by Patti Berg
“Show me.”
They slid into jeans. Elizabeth rummaged through the pile of clothing Jon had tossed on the floor the night before, found her red knit shirt, and pulled it over her head. Grasping her fingers, Jon led her to the second floor, to a part of Dalton House where she’d never been. They walked along the landing that looked out onto stained glass windows rising from floor to ceiling in the foyer and passed three doorways leading to bedrooms decorated in pastel florals with lots of ribbons and ruffles and lace. “My grandfather said his mother had once dreamed of filling all of these rooms with children,” Jon said.
“I imagine if Alexander had lived, there would have been half a dozen rambunctious kids running around this place.”
“You really think he was Thomas’s father, don’t you?” Jon asked, his fingers tightening around hers.
She nodded. “You’re so much like Alex. You have to be related, and if you are, his threat of revenge won’t apply to you.”
“His threat doesn’t worry me.”
“It doesn’t matter now, anyway.”
Jon stepped into the grandest bedroom on the floor. A mahogany bookcase with rosebuds carved in the upper corners was centered on one wall, surrounded by richly framed oil-painted florals in the softest pastels. A four-poster was draped in heavy Venetian lace and swagged with pink satin ribbons and bows, as were the windows and a dainty vanity table with an oval mirror mounted on the wall above it.
Everything was beautiful, but what caught Elizabeth’s eyes was the ornate silver picture frame on top of the vanity. She pulled her hand free of Jon’s and crossed the room. Picking up the frame, she studied the picture. “It’s Alexander,” she said. “I can’t believe Amanda kept a photo of him out in the open like this, especially after she married Luke.”
“I doubt it was around when Amanda was alive,” Jon said. “It’s probably something Thomas put there later, probably a picture of him, not Alexander.” Jon took the frame from Elizabeth’s hands, slipped the picture out from behind the glass, and turned it over. “ ‘Thomas Winchester, age twenty-nine,’ ” Jon read. “See? It’s my grandfather.”
“Alexander was twenty-nine when he died.” Elizabeth looked into Jon’s eyes, the same eyes she saw in the picture, the same eyes she saw when she looked at Alex. “Alex is your great-grandfather, Jon. Not Luke.”
He laughed. “You’re pretty sure about this, aren’t you?”
“I’m positive.”
Jon shook his head, a slow grin tilting his mouth. “Well, I just lost a murderer as a relative and gained a ghost.” He leaned against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. “Hell of a day, isn’t it?”
What could she say? In her mind, Jon was inheriting the better part of the past, but everything he’d known as his family history had suddenly changed.
“I wonder what else is in here?” he said, putting the frame back on the dresser and pulling open one of the vanity drawers.
“Are you sure you want to look? Wouldn’t you like to talk about what you’ve just found out?”
Jon cupped her cheeks in his hands and leaned over, kissing her softly. His hands trailed from her face, through her hair, then tightly wrapped around her back. He held her close, his kissing turning from soft to passionate, and as he lifted her toes from the floor, her spirits soared.
She sensed relief in his kiss, in his caress, and she saw the smile on his face when her feet once again touched the floor. “It’s a hell of a day, Ellie,” he said. “I can do whatever I want to Matt and not have to feel the least bit guilty about it.”
“I’m beginning to think a vengeful streak runs in your family.”
“Makes us rather interesting, don’t you think?”
“Just as long as you never turn your retaliation against me.”
He kissed her forehead. “Not a chance. Personally, I prefer you taking your anger out on me. You have a damn fine way of apologizing, and I’m giving serious thought to picking fights with you every single day.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“And you’re the best thing that’s ever come into my life.”
Elizabeth thought for sure he was going to kiss her again, but instead, he smiled with those sapphire eyes and she stood back and admired the man she loved as he rummaged through the vanity drawer.
