by Apryl Baker
“Because my life is too hard, Eric. I’m tired. I just want to stop.”
“What?” Both Dan and Eli whisper. Even though they can only hear one side of the conversation, both understand what I’m saying. I don’t want to fight, to live like this anymore.
“I can’t believe you’re being this selfish, Mathilda Louise Hathaway,” Eric rages at me, his blue eyes so full of anger for a moment they pulse with a light I’ve never seen. His face starts to contort, to bleed, to rip, to tear, to shred and I’m staring at Mirror Boy once again. That ragged sound of nails screaming as they are sawed in two hammers at me. I remember in this instant why he terrified me.
Caleb and his dad draw their swords and Eli slides off the bed, drawing his own. Dan sits up and gapes at the image before him. He tries to drag me to the other side of the bed, but I won’t go. Weak as I am, I won’t run from Eric. Never again.
“Don’t you dare touch a hair on his head,” I warn Eli and struggle to sit up.
“Get back, Mattie,” he warns me. “You don’t know what this is…”
“I know perfectly well what he is,” I rebuff and try to stand but end up falling to the floor. I’m too weak. Dan is there, though, yanking me up. “It’s Eric.”
“That is not Eric,” Dan denies. “It can’t be Eric.”
“Dan, meet Mirror Boy,” I say softly. “I’m not selfish, Eric. No matter what you think, I’m not selfish.”
“Yes, Mattie, you are selfish,” he yells and I flinch at the pain that shoots through my head. “After everything we did to save you, you’d throw it all away?”
“Eric, please,” I beg, switching to my internal chat. “Don’t be mad. You said you’d wait for me and I’m ready to go. If I’m here, we can’t ever be together, but if I die, you and I can go, we can cross over and forget about all the pain we’ve suffered. We can be happy.”
“Even if that’s true, Mattie, I’d never let you do it,” he tells me. “You mean too much to me. I want you to live like every day is your last day. You deserve to be happy, to fall in love, to have children and be the mom you wanted yours to be. Live Mattie, please don’t give up.”
I turn away at the raw emotion in his voice, in his eyes, and bury my face in Dan’s chest as I’ve done so often over the last months. No matter what Eric’s face looks like, his eyes are always the same. He did work hard to save me. Am I throwing that gift away? That blessing? I’m just so tired and my heart hurts so much.
“Mattie, you are the only girl I’ll ever love this side of the veil,” Eric whispers, “but it can never be. You know this, I know this. You’re hurting right now. I know you feel raw and ragged, like your heart has been shattered into a thousand pieces. You’re angry at everyone and everything. You feel like you’ve lost everything good in your life, but that’s not true.”
“It is true,” I say, tears trailing wet paths down my cheeks. “I lost Dan. He may not know it yet, but we can’t survive what’s coming. He’ll never forgive me.”
“What are you talking about, Mattie?” Dan asks. “You haven’t done anything.”
“I did,” I nod, not looking at any of them. “I asked you to find my family and it cost you yours. I destroyed everything good in your life. If you’d never met me, you and your mom and dad and brother would still be a happy family. You wouldn’t be seeing ghosts or demons. You’d just be the nice guy who always tries to do the right thing.”
Dan forces my chin up so that I’m looking at him. “Mattie, none of this is your fault and I would never blame you for any of it. Why would you even think that?”
“Because everything I care about is taken away, destroyed, and it’s always my fault. I always do something to wreck everything good in my life. I just never thought I’d do such a bang up job with you. I never meant to hurt you.”
“Squirt, don’t,” Dan soothes. “Please don’t cry. I swear to you, this isn’t your fault. You just wanted to find out where you came from. No one expected this to happen. If anybody is to blame it’s my mom and your mom. If they’d just thought about the consequences of what they were doing, none of this would be happening.”
“Stop whining, Mattie,” Eric tells me harshly. “You’ve been droning on and on about all the bad things for as long as I’ve known you. This pity train of yours is starting to get boring.”
