Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story (78 page)

“Where is it? What have you done with him?!” The Lady in Red shrieked. Emily’s head whipped around like a ragdoll as the demon shook her, screaming its demands.

“Let her go!” Andrew roared.

Everyone rushed forward, causing the monster to force Emily to the very edge of the cliff. They all froze to a dead stop.

“Why? Why aren’t you dead yet? You should be dead!” the abomination screeched at her. Emily’s nails clawed over Neil’s hands, trying to pry them free.

“I married her. She is my wife!” Andrew screamed.

The words paralyzed Neil’s body where it stood, their meaning stabbing their way into the creature’s mind.

“There is no more curse. She’s mine. Let her go! I’m her husband. We swore our vows to each other. It is enough. You know it is!”

Neil gasped, and his body shuddered, his consciousness breaking free from The Lady in Red and seeking out Andrew. “She knows, Andrew. She knows the curse is broken! Run!”

Emily must have felt his body fail, to falter for a moment; she wheeled around to escape, but the demon was faster and regained control of Neil. She twisted Neil’s hands around Emily’s throat. With a howl, she smashed Emily to the ground. Her head smacked against the rocks with a hollow thud.

Andrew froze. Everyone around him screamed. Simon and Christian rushed toward Neil, but the monster heaved his body to the edge of the cliff, teetering there, daring them to step forward. Claudia screamed as Neil wobbled. Simon and Christian retreated with their hands held up in surrender.

Andrew ran to Emily. Her hair was the only thing that moved, fluttering around the edges of her face. Her hands lay twisted and lifeless in the dirt, blood under her nails, her wedding ring brilliant in the sunlight.

Why wasn’t she moving? Why was she just lying there?

Andrew dropped to his knees and reached out for her. She was just hurt, that was all. Forgetting his own pain, he gathered her to him and rocked her in his arms and hummed, his voice too high and too far gone to be his own. The blood seeping from his face dripped down her cheek like tears. She just wouldn’t move.
Someone tell me why she won’t move. Please!

“She will make such a pitiful ghost,” the creature said from within Neil, his body perched on the edge the cliffs. Her milky eyes were to the sky, the wind gusting through Neil’s hair and whipping his bloodied shirt. “I can feel her already.” Then her gaze lowered to the satchel at her feet.

Nora.

The satchel containing Nora’s ashes was at her feet. He had cast it aside when he knelt down to hold Emily. With a smile and roar of triumph, she kicked it off the side of the cliff.

No. NO! NO!
Rage bellowed its cry inside him. Andrew rose from the ground and charged. “NOOOOOO!”

Andrew’s fist smashed into Neil’s face. Neil crumpled to his knees at the edge of the cliff with a groan, then he growled as The Lady in Red reared his body back up. He surged forward and crashed into Andrew.

“Where are his ashes, you bastard?” the creature hissed. “Give them to me!”

Neil swung and Andrew dodged the blow, sending the rocks at his feet plummeting down the cliff face. The Lady in Red snatched Andrew’s sweater in Neil’s hands and hauled Andrew to his feet, locking his arms behind him. The pain in Andrew’s arm should have been excruciating, yet he couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel anything anymore. The Lady in Red was forcing him to watch Emily. The worst imaginable sorrow and grief rose up within his soul, ready to devour him. He welcomed it. He craved death.

Then the impossible happened. Emily’s finger’s twitched. Was it madness, had he already lost his mind? Then she moved again.

“Emily!” he screamed.

She sat up and somehow staggered to her knees. “Please—please stop.” Her voice was hoarse, a gash bled on her forehead; her hand rose absently to touch it, but her entire focus was on the creature.

It yanked Andrew’s hand into its grip. “Give me his ashes, girl, or I break all these bones. Every single one! You love these hands, don’t you? Don’t you?” The monster clenched Neil’s hands around one of Andrew’s fingers and twisted it back to its breaking point. “Your lover made beautiful music, didn’t he?”

“No! Not his hands.” Her face filled with anguish, and she reached out, pleading. “Neil, please. You can’t take his hands. You can’t take that from him…please.”

