felt a prickle of foreboding. “What is it?”

“You’ve seen the old clock tower in the square?”

“Yes. It’s very beautiful.”

“It’s built on hallowed ground. A battle was fought there or something. Anyway, I thought you should know.” She turned to scurry off.

“Wait! How do you know the ground is hallowed?”

Pausing on the walkway, she glanced over her shoulder, her expression enigmatic. I would never know what she intended to reveal, though, because just then the woman I’d seen at the upstairs window came out on the front porch and called to her.

Sidra froze.

“Is that your mother?”

“She’s home early. Now she knows we didn’t come straight home.”

“Will you be in much trouble?”

“I don’t know. I’d better go in.”

The girl looked terrified and no wonder. As the woman’s gaze met mine, I felt an awful chill go through me.

Eight

Could Sidra see ghosts? Why else had she felt compelled to tell me about the clock tower? And why else would she have waited until Ivy was out of earshot? If she could see ghosts—or something—that required her to seek hallowed ground for protection, she might not want anyone else to know, especially her mother, given everything I’d observed. That I could understand. The fact that she’d shared the knowledge with me should have been a comfort, but instead I felt uneasy and more out of my element than ever.

And yet as I drove back through town, I had a vague sense of familiarity, of destiny, as if maybe I’d been brought here for a reason. Which didn’t really make sense because I’d never been to Asher Falls, and I’d never met anyone from here. It was a lonely place, isolated by a haunted lake. Was it any wonder the people were so strange?

As I turned onto the highway, my gaze lifted to the distant mountains where a dark cloud had formed against the blue haze. As I watched, the cloud drifted lower, swooping down over the treetops until I realized it wasn’t a cloud at all but a flock of blackbirds flying south for the winter.

There was a nip in the wind that blew in through my open window. Despite the warm days, fall was just around the corner, and I dreaded the loneliness that winter always brought. I wouldn’t look ahead, though. What was the point? Right now, it was still hours until twilight, the road was empty and I was free to let my mind wander.

I forced my thoughts back to Sidra and Ivy. What an odd pair—Sidra, with her cropped, silver-gold hair and waiflike demeanor, and Ivy, with her hard edges and exaggerated ennui. I wished now that I’d pressed them for more information about the falls. I really wanted to know why people were afraid to go up there, especially since Luna had recommended that I make the trip. Was that where they’d gone today? I wondered.

I knew all about thin places, of course. Those in-between times and landscapes where the veil between our world and the spirit world was at its thinnest. The Celts believed those places were not only passageways for ghosts but also for demons. On the night of Samhain, they donned horrific masks to placate the forces of chaos. As I dredged up all those old legends Papa used to tell me, I had a sudden image of Wayne Van Zandt’s scarred visage. I seriously doubted he’d clawed his own face in order to mollify evil spirits and yet—

My thoughts shattered as something hit the windshield with a sickening thud. I shrieked and automatically threw a hand up to protect my face. Then I realized what it was. A bird had flown into the glass. I glanced in the mirror and saw a pile of feathers in the middle of the road. A blackbird or a crow, by the looks of it.

Pulling to the shoulder, I got out and approached slowly. The feathers weren’t moving, but I held out hope that the bird might just be dazed. I’d seen them drop like stones after hitting windows, only to rally a few minutes later and fly off. But colliding with a moving vehicle would have a lot more impact than flying into a static pane of glass.

Still, I couldn’t see any blood, and the neck didn’t appear to be broken. I didn’t know what else to do but carefully lift the tiny body from the road and carry it to the shoulder where I nestled it in a bed of clover. I sat there with it for the longest time until something drew my gaze upward where dozens of crows had silently lit on branches and power lines. I caught my breath at the eerie sight, and then I thought of that dark cloud swooping down from the mountains. There were more of them out there. Hundreds more. I wasn’t afraid of an attack, but the fact that they were gathering to watch me made my heart jerk uncomfortably.

Slowly, I got to my feet and eased back to the car. I started the engine, rolled up the windows and pulled onto the road. Thankfully, the birds didn’t follow.

