Shadow Silence (17 page)

Peggin slipped her arm through mine. “Are you sure you don't mind me staying at your house? And the ferrets?”

“I wouldn't want anybody else.” I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Peggin, you're my best friend. I'm not about to let the Lady get a second chance at you.” At her worried look, I added, “We'll find a way to break the curse. I promise you.”

But inside, I wondered if I could keep that promise. And I wondered if we could keep Peggin alive until we had a chance to break the
curse.

T
he trip back to the house at Foggy Downs was quiet. Deev pulled Peggin to him, and she rested her head on his shoulder in the backseat. Bryan was staring at his phone, frowning over some text he had gotten. None of us felt like talking much, and I couldn't decide if it was because we were all tired, or because of all the crap that had gone down that day.

As I pulled into the driveway, I stared up at the looming Victorian. The spirits were still wandering through the yard, I could see them as plain as I could see the trees and the grass and the house itself. A brooding feeling hung over the place and I shuddered, not wanting Peggin to go back through those doors.

“I think you should let me go pack your bag. You stay here with Bryan. Deev, want to come in with me and help?” I wanted Deev with me because I wanted to have a little talk with him out of Peggin's earshot. I was done not interfering. Maybe I wasn't able to tell anyone about my dream, but I could make sure he heard what I had to say about everything else.

Deev silently unwound himself from Peggin, and followed me into the house. As I shut the door behind us, he followed me upstairs.

“I know you want to talk to me about something. What is it?” He sounded almost defensive.

“I want to make certain that you remember to keep an eye on her when you guys are alone. If you're working on a project, don't let her go off wandering. If she stays the night at your house, you need to make certain that she doesn't bathe alone. I'm just . . . a little raw.”

He smiled then. “I thought you were going to blame me for what happened.”

Blinking, I stared at him. “Why would I do that? You aren't the one who encouraged her to buy this house. You tried to get her to stay with you, if I remember right.”

He shrugged. “I'm used to people assuming things about me, to be honest. Trust me, I know that people think I'm an odd duck, to put it mildly. I've had more than one person assume that because some of my creations come to life, that I'm deliberately messing with forces that are better left untouched. I also get a lot of comments about my braids and clothes.”

I walked over to Peggin's bed and flopped down on it, shaking my head. “Oh, Deev. I know what it's like to stand out and to be talked about. Trust me on that one. But no, I'm not blaming you—it's not your fault. And as for assumptions, I never really knew you—you came to town after I left—but I'm glad to get the chance now. Because I, for one, think you're a pretty cool dude. And I also think . . .”

He sat beside me, folding his hands as he rested his elbows on his knees. “You think what?”

I wasn't sure whether I should say it or not, but decided I might as well. “I think you're good for Peggin. Anybody more mundane would cramp her style. But I know she's been lonely, to some degree, and I know that she loves with all her heart when she finally opens up to someone.” I turned
to him. “I also know that she refused to stay with you because she was afraid of doing something that would drive a wedge between you guys. You know . . . reality has a way of creeping in when you move in with somebody.”

He shifted, his shoulders relaxing. “I see. I wondered, but I wasn't going to push her on it. I was afraid she just didn't want to live with me and didn't want to hurt my feelings about it. I wasn't ready to hear her say she wanted to take things more slowly, so I didn't ask.”

A sneaking suspicion crossed my mind that they needed to quit being so afraid to talk things out, and I decided to just be blunt. “You guys can't be afraid to discuss this stuff. You're both pussyfooting around issues that could easily lead to a misunderstanding. Promise me, you won't assume? Once one of you starts talking, I'm pretty sure the other will follow suit. Peggin may seem like a tough cookie, and she is, but to be honest, she's really a big fluffball inside.” I grinned at him. “But you know
that
, don't you?”

The corners of his lips turned up, and he let out a gentle laugh. “Yeah, I know it. I can see her strength, but I also know that a very sensitive nature is lurking behind all that bravado. I promise, I'll start talking to her more. Because Kerris, I
really
like Peggin. And I don't want to mess things up with her.”

Satisfied, I patted him on the knee. “She told me the same thing. So you're both on the same page, at least. Now help me get some things together for her. Can you run downstairs and bag up all the food that might expire? We'll also need her ferret food and their cages, and whatever else it is that ferrets take.”

“Sure thing.” He obligingly took off, and as I watched the back of his duster flutter out the door, I had the feeling Peggin wasn't going to be alone again for a very long time.

I turned back to the room and picked up one of the suitcases we had emptied only a few hours ago. Time to get the show on the road. I knew Peggin loved her dresses and skirts, so I filled a garment bag with five of the dresses I knew she liked
best, then added four skirts and hung the bag on the hook behind the door so the clothes wouldn't wrinkle. I tucked the suitcase full with knit tops, a couple of button-down blouses, two of her favorite corsets, several pair of shoes, underwear and bras, and then hunted around till I found her makeup-to-go bag, a scaled-down version of her vanity table cases that held scads of eye shadow and mascara.

As I was zipping the cases shut, I was startled by the door closing behind me. Thinking it was Deev, I said, “You're done already?”

No answer.

Very slowly, I turned, cautiously peeking over my back shoulder. The door was shut, but there was nobody in the room with me, at least that I could see.

“Who's there?”

No answer. But then the closet door flew open with a bang. I jumped, letting out a little shriek. As used to spirits as I was getting, they still could startle me without going to much trouble. Especially on a day like today, in a house like this one.

“Who's there? What do you want? You know I'm the spirit shaman, right? So talk to me.”

Unfortunately, logic and reason didn't always work with ghosts and their ilk. The closet door began to swing wildly, slamming itself closed again and again. I backed away toward the bed, but as I did, the blinds on the window began to roll up and down, just as out of control as the door.