The monster yanked his finger back with all its might. Andrew fought everything inside of him not to scream.

Tears blinded Emily’s eyes and choked her voice. “Stop!” She pulled the tin of Nick’s ashes out from the inside of her jacket.

Andrew felt Neil buckle behind him as though his muscles were breaking apart. The sight of Nick’s ashes seemed to have traumatized the monster. Neil’s hands shook violently as he fought for control of his body. With a howl of pain he collapsed against Andrew, drenched in sweat, his legs giving way in utter exhaustion.

“Neil? Neil!” Andrew yelled, spinning around and clutching Neil’s limp and beaten body in his arms.

“You can’t change fate,” The Lady in Red hissed from within Neil. “You can’t! Give him to me!” Neil dropped to the ground, struggling to breathe.

Emily pleaded with the monster. “Just let go Mrs. Chamberlain, please. Love your son and let him be happy. Only you can give him that. Love him enough to let him go. He has to be with her. I’ve seen him, I’ve felt him. He loves her.” Her eyes found Andrew’s.

Nick did love Nora, just as he loved Emily. Their fate was bound together, inseparable, just like those who had come before them. All of them with the same twisting and intertwining lines on their palms.

“No! She’s gone. She doesn’t deserve him.”

“Yes she does,” Emily whispered vehemently as she rose to her feet. “I know she does.” For that one moment she was both Nora and Emily and all the Thomases that had gone before her, all headstrong, determined, and bound for eternity to one man and one man alone. With one last fierce look she leaned back and threw the tin of Nick’s ashes over the cliff.

Andrew stared at Emily in shock. The ghoul wailed, “Noooo!”

“Nora!” Andrew, Nick, and the countless Chamberlains who had fought and died for these women watched as the tin fell from sight. Andrew’s chest constricted, and he felt thick and heavy, as though bound and trapped inside his own body, unable to move as poison flooded through his veins.

Emily stared at him, confused. Andrew looked down at Neil lying on the ground, who now was convulsing and gasping for air, his eyes finally his own. Claudia had run to him, throwing her arms around him, and was hugging him to her chest.

Every bone in Andrew’s body began to burn, and he had to fight to breathe. Out of nowhere a rage ignited his blood. The madness and unknown anger of all his years, all the fear of losing his mind, was made manifest and he could do nothing—nothing could fight it. He was in a body that was his, and yet not his. It felt so simple now, so right, the rage and bloodlust. He stepped toward Emily with only one intention—to kill.

Emily staggered back toward the cliffs with the same horror in her eyes that every vision had shown him. But this time she steeled herself—her eyes flashed at something behind him.

Andrew felt a pair of strong arms coil around his shoulders.

“You can’t have him.” Neil’s fierce grip tightened. “You fucking lost your son, but you won’t take mine!” Neil spoke rapidly into Andrew’s ear. “She can’t fight much longer; she’s too damaged, too weak. You have to fight her—it’s the only way you can beat her. Try! You have to try!”

Emily reached out and grabbed his hand. “Let go. Let us all go. It’s time to rest.”

Sorrow so profound that Andrew could see its color drowned him. He felt himself scan the sea below; he felt his heart long for a son he had lost and a life he could never have. As the ocean blew across his face, a love he didn’t have a name for whispered to him.

His body staggered into Emily’s arms. She held him tightly. His head fell to her shoulder as she hushed him tenderly.

“It’s all right; everything is going to be all right,” she whispered as he felt his body surrender to the call.

Suddenly he seized.
No, boy, you can’t. I won’t let you,
the creature hissed in his mind. Violence scorched every cell of his body. The force of it overtook his will and destroyed the last of his strength. He burned in hate. Rejoiced in it. Before he knew it, his hands were shaking.

He could hear the creature inside him scream in victory; in a few seconds, it would all be over. Before anyone could react, his hands would be wrapped around Emily’s neck, her face would be drained a ghostly white as he choked the life from her body. He knew he would kill her. His eyes met hers. His hands lunged to her throat.

