Darlings of Paranormal Romance (Anthology) (7 page)

He sat
down on the grass leaning against the cool stone bench.

Simon’s
thoughts returned to that fateful day in Madame Merta’s place. The
fortune teller said that he was going to meet someone while he was
away. Technically speaking, he was away. Was Juliana the person the
cards referred to? He would never know now. His arrogance which had
caused his injury had also caused his current predicament. Unable
to move on and to pine for a woman he would never have. His lips
curled. The bitter taste of regret was more than the taste of bile
in his mouth.

“
I’m sorry,” he murmured as he closed his eyes. “I’m so
sorry.”

He heard
the rustle of leaves near the grove’s opening. Raising his head, he
waited for Juliana as pleasure trickled into his system. She had
returned quickly. Had the day passed already in the other side of
the grove? But it wasn’t Juliana who entered.

It was
Madam Merta. The way she looked brought a frisson of fear down
Simon’s spine. Gone were the silks that covered her in the past and
while her visage was the same, she was now a black cloaked spectre
with pale white skin, ruby red lips and soulless eyes. She was a
far cry from the last time he saw her.

In a
flash, Simon was on his feet, a bolt of excruciating pain flashing
up his thigh at the sudden action. Why the hell could he feel pain
when he was already dead?

“
You are not dead, Simon. You are in-between.” Madam Merta
replied to his unspoken question. He voice sounded as though it
came from the bowels of the earth.

Simon’s
jaw ticked. He didn’t know how to react. It was as though the rug
had been pulled from under him. He wasn’t in his element. He didn’t
know his enemy.

“
Why?” He bit out. He didn’t know what else to say. His mind
churned. All this time, he believed that he had passed through the
ether. That he had some unfinished business to fulfill before he
was allowed eternal rest. But there was no unfinished business
because he was still alive.

“
A lesson.” Madam Merta answered as she glided towards
him.

“
What lesson would that have been?” Simon felt his eyes burn
with the anger of more than a hundred years. His blood boiled. He
didn’t care if Madame Merta had brought the hounds of Hell with
her. He wanted to lash out at the ghoul facing him and had there
been hounds, he would have broken their necks.

“
You mocked Fate.”

He
snorted in derision. “And you are Fate’s enforcer.”

“
No, Simon Lowe. I am not Fate’s enforcer. I am
Fate.”

Simon
inhaled sharply, his hands balled into fists. He bit out, “I did
not mock you. You should know that. I was only looking after
Dottie’s interests. I didn’t think my sister needed a deck of cards
to tell her what her destiny was going to be.”

Fate
stared at him and something flashed in her eyes. Sympathy? But it
was gone before Simon could even decipher it.

“
There was more to your life,” Fate said. “You had allowed your
anger to dictate your every waking moment.”

“
I was a bloody cripple! And despite that I wanted to go back
to the war. I belonged in the battlefield but I couldn’t get a
commission because of my bloody knee! It was my right to be sent
back!”

Simon
didn’t care about the displeasure that marred Fate’s
face.

“
What on earth for? You had already proved yourself. Did you
want more glory? Adventure? When the war ended what then?” Fate
mocked. “War shouldn’t be a way of life.”

Simon
turned away, his body trembling with rage.

“
I would have come back achieving my mission of defending the
Empire. It was the destiny I chose.”

Fate
remained silent.

Simon
continued, his voice harsh with pain and accusation. “I didn’t know
Fate interfered with destiny. You took my life away. My family is
dead. I don’t know what happened to Dottie, and I’m in a prison
worse than the prisons for the Boers.”

He heard
the swish of Fate’s cloak before he saw her stand beside him. “It
has been done. I cannot return you from whence you came, but I can
bring you to a time you can become.”

As she
moved away towards the shrubs, Simon turned to her.

“
Become what? Become where?” he snapped. “I don’t care for your
riddles!”

