Ever After

by Odessa Gillespie Black

  “Then I don’t want to live.” I threw myself into his arms.

  Cole jerked back, but he was no match for me.

  I laced my fingers into his hair and pulled his lips to mine. “Please don’t fight me. I won’t say it. I don’t have to. You already know.”

  Our bodies melted together.

  “Hold him, Shelby. Please hold him,” I thought to her.

  Cole’s head jerked back with animal-like precision. He looked as if someone had slapped him in the face with an invisible wall.

  I wrenched myself free of Cole’s paralyzed body. I reached into my skirt pocket and clenched the stone.

  Cole stared out at me from a motionless body, a pained expression on his face. He’d never looked so betrayed, like a caged animal on his way to the slaughterhouse.

  “Come closer,” his voice spoke to me inside my head. “Don’t go. Please. I love you.”

  Well aware of Cole tricks, I stayed back from him.

  Against Shelby’s pull, he did his best to lunge for me, and I’d barely missed his muscular grip.

  “I know you’re horribly angry right now, and I know you’d probably make good on that death threat you made if you could get your hands on me,” I said.

  His face coiled into further frustration.

  “But you’ll forgive me when this is all over. My sister will never hurt you again.” I gripped the stone tighter in my hand.

  His face grew pale and his eyes sunk farther into his head. He was dying in front of me.

  I turned from him, no longer able to stare into those jade, betrayed eyes.

  My lungs burned as I scaled the steps on the back patio, raced past the rose maze, and darted by Cole’s cottage. Slipping and sliding down the hill, I hurried toward the pond gate. I held the Amiante with a death grip the whole way.

  I stumbled down the embankment steps, cleared the last four, and came to a wobbly landing at the bottom. Hovering three feet above my sister’s murky grave, the bridge creaked.

  “Grace!” I called out to the night.

  Left, right, behind me, before me. Nothing.

  The night sky had a sliver of moon left.

  Any other time, she’d be right there torturing the hell out of me.

  Water bubbled under the bridge. Through the slats, a green filth seeped through. A dark round shape with blackened hair formed from a silvery mist. When her lips were visible, Grace smiled. In seconds, the physical body of my dead sister dressed in a green algae-covered white burial gown suspended in the air just over the old wooden railing.

  “You have something that belongs to me.” The warm summer breeze carried her rotten breath.

  My stomach churned with revulsion and fear.

  “You may have my body when this is over, but you’ll never have his heart.” I smiled viciously at the zombie.

  “No, my dear. But if I’m inside you, he’ll have no choice but to love me,” she seethed.

  From the direction of the house, glass crashed and wood splintered. Hopefully, Shelby was strong enough to hold Cole.

  “You’d better hurry, Sister. It won’t be long. He’ll come to your rescue. Say the words, and say them like you mean them.” Her hateful voice was antagonizing.

  Thundering footfalls rumbled the ground from the path to the pond. The body of a black cat stretched over my head and landed between Grace and me. Gripping the Amiante, I readied myself for an attack when the large cat’s eyes turned on me.

  Its head made cracking noises, and its once diamond-shaped skull mutated until it adjusted itself into the perfect shape of Cole’s head.

  The rest of his body quivered and quaked, and in seconds, he raised his head. The irises in his eyes were still elongated ovals with sharp ends. They flashed green and retracted to the infuriated ones I’d seen so often lately. The muscles in Cole’s chest worked together, sleek, feline-like as he caught his breath. “Now, do you love me? This monster? This animal I become?”

  I tried to say the words, but shock took them. I snapped my mouth shut.

  “That’s good because that’s exactly what I need you to do. Keep your mouth shut.” Cole’s shoulders sagged. He turned to Grace. “And as for you, you conniving, heartless bitch, this is over. You didn’t anticipate that your curse would backfire. She doesn’t love me, so go back to where you came from. Hell.”

  Grace’s ghastly form hovered closer to Cole. He held his arms out as if to block me from her, as if that would do any good. She’d find a way around him.

