"I don’t believe that for a second."
"Remind me to show you some of my haikus someday. Wait—scratch that. Don’t. I’d prefer to hold onto some measure of respect in this relationship."
Alis smiles admonishingly, her fingers trailing over my arm for a long, still moment, drawing reassuring circles upon the skin below my rolled-up sleeve. "I have nothing but respect for you, Darcy. You inspire me."
"Well… I’m afraid my poems would only inspire nausea," I tell her softly, with a fainter smile. My eyes follow the movements of her fingers, pulse stuttering. I’m so terribly confused in Alis’ presence. Since Christmas and those blunt, inexplicable Scrabble tiles…all I can think about when I’m near her is kissing her. I want to kiss her. And sometimes I think she wants me to, too—like now: she’s gazing up at me with her full lips parted, her fingers forming mysterious patterns on my arm. Her lips curve for me, half-smiling, but her hooded blue eyes are full of shadows, depths I can’t begin to plumb…
I brush my thumb over her cheek, swallowing. "You’ve smeared your face with purple, you know. What were you painting, a still life of eggplants?" I show her my paint-stained thumbnail, and she grins, reaching for my hand and tugging coyly.
"Come with me. I want to show you what I’ve done."
Alis set up her easel in the living room several days ago, before the bare bow windows, expounding about the subtle slant of the light there. But she hasn’t shown me any of her work yet. The only evidence I have seen of her talent to date is the mermaid mural painted on The Poseidon’s exterior. Living with Catherine taught me to respect the necessary privacy of artistic souls.
My heart beats fast within me now at the thought of glimpsing Alis’ painting.
"Close your eyes," she bids me seriously, though her blue gaze teases.
I press my free hand over my eyes, allowing myself to be pulled nearer to the easel. Biting my lip with curiosity, I venture a peek between my fingers, only to find Alis’ face inches from mine—her mouth pursed in a disapproving frown.
"No peeking, Darcy!"
"Sorry. This is why no one ever wanted to play hide-and-seek with me when I was a kid."
"I would have played with you, anyway, you know. I was terrible at hiding and couldn’t wait to be found." She sighs pseudo-dramatically before releasing my hand and lightly touching my back. "Well, all right, cheater, have a look—and please be gentle."
I open my eyes. "Always." Arching a brow in Alis’ direction, I move around the easel to fully face the large stretched canvas, inhaling the scent of wet oil paint. My eyes still, stunned, and for an immeasurable moment, my senses leave me: I can’t see, can’t smell, can’t even hear Alis speaking to me until her breath warms my ear, and I become aware of her hip pressed against my hip, her arm wrapped delicately around my own.
"Darcy?"
"Yeah."
She draws in a deep, shaky breath. "Is it—"
"Yeah." I try to swallow, but my throat is too dry; my tongue moistens my lips. Still wondering over the painting, I reach for Alis’ hand beside my leg, and she weaves her fingers naturally with my own.
"I thought," I begin, as my wide eyes cherish every brushstroke, "that you’d show me a mermaid, or a centaur, or a dragon flying through a fantastic sky."
"I’m a portrait artist at heart, though I’m a little out of practice. Is it all right? I just… I wanted to paint something for you, something lovely, to show you how much I…how much… I mean," she sighs, her gaze lingering on the rainbow-hued palette resting on the windowsill, "to thank you. And to…help you. Art is incredible therapy, you know." She clears her throat, and when she speaks again, she sounds more certain, bolder. "Not only the creation of it, but the viewing of it, as well. We have art therapists at the hospital. I’ve spoken with them a lot, and the responses they get from the patients with their treatments—" She squeezes my hand tightly. "Art transforms."
I smile, nodding my head faintly. "Catherine used to put on puppet shows for the kids in the cancer ward when she was stuck there for treatments. No script. She’d wing it. She firmly believed that art led to healing." I blink fast, eyes stinging as I stare at the painting. "Even when she was at her sickest, she insisted on having a notebook nearby—to ‘release the words,’ should inspiration strike her. She told me that she felt better after she wrote. Physically better."
"She told me that, too, Darcy."