Fate
faced him and once again, Simon was face to face with Madame
Merta.

With a
smile, she said one word.

“
Ask.”

Chapter Six

Juliana
couldn’t contain her excitement. If coincidences were to go by, she
had just hit the jackpot. One of the cases her company was involved
with was looking for the heirs of Dorothy Mellor formerly known as
Dorothy Lowe. She had unearthed Dorothy Mellor’s picture and
Juliana was sure that this was a picture of Simon’s sister. A news
clipping was also included in the file. Juliana now remembered why
Simon’s name sounded so familiar. Dorothy Mellor had a brother
named Simon Thomas Lowe who had seen action in the Second Boer War.
He had been wounded and was recuperating in England when he met an
accident that took his life. There was no doubt in Juliana’s mind
that this was Simon.

She was
happy for Simon that he could now move on to find the peace that
eluded him for so long. And yet she was torn. She had to agree with
Simon – if things could have been different. She knew that if she
showed Simon that Dottie had lived, he would eventually go. When he
left, Juliana knew that she’d be mourning for the dead. Again. She
had developed feelings for Simon. There was no doubt about that.
Lust or love, she didn’t know. Their meeting wasn’t exactly normal.
Still, he was the spirit of a dead person and wasn’t any different
from Brody. Juliana wondered if she was doomed to always love
someone dead.

Dusk was
closing in on the park. A jogger passed her, unmindful of her
presence. Juliana kept walking towards the grove. It had rained
earlier and the wind was stronger, colder. It whipped Juliana’s
face making her burrow deeper into her coat. The afternoon sun rode
low on the horizon turning the water sodden park to a garden of
splendour. Water drops suspended in blades of grass twinkled like
tiny diamonds in a sea of green velvet. Juliana smiled. She
couldn’t have picked a better time to tell Simon.

The sun
finally hit the place where the grove should have materialized, but
nothing happened. Puzzled, Juliana checked her watch. It was just
after four in the afternoon. Looking around, Juliana found a groove
in one of the trees and decided to wait there. Her mind drifted to
Simon and imagined how relieved he would be. Relieved was a
relative statement. Simon still had that air of superiority that
rankled; but Juliana was beginning to think that he only acted that
way because he was impatient to move on. Juliana smiled wistfully.
If Simon was still earthbound and Brody seemed to have moved on,
her husband must have finished whatever he was meant to do on
earth. Perhaps this was why she wasn’t able to sense
Brody.

She
continued to watch for the grove which should have appeared, but
nothing was there. The ground remained vacant. She
shivered.

“
Five more minutes,” she muttered, refusing to acknowledge the
feeling of desperation and loss crawling into her gut. The five
minutes came and went with the sun basking the area in a golden
glow. Juliana straightened from the tree and walked to the centre
of the clearing. She turned around slowly in place. What had
happened? She shaded her eyes against the dying rays of the ball of
fire in the sky. The more the sun set, the more the feeling of
desolation settled around her heart.

She
inhaled deeply, the sigh whooshing out of her slowly. Self-doubt
plagued her. Could Simon have been a dream? A break from reality
her mind had conjured to pull her from the brink of possible
insanity? If that was the case, then whatever force watched over
her had succeeded. The dead had to remain in the realm they had
entered and the living carried on, slowly allowing life around them
to permeate their existence with the good that still remained in
the world. It wasn’t Juliana’s time yet to join the dead in their
journey, whether that was Brody’s or Simon’s. Hers was to help
them. To remember them.

To love
them.

Juliana
hadn’t realized that tears had made its way slowly down her cheeks
until she sniffed.

She
looked at the documents she held in her arms. Her eyes fell on
Simon’s name in the news clipping before she brought the papers to
her chest, resigned to the fact that she would never see Simon
again. He must have found a way to move on.

And she
hadn’t been able to say goodbye.

She
closed her eyes, the wealth of pain tightening her chest. She let
out a deep sigh.

