Shifting Shadows

by Sally Berneathy

  “That’s as far as I got,” Analise said, carefully turning a page then continuing.

  “It’s been a week since I could come to visit Mama. I upset Blake again. I should have known better. Rachel told me the whole town’s talking about the horrible things Blake has been doing, some things his father would never have tolerated. He’s cut the workers’ pay and makes them work longer hours. He raised the rents on the company houses he owns, and he won’t fix broken windows or repair leaks in a roof or do anything to keep their homes livable. He fires the men if they can’t work because of illness, yet the long hours make many of them sick.”

  To Dylan’s amazement, he found himself becoming outraged over Blake Holbert’s treatment of his workers. It shouldn’t be tolerated. Someone ought to do something. He ought to do something.

  Ridiculous! he chastised himself. This wasn’t like him to get so involved in a story that might as well be fictional. The events had happened over a hundred years ago.

  “I asked him about it, and he became furious. He said I should pay more attention to my needlework and stay out of the world of men. He hit me and told me we’d go to town the next day so everyone could see that he managed his wife as well as his factory. I wanted to die when he paraded me around and everybody pretended not to notice.”

  Anger surged through Dylan at the man’s treatment of his wife.

  “But they all know. Mama came to see me the next day while Blake was at work. She cried with me and hugged me and told me she was sorry. So I guess there’s nothing to be done. I must learn how to keep him happy.”

  Analise turned the page, the rustling loud in the silence, and Dylan blinked, startled out of complete absorption. He took a deep breath, started to excuse himself and leave, run from whatever hypnotic spell she was weaving with this ancient book.

  But she read on, and he didn’t move.

  “Rachel’s family has a guest, Shawn Fitzpatrick, the most wonderful man I’ve ever met. He’s come from Chicago to organize a labor union here! He explained to me that means the workers all unite and force people like my husband to listen to their demands, to treat them fairly. We talked for hours, and I told him what little I know about the factory in the hopes that it would help. I barely had time to get back to Mama’s before Blake came for me. I know he’d be angry if he knew about Mr. Fitzpatrick.”

  Elizabeth had written effusively of the activities of the fiery labor leader, and Dylan could feel the man’s frustrations at all the problems, his excitement when they gained any small amount of ground. And he could feel the love growing between Elizabeth and Shawn, the forbidden attraction that wouldn’t be denied, so like what he felt for Analise.

  In the darkness he found himself becoming confused, found it hard to separate the people, the years, to remember he was Dylan, not Shawn, and the woman beside him was Analise, not Elizabeth. He wanted her as Shawn wanted Elizabeth, knew the same frustration because of the impossibility of such a thing. Elizabeth should leave Blake and go with him, let him show her what happiness could be, what love could be...what joys he could teach her about her body, such an enticing, responsive body, wasted on a man like Blake.

  “Blake found out I’ve been talking to Shawn. He said someone told him, but I suspect he was spying on me. My mood has been so much lighter of late, he likely became suspicious. I’ve never seen him so angry. This time he locked me in my room for four days and instructed the housekeeper I was to have nothing to eat but bread and milk. She managed to sneak in some other foods, but I had no appetite for them. Blake says if I ever speak to Shawn again, he’ll forbid me to see Mama and Rachel. I couldn’t stand that. I must be very careful to avoid Shawn, but my prayers will ever be with him.”

  Analise turned the page, then another and another. To her consternation, the final pages were blank. What had happened that Elizabeth had never written in her journal again?

  “That can’t be all!” Dylan snatched the book from her, flipped through the last pages so rapidly she feared he would tear them. He dropped the journal to the floor and clutched her shoulders. “I need to know what happened!” he demanded in that odd voice that wasn’t quite his and yet seemed strangely right.

  The beam from the flashlight she still held cast an eerie light on his face, distorting his features. Dylan, she reminded herself. This is Dylan, my neighbor.

