Chapter 24 – "Almost a Happy Ending"
Zach picked a time one minute in the future and pushed the button. Dials whirred and lights flashed on the watch/time control. "Good luck everyone!" he wished them.
The ghosts waited in an agony of anticipation. But they didn't have to wait long. Almost at once the walls of Wildwind began fading in and out as the entire Mansion shook to the tune of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon". Nothing blew up however, which all took to be an encouraging sign.
"I don't feel any different!" a disappointed Maria said, when all was once again quiet and still.
"Why should you feel any different?" her Mother, Isabelle, asked her.
Maria blinked. She was in the Main Ballroom, standing between her Mother and Brooke English. The Ballroom was jammed with Pine Valley notables, who were at that moment busily going through Edmund's worldly possessions. Brooke looked as bewildered as Maria felt.
"Meha, I'm going to browse through Edmund's trench coats," Isabelle said to Maria, as she drifted away. "Remember, Brooke, I expect a discount!"
Meanwhile, the former ghosts were beginning to find one another.
"Hiya!" Lily greeted Brooke and Maria, as she and Sam walked over to them. "Guess we've successfully morphed into our characters! I feel bad about leaving the other timeline though."
"Omigod, we're alive!" Brooke gasped to Maria.
Maria looked at her hands and joyfully realized she could no longer see through them. "Brooke, we're solid! Sam, Lily, we're solid!"
"Stuart, I can't see through you anymore!" Marian cried out gleefully from the other end of the Ballroom.
"Marian, I can't see through you anymore either!" Stuart answered just as gleefully. They skipped happily toward Maria, Brooke, Lily and Sam.
"Glory be, we're back among the living!" Opal crowed, sashaying through the door and making her way to her friends from the other timeline.
"Mama!" Maddie laughed, following Opal. "Mama, it worked! We're alive again!"
"I can touch you, Sam!" Lily discovered much to their mutual delight. "And I can feel my heart beating!"
But to Opal, something did not fit. "The Estate Sale was over! Zach, I thought we were going forward in time!"
"This IS forward in time," Zach maintained. "In this timeline the Estate Sale didn't end in a panic because of a flying red chair. So it's still going on." He was standing next to Opal near Maria and Brooke. He was also standing next to Kendall at the front of the Ballroom, a fact which did not go over Opal's head.
"Lily, there goes your theory about the impossibility of two live identical characters sharing the same timeline," Opal observed.
"Zach is Galioscian," Lily reminded Opal, "so all bets are off."
"Lily what did you mean about being sorry to leave the other timeline?" Sam asked her. "What's to be sorry about?"
Lily frowned. "Sam, everyone we knew and loved back there thinks we've disappeared," she explained. "They don't even know we were dead. All they know is we're gone."
"Lily, there you are!" Jack yelled, practically galloping toward her. "Where were you all night? I was going out of my mind! Honey, you've got to remember to call me when you wander off!"
Lily smiled. "I guess we have to make this timeline our home."
"I guess so, honey," Opal guessed.
"Not me," Zach said, looking at his other self sparring with his wife.. "I've got to get back to the other timeline. Kendall's waiting for me to come home. We've bonded. She may be baking a cake."
Kendall was at that moment kicking the other Zach in the shins.
"In that timeline we bonded," he clarified. "In this timeline, we've a ways to go."
Just then Palmer spied Opal and sprinted toward her.
"Opal, we have to talk," he told her with great urgency. "It's Petey. He's been SORASED."
"How old did they make him?" Opal demanded with much apprehension.
"He's graduating PVU and he and Amanda are getting married!"
"Over my dead body!" the no longer dead Opal decried. "Smile, you old coot! We got us a storyline!"
"What are you all blathering on about?" Adam muttered, overhearing and, of course, not understanding. "Stuart, come over here! I need to make up with you so I can exit this madhouse!"
"Adam, you forgive me!" Stuart exclaimed, instantly loving his twin in this new timeline as much as he had ever loved him in any timeline.
"Stuart, there's nothing to forgive!" Adam replied, tearing up in spite of himself at the sound of all the emotion in his brother's voice.
"Darling, I told you there'd be a happy ending!" Marian laughed, thinking how wonderful life would be once again when their light bill was paid.
But sadly, not everybody was happy.
"I don't see Edmund!" a frightened Brooke cried out. "Where's Edmund?"
Lily and Opal knew the answer. He was there with them, but they and Zach were the only ones who could see him because he was still a ghost.
"Edmund has no future in Pine Valley," Zach told Brooke gently. "I'm so sorry, Brooke. He's still dead."
After saving Wildwind, Pine Valley and all material reality, is Edmund still dead? Was everything he went through for nothing? A couple of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your Review is welcome!