Chapter 53
The only time Finn and I had ever seen the wide-open sea was during the games.
But this place was a long way off from the sand-swept serenity of Fire Island.
In the distance, beyond the night-dark trees, there was a row of brick bungalows, and far beyond that, taller apartment buildings.
But we weren’t in a neighborhood. The ghost train had dropped Finn and me in the middle of a beach.
The moon was low over the dark water, and the waves glistened silvery-white as they rolled across the sand.
In modern day—now—this place was a large, crescent-shaped public beach.
It smelled a little bit like the fish counter at the grocery store, and more subtly like Roumelade’s vegetable seaweed soup.
The ocean sound was strange. It was a hushed roar, like a stadium of people cheering heard from a long distance away.
On a hot summer day, the beach would fit thousands of people seeking to cool off in the sea.
Now, though, there weren’t any people here.
Just Finn, me, and the figments replaying a gilded past.
I hadn’t realized Finn was still holding my hand until his grip tightened.
The breeze blew over us and carried the sounds of an orchestra playing a swift, trumpeting march. I’d never been anywhere that had so many figments. Scratch that—so many happy figments.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” I asked.
Finn shook his head. “No. I didn’t know it existed. I wonder what happened to it.”
“Why do you always have to die for me to wake up?”
“What?”
“Every time we ride the ghost train, I don’t wake up until you die.”
I watched as his expression shifted—one moment open, the next closed.
“What happens if you don’t die?”
“I guess we wouldn’t wake up.”
“Hmm.”
I wasn’t sure I believed that.
“Come on.” Finn tugged me down the beach, and when I stumbled in the sand, he flashed a grin over his shoulder. At his smile, I stumbled again. He laughed, and his laughter blended with the sound of the ocean.
Ahead was paradise, and that was where Finn pulled me.
It was the ghost of a hotel, but it was more beautiful than any hotel I’d ever seen.
There were pathways on the beach, with meandering flower beds, all lit by Chinese lanterns and gas lights encased in colored globes.
The glass globes were every color of the rainbow, and the lights winked and glittered as we followed their trail.
The orchestra music was drifting over the sand from a band shell, and I caught a quick glimpse of moonlight striking a trumpet, and the bow of a violin.
The ghost lights led us to the hotel. In real life, I might catch the figment of the hotel in a blink, a translucent structure: there one moment, gone the next. Or it might only be visible out of the corner of my eye. But in these nighttime train rides, figments were as real as everything else.
The hotel was beautiful, like the tiered skirts of my ruffled satin dress.
It was nearly as long as the beach, and it stood three, sometimes five stories high.
There were circular towers and minarets.
A covered porch wrapped around the legs of the hotel, and second-story verandas were covered with cloth awnings that flapped in the winds of a century ago.
The ghost hotel was overflowing with people. The porches were covered dining rooms. There was an ice-cream parlor. A confectionary. A croquet and archery lawn. There were carriages and horses on the beach. Thousands of people were dining, dancing, and strolling in the moonlight.
The men were dressed in light flannel suits and wore straw hats. The women were in long, elegant white dresses that caught the wind and looked like clouds skittering by. There were children digging in the sand, building castles that looked just like the hotel.
Finn laughed and pointed toward the sky. There was a hot-air balloon rising behind the hotel. It was attached to a rope. It hovered over the tallest minaret, and then it began its slow descent back to the ground.
“Imagine what it was like,” I said, watching the figments frolic, “riding the train here on the weekend. It’d be nice to leave everything behind in the city. They look happy.”
I nodded at a couple dancing near the band shell.
Finn’s mouth lifted at the corners. “Do you want to swim?”
I thought about the last night we’d ridden the train together, and how Finn had drowned in a Clark trap.
“No. How about . . .?”
I didn’t finish my sentence, because just then, a man in a striped suit and a straw hat stopped in front of us.
I frowned. He wasn’t a figment, because figments weren’t truly alive and couldn’t interact or react, yet the man stopped in front of us and swept off his hat.
