by Jessie Olson
Crap. Lizzie shouldn’t have opened that Pandora ’s Box. “But what if he just keeps repeating his bad behavior over and over?”
“Then he isn’t good enough to be mine forever,” Meg looked up as the waitress brought over the wine and poured three glasses. “Alec McCaffrey isn’t good enough. And he isn’t good enough to still be a subject of our conversations.”
Lizzie took a sip of her wine and darted her eyes once more to the lobby. Nora was still on the phone. “Do you really believe that it’s possible?”
“I don’t know,” Meg shook her head honestly and lifted her wine glass. “Like Nora always tells me, it’s easy to use fate as an excuse to not make an effort. But, there is a comfort when you lose someone to think that you will meet them again.”
“Yeah,” Lizzie nodded as she saw Nora head back to the table.
“Mark says hi,” Nora slid back into her side of the booth.
“Everything okay?” Lizzie looked to see if her expression indicated any stress. Nora didn’t hide emotion as well as Lizzie did.
“Everything is wonderful,” she beamed, still the glowing newlywed. Lizzie focused her eyes so they wouldn’t tear up. She was still as happy as she was on her wedding day. The happiness Lizzie found that day was a distant dream, clouded with all her thoughts about Lily.
“Thanks for the present,” Lizzie looked at the envelope, wondering how she could bring herself to visit an historic inn with Ben now.
“You’re welcome,” Nora acknowledged the waitress who returned with their salads. Then she lifted her glass. “Happy birthday, Lizzie.”
Meg clinked against Nora’s glass and then Lizzie’s. “Happy birthday. May this be your best year yet.”
Lizzie made herself smile and immediately took a bite of salad. If she opened her mouth to any more words, she knew she would cry.
*****
Lizzie knocked on the door to the gift shop, certain she saw movement through the curtained window. “Lizzie?” Paula opened the door.
“Hi Paula,” she entered the vacant gift shop. Even though she often sat there without any customers, it had a different feel on a day the museum wasn’t open. “I think I left my phone here. Did anyone find it yesterday?”
“No,” Paula looked at her. “I didn’t see it at the reception desk.”
“I remember taking it out to look at the time on my last tour. Do you mind if I go upstairs and see if I left it there? I looked all over the place and haven’t been able to find it anywhere else.”
“Do you think you left it at the restaurant?” Paula asked, making Lizzie scan her memory for any time during her party when she might have used her phone.
“Nope,” she smiled, almost annoyed with herself that she could lie so easily. “I even checked the pub where we had drinks. I think this is my last hope.”
“I haven’t done a walk thru today,” Paula explained. “If you want to look, go ahead.”
“I shouldn’t be very long,” Lizzie emphasized the flirtatious as she started walking down the corridor towards the great room. She followed the steps of her tour, but decided the second floor was her destination. She didn’t really know what she was looking for, or thinking she might see… or feel.
She stopped in the guest room and lifted up the shades. If Charlotte was a visitor, that was the room in which she would have spent her time… with her lover. Lizzie looked at the posted bed and its lumpy straw mattress. The coverlet was yellowed and worn thin. From what? No one used that bed in at least a hundred years. How could the fabrics be so worn? Lizzie knew the answer had to do with dust and insects and air quality. It probably wasn’t even the same coverlet that Charlotte would have seen. Lizzie looked about, seeing more dust in the expanded sunlight. She let herself touch the post at the foot of the bed. She closed her eyes and breathed in slowly, wondering if something… something might enter her mind. Did Charlotte really seduce Lily? Was there really a Lily? Lizzie slowly sat on the mattress, forgetting her disdain for the antiquated stuffing. She imagined a woman getting dressed… but she knew the pulling of corset strings was her imagination. It wasn’t a memory.
