She nodded, pressing her lips together in concentration.
“So tell me what happened.”
“Drew and I went on a ghost tour the second night we were there. The tour guide was lame. In fact, I was kind of bored. I kept thinking how I would have done it differently.” I didn’t find that surprising since Claire ran ghost tours in downtown Manteo. Hers were always quite entertaining.
“And which part of that is crazy?”
She took a long pull on her beer. “The Unitarian Cemetery was part of the tour, but we didn’t even get to go in. The tour was at night and the cemetery was closed. When we were about ten feet away from the gate, something happened.” She paused and chewed on her thumbnail. “One minute I was in the hot, muggy evening air, and the next a cold chill hit me, like I’d walked into a freezer.”
Fear crawled up my spine.
“The closer I got, the colder it became. The tour guide’s voice faded and a figure appeared. A woman. But she wasn’t really there.”
Oh, God. Were the demons going after Claire now? Had they actually followed my friend on her honeymoon? “Did she try to hurt you?”
“No.” She swallowed, refusing to look at me. “She was wearing an old-fashioned dress, long and flowing, and her hair was pulled back. She was pretty, but she looked sad. She was watching me from the other side of the locked gate. As the guide started to lead the tour away, I approached the gate, and . . . that was when she spoke to me.”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘It’s time to wake up.’ Then she vanished into thin air.”
“What does that mean? Wake up?”
She didn’t answer my question. “I was pretty shaken up, but we were still on that stupid tour. Drew knew immediately that something was wrong. He even stood at the gate next to me, but he didn’t see her—the ghost.”
“You think you saw a ghost?”
She stiffened. “You don’t believe me.”
My eyes flew open in astonishment. “How can you say that? After everything that I’ve seen, that you’ve seen with me. Of course I believe you. I’m just scared for you. They’re coming after you now.” My worst nightmare was coming true. I should have made Claire leave Manteo like Myra. Everyone close to me was in danger.
“No, Ellie,” she said, shaking her head. “She didn’t want to hurt me. She was trying to help me.”
That didn’t make sense. “Why do you think it was a ghost? And what did she mean about it being time to wake up?”
She sucked in her top lip between her teeth. “When I was little . . . I used to hear things. Voices.”
Something stirred deep inside my head. The flutter of a memory trying to break free. Then it dove below the surface, out of reach.
“I heard them when I was little, but soon after we moved to Manteo, they went away.”
“Around the time Momma was killed.”
Claire’s face paled. “How did you know that?”
I shook my head, feeling light-headed. “I don’t know.” But I knew it was true.
“I told you about the voices when we were little,” she whispered. “The day you told me about the curse after school. Your mother got a phone call that made her upset. She was crying. You’d told me the truth about the curse before she came home, and I felt like I should share something with you too. I hated to see you so upset. So I told you, scared to death you’d think I was crazy or lying, but you didn’t. At least not that day.”
I closed my eyes and leaned back against the chair. “The memory is there. I can feel it, but when I try to remember, it’s like I’m reaching for water that’s running through my fingers.”
“After your mom died, I mentioned something about the voices I heard, and you looked at me like I was crazy. I figured you didn’t want to talk about it.”
“No, Claire. I don’t remember it at all. It disappeared with all memories of the curse. I don’t even remember Momma taking a phone call or getting upset. Before my dreams and everything started to come back, the only thing I remember about that day is that I told you about the curse while we were sitting under the oak tree at the side of the house.”
“So you really didn’t remember me telling you about the voices?”
I shook my head.
Her eyes widened. “I can see you forgetting everything about the curse, but why would you forget the other things? Was it trauma, or something else?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ellie, she said something else before she disappeared.”
Oh, lord. After seeing the old woman last night and finding out that Claire could see ghosts, I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. “What?”
“She said, ‘You have to help her.’ ”
“What does that mean?” My voice rose. I was starting to panic and I didn’t even know why.
“You know what it means.” She leaned forward. “And why are you freaking out?”
“I don’t know.” I stood up and reached for the doorknob. “Let’s get started. I need to finish up here soon so I can get home to David.”
Claire followed me inside, where the emptiness of the apartment was still a shock to my system. “Ellie, why are you running away from this?”
I spun around and glared at her. “Why did you wait almost two weeks to tell me?”