Betrayal - By Lee Nichols Page 0,8

like the ghosts in Echo Point.” Or even the ones I remembered from my childhood, before my parents had my ability suppressed. “It’s like they don’t know they’re dead.”

“Maybe it’s the street,” he said. “Or the Knell, or how many ghostkeepers live here. No one’s really sure why, but they almost forget they’re ghosts.”

We passed a small private park where a few old spirits played chess at tables under the streetlamps. A younger one moved a rook. He was eccentrically dressed and somehow familiar.

I stopped and stared. “Is that …?”

“The actor?” A movie star who’d recently died of an overdose. “Yeah.”

“Have you asked if it was suicide or an accident?”

He looked at me. “No.”

“Oh, right.” Communicating was my thing, not his.

The block dead-ended at a white stone behemoth of a house, with columns and turrets and arches, and things that might’ve been flying buttresses, for all I knew. It looked like an institution, but there was no sign; instead, ornate iron gates and heavy trees stood guard.

“What did it used to be?” I asked, expecting Bennett to say it belonged to the first governor of New York or a Rockefeller or, I don’t know, the pope.

“It’s always been the Knell.”

We headed toward the gate; then Bennett stopped and gave me a strange look, one I couldn’t decipher.

“What?” I asked.

“I should’ve prepared you.” He tilted his head. “I didn’t tell you before, because I didn’t know how, but there’s something inside. You’re not going to like it.”

“Well, that’s nice and cryptic.” I took a steadying breath. “It doesn’t matter. As long as they help us find Neos and my family.”

Then the iron gates swung open and the house received us.

3

A ghost servant stood beside the door, dressed in what I thought was called livery. Bennett and I handed him our coats and I thanked him, but he didn’t respond.

“Could he not hear me?” I asked Bennett after the servant drifted away. I was used to ghosts being pleased when I communicated with them.

“He probably could. I told you, they’re different here.”

“You mean rude.”

“I mean different.”

“Well, it’s pretty different that nobody’s here to meet us. Don’t we have an appointment?”

“They know we’re here. They’ll send for us when Yoshiro’s ready.”

So we wandered the halls, waiting for a human to greet us—I mean a living human.

One thing you could say about ghostkeepers: they liked their artifacts. The inside of the Knell could’ve passed for a museum. Not like Bennett’s house, which resembled a period-piece movie set; this was more like the Met. Ornate furnishings dotted the immaculate marble floor and left plenty of room for bronze sculptures, oil paintings, and antiquities on pedestals. The lighting was low, protecting the art and Oriental rugs, and creating a fittingly spooky ambience.

I ran a finger along the etching of an ivory box. My skin began to tingle and I quickly pulled my hand away. I sometimes sensed the memories of antiques like these, impressions of the people who once owned them. In the case of my namesake, the first Emma, I actually relived her experience, and I was afraid something like that might happen here.

And sure enough, I sensed something calling to me from one of the rooms. Not a ghost, but an object tugging at my attention.

“Um, Emma?” Bennett said. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

I followed my instincts, winding down wood-paneled hallways until I stood in a dark room, almost empty except for a tapestry on one wall and a blue velvet Victorian settee in the middle of the room, inviting you to sit and admire the intricate weaving.

“This is it, isn’t it?” I said, mesmerized by the tapestry. “The thing you should’ve told me about.”

“Uh-huh.” Bennett grew still, watching me, gauging my reaction.

The tapestry reminded me of the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. We’d had a print of one of them in our hallway when I was a child. The colors and patterns were the same. The rich golds and burgundies, dark blue and forest green, the moons, trees, flowers, even the bunnies. A light-haired woman stood in the middle of this one, dressed in a red medieval gown, a sword held protectively across her body.

But instead of interacting with the animals, she was circled by ghosts in different guises: in human form, wraiths, and what I guessed were ghasts, though I’d never seen one. One of the ghosts was even a serpent, delicately woven into the fabric.

“Is that Emma?” I asked. Because she looked exactly like her—like me.

“Yeah, just not the