“Mary Ann is with her then?” Brendan said a little more reassured. “She will take care of her then while we figure out what to do.”
“Yep. Mary Ann is there t oo, and whoever is buried in your tomb as well.” She said looking worried then. “I heard him laugh, must have been Drew screaming, as I was dragging Drew’s body up to the house.”
“Who would be buried in my place?” Brendan said angrily.
“That is something that we need to figure out quickly.” Liza said. “You take this to the crazy lady in the living room.” Liza said handing Brendan a tray of fruit. “I’ve got something that will take care of her for a little bit.”
Brendan didn’t ask what her plan was. He knew that they had spent too much time away from Lezetta as it was. When he walked back into the living room Drew/Lezetta was standing in front of the mirror with a frown on her brow.
“What is it darling?” Brendan asked.
“Do you really find me attractive?” She asked him staring at herself obviously not too pleased with what she was seeing. “I’m so pale and scrawny. Except for these,” She said squeezing her breasts. “Yes, these will do nicely.”
She turned to face him them. “So, are you falling in love with me, sweetheart?”
“Why don’t you come sit down and eat a little. Liza cut up some fruit for you.”
“Alright then.” She said obeying.
“Why is it that you are so worried about my love for you all of a sudden, woman?” Brendan asked curiously.
“Oh, well, because I love you so much!” She said and reached in to kiss him again. He turned his head. He knew that he should be playing along but the thought of kissing someone besides Drew made him ill, even if it was his Lezetta. Something told him though that the Lezetta that he once thought that he loved wasn’t who he thought she was at all.
“Why do you turn from me, Love?” He saw the tears in her eyes and thought for a moment that they were real tears. He knew that they were not Drew’s though. He couldn’t lie and tell her that he loved her. He couldn’t do that to Drew. It made no sense he knew, but he would know the lie in his heart.
Liza came in just in the nick of time. “I’m so sorry it took so long, Drew. I know how much you love wine and you were out up here so I went down to the wine cellar and found some really old strawberry wine. This shit was bottled in 1850. It is either going to be freaking stout or taste like vinegar. Here you go.” She said handing her a glass off of the tray. She handed one to Brendan as well and then set the tray down on the table. She grabbed one for herself as well then raised her glass for a toast. “Here is to friends, old and new.” She said.
Lezetta looked a little annoyed but drank anyway. She closed her eyes then. “Oh my, that tastes wonderful.” She said smiling. She drank the rest in one big gulp. “Now, Liza, dear,” She said between her teeth. “Could Brendan and I please have some time to…to…what have you given me?” Lezetta realized when her tongue started sticking to the roof of her mouth and her eyes wanted to roll to the back of her head that something was wrong.
“Dear, Grandma Lezetta, just because you are dead doesn’t mean that the magic died with you. I’ve got a few tricks of my own up my sleeve.”
Lezetta didn’t have time to respond. The sleeping potion that Liza had conjured up set in quickly as she had hoped.
Drew’s body went limp and she started to fall forward. Brendan caught her and laid her down on the couch, covering her up with an afghan. When he saw the look that Liza gave him he said, “It’s still Drew’s body. I would like to keep it in tactif you don’t mind. What did you give her? She isn’t dead is she?”
Liza rolled her eyes. “Of course not, can we get back to the Ouija board now? We don’t have much time before the crazy witch wakes up and she will be very angry!”
The look on Brendan and Liza’s face had been priceless when she saw herself get up off the couch and throw the Ouija board across the room. It might have been funny if she hadn’t been floating above them like a dead person. She was expecting to disappear then but she didn’t. They never said their good-byes. That was fine with her. She would rather be stuck there in the house than in that cemetery with that crazy “evil twin” of Brendan’s.
She tried to remember what all Brendan had told her about his brother, about his family. Her thoughts were interrupted though as she watched herself kiss Brendan. She felt a sudden pang of jealousy. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t fair. Who had taken over her body? Lezetta she realized. She had switched places with Lezetta and that evil bitch was making a move on her man.
