Chapter 13

A week had passed since Melinda gave Tony back the ring. He had promised to contact her within a couple of days, but she still hadn't heard from him. She wondered if maybe he had decided against the proposal, and her meltdown was simply an easy way out.

She looked at the clock on her cell phone… 1:06 a.m. She sighed and set the phone back down on her nightstand. She was tired of waiting up for him to call every night. She felt restless and wanted to go somewhere. Everyone in the house was sleeping though, and she feared that if she got up she would stir her brothers across the hall.

"You have a lot in common with her, don't you?" Melinda heard in her ear.

She turned her head to see the ghost, once again, standing in the corner of her room. She wondered once again, who this woman was and why she kept harassing her.

"I suppose so," Melinda said. "At first anyway I could relate to her. Those cousins of hers wouldn't let her do anything, just like my brothers won't let me. But she wouldn't stand up for herself at all, and her baby died because of them. I don't see what on earth I could have in common with her now."

"You haven't finished reading it?" the woman asked her.

"No, I have other things going on right now!" Melinda spat at the ghost.

"You should finish reading it. You have a lot to learn from her." The spirit looked a little disappointed.

"Fine," Melinda said. "There isn't much left, I'll just finish it tonight and see what happens."

"Good," the spirit said.

"Are you ever going to tell me who you are?" Melinda asked as she opened the diary.

"Perhaps," the ghost told her. "But it's not important right now."

Pearl lay in her bed as the nuns and doctored conversed in the hall with her cousins. Physically, she seemed to be doing fine, but she was obviously dying. The only way to describe her ailment was a broken heart. The cousins hadn't left the convent in the days that followed the birth of Pearls daughter, but she didn't care. She wanted them gone, she wanted to die and be with her baby.

"Pearl," she heard Prudence say. "Pearl, darling cousin please come back to us."

Pearl rolled over and looked up at her cousin. Prudence's black hair was loose to her shoulders, and there were bags under her green eyes. Her normally radiant olive skin looked pale in the light, and her bottom lip was chapped from her chewing on it… something she did habitually when she was worried.

"Get away from me and let me die!" Pearl mumbled. "You are nothing to me, I don't want to come back to you!"

"We didn't want this to happen," Prudence told her gently. "Just let me talk to you, please."

"You do what you want to anyway," Pearl said. "Talk, it doesn't mean I have to listen."

"We couldn't risk…" Prudence's voice trailed off. She had told Pearl this same thing over and over again, but it never seemed to get through to her.

"Pippy and I don't want you to die," Prudence told her. "If we leave, promise me that you will get yourself better."

"If that is what it will take to get you out of my live for good, fine I promise." Pearl spat at her cousin.

Melinda was taken to another time and another place. She was somewhere in the mountains. A creek rippled next to a log cabin and the smell of pine drifted through the air.

Pearl had a bucket in her hand and she walked solemnly to the creek to collect dish water. The months had passed slowly, and she longed everyday for her lost child. She refused visits from her cousins, but a few of her customers from the speakeasy came to see her and ask for their fortunes to be told on occasion. She heard footsteps behind her and figured that it was another one of those people.

"I'm not doing fortunes today," she said. She didn't care if she sounded rude. She had nobody to answer to anymore. She didn't care about the reputation of the speakeasy, or the reputation of the family. She simply didn't care if she lived or died anymore.

"I know what is in my future," the voice answered.

Pearl dropped the bucket into the creak and spilled water on her skirts.

"Anton." She said turning slowly.

"Hello, Darling." He said. She looked him up and down. She wanted so badly to send him away and tell him to never come back. Instead, she ran into his arms and once again felt his loving embrace.

"I had a child, Anton. Our child. I never even got to see her, she died. My cousins, I think they did something to her. They cast a spell, and our baby died!"

"No," Anton said calmly. "The baby didn't die."

"What?" she asked. "You knew?"

"I never left you in all that time. I glamoured myself into random people, but I kept my distance. I could never leave you. The baby never died, they got the baby out in time. I was there. I held your hand."

She stared at him incredulously. She was furious that he let them take her baby and allow her to think that it was dead. She had lived for weeks in misery and mourning for her child, and now he was here to tell her that he knew it was alive?"

"Where is she?" Pearl asked.

"Your cousins signed the papers to put her up for adoption. They named her Penelope, because they said the only way she could go with that family is if she was given a 'P' name. I watched as they took her away, and there was nothing that I could do."

"There was plenty that you could have done!" she cried punching him in the chest. "You could have taken her back, and come and told me that she was alive! You are pure evil! They were right! I can't believe you! They robbed me of my child and you just let them?"

"Calm down!" Anton said taking her hands. "What was I supposed to do? Expose myself in a convent and have them kill me right there? Expose you and your cousins, and our child?

"I don't care if you expose them!" she cried. "I don't care if you expose me! I just want my baby!"

"Do you really mean that?" he asked her, a gleam in his eye.

"Yes, I do." She replied with hatred dripping in her voice.

"Here," he said handing her an amulet. "I have a plan."

They walked back into her cabin and he explained everything to her. She would go back to the manor and help him steal their powers. After he had their powers, they would return to retrieve their child, and then together would rule as self proclaimed King and Queen. He fed her hatred unwillingly by mentioning baby Penelope's name over and over. She didn't care that he would kill her cousins, for they had already killed a piece of her soul.

They lay in each others arms that eveningt next to the fire, and she was finally content. She knew that her family would once again be together. He confided to her that night that he was half human. His father, a warlock, had mated with a mortal woman in the late 1700's and his mother had died birthing him. He was raised by his father, and had never known his human side until he met her.

"Did he love her?" Pearl asked.

"No," Anton answered stroking her shoulder. "He was a monster."

"Then why?" Pearl asked him. "Because he was a monster. He knew that it was her fertile time, and he wanted an heir. He got me and I was his trophy for the next 100 years until he was vanquished by a Warren witch."

"Is that why you came after us?" she asked.

"Yes, but it backfired and I fell in love with you instead."

"Oh my god!" Pearl heard a voice say. She turned around quickly to see Gordan, Pippy's husband standing at the threshold.

"Gordan!" she said shocked. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to…" Gordan started to say until the full realization that Anton was sitting up on the floor looking menacingly at him.

He turned to run, but Pearl stopped him by sending fire through her fingertips and catching the only exit on fire.

"You can't go anywhere," she told him. If he left then her cousins would be told that she and Anton had reunited, and then they would be ready for her.

"What's going on?" she heard Pippy cry from outside. Water spilled in from the other side of the fire and she stood there with smoke circling her and her husband. Gordan took the hand of his wife and ushered her away.

"We have to stop them!" Pearl cried. "They'll be ready for us!"

"Don't worry," Anton said taking her in his arms. "I have a plan that cannot fail."

Melinda read the last line and was deeply confused. She didn't understand why the ghost thought that she had so much in common with Pearl. Sure, they were both underestimated, and nobody liked either of their boyfriends, but other than that they were completely different people.

'They killed her' a voice whispered into her ear. 'They strangled her when she went back, simply for loving someone they didn't approve of.'

At that moment, Melinda knew that the voice wasn't inside her head. She looked around, with her eyes narrow.

"Show yourself you coward." She said into the air.

Laughter filled her ears and the face behind the voice began to take form right in front of her. She gasped as she realized who it was.

"Anton?"