Into the Gloaming

by Mercy Celeste

  “Well, if you have, then I’m right there with you.” Rory looked even worse than he had the last time Austin saw him. As if he hadn’t slept in a month and was sampling too much of the liquid product he peddled.

  “Whew, son, you need a shower something awful.” Austin forgot about his mental faculties when Rory lifted his arm. “Shower broke again, I take it?”

  “I’ve been working my ass off this week. I stumble up the stairs and fall into bed, and that’s about the best I can do. Besides, it’s better to wait until the sun is up and the apartment is a little warmer to shower. Tired of freezing my balls off. I’ll tell you that much.” Rory kicked his door closed and aimed him toward the old club chair near the fireplace. “How are you feeling? You scared the shit out of me.”

  “I just fainted, my god, it’s not like I’m dying or anything. I’m still fighting a headache and food turns my stomach, so I’m not eating much. I know this is wrong. I don’t need a lecture. But…” He took his glasses off and set them on the cluttered end table and leaned back to stare up at the ceiling. “He looks just like him. I swore he was… maybe he was. Why would he fuck with me like that?”

  Rory built a fire and cursed at the kindling that wouldn’t light, his ass crack showing as he knelt in front of the hearth. Maybe there was a stirring in Austin’s pants. Maybe he just had to take a piss.

  “Not exactly like him. I mean I saw the guy, full body, he was so real for a moment I could have touched him, then just… shimmered out of sight. This guy, there’s a subtle difference, and not just the haircut and clothes. God, he had a nice ass in those pants. I’d do him.”

  A pang of something like jealousy twisted in Austin’s gut. And he didn’t know what he was jealous of. His friend saying he’d fuck a guy Austin had dibs on… but didn’t have dibs on… or because… what the hell was it with the sudden interest in Rory, anyway? And why now?

  “He held my hand under the table. I mean, it was an accident, I guess we sort of grazed fingers, then we were holding hands, then it was over. He didn’t even look at me. Except as something beneath him.”

  Maybe Austin had made up that last part. Maybe he wanted the guy to be a dick so he wouldn’t have to consider the insanely impossible. He was crazy, or this guy was the spitting image of a ghost he’d done the nasty with.

  Not one aspect of that whole scenario was sane.

  Rory sighed and rocked back on his heels. He’d kicked the dirty garden clogs off outside and was barefoot again. “Probably an accident. He seemed a bit out of sorts. Guess you passing out at the sight of him must have come as a shock to him.”

  “Well…” Austin rubbed his eyes, wishing the headache away. “He shouldn’t have been standing there with someone else’s face… and name.” Austin sat up too quickly, causing the room to spin around him. He grabbed the arms of the chair and closed his eyes, hoping Rory hadn’t noticed. He’d never hear the end of it if he had. “I mean… can he be reincarnated? No, that’s just silly. You can’t be reincarnated and a ghost at the same time.”

  “Oh, my god, are you going to sit there and try to make sense of genetics. He’s the man’s great-grandson or something. I guess it’s unlikely that he’d be the exact spitting image of the man. But like I said, there are some subtle differences. He’s not as tall. Not as broad-shouldered. His nose is straighter, but he could have had work done. And he’s younger. Or that ghost looked older. I don’t know. People aged differently back then. His mother probably has a very fine bone structure… shit, Austin, this is the craziest damned conversation I think we’ve ever had.”

  “Well, if we’d had the one about the leprechaun blowing you the other morning, you’d close up shop and run back to Savannah… and I think the pain meds have messed with my mind. I’m seeing weird shit all the time now.”

  “Weirder than a ghost lover and a leprechaun bad touching me?” Rory spun around and stared at him as if he had lost his damned mind.

  Austin nodded. He swallowed hard. “I looked out the window late last night and could have sworn I saw horses outside my window. Horses, Rory. Making horsey noises.”

  “You’re terrified of horses,” Rory said flatly, sounding like he didn’t believe him.

