The Haunting of Gabriel Ashe Read Free Page A

forest was a tall, broad-shouldered man. The figure was a mere shade lighter than the deepest shadows, but Gabe could see the silhouette clearly. The shape stood unmoving. Was it a tree? A large shrub? The idea that someone was watching him from the darkness outside made his stomach squirm. The woods are dangerous…. But there had to be an explanation. Wasn’t there always? Gabe blinked and the silhouette was gone. Must have been a trick of the light, he thought. Or of the dark.
    He switched on a table lamp, and the world outside the house disappeared. Now, reflected in the window glass were the shelves that lined the walls of the small library. But not every shelf held books.
    From the moment Gabe had stepped through his grandmother’s front door, he understood that her house was like a museum, crammed with odd objects and strange artifacts. In this room sat tribal-looking sculptures and masks made of wood and bone. There were tiny framed pictures of odd circus performers, dangerous plants pressed behind glass, postcards from places that no longer existed. A taxidermy display of small rodents dressed in children’s clothing stood beside a collection of old tin robots. There was a darkness to the selection—an indication ofwhat lived inside his grandmother’s mind. Gabe focused on the strange books instead. Decoding the Pyramids , The Secrets of Practical Mysticism , Abandoned Mansions of the Hudson Valley . And more. Much more. He didn’t know where to begin.
    In the corner of his eye, something moved. When Gabe turned toward the window, he realized that he’d seen the reflection of something in the room with him. He froze. A shadow shifted near the office door. There was a small creaking sound. A thump. The long feet of a rocking chair hit the floor as the person who’d been watching him finally stood up.

“CAUGHT YOU.” A shadow slithered forward onto the carpet.
    Gabe backed against a bookcase, jostling it hard enough to topple a few books off the shelves. They hit the floor with a whoomp . He heard his grandmother’s chuckle and felt his face burn. The moonlight illuminated Elyse with a ghostly phosphorescence. Her floor-length black satin robe was tied tightly at her waist. The rocking chair continued to sway, brushing at the backs of her thin legs. She’d been sitting alone in the dark.
    “I couldn’t sleep,” Gabe managed to say after a moment.
    “So you thought you’d do some snooping?” she teased, raising an eyebrow.
    “Mom said you have a lot of books.” He nodded at the shelves.
    “To say the least.” His grandmother stared at him. She looked different—softer than usual. At first he thought it was the strange light, but then Gabe realized that her face was clean of makeup.
    “May I borrow one?” he asked.
    “Of course. That’s what they’re here for.”
    Surprised, Gabe turned to the closest shelf. “Mom said you might have a few of the ones whose covers you illustrated?”
    “You don’t have them already?”
    “Dad got me copies when I was younger. But the fire…”
    “Of course,” she said. “The fire.” Elyse motioned for him to follow her toward the window. “Here they are.” She nodded at another bookcase. Gabe examined the books’ spines. One name leapt out again and again.
    “Wow, that’s a lot of Nathaniel Olmstead.”
    Elyse raised an eyebrow. She pulled a thin volume from a shelf and brushed off the cover. “Yes. The creepiest author of the past thirty or so years.” A smile spread across her face. “I always tell people that, since he was my bread and butter. I illustrated almost all of Nathaniel’s covers. At one time, his stories made us both pretty famous.” She handed the book to Gabe. He ran his hand across the title. The Revenge of the Nightmarys . “The publisher asked me to create a set of trading cards for this one, way back when kids still cared about that sort of thing. I hear that now you’re all collecting and trading electronic things.