Epilogue
Present time
Yorkshire, UK, East of Huddersfield
Babylon Castle
When the wife got back to the car, she didn’t notice that her husband was sitting there, looking rather odd.
He wasn’t looking at her, either, so he didn’t realize she was looking rather strange, too.
They both sat there for a moment until the wife realized the car wasn’t on.
Her husband was simply sitting there, gazing through the windshield.
“Nice try,” he said, unhappy.
She had no idea what he was talking about. “What do you mean?”
He sighed sharply and looked at her. “The ghost voice,” he said, mocking it. “The one you yelled from inside the castle. Nice try in your attempt to scare me.”
She blinked, startled. “You heard, that too?”
He frowned and rolled his eyes, turning on the car. “Oh, brother,” he said. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Where are we going next?”
“Wait,” the wife said urgently, putting her hand on his arm.
“Don’t go yet. What do you mean you heard a voice?
I heard a voice, too. At first I thought it was you just being a jerk, but then I realized…
well, it was a woman’s voice. It sounded as if she were calling a name – something like Clinton, I think. Did you really hear it, too?”
He was impatient. “Honey, you’re cute, but I’m not that gullible,” he said. “Nice attempt at trying to get back at me for being a dick, though. I’ll give you that. It was a good voice, nice and scary.”
The wife’s grip on his arm tightened. “But it wasn’t me!” she insisted. “You know practical jokes aren’t my thing. Why would I do that to you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe in that stuff, honey. You know that.”
“But you heard it!”
“I heard you.”
The wife looked at him, realizing that all of the debating in the world wasn’t going to convince him that they both heard a voice, and it wasn’t a voice from either one of them.
It was as if it had come from the very walls of Babylon, for it was everywhere yet nowhere.
Like a swift wind, it was there and then it was gone.
Still, she was quite rattled by it. It had been such a breathy, sweet tone, the song of a lover calling through the mist. Baffled, and the least bit spooked, she simply shook her head.
“Fine,” she said, letting the subject drop. “Hold on, I’ve got mud on my shoes. Let me shake it off.”
She popped open the door and removed her shoes, smacking them on the running boards to remove the mud. She was almost finished with the task when, quite close by, they heard another voice coming through the trees.
“Nicolaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
The wife’s head snapped up and even the husband jumped, both of them frozen to the spot as a disembodied voice, quite obviously male this time, blew through the mist, through the trees, as if only spoken by a passing breeze. But that breeze had definitely formed a word.
“Oh, my God,” the wife gasped. “Did you hear that?”
The husband’s eyes were bulging out of his head. “What in the hell was that?”
The wife’s mouth popped open, suddenly recalling the legend she had heard. Two lovers, calling for each other in the mist. They heard the first voice, the woman, and now the man was answering. Good God, was it even possible? Goosebumps shot up her spine.
“He’s calling to her!” the wife breathed in astonishment. “Did you hear him?”
The husband might not have believed in ghosts but he sure as hell didn’t want to see one. “Close the damn door!” he hissed. “We’re getting the hell out of here!”
The wife threw up a hand to prevent him from moving. “No!” she cried softly. “Wait! The first voice you heard was female, right? The voice you thought was me?”
The husband was already putting the car in reverse. “It was you!”
“No, it wasn’t,” she insisted. “It was the lady calling to her knight and now he’s answering her!”
“Close the door or I’ll shove you out and leave you here!”
The wife shut the door, mostly because she believed him. Already, he was backing out of the car park and onto the road, spraying gravel as he went, but the wife was fixated on the trees where the man’s voice had come from.
She was absolutely stunned and elated by what she’d heard.
Yes, elated was the right word. Elated that a love so deep, and evidently so strong, had endured all these centuries.
As certain as she had ever been about anything in her life, she knew she’d heard the cry of the lady from the very walls of Babylon, and now she was equally sure that the lady’s love, her enemy knight, was returning that call.
The mist had brought them together. Maybe that was why she had been so drawn to Babylon, with its ancient walls and misty secrets.
It was because those walls protected something, something that endured until this very day.
Those walls protected a love that not even time could erase.
But there was more, something more the wife saw before the ruins faded from view.
She would swear until the day she died that she caught a glimpse of woman rushing from the gatehouse of Babylon, only to disappear before she hit the road.
It was a fleeting glimpse of nebulous legs and long, pale hair, but it had been there. The wife was sure of it.
As the car tore down the road and the ruinous old castle faded away, the wife took that memory and tucked it deep into her heart, knowing without a doubt that she had witnessed something few mortals ever experienced. It was a love beyond time.
The legend of the lady and her knight would continue to live on, tucked deeply and safely within the ancient walls of Babylon.
If these walls could talk….
* THE END *