  But the image of Shawn Fitzpatrick filled her mind. She could see him as clearly as if she’d really known him. His bright blue eyes sparked with as much fire as his red hair. His skin was pale, spattered with golden freckles. He was medium of height and wiry of build, not a traditionally handsome man, but he had a vitality, a charisma that drew people to him. And when he spoke in his mellow baritone with a trace of an Irish accent, people listened. The workers listened. Elizabeth listened.

  Dylan pulled her to him, and the confusion deepened. As his lips touched hers, it seemed to be Shawn kissing Elizabeth...and she no longer fought the sensation. It had been so long. She’d missed him so much. She drank him in greedily, his woodsy smell, the warmth of his body, the softness of his lips exploring hers. She could never get enough of him, not even if they were together like this for eternity.

  He pulled her closer, one hand behind her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair, caressing her the same way he always did. He touched her lips with his tongue, and she parted to allow him entrance, to merge with him, to take him inside her in this prelude to the ultimate merging. She wrapped her arms around him, struggling to touch more of his body with hers.

  A thudding noise jolted Analise, parting the mists of the surreal world she’d somehow fallen into, parting her from Dylan.

  Dear God, what had she been doing? Who had she been kissing...and who had he been kissing? In the darkness she could hear him breathing heavily, but he said nothing.

  “The flashlight,” she finally managed to say, reaching to pick up the object that had disturbed them. “The flashlight fell when...” When I reached for you.

  He cleared his throat. “The flashlight.” A silence as charged as the recent thunderstorm wrapped around them. Abruptly he rose to his feet. “I’d better go home and let you get some sleep.”

  She nodded, though she wasn’t sure he would see the motion in the near darkness. Nor was she sure she wanted him to leave.

  Resolutely she stood, taking the journal in one hand and shining the beam of light ahead of them with the other. She started from the attic with Dylan following wordlessly and closely behind...so close she could feel his warm breath on her neck. So close, she reminded herself forcibly, that he could grasp her shoulders the way he’d done a few minutes ago. He could easily hold her against her will, drag her to the stairs, push her down.

  She quickened her pace, almost running from the attic, down to the first floor...unsure if she ran from fear of Dylan or fear of her own desires.

  When she reached the front door, she opened it with fumbling fingers, not daring to look back at him. But he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, forcing her to acknowledge him.

  He looked so troubled she thought he must be going to apologize, to explain why he’d kissed her. Don’t, she begged silently. Please don’t say you’re sorry. Because even though she knew it was insane, she didn’t regret the kiss and couldn’t bear it if he did.

  Conflicting emotions warred in the night of his eyes.

  He dropped his hand. “Good night, Analise,” he said, and walked out the door.

  *~*~*

  Sleep didn’t come easily that night. The incredible scene in the attic played itself over and over in her mind. She’d become so mesmerized by Elizabeth’s journal, she’d again let herself slip into that life. That explained why she’d kissed Dylan so eagerly, but what about him? Had he become caught up in the story also? He’d certainly seemed to. Was that why he’d kissed her? And did she want that to be the reason...or would she prefer to think he’d known he was kissing her?

  Again and again she had to bring her mind back to reality. Some
one might have pushed her downstairs, and that someone might have been Dylan. After all, he had been sneaking through her house tonight. Had he really come in because he was worried about her safety?

  Along with those confusing thoughts, she couldn’t stop wondering what had happened to Elizabeth after Blake forbade her to see Shawn. As if recapturing Analise’s life wasn’t difficult enough, now she was also trying to find out about Elizabeth’s.

  She sat up, turned her pillow over and fluffed it, then stared across the room. She’d pulled the bedroom curtains tight, but a sliver of moonlight shone through. Fancifully, irrationally, it seemed as if Dylan’s gaze rode in on the beam, as if she could feel him invading her room, her heart. Even more illogically, her inexplicable desire for him rose at the imagined feeling of that gaze.

  She shivered and pulled the covers over her head.

