Page 8 of 13 Nights

Her fingers tighten around the phone. "You were killed?"

"On October twenty-eighth, 1776."

Her gaze moves over me again, slower this time. "People don't generally recover from being killed two hundred and fifty years ago."

"I didn't."

Silence.

"Are you telling me you're a ghost?"

"I'm telling you when I died. You may choose your own inadequate word for what remains."

"I'll verify the date, the battle, and everything else you've said."

"Do."

"I'll need your name."

"You haven't earned it."

She almost smiles. I register the corner of her mouth pulling before she suppresses it, the slight shift in the tension around her eyes.

I've watched people from the margins for a very long time. I've gotten good at reading faces without getting close enough to touch them.

The horse paces the boundary where the yard meets the woods. That's normal. What isn't normal is the way the shadows behind it have pooled at the base of the trees in a density that has nothing to do with moonlight.

The Veil pressed close to Diane after five nights with me. This woman has had only two.

The horse stops pacing. Its head swings toward the densest point of shadow and holds there, ears flat, weight shifting to its hindquarters. I've seen this posture once before. By dawn, Diane was marked and packing to leave.

"Inside," I say. "Now."

Her attention snaps to me before she looks past my shoulder toward the woods.

"Excuse me?"

I step onto the porch and position myself between her and the yard.

The shadow at the edge of the woods hasn't moved closer. It hasn't receded. The air carries a faint pressure, the same dull weight I felt the night the Veil reached through my hand and cataloged Diane.

"Inside," I say again. My hand is near her arm but not touching it. "Whatever you want to ask can wait until you're behind a closed door."

She looks past me at the darkened yard, makes her own assessment, and stands. She picks up the sketch and walks into the cottage. The door closes at my back.

The darkness at the edge of the property holds for several seconds. Then, with the woman behind the closed door, it begins to thin. The unnatural density loosens between the trunks until only the normal October night remains. The horse lowers its head and begins to walk again.

The door opens behind me.

"Don't give me orders," she says.

I turn. She's standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and a look on her face that says she's been composing this sentence since the door closed.

"Then don't sit in the dark like you're invulnerable." I keep my voice level. "You aren't."

"Neither are you. You looked worried."

I wasn't worried. I was calculating which of the two dangers on this property was more likely to damage the other, and the answer didn't favor the woman in the doorway.