And again thanks to the-social-recluse for the beta of this chapter.
This is the final chapter. Enjoy their end!
I'm haunted
By the hallways in this tiny room
The echoes there of me and you
The voices that are carrying this tune.
Poe - Haunted
Myka stood in the living room of her empty house. It wasn't literally empty, but it felt that way. She kept asking herself how she should live on in this house without Helena. She didn't feel like she could ever be able to move on.
Claudia kept telling her that if HG had been able to manage living a whole life without the professor, Myka could be able to do that as well. Because they were two strong souls who although were separated by time and space, but were so entangled with each other that they gave one another strength.
"Well, you were right about one point." Claudia had admitted on the phone. "Ghosts don't exist. One point for science. Eat that, 'esoteric bullshit'. I'll have a fine talk about that with Steve, who still rambles about soul transmigration."
"I don't know, Claud." Myka had replied. "I feel haunted by her. Like this whole house represents Helena and makes sure I am alright."
"That's really something I wouldn't have expected you to say, Melinda Gordon." And this was where Claudia had finally been able to make Myka laugh.
A quiet bang from outside the house pulled the professor out of her thoughts. Helena had lived for her, so Myka could live for Helena. And maybe in the end... she could put that 'esoteric bullshit' together.
She took the keys from the coffee table, her fingers brushed over the grey-red stone next to it and her sight fell on all the letters there. She sighed because she hadn't yet had the heart to put them away. Helena's locket was hanging on a necklace, together with a small piece of cable from Myka's ear device she had removed from her house along with the other unnecessary technology . Both were hidden under Myka's shirt: while the cable was more of a symbolic thing, she had the feeling the locket gave her strength. Strength to now leave the living room and go outside to get the newspaper and have breakfast. Maybe she could read the book review section.
When Myka unlocked the front door and took a big step outside, her view fell on a small figure right in front of her.
A toddler! There was a toddler sitting on her porch! In the last moment, the professor pulled up her knee to keep herself from kicking the child. Now she had to manage her balance and for that she kept jumping on one leg around the toddler, cursing quietly. She hoped the child couldn't understand her words yet.
"Here!" The kid squealed and raised its tiny arms happily. After Myka has successfully managed to defy gravity, she stared at the child, confused. The professor surveyed the toddler and assumed that she was looking at a girl. A girl with black hair and brown eyes.
"Stnuh!" The kid now babbled and reached out her tiny hands for her. Now Myka looked around, but no one else was in sight. So the professor decided to pick up the girl from the cold ground and go search for her mummy. She had to be somewhere, - no one left children on other people's porches. Well, at least Myka hoped that no one did things like these. She wasn't sure anymore.
"Uhm..." She muttered while the child struggled in her arms and demanded "Down!".
"Is somebody here?" Myka asked loudly. "Because I refuse to have this kid abandoned on my porch!"
"Oh my god!" Came a voice with a sympathetic British accent from somewhere above her head. "Christina!"
A woman fell from the sky. Well, not literally. Myka guessed she was hurriedly climbing down the roof of her porch, where she had been before. The woman quickly made it over the porch's ballustrade and approached Myka and the child, while speaking so fast that Myka could only make out the words like 'sorry', 'just', 'seconds', 'thank you' and 'Christina!'. When the woman took her daughter out of the professor's arms, Myka got utterly distracted by her red bobble hat, which was waving and dangling right in front of her face. It was not the most beautiful woolen object Myka had ever seen, but it was impressive.
And then the woman looked directly at the American. This was where Myka lost command over the features of her face, because she could tell that her mouth was suddenly hanging wide open, but she couldn't do anything about it. She stared at the other woman's beautiful face, completely flabbergasted. Looked into her dark brown eyes, studied her red lips which now moved into a smirk. The professor's eyes looked up to find that raven-black silken locks peeking out from under the ...still very silly-looking red bobble hat.
"Are you alright?" The British woman asked and raised one eyebrow, looking both confused and amused about Myka's behaviour.
