A strange, bluish light woke Jean in the still of the night; her eyes fluttered open and for a moment she stared at the ceiling, bemused and barely conscious, her mind having not yet fully re-entered the land of the living. If she had been dreaming she could not recall it; perhaps, she thought, she'd not yet slept long enough to fall through the shadows into the vast yawning chasm of memories that threatened to claim her before she drifted off. That light continued, unwavering, the brightness and the shade of lightning, but steady, constant, illuminating every object in her bedroom with an undeniable glow. Troubled, wondering what on earth could have caused such a strange phenomenon - the world beyond her bedroom window was black, still - she sat up, intending to roll out of bed and investigate, but she was waylaid almost at once by the sudden revelation of the source of that bright light, and a scream lodged itself in the back of her throat, though she was too frightened to find the breath to give it voice.
There, at the end of the bed, stood a woman clothed in white. Her dress was fine, silk, Jean thought, cut in a fashion Jean had not seen since she was a girl, overlaid with lace and pearls, and the necklace the woman wore might have been diamonds. Her hair was dark, black as night, emphasizing the paleness of her skin, the blinding witness of her dress, falling in a mass of heavy curls across one of her perfect shoulders. The woman's face was ethereal, terrible in her beauty, and Jean was certain she had never seen this creature before, and transfixed at the sight of her, flummoxed as to how the stranger had come to be in her bedroom.
For a moment they regarded one another in silence, Jean and that vision in white. The woman did not speak, but she did smile, softly, and it was that smile, spreading warmly across her face, that tugged at Jean's memory. It was, she realized, a smile that looked rather like Lucien's.
"Hello," Jean said anxiously, quietly. She was still sitting upright in her bed, fingers twisting against the blankets as she tried to work out what the bloody hell she ought to do.
The woman did not answer, and Jean began to suspect then that she was not awake at all. It's only a dream, she told herself, but if it was a dream why then did she feel cold, without the blankets to warm her shoulders? Why then did her fear feel so sharp, why did the scene not flutter and dissolve and shift into something else, elusive as a wisp of smoke, the way dreams so often were?
"I know your face," Jean ventured then. "You're Genevieve Blake, aren't you?"
The woman nodded, pleasure in her smile, as if she were delighted that Jean had cottoned on so quickly.
"This is a dream," Jean murmured to herself. She did not believe in ghosts, but even if Mrs. Blake still walked the halls of her mortal home in the still of the night Jean could not believe it would have taken this long for her to make herself known. No, none of it could be real, and Jean relaxed slightly.
Mrs. Blake did not share her relief. Her smile faded, a troubled expression taking its place. In three quick strides she crossed the room to Jean's bedside; Jean withdrew reflexively as the apparition of Genevieve Blake approached, thinking of the rosary in her bedside drawer, wondering if she could reach for it before Genevieve stopped her, wondering if it would make any difference at all. But the vision of Mrs. Blake did not try to hurt her, did not fall upon her in a terrible rage; instead Genevieve stopped by the bedside, and held out her hand.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Blake," Jean said, eyeing that pale hand warily. It looked substantial enough, flesh and bone the same as Jean's own hand, though the skin was pale as ivory. "Whatever it is I can't help you. I'd best be getting back to sleep."
The expression on Mrs. Blake's face grew sharp, and she snapped her fingers impatiently.
The cheek! Jean thought crossly. Dead or not, no one ever dealt with Jean Beazley so callously. Of course, Mrs. Blake had been a woman from a different time, wealthy and much accustomed to getting her own way; perhaps she was like that with everyone. She was still waiting, hand outstretched, for Jean, and Jean's heart sank; she could not go back to sleep like this, with an angry ghost standing over her, and she did not want to risk unleashing the wrath of the undead on her person. Dream or not, Mrs. Blake had come to her, and Jean knew in her heart that the vision would not leave her until Jean had done as she'd been asked.
Nerves left her hand unsteady as she reached out, accepted the hand Genevieve had offered her, and the ghost smiled, pleased, as their palms touched. Mrs. Blake's hand was warm, and solid, but the touch of it sent a chill through Jean. No dream had ever, could ever feel so real as this; she was not sleeping at all, she was certain of that now.
Gently Genevieve drew Jean to her feet, holding tight to her hand, and began to lead her out of the room.