“Boring?” I screech and turn around, intending to launch myself at him. How dare he say that to me? It’s not his life, it’s mine. Dan catches me before I fall. God, I wish I wasn’t so weak.
“Yeah, boring,” he nods, his face starting to melt back to its cute self. “Sure, you’ve had a pretty bad life, had terrible things happen to you, but you need to get over it, get over yourself. You’re surrounded by people who love you, who would do anything for you, and you refuse to accept it. You see it, but you won’t reach out and grab it. Instead you focus on the bad stuff and not the good.”
“What do I have that’s so good?”
“You have a home now, with people who love you and accept that you’re different. Mary and her mom would do anything for you. You’re family to them. Dan is family, even the Malones here will be your family if you let them. You just have to snap out of this depression that thing in the corner has put you in and fight for it—fight, Mattie.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“If you won’t fight for yourself, then fight for me, the same way I fought for you. Fight for Dan, fight for the chance at love with the guy glowering at me. I’ve seen your future, Mattie, seen where it takes you. It’s dark and deadly, but there is this shining beacon of love on two paths. Either path will make you happy. You just have to fight for the chance.”
I close my eyes at the pain his voice brings. His face may be normal, but his voice is still eating away at my head. It hurts.
“Can’t you feel the pain and suffering in this house, Mattie?” Eric queries softly. “All these souls crying out for help. If you die, you stay here with them, become one of those souls crying out for help, trapped forever with the monster who will use you to hurt them. Who will save them if you don’t?”
Their pain has been battering me since I crossed the property line. My goal when I felt it was to help them cross over, end their pain. That was always my endgame, but somehow I got derailed. I frown, thinking. When did that stop being important to me?
It stopped when I woke up from being unconscious, I realize. I turn my attention to the ghost in the corner. He’d started to feed on me while I was out. He’d worn my spirit down and it had suffered so much, all the new emotional pain that I’d been going through magnified, making me think there was no way out, no reason to fight.
But I don’t quit, I tell myself. I’m a fighter, will always be a fighter, and no one, especially not some creepy old ghost with a God complex is going to take me down. Not today. I’m Mattie Freaking Hathaway and I don’t do scared.
But how to I break the hold he has on me?
“How?” I ask Eric. “How can I stop him?”
“You can’t kill him,” he warns me. “Not right now. You’re too weak, but you can break his hold. You need to take one of the swords.”
“They don’t work against him,” I say. “Eli tried and nothing happened.”
“That’s because he doesn’t believe, Mattie,” Eric says. “These swords need faith. They need a true believer to work as they were meant to work. Trust me, just pick it up.”
“Eli, give me your sword.” I hold out my hand.
Eli balks, refusing to hand it over. “Why?’
“Of for the love of Pete, just give me the danged sword!”
Eli grudgingly comes over. “Are you even strong enough to hold this thing?”
“I am if you help me,” I tell him.
He frowns but holds the sword out for me to grasp. The minute I take it from him my arms are so weak, they fall, the swords pointing down. My blood begins to trickle down my hand and onto the silver of the blade. The sword begins to glow, runes along
the surface of the blade lighting up. The light is so bright I use my free hand to shield my eyes. Soon it dims and looks normal again, but it feels different. It feels alive and eager.
“What just happened?” Eli demands.
“Tell him the blade will never fail him again,” Eric smiles. “Tell him it is soaked in the blood of someone who truly believes and will always work against any foe.”
“Eric says your sword will never fail you again,” I say softly. “He says it’s soaked in the blood of someone who truly believes and that is what it needed to work.”
“So he thinks your blood what, fixed it or something?” Eli asks, confused.
“Something like that,” I say. “Try it.”
“No, Mattie,” Eric stops me. “You have to be the one to break the bond with him. You have to cut him.”
“I have let you have your way long enough, boy,” the man snarls from the corner. “Enough of this. You cannot stop me.”
I glare at the old guy and then blink. He’s not so old anymore. He’s much, much younger, maybe mid-forties? What the…?