As I neared the turnoff, I took myself sternly to task. I was letting my imagination get the better of me. The crows had probably been there all along. I just hadn’t noticed them. And if I were wise, I wouldn’t place too much importance on the old wives’ tale that claimed birds were not only harbingers of death but also of insanity. I wouldn’t try to connect a murder of crows to all the strange things that had happened since my arrival in Asher Falls. I wouldn’t dwell on the disturbing behavior of the man at the cemetery or Chief Van Zandt’s warning of dangerous animals roaming the woods. I wouldn’t obsess on why I’d been chosen for this job or why Luna Kemper had arranged accommodations for me in a hallowed place.

Above all, I wouldn’t give a second thought to that random meeting with Thane Asher.

* * *

Late that afternoon, I called my mother, but she didn’t feel well enough to talk after her chemo session. Since her diagnosis last spring, she’d spent most of her time in Charleston with my aunt Lynrose so that she could be near the hospital for her treatment. I’d been a little hurt that she hadn’t wanted to stay with me, but given my long hours and travel, this arrangement made more sense. Lynrose was retired and could devote herself completely to my mother’s recovery. And truth be told, the two of them were closer than my mother and I would ever be, though I loved her dearly.

I chatted with my aunt for a few minutes, then afterward Angus and I had dinner on the back porch. He didn’t seem concerned about the quality of his dog food any more than I minded the overripe banana in my fruit salad. He cleaned his bowl, and later we sat out on the back steps to watch the sunset. Despite all the disturbing things that had happened since my arrival in Asher Falls, it was a moment of deep contentment. I’d bonded with Angus in a way I rarely connected with humans. He was the perfect companion. Noble, loyal and I didn’t have to hide my secret from him. He already knew about the ghosts.

I said his name softly, testing his hearing. He turned at the sound of my voice and rested his snout on my knee, giving me that soft, soulful stare. I scratched behind his severed ears and then lay my cheek against his head. His coat was rough and matted, and he wasn’t the sweetest-smelling dog in the world. But I wanted to earn his complete trust before I drove the dark wedge of a bath between us.

We sat there for the longest time, my hand absently stroking his back as I admired the shifting patterns of light and color on the lake. But by the time dusk fell, I was already inside, safe and sound from the ghosts. I listened to music and read for a while, then turned in early, falling asleep without much trouble. If the bells pealed beneath the lake or a ghostly face peered into my window, I wasn’t aware of them. But I dreamed about both.

Nine

The next morning I took Angus with me to the cemetery. After my conversation with Wayne Van Zandt, I wanted the dog close by so that I could keep an eye on him. I also thought he could serve as an early warning system in case that strange man or anyone else showed up.

Considering everything the poor mutt had been through, I’d assumed it would take weeks if not longer to build up his strength. But I was amazed at how frisky he seemed when I let him out of the car that morning. While he chased squirrels, I began the time-consuming task of photographing each grave and headstone from every angle in order to create a prerestoration record for the archives. It was a tedious job for one person. The new part of the cemetery went quickly, but once I moved into the Asher portion, the shade from all the trees and shrubbery slowed me down. Where lichen and moss obscured the inscriptions, I had to use a mirror to angle light onto the stones. Ideally, this was a two-person job, but I’d learned to make do alone.

I worked steadily all morning and broke for lunch around one. I opened the back door of the SUV and sat on the bumper munching an apple while I tossed treats to Angus. He gobbled them with unseemly gusto. I gave him fresh water, and then he found a sunny spot to snooze while I went back to work. The afternoon passed uneventfully, and I became so engrossed in shooting all those strange, angelic faces that I lost track of time. The sun had already started to dip below the treetops when I packed up my equipment and headed back to the car. I had just stepped through the gate when I heard Angus barking. The sound came from somewhere in the woods.

Alarmed, I stored my equipment in the back of the SUV, then walked over to the corner of the fence to call for him. His barking grew even more frantic when he heard my voice, but he still didn’t come.

The tree line lay in deep shadows. I would have preferred not to explore any farther, but I couldn’t leave Angus. Something was keeping him from me. Maybe he’d treed a squirrel or a possum. Or a mountain lion or a bear… .

“Angus, come!”

I heard a howl then and couldn’t tell if it came from the dog or something else. One of those elusive wolves perhaps. The eerie wail completely unnerved me. I had my cell phone and that tiny container of mace in my pocket, but I shuddered to think how close I would need to be to someone—or something—to use it.

