And I Willl See the Life Run Into You

by Velsidian

This story is meant to be a fanfic "sequel" to the movie Ghost Story (1981) not the Peter Straub novel it was adapted from. Main character Don Wanderley is trapped in a repeating time-loop restarted every time the ghost of Eva Galli kills him. Against his better judgment, Don finds himself falling in love with her all over again.

…And I Will See the Life Run Into You

A fanfiction sequel to the 1981 film Ghost Story

Screenplay by Lawrence D. Cohen from the novel by Peter Straub

Employing ye olde Groundhog Day trope

With a sprinkling of Quantum Leap and Somewhere in Time

If you could read my mind, love

What a tale my thoughts could tell

Just like an old time movie

'Bout a ghost from a wishing well

In a castle dark or a fortress strong

With chains upon my feet

You know that ghost is me

And I will never be set free

As long as I'm a ghost you can't see

"If You Could Read My Mind"

-Gordon Lightfoot, 1970

Chapter One- The First Death of Don Wanderley

Don Wanderley was the last attendee remaining following the funeral service for Eva Galli. The first to leave was the one who gave the eulogy, Mr. Ricky Hawthorne. He had duly informed the gathered audience his knowledge of the young woman he had known in his youth. He had then stunned the same with his disclosure regarding the circumstances of her passing fifty years earlier. They were truly aghast at his admission regarding his and his friends' culpability in that passing.

The crowd respectfully dispersed shortly after Ricky had left with Sheriff Hardesty to answer some further questions. Don stood next to the polished mahogany casket awaiting descent with a sullen expression. He attempted to gather his thoughts.

"Rest in peace, Miss Galli," he opened. "Eva. Alma. You deserved a better fate than you received but, then again, so did David. He didn't do a damn thing to you." Don set his hand upon the coffin envisioning the remains within. "I hope what we were able to give you here today brings you some kind of harmony some serenity wherever you may voyage."

With cane in hand to aid with his injured leg, Don began the trek through the New England snow back to his car. The grief he was still dealing with regarding his brother and father accompanied him. Despite being alone, he could faintly hear a woman's voice, but couldn't make out the words. He paused then continued on.

Several hours following sunset found Don sitting with Ricky at a local Milburn tavern. "Hey, Mr. Hawthorne-"

"Please, 'Ricky,' my friend."

"Ricky," Don continued. "I'm not rooting for your incarceration. I'm just trying to understand." He took another drink from his beer. "What's next for you?"

"Well, after Sears' passing," answered the elderly lawyer, "Stella and I have decided to call it a day. I'm retiring and she gets her vacation through Europe."

"I mean legally. You know, potential criminal charges?"

"Well, Hardesty has taken a very generous view of my personal involvement. He said that since I had wanted to do the right thing and the whole affair was Sears' idea…"

"This sounds dubious, Ricky. I know you're the legal expert and I'm not a lawyer but, please, correct me if I'm wrong. Unlawful disposal of a human body is a felony, no? She died during the commission of the felony. That makes the crime you guys did 'Felony Murder'- doesn't it?"

"I know it's dubious, Don. The sheriff and the D.A. said with my losses and age, maybe enough has been done. It'll be kept locally in-house. As far as law and due process go, Hardesty's laying it on Sears, John, and your Dad as amends to the departed. I don't know," he frowned and bowed his head. "I wish I hadn't been so easily intimidated by stronger personalities back then."

Don shook his head at what seemed a little shady to him and looked up at the mirrored wall behind the bar. He could have sworn he saw Alma Mobley in her conservative blue dress from their first meeting sitting at a table behind and to the left of them. She smiled at him with unnerving piercing eyes. When he turned around, however, all he saw at that table was a pair of working class guys, one a little portly than the other.

The pair finished the last of their beverages and Ricky threw a few dollars on the bar counter as a tip. As Don pushed in his barstool a voice floated above the din of the bar crowd. "Do you want to know what you touched?"

"Sorry, what did you say, Ricky?"

"I said I hope Stella's not too upset. I'm running a little later than I planned."

"Oh. Well, if I don't see you before you leave for Europe," Don extended his hand. "Goodbye, Ricky."

"No you don't," Ricky wrapped him in a hug. "Until we meet again. We Chowder Society survivors can't afford any 'goodbyes'."

"Maybe we should start a recruitment drive when you get back," Don smiled. Then the two parted and Don started for home.

