The Revenant by Sonia Gensler

Author:Sonia Gensler
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780375897320
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-06-13T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

I WAS WARM AS A KITTEN curled up against its mama. So warm and safe in the heavy darkness. Eli lay behind me, cradling my body against his chest and stroking my arm. His touch made my flesh tingle. His breath feathered my cheek.

My eyes opened. I blinked at the darkness.

It had been a dream. A beautiful, scandalous dream.

But still I felt the weight of someone—or something—next to me. The hand continued to stroke my arm, sliding up to my neck and cheek, nearly covering my mouth before my limbs finally unfroze and I leapt off the settee.

I clutched at the matches near the lamp, knocking several to the floor. Then I held still and listened, but the only sound to break the silence was my heavy breathing. No one was there. I clutched at my blankets, felt them come away from the settee without resistance. The air seemed to grow colder by the second. Pulling the blankets around me, I found a match and with trembling hands lit the lamp.

The settee was empty.

Nearly crying with fear, I dragged my blankets into the library and laid them next to Lucy’s bed. I could not bring myself to extinguish the lamp. A long night of restless tossing on the hard floor followed. I woke first the next morning and quickly folded up my makeshift pallet, spared the trouble of explaining to Lucy.

I returned to my bed after that, and neither of us was troubled again for the remainder of Christmas break. But I could not forget Lucy’s face when she woke from her nightmare, pale as a corpse in the lamplight. Nor would I soon forget the feel of that ghostly hand on my body.

The students returned from their holiday rested and cheered, as though the time away had helped them forget the nighttime terrors at the seminary. I was delighted to see Olivia looking pink-cheeked and plump with Christmas ham. She immediately launched into tales of family arguments, odd cousins, and endless farm chores. When finally spent, she asked about my holiday at the seminary.

“Did you get all your marking done?”

“Almost all of it,” I lied. “But that wasn’t what occupied my mind the entire time.” I told her of Lucy’s dream and my strange haunting in the parlor.

Olivia’s eyebrows rose in alarm when I described the phantom hand that nearly covered my mouth. “What do you think it—she—meant to do?”

“I don’t know. Smother me? But why be so tender at first?”

“It’s very odd. I wonder why such a thing happened in the parlor and never in your room—her old room.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “We must try to make contact again. I brought a little surprise with me that might help us.”

“Shall we meet in my room again?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Considering your recent encounter, I think not.”

“Where, then?”

We stared at each other, and then both spoke at once.

“The parlor.”

That night—or perhaps I should say early the next morning—Olivia and I crept down the dark staircase and through the chilly corridors to the parlor.

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