“Well, what do we have here?” he said, withdrawing a small heart-shaped box decorated in ribbons and lace. Elizabeth remembered Alexander’s story of how the first time he’d seen Amanda she was dressed in pink and carried a ruffled and lacy parasol of pink-and-white stripes. Elizabeth could see Amanda vividly, gliding around this room, putting keepsakes in that box, or sitting on the front porch, being plied with Alexander’s protestations of love. They’d missed so much together, but at least their love had had a chance to live on—in Thomas, in Thomas, Jr., and now in Jon.
He lifted the lid of the box and sorted through buttons and hair ribbons until his fingers slipped around a thin gold chain. A heart dangled from the bottom, and Jon carefully opened the front. A small picture of a man had been wedged into one side, and Elizabeth knew instinctively that it was Alexander she looked at this time, not Thomas. His clothing was from an earlier period, his hair parted slightly off-center and curled behind his ears. His mustache was waxed and curled at the ends—just as Alex appeared today. On the other side of the locket the gold had been inscribed Alex loves Amanda.
A tear slid down Elizabeth’s cheek. She wrapped her arms around Jon’s neck and rested her head against his chest. “We have to tell Alex about Thomas, about everything.”
“I’d rather show him,” Jon said.
“That’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible. We just have to figure out a way to get him here.”
oOo
Jon watched the curtains flutter in the attic room as he and Elizabeth neared the hotel. He saw a thin, drawn face, and piercing blue eyes through the window, too—his eyes; his great-grandfather’s eyes—and he couldn’t help but smile.
His pace quickened, and he barreled up the stairs and through the front door, pulling Elizabeth with him. “Come on. He’s upstairs. I saw him.”
Elizabeth tugged on his hand. “He could be down here by now, too.”
You’ve told him, I see. The disembodied voice thundered through the parlor, and for the first time Jon realized he didn’t remember it solely as the sound of a ghost. Instead he remembered his grandfather. The two voices had the same lilt, even when angry. Funny, how he’d never noticed it before.
A cool breeze circled like a slow tornado in the middle of the room. When it stopped, Jon heard crystals tinkle against each other, and when he looked up, the chandelier hung a bit off-kilter.
“Yes, she’s told me,” Jon finally answered. “She’s read the diary to me, too, and we’ve talked about the property, your death, and how much you loved Amanda.”
The chandelier wobbled and Jon heard a thud on the floor just a few feet in front of him.
Has she told you about my vow of revenge?
“Yes, she’s told me about that, too.”
And you’ve come anyway?
Jon could sense Alexander’s pacing, could hear the creak of floorboards with every footstep.
“You’ve had many opportunities to harm me. I’m not afraid.”
Winchesters are lying, thieving, lily-livered buzzards, Alexander bellowed. His pacing stopped and his voice softened. You’re not a typical Winchester. If you were, you wouldn’t be here now.
“I’m here, Alex. And one way or another, we’re going to get you out.”
Alexander slowly began to materialize. His face, his hair, his shoulders, his chest, and his legs. Jon wanted to reach out and touch his great-grandfather, but Elizabeth had already warned him it wouldn’t work. They’d also made a pact not to reveal the truth about his relationship to Jon. They wanted to take him to the home that should have been his, take him to Amanda’s room and let him see the photo of his son. They wanted
him to see the truth, not hear it, and let it sink in slowly.
“How do you propose to get me out of here?” Alex asked, when he’d fully materialized.
Jon clutched the back of a chair as he looked at his ancestor, struck by their similarities. He watched Alexander Stewart walk and smile; he listened to him talk and laugh.
“I’ve tried everything,” Alex continued, “but I can’t go beyond the outside walls.”
“Have you concentrated really hard?” Elizabeth asked. “You told me it took you nearly a year to figure out how to move from room to room and even longer to speak. Maybe you haven’t tried hard enough.”
“I’ve tried hard enough. I’ve tried again and again. Do you want to see what happens?” he bellowed. “Watch. I’ll show you.” Alex sucked in a deep breath and squinted. “Keep watching.” He marched through the parlor and the entry and smacked face first into the door leading out to the front porch, bouncing away as if it were rubber.
He turned around with his arms folded across his chest, a stance Jon knew very well. “It doesn’t work,” Alex stated.