“Welcome, welcome, weary travelers.”
I raised my eyebrows.
The man’s handlebar mustache twitched. “Welcome to our grand hotel. We’re glad you’ve arrived. You—”
I flinched as his finger swung toward me.
“Yes. You. I saw you admiring the dining piazzas. They seat two thousand. We serve table d'h?te. Only the finest multi-course meals.” He fluttered his hands, and I shook my head.
“No, thank you.”
“Ahh, a lady of discernment. Perhaps you would care for confections?”
“No.” I tugged Finn and tried to edge around the man.
“Then . . . if not refreshment, shall I take you to your room?”
“Room?” Finn paused and half-turned back to the man.
The man’s mustache twitched again. “Of course. The honeymoon suite. Reserved for our newlyweds.”
I glanced at Finn. There was a line between his brow as he frowned at the man.
“Excuse me, who do you think we are?” I asked.
The man swept his straw hat in front of us. “Mr. and Mrs. Smith, lately of Manhattan.”
“And who are you?” Finn asked.
“The concierge.”
“Your name.”
“Concierge.”
I looked at Finn. He was frowning at the concierge. Then he nodded. “All right. Show us our room.”
The man led us through a throng of diners. The music was louder here, as well as the roar of conversation. Fans spun lazily overhead, and gas lights flickered like the stars.
It seemed we’d landed in the middle of summer in the late 1800s, replaying an evening that had happened long ago.
“What do you mean, ‘show us our room’?” I whispered to Finn as we trailed behind the concierge. “Do you want to die?”
He sent me a half-smile.
The concierge called an elevator, and we rode it to the top of one of the towers. Down the hall, past a guard, he pushed open two double doors.
I laughed and stepped into the suite. It was like a fairy tale.
The windows were open, and the sea breeze blew through the curtains, carrying the long notes of the orchestra and the sounds of laughter.
The room was lit with soft electric lights and was beautifully furnished.
The thick carpet padded my footsteps as I stepped inside.
“Can I get you anything?” the concierge asked. “Anything at all. You only have to ask.”
Finn narrowed his eyes. “Anything?”
The man plunked his hat back on his head. “Anything. At this hotel, our guests have everything they desire.” His eyes twinkled. “Honeymoon bliss to last a lifetime, if that’s your desire.”
Finn’s eyebrows shot up.
“Or . . . to be unbound. Unfettered. Look out the window.”
Finn and I both turned to stare out the wall of windows.
“All that could be yours. A lifetime of it. You only have to ask.”
My skin itched like it was covered in sea salt. I shook my head. The man’s mustache twitched as he flourished a hand. “Enjoy your stay. Ring if you need me.”
He backed out of the door and closed it with a sharp click. I frowned and checked the door. It opened easily, but the concierge was gone.
“This is odd,” I said.
Finn crossed his arms and looked around the room. “A bit. I suppose. Unless you wanted honeymoon bliss that lasts a lifetime.”
He turned back to me, and my cheeks heated, the flush spreading down my neck. I glanced at the bed. He shook his head.
I sat down on it. It bounced softly, and I sank into the quilt. Huh. Feather mattress.
“I’d rather be unfettered,” I said, patting the bed next to me.
Finn wrinkled his nose and then sat down. I bounced and slid toward him. He was big, and the mattress tilted under his weight.
“Sometimes,” he began, his voice warm, “I think about our wedding night.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Do you ever think about it?”
I couldn’t speak. There was a lock in my throat; a lock on my heart.
“Who am I kidding? I think about it all the time. Mari?”
I shook my head. No. No.
“I love you,” he said, taking my hand, “in case you forgot or were fooled into thinking it wasn’t true. That’s the one thing you can always trust. That I love you. It’s okay if you can’t love me back, or if you don’t remember loving me. It’s okay.”
I dropped my gaze to the way he held my hand. The same as always. Our fingers linked, his thumb stroking the sensitive parts of my palm.
