The Ghost of a Chance (18 page)

"She told me that, too, Darcy."

I draw in a deep breath and close my eyes for a
moment, trying to calm my startled heart.
 
"Sometimes I forget that you were her nurse, that you spent so much
time with her.
 
That you were her
friend."
 
My mouth quirks
softly.
 
"It’s selfish to even ask…
 
But did Catherine ever talk to you about
me?"
 
Faltering on the last word, I
shake my head, moving my hand over my eyes to catch the tears there before Alis
notices them.
 
"Never mind.
 
You don’t have to tell me—"

"She talked of little else besides you,
Darcy."
 
Alis’ voice sounds
strange, rough, and when I look at her, she meets my gaze with dark,
impassioned eyes.
 
"You were her
sun.
 
She told me that.
 
That…"
 
She glances away, far away, as if trying to glimpse an unattainable
scene from the past.
 
"She said
that, without you, she would be a planet without an orbit.
 
She said she would be lost, all alone in the
universe."
 
Alis’ hand rises, then,
to gesture at the brilliant orb painted near the top right-hand corner of the
painting, so vibrantly yellow that it seems to pulse with light.

Alis’ hand lowers to rest upon my shoulder.
 
"That’s you, Darcy.
 
You’re the sunlight shining upon her
face."
 

Her face.
 

Swallowing, I stare at the painting, this perfect
witchcraft.
 
No photograph ever captured
Catherine so truly.
 
But Alis knew
her.
 
Alis knew her, saw the truth of
her.
 
And Alis painted Catherine for me:
Catherine beaming, on the verge of laughter, aglow.
 
Here is my Catherine again, a reborn creature of wet, shining
paint and unbridled joy.

"It’s too beautiful, Alis.
 
I can’t…
 
I don’t know how to—"

"You don’t have to say anything.
 
Art isn’t about words."
 
She laughs a little to herself, gazing at me
with her head tilted to the side.
 
"That’s kind of the point."

My lips part as I look back at her; I reach for her
hand again.
 
She gives it to me, moving
a step nearer.
 
"Thank you,
Alis."

"It was the least I could do."

"The least?
 
It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life."

Biting her lip, eyes bright, Alis turns away to
regard her painting thoughtfully.
 
"It was so odd, you know.
 
I
haven’t picked up my brush in ages.
 
But
I just felt inspired suddenly, and I knew exactly what to do.
 
I never questioned a stroke.
 
It was almost as if…"
 
She shakes her head, frowning.

"As if what?" I urge her.
 
"Go on."

She turns her blue eyes on me, wide as moons.
 
They reflect my own face back at me:
sharp-angled and pale, my expression curious but guarded.
 
"I felt as if…" Alis begins,
shifting her gaze to the floor.
 
"It was like someone was guiding me, or almost…
whispering
to
me, though I couldn’t hear any words.
 
I
kept shivering, because the room became very cold, and my heart was beating so
fast."
 
She shakes her head and
looks at me, reaching for my hand.
 
"My fingers
tingled
.
 
But I didn’t stop painting.
 
I
didn’t want to.
 
I couldn’t stop, not
until it was finished."
 
She
glances to the painting for a moment, and there’s fear in her eyes when she
faces me again.
 
"I think it’s the
best painting I’ve ever done, Darcy.
 
But I don’t understand…
 
Where
did that feeling come from?"

I bite my lip and exhale heavily, staring into
Catherine’s knowing, unblinking green eyes.
 
"Alis, I think I should tell you—"

"Could it be my muse?"
 
She laughs lightly, releasing my hand and
tugging the paintbrush free from her bun.
 
Then she moves toward the palette on the windowsill and twirls the
bristles of her brush in a spot of black paint.
 
"I always liked to imagine her, you know, peering over my
shoulder as I worked, whispering secrets in my ear and invisibly guiding my
hand.
 
I never felt her before,
though."

"Alis…"

"What, Darcy?"
 
Standing still before her painting, Alis considers for a long
moment before drawing her brush over the lower right corner of the canvas,
sketching her name—just
Alis—
in a thin streak of paint.
 
"There.
 
Finished.
 
We’ll have to
leave it here to dry for a few days, but then you can frame it and hang it
wherever you’d like."

I stand with my arms crossed loosely at my waist,
feeling Alis’ warm presence beside me and Catherine’s cool one before me, and
something within me turns, or shifts, or clicks into place.
 
I slip my arm through Alis’ arm and draw her
away from the canvas, out of the living room entirely, and into the front hall,
where I hand her her winter coat.

"Darcy, what—"
 

"I haven’t been entirely honest with you,"
I say slowly, avoiding her confused blue gaze as I reach for my own coat and
begin to slide it on.
 
"I
just…
 
I had to keep it to myself, keep
her
to myself, and I didn’t understand it at all—still don’t understand it—but
it’s not just about me anymore.
 
If
she’s haunting you now, too—"

"Wait.
 
What?"
 
Alis takes a step
back, and her coat slips from her fingers, forming a hunching red mound between
us on the floor.
 

I sigh and pick up Alis’ coat, moving near enough to
place my hand upon her flushed cheek.
 
Her hair, fallen loose, tickles the backs of my fingers.
 
"I don’t want to frighten you, but I
can’t…
lie
to you about it, either.
 
That wouldn’t be fair, or kind."

"This house is really
haunted
?"

I smile mildly, though when I swallow, my throat
feels as dry as hot sand.
 
"This
house, the cabin…
 
Yeah.
 
I don’t know what other word to use
except…haunted."

"By who?
 
By what?
 