“No, Eli. I have to do this, but you have to help me lift it. I’m not strong enough.”
Eli frowns again, but pulls me free of Dan. He wraps an arm around me and hauls me against his side, dragging me closer to the man, who is now standing.
“You do not think it is going to be that easy, do you?” he laughs. I get a sense of what he’s going to do, he’s going to throw us backwards like he did to Eli earlier. Before I can shout a warning, Eric launches himself at the ghost, grappling with him. It’s terrifying to behold. I see flashes of color and the room shakes like an earthquake is hitting.
“Now, Mattie!” Eric yells. “Do it now! I can’t hold him for much longer!”
Together, Eli and I lift up the sword and swing at the ghosts. I hear a hiss and a moan. A gash has opened up along the man’s right arm and blue light starts to leak out of him. He howls in pain and throws Eric at us the same time we swing again. My eyes widen in horror, unable to stop the swing, to stop the blade from slicing into Eric. NO!
The man laughs and disappears but Eric falls, his face ashen. Oh, God, no, what have I done?
“Eric,” I whisper, falling to my knees beside him. “Please, Eric, please don’t die.”
“I’m already dead,” he chuckles, his voice sounding hollow. “I need you to do something for me, Mattie.”
“Anything.”
“If I die here, that thing will eat my soul,” he whispers. “I don’t want that, not ever again. To be trapped in constant pain and terror. Never again.”
“Tell me what to do.” He’s starting to fade, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
“I promised I’d wait for you, do you remember?”
I nod, a sob breaking free.
“There’s only one way I can keep that promise, one way I can be a part of you forever. You have to take my energy. It’s the only way to make you strong enough to fight that thing. You have to consume my soul.”
“NO! I won’t do that. Don’t ask me to do that!”
“You can do it,” Eric soothes. “Your gift is so much more than you can imagine, you can do this for me and every other trapped soul here. Let me give you this, Mattie, let me give you the gift of my life.”
“No,” I cry, shaking in grief. “Don’t ask me to do this, please, Eric.”
“Mattie, if you don’t do this and do it now, that thing will have me and I’ll be lost forever. Don’t make me suffer like that. Let me go knowing that I died being the hero and saving the girl I love. Please do this for me, Mattie, please.”
“What do I do?” There’s no chance I’m ever letting that thing get its hands on Eric. He has saved me so many times, I can do this for him.
“Just touch me, sweetheart, just touch me.”
I lay my hand upon his face and electricity jolts up my arm. I watch as Eric fades to a glowing mass of energy, watch as it snakes up my arm and then I scream when all that glowing energy seeps into my skin, into my soul, giving me back life and strength and love. He loved me so much and I feel that as I feel nothing else. This boy loved me the way I’d always wanted to be loved, the way I needed to be loved, and he gave his life for me.
I want to scream and rage at the unfairness of it all, but I don’t. I won’t disrespect his memory like that. I will honor him by being the person he thought I was.
I will save them all.
And that old man will die screaming for what he’s done.
Chapter Twenty-One
They’re all standing in the corner whispering and giving me worried glances. We moved back down to the library after the incident. I guess everyone feels safer here. It’s the books. Books always remind you of safety, but I don’t know why that is.
It’s been over an hour and I haven’t said a word to any of them. How can I? I don’t want to talk to anyone, don’t want to admit any of this is real. I can’t cry. Not that I don’t want to, I just can’t. I need to cry, but my heart is too numb. How much can one person take?
He can’t be gone, my Mirror Boy. He’d saved my life more times than I can count. He’d sat with me while I was dying so I wouldn’t be alone and then stayed with me when I didn’t die, all so I would never be alone. How can this happen? He’s supposed to be here to listen to me rant and then tell me it’s all going to be okay. But he’s not.
I want him back.
But he can’t come back.