He pushed her away. Drew no longer felt jealous. She wasn’t even relieved. Instead she was hurt. Why did he push her away? They were calling her Drew so they must not know. Didn’t he love her? She asked him, the Lezetta her asked him, and he wouldn’t reply.
She saw all that she cared to see. She couldn’t stand it anymore. She tried to scream but no one could hear her. She tried to hit Brendan but he couldn’t feel her. He was a ghost too. Why couldn’t he see her?
She floated up the stairs. She didn’t know where she was going she just had to get away without going away. She was wishing one last time that they could hear her. No one moved a muscle in her direction. “Fine!” She said through tears. “, and that is why you don’t fall in love, Drew Taylor. Men are just out to hurt you, dead or alive.”
When she reached the top of the stairs she felt a sudden urge to go inside the room that Brendan had asked her not to go to. She felt guilty for even thinking about it but then she pushed the guilt away quickly though as the need pulled her even more. She tried to turn on the light she just couldn’t do it.
She didn’t understand why Brendan could play the piano and put on a light show but she couldn’t budge a damn thing. She realized though as she looked towards the back of the room that the room wasn’t that big at all and that the light shown from the chandelier above the living room right into the room. It wasn’t really that dark after all.
She walked slowly around the desk and saw him then. He was lying there on the floor. He looked so alive! How could a body lay for one hundred and fifty years without decomposing? She wished that she could feel for a pulse. Maybe she could listen for a heartbeat. She laid her head down on his chest. Yes! She could hear a faint beating. It was very faint but it was there. He wasn’t dead! How was it possible!
“What did they do to you, my love? Who could be so cruel that they would just leave you here all alone?” She wanted to pick him up. She wished that she could hold him in her arms and shake him awake. She couldn’t even pick herself up though she realized. She was nothing but air.
As best as she could she kept her head down on his chest. She pretended for a moment that he was holding her and then all of the beautiful thoughts of a couple’s future came down on her in a torturing rush. She realized that she would never have the privilege of holding his hand and walking through the gardens. She would never meet him at the altar in a gorgeous white wedding gown which she could proudly wear with honesty.
None of these things had ever been important to Drew. She didn’t understand why they were so important to her now. It was a cruel joke! Never wanting, never needing, now her heart bled with it. It cried for it. This whole time his body had lain here waiting for her to find it, to save it with her love. It was just like the damned fairy tales. She had held the key the whole time. Now she was dead. Who was going to save her? Who would save them both?
“Drew?” She heard him calling her. It startled her and when she looked at his face and saw that he was actually a rotting corpse and that she was finally losing her mind for sure. She looked around and saw the light again and was relieved that it wasn’t her imagination. She was afraid to go to it this time though, afraid that it would lead her back to the cemetery. “Drew? Sweetheart, are you there?” He called to her again.
Instead of going through the light she chose to take the stairs. She stood over her own body, wishing there was some way she could j
ust jump into herself. She knew that it was useless though and that even if it did work, she wouldn’t be alone in there.
“Drew?” Brendan asked again, this time through tears. “Damn it! Why isn’t she answering me?” He took his hands off of the pointer then and ran his hands through his hair.
She watched him stand up and pace the room. “Where could she be, Liza? We have to find her! Why isn’t she answering? Are you sure it was her? This bloody thing doesn’t work!”
They must have figured it out somehow! They knew that Drew wasn’t Drew after all. Somehow she heard her own heart pounding though she didn’t know how that was possible.
He was trying to be strong but every second that went by he felt more and more like a child. He was supposed to be the man, the hero, why did he feel so foolish and helpless!
She banged the pointer on the board to get their attention. Liza jumped and Brendan swung around nearly jumping on top of the thing. He grabbed the pointer again shaking.
“Drew?” He said through a tear filled throat. “Please come backto me!”
