But how did I know that wasn’t another one of his tricks?
I went into the bathroom and searched through the pockets of my discarded jeans until I found the vial of gray dust. I had only dreamed about it, so Darius must have physically slipped it into my pocket at some point. I wasn’t surprised to find it there. He’d given it to me for a reason, after all. And when I crossed over, he’d be waiting for me on the other side.
I carried the vial back out to the kitchen, and as I stared at the shimmering dust, Devlin’s warning ran through my head.
But how else could I pass through the veil with even a glimmer of hope of coming back? How else could I get to Shani?
Sprinkling a bit on the back of my hand, I lifted it to my nose. There was a slight scent, but nothing unpleasant. Before I could change my mind, I inhaled the dust.
At first, I didn’t think anything was happening. No slowing of the vitals, no lethargy. Thankfully I had the presence of mind to lower myself to the floor a split second before a brilliant white light exploded inside my brain.
I heard a whirring in my ears, felt a deep vibration in my chest and then I opened my eyes slowly as if swimming up from a very sound sleep. I didn’t know where I was at first, but I experienced a strange familiarity as I gazed around. The air and sky were the color of twilight, and I could see the swirl of mist in the distance. Before me a lichgate opened into a great cemetery. I could see rows and rows of statues and monuments, but then I realized they weren’t statues at all, but silhouettes of the dead. I was in the Gray, that nebulous space in between the Light and the Dark.
Darius Goodwine appeared at my side and waved an arm toward the cemetery. “To pass through the gate into the realm of the dead, you must have a guide,” he said.
I didn’t trust him to guide me anywhere. He wanted something from me, but at the moment, my main concern was finding Shani.
“You know why I’m here,” I said. “Where is she?”
He started walking toward the cemetery. “In here,” he said and disappeared through the gate.
I followed him into an even grayer world where legions of the dead watched me through frosted eyes. I saw many ghosts from my distant and recent past. A long line of Ashers. My birth mother, Freya. Papa’s people were here, too. I wanted to converse with all of my dead ancestors, but Essie’s warning rang in my ears.
As I neared the back of the cemetery, the gray darkened to midnight and a great forest loomed before me.
“You’ll find her in there,” Darius said.
“How do you know?”
“Listen.”
We both fell silent and I heard the faint strains of a nursery rhyme. Shani was leading me to her.
I turned back to Darius. “Are you coming with me?”
“This is the end of our journey together,” he said. “You’ll need to go the rest of the way alone.”
“Why?”
He merely smiled and faded back into the mist.
I started toward the forest, but a woman appeared on the path in front of me. She seemed familiar and I thought she must be another dead ancestor. She didn’t look old, but her hair was as white as cotton and she had no eyes.
I stared into those gaping sockets and shuddered. “Who are you?”
“My name is Amelia Gray,” she said.
I gasped. “That can’t be. I’m Amelia Gray.”
“What you are, I once was,” she said. “What I am, you will someday become.”
Her eerie prophecy left me trembling. “I need to find a child. Her name is Shani. Have you seen her? I think she may be hiding in these woods.”
“Don’t go into the Dark,” she warned. “You’ll never find your way out in time. That’s what he wants.”
“Who?”
“The tall man,” she said. “He means you harm. He and the woman. She seeks to remain in the living world, and you are her vessel.”
Dr. Shaw’s description of gray dust came back to me then.
Was that why I’d been lured through the veil? So that Mariama’s ghost could invade my body?
“Go back,” the woman warned.
“I can’t. Not until I help the child move on—”
“Shush.” She cocked her head. “Do you hear it?”
I turned my head to listen. Nothing came to me but a faint buzzing that sounded like a hive of bees.
“They’re swarming,” she said.
“Bees?”
“The ghosts,” she said, and vanished.
Despite her warning, I left the Gray and moved into the woods. Into the Dark. From my periphery, I caught the dart of shadows as I walked along, the slither of some otherworldly creature in the underbrush. On and on I trudged until I was so deeply inside the forest I worried the sightless woman would be proven right. I might not find my way out in time. Already I could feel the tug of my physical body, but I ignored the pull and kept going. I could no longer hear the chanting, and I wondered if I’d been deliberately led away from Shani.
I called her name and suddenly I caught a glimpse of her through the trees,
“Come find me, Amelia!”
“I’m trying! Where are you?”
“Over here!”
I hurried toward the sound of her voice. She waited for me in a clearing, but she wasn’t alone. A tall silhouette loomed over her. A black cloak hid the face, but the hand that snared Shani’s wrist had the curved nails of a claw.
“Let her go,” I said.
“It’s too late,” the thing taunted. “You’re out of time.”
He drew Shani into the trees, and I went after them, battling terror and the tug of my earthly body. We came to another clearing lit with torches. I somehow knew that this place was neither heaven nor hell. We were not in the Light or the Dark, but a realm of my own making. And if I had created this world, then I could control it.
“Come to me, Shani.”
The creature clung to her and she whimpered.
I knelt and put out my hand to her. “I know what you’ve been trying to tell your father. I know what really happened that day, what your mother did to you, but she can’t hurt you now. I won’t let her. Please come with me.”
She reached for me, and as our fingertips touched, the creature dissolved into black mist.
I picked her up and held her for the longest time.
“I’m taking you someplace safe,” I murmured. “Someplace beautiful.”
The scent of jasmine drifted to us as we emerged from the woods. The perfume led us to a garden where Robert Fremont waited for us.
“Why are you here?” I asked him. “You can’t move on. We haven’t yet found your killer.”
He gazed down at Shani. “It doesn’t matter. It never mattered.”
And suddenly I understood. “Because that wasn’t why you were earthbound. You were waiting for her.”
“I didn’t know,” he said in wonder. “I never knew until now.”
I thought of those autopsy reports in my car. The blood types that would have told me the truth if I had been paying attention to the signs. Shani was Robert Fremont’s daughter.
