“No, we can’t. We can’t.”
But as she protested, she swayed to him. His lips moved to her shoulder, and he swore, “Till death do us part.”
He gazed down on her, in this place, this solitary barn, their church, and placed Nora’s ring on her finger.
“Repeat it to me, Emily. You have to—I won’t let you leave. We’ll stay here forever until you do.” He pressed Nick’s ring into her palm, kneeling with her, waiting. “Please, sweet girl. Say it.”
“No, it’s a curse, don’t you see?”
“I, Emily Thomas, take thee, Andrew Hayes Chamberlain,” he said, his face to hers.
“I…I, Emily Thomas, take thee, Andrew Hayes Chamberlain—oh it won’t matter.”
“Yes.” He kissed her deeply, and tightened his hold on her hands.
“To be my wedded husband.”
“To be my wedded husband.” She felt his lips move against hers.
“To have and to hold.”
“To have and to hold,” she repeated.
“From this day forward.”
“From this day forward. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,” she said, unguided. “In sickness and in health. To love and to cherish. Forsaking all others.”
His eyes burned into hers, rebellious; all his souls radiated out through him screaming, rejoicing, victorious at what they were only a breath away from.
“Till death do us part.” She slid the ring on his finger.
Lifetimes of pain and longing, of searching, of terror and fear and doubt, all were driven from him in that moment. And none of it mattered. Not death, not curses; nothing mattered as long as she was with him. For she understood that she would rather live a second with him and perish, than live a lifetime apart.
He took her and kissed her, and the wind exhaled through the rafters like a blessing.
“You’re my wife,” Andrew whispered.
“Yes.” She gazed into his radiant face.
“And you belong to me.” He kissed the side of her mouth. “To love and to cherish.”
She swayed, and his arms lowered to encircle her waist. “To love and to cherish.”
His nose dusted up her throat and she sighed. “To love and to cherish,” he repeated. “I married you.” His lips against hers, their breath entwined as he spoke. “I don’t care if there are a thousand souls inside you, Emily Thomas. I only want this one.”
It seemed right that she could only nod as his hands began to undress her. She was still freezing, her teeth chattering. Concerned, he quickly cast aside her drenched clothes then removed his own. Wasting no time, he turned and reached for her, drawing her closer. The heat of his body enveloped her, and his chest rose and fell quickly with each breath as he lowered her until she was surrounded by the long, lean muscles of his body and the sharp sweetness of the hay beneath her back.
“I love you…” she told him. “You…”
He pressed his hips against hers. He did this slowly, worshipfully, relishing the shuddered moans she made until he paused and found her eyes. She was aware of the stillness around them, the creak of the timbers and the rustle of the trees bending in the night wind. He bowed his head and thrust himself into her. She gasped.
“I, Andrew Hayes Chamberlain,” he said, his features rigid, his brow etched in concentration. “Take thee, Emily Thomas. As my wife and lover.”
Andrew moved rapturously, as though he couldn’t lose himself deeply enough inside her. Emily couldn’t stop kissing him; she was so filled with the love of him, so thrilled to be in his arms. She whimpered against his neck as he lifted her body up off the hay and held her to his chest.
His eyes never leaving hers, he whispered the vows again to her, and others even more and more beautiful. With each thrust, with each one of his shuddering cries, he emblazoned the words to her body as he had done to her heart. And somewhere inside of them, all their souls whispered too—smiling, crying, rejoicing.
Deep in the night, drenched in each other’s sweat and the wind blowing cool against their skin, he crushed himself to her, and took full possession of her, and her alone. Collapsing in joy against her, he clenched her trembling body in his arms. The souls finally at peace.
Later, when their screams of lust and joy were only echoes in the rafters, he whispered haltingly, “Don’t ever leave me again. Please.” His body remained hunched over hers, still joined, unwilling to be parted.
“Never,” she promised him, her voice breaking. “I’m s-sorry.”
He curled his body around hers, spooning them together. His arms wrapped tight across her breasts, not letting her move an inch. “Where were you? Where were you hiding?” he whispered, his face lost in her hair. “I was so scared. I was so fucking scared.”
She told him. He didn’t move, but clamped his arms harder around her and pressed a heated kiss to her hair.
“It could have been a bloody grave, sweet girl. You could have died.”
“I’m so sorry. I was just—I didn’t know what to do. I was so lost. After what she said about you dying—I couldn’t bear that.”
“Shhh, it’s all right, now.” He kissed her, tightening his hold. “But please, please, please…”
What he was asking, she didn’t know. His voice cracked, and he could say no more.
“To have and to hold,” she said, linking her arms with his.
“To have and to hold,” he whispered back and nestled against her, the hay their only blanket. “It’s a wretched wedding night,” he sighed. The relief in his voice nearly broke her heart.
29
* * *
ANDREW WALKED OUT OF the barn to where Emily sat on a stone wall. Her face tilted up to watch him approach; a few strands of hay stuck to her hair and the back of his coat, which she now wore tightly wrapped around her. He enjoyed the way it swallowed up her shoulders and dangled from her hands. The absence of it, however, left him in only a hay-strewn fisherman’s sweater and a scratchy pair of jeans.
