by G M Mckay
I looked down at my own blood-smeared clothing and felt the sharp lingering pain in my arm. No, I was definitely awake, but then how was this possible? Was it a miracle?
He nickered and touched my shoulder carefully as if he were asking me how badly I was hurt.
Suddenly, I didn’t care how crazy this was, I was only glad to have my horse back again.
I reached out to wrap my good arm around his nose in a hug, and that was when the awful reality of my situation hit me full force. To my horror, my hand passed right through him as if he wasn’t even there.
“Oh no, Bally,” I said, putting a hand over my eyes to hold back the tears. “This can’t be happening.”
He stared at me patiently and snorted, looking at me with his normal wide, intelligent eyes. He didn’t seem disturbed at all.
No, this wasn’t real; he was not a ghost. The shock of Alastair trying to kill me and everyone else had sent me around the bend. Losing Bally was bad, but going crazy and thinking I was seeing Bally alive was even worse.
A branch cracked somewhere nearby and I opened my eyes, suddenly on high alert. What if Alastair had somehow survived after all and was not back there by the barn lying under Bally’s crushing weight? I held my breath and scanned the moonlit woods, waiting.
A translucent, flickering figure entered the little grove and I shrank back, not ready to face any more trauma that night.
“Jilly?” The voice was light, wavery and definitely Scottish. I pulled myself painfully to a sitting position, now sure that I really was dead or at least hallucinating.
“Nanny,” I asked incredulously. “Is it you?”
“Of course it is, dear,” she said faintly. Her flickering image grew stronger the closer she got to me and Bally and soon I could see her familiar face looking exactly as I remembered her all those years before. She’d hardly aged at all since I saw her and the loving look on her face nearly undid me.
“Oh, Nanny,” I cried, not caring anymore if this was all a figment of my imagination. “Oh, you’re back. You’ve come back for me.”
“I never left you, silly child. I’ve been with you all this time.”
“You mean, you’re … dead?” I asked tentatively, stating the obvious.
“I’m afraid so. I had a heart-attack and passed away a few months after I left Greystone. I couldn’t bear leaving my wee girl and I think my heart just broke. But I’ve been watching over you all this time, darling, waiting for the time when you’d be able to see me again.”
“I’m so sorry, Nanny,” I sobbed, “I couldn’t see the ghosts anymore. I didn’t know you were there.”
“That’s all right, darling, the main thing is that you can now. Your kind doesn’t do well when part of their gift is severed. The power is tied to you like a life force, and without your gift you sort of dry up and become brittle inside. Like your mother; like your Aunt Ruth.
“I’m nothing like my mother,” I protested. “She’s been an awful person.”
“Yes, but she was young once and very much like you, Jillian.”
“She squandered her gift on purpose. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Sometimes our choices are subtle, Jillian. The choice to get along, to not cause trouble even at our own expense, the choice to fit in rather than accept our gifts.”
I gulped. I supposed a part of me had had a choice when I was a teenager. Maybe I should have fought harder.
“But how did I get my gift back? How can I see you again?”
“I’m your Nanny, not a paranormal investigator,” she said, looking at me sternly over the top of her glasses. “I don’t know how these things work.”
“Er, sorry,” I said quickly, “I just thought you might know because you’re a…” I broke off.
“Go on, you can say it. I’m a ghost, I know. But I don’t have all the answers. Perhaps that knock on the head did it.”
But I saw Evangeline before Jacob hit me over the head, I thought, maybe my gift was already coming back.
“Whatever the reason, you’re lucky it returned at all. Your mother did a wicked thing when she suppressed your gift, but you don’t have the luxury of being a helpless victim of circumstance anymore. You could have had your powers back a long time ago if you’d chosen to fight for them … to fight for you. Your Nanny didn’t teach you to back down from a fight, did she?”
“No,” I said in a small voice, remembering belatedly how feisty and bossy Nanny had been when she was alive. Apparently, death hadn’t mellowed that trait very much.
“Now get up on your feet, Jillian. Hard times are coming for you, and some good times, too, so it’s time to get up and look life full in the face. It’s time for you to go back, Jillian, back to Greystone. You have things to do. I’ll be waiting for you there.”
The last thing I wanted to do was get back to my feet. The mixture of being overwhelmed and blood loss was nearly too much. I wanted nothing more than to just curl up and sleep for weeks.
Bally looked up from where he was pretending to graze with his translucent teeth and pricked his ears in my direction.
My eyes watered and my throat closed just looking at him; never, never would I be able to pet my beautiful horse again. He was lost to me forever. Soon, he would fade and disappear to whatever place good horses went when they died.
I closed my eyes, washed in misery, only to open them again with a yelp as ghost-Bally nudged me sharply in the side.
“Hey, stop that, Bally,” I said in surprise. How was he able to touch me when my hand had gone right through him earlier?
“Stop wasting time, Jillian,” Nanny said sharply. “That horse isn’t going to leave you alone until you stand up and get yourself to safety. You’ve lost a lot of blood. You won’t last much longer if you go on like this.”
“Fine,” I sighed tiredly. “I’m going, I’m going.”