Since when?"

"Ever since Catherine died."

Alis blanches, taking a faltering step backward and
shaking her head, her full lips parted, her eyes large and shining,
heartbreakingly blue.
 
"You
mean—"

"She’s still here, Alis.
 
Catherine never left.
 
She hasn’t left me yet."
     

---

           
Alis draws her legs beneath her on the couch as she flips
through the sheaf of neatly typed pages, pausing every so often to read a
passage of dialogue, tilting her head and vaguely, sweetly moving her
lips.
 

I lean on the desk and watch her, eyes
marveling.
 
She looks like a vision,
like a painting herself: barefoot, blushing prettily, her dark hair disarmingly
mussed, flanked on both sides by fuzzy, dozing kittens.
 
Her perfume—white and heady—permeates the
cabin’s chilled air.

I wish I had a camera.
 
I have no photographs of Alis, no proof of her lovely face save
for the stolen images tucked away in my heart.
 

My fingers rise to touch the diamond ring on the
chain around my neck, the ring from Catherine—from Catherine’s ghost—but
instead of feeling the expected guilt and shame for my thoughts of Alis, the
cool metal of the ring encourages and emboldens me.
 
Then a pressure, like a kiss, grazes my forehead, my
brow…accompanied by the scent of violets.
 
Catherine’s purple scent.

When I open my eyes, I see Alis, still seated on the
couch, gazing at me, flushed, her expression that of someone stricken: with
impossible knowledge, with shock, with wonder.

"
You
wrote this?" she whispers,
staring down at the manuscript in her hands.

"No."
 
I ease away from the desk and sit down in the chair beside it, resting
my head on my hand.
 
Portia wastes no
time in leaping up onto my lap to rub her head fondly against my chin, and I
begin to stroke her soft white fur.
 
"Catherine wrote it.
 
She
wrote most of it while she was alive.
 
And some of it…after."

"But your hands typed these words
for
her?
 
She…possessed you?"

"Yes."

"Darcy, I…"
 
Alis lays her hands flat on top of the manuscript and closes her
eyes for a long, silent moment.
 
"I
just don’t know how to respond to any of this."
 
She looks at me desperately, searching my face, as if she might
discover the truth, or the reason, in my expression.
 
But then she glances away, her mouth downturned.
 
"I’m so confused."

I plant a kiss on Portia’s head and then nudge her
to the floor as I rise and cross the room to sit beside Alis.
 
Two mewing kittens—Scarlett and
Rossetti—claim my lap posthaste.
 
Like
mother, like children.
 
I pet them
absentmindedly with one hand, taking the manuscript from Alis with the other.
 
"It isn’t finished yet," I say
softly, setting it aside.

"She’ll have to possess you again, then?"

I bite my lip, nodding slightly.
 

"Has she possessed you—I mean, does she only do
it when you sit down at the typewriter?
 
Does she ever just…
 
I don’t
know.
 
Has she ever"—she
swallows—"possessed you while you were with me?"

"No, Alis."
 
I try to smile, even as my mind journeys back to the time in the
bathtub here at the cabin, and my body rouses at the memory.
 
I cough into my hand, clear my throat.
 
"No, it’s only happened here, and only
when I…permitted it to happen.
 
She’s
never forced me.
 
She never would.
 
When I asked her to stop, she stopped."

Alis leans back, relaxes a little.
 
"But, Darcy, why is this
happening?
 
If Catherine truly is
haunting you, or us…
 
Why would she do
that?
 
To finish the manuscript?
 
Or is it because…"
 
Fear glints in Alis’ eyes before she turns
away from me, bowing her head.

"Because of what?" I ask her, worried when
I see tears gleaming at the corners of her eyes.
 
"Hey, Alis."
 
I
take her chin in my hand and tilt it upward, but she still avoids my gaze.
 
"What’s wrong?
 
Are you all right?"

"Not really," she laughs lightly, wiping
at her eyes.
 
She glances at me quickly
and then looks away again.

I sigh.
 
"Listen, Alis, I know this must be a shock.
 
I should have told you before you moved in
and given you the choice.
 
I’m so sorry
that I didn’t.
 
I just didn’t know how
to bring it up, or convince you, and it felt too…private at the
time."
 
I draw in another deep
breath, eyeing Catherine’s typewriter dully.
 
"If you don’t want to deal with it, if you want to move out—"

"I don’t!" Alis protests, her eyes wet and
flashing.
  
"I don’t, Darcy, unless
you want me to go."

I smile down at her sweet, worried face.
 
"Never.
 
I would miss you terribly, you know."

"Would you?"
 
Her lower lip quivers.

"Yes."

Suddenly, the air in the cabin feels restless,
staticky, electric.
 
I gaze at Alis and
feel my heart lean toward her, feel my every cell arc in her direction.
 
Unthinkingly, my arm moves around her
shoulders, drawing her near until her dark, messy head rests, with a long,
heavy sigh, against my chest.

"Catherine was right, Darcy."

I shake my head, swallow, will my heart to slow—in
vain.
 
"About what?"
 
My fingers draw circles upon Alis’ arm as
she curls toward me, petting the kittens nestled upon my lap.

"You smell like sunlight."
 
Alis tilts her head back to look at me, her
expression unreadable, and whispers, "You
are
the sun."

My lips part, and Alis’ do, too, and there’s not an
inch between us; her warm breath upon my mouth provokes a shiver from my
fingertips to my toes.
 
But neither of
us moves.
 
Neither of us closes the
space between our lips: it lingers there, an immeasurably small distance, and
yet excruciatingly far.