"Wait a moment, please," Jean said as politely as she could. "Won't you tell me where we're going?"
Mrs. Blake shook her head, and tugged Jean towards the door.
"Can I at least put on my robe? I'm not in the habit of wandering around in my pajamas."
Jean was covered from head to foot in faded pink satin, her arms bare below her elbows, her feet bare on the carpet. A robe would have allowed her some modesty, and some warmth, and perhaps a moment to catch her breath, but Genevieve did not stop; she only laughed, amused by Jean's plea, and led her out of the bedroom and into the corridor. The house was all in darkness, but Mrs. Blake knew the way, and Jean followed behind her, bemused, all the way to the bottom of the stairs.
There Jean drew up short, for she found something rather extraordinary. The stairs did not open into the foyer, the way they did in waking life; instead at the foot of the stairs there stood a heavy wooden door, no light seeping out from behind it.
A dream, she told herself, though no dream had ever frightened her this much, been this cold or this intriguing. Genevieve released her hand and gave her a gentle nudge towards the door, her expression encouraging.
"You want me to go through it?" Jean asked. What Jean wanted was to turn on her heel and flee up the stairs, back to the warmth and safety of her bed. Well, mostly that was what she wanted. A small, curious piece of her heart was desperate to know where that door had come from, and what lay behind it. She had always possessed an inquisitive spirit, though it had laid her low more than once in the past.
Mrs. Blake was insistent, and the door was calling to her, and so Jean drew in one very deep breath, squared her shoulders, and marched right up to it. The door swung open the instant Jean's hand touched the knob, and she stepped through it into darkness.
Genevieve was with her; Jean could sense the warmth of the woman at her back. She took a tentative step forward into the blackness, and suddenly the shadows all around her shattered, glistening, fell away like Lucien's flecks of gold leaf, leaving behind them an unexpected scene that brought tears to her eyes.
She knew this room; she would know it anywhere. The heavy, wood-paneled walls, the threadbare rug beneath her feet, the scratch of it a familiar, welcome sensation against her toes. The gauzy white curtains Jean had sewn herself fluttering around the open window, the old iron bed frame, the faded blue quilt with patterns of flowers picked out neatly across it. Christopher's boots standing straight as soldiers by the doorway, her stockings hanging over the mirror by the dressing table, the glass stained with a faint patina of age.
"This was our room," she whispered, and Genevieve smiled sadly, but she had no sooner spoken than the shapes in the bed - and the sounds coming from it - resolved themselves more clearly, and Jean's cheeks promptly flushed pink.
There, a young man's bare back, the quilt riding low over his hips, his hair a riot of dark curls. Beneath him a girl, mostly hidden from view by his bulk, her hands pressed hard to his back, her hair dark as his, though stick-straight where it spilled across the pillowcases. Her nails were short and stubby and unpainted; she never had the money for such a luxury as polish, not in those days. They were rocking together, the old iron bed creaking recklessly beneath them, the sound of muffled grunts and whispered endearments almost too soft to be heard.
It was the strangest, most terrible thing Jean had ever seen in all her life. She could almost feel her heart shattering in her chest, stabbing at her like a thousand tiny knives. This place was no more than a memory to her now, but oh, what a memory it was, a memory of love, and peace, and belonging, desperately fighting for every second of life. And yet Jean was not lying in that bed, as she was in her own memories; she was outside herself, watching, while her husband made love to her in a moment that had ended decades before, and yet felt as real to her now as if she had indeed stepped into that room.
"Christopher," she whispered brokenly, but it seemed the shapes on the bed did not hear her, or take note of her presence at all; they were too lost in one another.
"They can't see me, can they?" she asked, and beside her Mrs. Blake shook her head sadly.
So Jean watched, for she did not know what else to do. Watched, and listened, remembering him, her beautiful young man, lost to her so soon, Christopher who would live in her memory for all her days, and yet never age past thirty. Remembering her, the girl she had been, then, when she loved him, whole and entire, and nothing in the world mattered to her, save for him. What Jean would give, to slide back into this moment, to wrap her arms around him, to hold him close, feel him with her once more, but she was nearly fifty, now, and not the lovely young thing he'd known, and grief welled up so strongly within her that her knees very nearly gave way beneath her.