"Muh Bring." Myka mumbled and the woman laughed. Myka knew that laughter, she was sure of it. It sounded so unique and wonderful in her ears.
"Pardon?" The Brit asked and pressed her lips together like she was fighting another laughter.
"Myka Bering." The professor was glad she had finally found the part of her brain that was responsible for proper articulation and was able to activate it. "That's my name." She spoke and held out a hand.
The other woman smiled fondly at her and took that hand, awkwardly reaching around the child in her arms.
"Emily Lake." She replied while shaking Myka's hand. "Nice to meet you." Myka had the feeling of a whole world made of newspaper articles and book covers was crashing down on the top of her head. A name, haunting her.
"Have we met before? I have the feeling we did." Emily asked at Myka's facial expression, not letting go of the professor's hand.
"No, I suppose. But I understand what you mean." Then, the American's face brightened. "The snowball!" She said and pointed her finger at Emily.
The other woman's eyes widened in surprise. "Right, uhm. The snowball I- ...my daughter threw at you. I'm very sorry for that."
And then Miss Lake made attempt to turn around, looking utterly determined in leaving Myka and her house as fast as possible.
"Excuse me?" The professor intervened, because her brain now had started working properly again. "But what were you doing on the roof of my porch?"
Miss Lake sharply sucked in the air and narrowed her eyes. Her mischievously shining eyes.
"Well." She said and sounded a little frustrated. "You wouldn't quite believe me if I say I was the milkman?"
Myka shook her head. "On the roof?"
"The postman?" Miss Lake's voice was a plead.
"Well, look at the facts." The professor began and slightly waved her right arm. "For example that you're not carrying any milk or mail... Or that you told me your name was Emily Lake, a name I have read very often in the newspaper in connection with a book called 'Losing my bearings'. I would not believe you, I'm sorry."
Emily Lake hummed and took off her hat to hand it to the girl in her arms. The child squealed again and started waving it around. Myka admired the other woman's raven black hair and then caught herself staring at Miss Lake's lips.
"Have you read it?" The writer's eyes glinted.
"Not yet." Myka replied. "But maybe I will."
"That would honour me, Miss Bering." Miss Lake replied and tried to leave but Myka was having none of it. "The roof." She said firmly. "My porch. What were you doing there?"
"Okay, okay." Miss Lake put Christina down to the ground and raised her hands. "You don't want to let go of the topic, do you?"
"Nope." Myka replied and grinned.
"Then I'd have to tell you that embarrassing story. But you have to promise not to laugh, Miss Bering." The writer covered her face for a short time with her hands.
"I won't, Miss Lake. Actually I like good stories." Myka played with the keys in her hands and leaned on the doorframe. She watched Christina walking over the floor of her porch.
"Alright then." Emily Lake smiled shyly. "You already know that I am a writer. Good. I live on the other side of the street. Moved here two years ago when I was pregnant with Christina." She pointed at her daughter. "Well, I have to say my flat wasn't what caused my decision to move here. This house was." Now Emily pointed at Myka's front door, right next to Myka's head. "It's like... argh... it's hard to explain, Miss Bering." Again, the writer buried her face in her hands.
"Try, please, for me." The professor smiled softly at her. Emily peeked through her fingers and then took her hands away. She smiled as she looked down to the ground, avoiding eye contact... and then blushed. Myka watched Emily Lake blush.
"Well, your house intrigues me. It's like I already knew it before I moved here. Like I searched for it all my life. I have the feeling it haunts me, Miss Bering, without knowing why. Don't laugh at me! I know that usually ghosts haunt houses and not the other way around!" Miss Lake took a deep breath. "So I moved to the other side of the street, pregnant with Christina, and wrote my first novel about this house. It's a mystery novel." She looked up for a second right into Myka's eyes, blushed again and then looked down. "I had the feeling that this house could tell so many stories, so I wrote them myself. And well, the novel became very succesful after a few months. 'Losing my bearings' is actually a bestseller and I was surprised to see my name in the newspaper in November."
