Beyond the Sea: A Modern Gothic Romance

by L.H. Cosway

  A little while later, Vee came down dressed in black, her hair damp from the shower. Sylvia remained in her room, her presence in the house a constant foreboding dark cloud. She refused to go to Noah’s funeral, which didn’t surprise me. I was pretty sure Vee and I were going to be the only two in attendance. We were the only ones who loved him. I wished I convinced him how loveable he truly was before he was gone.

  Vee drove us to the church. I thought it was ironic his funeral was being held there, since Noah was pretty vocal about how he’d lost his faith. I always thought I’d fall for someone whose beliefs matched mine, but somehow, I loved Noah so much more deeply because he questioned things. He didn’t accept what was laid out in front of him and that took courage.

  In a way, he taught me to do the same. I still had a deep belief in God, still cherished the teachings of the Bible, but I wouldn’t blindly accept doctrines that I hadn’t taken the time to study and decide if they were beliefs I wanted to adhere to.

  I spotted Sister Dorothy outside when we arrived at the church. She sat on a bench drinking a fancy iced latte through a straw, and despite everything, something about the sight of her brightened my mood. I loved how she did and said things you’d never expect from a nun. I told Vee I’d catch up with her and approached the bench.

  “Estella, I heard the sad news,” she said, her eyes dipping in sympathy. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I sat.

  Her hand came to rest over mine. “How are you?”

  “I’m not sure. Just coping really,” I replied quietly.

  “Were you close with the young man?”

  Something about her question caused a tear to leak out. She must’ve sensed the grief swelling inside me because she gave my hand a gentle squeeze.

  “I see,” she murmured thoughtfully.

  “It might be a while before I fill out all the paperwork for the convent, but I’ll get to it as soon as I can,” I told her.

  Her wise eyes came to mine. “May I be frank?” I nodded and she continued, “I think you should hold off on that paperwork for a while.”

  “But Sister—”

  “I can see you’re suffering and are probably searching for a place to belong in the world, but I’ve taken some more time to think about it, and I don’t believe this is the right path for you.”

  I stared at her, dumbfounded. Was she right? I was too numb inside to tell.

  “Estella, are you coming?” Vee called from the entrance to the church.

  Sister Dorothy patted my hand. “Go. But think about what I said when you feel able.”

  I stood and went to join Vee, a little adrift. Sister Dorothy had just thrown me a curve ball I hadn’t been prepared to catch. I respected her opinion greatly, and if she thought I was making the wrong choice then I had to consider it.

  We walked into the church and I expected it to be empty, but surprisingly a bunch of people had shown up. I recognised them from the remembrance. These were people who’d listened to Noah tell his truth. For a brief moment, my heart filled to know his story had an impact.

  I was shocked when I felt someone’s hand close around mine. It was Vee’s. I met her gaze, and she seemed as overcome as I was by the people here.

  “I shouldn’t have loved him. By all accounts I should’ve despised him for how he came to be, but I didn’t,” she whispered.

  “He knew that,” I told her, emotion clogging my throat.

  “You two, there was something between you, wasn’t there?” she went on, and my breath caught. I couldn’t respond, only managing a quick, sober nod. “When I told you to stay away from him, it was only because I hadn’t seen him in such a long time. He’d been to prison, and I worried it might’ve damaged him. But I’m glad you didn’t listen to me. I’m glad someone loved him, even if it was only for a short while,” she said, and I was in danger of bursting into tears right there, but I managed to hold them back.

  Aoife and Jimmy appeared, each taking a turn to hug me tight. When the mass ended, and people had paid their respects, Vee and I drove away from the church in silence. Since no body had been found, there was nothing to bury, so we didn’t go to the graveyard.

  Vee parked outside the house, but I noticed she was hesitant to go inside. I was hesitant, too, but I couldn’t determine why exactly. There was a heavy tension radiating from the building, like a negative energy that pushed all living things away.

