Chapter 5 – Ghosts Around the Living
The morning arrived beneath a shroud of gray.
Blackwater City lay half-concealed beneath the fog rolling in from the harbor, its narrow streets glistening with rain and its ancient buildings rising like dark monuments against the colorless sky. From her bedroom window, Amelia Harrow watched the occasional pedestrian hurry along Mercer Street, umbrellas bent against the wind, their reflections wavering in puddles beneath the streetlamps.
She had not slept.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the woman standing beside her bed. A vision of anger and sadness.
The wet white dress. The dark hair clinging to her cheeks. The black stitches pulled tightly across her eyelids.
And the words.
He still sees through them.
Amelia pressed her fingertips against her temples. A dull ache had settled behind her eyes, growing steadily worse whenever she attempted to recall the apparition’s face. She had spent the better part of the night sitting upright against her pillows, listening for the soft dripping of water against the floorboards.
By morning, the puddle had disappeared.
She had searched the floor on her hands and knees, running her fingers over the polished wood, desperate to find some evidence that the woman had been real. But the boards were dry. There were no water stains, no damp footprints, nothing to suggest that anyone had stood beside her bed. A dream. A bad dream she assured herself. Although..
The lingering smell.
A faint trace of saltwater and lilies lingered near the foot of the bed.
Amelia had never been particularly superstitious. Having lived her entire life without sight, she had learned to trust the things she could touch, hear, and understand. The world had been a collection of reliable sounds and textures, familiar voices, and carefully memorized spaces. Even darkness had possessed a certain predictability.
Now she could see.
And nothing made sense.
A soft knock sounded against her bedroom door.
“Amelia? Are you awake?”
“Yes, Mother.”
Eleanor entered carrying a tray with tea and toast, her expression brightening immediately upon seeing her daughter sitting near the window.
“Well, there you are. I thought perhaps you might sleep through breakfast.”
Amelia watched her mother set the tray on the small table beside the bed.
Eleanor wore a cheerful yellow cardigan that seemed almost offensive against the dreary morning. Her silver-streaked hair was pinned neatly at the back of her head, and she had applied a little lipstick, something she rarely bothered with unless expecting company.
“You look tired,” Eleanor observed.
“I didn’t sleep.”
“Those dreadful dreams again?”
Amelia hesitated.
“Yes, a dream.”
Eleanor straightened the teaspoon beside the cup.
“I am so sorry, Amelia.”
“I saw her again.”
Her mother’s hand stopped moving.
“Who?”
“The woman. Evelyn Vale.”
For several seconds Eleanor remained perfectly still.
Then she smiled.
“Well, of course you’ve been dreaming about her. You’ve spent days filling your head with those terrible newspaper articles.”
“I dreamed she stood beside my bed.”
“Amelia—”
“Her dress was wet. Water was dripping onto the floor. I could smell the sea. Could she be real and not a dream?”
Eleanor’s expression tightened.
“You’re still recovering from major surgery. Your mind is adjusting to something entirely new. The doctors warned us there might be unusual experiences.”
“Did they warn us about seeing dead women?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
The sharpness of her mother’s reply startled them both.
Eleanor immediately softened her expression.
“I’m sorry, darling. I only mean that we shouldn’t encourage frightening thoughts when there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”
Amelia turned toward the window.
Beyond the glass, a man in a dark overcoat hurried along the sidewalk, his umbrella bobbing above the morning crowd.
For a moment she envied him.
His ordinary life.
His ability to move through the world without questioning what his eyes revealed.
“I’m going out,” Amelia said.
Eleanor looked up sharply.
“Out? Where?”
“For a walk.”
“Alone?”
“Mother, I know these streets.”
“You knew them when you couldn’t see.”
Amelia turned back toward her.
“And now I can.”
The words hung between them.
Eleanor’s smile faltered.
Amelia immediately regretted her tone, but she did not apologize. For twenty-seven years she had depended upon her mother for countless ordinary things. Eleanor had been her guide, her reader, her protector, and sometimes, without intending to be, her jailer.
