Her Dear & Loving Husband

by Meredith Allard

  “Jorge Luis Borges,” James said.

  She nodded, pleased that he knew the quote. As she stood there she wondered if the inside of the house was as familiar as the outside. She wasn’t sure. Maybe it was the addition of the modern amenities, or maybe the idea that she was the reincar-nation of James’s wife was nonsense. James stood beside her, his arm brushing against hers.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “It's more modern than I thought it would be.”

  He flipped the electric lights on and off overhead. “I had to keep up with the times. I have to admit, though, I still prefer candlelight. Electricity can be so jarring.” He reached into a drawer in the wood desk and pulled out a feather quill with a sharp tip. “Believe it or not, sometimes I still use this. It gives me time to think while I’m writing.”

  Sarah walked to the bookshelves. “If anything ever happens to the library at Salem State College you can send your students here to do their research,” she said.

  “I’ve wanted to organize the books into a real library, you know, with categories and bar codes. I was going to ask Jennifer, but maybe you could help. If you want to.”

  “I’d love to work with these books. How did you collect so many of them?”

  “I’ve had a lot of time to read.” He laughed at the thought. “Some people collect postcards from their travels. I collect books. Look at this.” He pulled a Dickens novel from a shelf and handed it to her, watching her face while she flipped the pages and saw the date.

  “Is this a first edition Oliver Twist?” she asked.

  “It is. And here.”

  He gestured to a whole shelf of first edition Dickens. Sarah laughed as she pulled them off the shelf and turned the pages. This was even better than any librarian’s dream of Paradise.

  “How did you get so many first editions? These must be worth a fortune.”

  “I was there.”

  “You were where?”

  “In London, on and off during the nineteenth century.” He paused to let her grasp what he was saying. “Dickens’s novels were serialized in magazines, and I got them hot off the press as soon as they were published into book form. But that one,” he gestured back to Oliver Twist, “is special because Dickens him-self gave it to me.”

  “You knew Charles Dickens?”

  “I met him several times. I was a tutor at Cambridge then.”

  “What was he like?”

  James considered her question. “He was still a young man, a dandy, already a successful author before Oliver Twist was pub-lished. He was very changeable, Dickens. One minute he’d be laughing and dancing a sailor’s jig, and the next he’d be so dark and gloomy you hardly knew what to say to bring him out of his mood. Manic-depressive I guess we’d call it today. Perhaps he was a bit obsessive-compulsive as well.”

  “And you knew Jane Austen? It sounded like you knew her.”

  “Yes, I did. But that was before Dickens.”

  “Did you know Shakespeare?”

  James laughed. “Believe it or not, there were things that happened before my time. I was born forty-six years after Shakes-peare died.” He took her hands and held them to his chest. “That’s enough for now. I’m glad you’re here, and I don’t want to scare you away again with too much information. It’s a lot for you to adjust to.”

  “I’m beginning to understand.”

  He nodded as he pulled another book for her to see. “Look at this one.”

  She flipped the book over in her hands and saw the title, Persuasion by Jane Austen. Without opening the book she guessed, “It’s a first edition, too, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” He pressed it into her hands. “I want you to have it. Please accept it as a gift from me.”

  She loved the gesture, but she tried to hand him back the book. “James, you know how much I love that story, but I can’t. It’s a first edition Jane Austen. It’s too much.”

  “It is not too much, it is too little, and as you can see I have many books here. I want you to have it. I like the thought that every time you look at it you think about second chances. They can happen.”

  Sarah clutched the book close to her heart. “I love it. And I will think about second chances whenever I look at it, Professor Wentworth. I promise.”

  He gestured to the sofa in the middle of the room. “Would you like to sit down?” he asked.

  They sat close to each other, their shoulders touching, their eyes darting to and from each other. Then they spoke the same words at the same time: “There’s something I want to tell you…”

  Sarah held up her hand. “Please, James, let me go first. I’ve been thinking about what I want to say to you.”

  “Very well then.”

  She closed her eyes as she gathered her thoughts. She had rehearsed it so carefully on her way over.

  “I’m sorry for the way I acted earlier tonight.” James started to speak, but she pressed her fingers to his lips. “Let me finish. Before I moved here I was a divorced librarian who tried to get through her day like everyone else. I thought I understood about what was real and possible, what was fiction or nonfiction, but since I moved here all that has changed. I don’t know what’s true anymore, what’s legend, what’s folktale, what’s pretend. And the thought that I might be touched by the supernatural myself is more frightening than any nightmare I’ve ever had. But what if I am Elizabeth? It would explain a lot.”

  James took her hands in his, pulling her close to him, trying to soothe her fears away. She gripped his fingers and looked into his night-dark eyes.

  “Yet as frightened as I am about knowing the truth, I know I have to. I’m afraid of falling asleep because of the terrible scenes I might see when I dream. So I’ve decided to go through with the past-life regression. I have to know.”