“Stop this. Talk to me if you have something to say. I have no patience for temper tantrums!” I put as much force into the words as I could, hoping to alleviate some of the outburst. It worked about as well as it did on a kid throwing a tantrum. Read: not at all. The door was whipping open and closed so fast that I knew if I tried to dash through it, I could easily get hurt. I shouted for Deev, hoping that he could hear me, but the house was huge and I wasn't sure how well my voice would carry. Come to think of it, was he
hearing the door slamming? If so, then why the hell wasn't he up here checking on me?

I looked around for something to use as a makeshift wand. Not that I thought it would do me much good—I hadn't even mastered using the tools my grandma Lila left me yet. But if Peggin had anything that I might be able to use to channel energy . . .

And then I saw it. On her dresser, there was a large chunk of quartz crystal. I grabbed it up, surprised by the sudden current that raced through my hands. As I held it out, aiming the cluster of points toward the door as much as I could, I began to whisper the first thing that I could think of, which wasn't exactly a charm, but my heart was definitely behind it, even though my voice was shaky.

“Get the hell out of here, whoever you are. Do you hear me? I'm the spirit shaman of Whisper Hollow and you will listen to me and obey!” I headed toward the swinging door, holding the crystal out, forcing my energy through it.

The door paused for a moment, but then started up again. At that moment, a perfume bottle whirled past my head, skimming by from the vanity behind me. It barely missed me, crashing against the door as it slammed shut. Furious now, I whirled around.

“Stop this now, or I'll bring the Matriarchs out here and make your existence a living hell.
Do you understand me
?
”

The door suddenly stopped, and a hairbrush that had been hovering in midair dropped to the floor. At that moment, Deev came running up the stairs.

“Kerris, are you all right? I heard noise!”

“I'm all right, but good gods, let's get the hell out of here. The spirits are up in arms and . . .” I paused. “Did you hear me calling?”

“No. I didn't hear a thing!” He grabbed the suitcase from me and headed toward the stairs. “Come on. You go first, and be cautious. If they're acting up, you don't want anybody getting the bright idea to push you down the steps.”

“Good point.” I clung to the railing, Peggin's makeup case slung over my shoulder. Every step, I could feel the spirits watching me, but we made it to the main floor in one piece, and then out the door without further ado.

As Deev locked the door behind him, I glanced past the house, toward the lake. There, shimmering through the trees, the water loomed like a dark force, glistening under the silver sky. We reached the cars as the rain began to splatter down, saturating the ground within seconds. Peggin slowly emerged from my SUV, where Bryan had waited with her. She silently followed Deev over to her car, and he commandeered the keys. She quietly surrendered them.

“I feel her pulling on me,” she said. “I can feel her there. I don't want to drive into the water, so yeah, you drive.”

I watched them get in her car, worry eating at me. That she could feel the Lady at all made me nervous, but that she had already thought of the possibility of the car going into the lake scared the hell out of me. That's how the Lady had taken my grandmother and Duvall.

Slowly, I returned to the car and looked at Bryan. “I'm so worried. Peggin feels the Lady . . . she's scared to drive. We have to do something, Bryan. Oriel has to be able to figure out a way to break the Lady's curse.”

As I started the engine, Bryan leaned over to gently slide his hand along my face. “They'll make certain she's safe, love. Trust me. They'll keep her safe.” But his eyes were filled with concern, too, and as I told him about the door and the perfume bottle, that concern grew. I had a horrible feeling that somehow, we weren't anywhere near fixing this. And I didn't even know if it could be fixed.

*   *   *

T
he Crescent Moon Society wouldn't be meeting until ten
P.M.
, so I still had some time to kill. Deev and Bryan carried Peggin's luggage up to the guest room over the office. Sometimes my house reminded me of a miniature castle.
Upstairs over the master suite was my ritual room and the attic. Up a second staircase on the opposite side of the house, over the office, was my old bedroom, a guest room, and a jack-and-jill bath.

While Peggin unpacked, I decided to do a little sleuthing. She was better at computer snooping than I was by far, but I had learned a thing or two over the past couple of months. While Deev and Bryan went out to get takeout for later, I typed the name
J. Jacobs
into the search engine. After a moment I added the words
Whisper Hollow
, and
boat
. The search didn't garner many returns, but the second link told me what I wanted to know.

In 1919, in November, Joseph Jacobs and four other people vanished on Lake Crescent when their ship went down. They were never found again. The ship had been named the
Maria Susanna
. MS. Of course, the initials on the beam. The article didn't have much else to say except that Jacobs had built the
Maria Susanna
in 1915, and it had been considered extremely seaworthy. There had been a storm the night that it vanished and everyone assumed that the winds had sunk her.

I leaned back in my chair, staring at the screen. If the
Maria Susanna
had never been found, how did the keel beam and several of its ribs make their way into the Foggy Downs house? They had been adjacent the walls, but I wondered if they had been installed while the house was being built or added later on. According to the Realtor, if I remembered correctly, the house was built in 1920. I racked my brain, thinking that he had mentioned who the builder was but at the moment I couldn't bring the name to mind. Maybe Peggin would remember.

When she came downstairs a little while later, she looked calmer and a little less frightened.

“Did you get the ferrets settled in?” We had stopped on the way back to the house and picked up Frith and Folly from the kennel. When they had taken her bags up, Bryan and Deev put together the ferrets' cage.

She nodded, dropping into the chair opposite me. “Yes and they seem happy to see me again. They'll be fine up there. I can let them out when I'm in my room.”

“Tomorrow we'll fix it so that my old bedroom can be the ferret room and then you can leave them out longer. We can just shut them in there and they'll be fine. There's not much they can tear up.”