“Try again,” Jon said.
Alex glared at him. “You want to try it? You think it’s fun, looking like a silly-assed fool bumping into doors? Well, I don’t. I’ve done it in private and now I’ve done it for you. That’s enough!”
Alex walked over to the chesterfield and slunk down into the cushions. “Got any other idiotic notions you’d like me to try?”
Jon crossed to the chair in front of Alexander. He sat down and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He began to twiddle his thumbs.
“Am I boring you?” Alex asked, staring at Jon’s hands.
“Bad habit,” Jon quipped. He hadn’t twiddled his thumbs since he was a kid, but suddenly it seemed the thing to do. “My grandfather used to twiddle his thumbs. You would have liked him.”
“I doubt it. Just another Winchester.”
“He came here looking for me once. I was upset about shooting a deer.”
“I remember.”
“Do you?”
Alex nodded slowly. “You were crying,” Alex said. “I tried to comfort you as best I could, but nothing worked. You wouldn’t listen to me. Then the old man came. That was your grandfather, I suppose. He told you what was done was done and you couldn’t change history. He said you’d learned a great deal from what happened, that hunting would never make you happy, not like it does some men. He said there was nothing wrong with that, and that you should turn your energy in other directions.”
“You listened that closely?” Jon asked, smiling across the coffee table that separated him from Alex.
“I would have said the same thing to my own son—if I’d ever had one.” Alex sighed. “I might have liked your grandfather if he hadn’t been a Winchester.”
“You would have liked him,” Jon stated.
“He gave you a stick of wood and a knife that day,” Alex said. “Told you when he was upset he liked to carve. Said he wasn’t much good at it, but it made him feel better. He kissed you on the forehead and left. Next time I saw him was when you tried telling the town about me. I had the feeling he believed, but not those other buzzards, Matt Winchester and his father included.”
“My grandfather told me it never hurt to have friends and loved ones, invisible or otherwise. He even told me that when he was little, not too long after his mother died, he’d go to her room and wish she’d come back. Once or twice he thought he heard her speaking to him. No one believed him, either. He stayed out of her room after that because he didn’t want anyone to think he was crazy.”
“Did he ever go back?” Alex asked.
“I moved him into her room a few weeks before he died. He never said whether he talked with her, but he seemed more comfortable there; happier, too.”
Elizabeth put her hands on Jon’s shoulders. He could feel her fingers tightening, kneading away the tension that had formed in his muscles. “We want to take you to her room, Alex,” Elizabeth said.
Alex looked at Elizabeth, to Jon, and then to the door. “I can’t go.”
Elizabeth walked around the chair and stood close to Alex. “You have to,” she said, reaching out to him. “Hold my hand.” Jon watched the way Alex touched Elizabeth’s fingers, tentatively at first, as if he was unsure what she planned to do. “I’m going to walk out of here, and you’re going to go with me.”
Alex’s laughter roared through the room, rattling the crystals on the chandelier, ruffling the curtains.
“Haven’t you heard a thing I’ve said? I can’t leave this place.”
“Maybe you’re too scared to give it another shot,” Elizabeth fired back.
“I’ve never been scared a day in my life.”
“Prove it!”
Alex rolled his eyes. He heaved a sigh. “I suppose if I don’t, you’ll pester me to death, or you would if I weren’t already dead.”
“Come on then.”
Alex rose from the davenport and followed Elizabeth across the room. She opened the door and smiled at Alex. “Hold on tight.” Jon watched Alexander grip Elizabeth’s fingers as she walked through the doorway and saw Alex jolt to a halt when he hit the threshold. “Hell and tarnation! I told you it wouldn’t work.”
“It has to.” Elizabeth threw back.
“Let me try,” Jon said.
“You’re a Winchester! It definitely won’t work with a gall-darned, lily-livered...”
“Is that why you never touched me when I was a kid?” Jon interrupted. “Is that why you never appeared to me? Because I’m a Winchester?”
“Seemed a good reason at the time.”
“What about now?”
“You’re still a Winchester.”
