Shades of Winter

by Linda Fallon

Garrick jerked away from her, ran to the stove, and grabbed a cast iron skillet. He rushed up behind Jerome and swung the skillet at his head. The weapon swept right through Jerome’s image.

  “Go away, you son of a bitch,” Garrick shouted. “Leave her alone.”

  Jerome turned, faced Garrick, and swung out an insubstantial arm. The unexpected force of the blow knocked Garrick to the floor.

  “What do you want from me?” Katherine screamed. “Why can’t you just go and leave me in peace?”

  Jerome dismissed Garrick, who rose slowly to his feet, and turned to Katherine. “You don’t want to be left in peace,” he answered calmly. “I still live in here …” he reached out, and his hand went through her body. “In the heart.”

  “No,” she protested. “I don’t love you. You managed to kill any affection I might have once had for you. You might as well have killed me,” she whispered. “Because you made my life a living hell.”

  “I can, you know.” He moved so close she lost her breath. “I can kill you any time I want.”

  Garrick grabbed the skillet he had dropped. He didn’t head for Jerome this time, but for the small window. He reared back as if to strike. Before he could smash the glass, Lionel’s face appeared in the window.

  “No!” Lionel shouted. “Don’t break the window!”

  Garrick paused in mid-swing. “Katherine needs to get out of here.”

  “You’ll never fit through that window,” Katherine argued.

  He turned to her. “No, but you will.”

  “You can’t break the window!” Lionel said again. “Stay here. Buster and I are going to try to find Elijah’s house.”

  “Take Katherine with you,” Garrick insisted.

  Lionel tried to open the window from the outside, but had no more luck than Garrick had had. “Sorry,” he finally said. “We haven’t been able to open any of the first floor windows. Just wait here.”

  “But her … her damned husband is here.”

  “Ignore him, if you can,” Lionel instructed. “Remember that he wants your fear.”

  Katherine covered her face with her hands.

  “Ignore him,” she said against the palms of her hands. “How can I do that?”

  Garrick dropped the skillet and Lionel moved on. He and Buster were heading to Elijah’s house. In the dark and the cold. And they didn’t know the way, not really. Elijah would’ve left a trail in the snow, but would they be able to see it in the dark? What if they never came back?

  “Look at me, Kat,” Jerome said. “Look at me!”

  “No,” Garrick said, as he came to her again and took her arm. “You’re going to look at me, not him, and we’re going to talk about something else.”

  “What? What on earth could we talk about that would make me forget that the ghost of my dead husband is watching?”

  A small table filled one corner of the kitchen. There was one chair. Garrick made her sit in it, facing the table and the wall. Then he sat on the edge of the table and looked down at her.

  Jerome sat beside him.

  Katherine kept her eyes on Garrick. He smiled wanly. “Did you know that my mother is not really my mother?” he asked. “Before Lucien announced it, did you know?”

  “Oh, Garrick.” She laid a hand on his knee. “Of course I didn’t know.” Suddenly the hand seemed much too personal, much too intimate. She withdrew that hand and placed it in her lap. “You don’t seem too terribly surprised.”

  “Kat,” Jerome whispered. “Look at me. We aren’t finished. We will never be finished.”

  Garrick tilted his head to one side. “It explains a lot, actually. I have always suspected that Mother hated me, just as Lucien said. She never said anything to make me think that, but there were times when I just knew. She always blamed me for her poor health, said her pregnancy was terribly difficult.”

  Jerome whispered. “Your mother was a whore.”

  Neither of them acknowledged the ghost.

  “What are you going to do?” Katherine asked. “Are you going to let her and your father know that you’ve discovered the truth?”

  “I don’t know.” Garrick smiled down at her. He did have such a nice smile, even if it was understandably strained. “I might just decide to pack up and leave Plummerville altogether.”

  “Where would you go?” For many years she had not particularly liked Garrick. He was rich, for one thing. That wasn’t his fault, but she had worked so hard for every little thing in her life, while he’d had everything he needed or wanted given to him. He took nothing seriously, it seemed. Life was a lark. Nothing about that life was difficult. It simply didn’t seem fair.

