Chapter 14
The dim orange glow of the autumn sun woke me, but I didn’t open my eyes. I wasn’t sure of the time. It could have been late morning or early afternoon. I didn’t know and I didn’t care.
Keeping my eyes shut, I stretched, feeling my beautiful dress crushing around me. My feet still ached from my walk home after I turned a nearly unconscious Jonah over to his friends.
I wasn’t ready to get up yet, not when I was resting my head on Alastor’s chest and I could feel his arms around me. I wasn’t going to take a chance that this was a dream that would disappear when my eyes opened.
I didn’t know how Alastor could be so solid and so real, but it felt so natural and right to be stretched across his chest.
Alastor didn’t speak. His fingers twirled strands of my hair and traced the lines of my back as if he had to keep touching me. I didn’t mind. I was savoring the sensation of his near human touch.
I opened my eyes, squinting against the harsh sunlight. Without lifting my head, I twisted so I could see the shadowy skin of his throat and the strong line of his jaw. A vision flashed in my mind of other mornings just like this.
Sitting up, I looked down at him, still real and whole. His blue eyes followed my every move, but in this reality they were less luminous, but still just as mesmerizing.
“How?” I asked the only question on my mind.
He smiled up at me, “A stolen moment.”
“But how?”
He reached up and touched my face, so much like he did that first time. His eyes were growing shiny and watery.
“I have no idea why this is possible,” he choked. “But I thank God for it.”
Reaching a tentative finger out, I touched the back of his hand. It was cold and the air around it swirled.
“Can you stay like this?” I asked.
His eyes darkened, “No.”
I grasped at straws of hope, “What about what you did with Jonah?”
“A parlor trick, nothing more,” He confessed, looking miserable. “I can only do it for a short while. It helped that the boy cannot handle his drink.”
Even as we spoke, he began to shimmer like a million dust particles in the sun. Knowing he would soon fade away, I reached out to him.
“Don’t move,” I ordered.
He became still, watching me as my fingers touched his smooth forehead, brushing back his soft bronze hair. I caressed his beard shadowed cheek and then I ran a trembling finger over his sensual lips. Before I could move closer to kiss him, there was a blast of icy air and he was gone.
“I love you,” I whispered into the cold gust, hoping that wherever he was, Alastor could hear me.
Alone in my room, I got out of my ruined dress and went into the bathroom for a hot shower. My entire body was tense with desire, craving Alastor, but unfulfilled yet again. I stood under the water and waited for my muscles to relax.
The bottoms of my feet were stained black from where I walked home carrying my shoes. The water in the floor of the shower turned a light grey as a scrubbed at my heels. I washed away every trace of the previous night, including my make-up.
Once I got out of the shower and dried off, I put on a pair of faded jeans and an old sweat shirt. I crept out into the hall and down the stairs, still not sure if it was morning or afternoon.
The first floor was dim; the only light was from the living room where there was a low murmur from the television as Dad watched another game or some sort. I walked past, not bothering to peak in. I knew Dad would be stretched out on the couch in his usual weekend position, remote in hand and mumbling about the score.
The clock in the kitchen showed three when I switched on the light and the room burst into brightness. I squinted against the intense light and microwaved a mug of water for my instant cocoa. I needed an extra jolt of caffeine and was too sleepy still to go through the hassle of making coffee.
Once I had my cocoa, I went out onto the back patio. Sitting on one of the concrete steps, I kept the sun to my back and looked out over the yard.
The manicured lawn was turning brown and all of the potted flowers were dry and brittle. Across the yard, the rose garden was colorless with only a few fallen petals scattered about the ground.
Seeing the rose garden made me think of Alastor and the salty taste of his lips. I closed my eyes, picturing him in my bed that morning. I blushed as my thoughts took off in an embarrassing direction.
“Finally up?”
I jumped and turned to see Dad coming out the kitchen door with a soda in hand. He groaned as he sat down beside me.
“So how did last night go?” he asked.
“Fine, I guess.”
Dad took a sip of his soda, “Jonah seems like a nice boy.”
A little wave of guilt passed over me as I remembered how disoriented Jonah was when we parted ways the night before.
“Yeah, he’s a pretty good guy, I guess.”
Dad cleared his throat and shifted on the step, “Do you think you’ll go out with him again?”
I didn’t know how to answer that, especially with the memory of Alastor so fresh in my mind. I just shrugged and kept my eyes forward.
Dad cleared his throat again and turned the soda can in his hands, “I know stuff like this must make you miss your mom. You okay?”
“I miss her, but it’s okay.”
He nodded and looked down at the browning grass at our feet, “Well, I want you to know that you can talk to me if you need to.”
I wasn’t sure where he was going with all of this or what I was supposed to say to him. I just nodded and hoped that he would have to go in for another soda soon or that halftime would be over and he’d go back in to watch the rest of the game.
“I just want you to know that you can come to me,” He stammered. “You know, if you find that things are getting serious in a physical way.”
I turned a deep scarlet. It was as if Dad could read my mind, only it wasn’t Jonah I was thinking about that way.
Dad must have sensed that he embarrassed me because he patted me on the back and went back inside before we could humiliate each other more. I poured out my now cold coco and wrapped my arms around my knees, smiling at the idea of my Dad being worried about a physical relationship.