Jon grinned and held out his hand. “I’m Amanda’s great grandson. Surely that accounts for something.”
“Ah, blast it all! I should have stayed invisible.”
Alex frowned. He heaved a sigh. At long last, he stuck his hand out to grip Jon’s.
And the two hands merged and became one.
Jon felt a bolt of lightning strike his hand and race up his arm.
Alex jerked away.
Jon’s body sagged with weakness. Nausea nearly doubled him over.
“Oh, Lord!” Elizabeth cried out. “This could work.”
“No!” Alex thundered, shaking his hand, as if he’d been bit by a rabid dog. “I’m not doing that again. It didn’t feel right.”
“How the hell do you think I felt?” Jon bellowed. He could still feel the pain of a million needles jabbing at his skin, could feel the fire burning a path from his fingers up his arm.
“Stop it, you two! Stop it right now.” Elizabeth stepped close to Jon and lifted the hand Alex had touched.
“Does it hurt now?” she asked.
He shook his head and she looked at Alex. “Did you really feel something, Alex?”
“What? You think I’d make a commotion if it felt good?”
Elizabeth grinned. “Did you hear what you said, Alex? You felt something, even though you haven’t felt anything in a hundred years.”
Alex frowned as he looked from Elizabeth to Jon, then back again to Elizabeth.
“If you want out of here, you’ve got to try it again,” she said. “Both of you.”
She didn’t know what she was saying, Jon thought. She didn’t have a clue how painful that brief experience had been.
Jon walked away. He went to the picture window and looked out at the light snow falling and at Dalton House, the place where Alex should have lived a good, long life. But he hadn’t. He’d been stuck in this godforsaken Victorian with no way out.
He turned and looked at Alexander—his great-grandfather, a man who’d known pain for a hundred years. Surely, Jon thought, he could endure a little—for Alexander’s sake.
“She’s right, Alex,” Jon finally said. “We have to do this if we’re going to get you out of here.”
Jon held out his hand again, and slo
wly, Alex took hold.
Jon closed his eyes to the agony. “Come closer, Alex.” Jon felt the heat racing up his arm, through his chest, his legs, as Alex dissolved, his life force melding with Jon, making them one. Jon felt as if he’d slipped and fallen into the furnace in his foundry, the pain was so intense. He fought to breathe. His chest heaved, and he forced the torture from his mind.
Jon opened his eyes and saw the tears flowing down Elizabeth’s cheeks. “Don’t cry.” He managed to laugh. “This is only a temporary condition.”
Elizabeth slipped her fingers into his and they felt like ice against his skin.
“You’re burning up, Jon. You can’t do this.”
“You’d be amazed at the things I can do, Ellie.”
“I’ve sampled some of them. I want a chance to try others, too,” she said. “Please, Jon, don’t do this. We can think of some other way.”
It’s hotter than Hades in here! Quit your jabbering and let’s see if this works.
“Did you hear that?” Jon asked Elizabeth, and she shook her head. “Our friend Alex is raising a ruckus inside my body. I can hear everything he’s saying—and thinking—perfectly clear. Come on, let’s see if we can walk out of here.”
Elizabeth opened the door, and Jon easily walked out onto the porch. “We’re outside, Alex,” Jon said.
Well, don’t this beat all? I can see everything plain as day, just like I’m looking through your eyes. Come on, boy, I’ve got more things to see before you’re through with me.
Jon smiled, and Elizabeth frowned. “Are you all right?”
“For the moment.” Jon gripped the railing as they walked down the stairs, then wrapped his arm around Elizabeth’s shoulder for support when they reached the street. Thank God they didn’t have to contend with wind and heavy snow as they made their way toward Dalton House, and thank God none of their friends were roaming about. He’d have a hell of a time explaining the awkwardness of his walk, or the heat burning his skin if someone shook his hand.
It took a long, agonizing five minutes to read Dalton House. When Jon mounted the steps leading to his home, Elizabeth rushed ahead of him, opening the door so he wouldn’t have to exert what little energy remained in his body.