I draw in a deep breath and close my eyes for a moment, trying to calm my startled heart. "Sometimes I forget that you were her nurse, that you spent so much time with her. That you were her friend." My mouth quirks softly. "It’s selfish to even ask… But did Catherine ever talk to you about me?" Faltering on the last word, I shake my head, moving my hand over my eyes to catch the tears there before Alis notices them. "Never mind. You don’t have to tell me—"
"She talked of little else besides you, Darcy." Alis’ voice sounds strange, rough, and when I look at her, she meets my gaze with dark, impassioned eyes. "You were her sun. She told me that. That…" She glances away, far away, as if trying to glimpse an unattainable scene from the past. "She said that, without you, she would be a planet without an orbit. She said she would be lost, all alone in the universe." Alis’ hand rises, then, to gesture at the brilliant orb painted near the top right-hand corner of the painting, so vibrantly yellow that it seems to pulse with light.
Alis’ hand lowers to rest upon my shoulder. "That’s you, Darcy. You’re the sunlight shining upon her face."
Her face.
Swallowing, I stare at the painting, this perfect witchcraft. No photograph ever captured Catherine so truly. But Alis knew her. Alis knew her, saw the truth of her. And Alis painted Catherine for me: Catherine beaming, on the verge of laughter, aglow. Here is my Catherine again, a reborn creature of wet, shining paint and unbridled joy.
"It’s too beautiful, Alis. I can’t… I don’t know how to—"
"You don’t have to say anything. Art isn’t about words." She laughs a little to herself, gazing at me with her head tilted to the side. "That’s kind of the point."
My lips part as I look back at her; I reach for her hand again. She gives it to me, moving a step nearer. "Thank you, Alis."
"It was the least I could do."
"The least? It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life."
Biting her lip, eyes bright, Alis turns away to regard her painting thoughtfully. "It was so odd, you know. I haven’t picked up my brush in ages. But I just felt inspired suddenly, and I knew exactly what to do. I never questioned a stroke. It was almost as if…" She shakes her head, frowning.
"As if what?" I urge her. "Go on."
She turns her blue eyes on me, wide as moons. They reflect my own face back at me: sharp-angled and pale, my expression curious but guarded. "I felt as if…" Alis begins, shifting her gaze to the floor. "It was like someone was guiding me, or almost…whispering to me, though I couldn’t hear any words. I kept shivering, because the room became very cold, and my heart was beating so fast." She shakes her head and looks at me, reaching for my hand. "My fingers tingled. But I didn’t stop painting. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t stop, not until it was finished." She glances to the painting for a moment, and there’s fear in her eyes when she faces me again. "I think it’s the best painting I’ve ever done, Darcy. But I don’t understand… Where did that feeling come from?"
I bite my lip and exhale heavily, staring into Catherine’s knowing, unblinking green eyes. "Alis, I think I should tell you—"
"Could it be my muse?" She laughs lightly, releasing my hand and tugging the paintbrush free from her bun. Then she moves toward the palette on the windowsill and twirls the bristles of her brush in a spot of black paint. "I always liked to imagine her, you know, peering over my shoulder as I worked, whispering secrets in my ear and invisibly guiding my hand. I never felt her before, though."
"Alis…"
"What, Darcy?" Standing still before her painting, Alis considers for
a long moment before drawing her brush over the lower right corner of the canvas, sketching her name—just Alis—in a thin streak of paint. "There. Finished. We’ll have to leave it here to dry for a few days, but then you can frame it and hang it wherever you’d like."
I stand with my arms crossed loosely at my waist, feeling Alis’ warm presence beside me and Catherine’s cool one before me, and something within me turns, or shifts, or clicks into place. I slip my arm through Alis’ arm and draw her away from the canvas, out of the living room entirely, and into the front hall, where I hand her her winter coat.
"Darcy, what—"
"I haven’t been entirely honest with you," I say slowly, avoiding her confused blue gaze as I reach for my own coat and begin to slide it on. "I just… I had to keep it to myself, keep her to myself, and I didn’t understand it at all—still don’t understand it—but it’s not just about me anymore. If she’s haunting you now, too—"
"Wait. What?" Alis takes a step back, and her coat slips from her fingers, forming a hunching red mound between us on the floor.
