by Bess McBride
Sara slept soundly beside me, and I envied Sara her fairly uncomplicated life of career as a teacher, engagement to a successful attorney, and mutual plans to have three children, one within the first year. No human life was without its difficulties, but Sara’s life came very close to near perfection. She worked hard at stability, much like our father, a retired college professor of economics. I took after my mother—a dreamer, an artist who taught art history at the local community college when she felt like it.
I rolled on my side into the fetal position and sighed. I missed my mother and wished I could talk to her. But they were out of reach on the cruise.
I shrugged mentally. I couldn’t discuss Darius with my mother at any rate, but it would have been nice to hear her voice.
Sara turned over and mumbled something unintelligible. I closed my eyes and hoped for sleep.
****
It seemed as if only moments had passed when I smacked my alarm clock to stop its incessant beeping and rolled out of bed, certain that I had not slept at all.
“Why is that thing going off?” Sara mumbled from under the covers.
“The plumber is coming this morning,” I answered as I fumbled in my dresser for a T-shirt and shorts and dragged them on. The breeze coming into the now sunny room felt wonderfully warm, and I welcomed the chance to wear shorts instead of the usual jeans suitable for cooler Pacific Northwest summers.
“You can sleep in if you want,” I murmured. “There’s no hurry to get up.” I left the room and paused in the hallway to listen for Darius. Dishes clattered in the kitchen, and I ran into the bathroom to rinse my face and brush my teeth before tripping down the stairs.
“Good morning,” I said breathlessly as I stepped into the kitchen. I caught my breath. Darius, in his light blue denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, continued to make my heart flutter.
“Good morn—” Darius turned from the stove and stopped short, his gaze riveted on my legs. “What in the world are you wearing?”
I looked down at my knobby knees.
“What? Shorts.” I looked back at him and saw a dull red stain on his cheeks. He looked away quickly and returned to stirring something in a saucepan on the stove. His back was rigid as he spoke to me.
“I would say they are very short, indeed. Do you sleep in those?”
I dropped my gaze to my shorts again.
“Sleep in these? No. They’re just shorts.”
“Do you mean to say you wear those in public?” Darius’s hand stilled, but he didn’t turn around.
“Well, yes, of course. This is the twenty-first century, Darius. We get to do a lot of things that women couldn’t do in the nineteenth century. Thank goodness,” I mumbled the last words.
“So it would seem,” he muttered.
“I heard that,” I retorted. Feeling somehow semi-naked, I stepped behind him to open the refrigerator in search of something to drink.
“Good,” he threw back. “I am preparing hot chocolate. Would you like a cup?”
I stiffened. I should say no, I thought.
“Sure.” I turned a shoulder on him and went to stand at the back door looking out onto the fields beyond, doing everything in my power to prevent myself from running upstairs and switching the shorts for jeans.
“The plumber should be here soon,” I muttered.
“Yes.”
I refused to look at him. Fine! If that’s how he was going to be...
“Some of the supplies should be delivered today. I’m not sure which,” I tried again.
“Good.”
I took a deep breath to loosen my jaw.
“You have lovely limbs. I always wondered...”
Startled, I swung my head to look at him, but he continued to stir the saucepan. The lobes of his ears beneath his chestnut hair glowed red. The corner of his mouth twitched. He raised his head and looked at me, the twinkle back in his blue eyes—at least for the moment.
“Thank you, Darius,” I choked, holding back a laugh. “So do you.”
“Nonsense.” He turned away to pour the hot chocolate into two cups. A third cup stood by. “Does your sister still sleep?” He kept his back to me for a moment. I sighed. It seemed as if I’d seen more of his back than his face over the last few days.
“Yes. She always liked to sleep in—ever since she was a little girl.”
I gazed at the curve in the small of his back, emphasized by the cut of his jeans. We’d forgotten to order a belt, I realized. Against my will—or maybe propelled by my will—I moved toward him and wrapped my arms around his waist, pressing my face against his back.
“I love you, Darius,” I murmured against his back.
Darius stiffened. I closed my eyes and savored the moment, fully expecting rejection. Warm hands covered mine.
“I love you, too, Molly. That will never change.” He raised the palm of my right hand to his lips before pulling out of my arms and striding past me out of the kitchen.
With an agonizing ache in my chest, I stared at the empty doorway. I heard the front door open and close—the sound so final—a wall between us.
“Oh, no, you’re not, mister,” I whispered as I roused myself out of self-pity. “I’m not letting you go.”
I ran through the living room and wrenched open the front door. Darius leaned against the railing on the porch. He didn’t turn around to face me.
I came to stand at his side but did not touch him.
“Darius. Please don’t walk away from me. I hate that. Don’t run from what is wrong with us. Stay and fight. Fight for me, fight with me. I don’t care which. Just stay.”
Darius dropped his head for a moment. His shoulders sagged as if my words took the fight out of him instead of challenging him.
“I cannot change what I am, Molly.”
“I don’t want you to change.” I quirked an eyebrow. “Well, I’ll admit to wishing you were...not as complicated as you appear to be, but I love you just the way you are.”
He turned to me then, the blue in his eyes darker than I’d seen. He took my hands in his and pulled me to face him.
