The sound of the door opening alerted Lucien more than anything else. He sat on the old sofa, as he always did, and turned his attention to where Mrs. Beazley entered the room.
She stood there with her hand on the doorknob, staring at him. Lucien had learned the gift of patience over the years, so he simply waited. He stared right back at her.
The first time she had arrived so unexpectedly in the studio, Lucien had not taken the time he should have to really look at her. She'd been wearing a thick pink dressing gown with her hair in curlers. It was the middle of the day now, and she was dressed properly. Lucien could take her in now.
She was middle-aged, based on the lies on her face and the weariness in her expression. But she hadn't started to gray yet, so far as he could tell. Her warm brown hair was perfectly curled and pinned and looked shiny and soft. Her attire was conservative and neat, well-pressed and properly tucked in and such. Stockings and demure skirts and sensible shoes. The cut of that skirt highlighted the curves of her body. Quite attractively, in fact. Though she was quite thin. Perhaps a bit too thin.
"You're Lucien Blake," Mrs. Beazley said at last, interrupting his inventory of her appearance.
Lucien just nodded in confirmation.
"Can you speak?" she asked. Her tone was sharp. Lucien wasn't sure he liked that.
"Yes," he answered simply.
She exhaled heavily, as though his response had eased her concern somewhat. But she quickly squared her shoulders again with that fascinating façade of strength. "Are you a ghost?" she then asked bluntly.
"That's a complicated answer," he replied.
"Is there a simple version of the answer?" she fired back.
Lucien felt his mouth twitch as he nearly smiled. Mrs. Beazley had a fire to her. He should have expected that but it was somewhat at odds with her appearance. But rather than smile, he said, "The simple answer is no, I'm not a ghost."
"But you are dead?"
"That's the complicated part," he answered wryly.
Mrs. Beazley swayed a bit where she stood. "M-may I sit down?" she asked. Her voice had gone a bit breathy.
Lucien stood up immediately and offered her the side of the sofa closest to the door. "Of course," he insisted.
She stumbled slightly as she made her way toward him, and Lucien reached out to hold her arm to steady her. She gasped. Her big turquoise eyes looked at his hand touching her arm and then up to his face in shock.
"Ah, yes, that's the thing. Ghosts can't really interact with the physical world," he explained.
Lucien helped her sit down. She was trembling slightly, but he did not want to make it worse. He sat close but not overly so.
He watched as she calmed herself down. She swallowed hard and clasped her hands in her lap and took a slow breath. Lucien was actually rather impressed with her.
Once she'd gotten ahold of herself, she turned back to him. "Are you alive?"
"I think so." There wasn't any other way for Lucien to answer that question. And after his mother's warning, he knew better than to try to lie to Mrs. Beazley. She was important. And not only that, she was the first living person he had spoken to in more than fifteen years.
Mrs. Beazley's eyes went even wider if that was possible. "I think you ought to give me the complicated answer now."
"I'll try. There's a lot I still don't understand," he prefaced.
She nodded. "That's fine. I just…I need to know what you're doing in this house and what's going on."
Ah yes, well, that certainly was complicated. "I suppose I should start with the war. I was stationed in Singapore, living with my wife and daughter."
"Your father never mentioned you had a child," Jean interrupted.
"He didn't know. They were killed when the Japanese attacked. I tried to send them to Hong Kong, but their boat was bombed. And I was captured as a prisoner of war. I understand my father knew that."
Mrs. Beazley nodded. "You were captured in 1943, and when British forces liberated the camp, there was no record of you anywhere. You were presumed dead."
"I figured as much. I might as well be dead," he grumbled.
Her brow furrowed in confusion.
Lucien wasn't really sure how to explain this, but he knew he had to. "I remember being in the camp. I was punished for stealing food for the sick prisoners. I was put in a hole and beaten. And I thought I had died. Because I passed out from the pain of my injuries and I woke up here."
