by Archer, CJ
I drew in a deep breath. "Exactly as you said they would be. Your mother doesn't believe you're dead, even after I told her about the song."
He squeezed my hand and gave me a sympathetic smile. "Were they very awful?"
"They were upset, Jacob. That was the awful part."
He lowered his gaze to our linked hands. "Yes, of course. But even when I was alive my father could be…domineering."
"You didn't get along, did you?"
He looked up, startled. "Not really. You learned that from a brief meeting?"
I laughed. "No, Adelaide told me."
He chuckled. "Yes, of course. My sister likes to gossip so I'm not surprised. She never did know when to hold her tongue." He said it without a hint of irritation and I got the feeling he would give anything to hear his sister talk just one more time.
"She wants to meet with you," I said.
"When?"
"When she can get away. It's not easy for her."
He nodded. "What else did she have to say? Tell me everything."
I rubbed his knuckles with my thumb. "We got to talking about your death and how it might have occurred."
His hand shifted in mine but I held it tighter, not letting him go. "I've told you not to concern yourself with my death," he said. "It happened and that fact cannot be altered."
"And I've told you we must learn more. It might be the key to why you can't cross."
He tore his hand from mine and stood up. "What makes you think I want to cross over?"
I stared at him but he was pacing back and forth, not looking at me. "But you must—."
"Why must I?" He stopped pacing and I recoiled at the anger in his eyes. Anger directed at me. "Why do you want me to go?"
My stomach knotted at the thread of pain through his voice. I climbed out of the covers and kneeled up on the bed but did not reach for him like I wanted to. "You think I want you to leave?" I shook my head over and over and fought against the tears threatening to spill. "You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, Jacob. You tell me I'm beautiful, you look at me as if I'm more precious than the stars in the sky, and your very touch leaves me aching for more. I've known you two and a half days and yet it feels like forever. How can you think I want you to leave?"
His breathing came heavy and fast. The muscles in his jaw pulsed rapidly and it took him a long time to speak. "I didn't know," he murmured. "You talk about me crossing over...I didn't know the extent of your feelings." He stepped closer, closer, until there was nothing between us but an inch of air.
I reached up and placed both my hands on either side of his face. "I only want what's best for you," I whispered. "What's right."
"This is right. You are right for me. Emily." He lowered his head and his lips brushed my forehead, the touch as gentle as feathers. "I don't want to cross. I don't want to leave you."
He didn't say "however" but I heard it nevertheless. My heart opened up and began to bleed, or so it seemed. It hurt so much. "Go on," I said, even though I didn't want to know any more. Didn't want to hear the awful words, the ones where he said he had to go because staying was too hard. Watching me grow old when he stayed the same was unnatural.
But instead of speaking, he lowered his lips to mine. His kiss was as light as air as he tasted and teased again and again until finally I could stand it no more and I pressed my hands to the back of his head and pulled him closer, locking him against me. A deep growl rumbled low in his chest and he put his arms around me and held me tight. I melted into him, conscious of nothing but the strength in his body, the tenderness of his mouth on mine, and the desire consuming me.
I don't know how long we explored each other but we became utterly lost as we did so. Eventually, too soon, we parted.
Jacob rested his forehead against mine. "Why is it that something that's so wrong feels so good?" he asked.
"Is it wrong?"
He kissed the end of my nose. "A ghost and a girl as full of life as you?" He nodded sadly. "Very wrong."
I'd not thought my heart could hurt any more than it already did, but it felt like someone was trying to pull it out of my body through the eye of a needle. "Are you going to tell me we must stop this?" It was too hard to keep the hurt from my voice so I didn't try. "Stop feeling what we feel?"
"Can you?"
"No more than I could tear my own arm off."
He smiled sadly. "Me too."
"Then what?"
He let go of my hands and I almost toppled off the bed as I'd been using him for support. He went to the fireplace and watched me from there, as if it were safer with more space between us. I wasn't so sure about that.
"I cannot watch you live half a life, Emily."
I shook my head. "What do you mean?"
"Either you will find another man in time—."
"I won't. There's no one else for me." Stupid, stupid ghost. How could he think that?
"Or you will spend your remaining years waiting to join me. That is not the sort of life you deserve."
I sat back on my haunches. "But if you are here with me, the waiting won't be so terrible." Except that I would grow old and he would not. Of course it would be easier for me, looking at the handsome young man everyday, but for him to see the woman he'd stayed for turn into an old hag...I couldn't imagine how distressing that would be.
"And how long can you wait?" he asked, challenging now. "How many years? You would not have children, not have a family of your own—."
"I would have you."
"Is that enough?" He shook his head and buried his face in his hands.
I went to him and drew his hands away. "Yes. It is." I traced the contours of his cheeks with my fingertip, down to his lips. They were still full and soft from when he'd kissed me.
"I cannot allow you to do it," he said, taking my wrists and gently drawing my hands away. "I cannot allow you to give up on living for me."
"I'm not asking you to allow it."
"You are. And what if..." He turned his face to the side and shook his head.
"What?"
He closed his eyes and the dark lashes cast long shadows on his high cheekbones. "What if I grow weary of watching you wait?"