But it wasn’t that easy. I clambered to my feet and stumbled blindly through the woods in the direction I thought I’d come but the trees all looked the same now. My legs shook weakly underneath me, barely strong enough to hold me up. I couldn’t move my right arm and I had to keep it cradled against my side to keep the throbbing, pulsing ache at bay.
Bally followed me calmly, reaching out his head and neck ever so often to steady me or steer me in a slightly different direction. Those touches hurt almost as much as the bullet had because each one reminded me of my loss, and when I reached out to him tentatively again there was only air.
Suddenly, he lifted his head and nickered softly. Up ahead came an answering snort and a blood-red horse came out of the forest, his ears pricked and his eyes no longer filled with the angry urgency they’d seemed to hold before.
The rider on his back looked softer, too. She smiled at me gently as she nodded and turned her horse, motioning me to follow. The black dog at her feet gave a low woof and wagged his tail softly before turning after them.
When we reached the edge of the farm-yard The Lady paused and looked down at me fondly. “Thank you,” she said in a surprisingly gentle voice. “Thank you for protecting Ruth and my farm. I owe you a debt and I won’t forget that. I will be there for you when you’re most in need.”
I didn’t know what to say to that but before I could answer both she and her companions disappeared entirely.
I turned to the bleak scene that lay before me. The spot around where Bally and Alastair’s bodies lay was crawling with police, firemen and emergency workers, and the night was coloured with flashing lights, lighting up the surrounding forest like a night club.
“Oi, Boss, looks like we have another one,” someone yelled as I stumbled and nearly fell to my knees. Just before I hit the ground, I was caught in a pair of strong, familiar arms and crushed close to a broad, familiar chest where I could feel his heart pounding away like a jackhammer.
“Jilly,” was all he said, in voice full of love and fear, and I tilted my head back to look into his familiar eyes, realizing all at once how much I loved him. I
’d always loved him, and that whatever I’d felt for Frederick was just a pale imitation of the real thing.
“Gil,” I whispered and then his lips were on mine, soft like velvet, warm like a spring rain, and powerful like all the forces of nature breaking over our heads. Time stood still and when he finally pulled back, he was looking at me with such love and pain in his eyes that I could hardly stand it.
“Gil,” I said again, “I have to tell you something.”
“Wait.” He pushed me away gently and stood upright, putting one hand over his eyes. “Jilly, I’ve been meaning to confess something for a long time. Since we were kids.”
“It’s okay,” I interrupted quickly. “I know. I … I love you, too.”
He went stone still and then heaved a deep breath, bowing his head a little as if a great weight had settled itself over his shoulders.
“Jilly. Let me say this. I’m so sorry. I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t know how to explain it properly. I want you to know that it doesn’t change the way I feel about you. I’ve loved you since the first time we met. I want you to believe that.”
“Of course I do,” I interrupted, “I’ve felt the same …”
I stopped as he held up his hand. Over his shoulder I saw two EMT’s wheeling a stretcher toward me over the bumpy ground.
“Jilly, when I was too young to understand what it meant, your mother came to me and tried to strike a bargain.”
I froze, staring up at him in disbelief, my heart sinking.
“She said that she was worried about you and wanted me to be your friend, to pay special attention to you and make sure you never felt lonely. Of course, we were already friends so I didn’t see anything special about that. Then she said that as long as we were friends that she’d let my father keep his job and allow me to ride and show the horses.”
“No,” I said in shock. “She couldn’t have.”
“She did. I didn’t like your mother, she was scary even back then, but at the time I didn’t see that I was doing something wrong.”
“She … she paid you to be friends with me?”
“That was her plan,” Gilbert said uncomfortably. “I was seven years old, Jilly, all I knew is that the scary lady wanted me to be friends with you or she’d fire my dad. I was already friends with you. I thought you were the most wonderful, interesting person I’d ever met. It was easy to agree to that.”
“How long did it go on?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Jilly, it never ended. She came to me every couple of years to renew the bargain. As I grew older, I became more and more aware of how wrong it was, and I told her that. She changed the stakes: my dad and I would be sent away, or she’d send you away to boarding school. The worst part was when she fired Nanny. I told her then that I wouldn’t do it anymore, but she said she’d send you away to school in Switzerland and I’d never see you again. I could see how miserable you were and being sent away from your home and the horses would have killed you. It was selfish, I know, but I also wanted you there with me. You were my best friend and I couldn’t have imagined life without you.”
“So that’s why she let us have so much freedom together? That’s why we could have sleepovers and she let you roam the house?”
“That’s right. She made it very clear that I was never to assume that I fit in there, that I was only an employee.”
“Oh, Gil,” I said, torn between the horror of his revelation and sympathy for the young boy he’d been. But the fact was that one part of our whole friendship had been a colossal lie. It was too much to think about.
“This doesn’t change how we feel about each other, Jilly,” he said earnestly. “Don’t let her poison that for you. I always loved you best.”
I thought about that as the light from the police cars began to fade and there was a strange roaring noise in my ears. There was an odd shattering feeling inside my chest and I realized, just before I hit the ground, that it was the sound of my own heart breaking.
