The Visitor. Amanda Stevens

remained riveted on Devlin. His presence filled the room, and I drew a long breath, drinking in that indefinable essence that belonged solely to him.

      As I lay there studying his profile, a large form swooped down from the sky, casting a shadow across his face and into my room before vanishing into the night. I might have thought the fleeting image had been caused by the bump on my head except for the way Devlin took a half step back from the window.

      “What was that?” I gasped.

      He whirled in surprise, those gleaming eyes pinning me in the moonlight. “How long have you been awake?” He sounded taken aback, though whether from my alertness or that plunging shadow, I had no idea.

      Ignoring his question, I pushed myself up on my elbows to scan the window behind him. “You must have seen it, too. It was huge.”

      “Yes, I saw it,” he said with a shrug, but there was an unexpected roughness in his tone that his aristocratic drawl couldn’t disguise. “I only caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye, but I’m sure it was an owl. Their wingspan is impressive, especially when you aren’t expecting to see one.”

      “An owl? In the middle of the city?”

      “It’s not unheard of,” he said. “Barn owls are fairly urbanized. They like to nest in church steeples. And we have plenty of those in Charleston.”

      His tone had lightened, but neither his words nor his demeanor soothed me. I found something ominous about the way he’d been staring out into the darkness so intently. “Whatever it was flew right past the window. Close enough to cast a shadow over your face and into the room.”

      Devlin said nothing, but instead moved toward the bed with his customary grace, his features an inscrutable mask. He looked perfectly poised, calm and unbent, but the rigid set of his shoulders betrayed a tightly coiled tension. Where moonlight slanted across his face, I could see a hint of trouble brewing in the furrows of his brow. I noticed the phone in his hand then. I hadn’t heard a ring or a vibration, much less a conversation, but something had obviously transpired to disturb him.

      My gaze darted to the window, then back to Devlin. “Is everything okay?”

      Normally, he was as adept as I at concealing his emotions, but I was picking up a weird vibe from him tonight.

      “What is it?” I urged.

      Another pause. “I have to go out for a while.”

      “Is it a case?”

      He hesitated for so long that I thought he didn’t want to answer, but then he said with a hint of dread, “It’s not a case. I’m told my grandfather has taken ill.”

      I glanced at him in alarm. “I’m sorry. I hope it’s not serious.”

      “He was in perfect health when we had dinner so I’m convinced he’s up to something. I just haven’t yet figured out his angle.”

      “Are you so sure he has an angle? What if he really is sick?”

      “That slim possibility is the only thing tearing me from this room tonight,” Devlin said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, but in the meantime I’ll see to it that security keeps a sharp eye out for anything or anyone suspicious.”

      “Don’t worry about me. Whoever broke into my house is likely long gone. I’ll be fine.”

      “Amelia...”

      I waited expectantly. He wanted to tell me something. I could see it in the flare of his eyes.

      I put an encouraging hand on his arm. “What is it?”

      He leaned over and grazed his lips across my forehead. “I wouldn’t leave you if I wasn’t certain you’d be safe here.”

      “I know that.”

      “Get some rest. I’ll be back before you know it.”

      A moment later, he was gone.

      I wanted to call out to him, to tell him to be careful out there in the dark where dangers from this world and the next lay in wait.

      Instead, I got up and padded over to the window to search the night sky. I still wasn’t convinced I’d seen an owl earlier. For most people a nocturnal bird would have been a perfectly acceptable explanation for that diving shadow, but I wasn’t most people. I knew things. Saw things. Heard things.

      The past twenty-four hours had been full of strange happenings. I felt very off center. It was as if banging my head on the stairs had awakened something inside me, making me more attuned than ever to the unnatural world around me. And yet I suffered no other repercussions from the blow. I didn’t feel dizzy or disoriented. I hadn’t experienced any blurred vision or memory loss and even my headache had faded. I wanted to believe the visions and voices would disappear, too, once I left the hospital.

      What was it the resident had told me earlier? It always gets crazy during a full moon. No kidding.

      The moon wasn’t just full but ringed. When I was a little girl, before I knew about the ghosts, Papa would tell me stories about swamp witches and boo hags that traveled through the Carolina marshes by moonlight. I later wondered if those eerie tales had been his way of preparing me for what was to come. He used to say that a lunar halo signified a time when spirits were especially restless. A dangerous time when mirrors should be covered and babies hidden so as not to be replaced by changelings.

      Maybe there had been something to that warning. If the phases of the moon could affect ocean tides and human behavior, what might they stir in creatures from the other side?

      Wresting my gaze from that silvery sphere, I started to turn back to my bed when I happened to glance down at the street. It was misting and the pavement shimmered with an oily patina beneath the streetlamps. My room looked out on a busy thoroughfare, but there was very little traffic at this hour. Which might explain why my attention was drawn to a lone pedestrian across the street.

      The person was small, but I didn’t get the sense that I was looking down at a child. Something dark and flowing was draped over the shoulders, making it nearly impossible to distinguish the silhouette among the other shadows. Indeed, for a moment I thought I might have attached human shape to a bush or tree trunk.

      I told myself there was nothing at all sinister about someone being out and about at this hour. Perhaps the person was waiting for a bus. But I couldn’t dismiss the feeling that a gaze had been cast upon my room. Upon me.

      The sensation was so intense that I took a step back; my heart beat a rapid tattoo. When I dared to glance out again, the figure had disappeared, leaving me to wonder if the shadow had been nothing more than my imagination.

      I went back to bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. Sleep came with disturbing visions. I had no idea how long I’d been dreaming when my eyes popped open, senses fully alert. It would be dawn soon, a time I always anticipated, but I could still feel the pull of the dead world.

      I saw the ghost then, hovering deep in the shadows. As if sensing my awareness, she drifted out of the gloom with outstretched arms and paused at the end of my bed to turn those dark-stained sockets upon me. It was the eeriest sensation, the way she stared down at me. Could she see me or did she merely sense me? Could she feel my warmth? Had she been drawn there by my energy?

      She made no move toward me, to latch on to me, but instead levitated at the end of my bed for the longest moment as if making certain that I was awake. She had manifested in the same white lace dress from her previous visit, but now I saw that she clutched a key in one hand.

      Before I had time to process this turn of events, she drifted through the closed door. Her message couldn’t have been plainer. She wanted me to follow.

      There had been a time when trailing an entity would have been unthinkable, but the days of ignoring the other world were long behind me. The ghost knew that I could see her. She was already haunting me. Perhaps if I did as she wished, she would go away and leave me alone. Not likely, but it was the only thing