My Soul Immortal (29 page)

I am afraid I am not long for this world, for my health is failing. The doctors fear I am stricken with consumption. I am at peace, for I know I will soon see your dear father and brother. I will be waiting patiently until we are all reunited in Heaven. Remember, I love you.

Your loving mother,

Helen Hammond

Tears spill from my eyes. Ruth had written to tell me that Mother had died, but nothing of the circumstances. I wonder if she suffered. I wish I could have come back and seen her one last time, but I was scared of her reaction. My mother was superstitious. What would she have made me out to be? If Ruth’s and my intuitions were correct, to my mother, I would have been one of the condemned, doomed to hell, and knowing would have caused her nothing but pain.

After returning to our room, I lie back and examine the ring. My eyes close. My mother’s words chime in my head…
Allow yourself happiness.
Ed’s words trail in behind…
Seize the day.
They’re right. It’s time—time to heed their advice and enjoy each moment. That will require changes. I’ll need to make amends with the bones rattling around in my closet, stop wrestling with the future, and start living for the present. All those things are easier said than done.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Back in York, I sit on a bench in King’s Square, arms stretched along the weather-beaten back rail. A morning rain has given way to a bright afternoon sun, leaving behind scattered puddles and silvery streets. My eyes chase after Leah as she runs across Colliergate to the neighborhood café. Her ponytail bounces with her movement and exposes her neck. The blush color of her blouse sets off her creamy skin. She turns before entering the shop and gives me a little wink. The sight sends my heartbeat into uneven tempos.

Leah optimistically believes my letting her out of my reach is due to a good night’s sleep and a new outlook. I wish that were the case, but it’s not. Truth be known, my vantage point is much better from here. Vita won’t be able to get within a hundred-foot radius of Leah without me knowing first. I can’t chase away the suspicions that Leah and I are in a rigged game of chance. She and I are stuck in the middle of an elaborate spiderweb. We twist and turn while the eight-legged predator approaches. My new aspiration is going to take some work.

Seize the day
. The words nudge the back of my mind again, and my hand dives into my pocket, feeling the band of gold and emeralds between my fingers. Despite my nagging concerns, I can wait no longer.
Today’s the day
. My heart flutters with nervousness and excitement. After coffee, Leah believes we’re heading to the York Art Museum to see an Impressionist exhibit—her favorite art movement. Little does she know that among the painted canvases of Monet, Renoir, and Cassatt, I will give her my ring and ask her to be my wife.
And tonight?
My stomach tightens, and I take a deep breath
. We’ll see.
But I have no doubt that my convictions are no match for Leah’s negotiation skills. That girl could sweet-talk me into doing anything. I smirk and laugh to myself.

I glance up and down the street then back to the café door as a couple emerges. Laughing, they walk down the sidewalk in the direction of Church Street.
I wish she’d hurry.
I rake my sweaty fingers through my hair. My self-restraint is wearing thin. I resist the urge to charge across the street and join her. If I did, she would be disappointed, and over the last few days, I’ve caused her enough distress. So here I stay.

As I wait, a quartet of musicians begins to play their melody. My foot taps impatiently with the rhythm of the folk music flowing from the nearby street corner. People soon gather, blocking my view. I move to a stone-block wall at the far end of the square to get a clear view of the little café and Leah.

Two coffees in hand, Leah steps into the street, peering to her left as she would at home. She doesn’t see the Volvo heading down Colliergate straight at her, and the car isn’t slowing down. Through the car’s window, I catch sight of the driver yelling into the rearview mirror at the squabbling children in the backseat.

My heart stops mid-beat. “Leah!” I holler, but my voice is drowned out by the music and the laughter.

I burst into a run, screaming Leah’s name over and over. My legs feel weighed down as if thousand-ton weights are chained to each ankle. I’m in the middle of one of my nightmares, but I can’t escape into the morning light with a simple blink of my eyes.

The high-pitched screech of brakes and skidding tires silences every sound around us. Leah’s face turns ashen, and her eyes widen when she sees her fate at the last possible second. She doesn’t even have time to scream before the car slams into her and sends her tumbling.