Don walked up to the front door of his late father's house. About a week had passed since he had been confronted by the undeniable existence of the supernatural, and nearly made a part of it. If not for Ricky's efforts to exhume Eva Galli's mortal remains from their frozen internment, it would have Don's funeral taking place that afternoon.

Now only he and Ricky remained of those who knew the full truth of Eva Galli. The truth being that death had not been the end of her story. Fifty years of a dark secret kept in the hearts and minds of four aging gentlemen set the stage. Their private confidence generated eerie tales told monthly and horrifying nightmares endured nightly.

This spiritual agitation gave the revenant ghost of Eva Galli leave to escape the bottom of Dedham Pond and interact with the living. Intent on revenge, she had first set her sights on the offspring of her original attacker. Don had apparently made the top of the list.

After entering the house, he fumbled for the light switch as not to navigate in total darkness. Looking around, he reflected on how he was never comfortable here. It was always creepy here as he grew from childhood. Daylight did little to remedy the atmosphere. Now here at night, the air was heavier than ever.

He made his way to his father's library and sat in a large chair next to an ornate lamp. He had poured himself a scotch and slowly drank as he observed the room. Don had written two books recently published but found neither among the room's many tomes. He considered some ideas for a third then his thoughts drifted to his stalled teaching career. It had become inert of late due to his obsessive relationship with the lovely and exciting Alma Mobley.

Puzzling that he described her as such in his recollection despite learning the truth about Alma. She had been, in fact, the ghost of Eva Galli returned as a revenant indistinguishable from a living woman. Even during the most intimate moments such as sexual intercourse she was tantamount to life.

Don shuddered internally at such memories. Seared into his mind's eye was the last he had seen of Alma/Eva's visage- a rotting cadaverous face drawing closer and closer to his own. She had wanted to "see the life run out of him." He forced himself to set his mind on the fact that he had NOT been intimate with a decomposing corpse. It was her revenant spirit, soft and warm, with whom he had a long-term physical relationship. That absolutely had to be the truth, not what she had wanted him to believe.

He had fallen under Alma's spell the very moment he heard her accented voice speak "Mr. Wanderley." He had fallen completely in love with her in a very short period of time. Now he had to destroy every idea that the most cherished time of his life was spent in bed with a decaying and putrefying ghoul for the sake of his sanity.

"No, Eva," Don said to the shadows," that is not what I touched." He swallowed the last of the scotch and slammed the glass down onto the lamp table. He stood and began the trek up to his old bedroom. The master's chambers would always be his father's. His injured leg made the trip irritatingly methodical.

The stairs creaked under his feet with each step. Near the top Don paused mid-step as he could have sworn he had heard the creak a split-second before his foot touched the stair. He set and lifted his foot testing the stair several times. No mysterious sound repeated itself. Reaching the second story, Don set down the hall to his room. Half way to his door a creak came back from the staircase. Oblivious, Don entered his room.

He shook his head as he undressed for the evening. He slipped on a pair of pajama pants and entered the attached bathroom. Brushing his teeth, Don couldn't shake the image of Eva descending the deteriorated stairs of her dilapidated mansion. The figure in white surveying him from the landing as he lay still with a seemingly broken leg. He had never before experienced terror such as then, but it was over. Over.

Don rinsed out his mouth and splashed water on his face. Drying with a towel he looked up at his reflection in the mirror. He thought he glimpsed a flash of white fly by the doorway behind him. He turned around to be greeted by nothing. There was no sight nor sound. Nothing. "Damn creepy house," Don angrily dismissed the event. "I'm selling the very day the inheritance becomes final." He set the towel down on the sink and turned out the light.

He slipped into bed leaning his back against two propped up pillows. Under the lamplight he opened a book to read before sleep. Twenty minutes later, he closed the book and lay down the pillows. He reached for the lamp on the bedside night table but movement caught his eye.

A white figure sat in a chair just outside the circle of lamplight. Momentary panic gripped Don's heart as he focused his vision on the sight before him. He exhaled with some relief at the realization that he had been frightened by a white dress shirt carelessly draped over the chair. "Damn," he said aloud, "what's next, a cat pops out of nowhere? The movie's over and the credits have rolled. I'm out."

Don shook his head, turned out the light, and lay down flat. He turned onto his side facing the center of the bed and peered directly into the eyes of Eva Galli.