Last night, somewhere amid all that notorious hay, he’d found his cell phone and had the presence of mind to call Simon and inform him that they could call off the search. Andrew didn’t offer him any more information other than to say they were safe. He called him again this morning with their location, to which Simon said little, merely asking if he should bring food. Andrew responded with heartfelt thanks.
“How did you know?” Emily asked him quietly, taking his hand in hers as he took his seat next to her. “How did you know where to find me?”
He kissed the inside of her wrist and held it to his lips, wondering how to tell her and not make her feel guilty, or worse, disturbed. Disturbed about feelings that he still didn’t understand, and which he wasn’t sure he had a grasp on even in the clear air of a new day. She still had a faintly wounded look about her.
“I wanted to run after you the moment you escaped that room, Emily. Your face—you were so, so pale. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life, I swear.” She tightened her grip, and it gave him the encouragement he needed to continue.
“By the time we made it to Belden, the rain was nearly unbearable and hiking up to the cemetery was a nightmare, but then the second I spotted a trail of footprints, I couldn’t stop. I knew you were here, I knew you were—I could feel you. I can’t explain it any other way. Then not to find you, to know in my heart that you were so close and to have to walk away. Christ.”
His throat choked up, and he moved closer, sliding his arm around her shoulders, in need of support. “Simon had to drag me the last few yards back down the hill because I wouldn’t budge. By the time we reached town, he insisted we take the car back and get a new rental, but I kept arguing that I needed to scour the place to locate anyone who might have seen you. That’s when he finally lost his shit. I’m sure he thought me completely gone at that point, standing there screaming in the pouring rain and soaked to the bone. I think his exact words were, ‘Fucking call me when you’re fucking rational,’ or something to that ef
fect. There were a great deal of ‘fucks,’ as I recall. It took me a while, but I finally found a man who had seen you at his shop, and he told me about your conversation. At that point I was terrified you had bolted to catch a train, so straightaway I phoned Margot and Zoey and sent them to Fort Bragg. I hope you know what trouble you’ve caused. There were rather many ‘fucks’ in that conversation, as well.”
She hung her head and cringed. She seemed so very small to him at that moment, as if she could fit in the crook of his arm and disappear. He squeezed her tighter.
“Finally I came back here; I had to. I heard you screaming from the edge of the wood, and I couldn’t reach you fast enough. But something made me stop short once I reached the barn. Your screams had broken off, and I could see you standing there. I was so furious—I couldn’t control myself and I didn’t know how to approach you, or even if it was safe to do so. I wanted to hurt you—” He halted abruptly, startled that he had said it aloud. She had stilled but made no other response. He decided to confess everything, she had to know. “After what that ghost had said, I started to doubt what was left of my mind. I had felt that anger, that rage—felt it pound in my blood. I had seen myself hurt you. I knew I was capable of that. But when you ran, I had to stop you in any way I could. I’m sorry if I frightened you, but I had to try to make you understand, even if I couldn’t. I would have never stopped looking for you. Ever.”
“Do you think that you would have hurt me—do you really believe what she said is true?” she asked in a measured voice.
“Do I believe that we saw a piece of living death yesterday that told me I would murder you? Yes. All those visions came crashing down on me just as powerfully, Emily. I was just as afraid, but even more so because I was the horror in all of this.”
He took a rough breath and pressed on. “The only thing I could do was fight back. Break something. Change something, anything. She told me that I could not marry you, and I’d be damned before anyone stood in my way—I had to prove her wrong. I married you last night. I married you. I’ll take you to a church or a justice of the peace, today if I must, but I did marry you, Emily Thomas.”
She nodded, her eyes wide at the force of his voice.
“I did what they all told me couldn’t be done. It’s what I do best, I’m afraid.” He broke off and smiled ruefully, trying to downplay the fury that had coursed through him, and how very close he had come to hurting her. “And see? We’re both still very much alive, the sky is blue, and the day is stellar, and I love you. All in all, I think we’re beating the odds.”
“Andrew, I’m still scared.”
He tried to speak as matter-of-factly as possible to mask his own insecurity. “Who wouldn’t be? That creature was horrible. I envy Buck that gun of his.”
She found his eyes and squeezed his hand. The look on her face was not what he expected—it was so defiant it shocked him. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m not afraid of you, do you hear me? That disgusting thing, yes. But not you, not you—ever. I wish I had been as strong as you were. You never gave up. You never did. I heard you when I was lying in that…that place…even when you thought you were a killer you still kept fighting.”
He stared at her for a long time. He closed his eyes and imagined himself in that ground, cold and utterly alone.
“If you think I was the only one waging a war against fate, you’re wrong. You were bloody brave, sweet girl.”
She swallowed and shrugged, making him smile in return, and then she laced her fingers more tightly with his. “I just want to have a life with you. Even if we have ghosts clanking around, I don’t care.”
“Let’s opt for a ghost-free future, shall we?” he said, still flying from his emotions, determined to be able to put an end to this once and for all. “Which means we’re falling down on the job. Now come on, we have a body to find. I assume you’ve looked already.”