Lizzie heard movement from one of the offices on the third floor… in the old servant quarters. Maybe she could contrive a visit to Paula’s office. It wouldn’t be too difficult. There was nothing about the converted space that resembled where someone like Lily might have slept. She left the bed and walked across the room. The dresser had a few hair pins and worthless pieces of jewelry the curators thought made a display to suggest a woman might walk in to get ready for dinner. In a glance that lasted more than two minutes, the pieces looked old and abandoned on top of the ratty lace that covered the mahogany. She went to the dresser and pulled open the drawers she knew were empty. The top drawer was swollen with humidity and required extra effort to close. Lizzie added an extra push and looked up to make sure she hadn’t disturbed the mirror hanging above it.
The mirror was old and had a murky reflection. She could see the circles under her brown eyes and even the last hint of pink dots inside the curve of her neck. Did Lily look in this mirror and lament the teeth marks on her skin? What did she look like? How could Lizzie know? No detail like hair color surfaced in her memory. There would be no photograph in 1815 and no portrait of a servant. Would Ben tell her? He said he recognized Lily in her. Was that because she looked like her? Did she have long dark hair and brown eyes? Were her cheeks rosy against pale white skin? So many people fell for Lily… she must have been prettier than Lizzie. How could Lizzie have been her?
She left the mirror and went towards the window. She looked down at the grassy lawn, abutting the small parking lot. Once there was a garden full of Margaret Fulton’s favorite flowers, with hedges to hide the house from the street bustling with horses and carriages. But that too wasn’t a memory. She read that in an article by the garden curator in the monthly newsletter two summers ago. The room, like its view of the outside, was just a shadow of something that she studied for several years.
“Did you find it?” Paula disturbed Lizzie from the window.
“Oh no,” Lizzie returned to her pretense. “I hope I didn’t lose it.”
“I could try calling you. Maybe we’ll hear it ring.”
“No, I think this was a desperate attempt,” Lizzie said in vague enough truth.
“So did your boyfriend like the information about his ancestors?”
Lizzie swallowed and paused before trying to speak without emotion. “I haven’t… it was a busy weekend.”
“Your friends threw a nice party,” Paula smiled. “Did you take today off from the hospital?”
“Yeah, I took the whole week off to spend time with …” Lizzie faded. “Especially seeing that I worked on my birthday.”
“I would have given you the day off, Lizzie.”
“And miss that cake? No way,” Lizzie wondered what Ben did with the cake she dropped on the floor with all the papers about his past. Her past.
“I’m sorry you didn’t find your phone.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Lizzie shook her head. “Paula, we don’t know about any of the servants, do we?”
“The Fultons’ housekeeper, Annie. There was a cook,” Paula didn’t mask her surprise at Lizzie’s abrupt topic switch.
“But the maids… or a butler, perhaps?” Lizzie added carefully.
“No.”
“Hm.”
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. I was just thinking about how much dust there is here… and who had to clean it.”
“Sorry Lizzie,” Paula shrugged.
“Maybe they didn’t want us to know who they were,” Lizzie sighed. “Maybe they were content being invisible.”
Lizzie left the Fulton House without any more tranquility than when she went there. She didn’t know what she expected to see… or hear… or know. She knew that Charlotte was real. That Harriet was fond enough to write her a letter. She could prove that she married Horace Fulton.
Her maiden name was Chester… or maybe not. Maybe she changed her name like Ben and Oliver changed surnames when they opened the mill. If Ben was right. If she was a vampire. Why would he lie? Why would he tell her that when she had absolutely no clue of the connection between him and Charlotte? Why would Ben make up a story about Oliver being so madly in love with Lily that he killed her twice? He had more reason to not tell her. Lizzie wondered if he never saw those papers if he would have told her.
He never liked to talk about Oliver. Was that the reason? Was it the danger? But with the danger came another truth. Oliver was in love with Lily. Did he love Eloise, a fourteen year old orphan? Lizzie once thought that Oliver gave her extra attention… was it really because she was someone else nearly two centuries before? Then it wasn’t Lizzie. Lizzie wasn’t a servant in the Fulton House… and yet… she was. She dusted and cleaned the furniture. She led guests through the house and talked about the owners as if they were revered gentry. She was the closest thing to a servant that one could be in the 21st century.