Before Don could make a sound, the bewitching ghost rolled on top of him. Straddling his hips, she was still in her wedding gown sans veil. She leaned her face down towards his as if to kiss him. "No, I am not at rest, Don," that alluring voice he thought he'd never hear again. "There is no peace and I am not finished." Her comely face and form retained their appearance of life, but her hands became aged and blackened as a corpse. The fingernails elongated and sharpened into talons.

She drew her height back up and slashed down with her right hand. Don's chest became separated into four bloody slices. His heart pumped red out of his chest to flow down to the soaking sheets. She then placed her hands on the sides of his face and plunged her thumbs into his eye sockets. The talons penetrated deep as Don's cries of agony echoed throughout the house. Blinded and choking on his own blood, Don reached up feebly with his right hand only to leave a bloody smeared handprint on the ghost's left breast.

Drained of all strength as his life's blood pooled around him, Don Wanderley managed to breathe "Alma," and then died. It would not be the last time.

Chapter Two: What You Touched

Desperate for air as he awoke, Don sat up in a shot incredulous that he was still alive. His hands roughly patted his chest and then he palmed his eyes. His body was intact and his vision was crystal clear. With that vision he took in his surroundings causing his mind to race with confusion.

Foremost the room was flooded with sunlight when it should have been near midnight. Furthermore, it wasn't even the room it should have been. No, this was not his bedroom in his father's house. This… this was the bedroom of his former apartment he had rented for his year's teaching job in Florida.

Trying to find some sense in this, Don stood out of the bed. He inhaled a lungful of clear air and felt the warmth of the morning sun. He was certain he was not dreaming but the last several months hadn't been a dream, either. He had been in his Milburn bed on a New England winter's night and was now standing in a central Florida summer's morning.

And what of the ghost of Eva Galli? He could still faintly feel her lethal afflictions ebbing away. She had been there of that he was secure. Her continued existence was supernatural in its origins, so maybe his being here in this time and place was as well. Had she killed him? Was he dead? Was he really here nearly fifteen hundred miles away months in the past?

Don made his way down to the kitchen and perceived a newspaper on the counter. He looked at the date. The previous day's front page told him the significance of this morning. This was the day he had first met Alma Mobley. This day her plan for revenge set in motion.

Don jumped in the shower, got dressed, and set out driving to the university. He bypassed meeting Helen who he had been on-and-off-again seeing before Alma. Upon arrival he nervously approached the main office building. Bracing himself, he entered the suddenly imposing structure.

Momentarily frozen, Don stood rigid focusing on the door to the Dean's office. On the other side of that door, sitting at her desk, would be Alma Mobley in her light blue dress of a conservative fashion for 1979. At her desk would be the woman he had loved and had with become engaged. At her desk would be the revenant that had violently murdered him in a gruesome frenzy. He attempted to steel himself to-

"Mr. Wanderley," queried a voice that had terrified him the last time he had heard it. This time, however, it was a soothing timbre coming from directly behind him. "I was not expecting to see you here so early."

Don turned abruptly to meet Alma's lovely face bearing a welcoming smile. "Hell- hello," he stammered trying to remain calm. He was doing a terrible job of it. He believed he might be turning a little green.

"Are you feeling alright, Mr. Wanderley?" she asked with concern. "Here, have a seat on this hallway bench and I'll fetch you a glass of water."

"Water," he repeated remembering Alma sitting in bed trance-like uttering the word. Thrown off, Don impulsively sought to be anywhere else in the world. He hastily stepped back from her and senselessly blurted out "I know who you are."

"Somebody already told you?" she extended her hand. "Alma Mobley. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Wanderley."

"No. No," he knew discretion was far wiser but he couldn't help himself. "Who you really are. Look at me, Alma. Tell me what you see."

"Fear, for some reason," she answered, "and recognition. What do you see, Don?" She exhibited familiarity with the use of his first name.

Although she changed nothing of her enchanting appearance, Don's vision was filled with the memory of the face Eva had shown him in Milburn. The quickened pace he employed to separate himself from her became a full sprint once he cleared the exit doors. He vaulted into his car and departed the premises as if in a screaming panic. Where he was headed he did not know.

He had driven several blocks when he looked up at his rearview mirror. Situated in the center of his backseat with piercing eyes and amused smile sat Alma Mobley. Don slammed on his brakes and pulled over partially on the sidewalk. Flying out the door, he ran as fast as his feet could scramble.

Looking back as he ran, he saw no one following him. His car sat running but empty. Panting, he came upon a sidewalk bench and thumped down to recuperate. Just as his breathing slowed and his heartrate calmed, Alma Mobley sat down next to him.