“I would fight for you for the rest of my life if I thought I was the right man for you, my love—if I were not as I am.” A tremor ran through his hands. “But even I repulse myself. I shudder at the thought of what I must be.”
I moved against him, pressing myself into his arms. He held me against his chest in a tight embrace.
“How do we know you’re a ghost, Darius? Where is your tombstone? Are you buried in the cemetery?” I leaned back to watch his face.
“I do not know,” he said quietly.
“Do you remember dying?” My voice squeaked. What a stupid thing to ask. How did one remember dying?
“Molly.” He gave me a slight shake as if to snap me out of my fantasy. “Of course I do not remember dying. How could one know that? One moment, I was in the cemetery, standing over a grave, and the next moment, I was here...in your time.”
I grabbed the front of his shirt. “I know it’s crazy, but what if there is a chance that you traveled through time? A chance that you’re actually alive. Not...”
He covered my hands with his. His smile, though patient, seemed dubious.
“How would we know?” he asked with despair.
In unison, we both turned our heads toward the road at the end of the drive.
My heart began to race.
“No!” I said with an anxious look in his direction. “Absolutely not.”
“We must find out some day, Molly.” He squeezed my hands. “I will find out some day, Molly. Why not today?”
“Oh, no. That’s not what I meant. I don’t know what I meant, but no, no, please don’t go out there.” I gave his shirt a tug.
Darius cocked his head and bent to kiss my lips.
“If something feels wrong, then I will step back onto the property. I do not know what happens beyond the colors and the weakness. What if I wait it out? If I can make it to the r
oad without...disappearing, that will prove that indeed I am no ghost. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I am not...undead after all. Perhaps there is hope for us.”
He pulled my hands from his shirt and moved past me. I grabbed his hand.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I almost growled.
No match for his strength, I felt myself in tow as Darius stepped down from the porch and onto the dirt and grass drive. Marmaduke, having watched us with curiosity from the love seat, jumped down to follow.
“Darius, please don’t do this.” I tried digging my heels in, but Darius continued moving forward. I clung to his hand with all my might.
“Come, Molly. Watch over me. I may need you if I go too far.”
“No, I don’t want you to do this. What if you can’t come back? Stay with me, Darius. Please don’t leave me.”
We reached the end of the drive, and I pulled against him.
Darius turned to me and took my other hand.
“Molly, my love, I would not knowingly leave you. I cannot bear the thought either, no matter how much I threaten to do so.” He turned to look at the road. “But if there is some other recourse for us, I must discover it.” He raised my hand to his lips. “Watch for me, my love. If I begin to fade, come for me and bring me back.” He disengaged his hands from mine and turned resolutely toward the road.
Fighting back the terror that threatened to freeze me into place, I followed, trying to direct my focus on the task at hand. I had no doubt he would begin to disappear once again. Could I bring him back before it was too late?
I primed myself to jump.
Darius took several hesitant steps onto the dirt road. The rigidity of his body revealed the extent of his concern, and that frightened me even more.
“You don’t have to do this, Darius,” I whispered.
Darius looked down at his feet and turned to me with a hopeful half smile.
“I am still here,” he murmured. He raised his arms and gazed at his palms.
And then it began.
Chapter Thirteen
Darius’s hands took on a transparency that began to spread to his arms. His smile faded, and he turned to stare at me, alarm in his eyes.
“Molly!” he said urgently. His knees buckled as if he were about to faint.
“Darius!” I screamed as I lunged for him. I wrapped my arms around his chest as he sagged against me. I faltered. His weight was too great. I couldn’t pull him from the road. I fell under him, hitting the dirt with a thud, and Darius fell against me...at least what was left of him.
Sobbing with terror, I threw a frenzied glance over my shoulder. Only four feet to the drive. I could do this, I swore! Marmaduke ran back and forth across the entrance, meowing, tail twitching, the fur on his back standing on end.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sara running down the path toward me, shouting something, but I could not hear her words.
“Help me, Sara,” I tried to scream, but I couldn’t hear my own words.
A dizzying kaleidoscope of images flashed across my consciousness. Darius stood over a grave in the cemetery, blood dripped from my shoulder, long skirts hampered escape, a man shouted at me. I clutched at Darius, but I could not feel him. Our surroundings whirled around us like a vortex. The wind picked up and blew my hair around my face. Blackness descended, and I felt myself slump.
****
“Molly? Molly? Can you hear me?”
I lifted heavy lids to see Darius’s face close to mine. We still sat on the dirt road, but Darius now held me in his lap as he had that day at the cemetery. Had I fainted again?
“Darius?”
“Thank goodness you are awake, Molly.”
I jerked upright. Everything came back to me. Darius stepping into the road. His smile. The transparency of his hands. I stared at him with wonder and grabbed his shirt.
“Darius? Are you still here?” I looked past him and saw something that seemed completely out of place. I distinctly remembered a crop of corn growing across the road—tall, green, luscious stalks that swayed in the breeze. But now the corn was gone, replaced by a much shorter field of something resembling green hay.
“I am, my love, but I am not certain that we are where we were.” He followed my gaze. “Something is not quite as it was only moments ago.”
