The feeling of dread seemed to cling to her like a thick fog that refused to burn off the following day. The events of that evening at the cemetery figure replayed themselves over and over in Lilly's brain. She attempted to busy herself to distract her mind with schoolwork, but each time she closed her eyes, the figure was there, at the edge of the cemetery, its dark presence reaching for her.
She needed answers, and she knew where to get them.
That evening, as the sun began to set below the horizon, Lilly found herself once again at West Wood Cemetery. A promise she had made to herself not to return so quickly after what had occurred was the furthest thing in her mind at the moment. She simply needed to know more about the figure and about the darkness now stirring in the cemetery. And there was only one person whose spirit could give her those answers.
The now-familiar tingle at the back of her neck occurred as she approached Silas's grave. The air seemed to grow colder, and she knew he was near before she saw him. Sure enough, as she stepped into the clearing where his headstone stood, Silas materialized out of the mist, as gray and ghostly as a shadow.
"You came back," Silas said, his voice low but laced with concern. He stepped toward her, his face serious. "I did not expect you to return so soon."
Lilly wrapped her arms around herself, her heart still racing from the fear that had encompassed her the night before. "I didn't exactly have much of a choice," she replied firmly. "There's something here, Silas. Something dark. I saw it last night-a shadowy figure, something. Malevolent. It was watching me.
Silas's eyes clouded in darkness as his jaw clenched tightly. He didn't say anything right away, but the worry hit Lilly hard on his features.
"I told you this place was dangerous," he said finally, his voice low. "The cemetery is waking up. The old magic that the Greys used--it's still here, lingering in the ground, in the spirits. And it's growing stronger."
Lilly swallowed as the weight of his words pressed upon her. "But what was that thing shadowy figure? It wasn't like the other spirits. It felt. Ancient. More powerful.
Silas shifted uncomfortably, his gaze drifting out to the horizon, where the last bits of daylight were seeping into darkness. "It's a piece of the rituals," he whispered. "The Greys summoned it into being with their rituals. It has been tied to this graveyard ever since. A guardian, of sorts, to keep buried secrets buried.
Lilly's heart was racing in her chest. "A guardian? Of what?
Their power," Silas replied, his voice somber. "The rituals they performed were supposed to grant them extended life, their power over death. But the cost was this thing they summoned that became trapped here, feeding from the spirits, drawing life force from this graveyard. That is why the spirits are resilient. That is why they are angry.
A chill ran down Lilly's spine. The more she dug into the graveyard, the darker it got. This wasn't about Silas's death; this was about something much greater, something that had been fermenting in West Wood for decades upon decades.
"And now it's watching me," Lilly said quietly. "It's not going to stop, is it?" Silas's face smoothed, and for a moment, his eyes flickered, showing the sorrow that had dulled his stare. "No. You are too close to the truth now. It knows you're a threat. And it will do whatever it takes to stop you.
Lilly's heart was pounding, and although she had known this investigation was going to be dangerous, the feeling of being watched by this shadowy figure, with the power of the cemetery getting stronger by the minute, made the stakes too high. She also wasn't working with restless spirits now but with something so old that one misstep could destroy her. But she couldn't stop. She was in too deep by this time. Too much had been revealed, and she had too much to lose.
"I'm not backing down," Lilly's voice was firm, as solid as concrete. "Whatever this thing is, whatever it's protecting — I'm going to find out. And I'm going to stop it."
Silas's face relaxed, but something haunting lingered in his expression, a deep-seated pain that constricted Lilly's chest.
"Just be careful," he said very softly. "The dead don't always rest easy. And neither does the darkness."