"So. You believe you know me," she stated without malice.

Don sat petrified his eyes locked on the ground. Running was useless. Anywhere he went, she would find him. Useless. Hopeless. He exhaled audibly, raised his head to gaze straight forward, and simply said, "Eva Galli."

"How did you come to know that name, Don?" Her voice was sedate and unemotional.

He had heard her question but in his mind echoed its overlaying twin. "Do you want to know what you touched?" That simple interrogation had haunted him since he first heard it. It preyed upon him ever since she reached for him and raked across his face with her withered dead hand. A growing anger wrestled with his foreboding distress.

"The last time I saw you, Alma, you said something to me intending to freeze my soul." Don's eyes remained forward as his hands clenched into fists. "But, damn your intentions, that is NOT what I touched!"

"What do you mean by 'the last time you saw me'?"

"The time before you murdered me, you were wearing a wedding dress. It was at your house in Milburn." Don turned his body toward her and took her hand. Holding her hand gently with both of his, he continued. "Though you are the ghost of a woman who died fifty years ago, I feel this hand as soft, warm, and seemingly alive. The only decomposing flesh in this situation is over a thousand miles away at the bottom of Dedham Pond." He set down her hand and waited for a response.

Alma stood indignantly from the bench. She turned to look down upon Don transfixing him by her mesmerizing eyes. "I want you to take me to my home and make love to me immediately."

Taken aback, Don could only stammer out a barely intelligible "What?"

"You will do as I say, Don, if you want this conversation to continue," she replied in stone solemnity.

Visions and memories collided and clashed inside Don's warring psyche. Nights spent in Alma's arms and intimacy sparred with his reason and all he had come to know about her. The truth of the matter was that the close proximity with Alma had made him succumb to her spell once more. Fear and desire. He had indubitably loved her once. In broad daylight the ghost stood in front of him. Part of him still implored escape but he was resigned to the uselessness of flight.

He joined her on the pavement and, deciding to hell with the fear, stepped closer to her. "I will take you to your home," Don spoke to the alluring spirit who once killed him, "but I do not trust you."

Don escorted her back to his car. Upon reaching it, she caressed his face wearing an enigmatic smile then walked to the passenger side door. "I look forward to hearing your tale, Don. Are you longing to tell it to me?"

Don silently entered the vehicle, sat behind the wheel, and drove forward. As they traveled to the address Don remembered, he reflected on recent events. Amazement regarding the last twenty-four hours covered it all. Last night he had been brutally slaughtered by the very spectre he was now driving home. And the whole thing was all displaced in time.

"What do you want with me, Alma?" he asked. "You seduced me into falling in love with you as part of your revenge scheme." He alternated between watching the road and scrutinizing his phantom passenger. "I broke the engagement. You scrapped your plan. Why do you want this?"

"Oh, this isn't for me, Don," she lightly laughed. "This is for you."

"For me?" He could not hide his skepticism. "You think I want to touch you after what I've seen?"

"Of course you do," a flirtatious tone behind her beguiling smirk. "You have to silence all your doubts and fears regarding your body next to me. Above me. Underneath me." She placed her hand on his knee and slowly slid upwards. "Inside me. I can feel your dread and faltering resolve. You have to know…"

The car pulled up to Alma's house. Don set it in park and shut off the engine. "I know what I touched, Eva," staring straight ahead, he addressed her by her real name. "And it was not what you showed me in Milburn."

They both exited the car and approached the front door. Alma opened it and they stepped inside. Closing the door, she shoved Don up against it and aggressively kissed him. Several seconds later, she broke off and challenged him. "Then prove it, Don, to yourself and to me." She let down her hair turning toward the stairs to her bedroom. Unbuttoning her blouse, she ascended the staircase. "If you want to make love to me, you'd better hurry."

It was not lost on him that she repeated the same words from their first night together- the first of many. Don's heart was pounding and his head spinning. He stepped closer to the staircase. "My mistake going straight to you. That was reckless and stupid."

Alma unfastened the final button as she reached the top of the stairs. She turned to look back down at him. "I like a little recklessness," she amorously cooed. Don was halfway up the steps before he realized he had even started climbing. He followed her as a sailor to a siren's song.

"It's going to storm tonight," Don watched as Alma fully disrobed. "Heavy downpour. You hate storms and are frightened by thunder."

Alma reposed against the pillows on her bed. "Don't bother trying to impress me with predictions of the future, Don."