But if she was meant to relive Lily’s life… why was she with Ben? And not Oliver?
*****
She shut off the ignition and took a glance in the rearview mirror. She appreciated the lightness and red tint of her new bob. It was a ridiculous impulse, especially when she glimpsed at the receipt she signed. But she needed to do something, anything to make herself not what she was. She breathed in and looked away from the reflection, feeling the heaviness of her soul weigh her down again. She worked so hard to change herself over the past two years. She ran 13 miles after barely being able to run 1 mile. She lost weight. She lost the part of herself that hated how she looked. Why did she suddenly feel the necessity to change it again? Even if she was Lily, cutting and dyeing her hair wasn’t going to make that part of her go away. It wasn’t the same as losing 75 pounds. Lily and her tragedy would not go away with diet and exercise.
She collected the other bags from her mindless retail extravagance. It managed to pass the afternoon and enough of the evening that she could hear the crickets as she left the car. She turned onto the walk and saw him on the front steps. Her heart leapt to her throat with the relief that he was there. But the anger still lingered.
“What are you doing here?”
“You cut your hair.”
“Yes,” she couldn’t think of the million things she wanted to say to him. The questions she wanted to ask. The accusations she wanted to scream. All she could do was wilt.
“Elizabeth…” he stood up from the steps and touched her arm. “I wanted… here, this is for you.”
Lizzie set down her bags to take the small package. She knew it was a book. She knew before uncovering it that it was an old book. She turned the embossed cover to a title page in small font indicating a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets. “Ben,” she breathed in a sob. She looked up and couldn’t stop her eyes from releasing the tears she tried to hold back.
He looked at her as if expecting her to say something. What? She felt more flustered and cried harder as her inability to articulate a clear thought overwhelmed her. Did he expect her to remember? Did he want her to forget? Why was he giving her a book?
“I meant to give it to you yesterday,” he pulled her into an embrace. “I wanted to take you out for brunch and… Elizabeth…” he tightened his arms around her as she cried even more.
“I don’t want to talk. I’m tired,” she said when her eyes finally exhausted the tears.
He stepped back and smoothed away the short strands of hair that stuck to her wet cheeks. She wouldn’t look at his eyes. She knew there was something there. A challenge to make her think, which she didn’t want to do. She shut her eyes and went up the steps towards the door. She held the screen door open behind her as he picked up the bags she left on the walk.
*****
Lizzie stared at her clock. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to stay still. The comfort of her bed, even in her un-air-conditioned room was impossible to leave. Ben lay beside her. His arm rested casually over her side. He was cool. He still hadn’t fed. She wondered if he was thinking about her or her blood.
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” he sighed heavily.
“Ben, I…”
“I don’t know what I am supposed to tell you. Death is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. I don’t know if you are supposed to know these things… if I should tell you or just let you lead your life.”
“Do you want me to know?” Lizzie kept staring at the clock.
He stroked her hair tenderly. “I hoped you would remember something.”
“To prove you were right about thinking I was Lily?”
“I knew you were Lily at Springs,” Ben moved his hand quickly as she shifted her position to look at him. She sat up slowly and clutched a small pillow to herself. “You wrote a story for an English project and described a parlor with the exact detail of the Fulton House. Not like it is now, as a museum, but as it was in 1817.”
“I did?”
“Do you really have odd sensations when you walk through there?”
“Sometimes,” Lizzie looked at the pillow and picked at a frayed string. The first time she went through the Fulton House she thought it resembled all homes of the early 19th century. She figured she had seen pictures… not that she was actually there before. She looked at Ben and softened her eyes. “I went there today. But I didn’t… nothing came to mind.”
