18

T he book that had been within reach was boring.

Or maybe the dull throbbing that cut through my bicep was more distracting than expected. I had been trying to wake up from my injured haze and figured a book was my best way out of the fog. But half its pages were missing and it smelled of mold, which didn’t help the distraction, it just made me disgusted.

“Clay!” Koen slid into the room on his heels, fresh blood on his cheek, and I sat up gingerly on the couch.

“You’re bleeding,” I said, and his response was simply to nod as he caught his breath. “What happened?” I asked.

“There’s a woman in some crazy glass greenhouse at the other end of the house,” he said between shallow breaths. “I don’t know where she came from, but I heard a strange noise, I thought it might be an animal.”

“It’s never an animal,” I said, and he nodded, exaggeratingly mocking me under his breath.

“I know, I know!” His chest thudded beneath his dark t-shirt as he worked to collect himself. “It obviously wasn’t,” he huffed, frustrated and frazzled. “It’s a fully-grown woman in skirts and a corset. Clay, she…” he stopped, finally looking up from his feet. “She looks like she walked out of a Jane Austin novel. ”

“How do you even know—” I let the rest of my sentence trail off. “Koen, we’re exhausted. Are you sure you weren’t seeing things?”

“I’m bleeding, remember?” He pointed to the trail of blood that dripped down his face, curling around his jaw and down his neck. “She threw a bloody pot at me!”

“Is it a ghost?” I asked, sitting up and reaching for my pack. “Come here,” I said, grabbing a dirty shirt from inside.

He sank to his knees beside the couch and offered his chin to my outstretched hand. “It’s not a ghost,” he said, his eyes flickering closed at the contact.

“Are you sure?”

“No—” Koen shrugged his slim, muscular shoulders at me and winced when I rubbed away the blood. The cut wasn’t deep, but it was real. “–Yes!” He corrected, as if Wes were picking at the back of his head, teasing his confidence. “Whatever she is, she’s not a spirit.”

“Alright… I don’t believe you,” I said, fingers still lingering on his skin.

Koen rolled his exasperated green eyes at me. “Of course you don’t.”

“But I am curious.” I balled the shirt up and set it to the side, climbing from the chaise.

A cloud of dust kicked up in my nose as I moved. My entire body was sore, and the stitches that Koen had threaded into my arm hurt in unexplainable ways. The muscles itched and stung as I pulled my shirt on and buttoned it to the collar.

“The stitches are too tight.” I slapped his face playfully, trying to ease the tension from his shoulders, and pushed past him, still sitting on the floor. I shoved the barrel of my gun into the waist of my pants, resting it at my back and covering it with the shirt. “But they did stop the bleeding. We can pull them out and try again later.”

He was learning. I even had him read books on medical procedures, but his nerves were constantly getting the better of him. He stared at me for a long moment before compiling his out-of-order thoughts and nodding.

“Good.” I nodded toward the archway from the sitting room. “Lead the way.”

His stocky frame straightened out as he ran ahead of me. It’s not that Koen is short, but his six-foot frame seems lower to the ground than my six-two. His shoulders are broader than mine and built with rugged, sculpted muscle that he works tirelessly to acquire. All so he can measure up to Wesley, who towers at six-four and basically looks like he’s related to the Ents in Lord of the Rings . It was the simplest way to tell the two weren’t blood-related.

Koen scrunched up his nose as we reached the opening to a dark hallway. The entire house seemed silent. There were no creaking floorboards or drafty breezes. It was merely the sound of our breathing and nothing more.

“This way.” He led me down the hall.

The chair propped under the door was still held tight and, as we approached, I started to think that Koen might require more sleep; but as we got closer I could hear a faint tapping against the glass.

Resting against the frosted glass of the door was the silhouette of a woman, her finger lightly tapping the glass in a soft pattern. His eyebrow was raised when I looked back at him. “Not a ghost. ”

“Tapping doesn’t rule out a ghost,” I said. “Remember the spirit in Kingston?”

“It’s not a poltergeist, Clay,” Koen said. “I know the difference.”

I wanted to tell him it was okay to make mistakes. We all get tired. Wes drove the notion that mistakes get you killed into him so early that it’s been torture trying to yank it out of him.

“Let me out,” a voice whispered, so quietly I nearly missed it.

I turned back to face it, pulled out my gun, and wandered closer to the door. Knocking gently on it with my knuckle, I waited. Feet shuffled backward. Removing the chair from beneath the knob, I set it aside and turned it until the latch clicked and the door swung open gently.

“Stay.” I pointed to him and when he didn’t move I followed it up with a quick, praising ‘good boy.’

The room was in shambles, which was nothing less than expected from the state of Koen’s face. I stepped inside, eyes scanning the room, and was met with a fiery gaze. She stood in the corner on high alert, her hands balled around objects at her side.

The first thing I noticed was that Koen hadn’t been wrong; she wasn’t from this era. The fabrics of her full skirts and tight bodice gave that much away, but the confusion on her face was unreal as her gaze lowered to the gun in my hand.

Her jaw tightened and she threw hard the object she had been holding in her hand. It smashed against the ground at my feet, splintered into tiny porcelain shards.

“Get out of here!” She said, her voice commanding, but her panicked eyes flickered around the room as if someone were listening.

“Out of the room?” I asked, feeling Koen sneak in against my back.

“Out of the Manor!” A chill ran through me. “You must leave.”

“We were just—” I started, but she threw another item she’d been keeping behind her back. It hurled through the air harder than the first, but I was faster and more prepared and caught it in my hand. Her eyes narrowed as I carefully set it on the shelf beside me.

“Please stop throwing things at me.”

I walked toward her, hands in the air to show her I meant no harm but she scrambled away, scared nonetheless, and pinned herself in the opposite corner of the room away from us. Her auburn hair slipped from the bun it had been wound into and fell in thick, soft bundles around her throat.

She was terrified, but gods, she was beautiful .

Koen scoffed from the right of me, reading the expression on my face better than he had any book.

“We were just squatting. We thought the house was empty. We’re sorry for intruding,” I said to her.

“You need to leave!” She repeated, her jaw tightened with anger as her eyes flickered around the room for anything she could defend herself with.

There wasn’t much left that she hadn’t destroyed short of the furniture, but I also didn’t want to tempt her strength. I still wasn’t sure if she was a spirit or a monster, but there was something very clearly wrong with the woman. She observed me. I wasn’t in the condition to get in a fight with her regardless, but I needed to keep her and us safe until I could figure out precisely what she was.

“I’m sorry we can’t do that,” I said, snapping my fingers.

Koen took the hint and moved from the room.

“No!” She screamed when she realized what was happening. I slid back toward the door as she ran toward me. “You don’t understand!” She screamed again as I shut it in her face. Her fists pounded against the glass, making it groan under her strength. “You have to leave!” She pleaded with a strained voice over and over as we barricaded the door.

“Not a ghost,” Koen sighed.

“She might still be, Koen. We can’t rule it out,” I warned him as I stepped back from the door.

“She’s really pretty for a ghost,” he said quietly, and I looked back at him. He was staring with his head cocked at the door as it strained.

“We need to figure out what the hell she is before you start flirting with death,” I groaned and walked back toward the stairs.

“Please don’t make me read,” he whined and followed.

“First things first,” I said. “We need to redo these stitches.”

I pointed to the blood seeping from my shirt. The stitches had popped when I caught the glass she had thrown at my head, and I was already starting to feel dizzy from the pain that throbbed up through my shoulder and into the base of my neck. Koen’s eyes widened at the stain and he followed back down the hallway after me.