The Ghost of a Chance

by Vivien, Natalie

  I pick up Alis’ right hand from her lap, notice the way her fingers are curled and touching her palm, the skin stretched over her knuckles discolored a sickly shade of purple.

  "But before he left, he said…" She chokes on the words, begins to cough. I hug her close against my side. "He said," she tries again, squeezing her eyes shut tight, "that he was going to kill me." Her eyes, swimming with sorrow, find mine, and I sink into them, my heart as heavy as stone. "He said he was going to kill you, too. I know he’s threatened it before, but this time…" Her voice breaks, the sobs wracking her body again, and all I can do is hold her, smoothing my hand over her hair and back, telling her again and again, "It’ll be okay, Alis. It’ll be okay."

  But Jason’s threats have frozen my fire. My spine gone rigid, I repress a shiver, with poor Alis weeping on my shoulder, huddled like a child in my arms.

  Chapter Eighteen

  "Are you sure you’re up for this?" I pause, staring out at the pink-gold sunset, pastel light daubed like brushstrokes on the snow. Night will fall soon, and with it will come Genevieve McLeery.

  Inhaling deeply, I draw the curtains over the dining room window and turn around to face Alis. She’s seated at the table, her eyes pale with exhaustion, cradling her head in her hands. I watch her worriedly. "It might be—I don’t know. Upsetting? Weird? Definitely weird. And you’re, I mean—"

  "I’m not a wilting Ophelia, Darcy," Alis says with an arch of her brow, her mouth curving up, teasing. "It’s been two days since…you know. And I’m bored and curious and would like to be present, if you don’t mind. I could use a distraction."

  "Even if that distraction involves rapping on tables and listening to channeled voices from the Great Beyond?"

  "Hey, I played with a Ouija board when I was a kid. I’m not exactly a séance virgin." She points her chin up in a show of mock arrogance. "Once I even communicated with the ghost of Emily Dickinson."

  "Oh, really?" I step away from the window and pull out the chair next to Alis, then fall down onto the cushion with a soft laugh. "And what did the venerable Miss Emily have to say?"

  "Not much. How’s it hanging? or something like that. I think her genius was stunted because there weren’t any dashes on the board."

  "Ha!"

  Alis’ eyes twinkle.

  I grin at her, and my heart is suddenly full to bursting: with wonder for her strength; with gratitude for the mischief in her voice, replacing the sobbing and anxious murmurings that plagued her for the past couple of days; with longing—always this longing—to be closer to her, closer than two friends can ever be and still tolerate the insultingly inadequate title of friend.

  Alis reaches for my wrist and encircles it with her warm hand. "What are you thinking about?"

  My pulse stills as I meet her calm, sea-swept gaze, and I speak the truth, feeling daring and half-mad, sliding her grasp from my wrist to entwine with my fingers: "You."

  She blinks long and slow, her cheeks darkening to a restless pink. "Me?" she asks softly, sitting back in her chair. She casts me a disbelieving look. "There’s a dull topic."

  "Not dull at all."

  She scoffs. "The dullest."

  "Well…" I lick my lips, heart banging at my ribs, blood hot as sunlight. "Maybe I’ve mixed up the meaning of the word. If dullness is grace and courage and kindness, compassion and wisdom and wit and…beauty…" I face her fully, sinking into her ocean-wide eyes. "Then I must have a really serious crush on dullness, because I can’t stop thinking about you, Alis Baker."

  "Oh…" Lips parted, her hold on my hand loosens, and her chest rises and falls with short, quick breaths. "Darcy…"

  I bring her palm—reverently—to my lips. "Yes?"

  She watches my mouth for a motionless, weighted second. When she speaks at last, her voice is a whisper: "But how can we… If Catherine is…" She frowns, swallowing, shifting her gaze to the polished surface of the table. Then her eyes rise slowly, resting upon my necklace, the ring sparkling at the center of my unbuttoned collar.

  Heart stilled, I let go of her hand and clumsily button my shirt.

