A Midwinter Fantasy - Leanna Renee Hieber [3]
“You’ll dare bring them here?” asked the young woman, in awe. “And for you, what about your love, what will Aodhan—?”
“I assure you we’ve been up against far worse,” said the Irishwoman. “I warred against the worst of the Whisper-world, remember! I tell you. I’ll make a sacrifice.” She called to the Liminal, announcing herself like a prophet. “Liminal edge, you tell those who beg your aid that you’ll not change the course of lives without barter. But be clear I make my deal with you, not the devil, and I expect generous justice. Thus I place my soul on the line. I agree to remain trapped here in this uncomfortable between, unable to appear to my beloved friends and unable to gain the Great Beyond at my love’s side until our two charges make the first honest step toward learning the lessons we must teach.”
The Liminal stage had gone dark, a wall of black before them, the occasional tendril of Whisper-world mist curling across its surface.
“How . . . does one make a . . . deal?” the little boy murmured, breathless.
“Aodhan told me. My love traveled between worlds for ages and learned many things.” The Irishwoman did not hesitate. She pressed her palms against the Liminal wall and hissed in pain, as if there were needles in that barrier. A deep black fluid oozed from her palms, phantom blood, sipping a bit of her life force before her wounds closed, her compact sealed. The Liminal sparked across its dark threshold like a fork of lightning, the air was charged and the portal was open. Clearly it was ready to begin.
She turned to her fellows with hope upon her grey face. “Sometimes a good haunting is just what a soul needs, even the most heroic. And we shall surely give them that. Come, we’ve not long before Christmas. It is the time of miracles.”
“And the Liminal well knows it,” said the boy, peering warily at the portal of infinite possibility. The edges of the frame again sparked, as if in assent.
The Irishwoman nodded. “Go, let us begin. Call upon them, the both of you. I daresay one of them will be thrilled to see you.”
They all three closed their eyes in concentration.
The Liminal clock hands and numbers shifted to the hour and date concurrent with the mortal present, just days beyond the memory they had viewed. A new scene was born, and the living portrait now displayed a modest apartment filled with the same lively Guard characters, all save the headmistress and she who was lost.
The little boy spirit was the first to descend through the now-porous Liminal membrane, to pass through that proscenium portal and into the room. Immediately inside, there was great tumult regarding him.
The spirit of the Irishwoman chuckled at this, her greyscale eyes filling with fond tears. The other spirit placed a hand upon her shoulder, but the Irishwoman shrugged it off. “Go on, Miss Peterson.” She gestured her forward, grinning. “I trust that I will eventually be able to follow you.” Her voice was hopeful but her mood anxious.
As Ms. Peterson descended, the Irishwoman remained in the Liminal, watching the familiar, tumultuous melee of spectral and human interaction. “I’ll forever miss that. You,” she murmured to the friends who could not see her.
After a moment, she moved into the thicker shadows. There she drew back a drape on another picture made manifest by the powers of the Liminal edge, a further masterwork in the museum of the cosmos, and murmured, “On a separate stage, the curtain now rises on Headmistress Thompson. Alone.”
Indeed, just beyond sat Ms. Thompson, isolated in her academy apartments, her knees folded awkwardly upon bedclothes that showed no signs of having been slept in.