Ailish drew a long, low breath. “These are dreams.”
“No. Not hardly. Not at all. We suspect my psychic gift allows me to unveil or . . .” He slowed down. This is where he drew the crazy look. “Best we can determine is my gift allows me to enter a past life that would otherwise remain hidden to the average person.”
She held up a hand. “Whoa. I was with you until time travel. So . . . black holes, wormholes . . . string theory, is that where we’re headed?”
Pete stopped talking and stared at his sneakers, feeling like a guest star on the set of Doctor Who. But skepticism was understandable. Having studied numerous time-travel theories, Pete honestly didn’t buy into any of them either—at least, he did not perceive them to be the explanation that applied to him.
But because he also couldn’t shake the feeling that Ailish wasn’t simply any person, Pete countered, “Einstein himself professed that time is an illusion. Relative, ‘it can vary for different observers.’ Let me, uh . . . let me show you something.” Cautiously, Pete pulled up the edge of his shirt, poking at the knot of flesh in his abdomen, revealing multiple scars. “I can’t explain any of them. Not in a way that can be defined by the things we know or accept. But it seems, I am that observer.”
She considered the visible marks from another life but said nothing.
“Obviously, I can’t prove the origin of what you see. And it’s asking a lot for someone to believe these scars aren’t the aftermath of my present-day war zone encounters.”
Her questioning expression didn’t shift.
“I do have documented blood work from years ago. There are antibodies in my blood that belong to an eradicated strain of influenza and even traces of a crude tetanus vaccine.” He paused, giving her a moment to rebuff him. “So . . . what the world would label impossible, the St John household attributes to another life—one I lived about a hundred years ago.” Conveying deeper facts to someone he barely knew, Pete felt stripped bare. He exhaled the breath he’d been holding. “Are you ready to toss me curbside?”
She tucked a piece of wavy red hair behind her ear. “Is there more?”
He was taken aback. It seemed like that should be enough. “Well, like I said, the drug from the kidnapping, it had an uncanny effect. Not only did it widen whatever portal I have access to, it triggered other . . . events.”
“Events?”
“Another person.”
“What sort of . . . person?”
“A woman. After the propofol episode, I began to experience profound visions . . .”
“Or visits.”
Her acceptance surprised him. “Yes. Since that time, I’ve experienced a deep loop of recurrent visits. They all involve the same person, a single sequence of events . . . and outcome.”
She shifted on the sofa, the leather crunching beneath her.
“Her name is Esme. And I . . .” Pete ran a hand through his hair. “She meant . . . means a great deal to me.” He was back to staring, her hazel eyes doing the same. Hell, if it were all in reverse, if this were Ailish Montague’s story, he might have quit at the kidnapping part of the tale. Of course, she wasn’t entirely removed from the things he said. With the visit from Zeke, she’d had her own vague taste of the ethereal and enigmatic. Verbally, he trod forward.
“The thing is, I believe Esme is someone I loved very much in that other life.”
“Esme.” The way she repeated her name, it sounded like she was trying it on.
“She was beautiful and fiery. Hair,” he said, his hand coming forward of its own volition, almost touching hers, “shades lighter than yours. Until recently, I didn’t know much else about her. What I felt . . . feel for her drives a lot of emotion. That and . . . well, the one episode I continue to relive.”
“You’re saying she doesn’t appear like an apparition.”
He shook his head. “That’s the thing, much of what’s frustrated me for years. There’s a distinct divide between Esme and the war versus present-day spiritual entities. There were no ghosts connected to her or that period. Not until recently.”
Pete explained how this trip home had prompted something new. That Esme’s spirit had spoken, been present, even if it was ever so brief. “And then there’s the house.”
“The one in East Marion.”
“That’s where memories and ghosts started to collide. I can connect certain objects inside that house to my other life: the saddle and the truck. The postcard and the beach you were on last summer. The one you photographed.”
