by Regan Forest
“Let’s take the case downstairs.”
Ellen looked over her shoulder to see if the spirit had returned. The attic was quiet, full of only cobwebs and shadows, with no sign of any ghost. She slid the diary back into the case.
Cody said, “The stairway is almost completely dark. Let me walk ahead of you so if you trip you’ll fall on me.”
“And what if you trip?”
“I won’t. I can see fairly well in the dark and my eyes have already adjusted.” He headed for the stairs, carrying the case.
Their footsteps on the wood echoed in the narrow stairwell. The house was beginning to feel familiar to Ellen even though it was her first time actually inside. She felt she’d been here many times, and in a mysterious way, she had. With Cody here, all her fear of being inside had vanished.
From the wide landing, they stood looking into the arched entry of the ballroom. There was no furniture. In the ceiling plaster were two holes where chandeliers had been removed. The walls remained a vivid sky blue, against an ornate white molding along the ceiling and white wainscoting on all four sides. Darker patches marked rectangles where oversize paintings had once hung.
“What a room,” Cody wheezed.
“I’ve dreamed of this room,” she said softly. “I dreamed that you and I were dancing here. And in the dream the room was blue. How could I have known it was blue?”
“You wore a blue dress and diamonds, and the diamonds sparkled when you turned.”
Her heart began to pound. They looked at each other. Her voice was faint and filled with awe. “And there were crystal chandeliers and there was music....”
“And the light was shining in your eyes when you looked up at me. We danced as though we had danced here before and would dance here again....”
“I can scarcely believe this, Cody!”
He scratched his chin. “Something odd has been going on for a long time, then. Unexplainable...”
Ellen hurried into the ballroom, turning around and around, her arms out, losing herself in the magic of the regal space. “My gown is blue organza and silk and it’s twirling, twirling under the sparkling lights! Can’t you see it? Can’t you see the magic?”
Cody set down the leather suitcase. “I can see it very well.” And it was true. As she whirled, the dream returned, and her jeans and purple T-shirt and sneakers transformed into the filmy blue gown and silver slippers. How beautiful she was! The most beautiful woman he had ever seen. No wonder she was like a princess in his dreams.
He had known even when he was a kid that Ellen Montrose was no ordinary girl. He had known even then, without consciously knowing, that she was, in fact, a princess. A part of Ellen knew it, too. Otherwise she wouldn’t be here, dancing in this elegant ballroom, in a gown that took his breath away. Remembering, he began to hear the music.
She heard it, too, so no words were needed when he approached and opened his arms. She slid into the warmth and reality of him and they fell into the rhythm of the music.
“You look beautiful in blue,” he said.
“And you look magnificent in black tails.”
“I know. I’ve always thought so.”
As they twirled, she asked, “Cody, which is this? Is it a dream or is it real?”
“I don’t know the difference anymore. Maybe there is no difference.”
“What does that mean?”
“Maybe we live on two planes at once. We must, because we’ve been connecting on that other plane.”
“The dream plane.”
“Yeah.”
“But how? Why?”
“It must have to do with love, Ellen. And destiny.”
This made her shudder with fear. “Why this house? It has nothing to do with us.”
“Somehow it does. Why, I don’t know, but somehow it does. We can both hear the music. We both have seen the ghost. There is a reason, Ellen. It’s not just coincidence. There is a reason for our dreams.”
He looked down at her as they danced. She looked up to meet his eyes. Even in the dim light, they were vivid blue, like in her dreams. Like in the sunlight. The real magic, she thought, is in his eyes....
“Love is the reason,” Cody said. “You know that as well as I.”
“I do know,” her heart answered. “I do know.”
His kiss was light at first, in the sparkles of the crystal chandeliers. As it deepened, she felt his heart beating against her own, and his breath finding the rhythm of her own.
Their breaths were the rhythm of the music. The spirit of the house surrounded them and wrapped them in the throbbing colors of its aura. They belonged here. The unfulfilled dreams of the house mingled with their dreams and dazzled them, dazed them, captivated them. On this summer evening the mansion was theirs.