I pulled out of his arms and struggled to my feet. A wave of dizziness caught me by surprise. I put out a hand to steady myself and Darius caught it as he stood.
“Do you feel well, Molly?” he asked.
“I think so,” I murmured with a hand to my head. I looked over at the field of hay once again.
“Wasn’t a field of corn over there this morning? I could have sworn...”
Darius glanced over his shoulder and returned his gaze to my face.
“I think you should turn around, my dear. It seems you were right.”
I turned slowly, avoiding another wave of dizziness, and followed Darius’s gaze toward the house.
I gasped and squeezed his hand.
There, before me, stood the house—no longer sporting faded pastel paints and a dingy white porch. The house shone with fresh gray paint and bright white trim.
I took an involuntary step back. Darius grabbed me into his arms and steadied me.
“Where are we?” I mumbled, straining to focus on the house, though I had a feeling I knew. The small bushes separating the yard from the road in no way resembled the massive hedges I’d grown accustomed to. The tall oak trees to the right of the garden seemed little more than saplings.
“Well, my dear, it appears that we are at the house, but it seems we are now in my time. The house is as I left it. This must be 1880.”
I thought I might faint again, but the strength of Darius’s embrace kept me on my feet.
A rumbling sound from the left caught my ear, accompanied by snorting and wooden creaking. I looked down the road, and saw a wagon pulled by two horses.
“Is that a wagon, Darius?” I asked incredulously.
“Come, Molly, we must get you into the house. I may be able to explain your presence, but I cannot explain away your bare limbs.” While I gawked at the unusual sight, Darius grabbed my hand and whisked me down the dirt path toward the house. I threw a last look over my shoulder at the approaching wagon. A bent figure hunched over the reins, a dark wide-brimmed hat shading his face. He was still too far away to see distinctly. The jingling sound of the livery sounded as if it came straight from a Western movie.
I followed Darius toward the house in a daze past a fairly well-manicured lawn, the smell of freshly cut grass in the air. He pulled me onto the porch and strode toward the door. The white paint of the porch gleamed, accentuating the graceful dark black wrought iron furniture. Darius pushed open the door and pulled me inside with a quick glance over my shoulder. I followed his gaze, amazed that I could see the length of the road without the tall hedges. Two dark horses continued to mosey along the road as if the driver had all day.
Darius shut the door behind us, and I caught quick impressions of the house before I turned to Darius. The living room looked familiar yet different as Darius had furnished it with blue and rose upholstered couches and chairs. Delicate lace curtains fluttered in the breeze of the open windows.
“What’s happening?” I leaned into him, disoriented, confused, wondering if I was caught up in a dream.
Darius wrapped his arms around me.
“Mr. Ferguson, is that you? Where have you been?” The warbling female voice was soon followed by a plump matronly woman in a brown ankle-length dress with a white apron tied around her waist. She stopped short when she saw us.
Darius put me behind him—as if he could hide me.
“Ah! Mrs. White. It is so good to see you again. Have I been missing for a while?”
I peeked around Darius’s back to see that she stood stock still with her jaw gaping open. I don’t know who she was more shocked to see—Darius or myself. She seemed astonished to see us both.
“Oh, my goodness, Mr. Ferguson. We had no idea where you’d gone. You simply disappeared without a word.” I heard a note of reproach in her voice, but I also heard genuine affection and concern. I knew exactly how the woman felt. Loving Darius was not always an easy task.
“Yes, I am so sorry, Mrs. White. Circumstances beyond my control...” Darius kept me at his back and gave me a quick reassuring squeeze. At least, I hoped it was meant to be reassuring. If it were a warning to run, I didn’t act on it.
“And you said I’ve been gone how long?”
“Several days, Mr. Ferguson.” She wiped her hands on her apron and attempted to peer around him. “Bring the young woman out, Mr. Ferguson. No one is going to hurt her.”
“Yes, well, the problem is, Mrs. White...em...she has had a mishap and is not quite...properly dressed.” I almost burst out laughing to hear Darius struggling with this explanation. His first attempt wasn’t going very well.
“Yes, Mr. Ferguson. I can see from her bare legs that she wants for some proper clothing. Perhaps I could provide an old bed sheet or something until...”
“That would be lovely, Mrs. White. Yes, if you would be so kind.”
“I’ll take her upstairs with me, shall I, and help her with it?”
I gave Darius’s arm a strong tug, willing him not to leave my sight.
“Ahh...Mrs. White. Perhaps if you would just direct me to where you keep the spare bed clothing, I could assist her.”
Her expression of astonishment accelerated into a look of shock.
“Oh, Mr. Ferguson, I am sure that it would be more proper if I—”
I could feel Darius’s tension in his grip on me.
“You are right, Mrs. White, it would be more proper if you were to assist her, but I will maintain as much propriety as I can—given the unusual circumstances. Do you keep the old bed linen in the hall closet upstairs?”
“Yes, Mr. Ferguson,” she acquiesced. “Can I make you some tea?”
“That would be wonderful, Mrs. White. And then you may leave. Miss Hamilton and I will manage by ourselves for the rest of the day.”
