hear anything.” They had reached the back porch, where their flashlights lit up old crates and dead plants in pots. She trudged up the steps and Christie followed.
“Just a follow-up reminder—you do remember what happened the last time we went into a haunted house?”
“Nothing happened to us in Tirnagoth, Christie. They were just trying to scare us. Look at those toadstools . . . some are as big as my hand.”
“Let’s call the prince of darkness.” He had his cell phone out.
“Don’t bother Jack.” She could imagine what Jack would have to say about this venture. “Just use the key, Christie, and stop being a chicken. I don’t feel anything evil . . .”
“Okay. For Nathan.” He unlocked the back door. As it creaked open, releasing the musty air of neglect, Finn said, “Are you wearing silver or iron?”
“Never without it. Do you have that fancy knife?”
“I have it.”
He stepped past her and she slipped in after him. Their lights brushed old furniture, landscape paintings, and a moose head above the fireplace. Christie murmured, “I liked Mr. Redhawk. I remember this house all sunlit and smelling like bacon and coffee. He was kind of like a grandfather.”
“I’m sorry.” Finn glanced at him.
A furtive rustling came from behind a wooden door. Christie pointed his flashlight beam at it. “That’s the study.”
“I thought the ghost—person—was in the attic?”
“Maybe he wanted some reading material?” Christie nudged the door open with his foot. As they swept their flashlight beams over the cluttered office, he said, “Don’t tell me that’s natural.”
The pale toadstools from the yard had gotten in and grown over bookshelves, the desk cluttered with papers, through cracks in the floorboards. The air was thick with a dust that scintillated in their light beams. Finn, reaching out, studied the shimmering stuff that fell over her hand. It wasn’t dust—it was like pollen, or spores. It would have been almost magical if it wasn’t so uncanny. “Christie—”
Something moved in the shadows behind the big desk, and Finn and Christie swerved their flashlight beams at the darkness there. When an eye blinked, Christie shouted and dropped his flashlight. Finn kept hers aimed at what huddled behind the desk—a naked figure smudged with dirt, arms over its head. For a luminous moment, she hoped . . . “Nathan?”
The figure’s arms fell away and it raised its head into the light, revealing a tangled mane of pewter-pale hair and the stark, fine-boned face of a young man, a stranger. The pollen shimmered over him as he parted his lips. His eyes were green, the vivid color of summer leaves and dragonfly wings.
“Is he . . . ?” Christie picked up his flashlight.
“He’s not a Fata.” Finn twisted around, snatched a plaid blanket from an easy chair, and cautiously approached the young man, holding it out. “Here. We’re not going to hurt you.”
The stranger seemed dazed, as if he’d just woken from a long sleep, or a spell. As he accepted the blanket and wrapped it around his narrow hips, a bracelet of silver charms glinted around one of his wrists. Finn said carefully, “I’m Finn. This is—”
Christie murmured, “Should you be giving him our names?”
The young man rose, clutching the plaid blanket. He was taller than she’d expected. Slim muscles snaked beneath his skin. As he spoke, his cautious baritone had a British tartness to it. “Where am I?”
“In Mr. Redhawk’s house. Did you know Mr. Redhawk?”
“No.” He turned, looking around, and Finn sucked in a breath. Tattooed across his shoulder blades was a pair of amazingly detailed moth wings, in luminous silver and platinum hues. He continued, “I feel I’ve been here for a very long time.”
“Do you remember your name?” Finn asked. He glanced at his hands and flexed them as if he hadn’t seen them in a while. She had a sudden, sick feeling that in this house, he’d been something else for a very long time.
“No.” He rubbed a hand across his face. He had another tattoo, on his upper right arm: a black, Celtic spiral that formed some kind of animal.
“Finn.” Christie’s car keys jangled as he took them from his pocket. “Go get my Mustang. We’ll have to take him to the prince of darkness. I’ll stay.”
Finn backed away from the young man, who sank to a crouch, huddled in the plaid blanket, his hands—like Jack’s hands had once been, crisscrossed with scars—knotted in his hair.
“I DON’T KNOW WHO HE IS. I don’t know what he is.”
Jack hunched forward on a