The surgery was supposed to change that.
Instead, Amelia felt more helpless than ever.
“I need some air,” she said more gently. “And I need to find out whether what I’m seeing is real.”
Eleanor regarded her for a long moment.
Then she reached for the breakfast tray.
“At least eat something before you go.”
The city greeted Amelia with the smell of wet stone and exhaust.
She moved carefully along Mercer Street, her cane folded inside her handbag rather than extended before her. The familiar rhythm of her footsteps offered a measure of reassurance, though she still counted the intersections automatically, a habit acquired during years of navigating the city without sight.
Her new vision made everything both easier and more difficult.
The buildings towered above her in impossible detail. Individual bricks, rusted drainpipes, carved stone faces above doorways—objects she had known only through descriptions now crowded her senses with relentless clarity.
She found herself stopping frequently to examine things other pedestrians passed without noticing.
A bronze door handle worn smooth by generations of hands.
The delicate veins inside a fallen leaf.
The extraordinary number of colors hidden within a patch of gray pavement.
It should have been wonderful.
Instead, she felt as though the world had opened too widely, revealing things that were never meant to be seen.
She stopped outside a jewelry shop.
Behind the window, necklaces glittered against dark velvet displays. Amelia leaned closer, fascinated by the way the diamonds fractured the pale daylight into tiny sparks.
Then something moved in the reflection.
A woman stood behind a businessman waiting at the crossing.
She was elderly, dressed in a faded blue coat, her gray hair twisted into a severe knot. Dark bruises circled her throat, purple fingerprints pressed into the pale skin beneath her jaw.
Amelia stiffened.
The woman’s head hung at an unnatural angle.
Her mouth moved silently.
Amelia turned.
The businessman stood alone.
He checked his watch impatiently, apparently unaware of anything unusual.
When Amelia looked back at the glass, the elderly woman had disappeared.
Her heart began pounding.
She stepped away from the window.
“Not again,” she whispered.
A passing woman glanced at her curiously.
Amelia lowered her head and continued walking.
At the next intersection, she caught another reflection in the darkened window of a closed café.
A tall man stood among the pedestrians waiting for the traffic light.
Blood seeped through the front of his white shirt.
It spread slowly across the fabric, darkening beneath his coat until it reached his waist. His face remained strangely expressionless, his eyes fixed on something beyond the glass.
Amelia turned sharply.
No man stood there.
Only a young couple sheltering beneath a red umbrella.
The traffic signal changed.
People surged forward.
Amelia remained motionless.
The city seemed suddenly crowded with things she could not understand.
A child appeared in the window of a passing bus, standing beside a woman who sat with her face buried in her hands. The little boy wore an old-fashioned sailor suit, and his small fingers rested tenderly against the woman’s shoulder.
Amelia watched in horror as the bus passed.
Through the actual window, the seat beside the grieving woman was empty.
A terrible realization began forming.
These were not ordinary hallucinations.
The figures possessed a strange consistency. They appeared only within reflections, occupying the same spaces as living people while remaining invisible to everyone else.
And each seemed marked by death.
Bruises of blue and purple.
Blood flowing and dripping in streams.
The gray pallor of bodies long deprived of life.
Amelias wondered if they were Evelyn’s memories?
Or, people she had known?
Victims connected somehow to her murder?
Amelia could not explain why she believed the apparitions were connected to Evelyn, but the conviction grew stronger with every passing moment.
Perhaps the dead woman was showing her something.
Or perhaps the eyes themselves remembered more than they should.
A church bell began tolling somewhere beyond the harbor district.
Amelia looked toward the dark windows of an old department store.
And there she was.
Evelyn Vale.
Standing among the reflected pedestrians.
Her white dress hung heavily around her slender frame, the fabric darkened by water. Long black hair clung to her cheeks, and the black stitches across her eyelids stood out against her bluish skin.
Unlike the other apparitions, Evelyn seemed aware of Amelia.
Her head tilted slightly.
Then she turned.
