The Visitor

My name is Amelia Gray. I’m the Graveyard Queen.

Restoring lost and abandoned cemeteries is my profession, but I’m starting to believe that my true calling is deciphering the riddles of the dead. Legend has it that Kroll Cemetery is a puzzle no one has ever been able to solve. For over half a century, the answer has remained hidden within the strange headstone inscriptions and intricate engravings. Because uncovering the mystery of that tiny, remote graveyard may come at a terrible price.

Years after their mass death, Ezra Kroll’s disciples lie unquiet, their tormented souls trapped within the walls of Kroll Cemetery, waiting to be released by someone strong and clever enough to solve the puzzle. For whatever reason, I’m being summoned to that graveyard by both the living and the dead. Every lead I follow, every clue I unravel brings me closer to an unlikely killer and to a destiny that will threaten my sanity and a future with my love, John Devlin.

Praise for THE GRAVEYARD QUEEN SERIES by Amanda Stevens

“The beginning of Stevens’s GRAVEYARD QUEEN SERIES left this reviewer breathless. The author smoothly establishes characters and forms the foundation of future storylines with an edgy and beautiful writing style. Her story is full of twists and turns, with delicious and surprising conclusions. Readers will want to force themselves to slow down and enjoy the book instead of speeding through to the end, and they’ll anxiously await the next installment of this deceptively gritty series.”

—RT Book Reviews, 4½ stars

“The Restorer is by turns creepy and disturbing, mixed with mystery and a bit of romance. Amelia is a strong character who has led a hard and—of necessity—secret life. She is not close to many people, and her feelings for Devlin disturb her greatly. Although at times unnerving, The Restorer is well written and intriguing, and an excellent beginning to a new series.”

—Misti Pyles, Fort Worth Examiner

“I could rhapsodize for hours about how much I enjoyed The Restorer. Amanda Stevens has woven a web of intricate plot lines that elicit many emotions from her readers. This is a scary, provocative, chilling and totally mesmerizing book. I never wanted it to end and I’m going to be on pins and needles until the next book in THE GRAVEYARD QUEEN SERIES comes out.”

—Fresh Fiction

The Visitor

Amanda Stevens

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise for THE GRAVEYARD QUEEN SERIES by Amanda Stevens

Title Page

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Fifty-One

Copyright

One

The blind ghost returned in the spring, and with her more nightmares. The days warmed, the magnolias opened and foreboding settled in like an unwelcome caller.

Night after night I lay in a dreamlike state, worn out from the physical labor of my cemetery restorations, but too frightened to succumb to a deeper sleep because she would appear to me then. The look-alike specter that had followed me back from the other side. I wanted to believe she was merely my namesake, the ghost of some long-dead ancestor, but I very much feared she was a vision of my future self. A manifestation of the tortured woman I would one day become.

Discomforted by my thoughts, I glanced over at John Devlin, the Charleston police detective who lay sleeping beside me. His ghosts were gone now. His daughter’s spirit had finally been able to move on, thus breaking the tie that had kept her mother—Devlin’s dead wife—bound to him. In the ensuing months since Mariama’s departure, I’d allowed myself a glimmer of hope that Devlin and I might finally be together. We’d forged a strong bond since that fateful day. An unbreakable connection that neither ghost nor human could sever. Or so I wanted to believe.

But as the temperature climbed and the days lengthened, my blood only ran colder. A shift in the wind brought a whiff of something unnatural. Distorted shadows crept across my bedroom ceiling. As the pull from the other side grew stronger, I couldn’t help but obsess over my visitor’s ominous prophecy. What you are, I once was. What I am, you will someday become.

She’d only ever come to me in my dreams, but I was awake now and I could feel her presence stronger than ever. Careful not to rouse Devlin, I rose and tiptoed from the room, slipping down the hallway, through the kitchen and out to my office, which was located at the very back of the house. The long windows afforded a view of the garden where moonlight dappled the freesia. I stood there probing the shadows, the flutter of every leaf, the quiver of every limb spiking my pulse.

A draft seeped in through the windows, bringing the smell of dust and dried lavender. Hair on end, I peered through the layers of moonlight and darkness until I found her. I didn’t outwardly react to her diaphanous form, but everything inside me stilled as a terrible acceptance stole over me. She was here. Not just in my imagination, not just in my dreams, but here. And now I could no longer deny that I was being haunted.