Deception

by Lee Nichols

  I’d only gotten one braid unraveled when Bennett walked in. He looked gorgeous in a gray canvas motorcycle jacket over a black T-shirt and jeans. He smiled, and for a moment I thought he was happy to see me, then noticed myself in the mirror again and realized he must be laughing at my hair.

  “Emma’s not ready,” Natalie said.

  “No?” Bennett said. “Looks ready to me.”

  I yanked the rest of the rubber bands from my head. “I’m not going.”

  “What? Why not?” Bennett asked. He looked at Natalie. “Did you forget to tell her?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “I just can’t.” I grabbed my peacoat and shoved a black newsboy cap over my hateful hair. “Any news about Martha’s killer?”

  “That’s one thing I wanted to talk about.”

  I slipped into my boots at the door. “Is that a yes?”

  He shook his head. “It’s a no. I’m sorry.”

  “Then I’ve gotta go.”

  “Emma,” Natalie said, “don’t be like that. We’re going to the harbor for oysters. Come with us.”

  Bennett watched me intently, but said nothing.

  “See you,” I said, and shut the door behind me.

  Tears welled in my eyes as I stumbled downstairs. When I got outside, I realized I had nowhere to go. So I walked, wandering around the village, past the harbor to Redd’s Pond with its hateful dunking-chair contraption where they’d tortured witches. What kind of town made that a tourist attraction? I wondered, thinking about the original Emma. Then I went out to the Neck and back again, until I stopped because my feet hurt.

  And I found myself outside the gates of the Stern House Museum.

  I saw the outline of the house through the trees, the windows dark but the white columns of the grand facade still visible. I wondered how Anatole and Celeste and the Rake were doing. I’d promised Nicholas I’d find him another Game Boy cartridge, but had never delivered.

  Why had I come this way? It only reminded me of Martha.

  Maybe that’s why I’d come. I needed to be reminded of Martha. I couldn’t ignore what had happened.

  I needed to stop pretending I was someone I wasn’t.

  While I stood on the sidewalk, lost in thought, the sky suddenly opened and rain poured down; lightning blazed and thunder roared. We never had this kind of storm in California. I shoved open the gates and ran down the drive to take shelter in the front portico of the museum.

  I stood a moment, cold and wet. Inside, I could get Anatole to bring me hot tea, Celeste to run me a bath, and Nicholas had mad skills with a fireplace. But that would break my current no-ghost policy.

  So I stood there, shivering. Then I laughed. “This is ridiculous!”

  I closed my eyes and felt the familiar warm tingling that summoned a ghost. Anatole, I need you. Please open the door. Celeste, I’m freezing! I could use some dry clothes. And a fire, Nicholas.

  I didn’t bother compelling them—they were happier when asked.

  A moment later Anatole opened the door and I punched in the code to the alarm that Bennett had taught me.

  Ma chère. He smiled and twirled his mustache. I am so pleased to see you.

  Anatole, I said. If I could hug you, I would.

  Emma! Celeste ran down the stairs. I mean, Miss Vaile! You are too wet. I’ve already started ze bath. Come upstairs. Nicholas is in ze den lighting ze fire.

  Are you hungry? Anatole asked.

  Starved, I said. What isn’t a bother to make?

  Well, I suppose I could make something from ze spa cookbook?

  I giggled. Never! I don’t know what I was thinking when I gave that to you.

  Well, then, he said, pleased. There is a good cheese and some eggs. Yes, I think I perhaps will whip up an omelet.

  That would be divine, I said and let Celeste whisk me upstairs.

  I climbed into the half-drawn bath, warmed my icicle feet under the faucet, and gingerly lay back against the still cool porcelain of the claw-foot tub. I closed my eyes. It was good to be home.

  26

  By the time the hot water ran out, I was sufficiently toasty. Wearing the terry-cloth robe Celeste left, I padded downstairs into the den. Nicholas had started a fire and Anatole had left a plate of fruit and crackers. As I nibbled a grape, Nicholas wandered in with the Game Boy.