  Sarah thought James looked more worried than she felt. She began rubbing his hand, stroking his fingers. She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it. Then she pulled herself away and walked to the diamond-paned window. When she looked outside she realized they didn’t have much more time. The sun would rise soon. The fact that James was different became more real the closer it came to dawn.

  “Does it matter to you? If I’m Elizabeth? You want me to be Elizabeth, don’t you? I don’t know which truth you want to hear. That worries me more than anything.”

  “When we first met all I could think about was how spending time with you was like being with Lizzie again. But now that I know you, it doesn’t matter anymore. After all these years of wishing for Lizzie, I’m happy I found Sarah. If Lizzie is in you somewhere, then I’m glad she’s here. But more than anything, I’m glad you’re Sarah.”

  Sarah was surprised she didn’t feel more joy at his words. It was exactly what she wanted to hear. But while almost all of her believed him, she felt that one fraction of self-doubt that still thought he only cared for her because she reminded him of his wife.

  “But if I am Elizabeth, if I do have the soul of some long-gone woman living inside me, are you sure you won’t want only Elizabeth and toss away the parts that are Sarah, like trash along the side of the road?”

  “That will never happen. You are my Sarah. My Sarah.”

  She sat next to him, not wanting to miss anything about the way he looked then, his eyes serious, his hands gentle, trying to share without words what was in his heart. Finally, he melted his lips into hers. Finally, they kissed. Why had it taken so long? He kissed her gently at first, and when she didn't pull away he kissed her more deeply. She felt welded to him, as though this was how it was supposed to be between them all along, and she forgot why she had been so upset just moments before. After he kissed her darkness away, they sat huddled together, intertwined, until iridescent rays flashed pink along the bottom of the sky. She counted the hours until she could see him again.

  CHAPTER 19

  Three weeks later, the night of the past-life regression, it was nearly silent outside the old gabled house. The only sounds in the n
eighborhood were the chirping of love-calling crickets and the wheezing of the New England wind rustling the new-smelling leaves and the fresh-growing grass. Spring in New England is tawny as the skeleton barrenness of winter is magically, as if overnight, transformed into scented color and budding life. Darkness becomes light. The sun, for those fortunate enough to see it, makes life vigorous again. But at night everything became nearly silent. The old gabled house was used to silence. In over three hundred years it was left empty more than it was occupied while James was off living somewhere else and somewhere else again, hiding himself among people, trying to stay inconspicuous, going about his nights and moving on again when he felt prying eyes watching too closely. Even when he was home it was silent inside except for the scratching of quill and ink against paper, the turning of book pages, an occasional sigh from breathless lungs. The house was not haunted by a ghostly specter, though it seemed that way to passers-by who saw the candlelight flickering through the window even after electricity became the norm. Those who looked closely enough could see the phantasmal man illuminated in the shadows, and he was always alone. But more than a specter, as the neighbors suspected, the house was haunted by memories. There was no happy laughter in that house. There were no stolen kisses, no passion. Not anymore. There was, once, a long time ago, but the house had been in mourning since. The silence was fitting since it spoke to the mute longing of the sadness left behind in the walls, the rugs, the cauldron in the hearth. The house, even with its modern amenities, was set firmly in a frame from the past like a painting that captured another era.

  But that night was different. That night there were people inside. Maybe there would be life in the house again. It would never be exactly the way it was before since time, for all its in-cessant rolling toward tomorrow, cannot go backwards. Yet new laughter, new kisses, new passion seemed possible. Maybe there really were second chances. Maybe it could happen again.

  The hearth in the great room was lit despite the warmer weather, sending heat and cinders into the air, and the house glowed shadows and gold. There were thirty candles set out around the hearth, on the tables, in the sconces on the walls. Martha, dressed in flowing white, waved a lace fan, then a candle, then incense around the four corners of the room, bles-sing the space and showing the good spirits the way in and the bad spirits the door. She waved her hands to the heavens, the east, west, north, and south, praying, her voice a whisper, beck-oning the spirits to bring them safely on their journey. Jennifer and Olivia sat at the table holding hands, their eyes closed, their mouths whispering Wiccan prayers only witches would know. There was a tangible turn in the energy in the room as it shifted from being just James’s house to something else entirely, a calming haven where the mystical was possible. The air felt static, as if there were sparks of electricity, like fireflies in the air.

  Sarah struggled to maintain her outward composure. She didn’t want anyone to know how agitated she felt, as if someone was pricking her skin with the point of a pin. The sharpness stopped when James knelt beside her and took her hands in his. He kissed her lips.

  “No matter what happens, it’ll be all right,” he said. “Look at everything that had to come together for us to be here now. I had to come back to Salem at the right time after being away, and you had to move here at the right time. You felt compelled to learn about the witch trials, and your dreams have been bothering you enough for you to need to understand them.”