  "Darcy, it’s just—"

  "I know." My voice sounds empty, hollow; even my heart feels hollow. I turn in my chair to fully face the table. "I know, Alis," I murmur, rolling down my shirtsleeves agitatedly. "I mean, it’s only been a handful of months. Months! And I loved her"—my tongue freezes in place, unable to shape the words until I exert the full force of my will upon it—"more than anything or anyone else in the world. She was my world, Alis. She was everything, the only thing." My words have no sound, are made only of breath and heartache.

  "Of course she was." Alis rests a tentative hand on my shoulder. "No one would ever doubt that. Darcy, you don’t have to—"

  "But how could I do this to her?" I rub my fists into my eyes and then, seeing spots, fall forward onto the table, my cheek cool against the oak. It feels good to lie here, to let my limbs hang loose when my heart is so shamefully exposed, hot and pulsing, triggered now like an ear-piercing alarm. The peace is irrevocably broken. I tilt my head on the table toward Alis—lovely Alis—and am shaken to the core by the tempest in her too-blue gaze.

  "But how," I whisper, because I have to say it, have to put it between us, this wedge or this bridge, at last, "could I stop myself from falling in love with you?" Despite my trembling, I hold her stare. She looks stricken—with horror or pain or perhaps something else. I am too dizzy and clouded to translate, too disquieted to think deeply. Tortured, I go on: "It was the last thing—You were the last thing I could have ever predicted, and I was so cold and callous to you in the beginning. I didn’t want you here. I didn’t want anyone here, only Catherine. But Catherine—"

  Alis’ hand begins to gently stroke my head, and the effect is calming and overstimulating, all at once. I shut my eyes and my mouth and focus on nothing else but her touch, a healer’s touch. The gesture is so simple. And yet my shredded heart begins to quietly, almost defiantly, mend.

  "Darcy, you carry so much inside of you," Alis says in a low, steady voice, a voice I have never heard her use before. A shiver passes through me at the cadence of it, its strength and authority. Her no-nonsense nurse’s voice. I grimace, thinking, And she reserves it for especially difficult patients.

  "It’s your nature to be private, Darcy, to hold it all in, and I respect that. But I need you to know… From the start, I wanted nothing more than to help you. I didn’t come here thinking that I would—I mean, I was married. Not happily married, but still married, committed, and you were grieving, and it was the worst sort of circumstance for…" She lowers her eyes and tucks her fidgeting hands beneath the table. "I barely knew you. I was hired to take care of you, and was determined to do that, for Catherine’s sake. She always worried about what might happen to you if she died. She cried to me about it sometimes, Darcy."

  Tears sting my eyes, and with a sigh that sounds more like a growl, I sit up in the chair, turning my face away.

  "I tried to soothe her, but she couldn’t be soothed. She was convinced that you would lock yourself away, that you would shut out the world and box up your heart. She was terrified that you would never laugh again, never love again."

  I shake my head somberly. "If that’s true, why is she still here? Something is tormenting her, keeping her tied to this place. Or to me. Why can’t her spirit rest and move on?"

  "I don’t know," Alis says quickly, sounding very small, no longer the nurse but the woman caught up in an impenetrable storm. She massages her temples and then covers her eyes. "I can’t figure it out. And, God, I feel like I’m being torn apart. I want to honor Catherine’s memory. She, whether alive or a ghost… Right now, she should be the only woman in your heart."

  Dry of tears, numb from the inside out, I look at Alis hunched beside me, and my chest resumes its dreaded, too-familiar ache. My hand shakes when I reach for her hand, which she gives to me willingly, her gaze soft and pleading, a single tear escaping from her eye.


  "But Catherine isn’t the only woman in my heart," I murmur, my throat raw from resisting this truth. "She hasn’t been, not for weeks now. Months. Not since I fell in love with you." Eyes wide, heart loosed, I say it, then: "I love you, Alis."

  The moment, this moment, oppresses me: fraught with fear and heavy with hope. I hold onto Alis’ hand lightly but firmly, as if it is a china teacup, a Fabergé egg. The air in the room feels fragile but sharp. My eyes latch onto the heart-shaped pendant at Alis’ throat, the necklace I gave her for Christmas. She’s worn it every day since, worn it as faithfully as I wear Catherine’s ring…

  Then Alis does an astonishing thing.

