He is congenial and kind, with blue eyes that sparkle when he laughs. I find myself wondering what could be possible between us. I have been lonely, I suppose.
May 25, 1831
Nathaniel and I have become lovers. We first came together late one night when another storm raged outside the cabin. After we had enjoyed a warming draft of cider, I was of no mind to send him out into the weather. It has been the coldest spring I can remember. I suppose it is only natural we craved one another’s warmth and closeness.
Nathaniel has been with me every night since.
May 27, 1831
Something strange and unsettling has happened.
Last night, Nathaniel drifted to sleep beside me. He usually leaves well before dawn crosses the windowsill, but as the morning light touched his fine features, his sleeping countenance briefly flickered and changed. I sprang from the bed in horror. Where my handsome lover had been, a demonic creature had taken his place, with clawed hands and fanged teeth. And then, just as suddenly, his beauty was renewed, his dark hair falling across the pillow, his eyes opening wide.
Fear roiled through my body as Nathaniel reached for me. Horrified, my mind at war with the wanting in my body, I bade him go, pleading an excess of work. He rose, stretching luxuriantly.
I quelled my distemper and allowed him to kiss me.
Was his transformation merely a trick of the light, or something more? Even as the comforting noonday warmth floods through my windows, a dark chill settles in my marrow. I know not what it means, but I am troubled all the same.
TWELVE
DEIRDRE
1881
Deirdre closed the grimoire, her mind clouded with warring thoughts. Outside the train car, the trees rushed by in a haze, blinking gold and green.
She thought of the glinting shine in Ambrose Gentry’s eyes, his gleeful, hungry grin reflected in her mirror. His words in her head, promising to pursue her like prey. Had it merely been her imagination? Was Gentry only a lustful man driven by covetousness . . . or something far worse?
Deirdre gathered her cloak around her shoulders. A chill ran through the train car. She took a drink of tea to warm herself and opened the grimoire again. The scent of dried geraniums wafted out. Each time she opened the book, the scent changed slightly. Sometimes it smelled like dirt or fresh-mown hay. Other times it smelled like ashes and fire. And the words themselves shifted and moved. Things were never in the same order. The book seemed to know her thoughts and reflect them back to her.
She’d opened the book three times since she’d left Tin Mountain. But each time, the feeling of dread grew stronger. As much as her curiosity drew her to read on, to learn more of Anneliese’s story, she feared the knowledge within. Ever since her vision of Anneliese in Sutter’s holler, vague imaginings had haunted her. The surge of knowing that had come over her that night had diminished, but she had the sense that if she chose to call up that knowing—that greater power—it might consume her.
She feared that giving herself over to this strange new knowledge would be like turning on a tap that she wouldn’t be able to shut off again.
A rustle of sound caught her ears. Deirdre startled. No one else was in the compartment she was traveling in. Pa had used his standing as an engineer to secure a first-class ticket, and the only other passengers, an elderly couple who had boarded with her, had gotten off at Cape Girardeau. She slowly turned, her heartbeat thrumming in her ears.
There was no one there. Just the swaying gimbal lanterns and row upon row of scarlet banquettes.
She went back to her reading, hurriedly skimming over Anneliese’s journaling and concentrating on the innocent recipes at the back of the book. As the train curved on its route eastward, the steady clatter of the tracks and the rhythm of the train soon made Deirdre drowsy, and in the plush comfort of her seat, she drifted off to sleep. Her dreams were troubled. In them, she was trapped in a never-ending forest of looming trees, pursued by an unseen creature, who snarled and snapped. She awoke sometime later, her stomach knotted with fear.
“Miss? Are you all right?”
Someone grasped her shoulder. Deirdre flinched and let out a shaky breath. It was only the railway steward. She nodded. Her head swam with the motion, and she closed her eyes to stop the spinning. A high-pitched whine started up, somewhere deep inside her ears.
“Are you sure you’re well? You’re a bit peaked.” The young man’s voice rang hollow and distant, as if he were at the end of a long tunnel. “I can escort you to a sleeping car if you’d like.”
“I’m well. I’m only . . . very tired.”
He smiled down at her kindly. “Long journeys are wearing. If you’d care for anything, just ring the bellpull.” He motioned at the length of braided rope behind her and then pushed his cart down the aisle, teacups rattling in time with the train’s jostling.
Deirdre closed her eyes and leaned against the banquette. She felt so very tired. Her nights spent caring for little Collin had finally caught up with her, it seemed. She waded off into sleep again as if it were heavy, soft fog. When she woke, a blackness had descended outside the windows, dousing whatever landscape lay beyond in night.
The same rustle of sound she’d heard earlier came from behind, as if someone were shaking the pages of a newspaper. Deirdre turned. A man sat two rows back and to the left of her, the dark crown of his head just visible. She must have slept through a stop, and he’d gotten on then. Yes, surely that was it.
As if the man felt her eyes on him, he slowly raised his head. Glinting green eyes met her own. An icy cold finger of fear laced its way through the hair at the nape of Deirdre’s neck, prickling her skin. A frail whimper escaped her lips.
It was the preacher. Gentry. Somehow, someway, he’d followed her. Just as he’d promised.
THIRTEEN
GRACELYNN
1931
I wake, my neck cramping from the awkward way I’d fallen asleep, folded against Aunt Val’s mattress in the loft. A trail of silver moonlight shines across the open pages of the grimoire and Anneliese’s looping script. It’s late or early. I can’t reckon which.
There’s something oddly familiar in the way Anneliese describes Nathaniel Walker’s arrival—how he’d just shown up, bringing troubles and poor weather in his wake. The disturbing vision Anneliese had was also familiar—I’d felt the same fear in that revival tent when Josiah Bellflower and I locked eyes. Walker and Bellflower couldn’t be the same person. It was impossible. He’d be well over a century old.
Just then, a loud crash sounds from the kitchen, like every pot and pan we own’s been knocked asunder. I jump to my feet, my heart pummeling, my head clouded with images of demonic, wrathful lovers. I climb down the ladder and creep along the hall. The kitchen door stands wide open, slammed back against the shelf above the sink. Broken crockery lies on the floor, and a trail of muddy footprints leads to the pantry.
A low groan carries from the other side of the room.
Caro comes up from behind me and takes hold of my elbow. She’s shaking. “Might be a hobo,” she rasps. “I’ll get the shotgun.”
“We ain’t got no more shells, remember? Granny used ’em all the other night,” I whisper back. “’Sides, I think it’s Morris. Them look like his boot tracks.”