Shush...lest she awaken...
My name is Amelia Gray, and Im a cemetery restorer who lives with the dead. An anonymous donor has hired me to restore Woodbine Cemetery, a place where the rich and powerful bury their secrets. Forty years ago, a child disappeared without a trace and now her ghost has awakened, demanding that I find out the truth about her death. Only I know that she was murdered. Only I can bring her killer to justice. But the clues that I followa haunting melody and an unnamed babys gravelead me to a series of disturbing suspects.
For generations, The Devlins have been members of Charlestons elite. John Devlin once turned his back on the traditions and expectations that came with his birthright, but now he has seemingly accepted his rightful place. His familys secrets make him a questionable ally. When my investigation brings me to the gates of his familys palatial home, I have to wonder if he is about to become my mortal enemy.
Praise for THE GRAVEYARD QUEEN series by Amanda Stevens
The beginning of Stevens GRAVEYARD QUEEN series left this reviewer breathless. The author smoothly establishes characters and forms the foundation of future storylines with an edgy and beautiful writing style. Her story is full of twists and turns, with delicious and surprising conclusions. Readers will want to force themselves to slow down and enjoy the book instead of speeding through to the end, and theyll anxiously await the next installment of this deceptively gritty series.
RT Book Reviews on The Restorer
The Restorer is by turns creepy and disturbing, mixed with mystery and a bit of romance. Amelia is a strong character who has led a hard andof necessitysecret life. She is not close to many people, and her feelings for Devlin disturb her greatly. Although at times unnerving, The Restorer is well written and intriguing, and an excellent beginning to a new series.
Fort Worth Examiner
I could rhapsodize for hours about how much I enjoyed The Restorer. Amanda Stevens has woven a web of intricate plot lines that elicit many emotions from her readers. This is a scary, provocative, chilling and totally mesmerizing book. I never wanted it to end and Im going to be on pins and needles until the next book in THE GRAVEYARD QUEEN series comes out.
Fresh Fiction
The Awakening
Amanda Stevens
www.mirabooks.co.uk
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
Praise
Title Page
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Extract
Copyright
One
I came across the hidden grave my first day in Woodbine Cemetery. It was late October, warm and sunny with a mild breeze stirring my nostalgia and the colorful leaves that had fallen from the dogwood trees. Despite the temperature, I could feel autumn in the airor at least in my imaginationas the sun settled toward the horizon.
Those fading days always brought twinges of melancholy and I was glad to have a new project to buoy my spirits. I was still in the early phases of the restorationmapping, photographing and spending untold hours immersed in historical records. The hard labor of clearing brush and cleaning headstones would soon follow, but for now I luxuriated in the courtship stage, that heady, golden time of acquainting myself with the dead and their history.
Woodbine was one of the forgotten cemeteries in a whole community of burial grounds that fanned out from the Cooper River in Charleston, South Carolina. Tucked away at the end of a narrow lane and hidden from street view by a shrouded fence, this withering gem had languished in the shadow of the historic Magnolia Cemetery for decades until revitalization efforts in the area had uncovered it.
The grave was just as well hidden, secreted in the farthest corner of the cemetery and sheltered from the elements and the curious by the graceful arms of weeping willow trees. The graves of children always moved me, but this one affected me in a way I couldnt explain. Perhaps it was the stone monument cast in the shape of an old-fashioned baby crib that so intrigued me, or the likeness of the child that peeped from underneath the hood. Or the unsettling epitaph, which read Shush... Lest She Awaken.
There was no name on the memorial, but I could make out the birth and death dates. The little girl had passed nearly fifty years ago at the heartbreaking age of two. Setting aside my camera, I smoothed my hand along the edge of the polished stone as I studied her portrait. What a beautiful child shed been, with a heart-shaped face and perfect bow mouth. The black-and-white image had been hand-painted to tint her lips and cheeks pink, her curls golden and her eyes a lovely violet blue.
She hadnt smiled for the camera and the solemnness of her countenance sent an inexplicable chill down my spine. It was strange to see such a serious expression on the face of an infant. Had she been ill? I wondered. Had her short life been filled with so much pain and suffering that death had come as a blessing?