The scene around us fades away to a vacant blur. I can hear the screams, the shouts, but garbled and muffled, they fade into the background as if I’m hearing everything from underwater. My eyes stay on Leah’s motionless form. I stumble and fall to my hands and knees onto the pavement at her side. Her right arm and leg are twisted into unnatural positions. I press my ear to her chest, clinging to a sliver of hope. Her heartbeat is so weak that I can hardly hear a pulse.

“No… No, love! Please don’t leave me. Open your eyes,” I beg, sweeping her matted, bloody hair out of her face. Her eyes are shut. “Oh, please, no. Not now. Not yet. You’re not leaving me!” I bellow, cupping her face in my hands. Desperate sobs erupt from my chest. I press myself against her; I bury my face in her hair. Then I’m being hauled away. I struggle against the hands, thrashing and clawing to get to Leah. A placid voice breaks through my chaotic thoughts.

“Calm down, son. We’re trying to help her,” a man says. My stance slackens, and the grip loosens. A bald, thickly built man kneels at Leah’s side. After checking her vital signs, he tilts back her head and blows his breath into her mouth. Between puffs, the man calls to another. A woman hurries through the crowd, bends down near Leah, and with fisted hands, she begins compressing Leah’s chest.

In the midst of the burgeoning chaos, Artagan’s aloofness during our last conversation becomes clear. My last sliver of hope disintegrates, crushing my new resolve like a brittle, dead leaf. His curt manner hadn’t stemmed from Vita’s travels or his lack of concern. He knew we’d already lost and obviously didn’t have the nerve to tell me. Darkness threatens to consume me, but I propel the nausea away and scan the sea of shocked, horrified faces clustered around us, looking for the real killer in the crowd—Vita. Artagan’s words run through my head.
We don’t get our hands dirty, per se. We orchestrate death.
I strangle the incipient growl in my throat. She’s here. Somewhere. Waiting.

Leah’s form draws my attention again. The woman doing chest compressions places two fingers against Leah’s neck and looks at her partner, shaking her head.

“Don’t tell the boy, but she’s dead,” she whispers.

My legs tremble, the sense of being smothered overtakes me. Moisture pools in my eyes. Quick gasps of air drag over my lips while understanding of the woman’s words trickles in. Through the flurry of activity huddled around Leah, the same story is playing out all over again, one hundred and fifty years later. The scenario is different—the result is not.

Above the city, Great Peter strikes the hour. Between the hollow bongs of bronze against bronze, a siren wails in the distance, echoing the keening of my soul.

Gone. Leah is lost to me forever.
Artagan’s tale of Kemisi and her Amun haunts me from the depths.
He didn’t even recognize her—all memories lost.
Memories
—
from my first glimpse of her vivid emerald eyes to our last kiss
—
stream before my closed eyes. I’ll never forget them, but Leah will. Emptiness presses into my heart, followed immediately by a staggering pain. I grind my teeth into my cheek and clench my fists. Sorrow that clawed at me now rears up to devour me whole.

Hemlock
, a sweet, feminine voice whispers through the anguish. The thought gives me my only sense of relief. I slip my hand into my pocket to touch the smooth plastic of my pathetic attempt at protection. What was once my weapon has now become my savior.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Slumped in a stark hospital-room chair, teetering on the edge of darkness and lunacy, I listen to the relentless beep of machines. Every time I close my eyes to shut out reality and lose myself in the fantasy of a healthy, safe Leah, her dreamlike features mutate into unnatural shapes. Vita’s face thrusts in, a smile rolled across her lips—the same fiendish grin she wore outside Rare Books and again at Ed’s funeral.
I’m coming for her
, Vita’s voice repeats in my head. My eyes spring open.

At my side, the actuality of these words is evident. Leah lies comatose and on the brink of death, her precious soul forced back into her battered body—just barely, and no doubt only temporarily—by the modern miracle that is the portable defibrillator. Should I thank the ambulance crew for drawing out my agony further, along with hers? A tube placed down her throat forces air in and out of her lungs. Wires poke out from under her hospital gown, connecting to machines monitoring her vitals. Her heart beats forty-eight times per minute. I know because I’ve counted every one. Nurses flow in and out of her room in a steady stream, but no one has told me anything. “Running tests” is their standard answer to every one of my questions, but in truth, I don’t need to be told. Leah’s future is clear—the tomorrows we hoped and planned for will never come. Leah and I are running out of time.

