Chapter Twelve
Giselle saw panic on Jonathan’s face but didn’t take the time to reassure him.
Especially since she felt nearly as terrified as he obviously did.
Allowing a spirit’s possession was exactly like allowing another person into your soul.
The ghost would see everything in her, just as she would see everything in him.
It wasn’t immediate. With concentration, she could hold parts of her separate, but that took focus. And eventually—if the possession lasted long enough—she and the old viscount would become one being.
She had no intention of letting it last that long. She wanted to get this ghost crossed over and out of everyone’s life. Now.
But possession was not so easy a thing. It required acceptance on both parties. And she feared the crotchety viscount would draw her energy without sharing any more of himself than he already had.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t another option.
So she boldly stepped into the whirling, seething black spirit who stood at the end of the bed.
She felt its cold and its anger. Usually anger was like hot spikes into the skin.
And when the fury was strong enough, she would feel bees stinging her.
But this ghost had a dark anger. A seething fury that still stabbed, but with icicles of pain.
She endured.
“You want something, you old bastard,” Giselle cried. “This is the only way you can get it! Come talk to me!”
And then something shocking happened. Something that took her completely by surprise, though it shouldn’t have.
Jonathan joined her.
He’d been calling her name, but she had ignored him.
She was too focused on the ghost. But the moment Jonathan touched her, she felt his presence as strongly as the old viscount’s.
And he didn’t just touch her. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, pressed his forehead to hers, and said the sweetest words she’d ever heard.
“We do this together.”
She didn’t know if it was possible. Her mother had counseled her that possession was incredibly dangerous for both ghost and possessed.
But she’d never suggested that a spirit could possess two people.
And yet here she was—with Jonathan—feeling the cold bite of the old viscount get stronger inside her.
Like the slide of a frozen oil slick in her veins. And from Jonathan’s sudden gasp of horror, she knew he felt it, too.
And then suddenly, everything changed.
The world around them darkened to pitch, as if they stood in nothingness.
Not black, not gray, just nothingness. And it was three of them, she realized.
Her, Jonathan, and the old viscount. They each stood there, clear as day.
No longer a shadowy form, the old viscount appeared solid, though slumped with thinning hair and sagging skin.
That must have been how he looked when he died.
“Father,” Jonathan breathed.
So he could see too.
“Are you…in my head?” he asked.
“Are you in mine?” the ghost echoed.
She thought they were both in hers, but it didn’t matter. She squared off with the old viscount. “What do you want? Why are you haunting them?”
“What?”
Oh dear. Many ghosts were unaware that they were dead.
Many were confused as to their actions, haunting people on instinct or as some unconscious way to lash out.
It appeared that the old viscount was one of those.
He was haunting his family without reason, merely because they were the ones closest to him.
“Father,” Jonathan snapped. “You’ve been dead a year! Why are you torturing me?”
“What are you talking about?” the ghost answered.
“He doesn’t understand,” Giselle said. “Give your father a moment. The more he is merged with me, the more he will understand.” She shrugged. “Death is a confusing process.”
Jonathan nodded, though now that he believed, all his frustration was boiling over at his father. “I cannot believe you would do this to us!”
“You need to stay calm,” she said. “Let him focus.” Then she turned to the old viscount. “What is the last thing you remember?”
The ghost looked at them. His brows narrowed, and he extended one weak, shaky arm. She had no idea if it was in body or just a shaping of her imagination, but either way she knew what it meant. He needed to bond closer to them. He needed more of her energy to strengthen his thoughts.
Steeling herself for the pain, she extended her hand. The moment she and the ghost connected, she felt him slide more fully up her arm and into her mind. It was horrible, that slow creep of another’s presence into a place that had always been her own.
Still, she let him in. And so, apparently, did Jonathan because she saw him take the ghost’s other hand.
And then they were speaking as if in one mind.
She could feel the viscount’s emotions as if they were her own.
She felt his fury at his frailty. She felt the ache in her chest left over from coughing day and night.
Fatigue rolled through her, along with anger.
And yet the more she railed against it, the more her body—the old viscount’s body—betrayed him.
She erected a mental wall. She forced a division that kept the viscount’s pain as separate from her own as possible. It worked a little. Enough that she could keep some sanity. But Jonathan had no such training. He gripped his ribs, his body shaking from a coughing fit that wasn’t his own.
“Stop it!” she commanded, speaking to the old viscount. “Those coughs are over now. There is no more pain, no more frailty. You are whole.”
And as she said it, she felt the transition. It was as if everything dissolved and the body sensations ended. There was the echo of form. Here is my arm. Here are my legs. But no sensation from them. Because this was the feeling of passing out of the body.
Jonathan straightened, and so did the old viscount.
“Did I die?” the ghost asked. Then before she could answer, he nodded. “I remember now. I did die.” Then he clutched his chest.
“You had a heart attack,” Jonathan said.
“I remember.” But he was still clutching his chest. And when she looked closer, she saw why. He held a crucifix in his hand.
A crucifix? She didn’t remember the man being especially religious. Had he become more devoted toward the end? Then Jonathan gave the answer.
“That’s the vicar’s crucifix. He put it there. You were buried with it.”
His father nodded. “I remember now.”
“Good,” she said. “Do you know why you’ve been haunting your son?”
The man’s ghostly eyes widened as he focused on Jonathan. “You’re here. You’re with me. I must have it!”
Jonathan frowned. “What? What do you want?”
“Is your mother here? Your sister?” The old viscount twisted around, clearly looking for the others.
