If I hadn’t still been so shaken by the ghostly encounter, I might have made my presence known instead of skulking in the bushes like a thief. I could have made up some story, told the woman that I’d chased my cat through her gate, then offered to pay for the broken statue. I was on the verge of doing exactly that when I spotted the silhouette of a man behind her in the doorway.

“I thought I heard something,” she said over her shoulder, and then he came out on the porch to join her.

My heart contracted as though from another powerful blow. I recognized the man, her companion. It was Devlin. My Devlin.

Now I knew why I had been enticed into this garden. I had been meant to see this.

Mariama appeared at Devlin’s side, and I could feel her glacial eyes on me, taunting and mesmeric. Her hair tangled in the breeze, and the gauzy hem of her sundress wrapped snakelike around her legs. I could see right through her, and yet, she seemed at that moment as vital as any living thing.

Her hand lifted to Devlin’s face, and she stroked his cheek, slowly, possessively, her gaze focused on mine. I didn’t hear her in my head the way I’d heard Shani, but her message was clear just the same. She would never let him go.

My chest contracted painfully, as though an invisible hand had reached inside my chest and gripped my heart. I sucked in air, willing my heartbeats to slow even as my legs trembled and weakened. Something horrifying was happening to me in that garden. I was being drained, my warmth and energy usurped by an entity that had made me her enemy.

Papa had cautioned me so many times:

What the dead want more than anything is to be a part of our world again. They’re like parasites drawn to our energy, feeding off our warmth. If they know you can see them, they’ll cling to you like blight. You’ll never be rid of them. And your life will never again be your own.