Chapter Sixteen #2
If someone had told me yesterday, I’d live a cursed existence, I’d not have believed them.
Today, I must believe. I watched as Mawu, a woman who evidently loved me—I did not love her—laid down her curse, stabbed herself, and used her bloody blade to inflict equally gruesome wounds on the gris gris she’d made of me.
I saw the blood of the wounds given the VooDoo doll appear on my shirt, but no wound appeared on my body.
I felt weak and was forced to crawl into my bed while my brother and first mate dealt with the dying woman.
I know not, what happened to Grainne, who after so many years, had finally found me and yielded to my pleas of undying love.
I write this now little more than one day after those events.
I can see the quill move, the ink forming letters, but I cannot see my hand.
I looked in the mirror earlier but saw no reflection.
Yet, I’ve felt hunger, and sorrow, and a fear beyond any I’ve ever known.
I’ve felt intense pain too, as if I’m being torn in two directions at once.
How can I grip this quill without seeing the hand that holds it? How can I be alive but not have a body? How can I ache in every bone and sinew when I don’t exist?
“Impossible,” she whispered. Grace wasn’t yawning now.
This book had to be a fake. Why hadn’t she taken it to New Orleans for appraisal?
Because she’d thought the book was adding to her stress, making her crazy.
She turned the page. At the top the date was 23 December, 1814.
I’ve figured it out. I know why I couldn’t see myself.
Two factors are involved. First, I had no idea how to see a phantom.
Yes, I am a phantom, a specter—most of the time.
However, tonight is a full moon. I not only see myself; I can feel.
My senses, sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste all are as they were the day after Mawu’s death, some even more so.
The pain I feel from existing in two worlds at the same time is less intense than before.
I truly am cursed, and it is the curse that now rules my life.
When she intruded on Grainne and I, Mawu was furious. She blathered about saving me but cursing me instead because I had betrayed her and broken her heart.
I never promised her anything. Whatever feelings she believed I had for her she imagined for herself. Grainne is the only woman I have ever truly loved. What happened to her that night?
We were in bed together. Mawu burst into the alcove. Grainne called me ‘her love’ and said I should go to Mawu because the woman was in pain. I did as my beloved asked, of course. I approached Mawu, who was threatening me. I don’t recall those words precisely. However, I recall her curse perfectly:
“This ship is your life, but to women you are as inconstant as the moon. So shall you and your ship be until you earn the heart of a woman who has none…only then will you once more see this light of day.”
I am cursed to exist as inconstantly as the moon.
I have a body, but I’m only completely corporeal during a full moon.
That is the reason, I appeared from thin air, when I met with my brother after the curse.
The moon was not yet full but waxing gibbous—becoming full.
I was becoming but was not yet fully corporeal.
I suspect that when the moon wanes completely, I shall have no physical being or appearance at all.
It will be interesting to learn what other changes happen to me as the moon moves through its cycle.
I miss Grainne, deeply. However, I am glad she disappeared. How she escaped unnoticed is beyond imagining. Most likely, she somehow vanished as a result of the curse. I will ask Cal to seek her out once he returns to England. If she can be found, he must watch over her, for I cannot.
Grace sniffled back a tear and swallowed the urge to weep. The author knew how to turn on the emotional spigots, but it was all fiction. It could not have happened. Ever. The next page would prove it. I’m sure.
The page was blank as were the subsequent four. She blinked.
Why would anyone write such obvious fiction and not explain?
“Because it’s all true.”
Her head shot up, and she gasped. Lucien Flynn stood in her open window.
“You! How did you get in here?” she demanded.
He bowed. “Yes, me. Captain Lucien Flynn of the Only Love. As for how I got here, I climbed the outer stairs.” Luc stepped into the room.
“No!” Grace raised her palm outward, as if that would ward him off. “Don’t come any closer.”
He gave a single nod. “May I sit on the bed? We must talk. I have a great deal to tell you.”
“I am not certain I want to hear it…any of it. You cannot convince me you are a ghost. I know you don’t exist at all, save in my imagination.”
“I’m not a ghost. I am simply a very cursed man.” His expression was soft, sad and very sincere.