This wasn’t real. The Finn in the real world hated me now. It was funny though. Love me or hate me, it didn’t really matter—they both consumed him.
“If you’re real,” I said, “then the next time you see me in the world, will you do something for me?”
The slow circle of his thumb on my palm stopped. “What?”
“Say . . .” I thought about it for a moment. What could he say that only we would know and that the cruel him wouldn’t say by chance? “Say ‘ghost train.’”
“And then what?”
“And then nothing.” I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, but I’d know this wasn’t all in my mind. I’d know no matter what I’d heard or thought I knew, Finn wasn’t cruel or evil or somehow tainted by having descended to the underworld.
I’d know he was my Finn, and I could trust him.
He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers glided over the shell of my ear, and a warm tingle spread over me. Before, when he was happy, Finn’s hazel eyes would shade toward green. One eye was green now. But the other, the navy solange eye, was full of stars and lightning.
He wanted to kiss me.
He wouldn’t though. I could see it in the tenseness of his muscles and the restraint in his gaze.
I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered, his voice raw.
“It hurts no matter what.”
He closed his eyes. Then he shook his head and stood. He paced to the open windows. They didn’t have screens, and night moths flew in and out of the room.
I moved next to him and leaned over the molding, letting the ocean air cool my burning skin.
“It would be nice to stay here. Never go back to the city. Just stay in the past.”
He glanced over at me. Smiled. “Some people do spend their whole lives in the past.”
I shrugged. “And some spend their whole lives in the future. Right now, I’d take the past.”
Finn glanced at me quickly. “Say that again.”
“I’d take the past?”
“How long have we been here?”
“What?”
He spoke more slowly, his voice tight with worry. “How long have we been here?”
I looked over at the wooden clock on the nightstand. “It’s almost morning. So . . . four hours?”
Finn’s face paled. “Already?”
“What? Why?” A shiver raced over me. I glanced out the window. The night sky was shading toward a bruised purple.
Finn swore. “If we stay longer than four hours, we can’t leave.”
“Wait. Can’t leave, as in . . .?”
“Can’t leave. Ever.”
I shoved off the balcony and backed away from Finn. “No.” I shook my head. I pinched my arm. “Wake up.” I pinched harder. “Wake up.”
There was a knock on the door. They didn’t wait for an answer. The doors swung open, and the concierge strolled in.
“Valued guests,” he began.
“I want to leave,” I said. “I want to check out.”
He frowned. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Morning is nearly here. You’ll be staying again, I’m sure. Would you like breakfast?”
“No. We’re leaving.”
The concierge twisted his hand, and the doors slammed shut. A lock clicked in place. There was no illusion though. No knots.
“Open the door,” I said.
The man’s mustache twitched as he smiled. “You want marital bliss. You want a honeymoon. You want to be unfettered. You can have all of it. The only thing you have to do is stay for . . .”—he glanced at the clock—“one more minute.”
“Mari.”
I turned to Finn. There was something strange in his voice.
“What?” I whispered.
The concierge blocked the door. In real life, Finn would be able to fight past him, but for some reason, here, I didn’t think he could.
“Do you really want to stay? To forget about everything else? To stay here, in the past?” His brows were pulled together, and he was really, really asking. He’d stay if I wanted to.
But if I stayed, what would happen to Luvic? Justice? What would the cruel Finn do to the world? Once, he’d told me every time we turned our backs on our responsibilities, we made ourselves a lesser person, and we made the world a darker place. I’d believed him.
“No. I don’t want to stay.”
His mouth curved into a soft smile. “Do you remember what you said had to happen for you to wake up?”
I frowned. The last two times, I hadn’t woken up until Finn had died. “Yes?”
“You have about fifteen seconds to make a decision.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry.”
The concierge shouted as I shoved Finn as hard as I could.
He flew out the window and fell five stories.
He died, I know, because I woke up in the asylum.
Alone.