Cody’s hands combed through her hair sensually as he kissed her. Ellen tossed back her head, allowing his kisses to reach her throat. Tingles of desire shuddered through her body. Her head began to spin as it always did when Cody kissed her.
Wrapped in the magic, she thought of the dreams and how she had so desperately wanted him to stay...to touch her...to kiss her.... Now it was happening, and Cody was right; it was very hard to tell which was the dream and which was the mysterious condition called “reality.”
She only knew that this time there was no danger of his disappearing. So perhaps this was the dream...completing itself.
“I love you, Ellen,” he was whispering between soft, electric kisses. “I want you....”
Slowly they sank to the floor. The music was still there. The dance was not over; it was only beginning.
14
THE EMPTY HOUSE enfolded them, welcoming them, its haunted echoes sighing as if it had never before known lovers—as if it had been deprived of this special joy.
It was true; laughter had not dwelt here. Ellen had known it even as a child, looking at the lights come on in the few selected rooms; and she had felt sorry for the mansion then, because her heart told her that within its stately walls there was no gaiety, no joy. No love.
Love was here now, if only for a day.
With the magic surrounding them, Ellen forgot everything except the moment...for the moment was the touch of Cody’s lips, the touch of his fingertips, the touch of his eyelashes, soft against her cheek.
Untucking his white cotton shirt from the waist of his jeans, Cody muttered, “These tuxes are damn stiff.”
“Then let me help with those studs.” She smiled, finding the buttons of his shirt.
Moments later her hands moved over the hard muscles of his tanned, bare chest. “How beautiful you are!” she said.
“Ah, my sweet! You are more beauty than I ever imagined.” His hands slid under her T-shirt and along her bare midriff. “Beauty...and in that sparkling dress that matches the color of your eyes.”
She looked at him. “You know my gown is blue?”
“It’s as blue as the color of this room. I was there, remember? It sparkled when we were dancing, and when I felt its softness I nearly went crazy with wanting you. But I don’t want to wrinkle it.”
“No, we mustn’t wrinkle—”
“Underneath, you are softer still.” He lifted the purple T-shirt over her head. “Your softness is the miracle of you.” Kissing her, he slid flat onto the floor and pulled her down to him, closer than before, closer than ever before. It was not that his arms held her tighter, but that his love was stronger, his need greater. And how could it not be, now that they had learned the depth of their sharing? Now that they knew this was how their ballroom dream was meant to end?
From the windows, lavender-and-silver twilight illuminated their naked bodies as shadows drifted across their borrowed world, and evening birds sang in the highest tree branches. In a blur of pleasure, Ellen accepted the sweet torment of his love—drops of fire against her skin as his lips explored, tasting the beauty, the perfume, the surging need, and the essence of her. She cried out his name, but the sound of his name came only as a whis
pered sigh, half plea, half wonder.
Each flame that touched her, burned words from somewhere deep inside her heart. No other man has ever known me...nor ever loved me.... No other man ever will again...for there is no other. Even in the whirlpool of passion Ellen heard the desperate cry within her— There is no other...only him....
Tears of runaway emotion blurred her eyes. “Cody...!”
He reached up to press his hand gently, reassuringly against her breast. Her breaths became silky moans, echoing in the deep silence of the house, coming louder and faster until they erupted in a fevered shudder.
His body moved over hers like an ocean wave consuming her, drowning her, wrapping her in the celebration of itself. The miracle of manhood...needing...possessing...giving...
Through a veil of tears, she looked up and saw, for a split second, the woman she had become as a reflection in his deep blue eyes—the woman she was this very moment, experiencing with astounding pleasure the man he was.
Quivering, breathless, drenched by the surge of his passion, Ellen accepted him as naturally and completely as she accepted the rushing and ebbing of her pulse, finding his.