  With a pit in my stomach, I undid my seatbelt and climbed out of the car. Vee followed shortly after me. Stepping inside the house, I saw Sylvia’s bedroom door had been left slightly open. There was something foreboding about the silence, and an odd instinct had me moving down the hall towards her door.

  25.

  I peered into her room, emitting a frightened cry of shock. An empty bottle of pills lay on her bedside table, and her small, lifeless body lay prone. I hurried to check for a pulse but found none. By the empty pill bottle was a sheet of paper, on which two words were scrawled.

  I’m sorry.

  “Oh God,” I said, hand going to my mouth in horror. Footsteps sounded as Vee entered the room, probably wondering why I’d cried out.

  “She’s dead,” I whispered, distraught. After Noah’s funeral, I was far from equipped to deal with any more death. Would the grim reaper ever be done with this house? I needed to get away. The instinct to flee grew stronger by the second.

  I turned to look at Vee. She stared at the note, then at Sylvia, but she wasn’t shocked or distraught like I was. Instead, there was a discomfiting satisfaction in her eyes. It made my stomach twist with unease.

  “Vee?” I said, my voice questioning.

  Her flat stare was trained on Sylvia. Now she glanced at me. “What?”

  “Did you—”

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” she said, cutting me off and turning from the room. I stared after her, feeling ill at her lack of response. I went to look at the empty pill bottle, relieved when I saw they were ones Sylvia normally took. She’d simply ingested far too many of them. For a second, I felt like Vee had what? Given Sylvia pills to overdose on?

  I shuddered. Despite Sylvia’s misdeeds, the idea of Vee killing her mother and making it look like suicide was too unsettling to think about.

  I left Sylvia’s bedroom and closed the door, unable to tell if the lack of strong emotion in me was simply due to my numbness and grief for Noah, or if I truly didn’t feel sorry that Sylvia was dead. Maybe I didn’t. After what she did, death was far too much of a reprieve.

  Several days went by. The hospital called to inform us that, as suspected, Sylvia overdosed on her medication. It had to have been intentional. Everything she tried her entire life to keep secret had been exposed. She couldn’t live with the shame of it.

  One evening, I heard Vee shuffling around in her bedroom and peeked through the door to see her packing her clothes into a large suitcase.

  “You’re leaving?” I asked, stunned. I’d encouraged her to leave this town, but I hadn’t been very hopeful she’d actually do it.

  “Yes,” she answered quietly. “Now that Sylvia’s gone, I feel oddly … free.” There was a lightness about her now. Don’t get me wrong, her eyes were still haunted, but she didn’t seem quite so burdened anymore.

  “Good. You deserve freedom,” I said, as a moment of understanding passed between us. I didn’t hold her cruelty towards me against her. Not anymore. How could I when I knew the horrors she’d endured?

  I decided to pack, too. I had nowhere to go, but I couldn’t stay here. Even with Sylvia gone, Ard na Mara grew more toxic by the day. I sensed its malevolent energy, like her ghost had now joined Victor’s, and together they’d haunt this place for all eternity.

  I had no intention of letting this house give me any more bad dreams, though I did pity its next occupants. Maybe we should board the place up, make it inhospitable so no one else ever had the misfortune to live here.

  Maybe the convent would take me
in early. Sister Dorothy said she didn’t think it was the right choice for me, but she didn’t know about the curse. She didn’t know all the pain and loss inside me now. I wasn’t sure it would ever fade.

  I needed to be somewhere I could bury myself in prayer and somehow crawl free of the grief surrounding me.

  I spent the rest of the evening going through my things. Aoife had given me the portrait she drew of Noah, and I spent way too long staring at it, pain gripping my heart. I didn’t have any photos of him. Only this. I tried to find the old portrait Aoife drew of me, but strangely, it was missing. I must’ve misplaced it somewhere. I tried not to be too sad. I could always get her to draw me another one.

  When I was done packing, I went to Noah’s bedroom. I lay down on his bed and buried my face in his pillow, breathing in and searching for his scent. It was almost gone completely, and tears began streaming down my face. I cried silently into the pillow, so hard my ribs ached.

