After Always

by Barbara J. Hancock

  I stumbled back from the elderly woman I’d grown to love. The threatening call coming from deep in her chest was a violation, an abomination. She was asleep or unconscious. Outside, the sun shone and gulls flew. Normal existed on tenuous strings. But something else was inside Mrs. Brighton, awake and hungry.

  “Lydia.”

  This time stronger, firmer, and more in control of the voice box he had hijacked.

  Mrs. Brighton’s eyelids began to flutter. The white orbs of her eyes showing rolled back in her head. I backed farther away. I felt for the door behind me. Afraid if I took my eyes from Mrs. Brighton she would open hers and they would have gone black like Hannah’s had last night.

  Her body grew more agitated as if it would rise and give chase without her giving it permission to move.

  But when I stepped into the hall, she quieted.

  I stood there for long moments watching her chest rise and fall. I didn’t want to imagine what would have happened if I’d stayed in the room.

  “Don’t trust Michael or Mrs. Brighton,” Hannah had said.

  I was all alone.

  Suddenly, Mrs. Brighton’s body jerked, and her head turned toward the hall, swiveling unnaturally on her wrinkled neck. Her eyes were still closed, but Jericho knew I was nearby. Her face leaned toward the door as if she were a predator scenting prey. Her position one that would be impossible for her to maintain if she was in charge of her movements.

  I turned and quickly walked away, hoping that if I was far enough away from Mrs. Brighton that Jericho would leave her in peace. I’d been studying the book Hannah had left me. It had seemed extreme…until now.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Too early seen unknown, and known too late.”

  (Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene 5)

  The sails were blue and lined with gossamer veins like butterfly wings. I watched them billow in the rising wind for a long time understanding, but confused at the same time. My hair whipped around my face, impeding my vision and tangling around my neck and mouth. I pushed it away, but it didn’t stay back.

  The wind was becoming too strong.

  Surely the delicate sails would tear and come apart, but not yet. Not now. For now, the boat skimmed the top of azure waves, carrying me closer and closer to him. Exhilaration caused my whole body to vibrate in tingling awareness. Soon. Soon I would see him again. I would touch his face and kiss his smile, and we would hold each other tight.

  Kiss.

  Another face flickered across my memory. This one more recent and warm.

  Suddenly, the sky began to darken. The waves around the boat grew white-capped and angry.

  I looked up as the sails flapped and jerked, harried this way and that by the shifting, fierce squall. There. A tear was beginning. The dainty blue sails frayed as I stared and stared.

  One ripped free of its lines, and then another.

  The boat’s forward momentum slowed, then stopped. The craft was left to founder at the mercy of the pitching waves.

  “Tristan!” I yelled.

  I flung myself against the rail, looking out and across the storm-tossed sea.

  “Tristan!”

  A ship came into view. It materialized out of the misty fog that trailed at the edge of my perception. It loomed above the tiny sailboat with its bedraggled sails that looked for all the world like gruesome shredded remains of a once beautiful living creature.

  The ship was old, as old as Stonebridge or older, but worse than that it was sodden by a hundred years of saltwater and decayed with rot and ruin. I smelled the disintegrating oak of its timbers. Where solid boards had once been was only holes and waste. Rotten canvas sails flapped, sending blackened mold into the air. Drooping ropes barely held the rigging where they frayed and split.

  Somehow I knew that the horrible masks that lined the hallway I hated had once ridden in this ship’s flooded hold.

  And, yet, when a tall, dark figure appeared on the deck of the nightmare ship for a faint second a wild thrill rose in my breast. My heart swelled. Adrenaline tried to course through collapsed veins that had been filled with thin blood for too long.

  But my cry for Tristan had been answered by another.

  I knew it when the man swept down a rickety ladder with impossible grace on the stormy sea.

  Even before he turned to face me with glittering green eyes blazing inhuman light in his handsome, but horrifying, face.

  Horrifying because he was perfect, too perfect when he obviously came from a place of the dead, unnaturally wakened.

  “Every cell in your being calls to me,” Captain Jericho said.