Amelia took an involuntary step forward.
“Evelyn?”
The ghost moved away through the reflected crowd.
Amelia hurried after her.
At the next window, Evelyn appeared farther down the street.
Then again in the polished brass doors of a bank.
Always just ahead.
Always waiting for her to get just within reach.
Amelia followed until the familiar streets began descending toward the hospital district.
She gripped her eyes, then moved to her head, and stopped beneath the awning of a shuttered shop.
For an instant the city vanished around her.
Rain struck a different pavement.
A woman’s breath came in frantic gasps, brushing her ear.
She watched as pearls scattered across the wet stone.
A black-gloved hand seized her pale wrist and disappeared just as quickly as it appeared.
Amelia staggered backward.
The vision broke.
She stood trembling beneath the awning, one hand pressed against the wall for support.
Somewhere nearby, a woman laughed and it made her stomach churned in fear and embarrassment.
A motorcar splashed through a puddle. She jumped out of the way.
Life continued without interruption.
Amelia looked toward the dark glass beside her.
Evelyn stood directly behind her reflection.
The ghost raised one pale hand.
And pointed toward St. Dymphna Hospital.
By the time Amelia returned home, Eleanor had already prepared the donor paperwork for its return.
The cream-colored envelope lay on the hallway table beside a pair of gloves and her mother’s handbag.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” Eleanor announced as Amelia entered.
She sounded relieved, though her expression suggested she had been rehearsing a reprimand.
“You were gone nearly two hours.”
“I lost track of time.”
“You shouldn’t be wandering around the city alone.”
Amelia removed her coat slowly.
“I wasn’t alone.”
Eleanor’s face changed.
“What do you mean?”
Amelia hesitated.
How could she explain the dead woman in the shop windows? The bruised figures standing beside strangers? The little boy who had vanished from the bus?
“Nothing,” she said finally.
Eleanor studied her for a moment before lifting the envelope.
“Good. Because we have an appointment at the hospital. They want this paperwork returned personally.”
Amelia stared at the envelope.
“Why?”
“Confidentiality, apparently.”
“They could have sent a courier.”
“Well, perhaps they thought it best to speak with us.”
Eleanor’s cheerful tone returned.
“And while we’re there, we can ask about those headaches. I’m sure they’ll reassure you.”
Amelia said nothing.
For the first time that morning, she wondered whether Evelyn had been leading her toward the hospital deliberately.
St. Dymphna Hospital looked different in the gray afternoon light.
The pale stone building rose above the surrounding streets with an imposing severity. Its tall windows reflected the storm clouds gathering overhead, and the iron gates surrounding the grounds cast long shadows across the pavement.
Inside, the intense smell of antiseptic struck her immediately. Beneath it lingered something else. A damp, metallic odor. Amelia could not identify it.
Eleanor approached the reception desk while Amelia remained near a row of upholstered chairs beneath a large decorative mirror. She watched the hospital staff move through the corridor. Nurses in pale uniforms. Orderlies pushing equipment. Visitors carrying flowers. Ordinary people going about ordinary business.
Then the mirror changed.
At first Amelia thought the light had dimmed.
The reflected corridor stretched impossibly long, its fluorescent lights flickering above a floor covered in shallow black water.
Figures stood along the walls. Dozens of them. Men and women wearing hospital gowns. Their faces were pale and strangely swollen. Some had bandages wrapped tightly around their heads. Others stood with dark cavities where their eyes should have been.
None moved.
None spoke.
But every face was turned toward Amelia.
She felt the blood drain from her cheeks.
A woman nearest the glass lifted her hands. Her fingers were stained red. Then the figures began moving forward.
Amelia stumbled backward; a sharp pain exploded behind her eyes. The hospital corridor dissolved. For one violent instant she stood somewhere else. A room filled with harsh surgical light. Metal instruments arranged upon a tray. The smell of disinfectant.
A woman’s voice pleading. Please.
A gloved hand reached toward her face. Don’t let him touch them.
