Page 61 of The Shape of Night

“But doesn’t it make you wonder? Why were they all women, and why did they all live and die here alone? I’ve gone through the Tucker Cove obituaries back to 1875, and I couldn’t find any men who died in this house.” She looks around the room, as if the answers might lie in the walls or the mantelpiece. Her gaze stops at the window, where our view of the sea has receded behind a curtain of mist. “It’s as if this house is some sort of trap,” she says softly. “Women walk in but they don’t walk out. Somehow it charms them, seduces them. And in the end, it imprisons them.”

My laugh is not entirely convincing. “That’s why you think I should leave? Because I’ll end up a prisoner?”

“You need to know the history of this house, Ava. You need to know what you’re dealing with.”

“Are you telling me these women were all killed by a ghost?”

“If it wasjusta ghost, I wouldn’t be so concerned.”

“What else would it be?”

She pauses to consider her next words. That hesitation only adds to my sense of foreboding. “A few weeks ago, I mentioned there are things other than ghosts that can attach themselves to a house. Entities that aren’t exactly benign. Ghosts are simply spirits who haven’t moved on because of unfinished business in this world, or who died so suddenly they don’t realize theyaredead. They linger between our world and the next. Even though they’ve passed on, they were once human, just like us, and they almost never cause harm to the living. But every so often I come across a house that harbors something else. Not a ghost, but…” Her voice wavers and she glances around the room. “Do you mind if we step outside?”

“Now?”

“Yes. Please.”

I glance out the window at the thickening mist. I really don’t feel like stepping out into that damp sea air, but I nod and rise to my feet. At the front door I pull on a rain jacket and we both walk outside onto the porch. But even there, Maeve is nervous, and she leads me down the steps and along the stone path that leads to the cliff’s edge. There we stand cloaked in mist, the house looming behind us in the fog. For a moment the only sound is the crashing of waves far below.

“If he’s not a ghost, what is he?” I ask.

“Interesting that you use the word ‘he.’ ”

“Why wouldn’t I? Captain Brodie was a man.”

“How often does he appear to you, Ava? Do you see him every day?”

“It’s not predictable. Sometimes I don’t see him for days.”

“And what time do you see him?”

“At night.”

“Only at night?”

I think about the dark figure I saw standing on the widow’s walk when I came back from the beach that first morning. “There’ve been times when I may have seen him during the day.”

“And he always appears to be Captain Brodie?”

“This was his house. Who else would he appear to be?”

“It’s not who, Ava. It’swhat.” She glances back at the house, which has receded to only a vague silhouette in the fog, and she hugs herself to quell her trembling. Only yards from where we stand is the cliff’s edge and far below, hidden in the mist, waves are pummeling the rocks. We are trapped between the sea and Brodie’s Watch, and the fog seems thick enough to smother us.

“There are other entities, Ava,” she says. “They may seem like ghosts, but they aren’t.”

“What entities?”

“Dangerous ones. Things that can cause harm.”

I think of the women who lived in Brodie’s Watch before me, women who died in this house. But doesn’t every old house have such a history? Everyone dies, and we all have to die somewhere. Why not in your own home, where you’ve lived for decades?

“These entities aren’t the spirits of dead people,” says Maeve. “They may take on the appearance of people who once occupied a home, but that’s to make us feel less afraid of them. We all think that ghosts can’t hurt us, that they’re just unfortunate souls trapped between spiritual planes.”

“What have I been seeing, then?”

“Not the ghost of Captain Brodie but something that’s assumed his form. Something that’s been aware of you and watching you since the moment you stepped through the front door. It’s learned your weaknesses, your needs, your desires. It knows what you want and what you’re afraid of. It will use that knowledge to manipulate you, imprison you. Harm you.”

“You meanphysically?” I can’t help but laugh at this.

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