  *~*~*

  Analise awoke with a start, drenched in perspiration, heart thudding furiously. She’d been dreaming again about strong hands on her shoulders, pushing her. But this time she’d fallen straight down for a long time into suffocating, cold, wet darkness. From somewhere above, Dylan watched as she fell in slow motion. At least she sensed it was Dylan though she never actually saw him.

  She looked at the clock. Five-fifteen. Too early to get up but too late to go back to sleep. Already dawn was lighting the crack between her curtains.

  Sliding deeper under the covers, she tried once more to make sense of things.

  She’d fallen down the stairs. There was nothing wet or cold about her staircase, yet she’d associated those sensations with the fall in both dreams she’d had about the experience. There must be a connection.

  And how was Dylan linked to all this? Somehow he was involved in her life. If not romantically, at least in whatever was happening to her. He’d been as engrossed as she in Elizabeth’s journal...not to mention in the kiss that had come out of nowhere. Or out of a total absorption in Elizabeth’s world.

  But she couldn’t look to the journal for an explanation of her original knowledge of Elizabeth. She couldn’t have read the diary, covered it with layers of dust, then replaced the years of paint on the windowsill.

  So maybe she’d gotten her knowledge about Elizabeth’s life from another record. But what?

  There were, she thought, at least two more places she could look for Elizabeth. The town library probably had old copies of the local newspaper. Judging from her diary, Elizabeth Dupard hadn’t been active in local society, but at least the circumstances of her death should be chronicled. Analise felt compelled to discover that information.

  But checking through several years of even a weekly newspaper would be tedious. She needed to find out the date of Elizabeth’s death. If the woman had lived in Holbert, chances were she’d be buried in the Holbert Cemetery. Her tombstone would have her date of death.

  Even as the plan entered Analise’s mind, a part of her rebelled at the macabre idea. She couldn’t dismiss the feeling that she was Elizabeth, that she’d be viewing her own grave.

  She resolutely shoved that feeling aside. She would go to the cemetery and from there to the library. She wanted to conclude the thought with and put Elizabeth to rest but she still felt that she was Elizabeth, a real person who didn’t want to be put to rest.

  Learning more about Elizabeth’s death would, she feared, open things up rather than lay them to rest.

  *~*~*

  For the sake of comfort at the cemetery, she dressed the next morning in dark blue slacks with a pale blue jacket, fighting a lingering sense of being inappropriately clad. Elizabeth would not have worn pants.

  After having a cup of tea and a piece of toast, she took down her ring of keys and went determinedly out to her car.

  Recalling what Dylan had shown her the day before, she started the engine. Fighting an irrational fear of driving, an activity as foreign to Elizabeth as wearing slacks, she scanned the vehicle and her memory.

  Put it in gear. She shifted the lever to D.

  Clutching the steering wheel convulsively, she gently pushed on the accelerator. The car lurched forward. In a rush of panic, she hit the brake.

  Well, she thought, taking a deep breath, this isn’t so bad.

  Her reflexes had kicked in when she needed to stop and she’d found the brake. She could handle this.

  But then her hopes died as she looked around her. The streets weren’t the same as she remembered. She knew where the cemetery was, she knew how to get there, but the road in front of her house seemed to have changed. Instead of curving off to the east, it went straight, was intersected by more streets and crowded with the houses of strangers.

  She jumped, gasped as someone tapped on the window. An unshaven, disheveled Dylan scowled in at her.

  Dylan had overslept after a restless night filled with strange dreams, including the familiar nightmare with its new addition. Again Analise had drowned instead of the dark-haired woman.

  He’d leapt from bed, filled with a sense of foreboding, and had looked out in time to see a determined Analise striding toward her car. Yesterday she’d been unable to drive. Had her memories returned? If they had, he’d better get out there. This could be what he’d been waiting for these past two months. He threw on clothes and dashed outside.