  But lately they had become friends, thanks to the Plummerville Ghost Society. It was amazing to her that she could have a male friend. Jerome had made her hate them all, at one time. Men were all the same. They were mean, abusive bastards who always had to show a woman that she was weak, and that he was the one who commanded her.

  “West,” he said. “I would like to find a town where I’m more than a rich man’s son. Where I can do something on my own. In Plummerville, nothing I have is my own, not really. Father’s mill, Father’s house, Father’s money.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I think it would be nice to have something of my own. I guess that sounds selfish.”

  “Not at all.”

  “It’s just that as long as I stay in Plummerville, no matter what I do I will always be Douglas Hunt’s son, and everyone I know thinks I’ve had every good thing in my life handed to me on a silver platter.”

  She felt a warm blush rise to her cheeks. She had thought just that. “It sounds like you’ve been thinking about this for some time.”

  “The thought of leaving comes and goes,” he confessed. “Mostly, it goes. Leaving and starting over would be difficult”

  “Kat,” Jerome said angrily. “You’re mine. You will always be mine. Isn’t that why you still wear black, so everyone will know that you’re mine and always will be?”

  She wore black to remind her of the hell she’d lived through with Jerome. To remind herself, every day, that he was really and truly dead.

  “Where out west?” she asked, ignoring Jerome.

  Garrick shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.” He winked at her. “Why don’t you pick a place and you can come with me.”

  Katherine shook her head. “No. I’ll never leave Plummerville.”

  “Why not?”

  “I hold her there,” Jerome’s ghost whispered. “I gave her a house that has become her prison. She’s branded as mine, and she knows better than to think she can ever have a life somewhere else.”

  Her life was her prison. Jerome was the jailer. She couldn’t ignore him any longer. “I hate you,” she whispered. “I hate you so …” Garrick grabbed Katherine’s hand, pulled her to her feet, and wrapped an arm around her waist before he kissed her.

  He kissed her. Soft and tender even though he held her so tight she couldn’t move away. Inside her, something hard and icy melted. She grew warm. Her body tingled. It had been so long since she had been kissed … and she had never been kissed like this. Her own mouth began to move against his. She felt this kiss down deep. It moved her. It made her want more.

  She jerked her head away and raised her hand to slap Garrick soundly across the face. “How dare you?”

  His answer was to kiss her again. She returned the kiss, for a moment, and then she jerked away. Garrick imprisoned her wrists in his hands so she couldn’t slap him again.

  “I’ve wanted to do that for years,” he confessed.

  Katherine was stunned. “You have? Why?”

  He smiled at her. “Why? You’re the most beautiful woman in the county, for starters. You’re sassy and fierce, which did give me cause for alarm at one time, but I’m beginning to like that about you. And did I mention that you’re beautiful?”

  “I’m not beautiful,” she whispered. “Not at all.”

  Garrick shook his head. “How can you say
that? Everything about you is beautiful.”

  “Just a few months ago you said I scared you.”

  “You do,” he whispered. “You definitely scare me. You make me want things I shouldn’t want, dream dreams I shouldn’t dream.”

  Chills ran up and down her arms. She did like Garrick, more every day. But she could never take another man into her life. “I’m sure when you head out west you will find many other beautiful women along the way. You’ll meet someone else who makes you … dream.”

  “Maybe I won’t go west. Not for a while, anyway.”

  Was Garrick saying that he’d stay in Plummerville?

  For her? Katherine leaned forward to kiss him once again, but she stopped before her mouth met his. Who was she kidding? “I think you should go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere for a while,” he teased. “It looks like we’re stuck here.”

  “I mean you should go west,” she snapped. “I think you should get out of Plummerville once and for all.”

  “You do?” he asked with raised eyebrows. “How can I court you if you’re in Plummerville and I’m thousands of miles away?”