Having reached the part where Zeke’s niece seemed to play a part, Pete opened the camera bag and inside zipper. He withdrew the postcard. “I visited a place called Walberswick a couple of years ago. It’s in England. While there, I created some images similar to this one.” He handed her the old postcard, his mother’s ghost gift.
“‘When I spent two weeks on this beach, I didn’t dream of you then. E.M.’” She didn’t move, other than the bob that swam through her throat. “Interesting coincidence.”
“What you said to me outside the bungalow, the phrasing on the card?”
“I was thinking more about the initials.”
“E.M. Esme. Actually, Esmerelda Moon. That’s her name.”
Ailish’s hazel irises looked into his. “And the same initials as mine.”
“Yours? How so?”
“When I introduced myself at the bungalow, I said my given name—you didn’t catch it?” He shook his head. “Ailish is my stage name. My agent, Kimball Studios, thought it had better cachet.”
He furrowed his brow.
“It’s my middle name. Everybody—well, everybody who’s not Topher or Evangeline or looking to hire me . . .” She fidgeted. “Everyone else, my parents, friends from home, they call me Em.” She made eye contact with Pete. “My name, it’s Emerald Ailish Montague.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Pete had no chance to respond to her bombshell. The apartment door opened and he startled as if being woken from a dream. A woman dressed in high heels and attitude slinked forward, a shopping bag hung from each arm. She stopped, hooking a finger around the bridge of her trendy sunglasses and drawing them down her thin nose. “Oh. You didn’t say anything about company.”
“Caroline.” Ailish . . . Emerald stood. “I ran into . . . an old friend of the family. This is Pete St John.”
She removed the glasses, looking him over. “You’re from Vegas too?”
Pete glanced back. She wasn’t model ready, unlike Ailish’s other friends. Tiny brown eyes and fine hair, features that rendered as unremarkable. She had wide ears and wore a form-fitting red dress.
“I’m stereotyping,” Caroline went on, “but who’s really from Vegas, right?” She laughed. “Other than Em, of course.”
The use of Ailish’s given name made Pete pay attention, and her roommate kept right on going.
“Personally, I’m not sure there’s such a thing as ‘Vegas roots.’ It’s not like my family. We can document our lineage all the way to my father’s great-grandmother—New Yorkers through and through.”
“Well, I’m not from Vegas.”
It was like he hadn’t said a word.
“That’s where I get my performance gene. My great-great-grandmother was in vaudeville. Did Em mention I’m in Wicked? That said, I’d love to chat, but I have—”
“Call is at six.”
Ailish . . . Emerald, the way she spoke, Pete could see her teeth grit a bit.
“I’ll need to meditate—in here.”
Em pointed to a door so narrow, surely it violated the fire code. “We can go to my room.”
Caroline grabbed a bottle of Hildon from the refrigerator and brushed by them, turning as she talked. “I simply can’t break from my routine. Broadway expects your best every night!”
They exchanged places, Pete reaching for his camera bag, which she nearly sat on.
“If the two of you can keep it down. Noise is terribly disruptive to
the creative process.” And with that she turned on the television.
Pete glanced back at the roommate but followed Em. She shut the bedroom door and they were in total darkness. “What the . . . ?”
“Hang on.” A twinkling rope of lights lit, outlining the minuscule space.
At least he could see her. “Are you sure you’re not roommate four or five hundred?”
“You get what you pay for, and Caroline is what I can afford.”
“I think I’d rather get a room at the Y.”
“I checked. They won’t rent you one long-term. Anyway, $400 a month is unheard of in this city. I get to live in Manhattan, in a place that my parents don’t worry about.”
“That much I can understand.” The television volume rose and Pete thumbed over his shoulder. “I thought she was going to meditate?”
“Caroline thinks she meditates. Translation, three hours of binge-watching Dexter.”
“So a total slave to her craft.” He looked at the wall separating them. Then he looked back at her. Pete let the irritating roommate go and refocused. “Okay, so tell me which name you go by. Ailish or Emerald?”