His throaty moan came from behind closed eyes as his body went rigid and trembled. His hands found hers above her head and held on, as if to keep himself from falling.
In those seconds of his helplessness, Ellen felt the sensation of her love flowing into him, filling every cavern of his loneliness and every vessel of his need.
* * *
IN THE AFTERGLOW she lay in his arms, bathed in the last silver-blue of twilight chased by encroaching shadows. He wiped at a trickle of moisture on her cheek and whispered, “Why the tears? Are you sad?”
“I’m sadder and happier than I thought it possible to be.”
This comment was met by a long silence, after which he said, staring at the ceiling, “So am I.”
The hedging shades of night carried in with them the crisp mountain air. Cody moved closer. “Is your body really covered in powdery sparkles, or am I seeing you in angel’s attire?”
She smiled. “They’re sparkles of heat from your body.” Her trembling had eased and now began again. “It’s getting cold.”
“And dark.”
“Dark?” Ellen struggled up onto her elbows. “Oh, no! There’s barely enough light for us to see our way out of here. How are we going to read the book and the papers?”
“We could take the suitcase with us.”
“Out through the basement window? But that’s like stealing. It doesn’t belong to us.”
“Who does it belong to after all these years, Ellen?”
“I— To the ghost. What if she is the spirit of the Iris Whitfield who wrote the diary? It could very well be. She must have been the one who hid the suitcase, and now she wants somebody to find it.”
“The ghost definitely wanted somebody to find it,” Cody said, sitting up and reaching for his clothes. “But I agree we can’t just walk off with it. Tell you what—” He paused as he pulled on his jeans. “I have a flashlight in my car. I’ll go down and get it while you dress.”
He picked up her clothes from where they had fallen and handed them to her. “Your gown, my lady.”
When he was gone, the same feeling of abandonment came over her that she had felt in the dreams. It was a ghost’s house she was alone in, and there was no way of knowing when or where the specter might show herself again. Ellen hurriedly pulled on her clothes and went to the window. It was impossible to see down through the thick tree branches to the place where Cody would have parked his car.
He must have rushed all the way; before she expected him, he was standing in the ballroom holding the lighted flashlight in one hand and rubbing his shin with the other.
“I had to feel my way through the basement getting out,” he said. “And ran smack into a wrought-iron chair.” Quickly he moved from in front of the window. “We have to be careful to make sure nobody sees this light moving around up here.”
Ellen sat down on the floor and pulled the suitcase open.
He shone the light on the contents while Ellen lifted out the box and untied the bow of blue ribbon.
Cautiously, she lifted the lid and brushed aside a layer of pale blue tissue paper. Her hand felt heavy lace. Excited, she pulled out a carefully folded white dress trimmed in pearls and lace. “It’s a wedding dress!” Her fingers glided lovingly over the fabric. “It’s beautiful! Do you think it belonged to her? To Iris Whitfield?”
“Likely so.” Cody picked up some papers and moved them into the light beam. “This is a baptismal certificate.” He read, ‘Mary Helen Whitfield, born in November 1895.’ Clipped to it is a hospital record of her birth.”
“Obviously these people were family of the Whitfield who built the mansion. The last people who lived here weren’t Whitfields. There was an old couple named Meullar.” Ellen was folding the dress and replacing it gently in its box.
While she did so, Cody picked up the leather-bound notebook and flipped through to the last written page. “The final entry in the diary is April 29, 1902. That’s only three months after the first entry.”
Suddenly, from the white-pillared archway, the filmy presence reappeared. The ghost floated below the ceiling across the spacious room and hovered not far above them. It was almost as if she wanted to join them out of interest in what they were doing. Ellen’s initial fear had evaporated with familiarity. The spirit was not hostile. In fact, this time it exuded cordiality.
“You must be Iris Whitfield,” Ellen exclaimed to the floating phantom. “You led us to your diary because you wanted us to find it.” The ghost was more plainly visible than ever before. Then she gradually began to fade. “We have to read the diary, Cody!”