It’s a fundamental knowledge I can’t escape. I know he can’t come back because of who I am, what I’m supposed to do when I become a reaper. For the first time, I understand what it means to reap a soul. It hurts. It isn’t a physical pain, but an emotional one. I felt his sadness at leaving me and it made my grief that much harder to bear.
I love Dan, I do, but it’s nothing like what I felt for Eric. It’s like a piece of me has been ripped away and I can’t bear it. I know it’s crazy to feel like that about a ghost, but I do. If he’d been alive, we’d have been so happy. He always encouraged me to date, to find someone. He knew we couldn’t be together, knew it wasn’t a healthy relationship for me, but he never pushed me away, never betrayed me, and was always there for me no matter what. I loved him so much and he’s just…gone.
Not able to stand sitting still, I push up off the couch and start to prowl through the books. Everyone pauses and watches me for a minute before going back to their quiet conversation. They’re worried about me, especially since Dan and the Doc explained who Eric was to me. They needn’t have been. Since we sliced a chunk out of the ghostie, his tie to me has been broken. I’m not feeling depressed and ready to give up anymore. I’m angry, furious, and wanting revenge. Grief is tearing around the edges of those emotions though, and it’s all I can do to just breathe.
“Here.”
I jump, startled at the sound of Eli’s voice. He’s shoving a knife at me and I cringe.
“I don’t want that.”
“Look, it’s been blessed, same as the swords, and you need something to protect you.”
“You don’t understand.,” I shake my head and step away from the blade. Knives are about the only thing on this plane of existence that scares me. “I can’t…not a knife.”
“It’s just a knife, Mattie.” He looks confused.
“I don’t like knives,” I whisper. “Please put it away.”
He does as I ask, but says, “I just wanted you to have something to protect yourself with against the things in this house.”
“I know, but not a knife.”
“What do you have against knives?”
I shake my head and walk away from him. I’m not in the mood to get into that conversation. Besides, Doc has already spilled enough of my secrets as it is. I don’t know these people and I don’t want them knowing every little detail about my life.
“Leave her alone for a bit,” I hear Dan say.
“I was only trying to help her…”
“I know,” Dan tel
ls his brother. “She knows that, but she has a thing about knives. When she learns to trust you, she might tell you, but for right now, just let it be.”
Leave it to Dan to swoop in and smooth ruffled feathers even when he himself is living a nightmare. His kindness has always irked me, though. Sometimes he’s just too bloody nice for his own good. I mean, these boys turned in his mom and here he is trying to placate the one directly responsible. He needs to shout, to scream, to yell. Instead, he’s trying to do what he always does and be the good guy.
Before I revert to a classic Mattie move, I walk all the way across the room from them and instead focus on the old books that line the walls. There are several classics, first editions, I’d wager, but I’m afraid to look. Some of them look so fragile, just the thought of touching them makes me afraid they’d shrivel up into dust.
One in particular catches my eye. It looks like an old leather bound journal. Cautiously, I pull it free and gently open it. It is a journal penned by Elizabeth St. John in 1782. The pages look brittle but they aren’t. I take my find to one of the couches and sit down to read. Reading about someone else’s life might distract me from my own.
1784, May 16
I cannot believe that Father has done this. He signed the contract today to wed me to Mr. Jonas Sinclair, a man that is old enough to be my grandfather. Father said I should be grateful he arranged such a prosperous match for me, but I am devastated.
How can he do this to me? Mother says I am being fickle, that Father worked hard to find me a good husband. A good husband? Mr. Sinclair is sixty-five years of age and I am only fifteen. How can this be a good match?
This year was to be my season of the ton. I was to be presented at my coming out ball. It has been planned for over a year. I have the ball gowns still packed for our trip to London and then today I am informed that it will not transpire, that a match has already been made for me.
What am I to do? I have dreamed of my season since I was a little girl. I wanted to go to the balls, be wooed by all the handsome bachelors and fall in love. Now all that is gone. I am not even to have a grand wedding. Father says it will be a private affair here at our country home. Not only does he deprive me of my season, he will not give me a grand and proper wedding.