Things Half in Shadow (13 page)

Another silence followed, in which the only sounds that could be heard were the muffled sobs of the woman in purple and the floating instruments as they bumped off the ceiling and brushed against the walls. It was soon broken by the voice of young Philip.

“Hello? Mr. Pastor?”

“Yes, Philip.”

“There's someone here,”
the boy said.
“Someone who would like very much to address a woman in your party.”

The woman dressed in black perked up in her chair. “Gerald? Is his name Gerald?”

“No, ma'am,”
young Philip replied.
“He frightens me, Mr. Pastor. I don't want to let him speak.”

“You don't have to, Philip. As my wife's spirit guide, you're not required to do anything you don't want to.”

“I might not have a choice, sir.”
The boy's voice contained a palpable fear that sent shivers rushing across my body.
“He says . . . he says he intends to hurt me if I don't. Please don't let him hurt me, Mr. Pastor. Please!”

A strong, ice-cold breeze swept through the room. It felt exactly like the January wind that sometimes whipped off the frozen Delaware. I ran my hands up and down my arms in an attempt to warm myself. Others, I saw, were doing the same. Even Mr. Pastor had taken notice. He looked around the room with wide, frightened eyes, an act that produced a great deal of unease.

Mrs. Pastor began to thrash in her chair as a new voice—male this time—emerged from her mouth. Only “emerge” isn't the best way to describe it—it was more like a burst of sound, filling the room and shaking the instruments as they swirled all around us.

“Jenny Boyd!”
it roared.

Next to me, Lucy Collins gasped. The silver cup she had been holding dropped from her hands and clanged onto the floor, splashing lemonade on her shoes and dress. She paid it no mind.

“It's me, Jenny,”
the voice intoned.
“Declan. Don't say you've forgotten me, because I know you haven't.”

Lucy's eyes were closed and her lips were moving, mouthing something I couldn't hear. I looked to her hands, which contained a string of rosary beads. I hadn't a clue as to where they had come from. Hidden in the folds of her dress, presumably. But now they rattled in her hands as her thumbs rolled over the wooden pearls.

“I know you're there, dolly,”
the voice continued.
“You can't hide from old Declan. No matter how many names you use or cities you run to. You know I'll find you.”

I heard an intake of air, as if this Declan person was inhaling deeply. He sounded like a man who studied flora relishing the scent of a beloved flower.

“I smell you, Jenny,”
he hissed.
“That's how I know it's you. You smell the same way you did the night I died. When you killed me.”

Lucy let go of the rosary, dropping it into the puddle of lemonade at her feet. Her hands now free, she used them to cover her ears.

“Make it stop!” she shouted. “For God's sake, someone make it stop!”

Her outburst, it seemed, was strong enough to silence the voice coming from Mrs. Pastor, for we heard it no more. In addition, the bitter cold dispersed with it. In its place was comforting warmth that seeped into the room, as if the entire house was being slowly submerged into a steaming bath. While a bit of the previous chill lingered at the base of my spine, I found myself soothed by this newfound heat.

“Hello?”

It was yet another voice, softly exhaling from Mrs. Pastor's lips. A woman's voice, as gentle as the warmth that had been brought with it.

Only hearing it provided me with no comfort. Another shiver entered my body, far more violent than the previous ones. It made me start to tremble uncontrollably.

I let out a strangled cry of surprise, which made Lucy take a moment out of recovering from her own bout of fear to notice mine.

“Edward,” she whispered. “What's the matter?”

The shivering prevented me from speaking. Even if I had been able to talk, I doubt I could have explained my dread. The fear was so great that it seemed to take control of my bones, rattling them.

For it wasn't just any voice emanating from somewhere deep inside Mrs. Lenora Grimes Pastor.

It was, you see, the voice of my mother.

