“Yes. It’s getting late and I really do have to get up early.”
“The crack of dawn, I believe you said.”
I was glad to hear a more lighthearted tone in his voice. “When you work outside in the South, you learn to beat the heat. Although the weather these days is perfect.”
“You have a hard job,” he said. “You don’t hire help?”
“Sometimes, if the cemetery and the budget are large enough. But I don’t mind doing the work myself.” I glanced down at my calloused hands. “I’m particular about the way things are done. People tend to get a little slapdash if they don’t know what they’re doing or haven’t a vested interest. Breaks my heart to see a hundred- year-old rosebush chopped down out of carelessness.”
He searched my face. “You’re not afraid to be alone in a cemetery after what happened?”
He was still curious about Oak Grove. I couldn’t blame him. It was a bizarre story. The discovery of an underground torture chamber beneath an old city cemetery had caused quite a sensation in Charleston. The notoriety eventually died down, but last spring, after it first happened, I couldn’t leave my house without being accosted by a reporter. I wondered now if I’d come to Luna’s attention through the news.
“I always take precautions. Besides, once I’m immersed in a restoration, I forget about everything else. It’s very therapeutic.”
“You’re brave,” he said, and there was something in his eyes that hadn’t been there a moment before. “I admire that.”
I tried to laugh off the compliment. “I’m not so brave. Just prepared.”
“Even better. Brave and sensible.”
I was reminded of something Devlin had once said to me.
I didn’t want to think about him just now or of that night in his house when our passion had opened a terrible door. When the Others, drawn by our heat, had crept through the veil, and I’d had to face the nightmarish reality of our union. I’d seen firsthand the consequences of associating with a haunted man, and now there was no going back. No closing that door.
I drew a breath and turned away. I couldn’t deny that I was drawn to Thane, maybe because I sensed something in him that I recognized in myself—that feeling of not belonging.
Before tonight, I hadn’t known much about him beyond that charming smile and those beguiling green eyes. I wished for that ignorance back. He was a little too real to me now. A little too appealing for someone who needed to forget.
“Where should we start?” I asked awkwardly, looking everywhere but into those eyes. “You mentioned old photographs. And maybe a site map?”
“About that.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I probably should have warned you…it’s going to take some digging to find that stuff. Everything was moved up to the attic years ago. I brought down a bunch of boxes earlier so we’ll just have to go through all of them until we find what you need.”
“The attic?” There was a note of horror in my voice. “Even the photographs?”
His nod was grim. “I know. A lot of them have historical significance so it’s a shame they haven’t been properly stored or cataloged. I’ve always meant to get around to it, but never found the time or patience.”
Said the man who’d once led me to believe he had nothing but time on his hands.
“I can see how it would be a daunting task,” I murmured, but I would have relished such a project. Photography was a hobby of mine and old photographs, a passion. As a child, my favorite pastime on rainy days was going through the family albums. Even though I’d always known of my adoption, I’d spent hours searching through those pictures in hopes of finding someone who looked like me.
We walked over to the desk, and Thane blew a cloud of dust from one of the hatboxes before lifting the lid. I tried to hide my dismay at the jumble of photographs inside, so many of them faded and creased from age and careless handling. I shouldn’t have been shocked by the condition. The whole house was a testament to neglect.
“Have a seat.” Thane motioned to the chair behind the desk while he perched on the corner. He handed me one of the boxes and took another for himself.
“So…did you go to school in Asher Falls?” I asked as I began to sift through the photographs.
He looked up in surprise. “For a while. Why?”
“No reason. I drove by the school the other day with Ivy and Sidra. It seems a little odd that a town this size has a private academy but no public school.”
“It’s really not that odd. Asher Falls had a public school years ago. When enrollment dropped, they consolidated with Woodberry.”
“Didn’t the enrollment drop at the private school, as well?”
“No, because Pathway is also a boarding school. Kids from all over attend.”
“What’s Pathway like?”
“Like any school, I guess.” But there was something in his voice that made me wonder. “It’s a prep school, really. If you can find a way to fit in there, you can adapt to places like Emerson.”
My head came up. “Emerson University in Charleston? You went there?”
He looked bemused. “Yes. Is that a bad thing?”
“No, it’s just… I knew someone else who went there.”
“Oh?”
“Actually, I’ve known a few people who attended Emerson. A friend of mine used to be a professor there… Rupert Shaw. But he was probably before your time.”
“The name sounds familiar, but I can’t place him.”
“Nowadays, he runs the Charleston Institute for Parapsychology Studies.”
“Parapsychology? As in paranormal goings-on?” His eyes gleamed in the lamplight. “Don’t tell me you had a ghost problem.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” I smiled benignly before bowing my head to my work.
We fell silent after that, and I was soon so absorbed in the photographs that I barely noticed when Thane got up to stretch. The parade of Ashers enthralled me. I found the faces so intriguing…the nearly identical shape of their noses, the same jaw and chin line. But the familiarity of those features also unsettled, like the nag of a restive memory. Then it came to me. The circle of statues in the cemetery—all those angelic faces—had been sculpted in the likeness of long-dead Ashers. Thane had been right. Apparently, the family was very good at erecting handsome monuments to the collective ego.
He hadn’t returned to his place, but instead ambled over to the fireplace to gaze pensively into the flames. It was awkwardly apparent that he’d already grown bored with the project—bored with me, perhaps—so I decided it was time to call it a night. We’d barely made a dent in the boxes, but I didn’t want to outstay my welcome, and Angus would need to go out soon, anyway.
I was just sorting through one last batch when I happened upon a photograph that reminded me of the one hanging in Luna’s office—a teenage Bryn, Catrice and Luna smiling dreamily into the camera. A young man stood with them in this shot. An Asher, judging by his features, but he wasn’t handsome enough to be Hugh. And just like in the other picture, a fourth girl hovered in the background. Even though she was hidden by shadows, she seemed more substantial here, making me wonder if she’d still been alive when this picture was taken.
Ghost or human, I had a visceral reaction to her. As I gazed down into her face, a tremor coursed through me, an almost electrical vibration that jolted a memory. It was as if a shutter had clicked, and in place of this image, another came into focus. The ghost on the pier. It was her. It was the same girl.
I dropped the picture like a hot coal. There was something truly creepy and maybe a little sinister about the way she skulked about in the shadows. About the way she glared into the lens, as if staring straight through the camera, straight through time and space at me.
Thane must have seen something on my face because he came over to see what I’d found. “Oh, look there,” he said as he gazed down at the picture. “The Witches of Eastwick. Or I should say Asher Falls.”
He grinned. “Haven’t you noticed a certain…eccentricity about those three?”
Those