He approached her, disrobing himself. "It wasn't a prediction. It was a memory." He reached her trembling both with trepidation and an intense desire he had concealed from himself. Their passion was as ardent and vigorous as the session after the storm- almost resembling wrestling along with copulation. The bedroom was disheveled as a result of their amorous hunger.

Having ultimately finished on the bed, the pair lay side by side with Don breathing through a thin sheen of sweat. Alma's voice ruptured the silence. "So what is your verdict, Don? What do you say it is that you touched?"

Don turned his head to look at her and his shock propelled him backward out of the bed. Lying prone upon the mattress lay the body of a dead woman. Without a hint of decay or decomposition, the lifeless frame of Eva Galli lay as prostrate as a cadaver in a morgue. Bluish lips on alabaster skin proclaimed death and transformed the air in the room to one as a tomb. Don retreated in terror to the farthest wall.

A slight cracking and snapping sound accompanied the sight of the dead body sitting up. It swung its legs around and set its feet upon the floor. Its slacked mouth hung open with its eyes rolled back white. With a stilted halting pace it jerkily shuffled in Don's direction. He was backed into the wall too vocally paralyzed with fear to scream. The shambling shape had risen a hand towards him as it reached him. It held Don in place as it suddenly found the strength and speed to bite down voraciously on the side of the fearful man's neck.

Arterial blood sprayed across the Alma-thing's face and chest. Don crumbled to the floor clutching his shredded wound. His lifeblood pooled beneath him once again as he uselessly gasped for air. The effort's futility became apparent as the last scene of Don's life entered his fading vision. The crimson-splattered white cadaver face of what once was Alma Mobley grinned mindlessly down at him. The blood-coated teeth opened wide for another lacerating chomp as Don Wanderley expired for the second time.

Don Wanderley awoke in his bed in Florida the morning of his first meeting with Alma Mobley. He cried out in pain he no longer felt from a gaping wound he now never had.

Chapter Three: Going Down

Don Wanderley knew that if he wanted to survive as long as possible, he would have to maintain a calm demeanor while in Alma's presence. He would have to live this latest what? Loop in time? as closely to the original as he could manage. Being no great actor, he was certain there would be some stumbles or mistakes along the way. He could only hope to navigate them as best he could.

He relived their first date of evening dinner followed by an ice cream dessert without incident. After running in the rain to outrace the storm, he had repeated the seminal sexual encounter with the woman who would later be revealed to have been dead for half a century. He feigned falling in love with her concealing the knowledge that hers was also a counterfeit affection.

The only occurrence of the base run of the relationship he purposely did not repeat happened in Alma's bathtub. During that moment of his life before the invasion of bizarre and preposterous phenomenon, Don had playfully pulled Alma under the water. Nervous seconds passed before she finally resurfaced screaming. The reason for her authentic wail was ultimately known to him after meeting the Chowder Society.

Sears James and Ricky Hawthorne had disclosed the tragic story of Eva Galli's drowning. Since then, adding to her trauma of being submerged was something he did not want to do. The idea that he should care about the anguish of one who, twice now, has killed him, was a conundrum that flitted about the back of his mind.

Don now sat at the kitchen table of his modest Florida apartment sometime after breaking their engagement to marry. She had subsequently disappeared entirely from his life. After the death of his brother, David, Don had come to feel he had dodged an otherworldly bullet. It was odd, in retrospect, that Alma had just vanished when he ruined her initial plan for revenge. She could have killed him then and there, but she didn't. She did kill David, though.

She had then moved on to his brother as some kind of substitute. Don tried to warn him of the "wrongness" of Alma and the danger she represented over the phone. That had failed miserably and David had plunged to his death from his Manhattan high-rise. Not this time, he thought as he left for the Orlando International Airport.

Throughout their adult lives, David had tried to goad Don into a more ambitious outlook for his life. His brother had invited Don to his Manhattan penthouse to showoff somewhat. He had slipped Don a copy of the key to make use of the luxurious home whenever David was out of town on business or pleasure. By that key Don had let himself in to wait for an in person conference with his brother regarding David's peril.

Eventually, David arrived, but had done so with Don's former fiancé in tow. "Donny!" David exclaimed. "A welcome surprise! Look, Alma, Don's paid us a visit." He was slightly inebriated. Alma tensed as she knew this was no mere social call.

Unknown to both men, the tub in the bathroom turned itself on and began to fill. "Hello, Don," she cordially began, "I believe you may have gotten the wrong idea about me."