  “I thought you couldn’t drive,” he challenged as she rolled down the car window.

  “So did I. But now I think I can,” she replied defiantly.

  Then her lost look returned. “Only...could you tell me how to get to the cemetery?”

  “The cemetery? Why on earth do you want to go there?”

  She flushed, then regained her composure and lifted her chin resolutely. “I want to see Elizabeth’s grave.”

  He believed her. In fact, he realized with a start, he believed her whole crazy story, that she’d lost her memory and temporarily thought she was a dead woman. Even so, he couldn’t let her go alone, not when she might remember everything at any moment. And not when she looked so lost and so brave at the same time.

  “Unlock your passenger door,” he said. “I’ll show you the way.”

  She did as he asked without protest. He settled into the seat beside her. The light scent of wildflowers drifted over to him, surrounded him, invaded him, almost pushed from his mind exactly why he was there, what had to be done. His father and Tom. He couldn’t forget what had been done to them.

  She clutched the steering wheel with both hands, her knuckles white, and depressed the accelerator. The car jumped forward. She hit the brake then tried again, moving down the street in jerky fits and starts.

  “Turn left at the next street,” he said.

  She looked over at him, her green eyes wide with surprise, and he realized he’d snarled his directions.

  “Why do you want to see Elizabeth’s grave?” he asked, making a conscious effort to keep the irritation out of his voice, irritation at himself, not at her.

  “To find out when she died,” Analise answered.

  An eerie sensation washed over Dylan, and for the space of an instant, he wondered if he was going to pass out. No, he thought, that wasn’t quite the feeling. More like he was losing touch with reality. The mention of death, probably, the thought of going to a cemetery and looking at graves, remembering Tom’s closed casket waiting beside the hole in the earth, his father’s only a week later. In spite of his distress, because of it, he had to regain control.

  “Why?” he questioned, taking a deep breath to clear his head.

  “So I can check the newspapers for information about her death.”

  “Why?” he asked again. Where was she going with this?

  “Because I need to know,” she said enigmatically.

  “Why do you need to know about something that happened so long ago to someone you never met?” He pointed her around another corner. Her driving skills were gradually progressing from shaky and erratic to fairly normal, something he felt sure she couldn’t fake. Whatever she was up to, she was sincere abo
ut it.

  “I’d never seen that journal before last night,” she said. “That’s not how I knew about those people. I need to find out where I got my information. Don’t ask me why, I just do. I need to find out about Elizabeth as much as I need to find out about Analise.”

  Her urgency was so strong he could feel it reaching out to him, and he knew, no matter how hard it might be for him and no matter what had to happen when she regained her memory, he would indulge her now. And maybe his motives were partially selfish. He’d been completely caught up in the contents of that old journal. His dreams had been filled with images conjured up by Elizabeth’s words. The illogical, pointless idea of finding out more about those people tugged at him as it obviously tugged at her.

  “There’s the cemetery,” he said. “Up ahead.”

  Analise pulled off the road and parked. She stared at the faded letters on the weathered wooden sign over the rusty wrought-iron gates. Holbert Cemetery.

  The last time I walked under that sign I was walking behind the horse-drawn hearse carrying Papa’s coffin. The pain washed over her anew.

  She slid from the car, walked slowly over to the gate and pushed on one side. With a creaking protest, it moved, permitting her entrance.

  “Do you know what you’re looking for?” Dylan asked, and she jumped at the sound of his voice beside her. For a moment she’d forgotten he was with her...had forgotten who or where she was.

  She hesitated then nodded in answer to his question.

  Against all reason, she knew exactly where she was going. Everything looked different, there were so many more graves, but she’d never forget the route to Papa’s grave.

  In the early morning chill not yet dissipated by the sun’s weak rays, she moved unerringly among the markers. She gritted her teeth, tried to evade the overwhelming sadness this visit was bringing her and told herself her knowledge only proved she’d been here before...as Analise, not as Elizabeth.