Aftersight (19 page)

I clapped a hand over my mouth to smother a surge of laughter, swapping good-natured glances with Becky and Nicole. It was Nicole who finally managed to say something. "I'm… sure… y'all will be very happy together."

Sara had just returned from what she was calling her first ever date. It took place with Nigel in the common room, where a movie was being shown for anyone who wanted to see it. As we composed ourselves, Sara dove into an in-depth, nonstop account of her date with Nigel, from dinner and ice cream to the movie that capped off their evening together. And while Nigel hadn't kissed her — he was a gentlemen, after all — it had all gone far better than Sara had hoped.

I yawned against my will. "I'm sorry. I'm not bored with your story, I promise. I just can't keep my eyes open. I've about had it. I'm going to bed."

"I'm knackered, too," Sara admitted, "but I don't know how I will actually
sleep
after making such a discovery. I mean, it's not every day you discover your soul mate."

We moved into the main corridor and down the short hallway to our rooms next door. The maids had drawn the curtains of the sitting room and turned down our beds. Our bedside lamps and a few reading lights filled the room with a soft, cozy light.

As soon as I latched the door behind us, a heavy thud crashed overhead and what sounded like a bowling ball rolled across the ceiling toward Sara and Becky's bedroom and gradually tapered into silence.

"Here we go." Becky groaned.

The nightly commotion upstairs that had started the night we'd arrived had continued through our first week at Waltham. After that things had quieted down. Whoever had the rooms above ours had probably only been guests, there for the first week of the new term and then departed. By then we were getting used to the time change and, combined with the quiet, were getting our first good night's sleep.

Then earlier this week, our third full week here, the noises had started again in the early hours of the morning with what sounded like the collapse of a fully loaded dining table crashing overhead. We'd all stumbled out into the common room and crumpled onto sofas and reading chairs, blinking sleepily. The room had been freezing, despite the embers still glowing in the hearth.

"This is ridiculous," Becky had complained, settling sideways into a pile of cushions.

"It's just rude," Nicole added. "Rude. Don't they know it's the middle of the night?"

"We gotta report these jerks or we're never going to get any shuteye," I said. "Find out which one of the waitstaff is on duty tonight and tell them to shut these guys up."

"Me?" replied Sara. "Have you lost the plot? It's the middle of the night."

So we'd just sat there, listening to the random thumps and thuds overhead, burying our heads in pillows and throw quilts until eventually, one-by-one, we returned to our rooms to get whatever sleep we could before early classes the next day. The following evening we'd made a half-hearted attempt to find our neighbors' room, but we couldn't locate the flight of stairs leading up to the fourth floor. Even Sara, who knew Waltham's layout best, had been stumped.

That had been three nights ago. Sitting in the same room now, with similar bumping and grinding noises echoing overhead, I had to admit that, while we'd looked for our upstairs neighbors' room, we hadn't tried very hard. At the time I'd been too tired to care much and hadn't felt good about a confrontation, especially here at Waltham, where everyone was so nice. Whoever was making the noises would probably be horrified when they learned they'd been disturbing us.

At the same time, as more nights of around-the-clock crashing and thumping followed, something started nagging at me: What kind of idiot bangs around so late? Something told me that a person like that might not be too happy when we told them to put a lid on it.

Heavy footsteps stomped across the ceiling, stopped, turned around and stomped back. "Maybe if we get a broom and stood on a chair, we could whack the ceiling and holler at them to pipe down," Nicole suggested.

"Forget the ceiling," Becky said. "If we had a broom, we could whack the
neig
h
bors.
"

"Okay, screw this!" I pounded a side table with my fist. "I'm finding these jerks and getting in their faces."

Sara clapped her hands together excitedly, as if eager to witness the hostilities.

The girls followed me into the hallway and together we marched up and down the corridors, resuming our search for a way up to the fourth floor. This time we were more determined and wandered farther afield, hoping to find a staircase leading up and not down. Sara and I even started opening doors into empty bedrooms and studies, occasionally stumbling into a broom closet or storage area, but without success.

Just like the first night we'd searched, the north half of the mansion was deserted. During the day there were rare appearances of students traveling to distant classrooms, or cleaning and waitstaff making their normal rounds, but after dark the place was like an old art museum closed for the night.

Eventually, exhaustion beat out our aggravation and we returned frustrated to our rooms. Nicole settled into bed, trying to go to sleep, but she winced every time a fresh thud banged down from the ceiling.

Man, this flippin' torques me off! It's personal now. It's not good enough to just tell Mrs. Apple or one of the other i
n
structors. This jerk is mine.

I snapped off the bedside lamp and flopped down into my pillows, physically spent but mentally awake. No, not just awake. I was fuming. Eventually, the noises from upstairs settled into occasional footsteps, as if whoever was up there was making slow, restless circles around their room.

