but then the woman emerged back into her vision, standing directly ahead of Keira and gazing toward town.
They were close. Keira could feel a chill rolling off the spirit and reflexively leaned away from it. The movement drew the woman’s notice, and her head snapped toward Keira. The long, blood-streaked hair swirled like a cloud behind her.
They watched each other, both silent, both waiting. Keira felt as though she was supposed to say something, but words died on her tongue. Her body shook from the cold as stress and fear clouded her head, but she knew she couldn’t leave. Not yet.
Then the dead woman turned and began walking along the row of graves, unconcerned that she was treading over the burials. She stopped and looked over her shoulder, her expression beseeching. A request to follow.
On unsteady legs, Keira rose. The drizzle had soaked into her clothes and made her feel heavy, but when she took a step toward the ghost, the woman turned and continued. As she walked through the fog, her body took on a luminescent sheen, and her form’s solidity waxed and waned according to the mist’s density.
Although the ghost walked across the graves, Keira took care not to step on them. She couldn’t even tell herself why, but it seemed disrespectful to walk over the coffins, like desecrating sacred ground. She had to weave around the graves and even climb over two hedges to keep up with the spirit.
They were moving toward the forest’s edge. Keira’s anxiety increased as they drew nearer to it. Please, not into the woods…
The woman stopped and turned. She waited for Keira to catch up, then gave a graceful nod toward the shape beside her.
She was standing on a grave. The stone was small and modest, a traditional curved-top slab without adornments. Keira had to move closer to the spirit than she was comfortable with in order to read the words carved on it.
Emma Carthage 1955–1981
“Is this yours?” Keira looked up, but the woman was gone. Keira took a step back as she looked around herself. “Emma?”
No answer came from the garden of gravestones.
“I’m going to try to help.” Keira’s voice came out faint, so she licked her dry lips and tried again. “I have your name now. I’ll find out who you were in life and how you died, and…I can’t promise… I don’t know how much I can do…but whatever you need, I’ll try to get it for you.”
Still no response. Keira felt for the muscle behind her eyes and strained it, pushing as hard as she could as she looked over the graveyard. There was a flicker of motion somewhere to her right. No—there was a shape to her left, fading as soon as she tried to look at it.
The rapidly advancing twilight made it difficult to see. She tried harder. A throbbing headache began at the back of her skull and flared over her scalp. She pushed through it, fighting to get both her internal and external eyes to work in tandem and show her the woman. It felt like straining against an invisible wall. The barrier cracked, then broke, and Keira was suddenly able to look through.
She inhaled and stumbled backward. Her shoulders hit a tree, and she pressed herself against it, her heart thundering, her head burning from the strain. For only a second, she’d seen them: Blighty Cemetery’s ghosts, deformed, discontent, and scattered among the graves, watching her. There had been dozens of them.
“Oh,” Keira whispered. Her lungs were burning, and she had to force herself to draw breath. The specters had faded as soon as she’d relaxed the second sight, but she knew they were still there, surrounding her, waiting to reach their long fingers through the mist and snag her limbs as she passed them.
Keira put her head down and ran. Despite the numbing cold and fear, her legs carried her in long lopes across the graveyard. She darted around the headstones and over long-dead flower beds, eyes squinted against the drizzling rain. She didn’t allow herself to think about what she was passing through, didn’t even try to look for it, as she raced for her home.
She hit the cottage’s door with a bang and fumbled to turn the handle. A draft of warm air welcomed her as she slipped inside. She closed and locked the door, then almost laughed at herself. Yes, because a latch will definitely keep the ghosts out.
Keira put a hand to her forehead and sucked in long,