“I’ll answer to either—or at least I’m trying to. But people who really know me, they call me Em. Caroline does because . . . well, it keeps me tied to my Vegas roots, and you see how much she gets off on stirring the pot.”
“Em,” he said.
“Em,” she repeated, as if it were permission.
Pete turned away from her and nearly collided with a wall. With no window, it felt like a walk-in closet and surely smaller than his parents’.
But the room was more than tight quarters. It was like a time capsule. The rest of the apartment was all Caroline. But this space was Em, and Pete felt as if he would have known it anywhere. It was Bohemian and bold, even in semidarkness, with swags of printed fabric hanging from the ceiling and an old leather-armed daybed as the only real piece of furniture. Stacked books served as a table. Above it was a low-hanging fluorescent light, and Em turned it on, providing a life source for a row of small potted plants. Where there wasn’t draping fabric, sketches were tacked to the walls, nudes and costumed figures. They fascinated his photographer’s eye. “You drew all these?”
“There’s no cable in my room. Internet is spotty.” She picked up a tiny mister, spraying the plants. “I spend a lot of time in here.”
“I’ll bet you do.” He continued to take in the tight but busy space. Aside from eclectic, the room was a slight mess. Em shuffled by folded clothes stacked on the floor, and he looked away as she plucked three bras from a stretch of white string. It ran from the edge of one swag and was tacked to the outer wall in clothesline fashion.
“Sorry. Yesterday was laundry day.”
Pete forced in a deep breath. “There’s not a fireplace behind one of these walls, is there?”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
The narrow bed was unmade, and she threw the covers up, attempting to straighten the tangle of sheets. He thought maybe it was the surprise of an unexpected guest, but it looked more like fidgety nerves, maybe the things he’d told her so far. The photo album Em had taken from the bungalow sat on a vintage steamer trunk, along with a mug, an empty yogurt container, and a script.
“I’d say it’s usually not such a mess in here, but that’d be a lie.” She turned toward him. “I haven’t told you one yet.”
“Neither have I.” Of course, I haven’t gotten to the worst part either . . .
She pointed to the daybed. Unless their location was an elevator, it seemed awkward to remain standing, and Pete wondered if he should have insisted on the lobby. Yet the room seeped into his senses, and Pete sat on one end of the daybed. Em sat at the other, pulling a throw pillow onto her lap. The postcard remained in her hand.
“So you see how it’s almost the same,” Pete noted, “what you said to me at the bungalow. ‘I spent two weeks on this beach . . .’”
“I agree. I also forgot I said that to you, my exact words. But now, seeing the postcard . . .” She looked from the card to him. “At the time, my remark was just flip. Now it doesn’t seem so . . .”
“Random?”
“Something like that.”
A closet was located opposite the bed. She kept glancing toward it, the same way Pete had looked again and again at the old barn. While Em’s gaze was on alert, her body relaxed, sinking farther into the corner of the daybed. Pete sat in almost a military pose, acutely tuned in to the things he was beginning to fear about himself.
“I agree that what I said about the beach was more than coincidence. But I’m not sure what you want from me.”
He reached for the camera bag and slipped his hand inside—carefully. The picture of Esme was room temperature. “To start with, I want to show you this.” He withdrew the beautiful black-and-white photo. “It’s Esme.” They traded paper images.
“Esme,” she said, the pitch in her voice rising. “She’s pretty—delicate.”
He glanced between Em and the photograph. The two women didn’t favor each other physically—Esme so fair and fragile, but maybe that was her pose on the chaise, the deadly memory in his mind. Em’s presence was more in line with her personality: bold, verbose, striking. She ran her fingers, blunt-tip nails, over the embossed corner of the picture.
