Beneath Ivory Skies (Book Three of The Whispered Tales)

The waiting

I've waited for her with that heavy feeling pressing my chest. I was to have the hardest decision of my life -- sending her away from me. That meant not seeing her ever again. I knew I would be missing her with every breath for the rest of my life. Her departure was to torment me until the end of my days. Maybe I would die of missing her too much. Maybe that way, I could be with her again...

Terrible thoughts kept coming to my head. I was about to help her find the way to the afterlife. But what was the afterlife? What was expecting her beyond our world? I realized I was sending her to the unknown, a place of which no mortal knew about.

I've got interrupted by the stray dog I had rescued. It hasn't left my side ever since. And even though I've tried to chase it away a few times, it always came back. I would always find him in the pantry, gobbling on my food. I had no idea how it always managed to came in because I locked the door each time. So I stopped sending it away, thinking it probably found a crack in the wall behind the old cupboards. It wasn't thin anymore. It even got chubby. As a sign of gratitude, it wasn't howling at my sight as it did on our first meetings. It even wagged its tail, happily barking each tie I was around. And I was beginning to enjoy its company. Sometimes, It accompanied me on my walks on the shore, chasing insects and running in circles around me.

Yet today, it seemed gloomy, just as I felt. It was sitting in the doorway, mouth on its paws. The gate's creak made him alert all of a sudden, moving one of its ears move. It was Emma. She has come.

I stepped closer, forcing a smile. She smiled back at me, slighty confused. We sat, as usual, on the small bench of my back garden. And, just as usual, the ivory skies were spreading above us. We looked at one another for a while without any of us saying a word. A thousand years wouldn't have been enough to watch her. Unlike our last time we met, I could now touch her, I could feel her... 

I was holding her hands in mine and that was enough. I have found out from the Stan sisters that sometimes, spirits could materialize, going back to their physical form.

I eventually gathered the courage to say:

"Emma, we need to talk."

My voice was trembling. She looked at me as if she was expecting this moment.

"We cannot go on like that," I continued. "You must know the truth. All your emotions, all your apparitions, and disappearances... They all have an explanation." 

It was so hard... I could barely say the words. A lump was stopping me from talking, suffocating me. I caressed her hand, looking into her eyes of frightened deer.

 "Emma... You died..."

She suddnely got up. Her hands were shaking, her voice was trembling, "What? Daniel, what do you mean?!"

I raised from the bench and followed her. Yet she avoided me. Big tears were now falling from her eyes.

"You're dead, Emma," I tried to tell her as gently as I could. "You're a lost soul who can't find peace. Please, let me help you," I lamost begged.

But she wouldn't listen. She was shaking her head, stepping away from me. I followed, in fear I might lose her again. She went to the house, troubled beyond words.

I found her curled up on the sofa, her cheen on the knees. She was rocking and mumbling a song. A lullaby. Where have I heard that song before? I kneeled by her.

"Emma, I know it's hard. To me, it's the hardest thing I've ever done. But you have to believe me..."

She looked me dead in the eye. Her words sounded clear and somehow loud:

"Daniel, can't you see? I didn't die. YOU did. You're dead, Daniel."

This time, it was my turn to throb. What did she mean?

Her voiced was more gentle than the usual. It felt like the voice of a storyteller who wanted to put to sleep the children who refused to do so.

"Five years ago," she said, "fire started in the attic of your home. It burnt the whole house." She turned to me and held my hands. "Unfortunetly, you died in that fire, Daniel. You must have fallen asleep and the papers took fire from a candle. The only thing that didn't burn was your book. You were holding it tight, protecting it with your body as if protecting your child. An old iron chest was the other thing that didn't catch fire. It had old clothes inside, belonging to the former owner of the house. Everything else has burnt. You were buried in the small cemetery at the edge of the village. I was the only one, except the priest, to take part to your funeral. It was the least I could do for you..."

So what do you think? Did you expect that? Let me know in the comments.