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With a brand-new short story featuring Tyler Hawthorne from
The Messenger, plus three stories from Eighteen, this is the
third of six e-short story collections from New York Times bestselling
suspense author Jan Burke.
EXCERPT:
At this
hour, although two other attendants roamed another part of the cemetery, Tyler
and Shade were alone in this section of the hilly grounds. Suddenly Shade
stiffened. His ears pitched forward and his hackles rose. He gave a low, soft
growl.
Tyler came
to a halt. Shade protected him, but the dog seldom growled at living beings.
In the next
moment, the air was filled with what he at first took to be bats, then saw were
small birds, of a type Tyler had never seen so far inland. “Mother Carey’s
chickens,” he said, using the sailors’ name for them. Storm petrels. “What are
they doing here?”
The birds
fluttered above him, then a half dozen dropped to the ground before Shade in a
small cluster. The scent of the sea rose strongly all about him, as if someone
had transported him to the deck of a ship.
Shade stared
hard at them as they cheeped frantically, then the dog relaxed into a sitting
position.
The other
petrels flew away. No sooner had they gone than the six before him were
transformed into the ghostly figures of men.
They were
forlorn creatures, gray-faced and looking exactly as what they must be, drowned
men. Their uniforms proclaimed two as officers, the other four as sailors, all
but one of the British navy.
Shade’s
demeanor told him that these ghosts—unlike some others—would be no threat to
him.
“May I be of
help to you?” Tyler asked.
“Captain
Hawthorne?” the senior officer asked.
“I believe
the rank belongs more rightly to you,” Tyler said. “I was a captain in the
British army many years ago, but I sold out after Waterloo.”
“Yes, sir,”
the captain said, “I understand. If I may introduce myself to you, I am Captain
Redding, formerly of the Royal Navy. Lost at sea in about your—your original
time, sir.”
They
exchanged bows.
“You are a
Messenger?” Captain Redding asked.
“Yes.”
“We are all
men who drowned at sea. Many of those in the flock you called ‘Mother Carey’s
chickens’ are indeed just that. We come from many nations, taken by that sea
witch Mother Carey, yet death has made us all birds of a feather. Little birds
tell other little birds news of those such as yourself, and speak of Shade as
well.”
The dog gave
a slight wag of his tail in acknowledgment.
The captain
went on. “The midshipman we bring to you is an American. Hails from here in
Buffalo. We approach you on his behalf.” He turned to the man. “Step forward,
Midshipman Bailey, and tell the captain your story, for we’ve not much time
left.”
“Aye, sir.”
The midshipman gave Tyler a small bow. “Thank you, sir. If you would be so kind
to visit my sister, who lies dying not far from here. In the asylum, sir. The
good one. We’ve all of us in her family done her a grave injustice.” He looked
down at his feet. “Many injustices.”
“When were
you lost at sea?” Tyler asked gently.
“Eight years
ago, sir, in ’63. In the War Between the States. Would have done more for my
country if Zeb Nador hadn’t pushed me overboard in a storm.”
“Do you ask
me to seek justice for you?”
“Not
necessary for me, Nador’s in the county jail here and will face trial for
murdering someone else. He’ll hang as well for that one as for what he did to
me.”
Tyler was
about to try to say something to comfort him, unsure what that might be, when
one of the other men whispered, “Hurry!”
Midshipman
Bailey nodded, then said, “Will you go to her, sir? Her name is Susannah. She
needs you tonight. And if you’d tell her Andrew sent you to her, and that she
was always the best of his sisters, and that he sees things clearer now, and
hopes to one day rest at her side—”
“Hurry!” the
captain ordered.
“Well, sir,
I’d take it as a great kindness.”
“I would be
honored to do so, Midshipman Bailey.”
“Thank you!”
he said, and had no sooner whispered these words than all six men again
transformed into small birds and rose from the ground. They circled in the air
above him, where they were joined again by the larger flock. He had thought
they would begin their long journey back to the sea, but they surprised him by
surrounding him and the dog.
Quite clearly,
he heard hundreds of voices whisper to him at once, “Storm’s coming!”
And they
were gone.
Shade
immediately headed toward the nearest gate at a brisk trot. He glanced back at
Tyler in impatience. Tyler hurried to catch up.
“There is
more than one asylum, you know. The closest is still under construction, which
leaves Providence Lunatic Asylum and the Erie County Almshouse—”
It wasn’t
hard to read the next look he received.
“I
apologize. Yes, Sister Rosaline Brown’s would be the ‘good one.’ And of course
you will know the way and of course you will be admitted, although large black
dogs, as a rule . . .”
Shade wagged
his tail.
Providence
Lunatic Asylum was operated by the Sisters of Charity, who had previously
established a hospital in Buffalo. They had arrived in the city just in time to
deal with the early cholera epidemics and were considered heroes by many. In
1860, horrified by conditions in the Erie County Almshouse and Insane Asylum, Sister Rosaline Brown started the
asylum, which attempted a more humane treatment of the insane.
The dog
paused at the small building closest to the cemetery’s main gate. Tyler
understood what he was meant to do. Hailing the man who was keeping watch,
Tyler said, “A severe storm is coming. Please call the other men in.”
“Storm?” the
man said, bewildered.
“Yes, it’s
calm now, but I just saw a flock of storm petrels. Sea birds. The only reason
they’d be this far inland is if a hurricane had blown them here.”
He bid the
man a quick good night and wondered if he would heed the warning.
In the next
moment the wind came up, and trees began to rustle and sway. Shade leaped into
the gig Tyler had left tied at the gate. Tyler glanced over his shoulder and
saw the watchman gather a large lantern, and soon heard him calling out to the
others.
Link continuing the excerpt to XOXOAfterDark:
This book may have been received free of charge from a publisher or a publicist. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.
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