Amelia cried out. The vision shattered. She struck the edge of a chair and collapsed heavily against it.
“Amelia!” Eleanor rushed toward her.
Several nurses turned. A young orderly hurried forward, offering assistance.
“I’m all right,” Amelia insisted, though her voice trembled. She was not all right. Her head throbbed with such intensity that she could barely focus on her mother’s face.
A nurse approached carrying a glass of water.
“Has she recently undergone surgery?”
“An ocular transplant,” Eleanor explained quickly. “She’s been having headaches.”
The nurse’s expression changed.
“Who performed the procedure?”
“Dr. Marrow.”
For a fraction of a second, the nurse went still.
Amelia noticed.
“Do you know him?” she asked.
The woman lowered her eyes.
“Of course. Dr. Marrow is very well respected.”
But her fingers tightened around the water glass.
Before Amelia could question her further, another woman approached from the administrative offices.
“Miss Harrow?”
She was middle-aged, impeccably dressed, and carried herself with the practiced composure of someone accustomed to handling unpleasant situations.
“Denise Calloway. We spoke on the telephone.”
Eleanor immediately produced the envelope.
“We brought everything back, just as you requested.”
“Thank you. We appreciate your cooperation.”
Denise accepted the papers without opening them.
Amelia watched her carefully.
“Why was Evelyn Vale’s name confidential?”
The administrator’s expression remained pleasant.
“All donor information is protected.”
“But why was her information included in my paperwork?”
“A clerical error.”
“Was she really a donor?”
She paused in silence.
“Miss Harrow, I cannot discuss another patient’s medical history.”
“She’s dead.”
“That does not alter our confidentiality obligations.”
Amelia felt anger rising beneath her fear.
“I’ve seen photographs of her. I’ve read about her murder. And I’ve been experiencing things since the operation that I can’t explain.”
Eleanor touched her arm.
“Amelia, please.”
But Amelia continued.
“Did Dr. Marrow know Evelyn Vale?”
Denise’s smile disappeared.
“I believe this conversation has gone far enough.”
The words were spoken softly, almost politely, yet something in her tone chilled Amelia.
Behind the administrator, an elderly nurse emerged from a side corridor carrying a stack of folded linens. At the mention of Evelyn’s name, she stopped. Her gaze moved from Denise to Amelia. Then to Amelia’s eyes. The linens slipped slightly in her arms.
The nurse whispered something Amelia could not hear. A prayer, perhaps.
She crossed herself quickly before disappearing through the nearest doorway as Amelia watched her go.
Denise followed her gaze.
“Your paperwork has been returned,” the administrator said firmly. “I suggest you concentrate on your recovery.”
Eleanor thanked her, Amelia did not.
As they turned toward the exit, a small display beside the hospital chapel caught Amelia’s attention.
Several brochures stood arranged beneath a framed photograph of a stone convent overlooking the sea. One bore the heading:
SAINT AURELIA CONVENT
Beneath the photograph was a list of charitable outreach contacts.
Amelia could not read the smaller print, but the name beneath the photograph seemed to pull at something deep inside her.
“Mother?”
Eleanor stopped.
“What is it?”
“Would you read that brochure?”
Eleanor glanced toward the display.
“Which one?”
“The convent.”
Her mother sighed but stepped closer.
“Saint Aurelia Convent. Spiritual counseling, bereavement services, community outreach…”
“Who’s listed as the contact?”
Eleanor adjusted her glasses.
“Sister Agnes Vale.”
Amelia felt the air leave her lungs.
Vale.
She turned toward the hospital corridor. At its far end, reflected in a darkened glass door, Evelyn stood waiting. Her pale hand rested against the glass.
Then she disappeared.
The road to Saint Aurelia Convent followed the coastline beyond Blackwater’s northern district.
Eleanor drove reluctantly, complaining about the weather, the distance, and the impropriety of arriving without an appointment.
Amelia barely listened.
Outside the passenger window, the sea stretched beneath the darkening sky, its surface broken by white crests of foam. Waves struck the cliffs far below the road, sending pale spray upward through the fog.
