Darker Still Read Online Free PDF Page A

flaring like Denbury’s, as if she too smelled blood. Or in Maggie’s case, excitement and perhaps scandal, things she deemed delicious.
    “No, Mortimer, let’s be clear,” Mrs. Northe began sharply. “The men on this list are not spiritualists. Not anymore. They’ve become downright dangerous. Bentrop especially. They dabble in the pure occult through secretive sects that practice Dark Arts. We can’t let Denbury fall into their hands.”
    “What harm could they possibly do with a painting?”
    “I’m not certain. But I would rather not find out.” Mrs. Northe squared her shoulders. “Mr. Sullivan, will you help me draw up purchase documents?”
    Mr. Sullivan looked baffled. “Surely it’s not…an emergency?”
    “I’m not a woman to take chances. I’ll not have this piece in hands I would not trust to touch a dog.”
    Mrs. Northe excused herself to tend to the particulars, and Maggie followed along uninvited.
    I was left alone with the painting. I took a step closer, absorbing every detail. Then a movement out of the corner of my eye had me turning my gaze…
    And then my heart stopped. I choked and questioned my sanity in one fell swoop.
    As I live and breathe, and upon my beloved mother’s grave, I swear that Denbury himself walked by the alcove where the painting was kept and glided toward the hallway beyond. It had to be him! I screamed within, my eyes darting madly to the painting and then to the figure who bore the same elegant lines and the same dark curls, though wearing a different fine suit of deepest red…
    And then he stopped. He turned to me. I saw the only thing that was different: his eyes were off. He was so beautiful, and yet with his eyes not quite as you’d expect, he was unsettling. And, I remembered, he was dead.
    “Hello, pretty,” he murmured, glancing around as if to make sure we were alone. “What’s your name?”
    His accented voice sounded normal enough, for a ghost. It was young, male, British…
    I gestured to my throat and opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
    “Oh, you can’t tell me.” He frowned, and the terrible look of pity I expected was instead delight. “How fascinating.” His clouded eyes seemed to sparkle, and I realized what was odd about them: they reflected strangely in the light, the orbs glowing, like those of an animal at night if a lamp was flashed before them. “And how lucky. If you resisted me…who would know?”
    I stood there staring, knowing I should be offended by such a brazen comment, and yet one doesn’t think about how manners should be when chatting with the dead. He gestured up at his own image. “Amazing, isn’t it? It’s like he’s alive. He’s watching you. I don’t blame him. I’d watch you too, pretty thing. I daresay we’d be beautiful together…”
    His lilting British accent was underscored with something that was both enticing and alarming. We both heard a rustle from another room. He put his finger to his mouth but then laughed. “Oh, but of course you’ll keep our little secret. You’ve no choice. Brilliant. Ta.” And he moved into the hall and disappeared.
    That ghost was nothing like what I’d imagined Denbury—a young genius and reportedly a perfect gentleman —would be like. That was not how one, dead or alive, spoke to a lady. And yet, there was something terribly compelling about him. Ghosts, I supposed, had their thrall, their ways about things. Yet why would a ghost refer to his own likeness not as himself, but as another entity? And why am I now trying to make sense of that?
    As if my sanity weren’t tested enough, dear diary, I was then strained even further. I turned back to the painting, and my heart went again into spasms.
    And here I swear to you, as I looked up again at Denbury, I realized…
    The painting had changed.
    I’d intimately catalogued the piece so I knew something was different. It took me a while to realize what, but when I saw it, the change was undeniable. The retreating