Aether Spirit (25 page)

Emma lifted her chin in a defiant manner.

“Sometimes you can’t help who you fall in love with,” Claire murmured.

“No, and our meeting was so Thaddeus could say goodbye. He said his father couldn’t live with himself supplying the enemy, so he was moving them back to Mississippi and joining with family there. We said a tearful goodbye, and my heart broke then and every time I heard of a battle in the area. I didn’t know exactly where they’d gone, and I grew weak and sick with worry that he’d joined the Confederate army and been killed.

“We moved here so Father could take control of the base. It turned out to be a good move for him, but not for my mother, especially as Father started spending more and more time with Major Longchamp, the buggerer. After one big fight, my mother thought it would be best for her and me to go to her people in California. I didn’t want to go. I had got a letter from Thaddeus that he was stationed at Fort Temperance, and we could meet and court in secret until the war was over, and then we could figure out how to marry. Mother found it and showed Father. She accused him of being corrupted by being here, and me with him.”

Emma clasped her hands in her lap and bit her lip.

“Love isn’t corruption,” Claire told her. Her heart ached for the young woman’s forbidden feelings.

“She wouldn’t let me write back to Thaddeus, only whisked me away the next day. You know I contracted consumption in California and died there, but my father insisted I be brought back and buried here. My mother complied. She was ready to move on to a new life and a new husband, and she wanted nothing more to do with him or memories of him. I came with my body—what else could I do? I’m tied to my broken heart—and that’s how I ended up here. I moved back into my room, but like I said, no one’s been able to see me until you did. I was so excited when I followed you to the hospital and saw Thaddeus is here too. He will soon join me, and then we can be together forever, but I need you to tell him not to struggle, that I’m here. Maybe you can help him see me so I can comfort him as he passes over.”

Emma looked up from her hands, and her eyes shone with hope. Claire wanted to hug her but knew it was impossible. Could she help the dead girl? Would she risk an even bigger rift with Chad if she did so? She needed more information first.

“What do you mean?” Claire asked. “I don’t know how I can see you, and I’m still doubtful as to whether you are really a ghost or just another tragic story my mind is spinning out because of my own broken heart.”

“You didn’t know all of this about me beforehand. You can check the base records. Or even better, talk to that scamp Longchamp or my father.” She wrinkled her nose. “I always wondered why I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. I heard my mother speaking to someone after I died but before my body was sent back that my father had given me to her to keep her busy so he could pursue his own affairs. With men.”

Claire didn’t tell the girl that the feelings she’d sensed between the two men weren’t odd aside from the fact that it was two men. She’d perceived the same thing between Martine and another male medical student, and he was otherwise healthy as far as she could tell. She’d come to the conclusion long ago that love would happen when it happened.

“And why is your heart broken?” Emma gestured to the door. “You have your true love back even if you don’t have your memories of him or what happened.”

“I…” Claire shook her head. “Did you see how he looked at me earlier when we were together? He can’t love me because I’m damaged, and he won’t risk hurting me.”

“Don’t be a fool. You’re worthy of love no matter what. Like I was. And once you help me, I’ll be free to help you.”

“Because you’ll have passed to the next step? What is it?”

Emma spread her hands. “For some of us, it’s Heaven. That’s what I’m hoping. For my father, I don’t know.”

“I like to believe that since love comes from the creator, it’s not going to land us in Hell,” Claire told her. “I had no idea my mind would prompt such philosophical musings. Perhaps because it’s late. Now what of your promise to tell me about Mrs. Soper?”

“I’ll let her tell you herself. I’m off to tell Thaddeus you’re going to help me. He won’t hear me, but maybe he’ll feel it, and it will comfort him.”

She disappeared, and Mrs. Soper walked through the closed door and into the room. She was surrounded by a golden glow that flickered from her eyes.

“Now, child, you don’t need to be asking questions you don’t want to know the answers to,” she said in a resonant voice. “And this is bigger than all of you. Why can’t you humans stop meddling with things you have no business playing with?”

