Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story (50 page)

“Do you know?” his voice and his body demanded. “Have I shown you what you are to me?”

His lovemaking became more erratic, rough and untamed, yet still achingly tender. She was trembling so close to the edge that she could only whimper now and beg him with words so obscene it made him impale himself into her. She held her breath and arched her back, trying desperately to hang on as she cried out loudly, buckling beneath him. In that moment she felt the call of countless generations, lifetimes of souls from the past. They cried their own lovers’ names, their rapture magnifying hers, having finally found what they had long lost, all gloriously, rapturously together. Each desperate and terrified of the loss to come.

Andrew dragged her ever more fiercely to him, his burning skin and the sharp stubble of his chin rasping against the flesh of her cheek. He buried his face into her neck and cried, coming hot and savagely inside her, his body contorting in exhaustion. In that last euphoric moment, he cried out one word, falling heavily onto her as though claiming her soul for his and his alone.

“Home.”

20

In that first night.

She wraps the last blankets around

Your body,

Your hands reach

Her face,

Unable to, unable to breathe.

And she whispers sounds for you.

Sweet, sweet, sweet

sounds.

You surrender,

To her, her breath, to her,

To her last first night.

Night,

Andrew Hayes, 2009

S
OMETIME
I
N
T
HE
N
IGHT
, Emily awoke. The rain still beat against the windows, their bodies burrowed beneath the covers making a refuge of their bed. Andrew’s solid forearm lay curled across her breasts, his face nuzzled within the nape of her neck, his breath now warm and steady. Having felt her move, he tightened his hold. Not wanting this to be a dream, she slowly turned to face him in the silent ballet lovers do, scared he would disappear if she couldn’t see him, and pressed in drowsy sleep the full length of her naked body to his. In the darkness, she drew her hands softly across the definition of his muscles, memorizing him. Then she remembered his injuries, the cuts on his face and the bruises on his ribs. She heard him inhale, his chest rising at her touch, and she stilled her hand, afraid she had hurt him. In turn, his hand reached out in the blackness, his fingers encircling her wrist.

“I’m still asleep,” he murmured.

“If you won’t go see a doctor, then you at least need to have a shower or a bath.”

“Only if you join me.”

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened to you? Or are you going to let me lie here and wonder if you took out your frustrations in a biker bar?”

Andrew groaned with that, and she knew whatever his story, it wouldn’t be pretty, so she forced a lightness to her voice, hoping to cajole the truth out of him. “As long as you don’t tell me you beat the shit out of Neil, I’ll live.”

He didn’t respond.

She turned to face him. “Oh, Andrew.”

“I believe that was what is referred to in the music business as a career limiting move.”

Her hand stayed glued across her mouth as he described to her what had occurred at Neil’s. He seemed miserable in the retelling, draping his arm over his eyes at the description of it all. In an attempt to turn a horrible situation less dour, she told him about his mother going to stay at a bed and breakfast and tried to convince him that it was a positive thing, that she wasn’t leaving for good. Andrew was quiet for some time, and Emily let him be, knowing he had to work this out for himself; no one else could do it for him. The rest would right itself—it had to.

“I’m so sorry Andrew—I never should have eavesdropped on your conversation. I had no right to invade your privacy like that. It was a shitty thing to do.”

“I love you,” he replied before she could utter another word. “There is nothing to forgive. I should have told you myself.”

He lay in silence for a little while longer. When he spoke at last, his face looked soft, like a young boy’s in the faint light. “My father loved my mother. Worshipped her. He loved me. That is the truth. There is nothing in the world he wouldn’t have done for her. And she cared for him through his illness. He was her friend; they were content—never argued, never raged, always the pinnacle of decorum and respect. But I knew she never loved him. There was no fire. Nothing of what exists between us.” His eyes rose to hers, and the passion she saw there made her breath come up short.

He rolled onto his back and groaned, sore and aching, and scrubbed his face awake.

“You’re hurt.”

“Kiss me.”

“But your hands, your face. You could have broken bones.”

“I think I would know that by now. You have amazing healing powers, Emily. Please? The bed is warm. I am warm.”

“We can do this the hard way or the easy way. Now let me see your hand.”

He made a fist and extended his fingers, but he winced a bit when he did so.

“You know, if you don’t do it yourself, Christian and Simon are going to haul you kicking and screaming into the emergency room. How are your ribs?”

“You tell me.”

“Not a chance. Now talk,” she ordered him. “Where were you yesterday and how did this happen?”

He flexed his hand again, testing his fingers, no doubt. “I didn’t know what to do after I saw Neil. I ran into S.J., then I ended up on campus.” He told her of how he licked his wounds in the practice room, how Nick had spoken to him. The fight on campus came as an afterthought.

Andrew watched Emily’s face. Her chin rose and her body tensed. Legs still entwined, their toes barely touched.

“I’m so sorry they hurt you. I could kill them.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time.”

“And you saw…you saw Nick,” she said, when she meant, You saw
her
.

“Yes.”

“And later, when you were—hurt. Do you think that was his voice that was speaking to you?”

