I clutched his arm. “Owen—”
“He’s alive, but he’s not going anywhere.” Devlin stroked a hand down the fading bruise on my cheek before gently tracing the fresh marks at my neck. “He won’t be going anywhere for a long, long time, I promise you that.”
“He was in on it with Nelda,” I said. “It was her all along.”
“Don’t talk. We’ll sort it out later. The only thing that matters right now is you.”
I lay back and closed my eyes. I could feel moisture on my face and I thought at first it was tears, but then I realized it had started to rain. I rose up on my elbows to gaze at the burning house. “All those numbers and keys... I don’t know yet what they mean. What if they really are clues or coordinates on a map?”
“Doesn’t matter now,” Devlin said. “It’s too late. The place is gone.”
“But—”
“Let it go, Amelia. It’s over.”
I might yet have struggled, but at that very moment, flames exploded through the upstairs windows and licked along the roofline. Devlin helped me to my feet and we took refuge at the edge of the maze as ash and embers swirled down upon us.
The rain was coming down harder now. It would protect the surrounding woods and the cemetery, but Devlin was right. The house was already gone.
Owen was wounded and Nelda was dead, but what about the entity? Was it trapped beneath the burning house or had it escaped? Was it out there even now, searching for another conduit?
I swept my gaze across the burning roof, over the yard and along the edge of the woods. As I peered into the trees, I realized with a start that something stared back at me.
I could just make out the hump on Mott’s back as she separated from the shadows. She appeared to me as she had that day in Oak Grove Cemetery, a tiny, wizened in-between slinking through the darkness, turning to scrutinize me intently when she felt my gaze upon her. She watched me for the longest moment before throwing back her head and emitting that spine-tingling rattle.
Glancing up into the dripping trees, I wondered if she meant to summon the cicadas. Something blew toward me through the maze. An unnatural gust that whipped at my hair as I clutched Rose’s key to my heart.
The voices in my head started to chatter, the sound ebbing and flowing as the wind undulated through the hedges. I could feel that strange suction, as if the ghosts of Kroll Cemetery were being inexorably pulled toward the light inside me. But I no longer felt resistance from the malcontent. Whether Nelda’s dark visitor was gone for good, I had no idea. Maybe the ghosts had somehow overcome it in their frenzied quest for release.
On and on they came, the forgotten and forlorn. I could see them now, wispy and ethereal as they swept toward me. Sparks erupted over the treetops as the veil thinned and the dead world grew closer. The moment was strangely beautiful. Like nothing I had ever experienced. I was frightened and awestruck by the power of the release. And perhaps for the first time, humbled by my gift.
As the ghostly wave crashed over me, I thought for a moment I might be carried along with them to the afterlife. But the vertigo came and went quickly this time. The wind died away, the voices in my head faded and I felt a peaceful emptiness as I stood there with embers swirling overhead and raindrops clinging to my lashes.
When it was all over, when the last of them had finally crossed over, I glanced back at Mott, remembering what Dr. Shaw had suggested about her purpose. If your calling is to help the dead move on, then maybe a being that is half in and half out is the means by which the door to the dead world can be opened.
She turned toward the smoldering house, to the upstairs window where Rose’s ghost still lingered. I could see the spirit of my great-grandmother clearly through the smoke. She was young again, her eyes restored now that Ezra and the colonists had been freed.
The wind wasn’t as strong this time, nor was the suction. Their release was over in the space of a heartbeat. As Rose’s form waned, Mott, too, began to wither, crumbling away to ashes that floated away on the breeze. But I somehow knew they were together. Walking hand in hand into the light.
I turned to Devlin, wondering if he had sensed any of what had just taken place, but his attention was riveted on the burning house.
I followed his gaze to the upstairs window where Rose’s ghost had hovered only a moment ago. His features were frozen, utterly devoid of animation. But there was something disturbing about his stillness, something almost frightening about the look on his face. I had never seen him like that before.
“You saw her,” I whispered.