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"Yes," he said.
There was something so familiar about the sound that my heart began thumping. I fumbled with the matches in my left hand, my fingers shaking so much I couldn't get one lit to touch the candle wick.
"Go away," he whispered in a raspy, obviously disguised voice now. "Don't light that candle. Just go away."
I saw him lift his arms before him as though to block me from his view. Then he turned and entered the tunnel that I knew went nowhere. I hesitated. Some part of me was telling me to do just what he had said, to turn around and go back. Sometimes we shouldn't challenge fate and destiny, this voice within me said. Sometimes we're too proud and too determined for our own good. This wouldn't be the first time that I had come to a fork in the road, only to take the more dangerous route.
But it was more than simple stubbornness that now drove me forward. And it was more than anger at Tony. No, there was another part of myself now at odds with caution. This part had been asleep, dormant, kept in storage on some back shelf in my heart. I felt this alter ego open her eyes and stir. I felt her heart beat once again with mine. I felt her emerge and then merge with me, and without any further delay I struck the match and lit the candle that would light my way through the darkness of my own mind and lead me to the answer.
I went forward into the dark end tunnel. The candle lifted the curtain of d
arkness around me to let me pass under, but I knew the curtain dropped like an iron door behind me as I went. I couldn't help but think about Rye Whiskey's tales of ghosts and disturbed ancestors. What better way for them to travel up from their restless graves than through the secret tunnels? All my childhood fears were sounded. Could Tom's troubled spirit have found its way to these dark veins in the earth? Would I walk into that pocket of darkness that housed my mother's young spirit as well? I looked back into the wall of black. Was it too late to change my mind? Had I already crossed the boundary?
I turned the first bend. The tunnel went a little ways farther and then the wall that Tony had built to shut it off from outside intruders loomed before me. Where was the dark silhouetted figure I had accosted only moments ago? Could I have walked right past him? I slowed my pace and lifted the candle higher, holding it almost at arm's length before me.
Suddenly I felt a breeze to my right and turned just as he stepped out of the darkest shadows. I brought the candle down and he closed his fist around the tiny flame to extinguish the light.
But he was too late. The glow had flashed over his face. The heat in my own must have made it just as bright. His eyes lingered in the darkness even after the candle had been snuffed and they were eyes I would know instantly and forever.
"Troy!" I cried.
"Heaven," he whispered.
And for a moment I was not sure whether or not I had come upon a ghost or an illusion of my own frightened and troubled mind.
I lit the candle again to discover the truth.
SEVEN Troy
.
"YOU ARE NOT ONE OF RYE WHISKEY'S GHOSTS," I whispered. I reached out slowly and touched his arm. A small, thin breeze traveled through the tunnels, making the small flame dance on a stage of darkness. The candlelight flickered over his face. His dark eyes which normally had the depth of forest pools looked even darker and deeper.
"No," he replied, "although there are times when I truly feel like one." A small smile played about his beautifully shaped lips. He was wearing a white silk blouse and tight black trousers, but in the darkness, with the tiny flame flickering, the white blouse took on a yellowish tint.
"I don't understand. What happened? What is happening?" I heard the hint of hysteria in my voice. He heard it, too, for he slipped his hand into mine and gently took hold of my palm.
"Let's return to the cottage," he said softly, "and I will tell you all."
I followed him through the dark passageways, feeling as though I had descended into some land of the dead and rescued him from the grips of eternal sleep.
Together we were ascending, returning to the world of light and life. As we walked in silence our footsteps echoed behind us and fell back into the spongy blackness that absorbed all sound and quickly stifled it. My heart thumped so hard I was sure he felt the reverberations through my fingers. To me it was as if I were pumping life back into him, resurrecting him with every passing moment. Soon we were in the cottage cellar. He stepped back to permit me to walk up the stairway first. I looked back, hesitating, afraid I would lose him, afraid that the powers of darkness, once I released his hand from mine, would suck him back into the tunnels and into the past. But he remained right behind me, closing the door after we entered the cottage.
"Just before you arrived I was about to have a cup of tea," he said in a casual tone of voice. It was as if all the past two years had evaporated and this was just another one of my amorous visits. "Would you care for one?"
"Yes, please," I said. I sat down at the table quickly, my legs feeling wobbly. He went to the stove and started the flame under the kettle again. I watched him take out the cups and saucers and then get the teabags, not looking at me until he brought it all to the table. I shivered and my expression of pain and confusion must have troubled him.
"Poor Heaven," he said, shaking his head, "how I hoped to avoid this moment and how I longed for it at the same time."
"Oh, Troy," I said, "why?"
"You know why, Heaven," he said hoarsely, "in your heart you've always known. But I shall tell you anyway."
He sighed and sat at the table just across from me.
The collar of his white silk shirt was open so that I could see the faint sprinkling of dark hair on his chest. For a long moment he simply stared down at the tabletop, his head lowered. Then he sighed deeply, raked his long fingers through his mass of waving hair, and lifted his heavy, troubled eyes to me. Although he didn't look sickly, he was thinner and paler than I remembered him. His hair was somewhat longer, the ends in the back still curling up. He looked as though he had been shut away from sunlight and life for ages. My heart cried out for him and I had the urge to reach out to comfort and embrace him.
"It was right here, right on this tabletop that I wrote that last letter to you," he began, "telling you how Jillian had come to me and told me that you were Tony's daughter and my niece, telling you how I realized then our love could never be. I told you I was going away to learn to live without you. I thought I could do that and eventually return to Farthinggale to go on with my life as it was before you arrived, as dreary as that life was."