  “You had to be—turned—or you wouldn’t be here now.”

  “That’s right. Tonight is the final piece of the puzzle, but the whole picture has been there all along.”

  “And if I’m not Elizabeth?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You are my Sarah. My Sarah.”

  Martha stepped beside them. “We’re ready to begin,” she said.

  Sarah sat alone in the center of the sofa, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes wide and worried as she stared at the weaved rug beneath her feet. She felt like a schoolgirl waiting to see the principal for something she didn’t do. Martha knelt next to her and took her hand.

  “There’s something I need you to understand before we begin,” Martha said. “I’m sure you’re worried about what’s going to happen to Sarah if we find that Elizabeth has been reborn in you. You don’t need to be afraid. You’ll always have your own memories. You’ll always have your own personality, your own sense of humor, your own emotions. You’ll always love who you love.” Martha looked at James. “It’s not like being possessed by an evil spirit, or even a kindly spirit. It simply means that Elizabeth’s memories are inside you.”

  Martha sat close to Sarah as she tried to explain. She spoke slowly, natural for her southern accent, enunciating her words. Sarah thought Martha was being careful because the concepts she took for granted in her mystic-filled life were too out there, too hocus pocus, for average people who believed in nothing more than their five senses could tell them. Sarah realized suddenly that those people lived in a small box in a big universe.

  “Not everything about us dies when our bodies die,” Martha said. “Humans are composed of body, mind, and spirit, and though our bodies will one day cease to exist in any earthly way, our spirits go on. They can’t be harmed. Even with the destruction at the end of the world, our spirits will go on. Sometimes spirits exist close to the ones they loved in life and help guide them through the perilous journey we face here on earth. Sometimes spirits help creation. Sometimes they change energy. Sometimes spirits are reborn in new life. No one knows for sure why a spirit may choose to be reborn. Some speculate a spirit will continue being reborn until it learns some lesson it’s supposed to learn. Or righted some wrong. Or reconnected with someone it loved.” Again, Martha looked at James. “So you see, Sarah, there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve helped many people find new peace by understanding their past lives. Are you ready?”

  Sarah nodded. “Yes,” she said, “I think so.” She looked at James, and he nodded in encouragement. He knelt beside her, took her hands, and kissed them.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I’ll be right here. The whole time. Right here.”

  Martha stood up and walked across the room. “Now, Sarah, lay back. Close your eyes and relax. I promise you everything will be fine.” Martha raised her hands in a sweeping gesture toward the ceiling. When she spoke her voice was controlled, calming.

  “Sarah, as you hear me you will fall into the deepest sleep you have ever known. You will be conscious and unconscious. You are relaxed and comfortable because you know I will lead you safely on your journey. Can you hear me, Sarah?”

  “Yes,” Sarah said, “I can hear you.” Her own voice startled her because she thought she sounded as if a ventriloquist were working her mouth, making her words come from somewhere else, from across the room, or somewhere farther away. Her eyes closed and her body fell limp. She didn’t feel like she was sleep-ing, only like she wasn’t quite connected to herself.

  “Now I want you to picture yourself falling backward, spiraling through a long line of yesterdays. You aren't afraid while you're falling because you know your landing will be as soft as a feather bed. Are you falling, Sarah?”

  “Yes, I’m falling.”

  “Have you landed?”

  “Yes, I’ve landed.”

  “Take a moment to look around. Notice your surroundings. Tell me where you are.”

  Under her closed lids Sarah felt her eyes move from side to side as if she were in REM sleep. “I’m in Salem, I think, but it’s a long time ago.”

  “How do you know it’s Salem?”

  “A lot of it looks the same, the houses, the seaport, the bay. The people are in Pilgrim clothing and everything looks sparse and rural.”

  “Where are you now? What are you doing?”

  “I’m kneeling by the shore, splashing water on my face. It’s very hot.”

  “And then what?”

  “He helps me to my feet.”

&nb
sp; “Who helps you?”

  Sarah’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know. A man.”

  “What man?”

  “I think he’s my husband.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “I can’t see his face. I can never see his face.”

  “What else can you describe about him?”

  “He’s tall, and his hair is gold, like an angel’s halo. I still can’t see his face, but I think his eyes are blue.”

  “What is his name?”

  “His name?” Sarah had to think. “I don’t know his name.”

  “Take your time. You’ll remember. What is his name?”

  Sarah shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “All right. Now what are you doing?”

  “We’re out walking, and we walked far. We pass a rocky hill with ropes hanging from an ugly tree and a crowd of people jeering. I wanted to leave as soon as I realized where we were. I didn’t want to see it.”

  “What did you see?”

  Sarah shook her head. “They’re hanging her but she’s innocent. She’s not a witch. She’s a good, kind woman. How can they hang her for a witch? They’re hanging her!”