  I held onto the rail as he approached. I’d become a hollowed-out shell because of Tristan. I could sense Jericho’s desire to use my emptiness to his advantage.

  I had called. I called him still. I couldn’t stop my ache.

  There had been nothing left in me where Tristan had been. He had been my all. And even though that had changed it hadn’t changed soon enough.

  The echo left in his wake seemed to recognize the intense burn of Jericho’s impossible energy here, now so many years after his death as something that might fill me again.

  “You have nothing left to live for. Die for me. A sacrifice in honor of your Shanbo,” Jericho urged. His voice was deep and seductive. He was so close now. His self-portrait hadn’t done him justice. He was every bit as perfect as Tristan would have been if Tristan had lived.

  But still I held onto the rail with sore fingers and all my might.

  “He thought of you when the waves claimed him, Lydia. How can you do any less for him?”

  Jericho touched me. He cupped my cheek with an icy hand. He stood so close that his wet great coat hit against my legs, stinging, even as his broad chest blocked out everything else.

  “No,” I said, no longer confused.

  This wasn’t Tristan. I could still see the resemblance. I could still see the similarity in the fire in Jericho’s eyes. But I was no longer fooled. A monster touched me. A monster leaned as if he would take a kiss my lonely soul offered, but I hadn’t given.

  “No,” I said again. It was almost a shout.

  In the wind and the rain, I rode Octavia’s emotions all the way to the those first rushes of fear when Jericho became less charming, when she too rode the roller coaster from high to low and back up again.

  He would leave for long stretches of time on his voyages. She’d experience a lull in her constantly tightening nerves, but the knowledge that he would be back always loomed over her.

  When he returned from his last trip to Haiti with a new valet who wasn’t a valet at all, Octavia’s fear had consumed her.

  Without a doubt, even if this were Tristan, my protest would be the same. I’d loved him, but I’d also feared him. When I’d found out he wasn’t coming home, part of my grief had been my inability to end things between us in my own way. I’d been afraid too long. I’d been ashamed too long. Even with Tristan dead, my fear and shame hadn’t gone away.

  I might crave the warm, friendly kiss of a living man with amber eyes. But I didn’t want this. I could almost taste corruption in the air.

  Jericho’s eyes flared wide, and his chin tilted back as if my refusal had been an actual blow of righteous palm against his gaunt cheek.

  “It’s too late for no, I’m afraid,” Jericho said. “Far too late to back away now.”

  But he backed away.

  When he did, I noticed, with a queasy drop of my stomach, that his coat was covered in black mold like the sails of his ship. In fact, his whole appearance had gone slightly haggard, slightly gray. His hair had thinned. His eyes sunk hollow. He shrank and decayed before my eyes.

  “Too late,” he laughed, hoarsely.

  And then, vertigo sucked my feet out from under me.

  When I opened my eyes, I was on my knees. I held with every ounce of strength I had to the rail on the cliff behind Stonebridge. The ocean swirled its hungry depths far, far below.

  �
�

  I stumbled back to the inn. I didn’t know where mist left off and tears began on my frozen cheeks. I only knew that in my dream the ghost of Jericho had wanted me to throw myself off the cliff.

  I was alive.

  Cold. Shivering. Bereft and afraid. But very, very alive.

  I hurried up the staircase to the east turret before anyone else could wake up and find me, shaken and wandering. I had held on. I had held on with all the strength I possessed.

  Just like the day I’d fought to kick my boots off before the ocean could suck me to the bottom of the cove, I was determined to go on living. Fear had burned my shame and guilt away until I was white-hot with vitality. I was going to let the past go and claim my future, and Michael would be a part of it. I wouldn’t let Jericho steal my decision to move on from my past mistakes. His influence was powerful, but I’d survived a powerful influence once before. I would do it again. And this time I would ask for the help I needed without shame or fear.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,

  tempering extremities with extreme sweet.”

  (Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 1)

  I didn’t like the feel of the Vodou text in my hands, but Hannah’s notes in the margins made it bearable. High above the waves, gulls circled and flew. Their familiar shapes soothed as well.

