Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story (73 page)

Andrew laughed, bitterness lacing his voice. “Get out while I still can, Simon? I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention or not, but I don’t think there’s any going back. And you know I can’t live without Emily. I’ve spent my life trying to find her. She’s my muse.”

“I know.”

“Don’t you fucking care?”

“I care about you. The rest can go to hell.”

Andrew made no response. Emily could picture how he looked standing there, his skin flushed, his lips cold and blue from the freezing rain. Her heart beat so loudly, hammering against her ribs and through to her spine, that she swore he must be able to hear it. Sweat beaded on her face. The air was getting thinner and thinner in the blackness.

“We’ll go back to town and call the girls,” Simon said, his voice muted but no less uncompromising. “She’s not here. We better move. Come on, Paulie, you have to go.”

Reluctantly, the weighted footsteps moved away from where Emily lay. They moved to the door, moved to the gravel, moved to the sloping hillside. Moved—away. Silence claimed the space once again, and she listened to the last faraway sounds fade to nothingness. She pressed her hand to the wood above her. Tears streaked silently down her cheeks, burning the sides of her face before falling into her hair.

Was this how the dead felt, left in the earth to hear but never speak? To reach but never touch? Never again would she feel the warmth of his arms, laugh at his smiles, or lose herself to him. In her mind, she could see the door shutting, the end. His hand letting go of her lock of hair, stepping away, disappearing back into the world.

Alone and trembling, she shoved her hands down into her pockets like a small child. Nick’s ring brushed her knuckle, and she shoved it on her finger, rubbing it over and over again in an attempt to keep herself from breaking. Then something else in the pocket fell between her fingers. She fumbled for it only to realize what it was: a guitar pick.

She felt the blunt edges of it, and the press of sorrow robbed her of any strength. She lay there silently and closed her eyes, remembering the sound of his fading footsteps, the guitar pick nestled in her palm. She waited a long, long time. Deep in that blackness she counted her breaths, waiting until she was sure of the silence. Her body stilled…she hummed weakly, her breaths slowed.

Emily woke with a start, her hands striking against wood, and she cried out in pain. Fear overwhelmed her. Where was she? Then her memories forced her awake and crushed down on her chest like a vice, making breathing impossible. She had fallen asleep for how long? Oh God, how long had she slept?

Desperate to be out of the hole, she pushed at the trap door above her face. It didn’t move. She bashed again. The latch rattled, but the door wouldn’t budge. She shoved again; the latch held firm. She was locked in.

Oh no. No.
This couldn’t be happening. Struggling with all her might, she slammed her hands against the wood, her fingers clawed and pried at the sides, and splinters sliced under her nails. She cried out, the cuts throbbing.

“No!” she screamed. “No!” The air was so thick that when she gulped down a mouthful, her lungs felt like shriveled balloons, unable to expand. She shoved until sweat soaked her body.

“Help!” she screamed again, pounding the door with both hands. “Please! Please!” The darkness loomed like a hand over her mouth. In her delirium, she thought she heard the sound of stones being dragged across the floor and a slow wheezing chuckle. Raw panic descended on her.

“Help!” She screamed until her throat was raw.

Time passed. For how long, she didn’t know. There was no air left; speckles flashed in the darkness and tears trickled down the side of her face. With one last gasp, she wrenched her knee up and smashed it as hard as she could against the door; it shifted. The pain was excruciating but her heart raced like mad. A waft of fresh air poured into the gap. Gasping, she kicked furiously. Another inch.

“Damn it!” she cried, and jerked her knee into the wood and wailed. The door burst open.

Her body catapulted upward like an animated corpse, and she screamed, her hands pawing at the surrounding earth. She heaved herself out of the dank hole, gulping in mouthfuls of sweet air.

Thank you, God. Thank you,
she gasped as she laid her head on her arm and drank in lungful after lungful of air.

Panting like mad, she fought to gain her bearings. With some effort she managed to wrestle her satchel from the ditch, eager to put herself as far from it as possible. The barn stood ominously around her. Night had descended, and the rain continued to beat on the roof. Still, she was grateful for the darkness, as she could pass unnoticed so much more easily. She sat on her knees, rubbing her bloodied fingers against her jeans, and went over her plan. She would abandon the minivan. She couldn’t risk the police finding it. So she’d get a cab or hitchhike to Fort Bragg where she could catch a bus or a train. But she needed to find Nick first; she couldn’t leave here without him.

Somewhere an owl cooed, and she could hear the scuttling of animals along the rafters. Stumbling to her feet, she made her way to the barn door that swung slightly ajar in the wind. She needed to find a crumbling wall inside the house—that’s what the poem had said. Would there be a grave near the crumbling wall?

She had reached the threshold when she heard the sound of a single shuffle, like gravel on dirt. She was not alone. All her senses sprang to life, and she stepped away from the open door, back into the darkness. Someone or something was standing outside—unmoving, waiting. Every hair on her head tingled in complete attention, but her feet felt like lead. Her imagination made pictures in the dark of what stood there: another ghost, an animal, a killer. She stopped dead. Whatever it was had gasped.