A
lthough fifteen years had passed since I'd last heard Annalise Holmes speak, I recognized her voice at once. How could I not? I had spent the first ten years of my life listening to it. It was the voice that had pointed out the Arc de Triomphe to me in Paris and gently encouraged me to ride an elephant in Bombay. It was the voice that woke me in the mornings and lullabied me to sleep at night.

Logic would dictate that hearing it again after so long an absence would have filled me with a sense of joy and wonder. It's common, for example, to hear someone who has just lost a loved one say,
“If only I could hear their voice one last time.”
But there was nothing logical about the situation. It was strange, unexpected, and unknown, and I responded accordingly—with fear.

All the while, the voice of my mother continued to emerge from someone who wasn't her.

“Columbus,”
it said.
“You are there, aren't you, my dear, sweet boy? Tell me that you are.”

I swallowed and tried to speak, but it was more difficult than you can imagine. My throat was so dry it felt as if I had just
swallowed a bucket of sand. My voice, when it finally did emerge, was a hoarse, scratching sound.

“Mother,” I said.

“Columbus, it
is
you!”
There was joy in my mother's voice. Joy that I wished I had shared. But I was still too terrified to take any pleasure from our conversation.
“My boy, my sweet boy, how I've missed you.”

“I've missed you, too,” I said. “So very much.”

“I know, dear Columbus. I know.”

The more she spoke, the more my fear subsided. I felt it draining from me, as if it was retreating into the musical instruments floating all around. The fear swirled into the bell of the bugle and filled the top of the drum like it was a mining pan. Soon it was gone, replaced by a sorrow as deep and unfathomable as the sea.

“Mother,” I said. “I wish more than anything that you were still here. I wish that I could at least have been able to say good-bye to you, but you were taken from me.”

“But I'm here,”
my mother replied.
“I'm always with you.”

Something touched my cheek, barely grazing the skin. It was light—so light I could barely feel it. And soft. More a puff of air than a touch. But its warmth, its gentleness made me think that it truly was my mother and not just some cruel parlor trick.

I realized I was crying, although I had no idea when it began. My cheeks were soaked with tears, and when I tried to wipe them away, I noticed there was a handkerchief in my hand. On the edge of my vision, I saw Lucy Collins nod. Such a resourceful woman. Always prepared.

“Tell me wonderful things, Columbus,”
my mother said.
“Are you well? And happy?”

“Not without you. But I try to be. I truly do.”

“Is there someone special in your life? Someone you love and who loves you in return?”

“Yes,” I said. “Her name is Violet.”

“Such a pretty name,”
my mother replied with satisfaction.
“Is she a pretty girl, too?”

“Yes, she's lovely.”

“Have you wed yet?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Soon.”

“Promise me you'll always try to make her happy, Columbus. Make her happy and she'll do the same for you. That's all you need. Love and happiness. Your father and I always understood that.”

I was stunned by the way she so casually mentioned my father. Did she remember nothing about how she died? Had she no recollection of the man who killed her?

“I don't want to talk about him,” I blurted out. “Not even with you.”

“My sweet boy, why ever not?”

I looked around the parlor, eyes darting among everyone else present. They all sat in rapt attention, probably by this time wondering who I really was and what I was talking about.

Hoping not to give too much away, I said, “It's . . . it's hard to speak of him, Mother, knowing what he did to you.”

I detected confusion in my mother's voice.
“Did to me? Your father?”

“Yes,” I said. “He killed you. In front of all those people.”

In the furthest reaches of my mind, I understood that I was revealing my secret to everyone in the room. But I honestly didn't care. In another part of my consciousness, they didn't even exist. It was just my mother and I, speaking to each other as if nothing bad had ever happened.

“Your father did this, you say?”

“Yes, Mother,” I replied. “He destroyed everything. He took you away from me.”

My mother's voice grew concerned.
“But that cannot be.”

I wondered how much those in the afterlife knew about what was happening here on earth. Did she know, for instance, that my
father was now rotting away in prison? Was she aware that I had renounced my given name out of anger and humiliation?