He handed her the open notebook and focused the beam of the flashlight on the pages. Ellen tried to adjust her eyes to the delicate handwriting.
“Iris identifies herself on the first page as the second wife of Lawrence Whitfield—the man who built the mansion in 1880.” She looked up. “That was the year the mine opened, so Lawrence would have been the owner of the mine.”
“Second wife, you said?” Cody asked, squinting to try to see the thin scroll.
Ellen nodded, turning the page. “Oh, my.” She paused. “Listen.
“At the time of this writing my husband, Lawrence, has been dead for three long years and I know I am soon to join him in the hereafter. I shall not live to my thirtieth birthday, which is only five months away. The lung disease is fatal; I must accept that now, but I do not want to leave Mary Helen. My little daughter is not yet seven years old. She is too young to fight them for what is rightfully hers, and I am too weak. I can do little more now than write this account of the truth and hope it reaches someone who can help me before my enemies find it.”
Cody frowned. “What kind of crazy drama have we stumbled onto?”
Intrigued, Ellen was already reading on.
“My husband’s first marriage ended after twenty-eight years, with his wife’s death. The first Mrs. Lawrence Whitfield, before me, was named Hannah. Twelve months after Hannah’s death, Lawrence and I were married at the little chapel near Rollington. He was forty-six and I was nineteen. His family did not approve of his marriage to a mine worker’s daughter. He brought me to this wonderful house which I had always dreamed of from afar and never imagined I would live in. Mary Helen was born, Lawrence’s only child, and we were very happy. Our daughter was only five when Lawrence died of heart failure.
”A few months ago, I found out that Hannah’s nephew from Fort Collins, who is an attorney-at-law, is planning to take the house away from me. His name is Mr. Roger Meullar and he suddenly came to my door after it became known that I am terminally ill. He asked to see my marriage license and then took it and would not return it to me. The public records burned years ago when the courthouse caught fire, and the preacher who married us has passed away. There is no way for me to prove I am legally married. Mr. Meullar has prepared a ca
se to prove that he is legal heir to the house through his aunt Hannah. He says Lawrence never legally married me and therefore Mary Helen is not a Whitfield heir. I fear he will take the house as soon as I am gone.”
Ellen looked up with horror in her eyes. “This is terrible! That poor girl!”
“And he did take the house from her, obviously,” Cody said. “He was a Meullar.”
Ellen remembered the old couple who lived here when she was a child. Would he have been Roger? Yes, it seemed as if that was his name. Now their granddaughter Carolyn owned the house and didn’t want it. How sad...
She recalled the summer Carolyn Meullar came to Shadow Valley to see her grandparents and left after only a few days, telling stories around town of a ghost that haunted the mansion. To this day, it was said, Carolyn had returned only once, to collect items she wanted from the estate.
“So Carolyn encountered the ghost of the woman her grandfather took the house away from...” she mused.
“What?”
“Carolyn Meullar. She’s the present heir and she’s been trying to sell this place for more than three years. Rumors are that she’s scared to death of it because of the ghost.”
“A lot of people are,” Cody said. “The Whitfield mansion is reputed to be not only haunted, but cursed, as well. You’re the first person I’ve ever met who had the nerve to come in here alone.”
She smiled. “Except for you.”
“I’ve never been afraid of ghosts.” He laughed.
She laughed with him. “I remember your reputation. You were never afraid of anything.”
“Not stupid things like ghosts, anyhow. Ghosts are just people who are dead. There’s no person I’m afraid of, dead or alive.”
Ellen studied his eyes and knew that he wasn’t boasting; he was merely stating the truth. The gentle side that he had always shown her was a side of Cody that few people had ever seen. He had grown up tough, with as many chips piled on his shoulder as were piled on hers, and he’d fought his way out of the stigma of a poverty-stricken childhood. Now she recognized one thing that had been plaguing her all day—Cody’s reaction to the ghost. He’d shown not a trace of fear.