  Yes. I’d come back to the cliff. It was morning. The sun warmed my head. And I wasn’t going to be afraid. At some point, my pulse would settle. My shoulders would firm. My hands would stop shaking. I had sunk down on the dew-dampened grass and sand with the book as I willed that not-afraid to happen. I even placed myself near the rail so occasionally I could look up and see where my feet had scrabbled near the edge of the cliff last night. When I leaned, the drop and the white foam crests of the waves became clear far down below.

  I wasn’t going to be afraid…eventually.

  I would get used to being haunted, nearly possessed. I would boldly face the evil entity stalking me and somehow banish him back to hell.

  I studied Hannah’s notes like I crammed for a final exam that would make or break me. Literally. Make or break. So broken there would be no coming back from it. I glanced again at the waves crashing below.

  “You’re close to the edge,” Michael said.

  I hadn’t seen him approach. I hadn’t heard his steps on the soft ground because of the wind and the gulls and the waves.

  “You can’t trust Michael or Mrs. Brighton. They’ve been here too long.”

  The sun played in Michael’s wavy hair, natural as always. No gel. In need of a more stylish cut. Curls hung too long into his eyes. Not artfully. Messily. Toyed with by fingers of wind. The faded gray T-shirt he wore blended with the worn blue of his jeans on narrow hips. He looked normal, easy. And I loved him as is. It had snuck up on me as quiet as his feet in the grass. I didn’t just want to kiss Michael. I wanted his warmth beside me today and tomorrow. For lots of tomorrows if I was lucky, and he felt the same way.

  “Edges have appeal. There’s that whole Any-Second-I-Might-Fall excitement,” I said.

  “So, you’re tempting fate?” Michael asked. He sank down on his heels beside me.

  “Edges happen. Might as well get used to it,” I said.

  “Hand holds happen, too. Life lines,” Michael said. He reached to take one of my hands from the Vodou book. He lifted it and played with my fingers.

  I wasn’t supposed to trust him. But I did. When our hands clasped, the drop behind me felt less steep, less deadly. When our gazes met, gray to brown, there was a new sort of charge I’d never experienced before. It wasn’t a dangerous one. It didn’t shock. It didn’t make me feel hunted. It made me feel at home.

  Then his glance dropped to the book in my lap. The sun didn’t go behind a cloud. The day was as bright as it had been before. But the amber of Michael’s eyes suddenly dimmed all the same.

  “What are you going to do?” he said. His hand tightened on mine. Almost imperceptibly. A mere tension in his fingers, but I pulled my hand away. I used both hands to close the book and hold it to my chest.

  I searched his face. Nothing had changed. And yet everything had. He was more like he’d been at the cemetery when he’d blocked the path to Jericho’s tomb. Wary. Still. Listening. Not relaxed. Not easy. Not my Michael Malone.

  “Just reading. I can’t work on the rooms until everyone has checked out,” I said.

  I stood. I was too close to the edge. Michael stood, too. My calves were pressed against the cool rail. Michael stepped closer. I breathed in his beach-y ozone scent, his sawdust and sunshine smell. But my heart pounded in my chest because I no longer felt at home. Hannah had been right. She said I should avoid Michael. That he was influenced by Jericho. And here I was on the edge of a cliff where Jericho had almost killed me last night.

  “No,” Michael said, softly. His eyes met mine. “You’re always safe with me, even when edges happen.”

  He blinked, a slow closing and opening of his eyes. There was a glimmer of amber there again, but I was stiff and still, braced for what might happen. Far down below the surf crashed. Up above our heads the gulls flew. The wind blew my hair around my face and whistled with a vacuuming echo behind my back where nothing but air and sky waited to catch me if I should fall.

  Michael’s body was tense. Every muscle bunched and tight. His jaw clenched as he swallowed. He closed his eyes again. Longer this time.

  “Resistance isn’t enough,” Michael said. He seemed to relax himself with pure willpower, one cell at a time, while fingers of ocean breeze eerily toyed with the shirt against my back. “He could never make me hurt you, but his hold on Stonebridge needs to be broken.”