  “Yep. Insane. Shit. I watched a coach and four being readied and then the driver, with the big flowing cloak, cracked a whip and they disappeared past the portico entrance. Just went, poof.” The dizziness came back full force and Austin gripped the chair arm as if he needed it to ground him on this plane of existence. “I think… maybe I need to go back to the hospital and have an MRI or something.”

  “Or maybe you need to go to bed and sleep it off. I mean actually sleep before you do permanent damage to your health.” Rory checked the fire again. He seemed happy with the results even if it wasn’t roaring yet. He raked a hand through hair that was already standing on end while he chewed his bottom lip.

  “Only if you stay with me.” Austin heard the fear in his own voice, and maybe the pleading quality wasn’t faked. “You look like you need it as much as I do.” He tried not to wince at how that sounded.

  Rory was on his feet, digging in his pants pocket for his phone. “Yeah, maybe I do. And this weather is fucking insane. Maybe…” he hit a button on his phone and held up a finger to keep Austin quiet. “Hey, Bruno, no man, I’m not calling you in early. In fact, it’s the opposite. Man, this weather. Let’s not tempt fate and stay our asses in bed where it’s warm… yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I’m not opening the pub today. But… I need you to do me a favor. I’m over with Austin, he had a fall this morning and isn’t doing so well, so I’m going to stay here and I don’t have access to everyone’s information. Could you call everyone on the schedule and tell them not to come in?... Awesome. Yeah, tomorrow night, for sure. New Year’s Eve.”

  When he was finished talking with his assistant manager Rory shut off his phone and tossed it on the dining table. “Okay, Austin. Let’s get you to bed.”

  Austin nodded and pushed himself off the chair. He was halfway to his tiny bedroom when someone knocked on the door. All the blood drained from Rory’s face. Like he knew what, or who, was on the other side of that door and wished they’d drop dead. “I’ll get it. Probably your perky, pesky trio.”

  Austin followed him to the door, getting as far as the table where he gripped the back of a chair to keep himself from falling over. The door opened on the most beautiful man Austin had ever laid eyes on. And two of the pesky trio.

  “Hey, Y’all, we were just going to bed,” Rory said, not even trying to make it sound innocent.

  “Hey, back, Rory.” Britney, the almost airhead of the bunch grinned like a loon, her eyes dancing with excitement. “Uh, so, Jemma is closing up the house. Everyone is going home before this storm gets bad… but… I know it’s not a real problem, and he owns the place, but we will put Mr. Cortlandt in the apartment next door. He has no place to stay and the hotels are all full. So, anyway… I just wanted to let you know you have a neighbor for the night.”

  “Or a few days. I’m… interested in learning more about my family,” Mr. Cortlandt said… because Austin couldn’t call him Heath… with that face. Not when the last man he’d made love with had that same face and that same name and he didn’t know how to process what he was seeing and feeling.

  “Yeah, sure, I’m sure I can help you with your family heritage.” He didn’t add like he had nothing better to do, mostly because that was exactly what he was being paid to do… by this man. “The apartment is fully stocked. There’s food and coffee in the small kitchen. Towels and a robe if you need it.”

  “Great,” Mr. Cortlandt replied.

  “Great,” Rory said from the doorway.

  “Great,” Britney said with a little bounce and giggle.

  Amazing how one word could take on three completely different meanings depending on the tone of voice.

  His hand slipped from the chair and the world went fuzzy. And Rory made an excuse and closed the door in th
eir faces. Locking it with enough force that the whole neighborhood would have heard the latch hitting home with a metallic clank.

  “Bed. Now. And pills. Go.” Rory stalked over to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water.

  “Shower. Now. You stink. And… why did I never know you are bossy?” Austin shouted from the bedroom, trying to unbutton his jeans before he realized he’d done exactly what Rory had ordered him to do.