Every few miles, Amelia caught a glimpse of white in the roadside reflections.
A figure standing beneath the trees.
A woman beside a rain-filled ditch.
A pale face reflected briefly in the glass.
Evelyn.
Always ahead.
By the time they reached the convent, twilight had settled over the cliffs.
Saint Aurelia stood behind a low stone wall, its weathered towers rising above winter gardens and narrow paths bordered by dark cypress trees. The building appeared older than anything Amelia had seen in Blackwater, its stonework stained by centuries of salt air and rain.
A bell tolled somewhere within.
The sound rolled across the grounds and vanished into the wind.
Eleanor parked beside a small courtyard.
“This is absurd,” she murmured.
Amelia opened the car door.
“Then you don’t have to come inside.”
Her mother looked wounded.
“Of course I’m coming.”
They crossed the courtyard beneath a fine cold mist.
Inside, the convent smelled of candle wax, old stone, and incense. Their footsteps echoed along a narrow corridor lined with religious paintings and small votive candles burning beneath the watchful faces of saints.
A young novice greeted them.
When Eleanor explained that they wished to speak with Sister Agnes Vale, the girl’s expression grew cautious.
“May I ask what this concerns?”
Amelia hesitated.
“It’s about her sister.”
The novice’s face changed. She asked them to wait. Several minutes passed before footsteps approached from the far corridor. An elderly woman appeared beneath the archway.
She was tall and slender, her dark habit falling in severe folds around her narrow frame. Her face bore the fine lines of age, but her posture remained straight and composed. Intelligent gray eyes studied the visitors with quiet curiosity.
“I am Sister Agnes,” she said. Her voice was low and measured. “How may I help you?”
Amelia stepped forward. “My name is Amelia Harrow.”
The nun nodded politely. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“No.” Amelia swallowed. “I wanted to ask you about your sister, Evelyn Vale.”
The change was immediate. Agnes’s expression hardened with grief. For a moment she seemed unable to speak. Then her gaze lifted toward Amelia’s face and stopped. Her eyes widened. The color drained slowly from her cheeks.
“Merciful God,” she whispered.
Eleanor stepped closer to her daughter. “Is something wrong?”
But Agnes was no longer looking at Eleanor. She stared directly into Amelia’s eyes.
“Evelyn?” The name escaped her in a broken whisper.
Amelia felt a cold pressure settle behind her ribs.
“No,” she answered softly. “I’m Amelia.”
Agnes raised one trembling hand toward her face but stopped before touching her.
“Those eyes.”
Amelia nodded. “They were donated to me.”
The nun closed her own eyes. For several seconds she stood motionless beneath the dim corridor light. Then she turned toward the novice.
“Please prepare the small parlor.”
Sister Agnes’s sitting room overlooked the sea. A narrow window framed the darkening cliffs, while a small fireplace offered warmth against the damp evening. Shelves of worn books lined one wall, and a simple wooden crucifix hung above a writing desk scattered with letters and photographs.
Agnes motioned for them to sit.
She remained standing for a moment, studying Amelia with an expression of such profound sorrow that Amelia felt almost ashamed to meet her gaze.
“You said those eyes were donated?”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
Amelia hesitated.
“The hospital accidentally sent me confidential paperwork. Evelyn’s name was included.”
Agnes lowered herself slowly into an armchair.
“I see.”
Eleanor leaned forward.
“We’re sorry to disturb you, Sister. Amelia has been recovering from a difficult operation, and I’m afraid she’s become rather preoccupied with the donor.”
“Mother.”
“I’m only explaining—”
“Let her speak,” Agnes interrupted gently.
Eleanor fell silent, looking irritated.
The nun folded her hands in her lap.
“Evelyn was my younger sister.”
Amelia felt a sudden tightening in her throat.
“I read that she was murdered.”
Agnes looked toward the window.
“That is what the newspapers eventually called it.”
“What happened to her?”
For a long time Agnes said nothing.
The fire shifted softly in the hearth.
