“Welcome back.” She heard Jane say to him.
Suddenly it all seemed too much. It made no sense to feel jealousy over Jane. But she did. It was cold and raw and with more bite than she’d ever expected. She pushed past Nathan and ran outside.
* * *
Nathan didn’t go after Sarah right away. Instead, after a long talk with Jane, he wandered past the pond to the place where it branched off into a portion of White Creek.
He stared at the ring Jane had given him, rolled it over his knuckles. It was a simple pewter band which he’d traded a peddler two bushels of corn for. He’d given it to her the night before he’d left for war. In return, Jane had promised to wait for him.
She hadn’t. And that was fine. She’d married Ben Parker, had two children with him. She’d had a good life until yellow fever had struck them down.
He stared into the horizon then back at the ring. He crossed the woods, found the place where he and John had built the little footbridge. He gingerly tested his weight on it, and it held like it were built yesterday.
He remembered everything now. His father and his brother, John, were not a surprise to him anymore. Nathan had come here to this place right after he’d died. He and Henry Schuyler had been welcomed into heaven almost simultaneously. Nathan’s father John had been waiting for him right after he’d passed through the griffin’s eye. They had escorted him home to White Creek, and he’d spent the last 247 years in heaven, and he had been happy here. Until he’d been summoned to his mission.
Cole Turner’s spell had caused an amnesia he’d never before experienced. If not for the spell, Nathan would have simply taken Sarah to her own very modern heaven. He would have never known anything of her, would have never fallen in love with her.
He couldn’t let her go.
He would have to be the one to tell her she was dying. If he hadn’t done one good thing in his life, as Michael had already pointed out, this was the one thing which may help to rectify things. But at this point, he didn’t know how much trouble he was in, or even why he was in trouble, except that he had very little faith. Right now, what little faith he may have once possessed was gone.
He had to tell Sarah she was dying. He had no idea how he would tell her or even if he could.
“Nathan.”
He jumped. He turned to see Sarah standing directly behind him.
“What’s wrong?”
He wanted to lie to her. Lying was easier. He wanted to die for her if it were at all possible. He didn’t want to make her suffer any more than she already had.
She stepped closer and caught him in an embrace. Nathan kissed her slow and deliberate; a kiss that was full of regret and apology. His own death had been sudden and unexpected. He couldn’t imagine having the knowledge that he was destined to die. He wondered how he could bear it. How Sarah would bear it. She was strong, but this…this was too much.
The kiss ended, and he held her in silence.
She pulled away slightly. “What is it?”
Nathan turned his back to her. He inhaled sharply. The air was filled with something close to apple blossoms.
He sat on the edge of the bridge and pulled her down with him.
“What did the minister have to tell you?”
Nathan closed his eyes against the soothing motion of her hand moving up and down his spine. Slow…smooth. It would be so easy not to tell her. “There was an Elder there…Michael.”
“What’s an Elder?”
“I’m not sure…exactly. He was powerful. He knows things. And he told me something about…”
Suddenly it became too much. He had never cried in front of a woman. The last time had been after Pa’s funeral. He’d been down by the pond with John. It had come on strong and unexpected. This, however, had been expected ever since coming back from the church.
He closed his eyes, felt Sarah touch him, and he allowed her to pull him into her embrace.
“I can’t do it, Sarah.” He tried to stop but only cried all the more. “I can’t lie to you.”
“I would hope you wouldn’t.”
“Michael said I was brought to Earth to bring you here.” He ran his hand through his hair.
She was silent for a long while. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re going to die, Sarah.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sarah didn’t think she’d heard Nathan right.
Dying?
Shock settled, left her with a heaviness too surreal to imagine. She recalled every strange moment of her journey coming here. She still hadn’t accepted any of that, and now this…This wasn’t happening. It simply was not happening.
Anger replaced shock. “I’m here right now because of you. You brought me here, and it killed me.”
“No.” Nathan shook his head. The rims of his eyes were red and swollen. “I didn’t kill you by bringing you here. Your body’s in a hospital right now. You’re on a machine which keeps you alive. You’ve been on it for three months.”
Three months? It couldn’t be. What must Mom think? Worry made her sick to her stomach. Her mother must be scared to death. And her business…three months without being open. She’d be financially ruined.
“I was sent to Earth to escort you to heaven,” Nathan continued, “but I forgot my mission, and I fell in love with you. I brought you here out of selfishness, not because I had a task to complete.”
Shock came back. This was all too much to take in. She was fine. Nathan didn’t know anything about being a doctor. He couldn’t possibly know if anything was wrong with her. No one here did. She was perfectly healthy. She jogged for crying out loud!
“You don’t—You’re wrong.”
He touched her shoulder, his grip firm despite the fact that his bottom lip was quivering. “I wish I were, sweetheart.”
She pulled away from him.
“Michael said you have an aneurysm. It’s small now, but it will get so bad—“
“I don’t want to hear this!”
