The Kingdom

headed for Rosehill Cemetery, the place where I had seen my first specter.

*   *   *

The white bungalow where I grew up hadn’t changed much over the years. It was shaded by hundred- year-old oak trees that kept the house cool and dim even in the summer months, making it a pleasant refuge for Papa after hours of working under a baking sun. The front porch had always been my mother’s domain. She and my aunt had spent many an hour out there sipping sweet tea and gossiping as the scent of roses drifted up from the cemetery.

My bedroom window looked out on Rosehill. The view of the graveyard never bothered me even as a child, even after my first ghost sighting, because Rosehill had always been my refuge, and the hallowed ground had always protected me. Even after all these years, I still felt safe and at peace there as I never had anywhere else, even my own sanctuary in Charleston.

A layer of dust had settled on the concrete porch. Before my mother got sick, she would sweep that floor at least once a day. It was almost an obsession with her. Dirt—especially the grime Papa and I tracked in from the cemetery—drove her crazy. My aunt called her a persnickety housekeeper, to which my mother had once replied that it was a shame Lynrose had never learned to run a vacuum as well as she ran her mouth. My aunt had gotten a kick out of that retort. She loved to get a rise out of Mama, and I so envied their relationship, that constant banter. No one had ever been able to make my solemn mother smile the way her sister could. Not Papa. Certainly not me.

The house was all closed up, which was unusual. Papa would never have locked the front door unless he planned to be away for some time, so I didn’t think he was working in the cemetery or out back in his workshop. The whole place had a forlorn air, as though no one had been home in days.

I suppressed a momentary panic as I fished the key from a flower pot and let myself in. Papa had probably driven to Charleston to spend some time with Mama. He must have missed her terribly during all the months she’d been gone. They’d been together for a long time, and though neither was openly demonstrative—I couldn’t remember having ever seen them hug, much less kiss—I had to believe something more than habit kept them together. Something more than secrets, too.

I left Angus on the porch and went inside. The quiet of the house unnerved me. I took a quick walk through the downstairs just to reassure myself that nothing was amiss, and then I climbed the stairs, peeked into my old bedroom and continued on to the far end of the hallway where I opened the door to the attic stairs. I flipped the light switch and went up without hesitation. I’d never been afraid of the attic. It had been a favorite haunt of mine on rainy days when I grew bored of the family photo albums. Mama had kept a lot of her dresses from high school formals up there, and I had loved going through all those old trunks. She and Aunt Lynrose had been quite the belles, despite the family’s middle-class status.

Papa stored his keepsakes in a metal bin. It was always kept locked. Always. I’d been curious about that container since childhood, but it never occurred to me then to try and pick the lock. Now I shoved any qualms aside and used a hairpin to slide open the tumblers. If there was a secret in this house about my birth, it would be in that locker.

Inside was the usual paraphernalia that a man of Papa’s age and stature would have accumulated over the years. Service medals and framed citations from his time in the army. A pair of boots. An old pocket knife. A cigar box of photographs.

The most efficient way to conduct the search was to take everything out. I did so quickly and carefully, arranging the items in order so that I could put everything back exactly as I found them. I hated going through Papa’s things. He was a private man, and rifling through his treasures and memories was a violation that I likened to the desecration of a gravesite. But I didn’t let a guilty conscience stop me. I kept right on looking because I knew I wouldn’t rest until I found something.

I had almost given up when I happened upon a little blue box tied with a white ribbon. I assumed it was another medal or perhaps his wedding cuff links.

But, no.

Nestled against a bed of cotton was a shard of brown porcelain. I would never have known what it was, let alone the significance, had I not seen that little brown sparrow in Freya Pattershaw’s little blue bedroom.

However he had come by it, Papa had stored that broken wing amongst his most prized possessions.

Thirty-Three

I called ahead and made an appointment for Angus at a veterinarian clinic convenient to my house in Charleston. I stayed with him for the exam and shots and then left during the grooming to run errands. When we showed up on my aunt Lynrose’s veranda a few hours later, we were both freshly bathed and looking our best.

My aunt lived in a narrow two-story house built deep into the lot, as was the custom in the historic district. She’d bought the house years ago before the real estate market exploded and could undoubtedly net a small fortune if she chose to sell it. She never would, even though she was forever complaining about the taxes. I loved the house and the shady street she lived on. It was very quaint and charming. Very old South.

Her eyes widened when she opened the door and saw me through the screen. As always, she was dressed elegantly in off-white linen slacks and a wheat-colored tunic embroidered with flowers. I caught a whiff of her perfume through the door, and it took me right back to all those summer twilights when I had sat at that open window listening to her and Mama.

A hand fluttered to her heart. “Goodness gracious, girl. I wasn’t expecting to find you on my doorstep. Why didn’t you tell us you were coming? I’d have made lunch. Or ordered out,” she said with a wink. Her gaze dropped to Angus, and her eyes widened even more. “What in the world is that?”

“My dog. His name is Angus.”

“Your dog?” She gave a delicate shudder as she came out on the porch. “Good Lord, what happened to the creature?”

“He was in a dog-fighting kennel. Then they turned him loose in the woods to starve.”

“Oh, dear.” She gave him a tentative pat. “I suppose you’d better take him around to the back. Your mama’s in the garden. Take care you don’t frighten her half to death with that…with Angus. I’ll go pour us some tea.”

She disappeared back into the house, and I motioned for Angus to follow me down the porch steps and along a narrow path that led through thick beds of fountain grass already sprouting cotton-candy plumes. Mama might keep a perfect house and set an elegant table, but my aunt had been born with a green thumb. The back garden was spectacular this time of year with the last of the summer roses mingling intoxicatingly with the tea olives, all encased in boxwood hedges that wound along stepping-stones and low brick walls shimmering in the afternoon light.

My mother reclined in a green-stripe lawn chair with an open book on her lap. She sat very still, head turned into the cushion, and I thought she might be asleep. I watched her for a moment, a pain in my heart at the sharpness of her cheekbones and the gray tinge to her complexion. Like my aunt, she’d always been very thin, but now she looked gaunt, and I could see new lines in her face and a tremor in her hand as she roused to turn a page. Months of chemo had taken a toll, but she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. As sick as she was, her wig was perfectly coiffed, and I could see a pale pink sheen on her lips. She wore a floral skirt and a pretty blue cardigan even though the day was hot and humid.

I said, “Mama,” very softly and she looked up with a start.

Then she smiled in a way I’d seldom been accorded, and it made me very happy that I’d come.

“Amelia! How long have you been standing there? I didn’t even hear the gate.”

“I came in just now.” I went over and knelt beside her chair. She lifted her hand to brush the hair back from my face. It might have been my imagination—or wishful thinking—but I thought her cool fingers lingered for a moment. Then she spotted Angus, and like Lynrose, a shudder went through her.

“Amelia Rose Gray, what on earth?”

“His name is Angus. I found him in the mountains and I’m keeping him.”

She lifted a brow. “Well, of course, dear, if that’s what you want. You have your own home, your own