“NO!” he heard himself roar.
No! No!
Emily’s breath came in spasms, her eyes pleading. “NO!” he screamed again and steeled his hands to his sides. He wouldn’t hurt her—he couldn’t hurt her. The demon screeched and tore at every muscle in his body.
Kill!

He could feel the shards of her ripping apart, like a frayed rag burning in flames. She fought with all her strength not to succumb, and in that split second, when she grappled with her own weakness, he saw it—lying there on an outcropping below was Emily’s satchel. And the last part of the vision, the ending he could never see, was made clear—the piece that was missing. It was up to him and him alone now. Nick’s words rung like a bell in his head, “Seize life with your hands; it’s the only thing that will save you in the end.”

They had broken the curse but it was not enough—the last of what remained of The Lady in Red had to be annihilated. He knew that because of the damage done to her from being within Vandin at his death, she could not take another blow and survive.

With a final gut wrenching cry, he stumbled to the edge of the cliff.

Emily’s screams pierced the sky.

“ANDREW!”

With his last ounce of strength he hurled his body over the side.

“ANDREW!”

He was falling, twisting, The Lady in Red screeching inside him, believing he had taken his life, her cries lashing through every corner of his mind. Such pain could not exist for her; it was too much for her to suffer. What was left of her soul could not endure another death.

His upper body slammed against the outcropping of rocks. His arms shot out and fought to grab hold of the wet rock where the satchel lay crumpled. With his damaged arm he lunged and grabbed it. Seized it just as Nick had told him. Seized life. Seized love. But the rock was too slick, and he could not hold on. With a final scream he wrenched himself as hard as he could, and his fingers fixed around the soft material and into the ashes within. The Lady in Red shrieked with the contact, her voice fire itself; she could not bear a second more, and the last of her nature, her last ties to this earth, perished. She disintegrated into a final death.

His heart rejoiced at the victory. Then with a sharp pain, reality crashed back into focus. From far atop the cliff he saw Emily’s face. His grip slipped to only one hand. She screamed and turned to scramble down.

“No!” he ordered her. “No!”

“Andrew! Hold on!”

He struggled to pull himself up the outcropping, blood seeping down his face as he clung to the jutting rock. The salt spray of the waves soaked his back. His mouth tasted of brine and blood.

She stared down at him imploringly, tears running down her face. He tried to imprint her face in his mind. All the times he had seen that face: in shadows and in light, at dawn and at midnight, huddling at the top of the stairs, peeking at him across an old book, studying a poem. He couldn’t hold on anymore.

Without warning, the rocks under him cleaved from the cliff. His body plummeted down the cliff face.
Dear God, please don’t let her see me! Not like this
. At that one thought his life flashed before his eyes. A child at a piano writing to his muse, his mother’s hands, his father’s violin, and all those notes and all those melodies that he would never write or sing. The Lost Boys, the endless miles, the joy and elation, the frenzied life. The crowds and the screaming. Finally, a club and a face with wide eyes. Emily. In everything. His blood, his bones. His whole life. His hands reaching out so hard to find her, reaching, reaching, reaching and only holding her for the space of a breath, the lifetime of a sigh.
Please God, let me find her again
.

Then death smashed into his heart.

Death wasn’t gentle. It seized his body in its many hands as he slid down the cliff. Its force made his body quake in excruciating pain as it grabbed and pulled him by his waist, his arms, his legs. It pinned his face and shoulders against the brutally cold rock and forced the breath from his lungs as he hung in its grasp. Death was also screaming. It was screaming a lot. And death had arms, arms that hauled him up to it and into a small cave on the cliff.

He struggled to open his eyes, every bone in his body throbbing. He could hear the distant shouting of joy from far above his head. It was the voices of heaven calling to him.

Since when did angels smell like pot?

“Righteous!” howled a voice in his ear. “Blessed be!” wailed another. Death’s arms had bodies which were jumping up and down and screaming again as they all wobbled and smashed back into the rocks.