Caleb pushed back the French lace curtains and looked out the window. Soon twilight would come, and he would venture out. He loved the city at night. When the sun went down, he owned the streets. He loved to roam around when he knew everyone else was asleep. His favorite time of night was 3 A.M.-the Witching Hour, or, as his Gran had called it, Dead Time. The time when the bridge between the living and the dead is thinnest, when spirits can be seen by those who have the Gift.
He had the Gift-he'd known it since earliest childhood. He saw his first spirit at the age of five, only he didn't know it was a spirit. He just thought it was the old man who lived across the bridge in the woods. But when his father mentioned the brutal murder that had taken place there many years ago, he knew-knew that the old man was dead and had been for many years before Caleb saw him.
He didn't tell anyone except his Gran, and only then on her deathbed. He touched the cream-colored lace curtains fondly. She had made them, years ago, and he had taken them with him when he left. He missed his Gran. She alone understood him. She alone had kindness in her heart for him, and when she was gone, terrible things began to happen-terrible, unspeakable things. He covered his eyes with his hands to make the images go away, but that only made them burn brighter in his head. They came to him at night. But if he stayed up all night, catching catnaps during the day, that would sometimes keep the memories from swirling through his dreams, shadowy visitors looming over him as he slept.
Now he saw spirits all the time-especially the ones he killed. They came to him at night, reaching toward him with their dead, white fingers, their faces strewn with seaweed and water lilies and other flora of the rivers and streams. They looked so wistful, so lost, and sometimes they seemed puzzled, as if they couldn't understand why they no longer walked the earth among the living. He tried to explain to them, tried to tell them why he had to do it, but the words never came. He was as mute as the lovely mermaids whose murky faces haunted his dreams.
Slowly, he let fall the curtain his Gran had made with her own dear, beloved old hands. He picked up one of the syringes from the table in front of him. His father wouldn't mind if he borrowed one or two from time to time-the people at the hospital had given him so many. The familiar thrill threaded its way through his bowels as he watched the sun slink its way out of the sky. It was time.