What did he mean? That he would grow tired of me in years to come? I could never grow tired of him. Never.
And yet he was not the one who'd turn gray-haired or wrinkly, his body would not sag and his eyesight or hearing fail him. That would be my fate alone. Of course he wouldn't want to remain here and watch me age. I really couldn't blame him for it either.
And yet it hurt knowing his love for me wasn't strong enough to survive the ravages of time.
I let go of his hands and as if that was a signal, he opened his eyes and faced me.
"I'm not strong enough, Emily."
"Not strong enough?" Didn't he mean not in love with me enough to watch me age?
"It doesn't matter," he said and rubbed both hands through his hair. "I don't want to discuss it. All that matters is that you were right before. I must cross over."
"No," I said weakly. "I was wrong. I don't want—."
"Please, don't do this to me! I cannot stay. It'll be...torture."
Hot tears poured down my face. I couldn't stop them any more than I could stop loving him. I began sobbing, the sort where you can't breathe or barely make a noise but when you do your entire body shudders with the effort.
He put his arms around my waist and drew me to him as gently as if I was made of glass. He kissed my tears and caressed my hair. At some point he pulled my head against his chest. I listened for the heartbeat that wasn't there and held him. He rocked me and I stopped crying but the pain inside was so immense I didn't think I would ever feel normal again.
"Please," he said after a long time. He didn't need to say anything else. I knew it was a continuation of the same plea without having to hear the words.
"If it's what you want," I said through my raw throat.
He touched my chin and tilted my
face up. His face, while still handsome, was distorted as if he were in pain. "It's not what I want. But it's what has to be. Do you understand the difference?"
I nodded. I understood. He could not stand to see me grow old. Could not look upon an ugly, toothless crone.
"Good." He kissed the top of my head again then held me at arm's length. So that was how it would be from now on—at arm's length.
I returned to the bed where I wanted to curl up and go to sleep then wake up from this nightmare. But it wasn't a nightmare. It was real and Jacob was in earnest now. I sat on the bed and rested my chin on my drawn up knees. I couldn't bear to look at him.
"After we've sent the demon back to the Otherworld," he said, "we'll search for my body. And my killer."
Body. Killer. Oh God, it was all so awful, so hopeless, so horrible.
At that moment I realized with startling clarity that I would do what was best for Jacob, and it was the best thing for him to cross over. It's what spirits are supposed to do. No matter how much I wanted to keep Jacob with me, I could not let the injustice done to him go unpunished. Whoever had taken his life should not be allowed to get away with it. Right then I set my mind on catching his killer. The man I loved deserved nothing less.
"Your sister told me something that might help us," I said.
His fists curled into balls at his sides and those blue eyes, duller than usual, stared unblinking at me for an inordinately long time. I could see he wasn't entirely convinced he wanted to follow through on his new resolution to cross over. We both knew that this was just the first step on what could be a long road, but it was still the first step to an end neither of us really wanted.
"You'd better tell me what it is," he finally said.
"Do you remember a boy called Frederick?"
I could have sworn he paled, something that wasn't possible considering he was dead. "Yes." He recounted the same story that Adelaide had told me about Frederick coming to their Belgravia home and accusing her and the butler of lying about Jacob's whereabouts. "It upset her greatly at the time but I'd thought she would have forgotten about it by now."
"You clearly haven't. Which means you thought it was important."
He gave me his crooked smile and I was overjoyed to see the charming Jacob back. No matter how hurt I was by the fact he didn't want to stay with me forever, I couldn't be mad at him for long. "You know me so well already." He sat on the chair near the fireplace and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. His shirt gaped open and I was rewarded with a rather delicious view of his naked chest underneath.
Would I ever get to touch it now?
"Emily, are you listening?"
"What? Yes, of course I am. You said I know you so well."
"And then I said I told Adelaide I didn't know anyone called Frederick. But that probably wasn't true."
"Why would you lie to her?"
"I didn't lie deliberately. I thought at the time that I didn't know anyone called Frederick. But now...now I think I must have."
"Why would you say that?"
"Because I now think he had something to do with my death."
I hugged my knees closer to my chest. "Why? No, let's start with who he is. How well did you know him?"
He turned his hands out, palms up, without shifting his position. "I didn't. That's the thing, I don't remember anyone from Oxford named Frederick."
"No one? It's a common enough name."
He looked down at his hands. "I know."
"Adelaide said he was fair haired, slight build, plain features. Can you recall anyone from school matching that description?"
"Not really. I suppose it could describe several of my classmates though."
"None of whom were named Frederick?"
He sighed and slumped back in the chair. "I can't recall. There might have been one or several Fredericks in my year. I just..."
"Can't recall." I sighed too. "It would seem you spent more time with your head in the clouds before you died than after."
He cocked his head to the side and gave me a withering look. "Very funny."
Adelaide and George hadn't been exaggerating when they said Jacob never noticed people. I was only now beginning to believe it.
"If I could have my life over again," he said, serious, "I would speak to everyone I ever met. Every single person. I'd stop people in the street and ask them how their day was."