Don ignored her and addressed his brother. "Step away from her, David," he warned. "For your own safety."

Confused, David's ire fueled by alcohol began to rise. "What are you talking about? You're sounding stupidly jealous, man."

"She's not what she seems, David. She's… cold. She's not even human."

"Hey, I know you're hurtin' because she left you for me but you're peddling nonsense here, Don."

Alma glowered at Don as he and the pair circled to the point he was closer to the door. "I know the truth," he declared gazing unflinching at her. "I know the name 'Eva Galli'."

A dangerous bearing cast upon her face increasing Don's desperation. "Eva Who?" David asked baffled and tipsy. He looked at his newly betrothed who, though she had not changed her appearance, did seem to look a little different in the light. Or was it the alcohol?

"Eva Galli is her real name," Don pleaded. "Back away from her, David. She's dangerous." Don struggled with how much to reveal. What was believable? "Damn it, David, she's dead!"

"Huh? Dead?" David stumbled. "Doesn't make-"

Alma charged into action forcibly grabbing David and vaulted across the apartment to the pane glass window. She effortlessly hoisted the man with one arm and propelled him through the glass before Don could move.

Belatedly he cried out "David!" in vain. His brother had plummeted to his death below just as before.

Alma wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She projected an evil leer. "Were you hoping for a reconciliation, Don?" the ghost of Eva Galli asked as she turned to advance on him. "Have you been longing for me?" She gave a short nefarious laugh.

Don recognized the horror show he had just found himself in. His brother was dead, again, and he didn't want to die a third time. He turned for the door but Alma was already on him. With no exertion whatsoever, she dragged him into the bathroom. The tub was overflowing as she plunged Don's head under the surface. He struggled drastically but it was futile. His lungs burned for air.

In desperation, Don stopped exerting his force against Alma and, grabbing her wrists, used her own momentum to pull her into the water. With both of them in the tub, Don made a frantic play for time. Underwater, he kissed her with a fervor that stopped her cold. Bewilderment stayed her efforts giving Don a few precious seconds.

Don leaped out of the tub and sprinted out of the apartment. Running down the hall towards the elevator, he dared a look over his shoulder. Alma had left the apartment and walked purposely towards him. Though she could have traversed the distance much faster, she felt no such rush.

He had reached the elevator and frantically began pushing the button. At long last the doors opened and Don launched himself inside. Again he started to hysterically depress the button. Mercifully they finally closed and Don exhaled in an ill-conceived relief. The steel doors did not present the haven he mistakenly believed them to be.

The ghost of Eva Galli passed straight through the doors with ease. Don immediately backed into the polished steel directly behind him. In panic, his head resounded off the surface adding concussive pain to his distressing plight. "Alma…" he breathed a terrified whisper.

The beautiful and graceful ghost stood before him. Mortal fear choked him and slapped him with distant memories of the ethereal face he once loved. The winsome wraith advanced. With two tips of her fingers, she affected her lips.

"An unexpected gambit, Don," she studied him and offered a wicked grin. "Did you really come here to warn David of me or did you hope to rekindle 'us'?"

The elevator remained in place as the fair and elegant ghost threw her arms around Don's neck and wrapped her right leg around his quavering body. "Do you want to make love to me?" she breathed softly into his soundless mouth.

"Don't… don't," he managed just as she pressed her lips against his. The familiar follow-up to her question flared in his mind. Her kiss increased with passion as her embrace tightly compressed their bodies together. Don's fears were not manifesting. Eva Galli's material apparition showed no signs of any shocking metamorphosis into a horrific wasting ghoul.

All steadfastness and resolution drained away from Don as he surrendered to her. This sexual coupling returned Don to every sensual moment with Alma that had ever consumed him. He should have felt revulsion but only felt himself devoured by her wanton craving fire. He could not believe what was building up inside him and he desperately fought it. He feared it was a losing battle.

When their passion ebbed and concluded, Don found himself leaning against the wall eyes closed and half naked. His mind scrambled for some semblance of a rational thought. He opened his eyes to the empty car. He was completely alone. She had allowed him to live as she did when he broke their engagement. But hadn't she just attempted to drown him? His confusion persisted as he dressed then pressed the button to the lobby.

He needed to speak to the authorities about his brother and then contact their father. The elevator descended. Its decline was interrupted, however, at the second floor. Don stepped closer to the doors anticipating a trip down the stairs.