  I knew this as well as I knew deep down in my soul that no matter what sort of being Cole could become or what he’d done in his past…

  “I’ll always love you, Cole. Nothing will ever change that,” I said softly, finally finding my voice. I looked up to the moon. Still a wink of light. I steeled myself for what was about to come.

  Cole swung around, his eyes wide with horror. “No. Please, no.”

  Grace’s lifeless body dropped to the planks of the bridge with a sickening thud. Her remains rolled over into the water, bobbing at first, then sinking into the depths of the blackness. The light golden-silver glow of her soul levitated beside us.

  Cole’s hands dropped to his sides and agony filled his face. He shook his head slowly back and forth, and a single tear made a path down his cheek.

  “If you don’t breathe, my life means nothing,” Cole whispered through a strangled sob.

  The golden-silvery glow entered my chest.

  I lost feeling and everything went black. Grace’s mind took control of my body.

  “I told you we’d be together again, Cole. Don’t you want to kiss us,” Grace said, using my vocal cords.

  This was why Cole would never have allowed me to say I love you. Grace would have been inside my body, using me as a puppet.

  Cole’s face went slack as his body shook.

  All Grace’s energy was drawn to my hand where I still hadn’t lost grasp of the purple stone. I couldn’t move my mouth to warn Cole.

  “I love you.” Cole’s voice scared me. An apology? He lunged toward me, and when our bodies connected, he wrapped his hands around my throat. His momentum sent us busting through the loose wooden railing of the bridge. Cole’s fingers squeezed tighter as we sank.

  I didn’t have time to gasp before I’d taken in a mouthful of water.

  When the last of Grace’s soul had entered the stone, I finally had control of my faculties, but Cole was too strong. I gulped helplessly for air that wasn’t there. The water singed as it entered my lungs. Air bubbles left my mouth as I sputtered and frantically shook my head no.

  With the Amiante so close, Cole had no way of knowing I wasn’t possessed. It kept him from reading my thoughts.

  I screamed, but my cries were muffled.

  We sank in slow motion.

  Every second felt like minutes as I struggled against him. My energy faded, and blackness took root. When we reached the bottom of the pond, Cole’s body crushed me into the mud, holding me there. His arms moved around me, as his body shook with sobs.

  A bubble left my mouth. My eyes wouldn’t blink.

  Seven seconds after you die, thought processes still continue. In those last moments, flashes of times I’d spent with Cole replayed.

  In the crowd of people outside the house.

  In his arms by the pond.

  The day he’d asked me, in vain, not to fall in love with him.

  When his lips had met mine with the whisper of a kiss.

  And then my time in his arms at the waterfall.

  As life left me, the flashes came faster. Him leaving the cave, him beside the motel.

  Him.

  Him.

  Him.

  Darkness.

  I floated high above the pond. There was no trouble breathing. No pain.

  Cole pulled my limp body from the water and dragged me to the side. His face was completely blank.

  Shelby and Kaitlyn scram
bled toward him. They tried to pry me from his arms, but he wouldn’t speak and wouldn’t let me go.

  Cole pulled me into his arms. My head fell against his chest. He rocked me as Shelby and Kaitlyn pulled at me.

  “We can do CPR. Move Cole. Let us try!” Kaitlyn tried to push him away.

  Cole looked right past me to her. His voice was eerily calm. “It’s too late. I held her under for over five minutes. She’s gone.”

  “Cole, you idiot. Please, tell me you didn’t. I told you she had the stone.” Shelby punched his shoulder.

  “Grace entered her and spoke to me using Allie’s mouth. She’s gone. So leave us alone.” Cole’s face twisted.

  I wanted to tell him that it was okay. That it didn’t hurt anymore.

  “Move. Now.” Shelby’s voice was cold.

  Cole looked back down to me and ever so gently arranged my body on the grass.

  It was so strange to see my eyes so wide but so blank. In fact, everything felt so numb. I had no feelings as I looked on the three of them.

  Cole stood over the twins beside me as Kaitlyn began CPR.

  I should have been rooting for them, but the preoccupation of looking for a white light to walk toward overcame me. No light. Just darkness and people working over my body below.