Outside, waves broke against the cliffs with a hollow, distant roar.
“Evelyn was extraordinary,” Agnes began. “Not because of her beauty or the family name, though people spoke endlessly of both. She had a voice that could fill a theater without effort. When she sang, even the most restless audience became still.”
Amelia remembered the applause, the golden stage lights, and the velvet curtains brushing against her skin.
“She loved the opera,” Amelia whispered.
Agnes turned sharply. “Yes.”
Amelia hesitated. “I’ve heard it.”
“Heard what?”
“Her singing.”
The room seemed to grow colder.
Eleanor shifted uneasily beside her.
“Amelia has been having unusual dreams.”
“Not dreams,” Amelia said.
Agnes watched her carefully.
“Tell me.”
And so Amelia did.
She described the drowning, the reflections of bruised apparitions standing beside strangers. The hospital corridor filled with silent patients. And finally the woman who had stood beside her bed, dripping seawater onto the floor.
Agnes listened without interrupting.
When Amelia described the black stitches across Evelyn’s eyelids, the nun pressed a hand against her mouth.
Tears gathered in her eyes.
“What is it?” Amelia asked.
Agnes looked toward the closed door.
Then she spoke so quietly that Amelia barely heard her.
“My sister did not die the way they claimed.”
Eleanor leaned forward.
“What do you mean?”
“The police said she had been attacked near the harbor. They believed someone attempted to rob her and that she fell into the water during the struggle.”
“But you didn’t believe them,” Amelia said.
“No.” Agnes rose and crossed toward the writing desk. From a small drawer she removed an old envelope tied with faded ribbon. “Three weeks before her death, Evelyn came here unexpectedly. She was frightened. I had never seen her so frightened.”
She untied the ribbon with trembling fingers. “She told me someone had been following her. A man she once trusted.”
“Who?” Amelia asked.
Agnes hesitated. “She would not tell me his name.”
Amelia felt a sharp stab of disappointment.
“But she said he was involved in something terrible. Something connected to the hospital. She believed people were being harmed, and she had discovered evidence,” the nun replied. Amelia noticed her fingers trembling.
“St. Dymphna?” Amelia asked.
Agnes nodded slowly. “She begged me to keep certain letters safe. She said that if anything happened to her, I must never surrender them to anyone from the hospital.”
Eleanor looked toward Amelia.
“Surely you reported this,” Eleanor asked.
“I tried.”
Agnes’s voice hardened. “The police dismissed my concerns. They said Evelyn had become distressed by rumors and misunderstandings. After her death, I insisted they examine the circumstances more closely.”
“What did they find?”
Agnes looked directly at Amelia.
“Bruises around her throat. Marks upon her wrists. Injuries that could not be explained by a fall into the harbor.”
Amelia’s hands went cold. The image of the bruised woman in the jewelry shop returned suddenly. The bleeding shadows. The black-gloved hand seizing a pale wrist.
“And there was something else,” Agnes continued, her voice trembling. “When they prepared Evelyn for burial, I asked to see her one last time.” She stopped.
Amelia waited.
“The funeral director tried to discourage me. He said the water had damaged her face. That it would be better to remember her as she had been.”
Agnes pressed a hand against her chest.
“But I insisted.”
The fire crackled softly. The warmth of the fire faded from the room.
“When they finally allowed me to see her, there were bandages over her eyes.”
Amelia’s breath caught.
Agnes’s gaze moved toward her.
“I asked why.”
“What did they say?”
“That her eyes had been damaged beyond recognition.” The nun swallowed.
“But I saw the marks around the bandages. I saw the stitching.”
A terrible silence settled over the room. Amelia could hear her own heartbeat.
“They had removed her eyes,” Agnes whispered. “Someone had taken them before she was buried.”
Eleanor made a small sound of disbelief. “That’s impossible.”
Agnes turned toward her. “That is what I was told.”
Amelia stared at the elderly nun. Her own eyes began aching with a deep, sickening pressure.
The hospital.