I sigh and pick up Alis’ coat, moving near enough to place my hand upon her flushed cheek. Her hair, fallen loose, tickles the backs of my fingers. "I don’t want to frighten you, but I can’t…lie to you about it, either. That wouldn’t be fair, or kind."
"This house is really haunted?"
I smile mildly, though when I swallow, my throat feels as dry as hot sand. "This house, the cabin… Yeah. I don’t know what other word to use except…haunted."
"By who? By what? Since when?"
"Ever since Catherine died."
Alis blanches, taking a faltering step backward and shaking her head, her full lips parted, her eyes large and shining, heartbreakingly blue. "You mean—"
"She’s still here, Alis. Catherine never left. She hasn’t left me yet."
---
Alis draws her legs beneath her on the couch as she flips through the sheaf of neatly typed pages, pausing every so often to read a passage of dialogue, tilting her head and vaguely, sweetly moving her lips.
I lean on the desk and watch her, eyes marveling. She looks like a vision, like a painting herself: barefoot, blushing prettily, her dark hair disarmingly mussed, flanked on both sides by fuzzy, dozing kittens. Her perfume—white and heady—permeates the cabin’s chilled air.
I wish I had a camera. I have no photographs of Alis, no proof of her lovely face save for the stolen images tucked away in my heart.
My fingers rise to touch the diamond ring on the chain around my neck, the ring from Catherine—from Catherine’s ghost—but instead of feeling the expected guilt and shame for my thoughts of Alis, the cool metal of the ring encourages and emboldens me. Then a pressure, like a kiss, grazes my forehead, my brow…accompanied by the scent of violets. Catherine’s purple scent.
When I open my eyes, I see Alis, still seated on the couch, gazing at me, flushed, her expression that of someone stricken: with impossible knowledge, with shock, with wonder.
"You wrote this?" she whispers, staring down at the manuscript in her hands.
"No." I ease away from the desk and sit down in the chair beside it, resting my head on my hand. Portia wastes no time in leaping up onto my lap to rub her head fondly against my chin, and I begin to stroke her soft white fur. "Catherine wrote it. She wrote most of it while she was alive. And some of it…after."
"But your hands typed these words for her? She…possessed you?"
"Yes."
"Darcy, I…" Alis lays her hands flat on top of the manuscript and closes her eyes for a long, silent moment. "I just don’t know how to respond to any of this." She looks at me desperately, searching my face, as if she might discover the truth, or the reason, in my expression. But then she glances away, her mouth downturned. "I’m so confused."
I plant a kiss on Portia’s head and then nudge her to the floor as I rise and cross the room to sit beside Alis. Two mewing kittens—Scarlett and Rossetti—claim my lap posthaste. Like mother, like children. I pet them absentmindedly with one hand, taking the manuscript from Alis with the other. "It isn’t finished yet," I say softly, setting it aside.
"She’ll have to possess you again, then?"
I bite my lip, nodding slightly.
"Has she possessed you—I mean, does she only do it when you sit down at the typewriter? Does she ever just… I don’t know. Has she ever"—she swallows—"possessed you while you were with me?"
"No, Alis." I try to smile, even as my mind journeys back to the time in the bathtub here at the cabin, and my body rouses at the memory. I cough into my hand, clear my throat. "No, it’s only happened here, and only when I…permitted it to happen. She’s never forced me. She never would. When I asked her to stop, she stopped."
Alis leans back, relaxes a little. "But, Darcy, why is this happening? If Catherine truly is haunting you, or us… Why would she do that? To finish the manuscript? Or is it because…" Fear glints in Alis’ eyes before she turns away from me, bowing her head.
"Because of what?" I ask her, worried when I see tears gleaming at the corners of her eyes. "Hey, Alis." I take her chin in my hand and tilt it upward, but she still avoids my gaze. "What’s wrong? Are you all right?"
"Not really," she laughs lightly, wiping at her eyes. She glances at me quickly and then looks away again.