She wouldn’t have it. “Nonsense.”
“I can tell you what is written on those blank pages.”
“The pages are empty.”
“Not really.” The figment of her imagination smirked.
“I don’t know what game you are playing at, but I’ll give you the chance you ask for. When you fail, I expect you to leave and never bother me again.”
“Fair enough.” He nodded.
Her brows rose. “You don’t believe you will fail. You honestly think there are words hiding on these pages that will reveal themselves as you speak them?”
“I know the words. I wrote them. I am not completely certain they will appear. The chance is good as it is a full moon, and I am completely myself. What comes from me should, if my curse holds true, have a physical existence.”
Grace rolled her eyes. “More nonsense. Just get on with it.”
“Are you looking at the top of the first blank page?”
“Yes.”
“The date is 24 December 1814, and notated as after moon rise.”
As he spoke, ink black script appeared on the parchment, the script less shaky than on the previous page.
Cal was here, and he’s very afraid. More letters appeared as Luc continued reciting. I feel what he feels. How, I do not know, but I know his thoughts and the emotions he attempts to hide.
He asked Astracamino how he will know when to return to escort him back to New Orleans, but my friend had left. So, I answered for him.
“He’ll know, because the moon will set.”
Cal turned toward the sound of my voice. He searched the deck before him. When the moon’s light gleamed off the ship’s rail, I began to take physical form, just inside the ship’s bulkhead. I knew Cal could see the bulkhead through my translucent body before it solidified completely.
He choked out my name. “‘Luc?”
“Yes, brother.”
What? How? That is quite the trick. He had so many questions.
I agreed it was quite the trick and wished it actually were a trick.
He told me not to joke, exclaimed that I was hurt.
I wasn’t, not physically. What he saw was the blood on my shirt that had appeared when Mawu stabbed the gris gris of me… .
Grace listened and watched the script appear. Not possible. It’s happening, so it has to be possible. I don’t believe this. I don’t want to believe this.
Her mind circled and circled the longer Luc spoke
I told Cal it was time to leave as Astracamino climbed back aboard.
My brother did not want to go. He even panicked a bit.
I used calm logical reason—not my forte—and reminded Cal his wife needed him.
We embraced. It was the last time, I believed, that I would ever see him, ever feel his physical presence.
This touch, this ability to embrace another human being will only be mine on rare occasions.
My future is indeed bleak, he said some pages later.
I bid him farewell as the last of the moonlight disappeared.
I vanished along with it. I stood there, invisible to everyone, and watched Cal stare into the space where he’d seen me moments ago.
“Enough.” Grace closed the book. “I don’t know how you did this. I still don’t believe it.”
“Caleb didn’t want to believe either.”
“Is there anyone besides yourself who can vouch for this wild story?”
“I’m not certain. Would you believe Mambo Ayezan? Mawu, the woman who cursed me was her ancestress.”
Grace shook her head, making her hair scatter and tickle her neck. “She’d only be telling me some family legend. My experience as an appraiser has taught me that family legends are very unreliable sources of information.”
“There is no one else.”
“Then I don’t think I can speak with you again.” She set her mouth in a hard line.
“I agreed if I failed that I would leave and never come back. I did not fail.”
“You did not.” She drew the words out, reluctant to say them. “But succeeding doesn’t make it real, or at least it doesn’t make me believe you.”
“My experience with most people who have learned about my curse is they need time to be able to believe. I’ll come back when you’ve had more time.”
“If that ever happens, how will you know?” she asked.
His lips twitched. “You’ll call for me, and I’ll hear you. My hearing is very sensitive, regardless of the moon phase.” He left the way he came.
Grace listened for his footsteps on the outer stairs. When she could no longer hear him, she put the book away. This time, she locked it in the antique chest at the foot of her bed. She wasn’t going to let any curse, real or fictional, drop on top of her again.
The dogs slept by the door. They’d never made a sound while Luc was present. That should be proof he did not exist. Mars and Mercury always made noise of some kind when someone new came to the house. But then Luc isn’t new to them, is he?
She sighed, shut off the lamps and got back into bed. Will I sleep? Will I dream?
Would she believe it all a dream when she woke?