  “Maybe if you pulled your head out of your ass long enough to pay attention to… I don’t know… anything not in a history book, you could see what is right in front of your face.” Rory set the water bottle on his bedside table and fumbled with Austin’s jeans, his fingers were rough as he ripped open the button and pulled down the zipper. Austin wriggled his hips and Rory pushed his jeans down his legs to the floor, leaving Austin standing before him wearing nothing but underwear and a T-shirt, with a half stiffy. And he didn’t know if Rory had caused it, or… he’d had sex with a ghost, or he’d hallucinated sex in one of the museum rooms… he dropped to the bed and leaned over his legs, breathing heavily.

  “You’re probably right.” He scrubbed his face with his hands, the cast scraping his face painfully.

  The water bottle pressed to his face, chilling him. “Here, Aus, stopping fighting me and drink this. Things will make sense when you’ve gotten some rest.”

  Austin took the bottle and the pills and swallowed. Rory lifted his feet onto the bed and tucked him in. “Sleep Austin.”

  Austin felt his eyes closing without his permission. He blinked and tried to bring Rory into focus. The worried look on his friend’s face punched him in the gut. “I’m a dick. I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not.” Rory brushed his hair back from his face.

  “No, I’m not,” Austin agreed as he reached for Rory’s hand, grasping it and holding it as if his life depended upon it. “I do love you, though. Just so you know.”

  “But not the way I want you to love me,” Rory said, but he sounded so far away that Austin didn’t understand what he’d said. His eyes fluttered closed, and he grunted in reply.

  Sometime later, a hot, sweet-smelling man crawled in behind him, and Austin rolled into his arms. The name on his lips wasn’t the right name and his friend knew it, but held him, anyway.

  On the seventh day, his true love gave to him…

  Seven dicks named Austin.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Either the walls in the apartment units were really thick, or his neighbors were really quiet.

  Heath figured out how to use the coffee maker and found a trove of snacks and some actual food in the kitchenette. Plus, he had enough prepared food that Mrs. Henley had packed for him before she’d been picked up by her husband. The three interns had made quick work of cleaning up the kitchen and closing down the house. The petite beauty thought it would be ‘neat’ to stop by the curator’s apartment to inform him that Heath would be staying.

  If Heath wanted to move into the main house and kick everyone out, he didn’t need some curator’s permission. All of this was technically his to do with as he pleased. Well, his and his family’s company. He’d never have been able to pull off the renovation this place needed without the financial backing from his board. But as long as he remained the primary shareholder, this was his property.

  He opened the package of ham biscuits left over from breakfast and the container of fruit and settled down to peruse the journal he’d found on the worktable after the bartender escorted the curator to bed.

  Heath saw the possessive fire in the bartender’s eyes when he’d opened the door for him and Britney. He’d heard the warning clear as day. They were going to bed. They. The two of them.

  As if Heath had come here to steal the man’s boyfriend.

  Yet the curator had held Heath’s hand, for however briefly, there had been contact. And it wasn’t… wrong.

  He heard the plumbing rumbling through the walls for a time. The bartender had looked as if he needed to be held under a shower and scrubbed to within an inch of his life. After that, there was nothing else to hear for a long time. Nothing but wind and ice pelting the building, then long stretches of quiet so unnerving he felt his skin crawl.

  Searching for something to read to keep him from climbing the walls, Heath pulled out the journal he’d found on the worktable in the main house. His curiosity about his family suddenly something he needed to quench despite having never particularly given a damn before. But now… he opened to the place marked with a ribbon, hoping to, at the very least, pass the time.

  March 1916

  The hussy had the nerve to deliver a stillborn boy child. After all these years and she can’t even get that part correct. It’s not hard to bring a screaming parasite into the world. Any fool woman can do it. Yet this one seems incapable of even doing that correctly.

  The Nephew seemed unfazed. He inspected the remains and said he’d arrange a priest. He didn’t stay by his wife’s bedside as a proper husband would.

  The mill needs him now that HC has lost interest in the daily minutia of running his only remaining business. Another twenty acres were sold to the south. There is talk of a hotel at the end of the lane. Street. I have forgotten that our lane is now a street and there are merchants on our land. Now a new street has been cut out of our land, and cobblestones are being laid. Soon all we will have left is the land the house sits upon and the family cemetery.