  A low rumble startled me from my sobbing. I furrowed my eyebrows. I didn’t immediately know where it was coming from until realisation hit. Just like that, I jumped out of bed, hope blooming within me because the noise was the roar of Noah’s motorbike.

  I raced downstairs, threw open the front door, and there he sat.

  He was an apparition, a salve to my grieving heart. I blinked to make sure this wasn’t a dream. But, no, he was still there, alive as anything, and my entire being bubbled over with joy.

  Then I ran to him and pushed him right off his bike.

  “You bastard!” I screamed as tears of happiness filled my eyes. “I thought you were dead.” I pounded my fists into his chest, and he let me before eventually taking hold of my wrists.

  “Estella,” he said, and I swore I’d never heard a sweeter sound than my name on his lips.

  “I thought you were dead,” I repeated, this time weepy as I pressed my face into his neck and inhaled.

  “I’m not dead,” he whispered. “Is this enough of a miracle for you?”

  I frowned and drew away. “What?”

  “You said only a miracle could prove you weren’t cursed. Now you’ve seen a miracle.”

  I stared at him, gobsmacked. I didn’t know if I should kiss him or punch him in the face. Anger and fury mixed with exhilarated happiness until I was fit to explode.

  “You did this on purpose?”

  “Not intentionally. Not at first.”

  “Then what?” I demanded.

  He ran a hand over the stubble on his jaw. “When I saw you and Vee were safe, I knew this was my opportunity to disappear. I destroyed several people’s reputations in a single night, and they weren’t going to let me get away with it without a fight. I was prepared for that, but I hate them. I’d rather them believe me dead than have to look at a single one of their faces ever again.”

  I understood his reasoning, but I was still mad. Mad and hurt and outraged and deliriously, exhilaratingly happy. It was hard to express all the things I felt seeing him in front of me, full of life. “I grieved for you,” I accused, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  He gazed down at me, his face etched with remorse. “You have no idea how sorry I am for that.”

  I pushed at his chest again. “I hate you.”

  “Understandable.”

  Now I growled. “But I love you, too.”

  His lips curved in the barest hint of a smile. “Love and hate, poles apart, yet so intricately intertwined.”

  “Don’t get poetic with me, Noah. You faked your death. That’s seriously fucked up.”

  “I told you I was malformed.”

  “There’s malformed, and then there’s insanity. This … this was pure insanity.” I trailed off, suddenly realising he didn’t know about Sylvia. My hand went to my mouth.

  Noah frowned. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Sylvia killed herself,” I stated flatly.

  Noah stilled, a multitude of emotions flashing in his eyes. Then, finally, he replied, “Good.”

  I turned away, wrapping my arms around myself. I struggled to contain everything I was feeling right then. A moment passed. I sensed his eyes on my back and strong arms wrapped around me

  “I love you,” he whispered into my hair.

  All the air left my lungs as those three little words sank in. I couldn’t even respond, still too shell-shocked by the knowledge he was alive. I’d thought his death was confirmation the curse was real, but it wasn’t. His reappearance was proof it wasn’t, because Noah was right. Him being alive was the opposite of a curse. It was a miracle.

  I turned in his arms, all my insides feeling lighter as I stared into his eyes.

  “Where have you been?” I asked, breathless. “We held a funeral for you. At the church, no less.” I knew by the crooked slant to his mouth that he found it just as ironic as I had. “I tried calling you so many times, but you never answered.”

  “My phone was in my pocket when I went into the water after you. It got destroyed. I …” he faltered, looking away. When his eyes found mine again, they were fierce. “I truly am sorry I put you through this. My family has brought you suffering, and if I were any kind of man, I’d have stayed away, but I couldn’t do it. I have to be selfish because I love you, Estella. I need you. I’m sorry I made you believe I’d drowned, and I don’t even know where to begin in gaining your forgiveness, but please, come with me. We can go wherever you want to go. Do whatever you want to do. If that means college, or travelling the world, then I’ll make it happen.”