  I held out my palm. Let me show you.

  I can’t get past level 85, he complained.

  Of Tetris? I asked. Then you don’t need my help.

  He grinned, for a moment looking like any normal preteen boy. Then Anatole shooed him away as he came in with my omelet and Nicholas disappeared in a puff of ghostliness. So much for normal.

  I smelled fresh herbs and onion as Anatole placed the silver tray on a table by the fire. He wasn’t bothering me, I told him, then forgot all about Nicholas as I dug into the omelet. Heaven!

  Bon appétit, ma chère.

  I finished the omelet and the grapes, enjoying the sound of rain against the windowpane. Maybe I shouldn’t be here—without invitation, without Martha—but it’s where I belonged.

  I wandered into the hall and passed Mr. Stern’s study. I thought of the swords and the Rake. My body missed our daily spars. Then a sudden concern hit me. What if he hadn’t gotten away from Neos?

  I ran into the ballroom and couldn’t find him. I raced around the room, my bathrobe flapping around me, and—

  He appeared, lounging on the piano bench.

  I tightened the robe. You’re okay?

  I am indeed “okay,” he said, mocking my slang. And yourself?

  We didn’t kill him.

  I failed you. He gestured at his own ghostly presence. This pathetic form. When I was alive, I ate wraiths for breakfast.

  No. You were perfect. Thank you.

  Come along, he said.

  He led me through the corridors to the door of the front parlor, where Martha had been killed. After eyeing me a moment, he walked through the wall into the room. I stood there staring at the closed door, unable to lift my hand to the knob.

  I imagined I still smelled the charred wood, the tang of Martha’s blood. I still felt the chill of seeing her lying there, dead beyond summoning. Natalie had said that when ghostkeepers died, we died forever. Our spirits couldn’t linger. But if we could, I’d raise Martha and—what?

  Fall into her arms? Ask her how to find Neos?

  No. I’d beg her forgiveness. “Forgive me, Martha,” I said, and opened the door.

  I stepped inside and found the Rake standing where she’d lain. I crossed to him, trying to ignore the bloodstains underfoot.

  You’re not afraid? he asked.

  I was terrified, but I’d be damned if I let it stop me. I walked a circuit around the room, trailing my finger along the back of the silk-covered couch. When you were alive, you fought wraiths?

  And ghasts. Yes.

  Then you were a ghostkeeper.

  He bowed his head in agreement.

  But you’re here. You’re a ghost. I thought when ghostkeepers died, they couldn’t come back.

  When I lived, I was a ghostkeeper. When I died, I wasn’t. He stood beside the couch. Come, sit.

  That meant he was in a formal mood—waiting for me to sit before he did, despite the fact that I ran around in a bathrobe.

  The men who hired me, he said, who accused Emma of witchcraft—they were not pleased when I fell in love with her, and even less so at our betrothal.

  A memory flashed in my mind. You asked her in the gazebo outside of her house.

  Yes. We’d both been married before, but our spouses had died young. Not uncommon at that time. She had two children, I had one. You’re descended from her son. His eyes softened at the memory. Then his expression changed. Do you know what happens when a ghostkeeper kills himself?

  I shook my head.

  He is lost. He lingers forever, severed from the Beyond—going slowly mad. Turning into an eternally twisted thing, a pitiable creature.
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  I swallowed. You’d think someone might’ve mentioned that.

  The men who hired me caught me alone. They horsewhipped me within an inch of my life, then told Emma they’d nurse me back to health and do it again. And again. Down through the years. Unless she paid the price.

  A feeling stirred in me—a fierce, bright anger, and an unbreakable iron will. It was Emma’s memory. They wanted her to kill herself.

  Yes. They gave her the poison. What do you think she did?

  I knew what she’d done. She drank.

  Sentencing herself to eternal torment, to save me a few years of pain.

  What did you do?

  I broke my bonds, he said. And the first thing I did, as she lay dying, was gather her into my arms and plunge a dagger into her breast. I killed her.

