the earth my embrace.
Await my return.”
“Means just what it says, I suppose.”
“Sounds like the fella’s plannin’ on comin’ back.” Ephraim snorted and took a swig from his flask. He did not offer to share.
Together, they laid the corpse out on a blanket, stripped off the man’s clothes and personal items, dropped them back into the coffin, and then filled in the hole, carefully smoothing the ground to leave no sign that it had been disturbed anew.
Respecting the grave and returning the deceased’s possessions to the coffin was what distinguished a respectable body snatcher from a despicable grave robber.
He was not after riches, after all. He was after truth.
Harper awoke with a start and checked the time: It was only a little after three. According to folklore, three a.m. was “the witching hour,” the in-between time, when the night met the morning, when the veil between the natural worldand the supernatural world was thinnest, and spirits could most easily cross over.
Or so they said.
Had the graverobbing Soren Perles come to visit her in her dreams? Or had her imagination been stoked by Blanca and Jenny’s podcasts, and her own research, to the point that her mind created a “memory” for her?
She got up and checked the door, and the lawn. Happily, nothing else came to visit her during this particular witching hour.
Lying back down, now wide awake, she thought about the Perles family, and then her own. Her mother, her little sister, Scout, and her father. The summer her father was temporarily sober, and they rented an RV and took a family trip through the Adirondacks, to see the old resort that her father believed he should have inherited from his grandparents. Scout and Harper played endless games of I spy in the back, enthralled by the idea of being in bed while the RV was in motion. Finding license plates, mooing at cows. Her mother’s sweet voice leading them in song until her father lost his temper again and yelled, “For the love of God, stop that caterwauling.”
The time Scout came home from school, upset about a boy making fun of her, and Harper distracted her by styling her hair with a gel that glued her hair into spikes, after which Scout slathered garish makeup on Harper. The sisters laughed until they cried.
The way she and Scout would whistle in the dark, holding on a single note, waiting for the sound to repeat and come back to them because they had read it was the way to speak to the fairy folk.
The time Scout arrived at their mother’s funeral reeking ofalcohol and vomited all over the funeral home bathroom. Another mess Harper felt compelled to clean up, sobbing and retching while she did so.
That dream about Soren Perles was decidedly creepy. But the ghosts that truly haunted Harper were nostalgia, melancholy, and regret.
Twenty-Three
Early the following morning, with some trepidation, Harper headed to the Perles Mansion. She drove past the front gate, still strewn with flowers and candles, and headed around the corner to the rear entrance.
Alastair Highbaugh was there, looking dapper as ever, writing something in a palm-size notebook. Surprise registered on his face as Harper parked her car and approached the back gate.
“Hello,” she said, holding out her hand to shake.
“Oh no, I don’t shake hands,” Highbaugh replied, giving no sign he recognized her. “Not since the pandemic. My apologies.”
“Sorry,” Harper said, pulling her hand back. On top of devastating lives and the economy, the pandemic had made social interactions even more awkward than they already were. “We met the other day, when I dropped by your gallery to look at some of Delilah Mason’s work. I’m Harper Grae.”
“Yes, of course! Took me a moment to place you. And I amsorry about the handshake. It feels rude, doesn’t it? It’s just…I’ve been careful, ever since what happened with my mother.”
“I understand. Such a sad loss.”
He cleared his throat and looked away. Highbaugh was silver-haired and wore a fine Italian suit, but in the light of day Harper realized he was probably only in his early fifties, if that. He was one of those people who seemed older than his years and maybe always had. She had a sudden visual of him showing up to the first day of kindergarten in a tiny little suit and bow tie, wee briefcase in hand.
The image brought a smile to her lips until she imagined Highbaugh clad in a mask and protective gear, sitting by a hospital bed and stroking the tissue-thin skin of his mother’s hand, praying, bargaining, hoping beyond hope that she would pull through. That she would be all right. That she would not leave him. Were such prayers ever answered?
“Where is he?” Highbaugh muttered, checking the time on his phone. “Mr. Mason is late. I find tardiness unbearably rude, don’t you?”
“It’s only ten after. I’m sure he’ll be here soon. Maybe he got caught in traffic.”
“On a Sunday morning at this hour? I drove up from Carmel, and yet I made it here on time.”
“Good point,” Harper said, not feeling compelled to invent another excuse. “Maybe he’s already here. Did you check the garden?”