  I can not abide this.

  HC says we have no other choice. The threat of war is draining our coffers and there are too many mouths to feed. Most of our staff has been discharged. And all but four of the horses are to be sold. The coach may have to go. But HC is reluctant to part with it.

  Ella is nearing thirteen. Her skirts will be let down this winter. She won’t be a child much longer. HC is making arrangements for her to marry as soon as she reaches her sixteenth birthday. Three and a half years may be too late to save this family.

  But there is one less mouth to feed, and with no wet nurse to feed it. May be God knows what he is about after all.

  The child, Ruth, has taken to disappearing for many hours a day. She comes home filthy; her dresses have all been destroyed. There is no one left to care for her aside from myself. That child needs the strap worse than any child I’ve ever known.

  Heath inserted the ribbon page marker where he found it and flipped back to the beginning of the journal to find out who the lovely author was.

  “Culla Cortlandt,” he said into the empty room, his voice echoed back to him over the wind. “I’ve read that name before.”

  He set the journal aside and went to retrieve his iPad from the suitcase he’d left beside the door. He shivered as cold air blasted in through the cracks in the frame. He’d make a note to the developer that the doors back here needed weather stripping. While he was in his case, he decided he needed to make himself comfortable.

  He rarely changed into loungewear during the day, especially during business hours, but since he wasn’t going anywhere the rest of the day, and the chill was cutting through his suit… may as well.

  He pulled out a pair of heavy jersey pants and his favorite Harvard sweatshirt and changed in the minuscule bath. He checked the thermostat; it was below seventy degrees in the room. No wonder he was freezing.

  The fireplace was laid out for a fire. He’d never made an actual wood fire before, preferring gas for the simplicity of starting and stopping and well, no cleanup. They paid people to keep the fireplaces clean here. He could read by firelight… how cozy.

  He pictured the dark-haired curator as a cuddling companion. Though, the bartender was more his type… but, something about the curator, Austin, tugged at… something.

  He didn’t have a protective streak. No, that wasn’t it. Even when the man had collapsed, he hadn’t thought to rush to his rescue. That had come secondary. The pull of something… familiar… and carnal, had led him down those stairs.

  The bartender hadn’t elicited the
same pull. He’d be what the doctor ordered one dark, lonely night at the back of a smoky bar. Or in a cheap motel before heading home. The curator, though—

  Heath rubbed the back of his neck. He’d been doing that far too often since he set foot on the property this morning.

  He had the fire started to his satisfaction. The strange sensation stopped crawling his skin. He needed more coffee.

  He settled into an old armchair that looked shabby, but was surprisingly comfortable, and opened his tablet. The family genealogy page didn’t list a Culla Cortlandt. He went to the final family to occupy the house. Heathcliff Charles Cortlandt, married three times. All three marriages ended with the wife dying in childbirth. Their names and children were listed.

  The first wife, Agatha, was the mother of Heath’s great-grandfather. The second wife produced two children, the first dying a few days after birth, a son. Her name was Gertrude. And the child wasn’t listed as stillborn. The date was a good twelve years before the journal entry. She gave birth to a living daughter, Ella.

  Ella’s fate was not documented. She’d lived into her teens, that much Heath had ascertained when he’d searched for living heirs. There was another child listed, Ruth Charlotte. But her line didn’t intersect with the third wife. That wife seemed to have perished much like the first two, in childbirth, but her child was not listed. Could be an oversight in the family records. Could be she too had given birth to a stillborn babe, and it had not been christened.

  HC, as he was known in informal correspondence, had a sister, Henrietta Charlotte. She never married. Never had children. Heath found her some years later, having died in an institution, but that could have been for something as simple as being the spinster sister of a destitute estate.

  HC Cortlandt lived a much grander life than his finances allowed, that was for damned sure. Heath was surprised that HC’s creditors hadn’t seized the property when the son died in the car accident in 1917.