But they didn’t feel like his hands. His were broad and powerful, calloused from hard work while at the same time tender and unbearably gentle.
A breath of cold air riffled through her hair, a soft laugh which brushed against her.
Alexandra, the voice murmured. Not Nick’s voice. The accent was all wrong. Not an actual voice at all. It was a sigh on the breeze, a whisper that ran through the house.
But it said her name.
And then the hands tightened around her throat and squeezed.
Alex’s eyes snapped open in shock, and in the mirror…in the old silver-backed mirror out there in the hall, she could see herself, pale and helpless against the too bright window behind her. Faces pressed up against the other side of the ancient glass, grey and faded, or rather images of faces like old photographs, but they moved. They sobbed and cried out. They were trying to escape, hands pressing against the other side of the mirror, faces trying to push their way through. A host of them, old and young, male and female, pale and ghostly faces…
And in the midst of them, between her and the window, loomed a huge black shadow.
It coiled over her like a storm cloud. It twisted around her body, a band of it tight around her throat, tightening still, choking her.
She gave a strangled cry and tried to pull herself free, but the shadow held her fast, and the air turned icy. She was frozen there, trapped, as it crushed against her skin, and then, to her rising horror, slid underneath her flesh. Lines of ice ran through her veins, and a rush of frozen air rippled over her flesh, like breath, but cold, so cold.
This couldn’t be happening. She was seeing things, feeling things, that were not real. Could not be real. It was a nightmare. It had to be a nightmare.
With one final effort, Alex threw herself off the chair and onto the floor. Objects crashed down around her, books, framed photos, anything that had been sitting on the desk, including her laptop and headphones.
And Maeve’s little circle of twigs and dried flowers.
Alex didn’t know what made her do it but she managed to fling out her hand and it closed on the charm. She clutched at it convulsively, twigs and thorns and God knew what digging into her skin. She could feel the dry flowers crushing in her fist. But still she hung onto it. Gran had always said those little woven things were a protection. Maeve had said more or less the same thing.
Abruptly, the force surrounding her was gone.
As if it had never been there at all. Like a door had been closed on a wind, or a machine turned off. It was just gone.
She lay still, breathing hard, shivering. On the floor yet again.
‘Alex?’ Nick’s voice, strangely echoing, far away. ‘Alex? Are you okay?’
No. No she was not. She couldn’t explain what she’d just seen and felt. Unless…
She’d fallen and cracked her head only a few days ago. Perhaps these were side effects of that. If this was a case on the show that was exactly what she would have said. She would have meant it kindly enough, showing concern for the poor person hallucinating and terrified of her own shadows. It felt so dismissive now.
Her hand shook, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go of the charm. She needed it. It had saved her. Hadn’t it?
What had Maeve said? The house wasn’t good for her. No shit. It never had been. Not for any of them.
CHAPTER 23
ALEX
‘Alex?’
Nick thundered into the study like some kind of giant, heedless of whatever else might be in here tormenting her.
Nothing. There was nothing. Dear God, Alex, she told herself, get a grip.
She didn’t know what had just happened but it wasn’t ghosts. There was no such thing as ghosts. There was always a logical explanation.
Unfortunately, at the moment, that logical explanation was that she had suffered a traumatic brain injury.
No. Not that either.
She tried to make herself breathe, as she pushed herself up from the ground.