"You would get some very strange looks." I tried to make light of the situation but it was no joke. It was obvious Jacob regretted what he'd been like when he was alive. It made me think about everything I wanted to change about myself. I made a mental note to give Celia a hug in the morning.
"Do you think Frederick killed you because he thought you were avoiding him?" I shook my head at the absurdity. "Not only is it a big leap but it also doesn't make sense. If he wanted to be your friend, then why would he kill you? He could never be your friend then." I drummed my fingers on my knee as another thought occurred to me. "Or perhaps there was some other reason he wanted to see you. Could you have owed him a debt?"
"How could I owe a debt to someone I didn't know? No, my death was certainly related to the fact he thought I was avoiding him."
I frowned at him. He looked away. "How do you know?" I hedged.
He shrugged one shoulder. "I just do."
"Jacob, what aren't you telling me? What do you know?"
"Nothing. Just leave it be. Accept that I'm almost certain Frederick the boy from Oxford is somehow relevant to my death."
"You mean he killed you."
"No. I think he had something to do with my death, but didn't commit the act himself."
I put my hands up, stopping his convoluted riddles. "If you don't know who killed you, how can you discount Frederick from the list of suspects? He sounds like the most likely one to me."
Jacob scratched his head, making his hair stick out at odd angles. "I can't tell you why I know he didn’t do it, I just do."
"You can tell me, you just don't want to."
That cynical smile again. "Thank you for clarifying."
I climbed off the bed and crouched in front of him, touching his knees. "Jacob, you have to tell me everything. I need to know what you know."
"No!" He gripped my forearms and hoisted me up as he stood too. "There are some things you should not know, Emily. This is one of them."
Anger flared, bright and fierce, behind my eyes. Already tonight he'd decided we would not be together and now he was keeping information from me that could help me solve his murder? It was too much. I deserved to decide what was important and what wasn't too. "Why shouldn't I know?" I jerked out of his grip. He sat down again, shock rippling across his handsome face. But I wasn't prepared to let my anger evaporate beneath his sudden change. Sometimes anger is a benefit, if channeled correctly. "What could it possibly matter now? You're dead. And I will find out who killed you so you might as well tell me everything you know."
He said nothing for a long time, just stared at me, and for one breathless moment I was scared that he found my anger ugly and that he was relieved he'd not committed to spend the rest of my life with me. But I could not regret it any more than I could control it. Something was bothering Jacob deeply and I was determined to get to the bottom of it.
"Very well." He sucked in his top lip and indicated I should sit. I sat on the bed, my stockinged toes just touching the fringe of the rug, my hands at my sides on the quilt. "I suppose it doesn't matter what you think of me now anyway," he said, bleak.
"What I think of you?" I felt like all the air had been knocked out of me along with my anger. I shook my head. I didn't understand.
"It might even be for the best." He rubbed his fists down his trousers and didn't quite meet my gaze. "Now that we've decided I must cross over, having you...despise me will make that easier."
"Despise you?" I got up and went to him but he lifted a single finger, halting me from curling into his lap and kissing him all over. "I could ne
ver despise you," I said instead.
He pressed the finger into his eye socket and his thumb into the other. "You haven't heard my story yet."
I sat back down on the bed and tucked my hands beneath my thighs. "Go on."
"I know that boy Frederick didn't kill me because...because I killed him." He waited for me to say something but I didn't. In truth, I couldn't have spoken anyway. I was too shocked by his admission to make any sense. "I was walking home late one night when a boy accosted me. I didn't realize then that it was the same boy that had come to the house. That only came later. Much later, after I died. Anyway, the boy began shouting at me, accusing me of ignoring him and deliberately avoiding him. Of course I had no idea what he was talking about. I tried to calm him down and make sense of what he was saying but he just got angrier and angrier." He rubbed his cheek as if trying to remove a smudge. "He struck me. It wasn't a very strong blow but I hadn't been ready for it and I must have stumbled back. He came at me again but I'd recovered enough to defend myself. In the ensuing struggle I punched him. He fell and...and hit his head on the ground. The pavement was uneven and... The sound..." He closed his eyes and his nostrils flared. "The sound his head made as it hit the ground has stayed with me all this time."
I sat on the bed and waited for him to go on but he didn't. My heart beat hard in my chest and blood pounded in my ears. Jacob had killed someone. Jacob. My Jacob. A murderer.
I sucked in air between my teeth and let it out slowly. No wonder he'd avoided telling me about the circumstances surrounding his own death. I'd suspected outside George's house that he was withholding something vital from me and now I knew what it was, and why. He was racked with guilt and he was afraid I would think badly of him.
"Don't look at me like that," he said upon opening his eyes.
"Like what?"
"Like...like you still love me."
"I do." What a stupid thing for him to say! "Of course I do."
"But...how can you after what I just told you?"
"Because you didn't mean it. It was an accident." I got up and crouched before him again. I took his hands in both of mine. "It was an accident, Jacob, and you don't deserve to carry this guilt, just as you didn't deserve to die." Oh God, is that what he thought? That he deserved death because he'd accidentally killed someone?