  I existed between time, space, and reality. Sort of how I’d existed until I’d met Cole.

  Numb. Cold.

  Cole looked to the Heavens. “I vow that if she ever finds me again, I will run with every ounce of speed the animal gives me. I will hide. I will fight the pull, Allie. For you, I will fight to stay away.”

  Cole turned and walked with purpose toward the barn.

  He swung the long barn doors open and pulled the light switch on. Light fell over the barn in a weak glow. From a rack on the far wall he took down a spool of thick rope. When he looked satisfied with the strength of it, he wrapped the rope into a loose knot that would slip easily. He tossed the rope over the rafter, and the noose swung back and forth like a pendulum. Cole came out of the darkness with a stool.

  * * * *

  Someone had poured my lungs full of gasoline and lit me on fire.

  I coughed and sputtered until my lungs had to have landed on the ground beside me somewhere.

  “Thank God in heaven.” Kaitlyn burst into tears.

  The stunned girls jerked me up into their arms. They looked ghastly.

  What the heck had they been doing? What happened? Why was I wet? Why in tarnation were the girls huddled over me, bawling like babies?

  “You’re not dead! You’re not dead! We were so scared,” Kaitlyn said, slapping my arm almost painfully. “If you ever get attacked by another ghost, I’m putting your ass in an iron chamber. You hear me.”

  Shelby sat back dazed on the ground. Had she been hit in a fight? Her hair was everywhere, her eyes were bloodshot and swollen, and her hands were covered in mud.

  “What happened?” I struggled to sit up.

  “You don’t remember? You were here. I felt it.” Kaitlyn’s green eyes were wide. She pushed her hair out of her face and pulled a stray strand from her mouth where the wind had blown it.

  I shook my head slowly, ice sinking to the pit of my stomach. “Oh, no. Cole.”

  Cole was about to hang himself.

  The girls’ eyebrows furrowed, but the presence of the Amiante at the bottom of the pond made it hard for them to read me. Not to mention they’d exhausted their gifts.

  I had no time to explain.

  Shoving the girls back, I jumped up, and raced toward the last place I’d seen Cole. When I rounded the edge of the barn, Cole had just climbed onto a stool.

  A noose hung against the backdrop of the dimly lit rafters. Splintered wood and wads of dried hay surrounded the stool.

  He’d just dropped a gasoline can and placed the rope over his neck.

  Gasoline filled my nostrils. I choked out a sob when he pulled a pack of matchsticks from his pocket.

  “No, wait!” I rushed into the barn.

  Cole stumbled on the stool as I leaped toward him, but he regained his footing, the match still in his hand. His eyes burned with hatred as he turned on me. His hand shook as he held the match out. “Back away, Grace.”

  “No, you don’t understand. It’s me. It’s Allie. Not Grace. I swear. It’s only me.” I waved my hands in surrender. If he kicked the stool from under him and was successful lighting the match, I’d never be able to get to him fast enough. “If you light that, I’ll burn with you trying to save you, and we’ll have to start all over. And for nothing. We beat her. We did it, Cole. Please, don’t do this.” I took one more cautious step toward him.

  “Not one step closer, or I’ll light it. I’ve died so many different ways, now, that death doesn’t scare me, Grace. You’ve watched before. You can watch again.” His face twisted in hatred.

  “I know why you did what you did,” I said, hoping to reach him, hoping to make him see. For an instant, I had felt Grace inside me, and I knew how bad it would have been to share any part of my life with her, especially the part I loved most. “And there’s nothing about you I don’t love. I may not understand it all right now, but if you come down from there, you can explain it all to me. There’s nothing we can’t work through, except you dying needlessly.”

  Cole’s hands began to shake, the matches close to falling from his hands. “I have to say, you’ve stepped up your game. You’re getting good. You’ve even got her tone of voice down pat. How long have you been studying her? Is that what you were doing when you weren’t tormenting her? Memorizing her every move, her every breath?”

  “Let me prove she’s not inside me. Come down. Please.”

  Cole’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “No.”

  Oh my God, was he two?

