Page 19

Chills shot up his back and he shivered, exhaling long and slow.

With a flick of his finger, he nudged the paper that said ‘yes’.

The motion, in another life, would have meant nothing.

In this one? It meant everything.

For the first time in two hundred years, Royan Wolfe bridged the gap between the living and the dead and showed his hand.

Avery gasped, leaning forward. “Wow, okay. Okay. Um, my name is Avery. I’m a writer. From New York,” she added quickly. “I’m here to…to figure out my life, I guess. Have you been trapped here long?”

Again, he nudged the scrap of paper that said yes.

“Are you scared?” The words were whispered, a mere dare.

No one had ever asked him that before.

Perhaps at one time he was. When everyone moved on and left him behind.

Now he was…resigned. Morose. Irritated.

He nudged the paper that said ‘no’.

“Not anymore,” he added, though she couldn’t hear him.

“Good,” she said, more to herself than him. “Good, I’m glad.”

If he had a heart, he was sure it would be racing by now. Outside the window, lightning slithered across a stormy sky. Every zap of electricity bolstered him until he felt the heat from the flame across the room.

“You’re trembling,” he whispered, eyes locked on the shake in her hands.

“You don’t like me in your study, do you? Was it the desk?”

The scrap of paper with ‘yes’ blew across the table and she surprised him by laughing. He went still at the sound, something like fear rising like the tide inside him.

Revelation thirteen: Avery Eden had a laugh that sounded like possibility, like the chocolate candies she ate, the pop of a cork from a wine bottle.

It was a beautiful sound.

One that was now imprinted into the stones, echoing all around him.

One that might just haunt him after she left and the air went still and quiet around him once more.

“It was totally backward!” she said, sliding the paper back in place. “The view is so much better the other way. You know I’m right.”

Wolfe laughed, shaking his head. He conceded, tapping the paper that said ‘maybe’.

Avery sobered, staring at the flame waving before her.

“Are you lonely?”

It was a damning confession. One he hated to admit even to himself.

“Yes,” he answered, and the paper moved.

“Me too,” she whispered. “Do you have a name?”

Here, he hesitated. He liked living in anonymity. Liked not being called whenever someone chose. Remaining nameless saved him in so many ways.