The doors then opened to reveal the sodden and dripping figure of a woman who had been decomposing underwater for decades. The dank and viscous phantom of Eva Galli raised her arms toward Don. Frozen in shock and horror at the vision before him, he could not move. Muculent miry hands gripped both sides of his head and violently wrenched it to an unnatural angle. His neck mangled and his spinal cord internally severed, Don collapsed lifelessly to the floor.

Don Wanderley awoke in his bed the morning of his first meeting with Alma Mobley. After the initial shock of his latest demise wore off, he sighed deeply bringing his knees up to his head.

He wrapped his arms around them and shuddered. What the hell kind of prison had he been confined to?

Chapter Four: Mystery

Don Wanderley had lost count by this point of the number of revolutions through this looping circuit of time he had thus far endured. By his current estimation it had been several dozen trips through the time-loop. Any given loop could be as long as just shy of six months to as short as a single day. That would be from the first morning with Alma to the last evening with a homicidal Eva.

Dozens of revolutions with dozens of deaths- some more violent than others- had begun to take their toll on Don's mind and spirit. Memories of all these cycles of the same period of time seemed to blend together. It could be as much as twenty years' worth of accumulated time he had spent trapped in this potentially infinite prison.

During this current circuit, Don sat on the bed in Alma's house near the university. She was in the washroom drawing them a bath. The intensity of fear he would feel in her presence at any given time had faded to near nothing. As long as she did not suspect any knowledge on his part of her true nature, he was safe- until the time, in Milburn, for him to not be safe.

His charade also became easier to maintain with every cycle of the loop. He found himself feeling not unlike he did during his original relationship with Alma. He was enjoying the time with her again. He would walk with her, talk with her, laugh with her, and sleep with her every night. She was a decidedly sensual spirit, almost alive in her expression of a sexuality long denied to her by the waters of a New England lake.

"The bath is ready, Don," Alma called. "Nice and hot." He promptly joined his lovely intimate companion in the tub. After about ten minutes, he asked a question he'd asked many times but, to her, it was the first.

"So, no significant others in your past?" he inquired with roguish grin. "Really? A beautiful girl like you?"

"No," she lightly laughed. "No one… significant."

"Ah, so it's merely Don Wanderley, party of one, occupying your history?"

"Oh, yes. Merely," she replied as he impishly teased her breast with his foot. A gentle laugh and a genial smile met him as she slapped his foot away in mock exasperation.

He chortled in genuine elation that abruptly jolted him into a realization that horrified him. His ongoing pantomime of infatuation with her had developed or even mutated into something else entirely. This awareness resulted in a shock to his system that registered, if only briefly, in his facial expression. A slight tension in his body did not escape Alma's notice.

"Is something amiss, Don?" she asked as if she were sincere in her concern. "Did you swallow some bathwater or something?" She placed her hand on his knee in anxious interest.

Don wrestled internally with how to respond. All he could come up with was the truth that had shaken him. "I… believe that I…" he swallowed air down a swiftly dry throat. "I love you." Well, how the hell was that possible? He castigated himself. She murders me every time she learns what I know. She's a damn ghost, you idiot! She hates you and is using you as a pawn against Dad and his friends. He could no longer deny what he felt, however. His fictional portrayal of her lover had become legitimate.

She fixed him with an acute stare she bored into him. She then blinked and broke into a beaming smile. "Oh, I've known that since our first night together." She leaned forward moving her hand from his knee to his chest. She slid it up to his shoulder, leaned even closer, and kissed him.

My imagination, Don ruminated, or that felt completely authentic? He returned the kiss letting the water drain from the tub. After they dried themselves off, he seized Alma around her waist.

"And what exactly do you have in mind?" she taunted.

"I think you have a pretty good idea."

"Aren't you being a bit presumptuous?"

"Says the hot naked lady I just took a bath with." Don drew her in close as he kissed her. Their still wet bodies pressed tightly together. After so many trips through the time-loop, he was easily able to lose himself in the illusion Alma projected of her revenant anatomy. That's what he tells himself in these moments. "Do you want to know what you touched?" wafted on the peripheral winds of his consciousness.

Later that night, they were both asleep in bed. The time was about quarter past midnight when Alma stirred awake. She turned toward Don and moved to touch him. She ran her hand over his chest and climbed on top of him. Leaning down to kiss him roused Don from his sleep.

