What the Shadows Know, Ep. 16--A Ghostly Face & Ancient Words

Supernatural Suspense Thriller for fans of Frank Peretti & Ted Dekker

T.H. Meyer

Jun 24, 2026

Previously from Episode 15:

“He knew things….”

Beth stopped, her eyes searching the room as if the walls held the answer.

“You’re making me nervous, Hon. Was it bad?”

“No, no. Nothing like that,” Beth said, trying to explain. “It was as if he could see into my soul.”

“Really,” her mom said, as if in thought.

“It seemed peculiar.” Beth tried to downplay how much it had affected her.

“Well, someone could say the same about you with visions, dreams, or whatever you call those.”

“When you put it that way…”

“Did he say why he sent it? The book?”

Beth mentally replayed her conversation with Paul, twirling the long phone cord with her finger.

“He said he had prayed.”

“That’s it?” It was more a statement than a question. “Anything else?”

Beth strained to recall the exact phrasing of Paul’s words, trying to clear her head. “‘Look for the light and its source.’ He mentioned that too.” As her words escaped, a cool wind carried the distinct scent of wet pine through an open window. It mingled with the sweet fragrance of pumpkin spice from a pie in the oven, an attempt to mask the smell of paint.

The brisk air embraced Beth, stirring within it a refreshing breath of optimism and hope.

“Hmmm. Sounds strange, but so does the stuff you tell me.”

“He seemed to understand me. Better than most people,” Beth explained, not sure that it made sense. “In a good way.”

“Seems it was positive. But sorry you didn’t get the answer you were looking for.”

“I don’t know what the question should be, let alone the answer.”

“Before we hang up, I need to tell you something,” her mom said slowly.

Beth listened, pressing the phone to her ear as her mom poured out what had been happening over the last several months.

“Just tests, Beth. Probably nothing.”

“Is it serious?”

“The doctors don’t seem to think so.”

“I’ll take you to your next appointment.”

“Let’s just wait for the results.” Her mom said. “I feel fine. I just get tired. That’s all. A precaution.”

“You sure?”

“I am. But let’s talk later, Hon. I have to go for now. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

As the phone clicked, Beth imagined worst-case scenarios in the echoing silence. For several minutes, she stood frozen. Her body refused to budge before she was jarred from her spiraling worry by the incessant buzzing of the oven’s timer. Beth pulled out the pie to let it cool on the stove before walking across the room to close the windows.

Craving a distraction, she admired the mix of rusty bronzes, deep burgundies, and pale yellows mixed in with the evergreen pines that dotted her street. The slanting sunlight skipped across the sidewalk as long shadows announced the day crossing into evening.

She always dreaded the night. And especially after her mom’s news.

Cancer?

Once it was bedtime, Beth tossed and turned, her sleep tormented by nightmares. She dreamt of being chased, someone trying to kill her, pursuing her. A recurring dream that had plagued her since the Amelia case.

Running through the trees, she panted as panic gripped her. The woods were alive with his murdering presence, a faceless person she’d never seen. The branches reached and grabbed, choking out all light. A black-hearted laugh vibrated through the dream-like air. As she sprinted, she seemed to not move at all, as if running in place, when cold, bony fingers clasped her wrist.

Beth shot straight up, every hair standing on end. Wide awake, she clutched the covers to her chest. Even the moon hid its shimmer.

She attempted to calm herself when suddenly, her bed started to shake and move, bouncing under her in the pitch-dark room. Much like it did in a horror movie she’d seen once.

Her mattresses convulsed unnaturally, though not as theatrically as the Hollywood scene. But it moved.

Just the frame and nothing else in the room.

Her eyes adjusted. Nobody was there.

Propelled by terror, Beth leaped off the quaking bed like an Olympian skier soaring over the slopes.

She raced out of the room, slapping on the light switches as she dashed by each one. Earlier, she’d done her nightly ritual of cracking a sliver of a blind to look out, making sure no one was outside, just in case.

But it was what was inside that now frightened her.

The terrifying shadow “man” of her childhood had mutated into a nightly, paralyzing dread that her life was about to end at any second. Every night, the ghastly apparition that had haunted her twisted into a crippling certainty that she was targeted by an unseen assailant, creeping beyond the safety of her walls. The world outside her window was a gaping blackness, and the darkness within her own room pressed in, leaving her gasping for air.

Over the years, she dared not sleep with her back to the door, afraid someone would sneak in, stab their steely evil into her. And her feet never lingered near the edge of the bed, where a ghoulish or fleshly arm could yank it and drag her under. Instead, she jumped in, avoiding the lethal reach of the monstrous edge.