She grabbed Claire’s wrist, and a shriek escaped from Claire before she could help it.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Fort Daniels, 27 February 1871

Chad darted across the hall to Claire’s room. The door was unlocked, and he flung it open.

A dark figure with glowing eyes swung around and pointed a finger at him.

“You’ll not break this girl’s heart again,” it said. “And if you do, it will be the death of both of you.”

“What in the name of—” Patrick muttered, but silenced when the being disappeared in a plume of golden flame that burned out, leaving them blinking the afterimage from their vision.

Chad rushed to Claire’s bed and took her in his arms. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“What was that?” Chad asked.
And are we all hallucinating now?

“I don’t know.” She shook again, and he sat beside her so she could lean against him.

He chafed her freezing hands. “Patrick, will you trouble Miss Lacey for another blanket?”

“Aye.” He left, and Chad wished he’d asked Patrick to light one of the lamps before he went. Subdued moonlight shone through the window, and he couldn’t tell if Claire’s lips were blue or if it was just the quality of the illumination.

“What happened?” Chad asked.

She shook her head. “Are you going to think I was hallucinating again? It’s like what happened this afternoon with Lillian—she saw it, but then she didn’t remember.”

“I don’t know that I could forget that. Do you know what it was?”

“I think it might have been Mrs. Soper. Or something that took possession of her.”

“Like what?”

She shivered again.

Chad drew her tighter.

“I think it might have been something associated with the aether.”

Patrick returned with an extra blanket and a concerned Mother Lacey.

“Have the haints been bothering you, dear?” she asked and lit a lamp. “I’ll send Calla in to stay with you.”

She moved to tuck the blanket in around Claire, and Radcliffe said, “Allow me.”

Claire didn’t want him to release her, but she wouldn’t cling to him. She was overwrought, but she wanted to appear fine lest they think she was descending back into madness.

Probably too late to avoid that.

Lacey bustled out. Chad sat on the bed again, and she leaned against him. The blocks in her mind sent needle-sharp pains to her temples. She clenched her hands into fists under the blanket so she wouldn’t give in to the impulse to massage her head.

“Head hurting?” he asked.

“Yes, damn it. You could tell?”

“I can see when you’re in pain, and you’re more likely to swear.” He stood and moved away, and the pain lessened, but now she was soul-cold as well as physically chilled. She wished he would come hold her again, but she wasn’t going to ask him to.

“I’m fine.”

“We both know that’s not true.” The slump of his shoulders showed how defeated he felt. “I was hoping that using the Eros Element to heal your psyche would work, but it seems I’ve only caused more problems for you.”

“It’s not that—”

“Let me finish, Claire.” His gray eyes darkened with his own pain. “Whatever I’ve wrought on you with my foolish experimentation, I’m not going to harm you further. Work with Patrick on the aether weapon or whatever else you like. I’ll return to my post at the hospital, and then once you help the general end the war, we can go our separate ways.”

“No!” Now the sharp pain centered in Claire’s chest. “I know we once had something. I’m willing to do what it takes to get that back.”

“But I’m not willing to damage you to get there.”

Calla arrived. Her dark eyes widened when she looked from Claire’s tears and the grim expression on Chad’s face.

“Am I interrupting something?” she asked.

“No, please stay with Doctor McPhee,” Chad said. His expressionless doctor mask descended over his face. “Please ensure she gets a good night’s sleep.”

Claire laughed at the absurdity of the command. “Right, because Doctor Radcliffe thinks he can dictate what’s best for everyone and control the details of their lives.”

“And we’re going to say goodnight,” Patrick said and steered Chad out of the room by his shoulders. “I’m getting him out of here before he can say anything else daft.”

“Were you and Doctor Radcliffe a couple?” Calla asked once the men had left. “I’m sorry if I’m overstepping my bounds, but you look like you’ve just had a lovers’ quarrel.”

“We were at one time,” Claire said.

“Here, lay back. I’ll massage your neck and head.”

Claire did as she was told, and Calla massaged her temples with cool hands. The pain in Claire’s head subsided, but the ache persisted around her heart.