“Sarah—“
“You don’t even know what you’re talking about. You’re not even from my century.”
“How else would I know what an aneurysm is?” He gripped her shoulder again. “I know nothing about doctoring. No one in my lifetime knew anything about modern medicine.”
A cold, empty disbelief settled over her. She refused to believe how much sense Nathan’s words made. She felt an overwhelming need to hurt him. She had her store and her new life. She’d come too far to die now. Nathan was trying to take that all away. He’d given her back something through loving her, and he was trying to take that away too. She’d trusted him. She hadn’t trusted a man in a very long time, and he was taking that trust and ripping it to shreds like it meant nothing at all.
“So you’ve accomplished your task. “ She was purposely sarcastic. Congratulations on a job well done.”
“I was meant to bring you to heaven, but I failed from the beginning. I was supposed to remember my mission.”
“And why didn’t you?”
“That’s not important. The point is that I failed. And I’m glad I failed. You were the best failure I ever made.”
He reached for her, but she refused to allow him to touch her. She turned toward the little stream that pooled near her feet. Fish of every size and color swam in the shallow water. There were little orange goldfish swimming with various tropical fish that on Earth could only be found in saltwater coral reefs.
“So I’m dead,” she said at last.
“Not yet.”
“So now what?”
“You have to go back.”
“Then I die?”
He nodded.
She was silent for a long while. “If I’m dead, where is Michaela?”
“I don’t know.”
“I want to talk to this Michael. I deserve some answers.”
She started in the direction of the church, but Nathan blocked her path. “You can’t.”
“What are y
ou hiding?”
Nathan didn’t answer right away. He ran his hand through his hair, looked down at the ground as if trying to come up with a logical excuse.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“If you go back you’ll never see me again.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When you die, you will go to another heaven. One in your time, surrounded by those in your life, not mine.”
Sarah stared at him. She had always been taught that there was only one heaven. Nathan’s words went against everything she’d even been told. She thought of a world without Nathan in it. In the short time she’d known him, he had become something very solid, someone she could depend on. Once she’d thought his presence in her life was for the sole purpose of teaching her something. What? To hurt? To regret all over again, just like she regretted so much already?
“I’m not going back to die. I won’t die. Now that I know I have a problem, I’ll get help. They have surgeons and specialists in my lifetime.”
“So you’re going back?”
Sarah nodded.
He looked as if she’d struck him.
“You just said I can’t be with you anyway.”
“So you’re just giving up?” Nathan looked up at the sky as if frustrated with her. “I’m going to fight for you, Sarah. I won’t let you go.”
“I have to go back.” Guilt tried to reason with her, to lessen her anger for him. “You could come back to Earth with me.”
“There’s no life for me there.” He gripped her shoulders, then released her. “Dammit, Sarah! You just—Aw, what the hell’s the use?”
Nathan turned and hurried into the forest. Sarah wanted to go after him. Everything in her knew she would regret not going after him. But the betrayal was still there, strong and unforgiving. Nathan had offered himself with no secrets, no hidden dangers. He’d been the one true thing she could take for face value, until now. She didn’t know if he was lying about forgetting his mission on Earth. If he was, he had betrayed her. If not, if he really had forgotten that she was dying…It was too difficult to believe.
Sarah ran in the direction of town. She didn’t stop until she was at the door of the little country church.
“Come in, Sarah.” Came a voice from inside even before she had knocked.
Cautiously, she opened the door and let herself inside. It was the most rustic church she’d ever seen, but it brought a sense of unity and home.
“You’ve come to inquiry of Michaela.”
Sarah stared in the direction of the voice. The man standing in the middle of the church was unlike any living human she’d ever seen. She wasn’t certain he was human. He looked it in every sense of the form. She had no cause for her doubt, she just knew.
“My name is Michael.”
“I’m—“
“Sarah.”
She stared at him. His eyes held an expression that she found was impossible to look away from. In his gaze, she saw all things, knowledge beyond words. She suddenly knew that there was life on distant planets, that everyone, everywhere really did have a destiny, that life and death really was written in the stars.
Emotions raced so strong that she could barely get the words out. “Why did Michaela die?”
“God has a divine purpose for everyone,” he answered.
Like a movie screen, an image of a little girl appeared on the far wall. She saw the little girl grow over the years, saw her at various stages of her life, birthday parties, driving lessons, her wedding and the birth of her first child. Then the image faded.
“Your soul has been here for over three months.” Michael moved closer. He floated rather than walked. “Your earthly body is in a hospital and on life support. When you return, it will be as if time has gone back. You will have no memory of this. “
“Who was that girl?” she asked, but somehow realized she already knew.
“Michaela didn’t die in vain. Sometimes life is cruel and makes little sense, but there is a reason for everything.”
Sarah’s heart pounded. “What happened to her? Where is she?”