“Royal Photography, NYC. They did good work.” Her nervous smile flickered at Pete. “Can’t imagine what a portfolio shot like this would cost nowadays.” She turned over the photograph. “‘Esmerelda Moon. One year, five months before her death. August 1917.’ Wow. That’s, uh . . . so she died, this Esmerelda Moon—and so young?”
“She did. When I was going through the rolltop desk, I found that photo in a different album.”
“Is that why you freaked out when I touched it? You didn’t want me to see it. Why?”
“Not because of that photo.” Pete reached into the camera bag again. “These are the pictures I didn’t want you to see.” He held the strip out to her.
“Oh my God. How incredibly awful.” After absorbing the front, she turned it over. “‘Esme. Just to show. January 1919.’ Who would do this to her, and why would they photograph—” Her gaze shot from the images to Pete’s. “Wait. You don’t think you . . . ?”
He tried to shuffle farther down the bed, but Pete was already pinned to the footboard. “I have no memory of it. I don’t relive doing that to her.” He said this as if in defense, pointing to the raw images. “But I am positive I took those photos—believe me, I recognize my work and handwriting.” On the steamer trunk were a pen and pad of paper. He picked them up and wrote Esmerelda’s name in cursive.
“Oh geez. It’s . . .”
“Identical.”
She nodded, and Pete sucked in a breath, his smaller confession coming on the exhale: “It only seems logical that I’m also the one who . . .” He hesitated. “Did that to her.”
Em didn’t say anything, but she sat up tall, her surprised look saying, “Maybe we should have gone to the lobby.”
“Add it to other things I’ve learned in recent days. I know Esme’s whole name and where that photo was taken. I know the month of her death, the year. And now I know her ghost—something that never occurred prior to this trip home. I need to figure it out, the specifics.”
“Have you tried googling her?”
“Actually, yes. Unless you’re interested in larger period events, like the sinking of the Titanic or the crash of twenty-nine, the Internet isn’t very useful.”
“I see your point. But why would you need me for any search pertaining to Esmerelda Moon?” It sounded more like a challenge than a question.
Pete didn’t have an answer for her, just an instinct. He also knew he was holding out on the worst part of his story.
He was quiet and Em continued to stress her lack of relevancy. “I’m not like you, Pete. I don’t see the past or the dead. I’m just a girl trying to make it as an actress in New York.”
“Maybe,” he said softly. “Or maybe you’re a puzzle piece. A big one.”
“Okay, forget me for a second. Explain your theory. You must have one. In your past life, why do you think you would have . . .” She held out the photo, avoiding the words. “Done this to Esmerelda Moon?”
“There are the go-to reasons, hot temper, jealousy, an out-of-control fight. But more recently . . . well, I’m starting to think a different theory plays into my actions.”
“And that would be?”
“PTSD. Something I’ve seen in my travels as a photojournalist. Something a soldier from World War I might have suffered.” He paused. She continued to stare, willing words from his mouth. “A condition and mind-set that isn’t absent from my present-day life.”
“How so?”
“When I return from visitant episodes, the reentry is always shrouded in violence . . . out of control.”
She bit down on a thumbnail, her fair brow knotting. “And your new evidence, the postcard and me, that’s the only thing linking your past life to me?”
“Well . . . yes.” While Pete believed that Em was somehow connected, he couldn’t quite put his finger on her persistence—like there was more. “Look, I’m a fairly solitary creature—someone who lives with so many ghosts, it doesn’t make me a good candidate for most relationships. And that’s okay. I have my work. Up until this morning, I had my parents.”
Em clutched the toss pillow tighter. “What did you do to them?”
Pete ran two fingers across his forehead; her grim conclusion made him shudder. Was she really so far off? “Nothing. They’re fine.” He thought it prudent to skip over his father’s bruised jaw. “It’s more about . . . let me try this from a different angle. It’s always been my belief that my mother’s presence, her gift—combined with mine—aggravates my proclivity to venture into a past life.”
Echo Moon (A Ghost Gifts Novel Book 3) Page 27