“
Rest in peace, Simon,” she said softly.

Then she
walked away from the grove for the last time.

Chapter Seven

The
radio blared The Calling’s ‘Wherever you will go’ as Juliana’s car
came to a stop. She got out and beeped the car door locked before
walking towards the bungalow’s door. The thin dusting of snow on
the roof of her car, on the pavement, and on the leafless branches
of the trees flanking the off-road parking belied the coldly bitter
December morning. Several weeks had passed since her ghostly
encounter. She would have wanted to relegate it into the recesses
of her mind except that her manager had asked her to take over the
Dorothy Mellor case after the original case manager left to migrate
to Australia. Seeing Juliana’s keen interest in Dorothy’s story, it
was but natural to for her to see the case to its
completion.

She had
previously called several times prior to arriving at the quaint
house but no one had answered until she decided to send Dorothy
Mellor’s descendant a letter. Another case manager had taken the
message for Juliana from Dorothy’s great-great-grandson. He agreed
to meet with her the following day. From her notes, Juliana knew
that he was a professor of History. He had requested that they meet
before he left for the university.

She rang
the bell, hearing it softly chime inside the house. She looked at
the street while waiting, her breath coming out in short smoky
puffs. The centre of Manchester was different from where she was
now, in the Pennines, where it snowed often. She sniffed, feeling
the wetness on the tip of her nose. She fished some Kleenex from
her coat pocket just as she heard the doorknob turn. Expecting to
see the professor, her eyes rounded slightly in surprise when she
saw an old lady with the warmest smile.

“
Yes?”

Juliana’s heart made a double thump. The woman resembled
Dorothy Lowe’s picture. She almost couldn’t contain her excitement.
There was no doubt now that this woman was Simon’s
descendant.

“
Good morning.” Juliana greeted her. “I have an appointment
with Professor Dominic Mellor?”

“
You must be from the heir company,” the woman replied beaming.
She shuffled out of the way. “Come in! It must be freezing out
there.”

“
Thank you.” Juliana said grateful for the warmth of the
house.

“
My grandson will be with you in a minute,” she said before
closing the door.

“
You must be Miss Theodora Mellor.”

She
nodded. “Call me Theda. I never married so you can just imagine the
scandal,” she chuckled. “Dominic’s my grandson though I’m sure you
already know that. Tea?”

“
Yes, please.” Juliana replied as she removed her gloves and
unbuttoned her coat while Theda made her way to the kitchen. For a
woman who was past ninety, Theodora Mellor hardly looked over the
age of seventy.

“
Milk and sugar?” Theda enquired as she set the kettle to
boil.

“
Just milk please.”

Theda
took out the milk from the fridge and set it on the counter. “Have
a seat, my dear. Let’s talk before Dominic arrives. Most of the
time he hardly talks to me because he is so busy.”

“
That’s a shame.” Juliana said as she settled into a chair, her
back facing the hallway.

“
Oh it doesn’t happen often.” Theda waved her hand in the air.
“It’s only during certain times of the year or when he’s preparing
for a conference.”

Juliana
smiled. A little while later, the kettle whistled and Theda made
Juliana a brew. Juliana thanked her as she held her mug in both
hands, feeling the heat thaw her frozen fingers.

“
But I think he has a woman.” Theda said out of the
blue.

“
I’m sure he has.” Juliana’s eyebrows rose in bemusement,
unsure why the old woman was telling her. She took a sip from her
tea.

“
I’ve not seen her though,” Theda continued thoughtfully. “When
Dominic works in his study, he sometimes takes to sleeping there.
And he mumbles her name in his sleep. So I think when he says he
goes to conferences, I think he meets her.” She finished with a
twinkle in her eye.

Juliana
grinned. Theda must really miss talking to someone. Poor thing, she
thought. Might as well indulge her. Besides, Professor Mellor was
taking his time arriving. “Well I’m sure you will meet her
soon.”