  You saved her.

  I killed her.

  So she wouldn’t linger forever!

  But he wasn’t listening. Then I hunted them down. One by one. And killed them all.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I couldn’t blame him, yet it was still pretty gruesome. So we sat in silence for a time, listening to the rain, the darkening room lit only by the Rake’s faint glow.

  Finally, I said, I have her ring. I took the plain gold band from my robe. I’d been transferring it from pocket to pocket, never letting it out of my possession. I handed it to him. Your engagement ring?

  He ran his thumb over the smooth gold. She never wore it.

  But I remembered the moment I’d slipped on the ring, the rush of feeling. She always carried it close, I told him.

  Truly?

  Yes.

  He handed me the ring. Thank you. You could’ve been her daughter. Our daughter. I would’ve liked that. And then he dematerialized.

  I slipped the ring back into my pocket, thinking I would’ve liked that, too. I wished he hadn’t gone. I wanted to know more about his relationship with the original Emma and what she was like.

  Feeling restless, I wandered into Mr. Stern’s study and pulled one of the swords from the wall. I hoped if I showed up in the ballroom, the Rake would reappear and spar with me.

  But when I strolled across the hall, I found the living Bennett dripping all over the parquet floor. He stood there barefoot, his damp hair slicked back. His jeans were sodden and his T-shirt clung to his chest. If possible, he was even more gorgeous wet.

  I swallowed and pulled my robe closer together. “What are you doing here?”

  He half laughed. “Me? It’s my house. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  “Why?” I asked, suspiciously.

  “Because I was worried about you,” he said. “What are you doing with one of my dad’s prized swords?”

  I shrugged. “Practicing?”

  There was a glint in Bennett’s eyes. “Don’t go anywhere.” He stepped into the hall and came back a moment later with the other sword from his father’s study.

  “Oh, of course, you fence,” I said.

  “I went to Thatcher, didn’t I?”

  God, he must’ve been hot in his fencing whites.

  “Here.” He handed me the sword he’d brought in. “You’ve got the wrong one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They were commissioned for a couple, for the first Bennett and Emma. You have the male companion,” he said.

  I frowned. “But they weren’t married.”

  “Neither are we.”

  I was trying to make out what he meant by that when I gripped the sword. “Oh no.”

  I felt my body convulsing with memory and longing. My spine tingled and with that great whooshing sound the world spun away into the past.

  The ballroom looked remarkably the same as I spun around, taking in the pianoforte, ivory walls, and heavy velvet curtains glowing in the light of the candle chandeliers. Something brushed my shoulders, and I realized my hair was longer, and I was wearing an intricately woven silk robe with dainty little slippers. The amulet from my mother had been left back in the present.

  And Bennett stood beside me, dressed in tight-fitting buff-colored breeches and a white shirt with a high, starched collar. It appeared costumey, like all ghosts wore, but instead of an eighteenth-century gentleman, he looked more twenty-first-century rock star. And I was his biggest groupie.

  “Are you seeing this?” I asked him.

  He looked at me strangely. “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  I felt myself blush. “I think—I think we’re still in the ballroom, in our time. We’re sort of seeing memories. Their memories—Emma and Bennett. So, that’s why I look like this.”

  “That’s one theory,” he said. “Has this happened to you before?”

  I nodded.

  “With someone else?” he asked.

  “No.” For me, there was no one else.

  Bennett glanced around the room, taking everything in. I expected him to scold or blame me for transporting him back in time. Instead he laughed and lowered himself into a fighting stance. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  I saluted him. “Can’t touch this.”

  Bennett grinned as he returned the salute and we began. Back and forth, circling each other, probing and lunging, advancing and retreating. For the first time, I really understood fencing. It was a beautiful dance, executed with poise and flirtation.

  Until I caught my arm in the robe. “Wait,” I said, pulling away.

  I shrugged out of the robe, and stood there in the delicate white silk shift, with lace straps and a skirt that flowed to my knees.