The pointer spun around and around… W…H…Y? Drew asked.
She heard the breath come out of him like a tornado across the Kansas plains. Liza laughed through tears as well. “Oh, Drew! This is no time to be stubborn.” She said.
She watched as Brendan wiped the tears from his face and gathered himself. He looked around the room. “Please look into my eyes if you can. Because I love you! Because I have loved you since the first moment you talked back to me when I told you to get out of my house! I waited my whole life for someone like you and then I waited one hundred and fifty years beyond that! I love you! I want to spend eternity with you. I don’t know if it is possible for us or not but I know that I feel when I am with you. I was alive when I was with you. I can’t live or be dead without you!” He chuckled at that.
“Like I said,” He said seriously again. “I don’t know if it is possible for us or not but as long as I am here, for as long as I can be with you, that is where I want to be, with you and only with you.”
They heard Drew’s body stirring on the couch and knew that they had to hurry.
“Drew?” Liza said. “I’m sorry to break your sweetheart’s ballad here but we have to hurry the hell up. You have to tell me what you can while you can. We can’t save you if we don’t know what is going on.”
Drew reached for the pointer again. She felt the tears falling but knew that no one would see them. He loved her. He really, really loved her, and his love for her was bringing him life. She could see it in his eyes and she could see it in his flesh.
The pointer circled…
T…H…E…C…E…M…E…T…E…R…Y…
“What about the cemetery, Drew? Is that where you are?”
W…A…S she responded.
H…E…R…E…N…O…W
“Of course you are, Sweety.” Liza said. “Who is at the cemetery?”
M…A…R…Y…A…N…N there was a long pause. Drew didn’t know how to tell Brendan that it must be his brother that was buried in his tomb.
T…W…I…N…E…V…I…L
“Twinevil? Who is Twinevil?” Liza asked Brendan.
Brendan shook his head. “I couldn’t say.”
The pointer pointed to NO on the Ouija board. Drew’s body stirred again and Lezetta tried to open her eyes.
E…V…I…L Drew pounded on the board then to let them know that she was done with that word.
“Evil?” Brendan asked.
YES Drew pointed. T…W…I…N
Brendan’s hand flew to his mouth then. Drew felt something tugging on her. She knew that if she didn’t leave soon someone else could come through. She had been there long enough. She had to leave.
S…A…Y Drew Spelled out then pointed at GOODBYE on the board.
“No!” Brendan screamed. “You can’t leave. You can’t go back there.”
Liza took his hand then. “We have to say good -bye, Brendan. She is right. We have to close the connection or someone else could get in. Someone not so nice.”
“Let them come in then!” He yelled. “I can’t let you go back there!” Just then he felt her hands on his cheeks and then her lips on his. He sighed. He wanted that feeling forever.
She pulled away and tapped on the board again. P…L…E…A…S…E
Brendan didn’t care how m uch of a man he was supposed to be then. He couldn’t stop the tears. S…A…Y GOODBYE Drew wrote again.
“NO!” Brendan yelled. He couldn’t bear to let her go back. He was afraid that he would never get her back again. Just then Lezetta awoke. She sat up quickly then rubbed her head. “What is going on here? You poisoned me you bitch!” She said pointing at Liza.
Lezetta tried to stand but the potion was still in her blood and she couldn’t feel her legs. Liza heard the Ouija board knocking again and looked down. T…K…O Drew spelled out. Liza smiled, said “Good-bye, Drew, we will see you soon.” And grabbed the Ouija board and smashed it over Lezetta’s head.
“NO!” Brendan screamed. “What have ye done?”
“Listen to me, Brendan, very carefully. We have t o get Drew’s body back to the cemetery. Drew was trying to protect us or she wouldn’t have told us to say good-bye, someone else must have been trying to get in.”