I looked out across the yard and sighed. I was lonely without Alastor and wondered where he went to gather his strength and when he would return. Alastor seemed to grow stronger the more intense my feelings became, but where did that leave us?
Everything I was told and had read about ghosts had been so very wrong. There was no instruction manual for this, I was in unchartered territory.
I knew now ghosts could materialize and be almost real for brief periods. The question was if that could be enough. Could I be satisfied with only stolen moments?
It was getting dark before I went back inside. Billie and Ally both called, but I shook my head and motioned to Dad to lie and tell them I wasn’t home.
“Everything okay?” Dad asked, obviously curious why I was avoiding my friends.
“Everything is fine,” I answered. “I’m just not in the mood to talk to them right now.”
“Did something happen at the dance?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I was there,” I snapped. “Nothing happened.”
Dad left me alone then and I pretended to watch television and not to feel awful for taking out my frustration on my dad. I was missing Alastor terribly, looking around often to see if I could spot some little disturbance that could be him. I closed my eyes and recalled the feeling of his skin beneath my fingers.
I was deep in thought, but when the phone rang again, I got to it before Dad. I could hear the sound of Dad’s footsteps just out in the hall as he hovered near the door. Was he just waiting to see if the call was him or had my foul mood made him curious?
“Hello?”
“Hey,” Jonah greeted on the other end of the line.
“Wha
t do you want Jonah?” I didn’t mean to be rude, but the sound of his voice made me want to crawl under a rock.
Jonah’s voice shook, “I understand if you’re mad at me. I’m just calling to apologize for last night.”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” I said, watching Dad’s shadow move closer to the doorway as he eavesdropped.
“Sure I do,” Jonah said. “I don’t know what happened one minute I was fine, and the next I’m passed out cold. I am so sorry that I ruined your night.”
“You didn’t.”
“Well, I feel awful about it.”
“Don’t,” I snapped. I was relieved to see Dad’s shadow move away back towards the kitchen. “You shouldn’t feel bad about it.”
“Okay,” Jonah said. “Then let me make it up by taking you out next Saturday.”
I paused, unable to believe he would even consider it. I hated myself for wishing I could do just that and that Alastor could do his parlor trick again.
“Seriously?” I finally asked.
“Sure, why not?”
My eyes went to the doorway where a shadowy figure was taking shape. As Alastor became visible, his eyes met mine and my heart began to pound inside the walls of my chest. I felt an almost irritable urge to go to him.
A slight smile came across Alastor’s sensual lips as he sensed my desire. I bit at my lower lip wanting to feel and taste those lips on mine.
“Jonah, can we talk about this at school tomorrow?”
“Sure, I guess,” Jonah mumbled.
“Fine. I’ll talk to you then.” I said and hung up before he could say anything else.
Alastor backed away from me, moving toward the stairs. I followed him like a sleepwalker up the staircase to my room. It was our own little world where I could close the door on everything else.
I leaned back against the locked door, panting, “I didn’t expect you to be able to come back so soon.”
“I’ll always come back for you,” he said. He stood next to the window, the moonlight making him seem more solid than he really was.
My eyes focused on his lips again, then to the open collar of his shirt, and then lower—I blushed as my desires took hold of my mind.
“What is it that you are thinking?” Alastor asked in his most appealing voice, as if he needed to try to charm me to get me to spill my secrets.
“Don’t you know?” I asked. “You’re supposed to be able to read my mind and know what I’m thinking.”
“It is clouded tonight by too many thoughts.”
I stepped away from the door and walked over to my bed, sitting on the edge and watching him. I was so close to him then, near enough that if I inhaled deep enough I could smell a faint trace of his own personal scent, a mix of honeysuckle, grass, and leather.
“My Dad was asking me about Jonah this morning,” I said.
“It’s understandable.” Alastor said with a shrug of his shoulders, obviously not wanting to discuss Jonah.
“He wanted to know how serious Jonah and I were,” I explained the best I could. “If we were moving toward a physical relationship.”
His entire being stiffened and then dissolved in a blast of cold air. I knew he was hovering near me, but he refrained from touching me.
“Alastor,” I whispered, closing my eyes and trying to draw him in with my will alone. “Alastor, can we ever be together as a man and a woman?”
I felt him shift closer, embracing me from every direction.
“No, my love,” he whispered inside my head. “I can never know you like that again.”
A tear escaped my eye and traveled down my cheek until invisible fingers wiped it away. The unseen hand caressed my face with an icy touch, moving down my neck, and resting on my shoulder.
I could feel him gathering around me. I closed my eyes and gave myself over to it.
“I love you, Becca.”
I looked up into the darkness, but saw nothing. I could feel him stroking my back, my hair, and brushing my lips with a feathery light kiss.
“Alastor, this is so unfair.”
“No one ever said life was fair.” He whispered, kissing my eyelids, and my ears, and then my neck.
“What about death? Is it fair?”
“No.”
He lifted me then, pulling me up into his immense embrace. I floated there, suspended as Alastor swirled around me. There was nothing to cling to as he rained his phantom kisses on my face and neck.
I cried against his nothingness as he held me. I felt trapped, caught in the wrong time and cheated by fate.