From the timbre of his groans she knew he was getting close, watched as the younger, more reckless version of herself clung to him, encouraged him, until at last he fell apart in her arms, and collapsed atop her, laughing. They held onto one another for a long moment, Jean's hands running through his hair, over his back, but eventually he rolled away from her, rummaging in his bedside table for a cigarette and a box of matches while the younger Jean sighed and stretched, catlike and contended.
Jean knew she ought to be embarrassed, knowing that Genevieve Blake was watching her like this, her breasts bare, her face flushed from sex, her hair a wild tangle, but that girl was not Jean, not any more. She was only a memory of a beauty that once had been. Beside her Christopher lit his cigarette, took one long puff and then offered it to his wife, and she took it gladly. Jean couldn't abide cigarettes these days, not because she did not care for them, but because they reminded her of moments like this one, reminded her of the husband she had lost, and the youth and the hope that had been lost with him.
"They're still asleep, I think," Christopher said, and young Jean laughed, passing the cigarette back to him before cuddling in close to his side. He draped his free arm around her and the pair of them rested for a moment, at peace and happy with one another.
"A Christmas miracle," she said dryly.
So it was Christmas here, too, in the past as it was in the present. Jean thought she could recall this one; they had made love every Christmas morning, but this one seemed special, somehow, though she could not yet place it in the timeline of her own life.
"I only wish we had more presents for them to open," Christopher sighed, and then Jean remembered. It was the last Christmas before he'd left for the war. It was the last Christmas they'd ever spent together, the last Christmas she'd woken to her husband's hands gentle on her skin, and welcomed him eagerly. The farm had been struggling, and Christopher had spent so many sleepless night worrying over their finances, and he'd been cross for weeks about not being able to buy proper presents for the boys.
"It doesn't matter, sweetheart," young Jean told him, kissing his shoulder before stealing the cigarette for herself. "Years from now they won't remember what presents they got, or what food they ate. All they'll remember is the love."
"I do love you, Jeannie, you know that, don't you?" Christopher said.
"You'd better," she answered, grinning. His hand slid around her side, tickling her, making her giggle, until he caught her breast in her palm, and her laughter turned into a sigh.
"Sometimes I think I'm the luckiest bastard alive," he told her. "I've got you, and the boys, and this house. It's...you're all I ever wanted, Jeannie."
He was so young, Jean thought. How could he have never longed for more, when he had only known so little of the world? She saw the flicker of doubt in her younger self's eyes, a doubt Christopher never saw at all. Even then Jean had wanted more; she'd wanted the whole world, and everything in it, and felt shame every day of her life for dreaming of something better. She felt shame now, knowing how precious a gift she'd been given, her husband, her boys, her home full of love, wishing she'd treasured it more then, before all of it had been stripped away from her, left her cold and lonesome.
"Merry Christmas, my love," young Jean said, avoiding her own feelings the way she always did, passing the cigarette back to him and then laying her head down on his chest.
"Merry Christmas, my Jean," he whispered.
Jean knew how the rest of the scene went; the cigarette had almost burned out between Christopher's fingers. He'd stub it out, and they'd clean themselves up, laughing between hastily stolen kisses, go and wake the boys. Jean would make a pot of coffee, and she and Christopher would sip it while Jack and young Christopher tore through the wrapping paper on their meager pile of presents. An orange, a little toy, and one pair of shoes apiece, and the boys held those gifts in their hands as if they were more costly than gold, and came afterwards to settle on the sofa between their parents, a pile of warm bodies and gentle smiles, and Christopher would catch her eye over the boys' heads and whisper I love you. She wanted to see it, all of it, wanted to see her boys small enough to sit on her lap once more, their heads unbowed by the grief of life, but Mrs. Blake had other plans. She caught hold of Jean's hand once more and began to lead her back towards the door.
"Please," Jean whispered, watching her younger self rise from the bed, tears gathering in her eyes. "Please let me stay, let me stay here."
It was not lost on her that she was not only asking for this moment, this one scene of familial content. What Jean's heart longed for, more than anything else, was to return to the way things had been, to live once more surrounded by the heat of love. What difference did it make, if her belly was empty, if her dress was worn thin and faded, if there was no nail polish on her dressing table, so long as she had love? Everything she had, she'd trade to find this love again.
But the moment was long past, and shadows were falling, and Mrs. Blake would not be deterred. Jean had no choice but to follow her once more through the door.