It was about an hour before I settled down and started to doze. I was just drifting off when a quivering sensation moved through my insides and down into my legs. My body grew heavy and I felt myself sink into the bed. The heady sense of rocking made the mattress seem like a raft caught in heavy seas. For the first time since I arrived at Waltham, I was having an out-of-body projection.

I felt myself slipping toward the foot of the bed. It was like wearing silk pajamas and sliding on silk sheets. I tried to grasp the sides of the mattress, but my arms didn't respond. I kept drifting, past what I knew to be the edge of the bed, and with a trembling shiver and a sound like the soft crinkle of paper, I separated from my physical body and floated out into the darkness of my bedroom. For a few seconds I hung suspended in the air before teeter-tottering like a feather and settling onto the floor.

I felt weak, weary, and insubstantial. I tried to raise myself up off the floor but lacked the energy to do anything but lie there.
That's just great. Perfect. I'm stuck.

A faint draft flowed along the ground, tickling my backside. My spirit body, or whatever it was that was stuck on the floor, started to drift across the room, moved by the gentle wind in the direction of the window. I drifted slowly at first, like a leaf caught in a breeze, then faster, in fits and shudders. There was a faint resistance as I passed through the wall of plaster, brick, and ivy, like pushing through a soft but tangible layer of mist; then I was outside, looking up into the night sky.

The rain had stopped and overhead a seam had opened in the clouds, revealing brilliant, creamy moonlight and stars pulsing in the night sky. I wasn't falling now but rising, moving upward on a gust of wind like a wayward helium balloon. Waltham Manor's giant number eight shape grew smaller and smaller below me, the fountains in its north and south courtyards gleaming like eyes in the dark. To the south, east, and west, the park-like span of lawns, paths, and trees spread out into the hills. To the north, a dense forest showed a small lake and dozens of thread-like rivers passing through the surrounding wilderness. Something deep in the woods glowed brightly, something that looked like a miniature, earthbound moon, and around it tiny circling dots like quivering stars.

I was falling now and what had been moonlight changed into something brighter and warmer, like the reflected glint of afternoon light seeping in through windows and bouncing off walls. I wasn't outside anymore but hovering near the ceiling joists of a small, primitive kitchen.

The walls were painted white and though the room wasn't big, it was bright and cheerful. In its exact center crouched a heavy wood chopping block that supported a half-dozen knives and cleavers and what looked to me like a small axe. Dried out bundles of herbs and flowers draped from the walls and, dangling upside down from the rafters, hung four dead rabbits and the corpse of a bird, its colorful plumage resembling a brightly painted toy.

A young woman stood beneath my shapeless form. She wore a plain dress of grey and brown, a stiff white bonnet, and an apron stained with blood and a day's worth of vegetable and fruit wipings. She was crushing green herbs in a wooden bowl with a fat, iron pestle, creating a fine green mush that filled the room with a fresh summer fragrance, like basil or cilantro.

The woman's hair was as blond as hay, her creamy complexion flushed with pink. Her wide blue eyes filled her face like the sky. She was only a teenager, really, no more than twenty years at most, but I felt intuitively that she was considered mature, even old, in the time period she lived in; I realized that my out-of-body experience had taken me someplace out of time and that the woman below me had lived long ago.

I knew her, even if I couldn't put a name to her face or a place to our first meeting.
Is that me?
I asked myself.
Am I that girl?
I had no immediate answer, but every part of my being was drawn to her, consumed by her irresistible presence. By today's standards most people would have found her pudgy and unattractive, but to me she was stunningly beautiful. I reeled with the overpowering urge to crawl into her skin, to
b
e
come
her.

A second person walked into the room, an old man dressed completely in black. At first I thought he was wearing a dress, but after narrowing my concentration I realized it was more like a long tunic than a dress. Black hose, matching pointy shoes, and a black, bill-less cap, like what a surgeon might wear, finished off the outfit. He must be the woman's father or grandfather, I thought, but then he pulled her close and started caressing and kissing her. The girl responded eagerly, helping him lift her onto the table.

A seductive wave of sensual energy swept through me at the sight of the old man's lust. My arousal was immediate, my desire overpowering. A dizzying sense of disorientation passed through me before my vision cleared. Now I wasn't looking down from the ceiling but standing over the woman, pulling her closer, kissing her passionately. I wasn't an invisible bystander anymore. Now I was experiencing everything from the man's perspective, throbbing with his desire, craving this lovely woman in every way imaginable.

Love! So much love!

I felt tenderness, devotion, and intimacy the way I'd never felt it before. My connection with this woman was all-consuming. With every kiss, I felt as if I really was becoming her.
This is what I want!
I thought,
this is what I've been looking for! All this time I've never known what love could be!