I couldnt look away from that sweet, doleful face. The child captivated me. There was something so mesmerizing about her eyes...something almost familiar about the shape of her mouth and nose and the lines of her jaw and chin. I couldnt have known her. Shed passed long before I was born. I had only Mama and Papa and my aunt Lynrose in the area, none of whom had ever spoken of a dead baby. Despite the discovery of so many long-buried secrets, I doubted a familial bond, and yet I was drawn to that nameless child in a way that defied a real-world explanation.
Was she reaching out to me? Had my mere presence somehow awakened her?
It was not a comforting thought. I was a ghost seer, a death walker and sometimes a detective for the unquiet, but I did not embrace my calling. I took no pride in my abilities. I considered my gift a curse because all Id ever wanted was a normal life. A quiet, peaceful existence, perhaps with a child of my own someday.
But ordinary was not meant to be, and I was coming to accept the painful reality that children were out of the question. I couldnt take a chance that I would pass on my gift just as it had been passed down to me. The ghosts were frightening all on their own, but the malevolent entities that had invaded my worldthe Others and the in-betweens, the malcontents and the shadow beingsmade for a harrowing existence. I wouldnt wish my life on anyone, especially a child. And as I had only just discovered, there was yet another danger lurking in the dark underbelly of the city. The Congé was a secret, fanatical group intent on ridding the living world of any force they perceived as unnatural. If they learned of my gift and the light inside me that attracted the earthbound entities, they would come for me and mine.
So, no, a family wasnt in the cards. I would never willingly subject a child to the horrors and dangers that came with my bloodline.
But...back to this child. Who was she? Why had she been buried in a nameless grave in this sheltered, forsaken corner?
Forsaken perhaps, but not forgotten. The grave had recently been tended. Someone had cleared away dead leaves and planted purple pansies in the bed of the crib. Someone remembered this child. Someone who still grieved for her, perhaps.
The breeze drifted through the willows, tinkling a hidden wind chime. I was so caught up in the mystery of the grave that at first I didnt take note of the melody. And it was a melody, distinct and haunting, as if an invisible hand tapped out the notes. Tearing my focus from the portrait, I lifted my gaze to comb the tree branches. The smell of woodbine deepened even though the blooms had long since faded. I felt something in the breezeno longer a trace of autumn, but an ethereal chill that raised goose bumps along my arms.
Go. Go now, I told myself. Go back to your work before you get drawn into yet another ghostly puzzle, yet another dangerous mystery.
But I feared I had already lingered too long.
The sun hovered just above the treetops, but inside the grove of willow trees, a preternatural twilight had fallen. Here, the veil had already thinned and I could see a vague, timorous shadow in the deepest part of the shade. I shuddered, my hand still on the edge of the crib as a whispery missive floated over the grave and into my head. Mercy...
Is someone there? I called, and then chided myself for my stubborn naïveté. After all these years, after everything Id seen and heard, I still wanted to believe the presence could be human and benign.
The shadow darted through the wispy strands of the willows and I heard a high-pitched giggle, followed by a muffled thump. Then an old, weathered ball rolled out of the shadows at my feet. I wanted to ignore the overture. I told myself to get on with the exploration of the cemetery, but before I could stop myself, I gave the ball a gentle kick back into the shadows. It was instantly returned, but this time I let it roll into the bushes.
The childish chortle died away and suddenly I sensed a darker emotion. The laughter that followed held no humor and only a remnant of humanness. Fear trickled down my spine as I searched the shade. Who are you? What do you want from me?
Mercy.
From who? For what?
It was time to end this game, time to heed the instinct that warned to distance myself from this grave and the specter hiding in the shadows. But when I would have turned to scurry back into the light, my feet tangled in a vine that snaked around the base of the tomb. I hadnt noticed the creeper earlier. It almost seemed as if the woodsy tentacle had slithered in while the ghost had caught my attention. As I bent to free my snared shoelaces, I heard the wind chime again, the sweet, haunting melody inharmonious with the darkness I felt from the entity and that high, mocking titter.
Instinctively, I reached for the key I wore around my neck, a talisman blessed by a divine hand and left to me by my great-grandmother Rose as protection against the ghosts. This provoked an even stronger reaction. A gust blew out of the shadows, so strong the blast felt like a physical assault. I was still bent and off balance, and as I staggered backward, the vine tightened around my ankles, jerking me off my feet. I fell in an ungainly sprawl, stressing my right wrist when I tried to catch myself.