  She leans toward me, her eyes hooded and dark, and pulls her hand from mine, leaving my palm cold. With deft fingers, and without ever breaking my gaze, she begins to unbutton my shirt, her feather-like fingertips grazing my collarbones and chest. I can’t speak, mustn’t speak, and have no words to speak, anyway. I stare into Alis’ wild blue eyes and feel myself falling, or flying, or accomplishing both at once.

  She stops with the fourth button and gently eases the white fabric of my shirt off to the side, leaning nearer still, her jasmine perfume wafting around me. Then her gaze drifts as she comes close, close enough to kiss, but she ducks her head at the final moment to press her lips against the skin over my heart. For a long time she kisses me there—there and nowhere else—and that feeling overcomes me again, of healing, of rebellious mending…

  "Your poor heart," Alis murmurs against me.

  My arms shake, desperate to hold her, my mouth craving her, even though it has never fully tasted her kiss. "Alis…" I moan, and she draws back from me, a strange smile on her lips, those lips that just left my skin, as she brings together the two gaping sides of my shirt. Her hands linger at my collar; I am keenly aware of them, warm and gently tugging at the thin folds of cotton.

  "Your poor heart," she says again, letting go of my collar to rest one hand upon my cheek. "You never let it out to play. It’s used to the dark, silence. Containment. It’s sickly," she smiles, "like Colin Craven. A scared, scarred thing. You ought to show it a garden, Darcy."

  "I can’t," I tell her simply. "I haven’t got the key."

  Alis gazes at me oddly for a long while, her mouth drawn and thoughtful, as if she’s pondering something, or making up her mind. Then her hand begins to slide from my cheek to my hair, weaving with my dark waves and brushing against my ear.

  "Darcy, it’s all so confusing. I can’t make sense of the haunting," she whispers, pulling lightly on my collar again, "but I know my own heart. And I listen to it, and speak it—and that often gets me into terrible trouble. And it will this time, too, because Catherine… Because we can’t… We just can’t, Darcy. But I have to tell you."

  "Tell me, Alis." My hands rest upon her knees as I lean toward her, drawn by a gravity that could never be measured or explained.

  Her lashes lift, revealing eyes more dazzling than the sapphires in her pendant. I hold my breath as her lips part. "Darcy, I love—"

  But she jumps as her words are overwhelmed by an eager rap—knock, knock! Knock, knock!—at the front door.

  We draw apart, our expressions mirror images of flushed and stunned dismay. I want to ignore the knocking, want to take Alis’ hand and leave through the back door. We could hide ourselves away in the cabin until the intruder has gone, until we’re alone again.

  Though we can never be truly alone, not here.

  Remembering that, I sigh and rake my hands through my hair, resigned.

  I owe this much to Catherine. No, I owe much more than this, so much more, but it’s the only thing I can do for her right now.

  "I’ll answer it," I mutter, rising from the table, pushing back my chair with a bone-jarring screech.

  Because Genevieve McLeery is here, regrettably right on time.

  ---

  Alis’ hand in mine is as cold as ice.

  "Let me get you a sweater before we start," I whisper to her, but she shakes her head mutely, eyes locked on Genevieve, who is seated across from us with her own eyes closed, her mouth tight and furrowed.

  I suppress a shiver, cold myself. A chill has come into the room, that seeping sort of chill that bypasses your skin and sinks deep into your bones, nestling there like a squatter, freezing your marrow.

  "Spirits bring the cold air with them," Genevieve announces suddenly, dramatically, startling Alis and setting my teeth on edge. The old woman’s eyes remain closed, her posture unchanged, as she says, "A sweater will do nothing to warm you, not when spirits are about."

  I glance to Alis; she swallows but continues to stare ahead.

  Genevieve arrived dour-faced in a simple beige pantsuit. She spoke very little at the door, scarcely even greeted us before setting to work, directing this and that, all business, though she had been quite friendly during her previous visit. She bid us to light a few candles and turn off the lights, to disconnect the phones, to shut the doors and the curtains, closing off all outside interference, so that nothing might disrupt our otherworldly enterprise.

  Then, in her soft Scottish lilt, brown eyes stern, she stressed to us the importance of circles. "Life is a circle. Again and again and again, we turn…" With her index finger, she drew a circle first upon my palm, and then Alis’. She joined our hands together, watching us closely as we gazed at one another, still as sculptures.

