It was around then I decided I liked Medora.
We got back to the hotel just after nightfall. The corridor was dimly lit, and I stumbled a little on the crooked steps. Thomas put a hand on the small of my back to steady me, and he didn’t take it away until we’d reached the top of the stairs. It was more than a little familiar, and I expected the usual polite apology, at least, but he didn’t even seem to realize he’d done it. He looked perfectly relaxed—more so than I could ever recall seeing him. “This place seems to agree with you,” I said, a little bemusedly.
“It does, rather.”
“I’d have thought it a little rough around the edges for someone like you.”
“Someone like me?” He arched a playful eyebrow. “Dare I ask?”
I felt myself blushing. “I just mean … It’s very different from Fifth Avenue, that’s all.”
“That’s what I like about it.” His glance drifted over the rustic hallway, with its peeling wallpaper and poorly fitted doors. “The constraints of formal society feel very far away indeed. It’s refreshing. Liberating, even. Out here…” His pale gaze fell to mine. “Out here, one is whoever he wishes to be, isn’t he?”
And who is that, Thomas?
I knew better than to ask. Glimpses into the inner sanctum of Thomas Wiltshire were few and fleeting, and offered only when you weren’t looking for them. Try to barge your way through, and he would shut you out faster than you could blink.
Instead, I just smiled and said, “I like it here too.”
We bade each other good night and retired to our respective rooms. I say respective, but we might as well have shared one for all the privacy they afforded. The wall between us was so thin and shabbily built that the lamplight from Thomas’s room leaked into mine; I could see his shadow moving across it, feel the floorboards creaking under his weight.
I slipped into my nightgown and put out the lamp. Then I turned—and yelped as a figure moved in the shadows.
“Who’s there?” I demanded, backing toward the nightstand where I’d left the Colt. “How did you get in here?”
He stepped out of the shadows, revealing a middle-aged man with a mustache. He was well over six feet, with the rugged physique of an outdoorsman. For a moment I took him for one of the roughs from the saloon. Then I looked into his eyes, and a searing chill knifed through my ribs.
I knew that sensation, though it had been a long time. You never forget how it feels when you’re about to die.
I didn’t bother with the gun. It wouldn’t do me any good. “Thomas!” I pounded the wall between us, fighting down a sickening wave of fear. “Ghost!”
CHAPTER 7
A GHOULISH GIFT—PERSONAE NON GRATAE—BEWARE OF SHALLOW WATERS
I’d never seen a ghost before, and I was completely unprepared for how terrifying it would be. You’d think one spirit of the dead was the same as another, but you’d be wrong. Shades—the sort of dead people I was used to—were incredibly dangerous, capable of killing at a touch. But at least that was a threat I understood, one I’d faced before and knew how to fight. Ghosts, on the other hand, used madness and suggestion to overcome their victims. Theirs were weapons of the mind. How did you fight that? Already, I could feel it: a skittering along the surface of my brain, as if a hundred spiders made of frost had been set loose inside my skull. My hands flew to my scalp, scratching furiously, but of course it made no difference. The spiders were inside, crawling, crawling …
Do something.
But what? My mind was a terrible blank. The prickling turned to probing, icy fingers prodding and grasping as if testing my brain for ripeness. I whimpered, clutching at my head. Get out get out get out …
“Rose.” Thomas’s voice sounded from the other side of my door, tense but calm. “Don’t panic. You’ve trained for this.”
Training. Remember your training. I drew a breath, forcing myself to think rationally. Avoid looking at the ghost. If it tries to speak to you, hum or talk to yourself.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I backed into the nightstand and fumbled about for my hairpin, the one with the jade rose. It was enchanted and made of ash wood; if necessary, I could use it to banish the ghost back to the otherworld, though that would only buy me a few moments. Ghosts were just projections, so banishing them did about as much good as dropping a pebble through a reflection in the water. The image would disperse, but it would only take a few seconds to resolve itself. Even so, I felt a little steadier with the hairpin in my hand.
“Your door is locked.” Thomas again. “Can you find the key? I’d rather not have to kick it in.”
“Just a minute.” My voice sounded thin and warbling, a humiliating contrast to the cool, measured tones coming from the far side of the door. Calm down, I scolded myself. Just keep your wits about you and you’ll be fine. The tendrils of frost still brushed against my brain, but there’d been no whispering so far, no visions of any kind. I was in command of my faculties. Mostly.
I found my key and backed toward the door, keeping my hairpin pointed in the vague direction of the ghost. My fingers groped about for the lock, and a moment later Thomas rushed in. “Where is it?”
I opened my eyes. Thomas stood like a shield before me, ash walking stick at the ready. But there was nothing to protect me from. The corner where the ghost had been was only shadow.
“Gone.” I sagged back into the wall in relief. “You must’ve scared him off.”
“Are you all right?”
“I think so.” My knees felt a little wobbly, so I sank down onto the bed. “Did I wake the entire hotel?”
Thomas peeked out into the hallway. “All clear,” he said, closing the door. “Are you sure you’re well? You’re…” He glanced at me before looking away hurriedly. “You’re terribly pale.”
“Just unnerved.” Literally. Parts of my brain still felt numb.
Thomas went to the window and looked out, as though he might spot the ghost fleeing into the night. “I assume it was our missing prospector, Mr. Upton?”
“He didn’t introduce himself, but that would be my guess. He matched the description in Mr. Roosevelt’s letters.” I shuddered. “I sensed him, Thomas. Just the same as if he were a shade.” I’d been able to do it ever since the Hell Gate incident, when the shade of Matilda Meyer had accosted me in my bedroom. A fragment of her spirit had become lodged in my breast, and it had nearly killed me; ever since, a pang of cold warned me when shades were near. “I didn’t realize it would be the same for ghosts.”
“Neither did I.”
“I could see him, too, and not just in the mirror. He was right over there.” Thomas didn’t turn around, so I added, “In the corner. And even from over there, I could feel his touch. Like icy fingers in my head. Is that normal?”
“No. Or rather … Not exactly.” He didn’t elaborate, and that worried me.
“What was he doing here, anyway? It was supposed to be your room that was haunted.” We’d paid extra for the privilege, since apparently Benjamin Upton’s old room was a hot commodity among treasure hunters looking for clues as to the whereabouts of his missing gold. We’d expected the ghost to show up sooner or later, but Thomas had been confident he could handle it when the time came. “Maybe the fellow at the front desk got it wrong. Maybe this was the haunted room all along.”