“It isn’t important now.”
“Isn’t it? Isn’t there some reason I’ve gone back there? That I was born in New England again and went to the high school in the town where you wanted to settle with Maria and brought Oliver to start over? Isn’t there some significance to all of it?”
“Maybe… is it worth the worry to think about it so much?”
“I want to understand. I don’t want to be afraid.”
“You needn’t be afraid.”
“What about Oliver?”
“Oliver won’t hurt you.”
“But he…” Lizzie still couldn’t bring herself to admit his contact on Facebook. “If I stay with you, he will stay away?”
Ben sat up straight. She saw a look of hurt in his eyes, although not completely comprehending her last statement. “Do you want to leave, Lizzie?”
“I haven’t let myself think that,” she looked back at the frayed string. “I don’t know how I could because I love you more than I’ve ever let myself love anyone.”
She said it. Not the way she hoped. Not in a happy or passionate moment. She was exhausted. She was confused. She could barely control her actions, much less what she said. It was a moment of clumsy truth. She was afraid to say anything else, afraid it would make her too vulnerable and too exposed.
Ben took her hand away from the pillow. He kissed the top of her fingers and turned it over, looking at the gauze taped inside her palm. She saw him swallow hard and moved herself towards him, moving her hand to take hold of his chin to pull him into a kiss. She felt the breathlessness and let him push her back against the bed. Lizzie moved her hands down to his belt and then her jeans. She moved her lips away from his and leaned her chin back to whisper in his ear. She kissed the outside of his ear and lifted her arms to press him into the curve of her neck. “Take my blood,” she felt his breath and waited for the cut of his teeth as she writhed her hips against his.
He suddenly pulled back from her and lifted himself on the strength of his arms. She saw the burning look she yearned to satisfy, but with it was anger. Lizzie regained her breath and disregarded the anger. She lifted herself back up to meet his lips and moved her kiss down to his neck exposing her skin to him again.
Ben pushed her suddenly down on the bed, restraining her arms with a tight grasp above her elbows. The pain inside her hand awakened as the anger overtook the hunger. “No, Lizzie,” he said harshly. She tried to move herself up again but he kept her down. “Don’t.”
“Ben,” she cried.
“It isn’t
healthy,” he glared at her, keeping her in his rigid grip. The sound of laughter came up the stairwell and could be heard beyond the door. Lizzie heard Jackie and Meg muffle their whispers, making their words unintelligible. She heard their doors close separately, not letting her eyes leave Ben. She tried to lift herself once more but he maintained his force. She finally wilted in resignation.
Ben stepped back and readjusted his clothing. “I should leave.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he took in a deep breath. “You need rest. You’re anemic,” he explained. “It hasn’t been eight weeks. And you bled quite a bit yesterday.”
“But what I just said… Ben… doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
He looked at her, his eyes still seething. “It means everything. And that is why your safety is more important to me than it ever was.”
“Do you fear my safety?”
“I worry about your health, Lizzie. Get some rest,” he kissed her gently on the top of her head. “I’ll go to the clinic after work tomorrow. Then… we can finish this,” he attempted a smile.
“Not if you go to the clinic.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Ben breathed out slowly and quietly left her room. Lizzie shut her eyes and fell against her bed, resuming her stare at the green numbers of her clock.
Lizzie wasn’t sure when she fell asleep. She watched the moon rise through the cracks in her blinds and knew at some point she faded out of conscious. She felt as though she was dreaming, but wasn’t sure how much of it was her unconscious or her own speculation of all that had entered her mind. She saw Oliver standing by the fireplace in the kitchen of the Fulton House. He was wearing a bike shirt with an Adidas logo. She went through the entirety of her tour trying to think of something, anything that would prompt an idea or thought or memory of Lily. She thought of Harriet’s glassy stare in her portrait but couldn’t imagine the painted image as a flesh and blood human. She couldn’t see Charlotte.
