34 Elle To Accept #3
He’s here already, as he promised. Waiting for me. After everything. He waits until I’m upright again before he speaks.
“Is he…as bad as you are?”
“Worse. Gone.”
Douglas smiles. He believes I’ll join him soon to stay here and create a ghostly love story. To him, death is merely a curtain and I’ll soon push it aside to truly stand beside him. ’Til death do us meet.
I sit down on the bench. The sunset has darkened into cloudy rivers of pinks and purples. Above, there’s an endless indigo sky.
The end of a long day. The beginning of a quiet night.
“They were like chickens,” he tells me, all smiles and stories of the men. “Screaming how all the rumors are true, how the Devil really must live here. It may earn us a few months of peace before the next interruption.”
“James,” I rasp out, my core shaking.
“You’ll enjoy floating,” he continues, not getting it. “And no more opening doors or feeling the cold in the morning. It takes getting used to, but I’ll be here to—”
“Douglas.” He must know. Before he goes. Before we both go.
He stops, searching my face.
“I know it’s scary,” he says in a rush, shaking his head, a self-conscious smile on his lips. “I’m sorry. Only a year and I’ve forgotten how this feels. Soon the pain will ease. Truly, it’s not so—”
It’s time. Time for him to finally know. The final lie broken.
“You… You don’t haunt the lighthouse.”
I can barely see him from the tears falling. Everything is streaks of sunset.
“What do you mean, Elle?” he asks slowly, coming closer.
I hold the sword’s hilt with both hands. I can be steady.
“You haunt me. Only me. I never sacrificed you, remember? The lighthouse did nothing to you. It was me. Always me. When I… When it happens, when I’m gone, you won’t remain here with me. You’ll pass on. To whatever’s next.”
I pull the sword out in a quick motion. I let out a long hiss of pain, gritting my teeth. Blood spouts, stronger than I expected. My clothes bloom darker.
“I—No.” The realization dawning on him hurts as much as the wound. “No, I won’t. I won’t go. Or we… We can save you. The…the oil. It can…can it not—”
“It’s over, James. You’ll be free. And I’ll stay here.”
James searches my face for the answers that can bind us together. But there’s nothing. We have no time left, and I’m done believing I’m the exception to the laws of nature. This is doom, but it’s mine.
“I’m sorry we didn’t have more…more time.” Each breath comes to me harder than the last. “At least more time when we didn’t hate each other.”
James laughs through his tears. He holds the sides of my head. As the feelings of the world fade, his touch presses into my cheeks. Real pressure. I can feel him now.
“I love you, Elle. I have for far longer than you’d ever believe. Through it all.”
I’ve never said the words to any man. I stare into his gray-blue eyes. As the world around me blurs and grays out, he brightens. His beard reddens. His cheeks do too. That long nose warms, and his eyes turn nearly sapphire.
“I love you too,” I say. “Thank you. For believing I could be better.”
And here, in this singular moment of both life and death, we are whole together. He’s brighter than the ocean sunset. I put my hands on his cheeks, pressing into the skin like I never thought I would. He’s warm and firm and, in all ways that matter now, alive to me.
I pull him down, and he kisses me. The pain falls away around him. It’s not like any kiss I’ve had before. A mixture of sorrow and longing and finally, finally, release. I feel our dance, our dinner together, our arguments and our triumphs. Every belief he had in me, every effort I made for him.
His beard rubs against my cheeks. His mouth is warm against mine, inviting. The smell of him is cotton and the sweetest wine. His favorite. Though my face is wet with sweat and tears, it’s more than I could ever pray for.
“I’ll protect this place,” I manage when we pull away to let me rattle in a breath. “I’ll make sure no one ever—”
I cough. I can’t stop. The taste of copper fills my mouth. As my vision narrows, James shines. I slump backward on the bench, the pain washing away like footprints under the crash of waves. He’s nothing short of celestial.
He holds my hands like we’ve never been able to before. He squeezes, over and over. Like a lighthouse’s beam, guiding me home. I grip as hard as my failing body can manage. “Maybe someday you’ll no longer need to protect anyone anymore. You can find me. Find this.”
“This was enough.”
A flash. Like the light of the lens passing across me.
He’s gone.
And I’m alone. And I’m dying.
No more pain. No more labored breaths. A coolness, like the presence of his hand when we danced but all over me at once.
I look out onto the burning island and past it to the harbor. The dinghy is still afloat, far ahead of the panicked men rowing back to the nearest land they can find without their leader.
The sun sets as my body settles into its resting place beside James’s skull. No more pain or bargains. No more fight or fear.
I wake into the first night of my afterlife.
I am now the ghost of the Devils Island lighthouse keeper.
And I’ll ensure I am the last.