A Midwinter Fantasy - Leanna Renee Hieber [30]
There was a long silence. Rebecca had held a glimmer of hope, had begun to feel the lightness of a heart opening to its true call; she had begun to truly see the man who loved her as she is and always was. But all was precarious. In vain. Too late. There was no one to guide her.
“Oh, no! Don’t ye dare let go of that glimmer, Rebecca Thompson, or I can’t do my duty and we’ll all be bound to these damned stones! And who would want to see ye happier than I?” came a familiar, chiding Irish brogue, an accent always heightened by anxiety. Suddenly there was a grey light, a silver halo around a solid woman who wore the greyscale of the dead.
“Jane!” Rebecca cried and threw her arms around her. “Oh, how we miss you! Wait. Am I dead?” In this existence, in this time and place, Jane was solid.
“No, you’re not. Yet. But the spirits are all in agreement—”
“That it should have been me!” Rebecca cried.
“No!” Jane hissed. “That’s not the answer.”
There was a rumble of thunder. Lightning illuminated the shadows, and Rebecca screamed as pillars of human skulls were revealed marching off into the endless distance. Shadows lurked behind those pillars, and Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting any further illumination.
Jane shook her head and whispered, “None of that nonsense, now. Watch your words in these parts.”
“Where are we, exactly?”
“This is the Whisper-world, Rebecca.”
“Here? Me? I’m not supposed to be here, am I?”
“No, it’s dangerous while you’re alive. You’re on the edge of a dark realm. Ahead of us sits the Liminal threshold. A powerful place not to be trifled with. It’s what allows us this final examination.”
She led Rebecca forward. As they moved, the darkness lightened; the air became a luminous silver, and her muffled footfalls over the wet stone sounded across something more like glass. The air was less dank in her nostrils, the breath of sadness less oppressive.
“Are you happy, Jane?” Rebecca asked. “Where is your ghostly love, your Aodhan? I’ve prayed so dearly for your peace.”
Jane spoke carefully. “I chose my path. Aodhan awaits me in the Great Beyond, but I can’t go to him ’til I see you choose your path. No matter what happens, I regret nothing. But if you fail. . .”
“What. . . what will happen?”
“I’ll be trapped here forever. It’s the price that the Liminal asks. But I love and believe in you that much.”
“Oh, Jane—”
“Hush your mouth, we’ve work to do.”
A great proscenium of a stage was gleaming before her. Both females looked onto a scene that Rebecca recognized from her very recent past. The scene was still, frozen, waiting to leap to life. Rebecca’s heart raced. It was a darkened Athens, right before the spirit war.
Hearing music from the upstairs foyer, she anxiously turned to Jane. “In Dickens, the past was the purview of the first spirit alone. How are you showing me this?”
Jane pursed grey lips. “I thought you didn’t like Dickens.”
Rebecca paused. “Well . . . I suppose he’s my only reference here.”
Jane smirked. “You’re an infinitely more complicated creature than Ebenezer Scrooge, Headmistress, and so the same methods of salvation cannot apply.”
Rebecca sniffed, straightening her shoulders. “I didn’t think he got it exactly right. Too dramatic.”
Jane laughed. “Oh, but he got it exactly right. Yet while we’re not following his script, we must teach you and repeat until you really see.”
“I see—”
“Do you?” Jane insisted, placing an icy hand upon her chest. “No. You’re not free. Not yet.”
“No,” Rebecca agreed, looking down. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be free.”
Suddenly, she emitted a torrent of confession. “All I’ve hoped for in life is to valiantly serve those who depend upon me, to be an efficient, respected headmistress, a member of The Guard, an upstanding citizen. Of course I wanted to be loved in return by Alexi! I wanted a home and a family with him. But our Grand Work had its own agenda, his heart its own call. So now, as I stare down