  His jaw had softened. His eyes opened. The sun flashed in his fully amber eyes when he dipped to gently kiss my lips. I planted my feet. I braced myself. Not sure if solid footing would be enough. He was much bigger and stronger than I was. But this was my Michael, back again. I tasted the warmth of sunshine and a hint of sea salt on his lips. I felt his gentle control, his desire to reassure me.

  Luck had nothing to do with it. This was love. And Michael felt the same way. Ghosts or not, I never had anything to fear from him. Trust filled my heart and the threat of it turning to gravel was gone. Its thumping was huge in my chest and moisture burned the back of my eyelids. I hadn’t felt this way about anyone since Tristan had taught me to be constantly afraid. Our promise of loving each other always was broken by him long before he died.

  Because true love could only be expressed with trust. I thought he had destroyed my ability to trust anyone ever again, but I wasn’t afraid anymore. I was ready for After always.

  Michael backed away. Our lips parted reluctantly. We’d been connected even though no other part of our bodies had touched. He held my gaze for several steps as if to prove who was in control of his actions before he turned and walked toward the house.

  In the margins of the book I held to my chest, Hannah had scribbled “fire” and “saltwater” and “bones” and “blood.”

  …

  I remembered the feather in the glass. I walked to the window and fingered the deep hole it had left behind. I looked down to the waves below and thought of walking along the edge of the cliff with nothing but a rickety rail between me and certain death…what if that happened in my sleep?

  I’d been foolish, but I was over beating myself up about it. I didn’t deserve pain just because I hadn’t known how to end it. I wanted the seagulls in flight. I wanted to be free, and freedom wasn’t a physical thing like updrafts and wind I could capture with wings. It was a state of being. Unfettered by mistakes, not intimidated by the future, no matter the unknowns it held.

  And Michael.

  A kiss, a sigh, a clasp of hands.

  I didn’t have to be afraid the first awakenings of romantic attachment would deteriorate into emotional manipulation and violence again, because I wouldn’t let that happen. Realistically, Michael
was a different man with no signs of an abusive personality, but I’d still been afraid. When my body had stirred to his touch, when I’d been drawn to him, it hadn’t been my fear of Jericho’s influence that held me back. It had been my fear that my mistakes with Tristan would repeat themselves.

  But freedom meant I didn’t have to fear that anymore.

  It was exactly like swooping and soaring with the gulls. I suddenly knew how to fly without having to leave the ground.

  As if I needed to be punished for the elation rising in my chest, the air around me thickened. The very molecules tightened against my skin like I was held tightly in a grasp that controlled my whole body except for the free pounding of my heart. But I wasn’t only held. I was propelled, reluctant, step by step.

  I found myself across the room with the violin in my hands.

  I looked down at it. The bow and the neck of the instrument seemed made to my tender fingers. Tears burned behind my eyes, but I wasn’t allowed the time for them to fall.

  I was already pushed toward the door.

  Cool, empty corridors waited. I passed through them, horrified but also intent. The attic alcove called to me. I no longer wanted to resist the force compelling me. I slowed only when I came to the hallway of masks. I stepped lightly. I held my breath. The feeling I was watched grew and grew, magnified by all the empty staring eyes.

  Then, I was past and up the final dark stair to find the door I had always closed and locked, open and waiting for me to step inside.

  I thought I would stop.

  I thought I would turn around, but my feet continued to step, step, step toward the open door.

  The room was dark. Black velvet waited to envelop me in its shadowy embrace. And, yet, my freshly wakened heart thumped in my chest because I suddenly knew the watcher I’d feared crouched and waited for me inside the gloom, ready to pounce, ready to consume.

  Tears did fall then, washing down my cool, stiff cheeks onto the violin I already cradled to my neck.

  Step. Step. Step.

  Into the airless room, I walked. Into the black.

  When the door slowly, slowly closed behind me, the last of the light from the hall below was shut away until nothing was left but a glimmer beneath the old, heavy wood.