The donor record.
The ghost’s stitched eyelids.
He took them.
The words returned with horrifying clarity.
“Then they weren’t donated,” Amelia whispered.
Agnes closed her eyes. “I don’t know how they came to you, child.”
Amelia’s voice trembled. “But you know they were hers.” She drew closer to the nun. Agnes opened her eyes and looked down on Amelia.
“Yes.” Agnes cupped Amelia’s chin and gazed into her sister’s eyes.
A gust of wind struck the convent windows causing the candles on the mantel to flicker.
Then, from somewhere beyond the sitting room, came a faint sound.
A woman’s voice.
Singing.
Amelia froze.
The melody drifted through the corridor, soft and mournful, rising and falling with the strange beauty of a voice heard from another world.
Eleanor looked toward the door.
“Is someone practicing in the chapel?”
Agnes did not answer. Her face had gone deathly pale. The singing grew louder. Amelia recognized the melody immediately. It was the same song she had heard beneath the black water. The same song that had followed her through the streets of Blackwater.
Agnes slowly rose from her chair. “That was Evelyn’s favorite aria,” she whispered.
The music stopped. Silence rushed back into the room. For a long moment none of them moved.
“Listen to me carefully.”
Amelia looked up.
“If my sister is reaching for you, there is something she wants you to know.”
“What?”
“I cannot say.”
Agnes tightened her grip.
“But Evelyn was never a cruel woman. She would not torment an innocent person without reason.”
Amelia thought of the dead woman beside her bed, the desperation in her expression, the water dripping from her dress.
“She wants me to find someone,” Amelia whispered.
Agnes’s eyes filled with tears. “Then perhaps she is trying to tell you who killed her.”
The sun sat low in the horizon by the time Amelia and Eleanor left the convent.
The storm had weakened into a cold mist that drifted across the courtyard and gathered beneath the stone arches. Far below the cliffs, the sea moved restlessly beneath the moon, its black surface broken by pale ribbons of foam.
Eleanor walked ahead toward the car. She had been unusually quiet since leaving Sister Agnes.
Amelia lingered beside the chapel.
The convent windows glowed faintly with candlelight, their old glass reflecting the dark courtyard and the distant shape of the sea.
She stopped before one of them. For a moment she saw only herself. A pale young woman standing beneath the rain. Dark hair loosened by the wind. Gray-blue eyes reflecting the weak light.
Then another figure appeared.
Evelyn stood directly behind her.
Her white dress clung to her slender body, seawater dripping steadily from its hem. Wet black hair framed her face, and the terrible stitches remained drawn tightly across her eyelids.
Amelia did not turn.
She knew the woman would disappear if she did.
Instead, she watched the reflection.
“Evelyn?” she whispered.
The ghost remained motionless.
“I know what happened to you.”
A faint tremor passed through Evelyn’s lips.
Amelia swallowed.
“I know someone hurt you.”
The apparition slowly raised her head.
For one terrible instant Amelia felt something beyond fear.
Grief.
An overwhelming sorrow that seemed to rise from somewhere deep inside her own body.
“I’ll try to help you,” she whispered.
Evelyn’s mouth opened slightly. No sound emerged. Then the black stitches across her left eyelid began to move. One thread tightened. Another pulled slowly through the pale skin.
Amelia stared in horror as the eyelid strained beneath the stitches, the dark thread cutting deeper into the dead flesh.
A thin line of black water slipped down Evelyn’s cheek. The eyelid twitched. Pulled to the side and began to open. Amelia stumbled backward.
“Amelia!”
Eleanor’s voice echoed across the courtyard.
But Amelia could not look away. For beneath the separating stitches, something pale and terrible moved within the empty darkness. And suddenly Amelia understood.
Evelyn had not come to show her how she died. She had come to show her what had been done to her.
The chapel bell began tolling.
When Amelia looked again, the reflection was empty. Only her own frightened face stared back from the glass. And somewhere deep behind her newly restored eyes, she felt the unmistakable sensation of someone else trying to open them.