“I can get them,” Giselle said. “Susanne and—”
Another voice cut in, loud and clear despite not being in this place of nothingness.
“We’re here. We don’t know what’s going on, but Mama and I are here.” Susanne’s voice trembled with fear, but her tone was clear.
Meanwhile, Jonathan shook his head. “I can’t see anything—”
“Just relax,” Giselle said. “Everyone, stay calm. Please.” She was struggling to keep her mind centered.
She had never done this with a ghost, much less a ghost and Jonathan.
It was chaotic, trying to sort through who said and felt what.
But she knew she was the only one who could do it. If she faltered, so would everyone.
She steadied herself and spoke clearly.
“Everyone is here, my lord. What is it that you want?”
The man straightened as he looked around. He probably didn’t see Susanne or her mother. Neither did she, really. So he focused on Jonathan.
“I did it because I love you. All of you. That’s why I did what I did. What I thought was best. For all of you.”
She felt the strength of his resolve. The power of his absolute belief that he’d been right in his love and in his actions. Except right behind it was fear. Confusion echoed in the same tempo as the beat of her heart. And a dawning realization that, in the end, money and power were meaningless.
That was what the man had realized near the end. That everything he’d done to build power had not kept death away.
“He’s beginning to understand,” she said. “He’s beginning to see that love is what matters. And that many of his actions weren’t based in love.”
“I thought they were!” the ghost bellowed.
She gasped at the force of the statement. Jonathan, however, pulled himself up from where he’d been hunched over coughing. He straightened and faced his father.
“Do you see it now, Father? Do you see how what you did was cruel?”
“I love you!”
Love, present tense. And the force of his love for his son filled the space of nothing. Pure, strong, absolute.
Jonathan felt it, too. His eyes widened and filled with emotion. She felt his love for his father, echoing through the space between them. Whatever issues had separated them, their love was undeniable.
“And what about for your wife?” she pressed. “For Susanne?”
The love redoubled once, then again. Pouring through them both.
“I feel it,” Jonathan said. “He loves us. Not just before, but now. So much.”
“Yes,” Giselle agreed. But that didn’t answer the primary problem. “What do you need, my lord? What do you need so you can pass on?”
The answer came swiftly, filling the space with anguish.
“Forgiveness.”
Need filled her enough to choke off her breath. She understood now why the old viscount was clutching the crucifix. And so she took a stab at an explanation.
“You need forgiveness, don’t you? From your family. Before you face the afterlife.”
“Judgement.”
Ah. Yes. Honestly, she had no idea if there was judgement in the afterlife. Her father thought not. He preached love and forgiveness from God. But clearly the old viscount believed in a vengeful god. And that god would demand a great deal from a sinner whose actions were greedy and controlling.
“You want them to say they forgive you,” she clarified. “Before you face judgement.”
Which is when the ghost finally looked straight at her. “From you, too,” he said. “I feel how much you love my son. I was wrong to separate you.”
Now that was a surprise. But again, she should have expected it. The ghost could feel her emotions as clearly as she felt his. He knew now—with growing clarity—how much he had wronged the people in his life. And she felt his fear and his regret in every beat of their combined hearts.
Which left her unable to deny his true wish.
Though the words were hard to say even so.
“You are forgiven,” she said. “I feel your honest regret. You would change your actions if you could.”
Then she faced Jonathan. “Will you forgive him, too? He will not face the afterlife without it. He needs it go move on.”
Jonathan sighed. “He really thought he was doing the right thing for me and our family.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes.” Though she knew that on a deeper level, he’d known what he was doing was more about control than love. That understanding was clear in him now, and that was what he regretted.
Jonathan lifted his hands in a futile gesture. “I must forgive him, don’t I? I must—”
“No, you don’t,” she said. “Not unless it’s a true emotion. I don’t think he’ll stay after this. I think he’ll face his judgement one way or another, now that he understands he’s dead. Was he ever a man to avoid accountability when it finally came?”
“It never came for him,” Jonathan groused.
“It’s coming now.”
In this space, she could feel Jonathan’s anger. A thousand sleights, a million moments that bred distance rather than affection. And yet, for all that, she felt his love burn bright. The inevitable love of a son for his father.
“I forgive you, Father. I know you tried. In your own way, you tried your best.”
And from somewhere in the room came Susanne’s voice. “I forgive you, Father. If Giselle can forgive you, then I can too.”
Then his wife’s voice cut hard and clear. “But I don’t! Harold, you were awful. You lied to me. You promised me things! And you were horrible and mean!”
She felt the words hit the old viscount like heavy blows. They punched into this place of growing light and weighted it down with dark fury. Giselle also felt the old viscount accept it. He took that weight into himself and bore it like the aristocrat he was.
“Stiff upper lip, Father?” Jonathan asked.
“Yes,” the ghost answered. “Tell her I’m sorry. I truly am. But she’s right. I don’t deserve her forgiveness.”
Giselle shook her head and echoed her father’s words. “No one deserves forgiveness. Nevertheless, God grants it to all of us.”
That’s what she believed, at least.
“I’m ready,” the ghost said. “Tell them that I really do love them.”
Giselle nodded. “I will.”
And then she felt her hold on the ghost release. Or perhaps he slipped away from her. Either way, the ice in her veins grew warmer. Where there’d been pinpricks of pain, now came soothing heat. A sweet caress of relief while the ghost grew bright in her eyes.
Brighter, lighter, and soon blinding.
And with it came a flood of love. Of forgiveness. Of everything good she believed God to be.
Then the old viscount was gone.
And so was she, because she passed out a second later.