I sigh. "Listen, Alis, I know this must be a shock. I should have told you before you moved in and given you the choice. I’m so sorry that I didn’t. I just didn’t know how to bring it up, or convince you, and it felt too…private at the time." I draw in another deep breath, eyeing Catherine’s typewriter dully. "If you don’t want to deal with it, if you want to move out—"
"I don’t!" Alis protests, her eyes wet and flashing. "I don’t, Darcy, unless you want me to go."
I smile down at her sweet, worried face. "Never. I would miss you terribly, you know."
"Would you?" Her lower lip quivers.
"Yes."
Suddenly, the air in the cabin feels restless, staticky, electric. I gaze at Alis and feel my heart lean toward her, feel my every cell arc in her direction. Unthinkingly, my arm moves around her shoulders, drawing her near until her dark, messy head rests, with a long, heavy sigh, against my chest.
"Catherine was right, Darcy."
I shake my head, swallow, will my heart to slow—in vain. "About what?" My fingers draw circles upon Alis’ arm as she curls toward me, petting the kittens nestled upon my lap.
"You smell like sunlight." Alis tilts her head back to look at me, her expression unreadable, and whispers, "You are the sun."
My lips part, and Alis’ do, too, and there’s not an inch between us; her warm breath upon my mouth provokes a shiver from my fingertips to my toes. But neither of us moves. Neither of us closes the space between our lips: it lingers there, an immeasurably small distance, and yet excruciatingly far.
"Darcy," Alis breathes, "I want to…"
"Me, too."
And those blue, blue eyes, hooded with longing, grow wide and bright now in a stunning instant. Alis draws herself away from me, fully away, so that no part of our bodies touch, so that something within me cries out from the pain, the tear of sudden separation. I sit alone, hurting, split apart.
Alis stares blankly at the typewriter across the room, her hands balled into fists on her lap. "I’m so confused," she whispers, echoing herself. A single tear slides over her cheek.
"Alis—"
"I’m sorry. I’m… It’s nothing to do with you. It’s just… I’m a mess, you know, a disaster, and I shouldn’t have ever—How did I ever think—I mean, Catherine was so lovely, so good. And how could I… She’s still here, and I—"
"Alis, please, it’s okay." I begin to reach for her, but she shies from my hand, rises.
"I’m sorry."
"Can we talk about this? Please?"
"Yes. Later. We have to talk…later."
I stand up and take her hand. "Why not now?"
When her eyes
meet mine, they’re darkened by tears, twin oceans dulled by storms, but she smiles faintly. "I…I feel like an intruder, Darcy. Don’t you see? I don’t belong here, not with you. And…her. I…It’s wrong. You don’t know. You don’t know what I think about, how I feel about…" She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head, applying gentle pressure to my fingers before letting them go. "I just need some time alone, okay?"
"Okay." I raise a shaky hand to my brow; my head is throbbing, in perfect rhythm with my heart. "I’m sorry, Alis. I never meant to upset you."
"You haven’t." She turns toward the door, opens it in one fast motion, her back facing me. "You haven’t done anything, Darcy, but be wonderful to me. And so generous. And so…" Her final word is lost to the wind as she moves outside and shuts the door behind her, but I almost hear it, can almost make it out, despite the gusts, despite the click of the door, despite the pounding of my heart.
"And so beautiful."
Chapter Seventeen
"Hand me that bodice-ripper over there, will you?"
Annabelle grabs the paperback from the stack on the floor and tosses it up the ladder to me. I catch the book and grimace down at the title: One Shining Knight. Another day toiling in the book sale room. We’ve finished organizing the science fiction/fantasy section and have moved on to romance.
My spirits are decidedly glum.
"I read that one," Annabelle says, gesturing toward the novel in my hand. "Kind of cheesy, but the sex scenes were hot. And really creative. Like, I never thought to do that with corset strings before."
"Hmm. I never took you for the corset-wearing type, to be honest," I sigh, shoving the well-read book onto the shelf, snug between The Cowboy and the Debutante and First-Class Passion: A Titanic Love Story.
"Oh, I’m not. I wore a corset for my first wedding and almost passed out at the altar, it was so tight." Annabelle holds up a stack of romances and shoves them into my arms. "Should’ve probably taken it as a sign that the marriage was destined to suffocate me."
The Ghost of a Chance Page 13