“I don’t know.”

The air in the room had cooled. She could tell he regretted mentioning S.J. His face had lost its ease, and his fingers had slowly begun to drum the sides of her thigh, piquing her concern. Yet after everything Andrew and she had gone through in the last twenty-four hours, she felt incredibly petty for reacting in such a way.

“Why do you suppose they keep talking about time running out? Nick has, and Nora too. Even at the séance, Dashiell said that everything is repeating itself. And a curse, he said The Lady in Red would understand the curse. It’s got to be the curse that has kept them apart, right?”

“I refuse to believe in curses.”

“Even if it involves me being killed?”

“Especially then.”

And she could say no more, because he wouldn’t let her; his lips ended all argument.

The door was open to the downstairs apartment, and Emily shouted a hello and promptly heard Zoey and Christian’s welcome from back in the kitchen. Andrew had left her bed reluctantly a little while ago with a promise to meet her for breakfast there shortly.

They had outdone themselves. There were trays of muffins, sugar dusted scones, steaming platters of scrambled eggs and bacon, heaping bowls of strawberries, and one huge pot of coffee. Zoey had a mug filled and handed it to her with her trademark grin. Margot held up her own mug in greeting and sat clean and pressed at the edge of the table, intent on reading the morning paper. Andrew was nowhere to be found.

Christian was wrestling with the espresso machine, but having a rough go of it. He gave her a wonderfully woeful smile, then wiped his brow. “Please tell me he went to the hospital,” she whispered to him as Zoey took over with the espresso duties.

“That hand is my livelihood, you better believe he’s going there. He’s getting dressed now, but I’m making the idiot walk home after they patch him up. What the hell was he thinking?”

“How much did you get?”

“Enough. Neil, of all people. I’d have let him hit me, instead. We’re going to be thrown out on the fucking streets.”

With glasses askance and hair sticking up in all directions, Simon shuffled into the kitchen wearing a decrepit bathrobe and humming, “Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like—” He stopped short upon seeing the crowd gathered there. Margot studied him over the edge of her paper.

“What can I get you for breakfast?” Simon murmured as he took a seat by her elbow.

“I’ve already had mine, thank you.” She quietly turned a page.

“So where’s the prodigal son?” Simon asked flatly, scanning the kitchen. “Did he finally come home and make nice-nice?”

Christian choked on his coffee. Simon’s confusion lasted for only a moment.

“Hope you weren’t too rough on him. He’s a pansy-assed boy. Did he insist on reading you poetry beforehand?”

Just then Andrew rounded the corner. He was dressed in an old flannel shirt and jeans, his unshaven face with its various cuts, scrapes, and bruises made him look thoroughly disreputable. He had even wrapped an Ace bandage around his hand.

Simon’s face bloomed in shock at the sight of him. “Jesus Christ, Emily! What the bloody hell did you do to him?”

Andrew’s eyes flashed at Simon. His eyebrow arched in unspoken threat.

“So, what the hell happened to you? Did you get attacked by a bunch of horny fangirls?”

“No.”

“Fanboys?”

“Christ, Simon. No. And by the way, just for curiosity’s sake, how does one study the stars during a thunderstorm?”

Simon swirled around his fork in the air and chewed. “It’s not easy. So what did you guys do while we were gathering important scientific data?” he asked, glancing toward Margot while spearing another piece of cantaloupe.

“Andrew punched Neil in the face,” Christian deadpanned.

“He what?”

“Is my personal life going to become common knowledge now? Because if so, I’ll just call
Entertainment Weekly
after breakfast and save you all the trouble
.”

“So Neil really is—um—like your baby daddy? Oh blimey. And you really punched him?”

“Yes and yes. Enough said?”

“Mate, we’ve stayed in God knows how many shit-hole hotels and not once would you let us trash the premises. And now that we’ve actually got ourselves a house, you have to go and pistol-whip the landlord. You sure we’re not going to come home and find our stuff turfed on the curb?”

Andrew rubbed the back of his neck and moaned at the ceiling.

“You can move in with us,” said Zoey without hesitation, as if the thought of Christian playing his guitar on the street for spare change was too much to bear.

“I’m sorry,” said Simon quietly to him. “I’m just having a laugh, you know that. That has to suck with your mum and everything.”

“Yeah.” He hesitated as though he wanted to say more, but clearly looked too uncomfortable to answer, so he turned to Christian instead. “What have you been up to?”

“I found a code in Emily’s ring.”

“What?”

Zoey immediately explained the details to them. The candle, the soot, the numbers.

“But we haven’t found out what the numbers could mean,” she concluded. “Emily’s looked up everything we could think of, addresses, phone numbers, even longitude and latitude.”

“How many numbers is it again?” asked Andrew. His expression had stilled and become increasingly focused.

“Eight. Seven-five-five-one-zero-seven-nine-one.”

He paced to the counter and looked around, seeming to scan the length of it. “It was here before. Where’s the box? Nora’s keepsake box?”

Andrew met Emily’s stare, his eyes narrowing imperceptibly as she felt her mouth fall open, and she nearly dropped her mug.