  That was it. I couldn’t take anymore. I’d been endlessly pursued by a demon ghost for the better part of a month, given the runaround by the man I loved,—who by the way, was not human—been drowned by him, and brought back to life by a narrow margin. I swung around.

  “Fine. You know what? Whatever, Colby Kinsley. Whatever. Just make sure you get the fire hot enough to burn your bones. I don’t want to be molested by a skeleton in the next life, too.” I turned to slam into Shelby and Kaitlyn.

  “Wait,” Cole said.

  I stopped, nostrils flared, heart hammering. My fist tightened into a ball. I kept my back to him. If he didn’t come down from that ridiculous stool, I’d scream. “What? You’re not on fire yet?”

  “Grace would have never handled me like that.” Cole still sounded unsure, but a bit too cocky.

  “I’m sure you two love-birds argued all the time.” Refusing to face him, I crossed my arms.

  Shelby and Kaitlyn slid to a stop in the barn door.

  “You’re not helping your case much.” Cole’s voice had a smile in it.

  From behind me, the plop of Cole’s feet connected with the ground.

  My heart slowed but my blood still boiled.

  With amused grins, the girls backed out the door. Kaitlyn gestured toward the house.

  I nodded. I wasn’t done being pissed, but I exhaled a semi-thankful sigh. I kept my back to him.

  Cole stepped around me, pulled the barn door shut, and slid a wooden lever into place, locking the rest of the world away.

  “Have I talked you off the ledge yet?” I asked, animosity still strong in my voice.

  “I’m not sure.” He turned a cold but breaking glare on me.

  My heart raced again. “And if I can’t convince you she’s not inside me, what happens?”

  “We go out together.” Cole pulled the book of matches from his jeans, a flash of stomach showing in the movement, and showed them to me. He shoved them back in his pocket. Moving carefully around me, he went back to the stool. He took a seat, his legs stretched out in a V. The gasoline was still wet on the hay all around him.

  “You’re so dead set against
a happy ending. I don’t think I could convince you.” My heartbeat thundered in my ears.

  “There’s only one way to find out if it’s only Allie inside there,” Cole said, his palms flat on his long legs. The grass green in Cole’s eyes darkened to a hunter green, and he lowered his head as he stared at me.

  I melted under that gaze. My legs went spongy.

  “Come here.” Cole’s velvet voice took hold of me, and for a few seconds, my legs wouldn’t respond.

  If we lived through this, I would suggest he seek professional counseling beyond my scope of focus. Where was our fairy tale ending? This was all wrong.

  But Cole had never gotten to experience the fairy tale ending, had he?

  I looked down, afraid to meet his gaze as I inched toward him.

  "Come closer.”

  Taking quick, uneasy breaths, I stepped between Cole’s knees where his hands were still on his legs. With me standing and him sitting, we were the same height.

  Cole tilted my chin up.

  My tear-filled gaze met his.

  With the speed a cat would strike a helpless mouse, Cole’s hand slipped into my hair. He cruelly jerked me to him and used his other arm to capture my waist.

  I let out a quick gasp of surprise.

  “Shy. Nice touch. If you’re in there, Allie. I’m sorry.” Hesitantly, he closed his eyes and kissed my nose.

  Looking down, a tear slid down my cheek. I didn’t know how to beat her. Grace was winning even in death. I turned my face from him. His hand in my hair didn’t stop me immediately. He was no longer forceful. Cole gently tugged my gaze back to him.

  “Allie?” He looked deeper into my eyes and the mean, cruel Cole left.

  Through tears I didn’t mean to let go, I finally broke. “My name is Annabeth Rollins, born 1864. The first time I saw you, you were carrying a sack of manure to the fields. I offered to help, but you called me a half-pint little girl, and then you dumped the manure on my shoes. I should have hated you, but I couldn’t. The first time you kissed me, you cried.”

  Cole toppled off the stool, eyes wide. He pulled me from the gasoline soaked hay. Once out, his shaking hands slid up the sides of my face, his electric green gaze sparkling.

  “Oh my god. I’m so sorry.” His wide eyes reddened as he pulled my face closer. Our foreheads touched, our eyes locked.