Is it possible to mourn something you can’t remember having? And what did the creature mean, he couldn’t break my heart again or we’d die? Are we in danger now?

Her shiver had nothing to do with her temperature and everything to do with her underlying fear that they tread on supernatural ground none of them understood.

* * * * *

The next morning, Patrick opened the new workshop with the key the general had given him and took a moment to appreciate the quiet. The walls insulated him from the sounds of the base and helped him to focus on what he had to do that day, which was to build a weapon that would end a decade-old war but not cause undue side effects to those who used it. It would be based on a substance no one fully understood and which could screw with the minds of those who were exposed to it too much.

No pressure.

At least he’d kept his leather diary with him, the one that had the notes from the experimentation in Paris with what frequencies were safe and which would cause emotional turmoil, so he hadn’t lost it when whoever it was had ransacked their room in the barracks. Chad had gone outside the “safe” range for his aether therapy device, particularly as it was supposed to lead to emotional reactions.

As for what had appeared to them in Claire’s room… Were they all hallucinating?

Claire walked into the workshop just as the sun was rising over the eastern wall of the base.

“You’re up early,” Patrick said. She looked like she’d hardly slept at all, poor girl.

“It’s a military base. Didn’t you hear Reveille at six o’clock? At least it gave me time to write my letter to Aidan and bring it by Longchamp’s office to go out with the mail today.”

“Aye, and you were awake anyway, weren’t you?”

She nodded and caught her glasses when they went askew and almost fell.

“Here,” he said. “I ordered new frames for you when Longchamp asked what I needed, and they ended up with our supplies. Give me a moment, and I’ll transfer the lenses for you. We’re going to be working with light refraction, so we might as well get warmed up.”

“Thanks.” She didn’t laugh at his attempt at a joke, and she handed him her glasses. “I can’t see a damn thing without them, so I’ll just wait while you take care of them unless you need me to…” She blinked and shook her head. “I’m useless right now. I’ll just wait.”

Without the glasses, the dark smudges under her eyes were especially apparent.

“Did you have any more disturbances last night?” he asked.

“No, thankfully. Having Calla there seemed to help.” She felt behind her and lowered herself on to the one bench in the workshop. Then she clasped her hands between her knees. “Did he mean it, do you think? That we’ll have to say goodbye forever?”

Patrick weighed the advantages of lying to her, but he decided to stick with his assertion that she was stronger than she or Chad thought. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to look at her when he replied.

“He did, but I’m not saying his mind can’t be changed. He’s fiercely protective of those who matter to him. You can take it as a compliment that he’s willing to sacrifice his own feelings to keep you safe.”

“And what about my feelings? Is me being alive and miserable worth me being safe? And you heard the creature’s warning.”

Patrick remembered Iris Bailey’s descriptions of some of the strange things she’d seen. “Those things aren’t necessarily reliable, and he’s going to go with his gut rather than what some non-scientific entity told him.”

“And his gut says to stay away?”

He handed her the new frames, and she put them on and shook her head. The glasses didn’t budge.

“Oh, this is much better! Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And to answer your question, he gets confused between his head and his gut sometimes.”

“I’m not surprised.” She stood. “I’m ready to work on something to distract myself. How about you give me a crash course on aether, and I’ll tell you what I can remember of my father’s work with lenses?”

“Aye, lass. But first tell me what you did when you first saw it. I’ve never seen it react like it did to you.”

Claire didn’t want to talk about what she had done because it wouldn’t make scientific sense, not to mention add to the concern about her suffering from some sort of hysteria. But if she’d learned anything in the past twenty-four hours, it was that science couldn’t explain everything.

“I could feel what it felt,” she said and braced herself for an argument.

“Meaning…?” O’Connell asked and looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Go on.”

“Well,” she said. “Let me demonstrate.” She whisked the covering off the new glass orb and watched the round of isolated aether inside. It undulated with the rhythm of a heartbeat—how had she not noticed that before? She ensured that the connecting tube from the glass sphere to Radcliffe’s aether therapy device hose was closed and took a deep breath.