too practical, too emotionally void to realize exactly what the diagnosis meant. To him, death was nothing more than a cessation of pulse, a change in energy readings. So much for soul mates.
Even after Anna had talked the doctors out of a colectomy, accepting the death sentence as the cancer raced to other organs, Stephen still acted as if science would intervene and save her. He probably even prayed to science, that coldest of all gods. She refused his offer of a ride home from the hospital. She'd come to accept that loneliness was a natural state for someone soon to be a ghost.
Six, an arc and trick…
Miracles happen, one of her oncologists had told her. But she didn't expect them to occur in a hospital, with tubes pumping radiation into her, blades removing her flesh a sliver at a time, doctors marking off her dwindling days. And she had stopped dreaming in the hospital. It was only back home, in the wee hours of her own quiet bed, that Korban Manor once more stood before her. — Night after night, as the dream grew longer and more vivid, the shape on the roof gained substance. At last Anna could clearly see the distant face, diaphanous hair flowing out like a veil. The cyan eyes, the welcoming smile, the bouquet held before her from the forlorn stage of the widow's walk. At last the face was recognizable.
The woman was Anna.
Five, a broken wing…
The pain was softer now, snow on flowers.
She'd conducted some research, knowing the manor was familiar to her through more than just dream visitations. She found a few items on Korban Manor in the Rhine archives. Ephram Korban had spent twenty years building his estate on the remote Appalachian crag, then had leapt to his death from the widow's walk in an apparent suicide. Some locals in the small town of Black Rock passed along stories of sightings, mostly disregarded as the gossip of hired hands. A field investigation, shortly before the house was restored as an artists' retreat, had netted zero in the way of data or enthusiasm.
But maybe Korban's pain, his anger, his love, his hope, his dreams, were soaked into these walls like the cedar stain on the wainscoting. Maybe this wood and stone and glass had absorbed the radiant energy of his humanity. Maybe the manor whose construction had obsessed him was now his prison. Maybe haunting wasn't a choice but an obligation.
Four, a north fork…
She drifted in the gray plane between sleep and thought, wondering if she would dream of the mansion now that she was actually here. She closed her mind to her five senses, and only that other one remained, the sense that Stephen had ridiculed, the one Anna had hidden away from her few friends and many foster parents. The line between being sensitive and being a freak was thin.
Three, a skeleton key…
For just a moment, she was pulled from sleep. Something wafted behind the maple baseboard, scurried along the cracks between dimensions. She didn't want to open her eyes. She could see better if her eyes were closed.
Two, an empty hook…
She felt eyes on her. Someone was watching, perhaps her own ghost, the woman spun from the smoke of dreams who held that bouquet of fatal welcome.
One, a dividing line…
The line between some and none, here and gone, bed and grave, love and hate, black and white.
Zero.
Nothing.
Anna had come from nothing, was bom to nothing, and walked toward nothing, both her past and future black.
She opened her eyes.
No one was in the room, no ghost shifted against the wall.
Only Korban, dead as dry oil, features shadowed by the flickering firelight.
The sunlight's angles had grown steeper in the room. The pain was gone. Anna rose and went outside to wait for sundown, wondering if this was the night she would finally meet herself.
'Have you seen George?' Miss Mamie asked Ransom Streater. She hated to mingle with the hired help, with the exception of Lilith, but there were times when orders had to be given or stories set straight. The best way to head off gossip was to originate it.
'No, ma'am.' Ransom stood by the barn, his hat in his scarred hands, sweat clinging to his thin hair. He smelled of the barnyard, hay and manure and rusty metal. Around his neck was a leather strap, and she knew it was attached to one of those quaint charm bags. These rural mountain people actually believed that roots and powders had influence over the living and the dead. If only they knew that magic was created through the force of will, not by wishful thinking.
Magic was all in the making. Like the thing she held cradled in her arms, the poppet she had shaped with great love and tenderness.
'I need someone to help the sculptor find some wood tomorrow,' she said.
'Yes, ma'am.' The man's Adam's apple bobbed once.
'When was the last time you heard from George?'
'This afternoon, right after the last batch of guests come in. Said he was going up Beechy Gap to check on things.'
Miss Mamie hid her smile. So George had gone to Beechy Gap. Good. Nobody from town would miss him for at least a couple of weeks, and by then it wouldn't matter.
And she could count on Ransom to keep his mouth shut. Ransom knew what kind of accidents happened to people around Korban Manor, even to those who wore charms and muttered old-timey spells. And a job was a job.
Everyone had a burning mission in life.
Some missions were more special than others.
She took the little doll from its bit of folded cloth. Its apple head had shriveled into a dark and wizened face, the mouth grim with animated pain. The body was made from whittled ash and the arms and legs were strips of jackvine. Ransom drew back from the doll as if it were a rattlesnake.
'Will you take care of George for me?' Miss Mamie asked.
'He was my friend. It's the least I can do.' A shadow crossed his face. 'I need to wait till morning, though. I don't go up Beechy Gap at night.'
'First thing, then. I don't want to upset the guests. You know what's coming, don't you?'
'A blue moon in October,' Ransom said. His eyes shifted to the barn door. A horseshoe hung above it, points up, the dull metal catching the dying daylight. As if luck mattered.
'You've been with us a long time.'
'And I aim to stick around a lot longer.'
'Then you won't let me down?'
'I'll bury him proper, silver on his eyes. I take pride in my work.'
'Ephram always said, 'Pride will walk you through the tunnels of the soul.' '
'Ephram Korban said lots of things. And people said lots of things about him.'
'Some of it might even be true.' Miss Mamie stroked the doll, suffering her own moment of pride at its skillful rendering. Folk art, they called it. The little poppet contained far more folk than anybody knew. 'Excuse me, I have a dinner to host.'
Ransom gave a little bow and tugged the strap of his overalls. Miss Mamie left him to feeding the livestock and headed toward the manor. She carried the doll as if it were a precious gift to a loved one. Even though the house was as familiar to her as her own skin, to see it from a distance always brought a fresh rush of joy. The fields, the trees, the mountain wind seemed to sing his name.
This was her home.
Their home.
Forever.