  "All spirits know this, the circle—human, animal. All spirits, living or passed. They recognize the circle. In séance, then, we must make the circle for them, so that they arrive welcomed. And unafraid."

  With only the three of us, though, we can’t quite form a circle, so a rounded-off triangle will have to do. Besides, I don’t expect Catherine to have any difficulty "recognizing" us, or to harbor any fears about approaching us, either—that is, if she intends to communicate at all. I feel a crushing sense of unease, sitting there in the dark and the quiet, holding Alis’ cold hand and Genevieve’s frail one, holding my breath and holding my tongue, because all I want to do is say, "Stop. Stop. I can’t do this. I can’t face it…"

  If Catherine comes, what will she say?

  If her voice fills my ears again, how will I bear it? After these months of silence, hushed as graves, how will I bear it?

  I don’t know if I can.

  And why must I try?

  I want to call the séance off. Nothing’s happened yet, nothing that can’t be undone. I’ll blow out the candles and open the blinds. I’ll pay Genevieve and send her off, and then Alis and I will—Well, I don’t know what we’ll do.

  My heart clenches as I consider my options, which—as Genevieve sinks deeper and deeper into herself, her pale forehead creased—are fading fast. Alis is right: how can the two of us ever be together if Catherine’s ghost remains with me, possessing my body and my heart? A cold sweat breaks out on my brow, and my heart flips a panicked somersault.

  But how can I let her go? How could I ever wish Catherine to leave me? I can’t…

  I don’t want her to leave me.

  I don’t know what I want.

  I want Alis.

  I want Catherine.

  Do I deserve either one of them?

  I want—

  "Someone wants to speak with you now."

  "What?" I try to pull my hand from Genevieve’s grasp, but she holds me tight; my bones ache in protest. "What do you mean—"

  "She’s here."

  Alis makes a gasping little sound of fright, but she quickly bows her head and squeezes my hand, keeps squeezing until I squeeze, lightly, back. Genevieve’s hand I am no longer holding at all; my fingers are splayed as she wrings at my palm.

  "Courage now, girl. Don’t lose heart, not when you’re so close to your heart’s desire."

  "But what if I’ve made a mistake? I don’t know if—What if—"

  "What if we’re all just some superior being’s dream?" And Genevieve’s stern brown eyes soften, gazing at me with something like pity. "The
re’s no use in pondering what ifs, Darcy. And there are no mistakes, only what is, what was always meant to be. And what is meant to be now," she says, her voice taking on that theatrical tone once more—incongruous with her frail and simply attired appearance—"is a conversation."

  "A conversation," I repeat numbly, narrowing my brows.

  "Yes. Between you and your beloved, your Catherine. She has tried to speak with you many times, Darcy, but the veil is too thick; the sound could not penetrate. But I have pushed the veil aside for you, and I will hold it back for as long as I am able. Or for as long as this spirit wishes to remain."

  "But how can I talk to her? How will she speak to me?" I glance furtively about the darkened space, flickering with candlelight, the flames elongated and as white as burning stars, and I search for a specter, any hint of ghostly presence. But there are only Alis and Genevieve, the candles and the darkness.

  The medium tugs at my hand, urgency in her voice: "Catherine must inhabit a vessel, Darcy, in order to speak with you. I will give her permission to use my body. You mustn’t be frightened. It will seem very strange. But her spirit will fill me; all that she was, and is, will fill me. However, possession weakens me, so you must speak quickly, must waste no time. Are you ready for this?"

  "I…I don’t know," I stammer, again trying to slide free of Genevieve’s grasp, and again failing to do so. She has the grip of a vice. "I don’t know if—"

  "Could she use me?" Alis says then, shocking both Genevieve and myself to silence. The weight of Alis’ question presses heavily upon me; for a long moment, I find myself unable to move, unable to respond at all.

  Then: "No…" I stare at Alis, gripped with horror, and squeeze her hand anxiously. "No. No, Alis—"

  But, "Could she?" Alis persists, ignoring me entirely, until at last Genevieve lifts her chin high into the air and brings it slowly down to her chest: a noncommittal nod.