  Courting? The very idea gave her cold chills. “You can’t court me. We’re not … well suited.”

  “How can you say that when we’ve just begun?”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “We haven’t begun anything!”

  “Yes, we have.”

  He kissed her again, laying his slightly parted lips over hers. A part of her wanted to fight this feeling that washed over her, but another part, the part of her that had once hoped for a better life, accepted and cherished the sensations and the hope.

  But it wasn’t real and it wouldn’t last. “I don’t want a man in my life,” she insisted.

  “Since we might never set foot outside this damned hotel, I don’t think we need to talk about forever just yet,” Garrick said. He grabbed her tight and pulled her close. He sat on the table, she stood before him. “We’ll take it slow. Maybe try another kiss.”

  “Garrick …” He cut off her argument with his mouth over hers. She didn’t fight it. She did want the kiss. No one had ever kissed her this way, and no one ever would again. For now, she would just enjoy this closeness and store the memory of this kiss and the way he held her to draw on in darker times.

  He was right; they might not survive the night. She didn’t want to spend her last night afraid, the way she’d been afraid all her adult life. She wanted, for once in her life, to feel truly good. To hold onto a human being who wanted to hold onto her. To kiss, and touch, and talk about packing up everything and going west. So she gave herself wholly to the kiss, and she held onto Garrick with all her might.

  Deep inside, a spark of hope came to life. How strange, to have found that hope again when matters were so dire. She made herself forget the dire situation and concentrated on Garrick’s lips. On the arms that held her. On the luscious way he smelled and felt and tasted.

  A few minutes later, she realized that Jerome was gone.

  Eleven

  Daisy stood in the center of the room, hands clasped tightly before her. Lionel and O’Hara both said Scrydan was in the hotel itself, in the walls and the furnishings and even the floor. She wiggled her toes nervously. She couldn’t do much about her feet, but she didn’t have to touch anything else!

  O’Hara was apparently not worried about such things. At the moment he sat on the bed, on the edge of a bare mattress. Until just a few moments ago he had paced, quick, even steps, the heels of his shoes clipping against the floor. He had even stopped pacing to place the palms of his hands on the wall once … but he hadn’t held them there for long. He’d pulled those talented hands away from the walls as if touching them had burned him.

  “So,” she said conversationally as O’Hara left the bed, shooting to his feet once again. The man was never still for long. “What is your given name?”

  “What?”

  “I need a way to pass the time,” she explained.

  In the corner, their ghost laughed. Moreen was not alone. The ghosts Daisy could not see clearly kept coming. They had begun their entrapment with only Moreen to haunt them, and now there were at least three other ghosts here. They laughed, moved about, sent cold drafts circulating through the room. As the minutes ticked silently past, their number grew.

  O’Hara saw the apparitions, too. Given his experience, perhaps he saw them more clearly than she did. His eyes went from one to the other as he walked toward Daisy.

  She could see the ghosts quite well, much better than she wanted to, even though they remained less than substantial. They walked through walls, appearing and disappearing in that remarkable way. The haunting spirits were primarily women, she noticed, but there were also soldiers and men dressed in fine suits. Thankfully, they did not venture toward the center of the room, where she and O’Hara stood. The ghosts lurked in the shadowy corners and against the walls, hiding so that when she tried very hard Daisy could almost convince herself that they were figments of her imagination.

  O’Hara moved closer to her, in an almost protective manner.

  Daisy pursed her lips. She couldn’t think about what she saw around her. She couldn’t stand here and wonder who these ghosts were, what they wanted, what they would do before the night was over. It was all too shocking, too unreal.

  So she thought about the man before her. O’Hara was such a cretin! Her request concerning his name was small, her curiosity larger than the situation called for, perhaps. Since she might not live until morning, she didn’t think it was too much to ask! Oh, why was she so curious about O’Hara’s given name?

  “Obviously you don’t want to discuss your name,” she said.

  He continued to study the ghosts that remained in the corners and against the faded walls. “Not now, Daisy,” he hissed.

