Chapter Four

The days passed by quickly, but with each waking moment, my thoughts were of Edward. I Googled his name and found an article on his family. They had lived locally and his older brother Emmett still resided close by. The article told me he was now a prominent business man and that the rest of the Masens had moved away shortly after a family tragedy, but no other details were given. I assumed the tragedy had been the passing of Edward and now I was even more convinced his life had ended suddenly.

My imagination conjured up scenarios about murder rather than accidents and I knew I needed more answers. My mother was right about my imagination.

I typed his name into 'births, deaths and marriages' but only found his birth details. As far as the worldwide web was concerned, Edward Antony Masen had not died. I thought back on his ghost, and even though I had clearly seen he'd aged, I also knew that what I saw wasn't mortal.

I jotted down Emmett's business address and made my way to see him. I had no idea what I would say, or how I would steer the conversation towards Edward. I talked myself out of it a thousand times before I got there but my feet carried me forward anyway.

I asked the receptionist if I could see Mr. Masen and she told me to take a seat. I was surprised as I had no appointment and he didn't know me but I wasn't about to argue my way out of a meeting with him.

My stomach was in knots as I had no plan and I felt physically sick as the receptionist motioned for me to enter Mr. Masen's office.

I pushed the door wide slowly and peered inside. He was dressed in an impeccable suit but it did nothing to hide the massive expanse of his shoulders and chest. Unlike Edward, Emmett's hair was black, but as he looked up at me I could see, even from across the room, that his eyes were almost an identical green.

"Can I help you, Ms. Swan?"

"I found Edward's ring," I blurted out without thinking.

Emmett stopped writing on his desk pad and placed his pen down carefully. He sat back and looked at me, waiting for me to continue. I wanted to, I just didn't know what to say.

"I'm sorry," I finally mumbled. "I didn't mean to just blurt it out like that."

"Can I see it?" he reached his hand out and I pulled the ring from my purse, placing it gently in his palm.

I watched him turn the ring over in his hand and read the inscription before thumbing the crest on the front. His movements were tender and I remained as still and as quiet as I could. I glanced out the window, feeling as though I was intruding on something extremely personal just by watching him.

"Ms. Swan, please sit down. I'm sorry I'm being rude, but you took me by surprise."

"You're not mad at me?" I sat on a black leather wingback opposite his desk, clutching my purse in my lap.

"Why would I be mad at you?"

"Well, I don't know you and I just turn up here, and surprise you with this. It's been a long time, I'm sure, and this must be quite a shock for you."

"Twelve years," he replied, looking back down at the ring. I noticed a similar one on his left hand. I had no doubt it too would be engraved with his name.

I nodded but he didn't see me.

"Where did you find this?"

"In the forest, by the common, there was a little clearing."

Emmett nodded as if he knew of where I spoke, but he said nothing else. The minutes ticked by without a word spoken between us.

I swallowed and licked my dry lips, freeing them up so I could speak. "Tell me about him."

Emmett smiled. "We own the land," he told me. "The site for the fair, the forest, the two hundred and fifty acres beyond that, we own it all. Edward and I would play in the woods; he wanted to be a sniper."

I smiled at the childish dreams of a typical boy. "Mr. Masen, what happened to Edward?"

Emmett looked up at me. "Are you a reporter?"

"No, I-"

"I've already told you people what I know."

"Mr. Masen, I'm not a reporter. I work in a hardware store."

"Why are you here?"

"I found the ring,"

"You're not telling me the truth."

"Yes, I am, I found the ring."

"I don't mean about the ring." He scrutinized me and rested his elbows on his desk. "Why are you really here?"

I swallowed. I really wanted to tell him. I wanted to confess it all but I'd never spoken about the things or the people I saw. But I needed to know Edward, I couldn't explain the pull. He was with me day and night, always in my thoughts, this strange apparition who aged yet was trapped in limbo. I craved information on him. I wanted to help him.

"I saw him." My voice was so tiny I doubted he'd heard me, but I prayed he had, because I didn't think I could say it again.

"You saw Edward?"

I nodded.

"Where? He's alive? Is he well? Did he ask you come here?"

I almost cried at the hope alighted in Emmett's eyes. I shook my head at each question. "Mr. Masen, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come here." I stood and moved around the chair but Emmett was at my side before I could reach the door.

"You saw him, please tell me where?"

I shook my head. "You'll think I'm crazy."

"Lady, you're pretty much running that risk anyway." I peeked up at him and sighed when I saw he was smiling. "Let's go for coffee," he nodded towards the door. "It's too formal in here."

I allowed him to steer me out the door and waited as he left instruction with his receptionist. Emmett then guided me out of the building and across the street to a coffee shop. I asked him for tea and chose a seat while he placed the order.

I chewed on my finger nail as he made his way over and sat opposite me again. Handing me my tea, he sugared his own beverage and hitched his trousers up so he could cross one leg over the other. "I don't think you trust me," he surmised. "And I don't blame you, you don't know me. But I want to know the truth and I think you want to tell me. Am I right?"

I nodded and swapped my nail for my bottom lip.

"So, Ms. Swan, tell me your story."

"Can't you tell me yours first?"

Emmett smiled and sipped his coffee. I waited till he'd placed his cup back in the table. I took a deep breath, and letting it out slowly, I told him, "I see ghosts."

It was like breathing fresh air after a lifetime of staleness. I had no idea that saying one simple sentence could make me feel so – free. It no longer mattered if he believed me or not, I was just happy to have laid bare my secret. It was to only one person but it was enough.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"I don't want to say it again," I said. It was liberating the first time but to repeat it made it less exhilarating.

"You see dead people?"

"Ghosts," I corrected him.

"Is there a difference?"

"Yes, I see their spirit, Mr. Masen, not their corpse."