Chapter 20
When I next opened my eyes, I was in the hospital, tucked safe under a set of pale blue sheets. My arm was in a full length cast and I felt like I’d slept for days. I was alone and that was a relief because I felt like I had so many things swirling around in my head that I would need a million years alone to process them.
But five minutes was all I got before the door flung open and Mother herself pushed inside with a dramatic fling of her arm. I was slightly pleased to see that she looked awful. Her face hadn’t been made up at all and her hair was pulled back into a rough ponytail rather than the jeweled clips she usually favoured.
“Jillian,” she cried, in a ringing voice that made me wince, “I’m so glad you’re alive. I couldn’t believe it when I heard what had happened. Your father is on the next plane home from Rome; he was frantic when I told him the news. Are you … are you all right, darling?” There was a nervous catch in her voice, and I realized right then that she knew everything; not just about Alastair and the wills, but about the return of my gift as well. And about Gil.
“Hello, Mother,” I said, stiffening against her embrace. She pulled back, her eyes wide as she looked at me warily.
“It was for your own good, Jillian,” she said, before I could say a word. “All of it. If you had a daughter of your own then you’d understand. Everything I did was to protect you. You ran wild, you didn’t have any friends, the other children taunted you … you were headed for a life of misery. It was a simple procedure that wasn’t supposed to hurt. That gift was useless, how was I to know you wouldn’t develop another one?”
“You’re supposed to see the future Mother; apparently you’re famous for that talent. You’re supposed to know how everything will turn out. You’re supposed to protect your children, not tamper with gifts that weren’t yours to mess with.”
My anger simmered and I looked down at the pale blue sheets to avoid her gaze. “You knew I saw ghosts right from the beginning. That it was real and I wasn’t crazy. You pretended there was something wrong with me and then you fired Nanny, who was more like a mother to me than you ever were.”
She drew herself up to full height and I could see she was about to launch into one of her outraged protests.
“Your precious nanny was a crazy old bird who encouraged you to be a little hooligan; my only regret was that I didn’t dismiss her earlier. Oh, Jillian, when you have children of your own, you’ll understand. I’ve always looked out for you and your best interests. And my precognition doesn’t work like that. I wish I could see everything but I can’t. I would have never let you go to Dark Lady Farm if I’d known it would turn out like this. When I saw what was happening to you tonight, I nearly lost my mind not being able to help you.”
“It was you who called the police, wasn’t it?” I said, leaning back against the pillows. “The sirens started right after Alastair and … and Bally were killed. There was nobody else who would have been able to do it.”
“Of course I did. It was the only way I knew how to help. I never trusted that Alastair. That whole family has a wicked streak a mile wide. I’m so sorry about Ballymore. As soon as you’re better we’ll go shopping for a suitable replace—”
From behind me I heard an outraged equine snort and, despite my anger, I had to bite back a spurt of laughter. I’d had no idea that Bally had come with me to the hospital. I had so much to learn about the rules of this ghost thing. If Bally could go anywhere he pleased now there would be no stopping him.
Mother took a hasty step back when she saw the steely look in my eyes.
“Get out,” I said quietly, my voice steady. “I’ll see you when I get home. And if you so much as think of firing Christoph, or Gil, or buying me another horse then I will tell the entire family what you and Dr. Crane did to your own child. I’ll take out an ad in the paper if I have to. I know lots of our richer, more important, relatives wouldn’t approve of your little “intervention.”
She opened her mouth
as if to say something further, but I pointed to the door and, grudgingly, she turned and departed into the hall.
I looked around but there was no sign of Bally. Either he’d gone to make sure that Mother actually left or he was invisible. I lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling, exhausted by just a five minute conversation with the woman.
A few minutes later the door opened again and it was Xan who poked his head in this time.
“Can we come in?” he asked with a wan smile. He turned to usher Estelle and Belinda in ahead of him without waiting for an answer, and then held the door open so two more people could totter into the room.
“Aunt Ruth!” I cried, sitting up in amazement as she walked slowly to my bedside, leaning heavily on Jacob’s trembling arm. “You’re alive!”
Everyone was smiling as Ruth walked slowly to my bedside and then leaned down and gave me a gentle kiss on the forehead. “Thank you, dear,” she said in a kinder voice than she’d ever used with me, “for everything.”
“Yes, Jilly, you’re a hero,” Estelle said, crutching over to stand beside Xan. “You saved Ruth and the estate; you saved all of us.”
“I guess you’re all right,” Jacob added gruffly, almost smiling at me, “and I am sorry for hitting you.”
“But how are you okay, Ruth? How did you wake up?”
“It was that Aimee,” Belinda said indignantly. “She was drugging our Ruth that whole time with one of her concoctions. We found a veritable laboratory of potions when we searched her room. Dr. Crane said he’d never seen anything like it; he’s taken them all back to his lab to determine what they were used for but we all know that it wasn’t for anything good.”
Aimee, I thought, remembering the gun shots and the way her body had hit the ground. I felt a throb of sadness.
“She’s run away,” Estelle went on. “Her clothes and purse were gone and she left a note apologizing for everything.”
“But she couldn’t have… she was shot,” I said. “Alastair shot her right in front of me. And then the next moment she disappeared.”