  “I’m supposed to stay calm!” she explained. “I’m supposed to look at these things around us and not be afraid! How can I do that? Can’t we at least try to … to ignore what’s happening here and carry on a normal conversation?”

  “You’re right,” he said softly. “We should do just that.”

  “If you refuse to tell me your name, perhaps you can explain to me how putting your hand under Eve’s skirt could possibly be an accident.” Ha! Surely he would prefer to discuss his name than to try to justify something so crude and unforgivable.

  O’Hara sighed. It was actually more of a groan. He took another step toward her. Oh, he was almost too close. “It had been more than a year since Lucien … forgot to show up for their wedding. More than a year, and she was still so sad.”

  “So you decided to cheer her up by …”

  “May I finish before you rake me over the coals?”

  Daisy pursed her lips. “Of course.”

  “Thank you.” O’Hara reached out a hand as if to touch her, but he let that hand drop before it came too close. “Eve was so unhappy. She did her job and she did it well, but the sparkle was gone. She was hiding inside herself, trying to pretend that it didn’t matter that the man she loved had forgotten her.”

  “I still don’t see how being crude and improper …”

  “You will,” he interrupted sharply. “Just be patient.”

  She could be patient. Daisy threaded her fingers together and moved up onto her tiptoes. She kept her eyes on O’Hara’s face, as she tried to ignore the spirits and the sparks of unnatural light in the room.

  “So,” he continued. “There she was, standing by the second story railing, looking over her notes, scribbling something in the margins. In my defense, it’s true I had had a little bit too much wine with supper and was feeling a tad lightheaded.”

  “You were drunk,” she clarified.

  “I suppose,” he admitted. “But that didn’t make Eve any less melancholy. I wanted to bring that spark I remembered back into her eyes. I wanted to make her care about … something. Anything. So I walked up behind her, pretended to stumble, and slipped my hand up her leg
.”

  “That’s so incredibly ill-mannered,” Daisy said.

  “But it worked.” She could hear the smile in O’Hara’s voice. “Eve was furious. She hit me with her notes and kicked me in the shin.”

  “Good for her.” Daisy looked O’Hara square in the face. Yes, Eve had gumption, something she herself did not possess. Every confrontation was a major event for Daisy Willard. She was mollified to know that Eve had given O’Hara what he deserved.

  “It would kill her to lose Lucien again,” he said in a more serious tone of voice, making Daisy immediately regret her momentary pleasure at the thought of his pain.

  The ghosts, and there were more than a half dozen of them now, left the corners. Bits of shadow and soft light as well as almost substantial forms, they moved toward the center of the room where Daisy stood with O’Hara.

  “They’re coming,” she said, taking a step closer to O’Hara.

  “They can’t hurt you,” he said calmly. “Remember that.”

  “I’m afraid,” she whispered.

  The ghosts did not descend upon them. They stopped several feet away, in a circle surrounding the couple, and played out their horrid deaths in silent reenactment. A man in a nice suit drove a knife into a half-dressed woman’s chest. One soldier turned on another and wrapped his hands around his comrade’s throat. One female ghost sneaked up behind another and slit her throat, and a man drew a gun from his waistband and started to shoot. The entire spectacle was silent and bloody, and Daisy shivered as she watched each scene unfold.

  O’Hara reached out, grabbed her, and pulled her against his chest. “Don’t look,” he said.

  She gratefully buried her face against his shoulder. Had she once thought him too short? He was just right, for her. Her face fit into his shoulder perfectly, and here she didn’t have to see the spirits that haunted this hotel. And it was nice, to be held. It was nice, not to be alone at this terrifying moment. She only hoped he was right and the ghosts couldn’t hurt her. Or him.

  Daisy grasped O’Hara’s jacket with both hands, hanging on tight. Even though she tried to stay calm, it was impossible. She began to tremble. Even with her head buried against O’Hara’s brown jacket, she saw the bits of light that twirled around them, a ghostly arm, a hand clutching a bloody knife. Heavens, she could hardly breathe!