The professor bit her lip. She remembered that she had read Emily Lake's name in the newspaper as well, but she was too distracted back then to actually recognise it.
"So, when I had earned enough money - before the novel got this successful - I tried to find a way to... buy the house. To make it mine, because it felt like mine. But then I found out that you have already bought it a few months ago. And this was when I became mad at you, Miss Bering." Emily pressed her lips.
"Oh, that. I understand the snowball." Myka laughed loudly.
"Yeah, sorry for that." Miss Lake scrunched her nose. "You promised not to laugh."
"Miss Lake, I haven't laughed at the story, which I find very interesting, but at you throwing a snowball at me and then pretending it was your daughter." The professor explained, causing Emily to intensively study the tips of her boots.
"However, you still hadn't told me what you were doing on the roof of my porch." The professor smirked. The writer rolled her eyes.
"Fine, the whole story I suppose. It's not like this house is letting me go, Miss Bering. It still intrigues me and I'm still jealous you own it and I don't." Emily huffed.
"So you climbed my porch's roof to look into my windows and make sure I'm taking good care of it?" Myka asked.
"Well, more to find out what they did to it during the renovation, Miss Bering." The Brit admitted. "And yes, I also peeked in your rooms. The walls are far too colourful." She pursed her lips in obvious disapproval.
Myka smiled at Emily Lake. She watched the blush on her face, a face she had seen before in her sleep and on pictures. She knew she didn't want to let the other woman go. Not again.
So she reached out a hand to open the front door, which had been ajar all the time. "Well, Miss Lake." She said and smiled. "If you would have asked me earlier, I guess you would have been very happy right now."
Miss Lake's brown eyes snapped up, meeting green. "What do you mean?"
"I'm inviting you in. Don't you want to see the inside of the house that wouldn't let you go?" Myka asked.
Miss Lake stared at her, surveyed the professor's face and then her body (and yes, Myka noticed that her lips actually parted as her eyes moved downwards) and then nodded her head ever so slightly. "That... that would be really nice, Miss Bering. Thank you."
After Emily and Christina got rid of their coats, Myka led them into the living room where she placed her keys on the coffee table. She could hear the writer gasp behind her. The professor spun on her heels.
"Is everything alright, Miss Lake?" She asked and smiled softly.
"Hm?" The other woman's eyes were pinned to the keys on the table and then darted to Myka's face. "Yes, it's fine. I just asked myself if it wouldn't be more practical to have a board on the wall or something comparable where you could keep your keys. If I placed mine randomly in the house, I would never be able to find them."
Emily's eyes gleamed; Myka could tell from her furrowed eyebrows that she was trying to remember something she couldn't. Probably her heart just told her that there was something well-known about the curly-haired woman's gesture, but she had no memory of it. For the part of a second Myka was sad. But then she thought that this might be a new beginning and that maybe she could show the writer what she was so desperately trying to remember. Emily Lake wasn't Helena Wells. She was more than only Helena, and Myka was utterly interested in getting to know her better.
"That's a very good advice, thank you, Miss Lake. But well, I always place my keys at this place so I remember where they are." The professor looked deeply into the other woman's eyes, who just stared back, her eyes gleaming and eyebrows furrowed. Myka's heart fluttered as she looked into those eyes, and her ability to breathe properly seemed to struggle with its purpose.
It was Christina's part to interrupt the moment in which their souls admitted to know each other. "Down!" The girl demanded and Emily broke eye contact to softly kiss her hair before she did like her daughter had asked her. The girl crossed the living room right towards Myka and then gripped the fabric of the professor's trousers. She looked up and laughed loudly before prompting"Here!" The girl reached up her arms for Myka who carefully picked her up.
"Maybe she likes me." The professor said shyly while Christina pulled amusedly at her curls. Emily blinked for a few seconds at them and then nodded. "She does." A smile was dancing over her lips.
Myka showed Miss Lake the entire house and watched the other woman's face light up while doing it. Somehow, the professor had the feeling that Emily wasn't really looking at her rooms, but more at the professor, even though the writer's eyes shyed away every time when the American glanced at her.