“Michaela died to you but was born to another family where she will live until the age of 97. She will bear four children and have sixteen grandchildren one of which will win the Nobel Prize for discovering the cure for cancer.”
Sarah dropped to her knees. The impossibility of what she was hearing was incomprehensible. She suddenly realized she was shaking out of control.
Michael bent and took her hands in his. He steadied her back on her feet.
“Why did she die to me? What did I do?”
“Nothing. The doctor who aided you during your miscarriage was unclear in his path. He began to question wonder not just his profession but his purpose in life. Had you not miscarried, he would not have realized how precious life is. He would have taken his life that day, and hundreds of future patients would have also perished. Michaela’s death saved them all.”
“Then she was later born to someone else.”
Michael nodded.
Sarah couldn’t stop the tears. She thought of the years she’d blamed herself for losing Michaela, that maybe she’d done something wrong. Or maybe God was punishing her. This was beyond reason. Beyond anything she could have ever thought or believed. Pain which had been buried so long and so deep suddenly began to crumble. It started as a tiny fissure and opened up to a gaping hole. It left her raw and exposed and completely drained.
“You need to go now, Sarah.”
Sarah stared at him. She wondered suddenly if he were God. He certainly resembled something of what she’d expect God to look like.
“But what about Nathan?” she asked.
“This is not Nathan’s decision to make.”
“But—“
“The time has come.”
The last thing she saw clearly was Michael waving his hand in front of her face. The little church began to fade. She called for Nathan. Panic set in, but she quickly relaxed.
Nathan would come to Earth for her. He had, after all, done so before.
* * *
Sarah was vaguely aware of the sounds of birds chirping. She opened her eyes, waited for her gaze to gradually focus on her surroundings. Nothing looked familiar.
She was lying on the ground in the middle of the forest. She sat up, and a terrific jolt of pain shot out from her joints. It lasted only seconds then was gone. She brushed the dirt from her arms and legs, picked out the branches which were tangled in her hair, and stood.
The trees surrounding her were short and ragged. The forest floor was cluttered with large moss-covered boulders. A warm, steady breeze blew away her sleep-induced fog.
She tried to recall what she’d done to end up here, to what seemed like miles from civilization. She’d been waiting for Maggie in the diner. Maggie had phoned to say she couldn’t make it, so she’d gotten back into her Blazer to head back to the store.
She turned left, walked a few feet, only to realize she had no idea where to go.
It didn’t make sense. At the diner, she’d intended to go home. She’d been in her Blazer. So where was her vehicle now?
Panic edged in. If she were lost, she would have at least remembered how she gotten here, wherever “here” was.
An image of late night crime dramas filled her mind. Maybe she’d been the victim of some kind of attack. Maybe she’d been left here to die.
She felt her pockets, found her wallet inside her jacket. She pulled it out. Her money, less that fifty bucks, and her credit cards were untouched. If she’d been attacked, she would have been robbed, it seemed. And she didn’t feel like she’d been attacked at all.
She went to the other pocket and found her cell phone. She quickly dialed 911.
A woman’s voice came on the line. “911. What is your emergency?”
“I…” What was her emergency? “I’m lost.”
“What is your name?”
“Sarah Price.”
“How old are you?�
��
Sarah hadn’t noticed the high pitch that her voice had taken on. The dispatcher must think her a child. She hesitantly answered. “Thirty.”
She gave the dispatcher her address, told her a description of her surroundings, and was instructed not to move. Not more than an hour passed when a rescue party found her and brought her down from what they called French Mountain.
A policeman led her toward his car.
“You have no recollection of hiking up there?” His look was cynical.
“I’ve never mountain climbed in my life.”
“Do you recall driving your vehicle here?”
Sarah stared at her Blazer. It had been parked just at the foot of the mountain. All she remembered was Maggie not being able to make it to the diner and her going home.
“Ohmigod! Where is she?”
She recognized the sound of her mother even before she saw her. She broke through the crowd with Uncle Stan and Therman right behind.
“Honey, are you all right?” She caught her in an embrace. “They called me…Did someone attack you?”
“No one attacked me.”
“Then what happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” her mother’s gaze darted from the ambulance, rescue squad, and police. She started to cry.
“Mom, please. I’m all right.”
The ambulance people came at her with a stretcher. She heard someone speaking in an intercom about a disoriented woman.
“Do you have a history of drug use?” someone asked her.
Her mother pushed in front of her. “My daughter does not use drugs!”
“Mom, please.” She turned to the person with the ambulance. “No.”
They instructed her to get on the stretcher.
“I don’t need that.”
“It’s standard procedure.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“Nothing wrong with you?” Her mother followed her. “You were wandering around on top of some mountain.”
Sarah got on the stretcher. Her mother started to get in the ambulance.
“Mom, what about Stan?”
Her mother motioned Stan toward the ambulance. “C’mon, honey.”
Ghost Of A Chance Page 18