"I guess that is different," he agreed with me. "So tell me, what does this have to do with me or my brother?"

"I told you."

"Tell me again."

"I saw him."

"Edward? You saw Edward? His – spirit?"

I nodded and reached out a shaky hand for my tea cup. Emmett didn't speak for a while. I took a sip, and then another, and then replaced my cup before my trembling hand spilled the hot drink all over me.

"Please say something," I begged him, but didn't look up at him.

"I don't know what to say," he admitted.

"Most people would have a comment or two after hearing a confession like that."

"I think – I think I believe you," he said quietly. I looked up at him quickly but Emmett was staring out the window. "Tell me what you saw?" he asked me, and so I did. I recalled the very first time I'd seen Edward and how he'd flickered in the waning light like a candle in the breeze. How he was young and the things he'd said. I told him of the next time I'd sought him out and how it had seemed like he'd seen me too. How I'd found the ring and how Edward looked like he'd aged.

Emmett listened without interruption, sipping his coffee and toying with both rings; his and Edward's. "Will you take me there?" he asked when my story was told.

I was surprised by his request. Emmett Masen was a successful businessman. He wore Armani and dealt with large amounts of money on a daily basis. He watched me contemplatively, silently, which was a clever ruse to get the other person to speak, and I had fallen for it. In barely an hour of being in his company, I'd told him a secret I couldn't even admit to my own mother. It was my turn to study him as he continued to gaze out the window. He was extremely handsome, his face rounder than Edward's but still a pleasure to look at. His smile invoked dimples at the corners of his mouth but his immense size and confidence asserted the man behind the boyish charm. His eyes told me it had been some time since Emmett Masen had laughed.

So yes, his acceptance of my statement and his request to come with me to see Edward's ghost surprised me, but I agreed to it anyway.

Emmett drove us out to the common. He parked the car at the roadside and we walked the remainder into the woods. I let him lead me through the trees and he found the little grassy clearing without misdirection. I was glad he was here because I always ended up lost and wandering around blind before I found it.

The clearing was exactly like it was the last time I'd seen it. The grass was plush, the flowers vivid, and the single ray of sunlight poked through the trees and fell upon the spot where Edward usually sat.

As with the last time I'd been here, the clearing was empty.

Emmett walked forward and sat on the fallen trunk. Its boughs covered with moss, telling tale of how long it had lain there, with ivy twisting around it. He looked around at the trees overhead and the flowers beneath his foot.

"It's been a long time since I was here last," he told me. "In fact, I haven't been here since the day he disappeared."

"Edward disappeared?" I asked him. I was expecting an accident, something that led to Edward's death. A disappearance wasn't something I'd considered.

He nodded. "We were playing, it was pretty usual, Edward was looking for me and I was hiding. We were always pranking on each other." Emmett smiled in memory." I usually got the upper hand. But on that day, as usual, I was playing tricks on him, making noises and dashing off to another spot. Sometimes I made traps, booby traps. One time, I'd dug a hole and covered it with twigs and leaves. It wasn't deep but it was enough for him to fall into as he chased me." Emmett stopped smiling and for a second his brow furrowed and he looked pained. "He twisted his ankle."

"But that's not funny," I said despite my smiling along with him until then.

Emmett shrugged. "Schoolboy pranks, Ms. Swan. He always got his own back. I thought that was what he was doing the day he disappeared. I thought he'd grown tired of looking for me. I could hear him calling me but I stayed hidden. Eventually he made his way over here," Emmett patted the tree he sat upon. "I was over there," he pointed to the thickest section of trees just metres ahead of us. "I watched him search but I soon became bored and I fell asleep."

As I listened to his story, I moved around the outside of the clearing, staying back in the shadows, not wanting to step into the light of the sun. This was Emmett's memory and I was intruding, I had been since the moment I stepped into his office.

"I woke up to the sound of Edward screaming," he continued. "I jumped up and ran over here but he was gone. I assumed he was trying to trick me so I shouted for him, I told him it wasn't working." Reaching up, Emmett scratched his chin. "But I was worried; he could probably hear it in my voice. When he didn't come back, I decided he must have fallen and hurt himself so I went home believing he'd made his way there too. We didn't live far, just over that way, in the meadow." Emmett nodded in the direction of their old family home, "but when I got there, no one had seen him. My father organised a search party, but after five days, it was clear that he wouldn't be found."

"I'm so sorry," I whispered.

Emmett spoke matter-of-fact but I could tell that by recalling this he was touching on a raw nerve. As he turned his face up towards the sky, his eyes glistened with unshed tears. "They told me it was probably an animal and it had dragged him off somewhere. I was fourteen but I knew what they were saying. They were trying to tell me there would be no body to recover."

"There's no record of his death," I told him.

"My mother never certified it. My father wanted to but she was convinced Edward still lived. Even now, years after and still no sign of him, she believes he will one day come home again."

"What do you believe?" I asked him.

"You saw his ghost, Ms. Swan, and you ask me if I think he's still alive?"

"I'm sorry," I told him again.

Emmett sighed. "It's been a long time since I last played a prank on anyone, a long time." He looked down at the rings on his hand. Taking off Edward's smaller version, he toyed with it. "We never found anything, not one scrap of clothing, no blood – nothing." He held the ring up to the sunlight. "I'm amazed that you found this, because we searched this area and there was nothing."

"It was partly buried, over there." I indicated the spot of sunlight and watched as Emmett stood and walked towards it.

"Where did you see him?"

"Where you are now," I said. Emmett jumped back as if he'd been burnt.

"Why isn't he here now?" he turned to ask me.

I shrugged. "I don't know. Sometimes he's here when I come, other times I have to wait."

Emmett walked back to the fallen tree and sat. "Then we wait," he said.