  His words lit a spark in me, the hope I’d felt when I heard his engine expanded until my chest was in danger of bursting with it. “Yes,” I breathed. “I’ll go with you.”

  Sister Dorothy had been right. The life of a nun wasn’t the right path for me, not if it meant being without Noah. The grief I’d gone through when I thought he was dead was proof of that. Now that I knew what it felt like to be without him, I’d never let him go again.

  The smile that lit up his face was magnificent. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my temple. The feel of his lips on my skin made me tremble.

  “You better start packing,” he urged affectionately.

  “I’ve already packed,” I replied, just as a voice whispered, “Noah?”

  We both turned. Vee stood in the doorway, looking like she was seeing a ghost. Technically, she was.

  A moment of silence elapsed before she ran to him, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. “You’re alive. I can’t believe you’re alive,” she said in awe. Noah held still as she embraced him. Then, when the relief of seeing him faded, she pulled back and slapped him right across the face. I gasped. Noah glowered.

  “That’s for making us all believe you’d died,” Vee stated calmly.

  “Guess I deserved that,” Noah muttered, and I chuckled, whether from exhaustion or delirium, I wasn’t entirely sure.

  “Did Estella tell you about Sylvia?” Vee asked.

  “I hope she burns in hell alongside Victor.”

  Vee’s smile was sharp as a blade. “My sentiments exactly.”

  Quiet fell as we all stood there, absorbing the enormity of the moment. We’d been through so much. Honestly, I wanted to sleep for a year just to get over it all. A chill crept over me when I noticed Noah and Vee staring up at the house. Then their eyes met, some silent understanding forming.

  “Remember what you said to me the night of the remembrance,” Vee asked. “About throwing petrol on the flames and watching the place burn?”

  “I do,” Noah replied, his gaze darkening.

  “Shall we turn the metaphor into a reality?”

  “You want to burn down the house?” I interjected, aghast. It just seemed so … insane, but then, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was the sanest idea Vee had ever had. I’d always thought Ard na Mara was a bad place, that evil lingered within its walls. Making sure it never got its clutches into anyone else was surely the right thing to do.

  “A little bit of arson never killed anybody,” Noah sa
id humorously.

  “That is the most untrue statement in the history of untrue statements,” I countered, pointing my finger at him. He shot me a grin, his gaze wild in a way that made my belly flutter.

  “So, we’re all agreed?” Vee said, a sort of giddy mirth coming into her eyes.

  “Oh, hell,” I groaned. “Let’s at least go and get our things out of there first.”

  They both chuckled like I’d just made the most amusing statement ever.

  ***

  First there was smoke. The flames came soon after.

  Vee, Noah and I stood across the street, watching as fire consumed Ard na Mara. It wouldn’t be long before people in the nearby houses noticed and called the fire brigade. There was enough land separating the houses though, so the fire wouldn’t spread to any other buildings.

  For the moment, the three of us needed to savour seeing the place crumble to charcoal and ash.

  Vee had packed her things into the back of her car, while mine and Noah’s backpacks were strapped to his motorbike. When sirens began to wail in the distance, we knew it was time to leave. Noah and I walked Vee to her car.

  None of us knew what to say. Noah seemed particularly stuck for words as he came and gripped her shoulders. “Where will you go?”

  “There’s a small town in Cork that Estella’s father and I visited once. It was the happiest I’d ever been. I think I might go there,” she said, and he nodded.

  “Call me when you get settled.”

  She gave him a watery smile. “I will.”

  Now she turned to me. My relationship with Vee had always been fraught, but I held no grudge or ill will. Instead, I saw her past actions for what they were. The turmoil of a tortured soul.

  “I hope everything works out for you,” I said.

  “Thank you,” Vee replied quietly, her expression sincere. “I’m sorry for my behaviour all these years, Estella. I was horrid to you, and I just … I just hope you can find it in you to forgive me one day.”

  I reached out to touch her hand. “You’re already forgiven,” I said, and I meant it. What was done was done. Hating Vee was pointless.