“Not very well. It was raining and muddy and—”
“You thought I was going to strangle you to death,” he muttered.
“Stop.” She intertwined her fingers with his as he pulled her off the ledge. She looked him full in the face, stood on her toes, and kissed him thoroughly, much to his surprise, although he did not complain. “No more of that, understand? But I’ve got one question.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “How much longer until they get here?” And she pulled him toward the barn.
“All right, let’s see that poem one more time, shall we?”
Casting Andrew a glance, Emily handed him a page from her satchel. They were finally dressed and lying on their stomachs, nestled together at the edge of the hayloft.
“You know, we need to get ourselves one of these,” he added as he glanced up at the rafters.
“I bet this one’ll come dirt cheap.”
“On second thought, I’d rather not. I don’t want anything associated with that woman. Horrid sense of fashion and bloody abysmal personal hygiene.”
She shuddered. “Andrew? What did that gun do, exactly?”
“Buck’s? Who knows, but it made Christian ecstatic.”
“It didn’t kill her, though, right?” Her brow scrunched up when she said it, the fear still there. He had been a fool to bring it up.
“No, Emily. She’s already dead. The worst it did was ‘neutralize her psychic make up,’ I suppose. Or truly piss her off.”
“But you don’t think it’s the last we’ll see of her, do you?”
“It matters not, Mrs. Chamberlain.” He stared at her until her frown disappeared. “The curse is broken.”
He wrapped his arm around her, his heart pounding steady in his chest. They held their embrace until he kissed her tenderly, staring down at her. The sight of her, with hay in her hair and sunlight in her eyes, caused a strange clenching in his chest and made his throat swell.
“How do you do this to me?”
“Me?”
His finger brushed along her bottom lip. “Yes, you,” he said softly, trying to keep his voice from breaking, wondering how he had become so affected by all this. “Now where’s that poem?”
He had it memorized, of course, so instead of reading the paper, he proceeded to place kisses from her neck to her collarbone as he spoke the words:
“I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.
O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.
I dwell with a strangely aching heart.”
“It sounds so much better when you say it,” she told him.
“I know.”
She jostled him off of her, leaving them side by side again. “I think Nick’s remains are in the house. I couldn’t find anything before when I was looking. Nothing to open that needed a key. Not the mausoleum, not a grave, nothing. But…do you think she simply left his body in the house to rot? That’s just too awful.”
“Not his body, but his ashes, perhaps. That woman had no love for her son. She probably didn’t want him buried properly, but she couldn’t cast him aside, either. I mean, he was her child—once. No, I think you’re right. Nick is in there somewhere.”
“Yo! Where the hell are you two?” Christian’s voice boomed up from the barn floor.
Emily and Andrew hung their heads over the edge of the hayloft and smiled. Below stood Simon, Margot, Christian, and Zoey, gaping up at them with incredulous looks on their faces.
Simon, however, stood back near the barn door. He reached for his cigarettes and remarked sourly, “Is it just me, or do you two have a thing about doing it around dead people?”
Emily turned her reddened face into Andrew’s shoulder
.
“I hope to God you’re dressed, because I’m starving and this taskmaster wouldn’t let me touch a bite until we were all back together,” announced Margot with a nod toward Zoey, whose arms were filled with a tray of steaming to-go cups.
Andrew bounded down the ladder and jumped the last four rungs.
“Tell me there’s tea in there somewhere.”
Zoey grinned and handed him a large cup that perfumed the air with bergamot.
“If I didn’t tell you before, I adore you.” He grabbed her, smiling from ear to ear, and spun her around in a hug, nearly upending her tray.
“I know. I have that effect on people.” She burst into a round of chuckles.
Simon, however, was not amused, and as the girls disappeared into the loft and dragged Emily over to the corner, he set his sights on Andrew and then the loft, repeating the movement several times before he asked slowly, “No pitchforks, I take it.”
“None that I could find, but the hay is a royal bitch. Sweet Jesus, is that a bagel?”
Simon stared at him as he inhaled it. “So I see you haven’t come to your senses.”
Andrew shot him a look before he took a long swig of his tea.
“Out with it.”
“It’s your nightmare, not mine. But if this is what you want, I’m not keen on sticking around to see the end of it. She’s bad news, Andrew. This whole thing is bad news.”
“So what are you saying? It’s her or you? Simon, seriously?”
The stern look on Simon’s face spoke volumes. He lit a cigarette and said no more.
“Listen, man,” Christian interrupted. “I’m all into blasting skanky ghosts with big ray guns, but I need one fucking day of fucking rest, okay? Do you think that’s possible?”
“I’ll look into it,” Andrew replied curtly, still stung by Simon’s remarks.
The rift between the two men seemed palpable, even as they all left the barn and wandered out into the sunshine to set up their breakfast picnic. Just as they were about to sit down, Andrew stopped short. His gaze drifted to the bottom of the hill. Neil and Claudia stood there, her arms waving in greeting, his at his sides. He had never been so glad to see both of them and before he knew what he was doing, he was trotting down the hill; he grabbed his mum in a hug until she pulled back, her eyes shiny with tears.
Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story Page 51