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They stayed together, just like that, with his arms around her and her cheek against his chest, for several long minutes. Neither of them spoke. There wasn’t really anything left to say. There was a peace surrounding Catherine that she’d never felt before. She’d finally been vindicated. All those dreams. The sleepless nights. The abuse she’d endured because of it… She wasn’t crazy! The dreams reallyhadbeen trying to tell her something! It was a good feeling.
Hairs prickled the back of her neck. A chill went down her spine. Slowly, she turned around, looking out toward the hut and beyond it, off in the distance, the sheer cliff that had taken Benjamin and Catherine Ryan’s lives.
“Can you see that?” she whispered, pointing.
At first, she thought it was a trick of the light, but Jason nodded. He could see them too. Two figures—hazy, transparent—but quite clearly a couple, walking hand in hand toward the sun. Benjamin and Catherine—it had to be!
Catherine watched, awed, as the two ghostly figures walked away from them, up the slight incline toward the hut. She couldn’t explain it and she didn’t understand it, but Catherine felt compelled to follow. It was like Benjamin had one more thing to show her.
“I’m coming,” she whispered. “Show me.”
Even though she tried to hurry, hobbling along as fast as she could with Jason’s support, they couldn’t catch up to the hazy figures walking ahead of them. Somehow, the distance was maintained between them, seemingly magically. The ghostly figures never got too far ahead, but neither could they close the gap.
Catherine held her breath as the hazy silhouettes passed the hut. She still couldn’t wrap her head around what had just happened. It was just too bizarre.
“I can’t believe my great-great-great-aunt lived here! Actually here! In this very place! It’s… it’s…”
“I know.” Jason’s voice was low. Awed. Once again, he understood.
Catherine and Jason kept following. The figures were headed directly to the cliff but this time, there was no overwhelming desperation inside Catherine. Instead, she felt at peace. Things were playing out exactly as they were meant to.
By the time Jason and Catherine got back to the hut, the ghostly figures were very close to the fence edging the cliff. But they weren’t moving anymore. Now they were still. Catherine held her breath; it almost felt like she was an intruder. There was a sense of calm and serenity pervading the air that Catherine hadn’t felt before. Like things had come full circle. Everything was as it was meant to be.
The ghostly figures were almost invisible now, in the full light of the sun. If Catherine hadn’t known they were there, she wouldn’t have been able to see them at all. But because she was looking for them, she could see the hazy mist in the shape of two people, directly in front of the fence, right at the edge of the cliff. A lump clogged her throat; it was difficult to breathe. Myriad emotions welled up in her, so many she couldn’t make sense of them. She recognised relief. But along with that was an eerie calm, happiness, sadness, anger. Even injustice.Emma Craig went a lifetime without knowing what became of her twin.A pang shot to Catherine’s heart. It was weird, how a woman she didn’t even know could have so much of a hold on her emotions.An ancestor lost forever, finally found.
Closure.
Briefly, the sun went behind a cloud, leaving the ground around them in shadow. In the slightly dimmer light, the ghostly apparitions in front of the fence became clearer. Jason squeezed Catherine’s hand. In unison, the hazy figures turned to face them, and raised their hands in farewell. Catherine lifted her hand in return, bidding them goodbye.
“Safe travels,” she whispered. “You can rest together in peace, now.”
Then together, the Benjamin and Catherine of her imagination turned, walked straight through the fence like it wasn’t even there, stepped out into the nothingness of the cliff edge. They hovered in the air for a moment, then vanished. Gone.
“The end.” There was a finality to Jason’s words and Catherine’s heart sank. Was he done with her, now? Had this weekend up here showed him the full extent of her crazy and he decided she was too much? Did he want the Olympics more than her?
He bent to kiss her, but before their mouths met he held his face centimetres above hers, his eyes looking directly into hers. His were shining with love.
“And new beginnings,” he added.
“New beginnings,” she confirmed.
They stood there in the doorway of the hut for a moment, kissing on the threshold, looking out over the valley spread before them and the snow-capped mountain peaks beyond.
“Are you ready to go back yet, baby girl? It feels like our business is finished here.”
Catherine nodded. “Take me home, Daddy.”
EPILOGUE
July 28, 2021
Catherine Oliver paused, her eyes glued to the show-jumping footage of the Olympics showing on the telly, her spoonful of ice cream halfway to her mouth.Jason!She didn’t need to see his name printed across the bottom of the screen in big, bold letters. His face was etched so indelibly into her brain, she could never forget him. They were inseparable. Covid was keeping them apart right now, obviously, but aside from this month, for the Olympics, they’d spent every single day together since they’d gotten back from the hut. She’d given up her manky rental and moved in with him, sharing the workload of Jason Oliver Equestrian and freeing Jason up to train for the Olympics. He’d wanted to give it up, but she’d refused. If he gave up the Olympics for her, he’d eventually come to resent her, she knew, and that was a road she wasn’t willing to go down again.
She didn’t eat ice cream very often now. Or drink cheap wine. She didn’t need to. She didn’t need sugar, chocolate, and alcohol to numb her senses and dull the pain. She didn’t need to drown her sorrows. Not anymore. Now she had Jason. Horses. Love. Happiness. Peace. But she ate the ice cream now, mostly in solidarity with her former self. It was Jason show-jumping on the telly that had brought them back together, after all. She’d bought salted caramel flavour especially, in honour of that evening.
The dreams didn’t plague her sleep anymore. She didn’t wake up, her heart pounding, because of the man calling her name so hauntingly. She didn’t see the hut in her sleep. Now the only time she pictured the little stone hut in her mind was because she consciously thought of it, remembered, and smiled.
She held her breath as Jason rode into the arena. She closed her eyes, then barely squinted them open again, as Jason cleared jump after jump. She couldn’t watch, but shehadto. She kept everything crossed: her fingers, toes, arms, and legs, as he finished the course cleanly. Perfectly.