“It is,” I told her. “I haven't spoken to him since you left us.”

“You must listen to me, Columbus,”
my mother said.
“You must listen closely and obey.”

I leaned forward, twisting Lucy's handkerchief in my hands. “I will, Mother. I will.”

“You must see your father as soon as you can. You must speak to him and tell him of this meeting. He might not believe you at first. But tell him this word and he will.”

As dishonorable as it seemed, I had no intention of seeing my father, despite what she was saying. Deep down, I knew it was something I'd never be able to do. Still, I asked, “What word is that?”

“Praediti.”

A rush of air swooped from the back wall toward where Mrs. Pastor was reclining. It was a forceful gust, reminiscent of a breeze in early March, before lion has been replaced with lamb. The instruments, still suspended, spun in this strange wind, careening off one another and crashing into the walls. Many of the lamps were snuffed out, plunging the room into a web of half shadows.

I stood, the wind pummeling my back and trying to propel me forward in wicked, brutal shoves. I resisted, my heels scraping across the floor as I shouted to be heard over the gusts.

“Don't leave me yet, Mother! Tell me what that means!”

Accompanying the wind was a watery, sucking sound. Upon hearing it, I looked to Mrs. Pastor, barely visible in the new dimness. She was sitting up, eyes open wide, mouth agape. She looked terrified, and rightly so, for it appeared that the wind was being swallowed into her mouth.

Everyone else in the room responded to the gusts the only way they could—by tightly gripping the seats of their chairs and holding on for dear life. The woman in purple let out a frightened yelp
that got instantly swallowed by the breeze. More lamps were extinguished until only the one next to Mr. Barnum remained lit. It flickered perilously as the last bit of wind rushed past.

Just like that, the breeze was gone, leaving the room in an all-too-brief stillness. Mrs. Pastor closed her mouth. Her eyes followed suit as she fell backward into her chair. The instruments over our heads immediately ceased their movement.

Then they fell.

This time, there was no gentle glide similar to the way in which they had been raised. Instead, they rained down all around us. The tambourine plummeted once more onto the table. The cowbell flew past my head so quickly that I felt the brush of wind its fall produced. The harp, lightweight only a moment before, smashed deep into the floor and sent splinters of wood flying.

All of us covered our heads, trying to keep from being hit by both instruments and debris. I grabbed Lucy and tossed her onto the floor, covering her body with my own while using my arms to shield my head.

Mr. Barnum tried and failed to duck out of the path of a falling violin, and was struck on the head. He fell from his chair, knocking over the table and lamp next to him. The lamp shattered, sending a stream of oil across the floor that quickly burst into flames.

Someone—I had no idea who—screamed at the sight of it. As the fire grew, I saw someone rush to Mrs. Pastor, visible only as a darkened form standing between her and the flames. By that point, all of the instruments had landed, giving me the chance to tear off my jacket and pound out the fire now running across the floor. Lucy, I noticed, had rushed to Mr. Barnum's aid, using the handkerchief I had dropped to blot a bloody mark on his head.

It wasn't until the fire was fully smothered that a realization crashed over me, one more heavy and crushing than the harp that shattered the floor.

My mother was gone.

I sat up, listening for her voice and trying to detect the familiar warmth of her presence. I sensed nothing. She had been taken from me a second time. Once again, I hadn't been given a chance to say good-bye.

But losing her now didn't hurt as much as the first time. Shortly after her death and my father's arrest, I read an adventure story in which the villain fell from a cliff, grasping at nothing before meeting his doom. It was supposed to be a triumphant moment in the story, the happy ending such tales require. Yet I had felt nothing but sympathy for this villainous man. I knew what it was like to be in continual descent, helpless and frightened.

This time around, there was no dizzying fall. All I experienced was the moment of impact, which left me breathless and aching. In my mind, I heard the voice of my younger self crying out to her.