The Whispering Dead (Gravekeeper #1) - Darcy Coates Page 0,23
were worn off. Some had tipped over or sunk into the earth. Others were overgrown with weeds and spindly vines.
Keira paused at the edge of the forest. She raised her eyes, and chills slipped through her in waves as she stared into the tangle of trees and grave markers. The stones were all old, and many had crumbled, but they seemed to go on forever. In some cases, trees had collapsed over the slabs, crushing them, or the markers had fallen over and depressed into the forest floor to become morbid stepping stones.
She pushed forward, moving carefully to avoid stepping on any overgrown graves, one arm raised to push spiky, dead branches away from her face. She wanted to see how deep into the woods the graves went and whether the cemetery truly had an end. Light faded as the trees closed in behind her, and yet the stone markers still surrounded her, listing, rotting, half-consumed by the earth, going on for as far as her eyes could make out.
A whispered noise echoed from ahead. It sent a spike of fear through Keira. A coppery taste flooded her mouth and made her stomach clench.
The thought echoed again and again, becoming a mantra she couldn’t silence. The ground ahead of her was tainted with more than just bones. A dark figure shifted between distant trees.
Something evil…something evil…something evil…
She staggered backward, her heart a staccato pulse in her ears, her breathing ragged. She barely noticed as branches snagged at her clothes and kept moving even when she’d passed out of the forest’s border. The backs of her legs hit a solid object; she fell over it, tumbling to the spongy earth as she raised her hands to guard her face.
Her mind fell silent. The fear abated, moving out of her in a steady ebb, until all that remained were the shaking hands and racing pulse. Something sharp and cold pinged off her forehead, then another hit her hand. It had started raining.
Slowly, as though sudden movements could undo the calm, Keira lifted her torso off the ground. She’d tripped over a low, square tombstone. Horror impacted her as she realized she was on top of a grave, and she scrambled back, desperate to get onto clean ground.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. She came to rest in a space between two graves and wrapped her arms around her chest. The forest waited ahead of her, dark and dripping with malaise.
What was that? Something moved between the trees, and it didn’t seem human…
The rain was coming down in cold, hard spits, coating her hair and trickling down the back of her neck. Keira shuddered and blew out a breath. It plumed in front of her. The temperature was plummeting with unnatural speed.
An eerie sensation crawled over Keira’s skin. She twisted to look behind herself, but she was alone.
No, her instincts whispered. You’re not.
“Hello?” More condensation came out with the word. The fog was thickening, transforming from tendrils into an ocean, and the continued drop in temperature made her shiver uncontrollably. She squinted, trying to pick shapes out of the mist.
Then she blinked, and something inside of her head clicked. It was like a Magic Eye poster. The picture appeared as a jumble of nothing until she looked at it in exactly the right way, then the hidden image became clear.
The woman, so transparent that her floating hair and sundress were almost invisible, walked through the markers a row ahead of Keira. Her delicate, bloodied face twisted as she wrung her hands. Keira didn’t dare speak, didn’t dare move, but stayed huddled on the ground, half-obscured by the fog. The idea to search for the ghost had seemed logical while she was inside the cottage, but crouched among the gravestones as the light failed and a storm brewed overhead, the notion felt positively insane.
The woman didn’t seem to notice Keira. She strode along a row of graves, turned, and paced back the way she came from. Her lips moved, but the words were inaudible. The sticky bone fragments of her crushed skull glistened in the dim light.
Keira had to strain to keep the transient figure in her vision. It was as though she had a muscle just behind her eyes that made the ghost visible. As soon as she relaxed it, the woman disappeared into the mist.
She blinked, mentally collected herself, and tried again, focusing on using the muscle she hadn’t even known existed. It took a moment,