Could any of it be true? Of course not! He'd just been trying to scare her. But still she found herself listening, straining to hear…
What?
She didn't know.
As the night stretched on and the silence grew heavier, she strained to listen for the sounds that had always lulled her to sleep at night: crickets chirping, frogs calling for their mates.
Even the whine of mosquitoes or the bark of the dog next door-the barking that Scout had instantly echoed, waking everyone in the house-would have been welcome this night.
So would the droning of traffic in the street, or the eerie hoot of an owl hunting in the night.
But to hear nothing at all…
She tossed and turned restlessly until Muffin, curled on the pillow beside her, angrily swiped her, then moved to the foot of the bed. And finally, blessedly, she fell into sleep.
And heard it.
It was a scream such as she'd never heard before; an unearthly wail that tore the mantle of sleep from her with enough force to jerk her upright in bed.
Her heart was pounding and her skin was clammy with a cold sheen of sweat.
But the night was still so silent that she knew at once the scream she'd heard existed only in her mind.
She lay back down, curled tightly on her side.
And saw it.
A creature, blacker even than the night, crouched on the far side of her room, as if about to lunge for her.
She froze, too afraid even to breathe, and then, out of the silence, she heard the words whispered to her by her dying aunt: "It will protect you… Don't ever take it off."
Her fingers closed around the cross, and she felt her terror begin to ebb.
A shadow, she thought. It's only a shadow!
Propping herself on her side, she saw that the moon was just beginning to rise, its silvery glow barely seeping through the windows, whose years of accumulated grime had yet to be washed away.
And on the windowsill stood Muffin, her back arched, her tail sticking straight up.
As Kim watched, the cat paced the length of the windowsill.
"Muffin," Kim called out quietly. "Come on, Muffin. Come back to bed."
The cat hissed in the darkness, then turned and stalked back the other way.
"What is it?" Kim asked, getting out of bed and going to the cat. "What's wrong? What's out there?" Kim pressed close to the window, straining to see through the heavy smudges that coated them, at the same time reaching out to soothe Muffin with a gentle stroke.
The cat hissed, and took another swipe at her. This time, its claws left three stinging welts on the back of her hand. Then, as if to make its desires crystal clear, the cat struck hard at the windowpane.
"Now?" Kim whispered. "Why do you have to go out now?" She reached out as if to stroke the cat again, but when Muffin hissed a warning, she quickly snatched her hand back. "All right," she said as she fumbled with the window latch, struggling to work it loose. "If it's that important-" The latch came free, and she jerked the window open.
In an instant the cat was gone.
Kim pulled the window wide and peered out into the night, searching for some sign of her pet. "Muffin?" she called. "Muffin, come back!"
But the silence of the night swallowed her words as thoroughly as if she'd never spoken them.
And then, just as she had when she'd awakened a few minutes earlier, she froze, her heart beating with cold terror.
Nothing had changed-nothing she could see or hear, at least.
The night was still silent, and even the light of the moon could barely penetrate the darkness.
But there was something out there.
Kim could feel it.
Something-or someone-was out there.
Out there, watching her.
CHAPTER 9
Every muscle in Jake Cumberland's body tensed. He hadn't moved in nearly six hours, not since nightfall had let him steal out of the woods on the east side of the property and move close to the old carriage house, where he hid himself so completely in the deep shadows that even someone passing within a few feet of him would never have known he was there.
There he'd remained, keeping his silent vigil, watching the house.
He hadn't really believed it when he'd first heard someone say people were gonna be moving back into the old house. After all, everyone knew there weren't any more Conways, not since the old woman had died. But it had turned out that everybody was wrong.
There were still Conways around-five of 'em, anyways.
Right after he'd heard the talk-the same day the old lady died-he'd made his way along the path through the bottomland to a place where he could keep a watch on the house, and sure enough, there they were. He'd recognized them the minute he saw them-'specially the man. Everything about him had Conway written all over it.
It wasn't just the dark hair and blue eyes.
It was the way he moved, too, and held his head.
Jake could practically smell it on him.
He'd watched while they all went into the house, never moving, just like when he was out hunting and had to hold stone-still for hours at a time, less'n the game would get scared off. He'd waited until they'd come back out of the house and gotten back in their car and gone away, but even as he watched the car disappear, he knew they'd be back, knew it the same way he always knew just where to set his traps, even on nights when it was so dark he couldn't hardly see a thing.
Then, when he'd gone to the funeral this afternoon, he'd seen them again. 'Course, he hadn't gone inside the church or the cemetery-his mama had warned him about churches when he was still so small he didn't even go to school-and he hadn't never liked cemeteries. Sometimes you had to go into them, though, but only when you needed something, and even then you only went in the middle of the night when the moon was high and its silvery light made everything look like it was made out of pewter, like the mug his grandmama had left him. It still stood on the windowsill above the sink in the cabin. Though he didn't really remember his grandmama, he thought about her every time he used the mug, peering through its glass bottom while he drank.
"It's so you can see your enemies, even when you're drinking," his mama had told him. "Your grandmama always said it was important to keep an eye on your enemies, so they won't catch you by surprise."
Sometimes, when his mama was working her magic, Jake watched her peering into the mug, and knew that even when she wasn't drinking from it, the window in the bottom of the mug let her see what her enemies were doing, no matter where they were. "They can't hide, Jake," she'd said. "Not as long as you got the mug." Even now, whenever Jake drank from the mug, his eyes stayed open as he searched for any threat that might lie beyond the glass.
But never had he seen any Conways through the bottom of the mug. In fact, he'd almost wondered if maybe he'd been wrong before. But when he'd hung around outside the fence of the cemetery this morning, there they were, the man helping carry the old lady's coffin, and the rest of them following after.
He stayed and watched them bury the old lady, and tried to work some of his mama's magic on them, but knew it wouldn't work. You couldn't just work the magic-you had to have a lot of stuff first, but he'd still tried. And he was pretty sure the woman, at least, felt him give her the eye, 'cause she'd looked straight at him a couple of times. But he hadn't flinched. No, sir. He'd stayed right where he was.
Then, after they all left the cemetery, he'd come around through the woods and kept right on watching.
They'd come back here and started taking their stuff out of the truck and putting it into the house. Only then had he decided that it was true, they really were planning to stay.
Shoulda burnt that place down, he thought. Shoulda burnt it down years ago, Finally he'd gone home and waited for nightfall, when it would be safe to creep back to the house and search for the things he'd need to make his mama's magic work.