"How is that possible?!" she gasped.
"I wish I knew. I've been here ever since."
"You've been in this house since 1943!?" Mrs. Beazley asked in shock.
"I don't actually know what year it was when it happened. I think I may have been at the camp more than a year, but I can't be sure. I don't feel the passage of time."
She frowned again. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that I don't get tired so I don't sleep. I see the sun move across the sky through the windows. I see the plants grow in the garden below. But I don't feel the madness of isolation or the never-ending boredom or yearning that comes from being a prisoner."
"Are you a prisoner?"
Lucien opened his mouth to explain that point to her, but he thought of something else. He stood up and crossed to the open door of the studio. He walked through the door until he hit the wall. There was no wall there, of course, but he could not cross the threshold. For Lucien, it was as though someone had bricked up the doorway. To demonstrate to Mrs. Beazley, he put his hands against the empty air that would not let him pass. He leaned against it with his whole body and tried to push through. He couldn't. Not today and not ever since he'd woken up in his mother's old studio all those years ago.
"Oh, I see," Mrs. Beazley said softly.
He nodded and crossed back toward her. "It's the same with the windows. I can't leave here. The ghosts can. And it looks like the living can."
"But you said you're not dead. Surely that means you're among the living?"
Lucien shrugged. "I don't actually know. I age, obviously. I didn't have this much gray in my beard when I was in Singapore. I can see my reflection in the mirror. I can change my clothes, though I still don't quite know how. I think I could eat if I had anything to eat, but I don't feel any hunger. I can drink water from the sink the in bathroom, but I'm never thirsty. So you tell me, Mrs. Beazley, am I among the living?"
"And you touched my arm," she added.
He nodded. "Yes. If I try to touch my mother when she visits, my hand goes right through her. She is a ghost and long dead. And I'm…well, I'm not sure. I can pick things up and interact with the physical world, but nothing feels the way it should. It's always as though I have my hand in a glove."
"Or through a veil," she supplied.
"Yes, I suppose so."
"You've crossed over the veil. You're not dead, but you're not in the land of the living."
He regarded her curiously. "And how do you know that?"
A strange expression crossed her face. She was quiet for a moment, trying to find her way. "An aunt of mine used to tell an old wives' tale about it. That souls awaiting judgment remain in purgatory before going to heaven or hell. And people who are cursed cross over the veil that separates life from death."
Lucien had never thought about it that way before. But surely that's what this was. He was living but not. He wasn't dead. But he wasn't really living. And surely he must be cursed.
Mrs. Beazley shook her head. "I'd never put much stock in things like that before. Never knew I'd need to."
"I've never been much of a believer in the supernatural. Though I suppose I ought to if I exist in a supernatural plane."
"Something like that," she agreed softly.
Lucien watched her wring her hands with her head down. "Mrs. Beazley, why did you come here today?" he asked her gently.
She looked up. There were tears shining in her eyes but she did not allow them to fall. "I wanted to know if you were real. I didn't want to let myself believe it. But then your mother came when Doctor Blake passed, and…"
"When was that?" Lucien interjected. He did not feel the passage of time. He had no way of knowing if Maman had gone to collect his father a day or a week or a month ago.
"The funeral was yesterday. He died three days before that."
Four days. Four days she'd been gone. It felt like an eternity. And it also felt like she'd just been visiting a moment before Mrs. Beazley arrived.
Mrs. Beazley continued, "Today the lawyer came from Melbourne with your father's will. In 1951, he had no family he was close with. And that certainly didn't change in the intervening years. And you were presumed dead. And—" Her voice cracked, cutting off her words. She pressed her eyes closed to keep from crying.
"Yes?" Lucien encouraged, trying not to rush her but being quite interested in what his father's will had said.
"He's left everything to me," she confessed.
Lucien felt his own eyes go wide this time. Maman had said Mrs. Beazley was important. Obviously she was. Lucien was now trapped in her house.