“God,” I call out in desperation. “I know we haven’t spoken in a long time, but I’ll give you anything if you let her stay. Anything.” I wait, but no response comes.
Course not
. I reach for her ice-cold hand. Her hand looks small and frail in mine. Under her strong exterior, she’s always been fragile—each day, perishing a little, suffering from the mortal condition. I’ve always been aware of that aspect of Leah’s future, but because of her fire for life, it was easily forgotten—until now. I see she’s as delicate as the flower said to bloom once every hundred years deep in the forests of India and last only a day.

Grady barrels into the room, out of breath and wide-eyed. I turn my face to the window and swipe at my escaping tears with the back of my hand.

“What happened?” he demands.

“She crossed the street, didn’t look where she was going. A car—” My voice weakens.

“Aw, hell.” Moisture brims his eyes. “I was at Charlotte’s and didn’t get the message until… How is she?”

“They haven’t told me much. Running tests.”

“I should call Mom. But I don’t know what to tell her.”

I stare at tiny gray flecks in the white tiled floor. The door opens. I jerk my head up to find a thin doctor with wire-framed glasses perched on top of his balding head.

“Hello, gentlemen. My name is Dr. Jason Foster. I assume you’re Ms. Winters’s family?”

Grady speaks up. “Yes. I’m Grady Winters, Leah’s brother, and this is Jack Hammond, her boyfriend.”

“I wish I could bring you better news. Leah is in critical condition. The next twenty-four hours will tell us a lot. Understand, we’re doing everything we can for her.” The doctor tries to sound at ease, but tension clings to his every word.

“Can you tell me exactly what’s wrong?” Grady asks.

I stop listening to the long list of damages after I hear multiple broken bones, collapsed lung, and possible brain injury. The part of the list I’ve heard is all my composure can handle. Instead, I focus on Leah’s face, but I find no peace in her features. Each cut has been carefully stitched closed. A bruise covers her right side from temple to cheek, and her jaw is red and swollen.

“Can she hear us?” Grady’s question captures my attention.

“Maybe. Try talking to her. It can’t hurt,” the doctor says then leaves.

I glare at the closing door. Heat rushes to my face.
No good news? No hope? How can this so-called doctor walk out of here and leave us with nothing?
A heaviness builds in the pit of my stomach. The truth is not the doctor’s fault.

Grady gives a sigh and heaves himself out of the neighboring chair. “I’m gonna go call Mom and see if I can find her a flight.”

I nod.

After Grady leaves, I sit on the bed next to Leah, being careful of the wires and tubes. “Leah? Can you hear me?” I kiss her pale gray cheek and wait. When no response comes, I realize I’ve still been holding on to the smallest shard of hope for a happy ending, like one in her fairy tales.

Idiot.

“I don’t know how to keep my promise,” I say. “I can’t protect you from Death. I’m so sorry.” If she can hear me, all I can give her now is peace. “I’ll meet you under the elms, love. I’ll be waiting for you at our spot.”

A lie of mercy.

Finding Leah was a stroke of luck. That she looks like Lydia was luck. That I settled in Portland, Maine, and walked into her coffee shop was luck. That she remembered me at all was luck. In her next life, it will be as if I never existed. How can I wish for anything else? My selfish inability to let go has caused more heartache. I collapse back into the chair and close my eyes. Behind my lids, I’m trapped between the shadows of my yesterdays. Leah’s touch, Leah’s kiss, and Leah’s laughter in my ears—each memory is akin to a blow to my chest. Finally, numbness takes pity on me, enveloping me. I don’t fight against the bleak, dead feeling. Instead, I welcome the lack of sensation.

A week passes, maybe two, and I rarely leave my chair. I’ve lost all track of time. Daylight and darkness rotate past the window without my notice. Mechanical beeps count my moments, every one of them spent with Leah as I watch her grow weaker and weaker. I rarely speak. Food has no appeal. Neglect has given me a ragged beard, and I only change my clothes when Grady or Leah’s mother brings me a clean set and insists upon it. In the dead of night, I crawl into bed beside her and lay my head on her chest to listen to the music of her heart. Its rhythm soothes me.