  Bennett almost dropped his sword.

  I smiled in satisfaction. Advantage in.

  “If we’re getting more comfortable …” He took off his shirt.

  Advantage out.

  And it was stupid. Yeah, we were just fooling around, but my teacher would’ve had a fit at our lack of protection. Bennett was better than good, so I wasn’t worried about getting hurt. I, on the other hand, wasn’t so great. I think he felt the same, and was taking it easy when I saw an opening and used a crossover technique the Rake had taught me to nick him on the chest.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry!” I said.

  Bennett wiped at the little speck of blood. “First blood,” he said. “Where’d you learn that?”

  I shrugged. “This guy I know.”

  “Teach me?” he said.

  “Sure.” I showed him the pass.

  He mimicked me, uncharacteristically clumsy.

  “No, no,” I said. “Like this.”

  I stepped in front of him, my back to his bare chest. I felt the heat rising off his body, making me woozy as I grabbed his hand.

  He pressed closer, our bare skin touching. “Oh, you mean like this …” He crossed his arm over mine, locking me in his embrace, and executed the move perfectly, with more style and flair than I’d shown.

  “Um …” I could barely breathe.

  He flipped my hair over my shoulder. “I miss your short hair.”

  “Why? I’m growing it out.”

  “Because I like the back of your neck,” he whispered against it.

  Goose pimples ran down my spine. I turned in his arms to face him, nothing between us but the thinnest silk.

  “If only,” he said, “we could stay here forever.”

  The air was electric with that pre-kiss knowingness. My head felt light and my skin warm. I dropped my sword and slipped my arms around him as he bent his head toward mine.

  And we were back.

  Back in real time. In the real ballroom, wearing our normal clothes. Well, if you considered a bathrobe normal.

  He didn’t kiss me.

  The moment was over. He closed his eyes briefly and let out a long breath.

  “I wish things were different,” Bennett said. “That we’d met some other way. That you were just a normal girl and I … Why does everything have to be so complicated?”

  “Does it?” I asked. “Stay here tonight. With
me.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said, his voice rough.

  “I don’t want to be alone. Please.”

  “You can’t know how much I want to, but—”

  “Bennett … I need you. You’re the only one who understands all this. Who understands me.” I couldn’t let him pretend that there wasn’t something between us. I held my hand to him. “Stay.”

  He took my hand and we stood there for a long moment, silent and intense, the air filled with longing. Then he led me upstairs.

  Just inside the doorway of his attic bedroom, he stopped. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  He ran a finger along my collarbone, exposed by my open robe. “About you.”

  “Bennett,” I whispered. “Do whatever you—”

  “What’s this?” he said, his voice suddenly sharp.

  I blinked at his tone. “I—”

  He pulled my mother’s amulet from under my robe. “What the hell is this, Emma?”

  I shook my head.

  “Where’d you get it?” he demanded.

  “In—in my mother’s jewelry box.”

  “How long have you been wearing it?” He dropped the amulet like it had scalded him. “The whole time. The whole time you were here. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I knew you’d overreact and think my mom’s guilty. I had to protect her.” Maybe she wasn’t the best mom in the universe and I couldn’t understand why she had sent me to the poof, but she was still my mom. Despite the incriminating evidence, I couldn’t believe she was guilty. Even if she was, I’d wanted to know the truth before I turned over the amulet to Bennett or the Knell.

  “Protect her?” Bennett said. “How about protecting yourself? Why do you think the Knell hasn’t dragged you off? Because I gave them my word that you’re not involved.”

  “I’m not—and neither is my family.”

  “Emma, you have no idea—this could be the key to the murders. Don’t you want to find who killed Martha?”

  “I know who killed Martha. It was Neos. Why don’t you ever trust me?”

  “Because you do things like this ! You think I understand you, but I don’t. I don’t understand why you keep things from me. I don’t understand all your power. And, God knows, I don’t understand why I keep trying to protect you.”