A narrow trail led back into the woods, but I had to constantly veer off to avoid fallen branches. The smell of rotting leaves and damp earth mingled with the woodsy aroma of the evergreens. As I began to descend on the other side of the mountain, the cedar and hemlocks thinned, and I found myself tunneling through a heath bald where rosebay rhododendron and mountain laurel grew so dense it was easy to become disoriented. Papa had told me once about getting lost in such a thicket. Laurel hell, he called it. The maze hadn’t been more than a mile square, he said, but it had taken him the better part of a day to find his way out. And this from a man who’d been born and raised in the mountains.

As I picked my way along, the stunted rhododendrons tangled in my hair and pulled at my clothing. The canopy hung so low that very little light seeped through the snarled branches. It was very eerie inside that place. Dark and lonely. As I stopped and listened to the silence, a feeling of desolation crept over me. I heard no birdsong from the treetops, no rustling in the underbrush, nothing at all except the distant rush of a waterfall. I wondered if there was a cave nearby, because I could smell the sulphury odor of saltpeter.

To break the quiet, I called out to Angus again, and his answering bark filled me with relief. Scrambling down a rocky ridge, I finally spotted him. His gaze was fixed on the cliff behind me, and I turned, hoping to come face-to-face with nothing more menacing than a cornered raccoon, although they could be vicious creatures when threatened. As I scoured our surroundings, I didn’t see anything at first, just a straggly stand of purple foxglove that had managed to survive in the hostile environment. Then I noticed the patterns of stones and seashells on slightly mounded ground, and I realized I was looking at a grave, hidden and protected by a rocky overhang. I had no idea how Angus had managed to find it. I didn’t think the grave was fresh. Other than the odor of saltpeter, I couldn’t detect a smell.

I walked over for a closer look, noticing at once that the surrounding soil had been scraped, not recently, but frequently enough in the past to discourage growth. The banishment of grass was a burial tradition that had fallen out of favor—though I had seen it recently in the Georgia Piedmont—and the meticulous upkeep was yet another curiosity.

Carefully, I cleared away dead leaves and debris to reveal a marker. The stone had been sunk into the earth, making it nearly invisible unless one knew where to look. I pulled a soft-bristle brush from my pocket and gently dusted off a thick layer of grime so that I could read the inscription. But there was no name, no date of birth or death. The only thing etched into the stone’s surface was a thorny rose stem with a severed bloom and bud, a symbol sometimes used for the dual burial of mother and child. But why had they been laid to rest out here in such a lonely location?

The isolation, as well as the north-south orientation of the grave, might once have been an indication of suicide, but the tradition of remote burials for those who had taken their own lives had also been obsolete for years. Judging by the condition and modern style of the marker, I didn’t think the grave was that old, twenty or thirty years at most. Well within the timeframe when the custom had mellowed, even within the Catholic Church. So why this desolate spot when Thorngate was so nearby?

As I traced a finger along the severed stem, my chest tightened painfully, and I felt a terrifying suffocation. Gasping for air, I put a hand out to steady myself as a wave of darkness rolled over me. The next thing I knew, Angus was nuzzling my face with his wet nose. I opened my eyes and looked around. I was lying flat on my back on the ground. I had no idea what had happened, but it must have been only a momentary blackout. I wasn’t the least bit disoriented. As soon as I opened my eyes, I knew exactly where I was.

But the air had changed. I could feel a shift in the wind, as something cold and dank and ancient swept down from the mountains.

An angry gust swirled the dead leaves over the grave, and I could have sworn I heard the whisper of my name through the trees. The hair on my nape bristled as my heart started to hammer. I scrambled to my feet and glanced around in dismay. I hadn’t been confused when I first opened my eyes, but now I couldn’t seem to pinpoint the trail I’d followed into the bald. The shrubbery was too dense, and I felt hopelessly trapped.

Then I called Angus’s name, and he came to my side at once. “Run!” I commanded, and he bounded around me to take the lead. Even in his weakened state, he could have easily outpaced me, but he measured his stride, slowing when I stumbled and pausing now and then to growl at that thing at our backs.

As we fought our way through the laurel and rhododendron, I began to have serious doubts we would ever get out of that awful place. It was like swimming through mud. By the time we emerged, my legs had gone wobbly and my lungs felt ready to explode, but the woods offered only a brief respite. Here, roots and dead branches tripped me up, and the dense leaf covering blocked the sun so that the landscape lay in premature twilight.