Several minutes later, Emily was about to dress in her coat and bobble hat again. Myka looked at the red object, her heart pounding fast in her chest.
"A question." She said quickly, because she didn't know what else to do. Meanwhile Christina slowly walked around their feet, babbling happily.
Miss Lake's head looked up, her eyes searching for Myka's, like she was eagerly expecting something from the other woman.
"That red bobble hat. It doesn't fit your clothes. May I ask why...?" Myka stuttered. She knew she did, while desperately searching in her head for something to make the Brit stay.
"Ah, it's a gift from my cousin's daughter. It was for Christina, but her head is too small for it and so I promised her to wear it myself as long as it is cold. That child was incredibly sad it didn't fit my daughter's head. She's nine." Emily smiled shyly and then blushed again while putting the object in question on her head. "And I always keep my promises if possible."
Myka closed her eyes, waved her arms around nervously and then blurted out. "Coffee?"
The writer's eyebrows raised and then, she slightly smirked. "Pardon?"
In reaction, the other woman shook her head, struggling for words. "Do you want to stay for coffee? Or tea... or whatever you modern Brits like to drink?"
Emily grinned at Myka and then nodded. She put her coat and her hat away again and then took a step closer. "A tea would be fine."
Minutes later, Emily Lake sat at Myka's dinner table while her daughter Christina drew with the crayons the American had given her. The girl was vigorously using the red one.
Carefully, Myka leaned close to Emily to pour some tea into the other woman's mug, when they both turned their heads towards each other. Ther eyes met and the writer's nostrils flared slightly. "Apples." She whispered, and the tip of her tongue wandered over her lower lip.
Then, Emily leaned forwards and placed a quick kiss on Myka's lips. She only brushed over the professor's mouth, but the American was so stunned by it that she spilled the tea on the table.
Emily quickly pulled back and looked down. She shook her head. "Forgive me, Miss Bering. I don't know what came over me."
With a loud rattle, the professor put her teapot down on the table. "Myka. And maybe I can help you out with this." She whispered, less than a breath on her lips, before she placed both hands on Emily's face to pull closer and kiss her passionately. It was so much, and not enough: Lips brushed over lips, tongues met, hands wandered over necks and shoulders and still Myka wasn't able to get Emily Lake fully.
Breathless, the writer pulled back to press her forehead against Myka's. "Tell me." She breathed while her hands were round the back of Myka's neck. "Tell me why I have the feeling it's not the house I've been searching for all my life but the woman who's living in it."
She again placed her lips on Myka's for a deep kiss. The professor felt that Emily was desperate. Desperate to find out why their hearts beat faster when their eyes met, why it felt like their souls were gravitating towards each other... like they did just now, when Emily slowly rose from her chair in the passion of their kiss to press her body onto Myka's.
"That's actually a pretty long story." Myka whispered between two kisses and heard Christina squeal happily behind herself.
"I have a thing for long stories." Emily replied when they broke apart for another short time, just to kiss the American again. "I'm a writer. My novel has 640 pages."
"So? I'm a literature professor." Myka blew the words on the Brit's neck. "And I'll read them all."
"Good to know. Explains why you have your own library." Emily said and once again rested her forehead against Myka's. "But first this story. Will I need a babysitter?"
Myka pulled back and then looked at Christina, whose picture was now showing a big red circle. The professor shook her head. "She can stay. I want her to stay." She smiled. Then she reached into her own cleavage, a gesture which caused Emily's eyes to widen and her lips to part.
The professor pulled out the locket from under her shirt. She unclasped the necklace and reached out for the writer's hand to carefully open it. "It's a very long story spanning 147 years. But before I can tell it to you, I have one question." She whispered while putting the locket in the writer's hands and closing the Brit's fingers around it. Myka looked up into Emily's dark brown eyes and felt her heart skip at the sight of that mischievous glisten again. She smiled fondly and then asked.
"Do you believe in ghosts?"
The End