She knew that breath.

“You…cannot…believe…her.”

Andrew stood there, his breathing ragged as though he had run the entire length of the hillside. Had he heard her cries, or had he waited in the downpour knowing she would return?

“But Christ, you do believe her.” It was a statement, not a question, and the menace in his voice was undeniable.

Emily took another step back. She had to run. She dropped her satchel and bolted, racing to the back of the barn. In the dark, her hands flung out in search of a door, a loose board, anything.

“No!” he commanded.

Nightmares of him bore down on her, of the inhuman grip of his hands wrapping around her throat. She stumbled backward.

“Damn it! Stop! So help me, Emily! Stop.”

The loft. The window at the back of the loft—if she could reach it, she could jump. With a lunge, she grappled up the ladder and hurled herself into the hay. Struggling through it, she lurched toward the opposite wall. Behind her she heard his feet pounding across the floor and thundering up the ladder. She was inches from the window when he bounded across the planks. She threw her back to the glass.

Andrew’s eyes were black, and bruises of crimson stained his cheeks. His pulse hammered in his throat, and his dripping sweater was drenched, plastered to his body.

“I am not letting you go!” he screamed, the cords of the muscles on his neck rigid in anger.

She scrambled away from him, throwing herself into the corner. “Don’t hurt me, please, don’t hurt me.”

If she ever thought he could kill her, it was now. Rage exploded around him, and every muscle was poised to strike. He glared at her, thunderstruck.

“You heard her. You know it’s true,” Emily implored, playing for time while she tried to figure out a way to escape. “She knows everything. About you and about me. About how I’ve tortured you your whole life. I can’t be near you. It’s the only way. You have to let me go.”

“I don’t care about some bloody curse!”

“Don’t you see? It’s already started. The van, the motorcycle, Vandin, everything. Then it’ll be you—you killing me. I’ve seen it. We can’t stop this. It’s always been like this, for all of them.”

He still stared at her as though she had lost her mind. “We die, is that it? I murder you with my own hands? Kill you because some curse says I have to?”

“Yes! That’s why our palms say what they do. We’re part of this curse. For whatever reason, you and I—Nick and Nora, we’re the ones. No Chamberlain has ever lived to marry a Thomas—they kill each other before they can—and then…and then they can’t even be together in the next life. But I can’t…I won’t let it happen to us this time. The Lady in White told me that if I left…if I never saw you again—you could be safe, you could live. If you love me, if you ever did, you have to let me go because I can’t do this. I can’t stand back and watch you die.”

Andrew took a step toward her. Her shoulders pressed flat against the wall. She swallowed her fear; the window was only a foot way. She still had one last chance to reach it.

“No Chamberlain has ever lived to marry a Thomas,” he said, his voice eerily quiet and at the same time edged with anger as though he had already lost his mind.

She closed her eyes and nodded, praying he would understand, that the last vestige of sanity in him would allow her to escape. But before she could even hope, she felt his body loom over her. Vehemence poured off of him in waves.

“But I can.”

His words hung in the air between them. She had no idea what he meant, and her heart crashed through her ribs waiting for what was to come next.

“But I can,” he repeated with a strange tilt to his face, a challenging look, as if his own words had taken him unawares. He reached out and seized her shoulders, pulling her to him. His eyes sought hers, fierce and alive.

“If a Chamberlain marries a Thomas, that must change fate. It must. The curse was made to keep them apart, to keep them from marry-ing. Lifetimes and lifetimes of them came so close. Nick and Nora on the way to their wedding; the couple before them, they wanted to, I know they did. I can feel all of them, but they never made it.”

“I…I don’t understand.”

“Vows declared before each other. It doesn’t need to be anything more. Marriages—they were nothing but that for ages and ages. People were sworn to each other, pledged, with nothing apart from an oath and a promise.”

He stared at her hand and started tugging off her ring.

“I refuse to lose you. Please, just please, don’t run. Just listen. I’m not religious, Emily, I never have been. But if there is a God I’m asking, no, I’m praying, that he’s listening right now.”

Andrew pulled them both down to the hay and positioned her until they were kneeling face to face. His whole body seemed to shake and stopped only when his grip on her hands tightened. His eyes found hers.

“I, Andrew Hayes Chamberlain —”

“No, Andrew, it won’t work, it can’t.”

He did not release his hold, the pulse in his palm echoed in her own. Inside of her, lifetimes of souls railed at her, their hundreds of hearts began beating as one, wanting, waiting.

“Take thee, Emily Thomas, to be my wedded wife.” He kissed her now, and it was not tender; it drove her to the earth, to this place, and to this time. Her fingers shook inside his. “To have and to hold from this day forward.”

His lips trembled an inch from hers. Tears slid down along her face. Or were they his? “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. To love and to cherish.”

His mouth kissed her temple and swept down until it reached the flesh below her jaw, and he whispered, “Forsaking all others.”

“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.