“Crazy woman! You just sent yer best friend out in to a world of nothing! Do you have any clue as to what she may be going through right now? We may never see her again!” He was frantic. He didn’t remember feeling this sick when Lezetta was killed. He felt emptier than he had ever felt his whole life and in the one hundred and fifty years that he had been dead, alone.
“Brendan, what did you want, huh, for her to stay in limbo with you? What kind of life could that be for either one of you?” Liza said taking his hand.
Brendan stood up then and paced the floor. “I can never have a life again. I had my chance and it’s too late for me.” He sighed then and ran his hands through his long hair. “I love her. So much it hurts but I don’t want her life to end now. She is young and beautiful and even though we may never be able to be together, she still has a chance to feel love like she has never allowed herself before. Don’t you understand how special that is? We have to get her back somehow. When we do, I will disappear forever. She has to be able to make a life for herself.”
Liza smiled u p at him. “Ok. That is all very sweet and fine but have you seen yourself lately? I don’t imagine that you are going to be disappearing anywhere. Haven’t you wondered why all of a sudden you are so human like?”
Brendan looked at his hands then. He walked over to where Drew’s body lay unconscious on the couch and put his hand against her cheek. “This is where I belong in another life. Why would God be so cruel as to show me now what could have been the best thing for me? Why would he wait until it was too late?”
“You aren’t listening to me.” Liza said softly, watching him made her want to cry. He was so strong, yet so frail under Drew’s spell. “Brendan, before Lezetta died she left a curse on you, on this house. The “sisters” were supposed to makesure that the curse was never broken.”
Brendan looked up at her. “Explain, woman!”
“Well, when you and your sister came here you gave her what she had been searching for. She finally found a way to be someone. She was tired of pinching pennies and working for you was just the start. She had side jobs telling people’s fortunes and helping people fall in love supposedly, but the real money was in making a man of wealth fall in love with her and then marrying her.” Liza watched as Brendan’s face grew red with anger.
“I loved that woman! I would have given her anything in the world. How could she have used me so?” He said pacing back and forth now.
“I don’t know, Brendan. After you died it’s said that she gathered the sisters in a secret meeting. She told them of the curse that she had put on your soul and this house. She is the reason that your spirit can’t leave this house, Brendan. It was nothing that
you did.”
“Why? Why would she wish that misery upon me?” “I don’t know. The reasoning was never said.” Liza felt terrible. She didn’t like being the bearer of bad news after one hundred and fifty years. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t her fault that her great-great-great grandmother had been a crazy witch. It wasn’t her fault that it was in her blood and that she had taken an oath when she was too young to know the difference.
She had known though the day that Drew stood up for her that they had been tied together somehow. She hadn’t had a clue about the rest of the story until her grandmother had called her mother recently.
“What is the answer?” Brendan screamed at her. “How is this curse of Lezetta’s broken?”
“You have to love and be loved in return, full heartedly, no fears, no uncertainties. Lezetta believed that it would be impossible with you being “dead” and all. She even killed your only family member that you had left, Mary Ann, so that there wouldn’t be any cracks in the system. Every curse is just like a promise though. If one is made there has to be a way to break it eventually.”
“ Promises should never be broken, Liza. Why else would they be a promise? Why bond yourself if you have no intentions of holding to it?”
“I agree to a point. I made a promise when I was 13 years old and thought that I knew everything to always uphold to the laws of the sisterhood and to stand by them as if they were my only family. I broke that promise the night that I put that flyer on Drew’s door. I knew that she would be perfect for you, before I even met you.
She has a way about her that I’ve neve r seen with anyone else. She isn’t afraid of anything in the world except herself, and men, living ones anyway. She has been through hell and back and the worst I hoped would happen was that she would get frightened and leave. My Nana knew what would happen though. She saw it somehow a very long time ago and never told anyone. My grandmother has a very special gift you see. She envisions things. Not just anything but special things.”
Ghost of a Chance Book 1 in Above the Grave Trilogy Page 17