Then the nightmares had begun, more recently.

Her own private hell. A grown adult, terrified by the night’s reign.

But somehow Paul knew.

After racing into the living room with the whole house lit up, she rechecked the perimeter of her yard through a crack in the blind. It was past midnight by now.

Scanning the back corner of an area under the side street’s lamp, she gasped.

Someone stood there. Not just someone.

A boy.

Looking straight at her.

She adjusted her eyes, squinted, and peered once more.

Staring back at her through the smallest slice between the blinds stood a little boy dressed in a 1920’s outfit with a Newsboy cap. He didn’t seem yards away.

He felt inches from her.

His mirthless eyes fixed on Beth without blinking.

She stumbled back from the window, the blind snapping back into place.

With every outside light illuminating her porch and yard, she staggered to the couch before collapsing on it. Her grandmother’s crocheted blanket lay across it as she snatched it before sitting with her feet curled under her, too afraid to move or return to her bed.

“Look for the light,” Paul had said.

She extended her hand to grab his book, which she had placed on the sofa table behind the couch. With shaky hands, she hoped it could give her “answers”, as Paul said it could do. She blindly opened the ancient cover, letting the fine pages fall any which way. The tissue-thin paper fluttered before landing open.

She stared at the words, a power seeming to drip from each phrase.

Beth read and reread the passages, key ones causing her pulse to quicken as if the words jumped from the book.

“You will not be afraid of the terror by night…” Beth stopped, the ancient text speaking straight into her.

She looked at the top of the page, Psalm 91?

The author eerily shared a similar dread, or so it seemed. Beth had lots of fears. And night could be a terror, just as these words revealed.

“You will not be afraid of the terror by night….or of the arrow that flies by day; of the plague that stalks in darkness…”

Darkness stalked like a plague; Beth also knew it well. And yet, the command stood, “You will not be afraid…”

Who was this author?

She went on, “…Or of the destruction that devastates at noon.”

Destruction.

That’s what cancer does. It lays waste.

Beth continued, skipping a few lines, “For He will give His angels orders concerning you, to protect you in all your ways.”

Angels?

If only she could see them instead.

The book gave her courage and oddly comforted her, simply by reading it.

No, this was more than her reading it.

The book was reading her.

Speaking to her.

She searched and found the author’s name—David. Beth studied the Psalm, his faith giving him a prescription, a shield or armor of protection from the lurking menace in the world.

And maybe, one day, it could do that for her too.

She continued until she fell asleep, the book open in her lap. But this time, no horror followed her into her dreams. No nightmares pursued her.

No cursed thing touched her sleep this night.

Instead, the book’s words had shut out the haunting that had hounded her. And for the first time in a long time, Beth blissfully rested.

In her deep slumber, she never saw the headlights that flickered on as a car engine roared to life, near the side street. The beige sedan slowly drove away as the burgeoning twilight swallowed the path behind it.

PREVIOUS CHAPTER 15«««<

CHAPTER 1 «««<

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What the Shadows Know—Beth Cane’s glass-house life sits on the shifting sands of New Age promises and unhealed echoes of a traumatic childhood. After being haunted by creeping shadows and disturbing visions, she accepts that she was marked at birth—cursed. But when she encounters a cryptic stranger, his riddles penetrate through the heavy veil of darkness and confusion.

In a world of magic and self-help, the brightest light reveals the blackest shadow once a possessed stalker starts hunting Beth and her family. Hell’s fury appears in both the flesh and the unseen realm, where trust is blurred, and deception is a matter of life or death. In an epic showdown to escape the entities seeking to destroy her, Beth must embrace a mysterious and ancient truth. One that will shatter everything she’s ever known.

Watch Beth’s slow burn from fringe to faith—terrorized to triumph—haunted to healed. For fans of novels by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker. Expect a bumpy but redemptive ride—eventually.

Look for a behind-the-scenes post the first part of July—Free but to Subscribers, only: Want the true behind-the-scenes stories from What The Shadows Know? I’ll be releasing a Director’s Cut, periodically—Only to subscribers. It’ll include narrative stories about my supernatural encounters, my Christian faith behind the words, and inspiration for characters, scenes, or events in the episodes.

If you want to support my work another way, I’d be honored if you’d consider buying A Life of Creative Purpose—Embrace Uniqueness, Explore Boldness, Encourage Faith.

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