"Alma?" he managed before her mouth overtook his. Before long, they were both at an equal state of arousal. Alma reached down to adjust Don and guide him into her. She proceeded to ride him, vacillating up and down drawing moans from both of them.,

Alma arched her back positioning her face towards the ceiling. Moonlight through the windows bathed over her reflecting off her breasts in the night. Don animated beneath her, eyes closed, his hands surveying her body. Alma's hands laid atop Don's guiding them. Her eyes still gazing upward, Alma breathed guttural words through her buoyant motions. "Mmm... speak to me... Don," she purred. "Tell me... do you want... to know... what you touched?"

At her question, Don opened his eyes to the sight of the most dreaded horror of his life. Born of Eva Galli's taunting inquiry from the stairs of her mansion, this was the end result of her evil, twisted reasoning. Perched on top of him, engulfing a part of him, rested the nightmare vision of the putrefying corpse Eva had assailed him with in Milburn lifetimes ago. This time though, she enveloped him full-bodied and uncovered. Don screamed from a well deep in his soul. His shrieking echoed bringing Alma's ghoulish visage back down towards him. Her mouth opened and her tongue protruded. Closer and closer the dead flesh wriggled to slide into his mouth.

Don screamed not only himself, but Alma awake as well. He shot up in bed wheezing and shaking.

"Don, are you alright?" Alma drowsily asked. Don turned to look at her his eyes widened in shock. She appeared completely normal and alive. "Alive" as the revenant forged herself to be.

Don threw himself on the floor. On his hands and knees, he bellowed at the ground. All the hopeless rage and exasperation building up inside him for countless cycles erupted from within. His howl turned to a sobbing breakdown as he just couldn't take his situation anymore.

"God help me. Please," he groaned to the darkness. He felt her soft warm hand on his shoulder. He was too tired and spent to retreat from her touch.

"Talk to me, Don," she spoke softly. "Tell me your torment."

He slowly stood and returned to the edge of the bed keeping some distance from Alma. He hung his head and exhaled. He then looked at her with reddened eyes. "If I do as you ask, this turn of the wheel will end. This is where you usually kill me… Eva."

If she felt any shock or surprise at his use of her real name, it registered nowhere on her person. "You know my name." It was not a question. "How can this be?"

"This isn't our first time here. I've lived all this before. I'm trapped in a repeating loop of time. I've known your true nature from the beginning and I'm just trying to find a way through this."

"Your nightmare?"

"You put it in my head on the steps in your house in Milburn. Congratulations on successfully traumatizing my sanity." His head hung forward again.

Alma slid over next to him on the bed. She put her arm around his shoulders and rested her head on him. Don continued. "All these times pretending to fall in love with you. Love, like the first time I lived these months. I just can't believe I let it happen again."

She kept her embrace on him and affectionately squeezed. "I'm not going to kill you, Don. Nor will I bring your nightmare to life." She spoke with a tenderness that made Don question if her affection for him was really an act.

"I really don't understand you, Alma, or Eva, whichever you want to be called," Don released as he reached his arm around her waist returning her embrace. "You almost make me believe you might not hate me as much as I thought."

Alma gave him a peck on the cheek. "I remain a woman, Don. Am I not supposed to be a mystery?" She squeezed again and said, "Come, let's lie back down to sleep."

"Do ghosts sleep, Alma?"

"Yes. Ghosts do sleep."

Despite his anxiety regarding what the morning may bring, Don finally drifted off to a mercifully dreamless slumber. He awoke in the morning alone to a house completely empty of any possession or trace of Alma Mobley's existence.

Later that afternoon, Don sat at his kitchen table sipping a cup of coffee. He rolled his condition over and over in his mind. One, he was passionately in love with a ghost that hated him, his father, and his father's friends. Two, he was apparently doomed to live and relive this period of time forever unless he could appraise and resolve the how's and why's of it all. He was reliving… they were reliving…

Then it hit him like a thunderbolt. He wasn't the only one held captive in this repetitive time- he was just the only one aware of it! Eva was a prisoner, too. He thought back to his first death. She had said she was not at rest. No peace despite the proper burial and public revelation of the wrong done to her.

"That's it. She's a prisoner of her own condition. The very anger, rage, and hate that drive her also confine her to this plane." He silently pondered as he stood and paced the room. Maybe our destinies are connected. If I can help free her from her prison, maybe I can find a key to mine. The bars of her cell, though, are forged from well justified outrage and hostility.

He slumped back down into the kitchen chair. The sheer mass of his task loomed before him like an impenetrable mountain. The key to their freedom became clear but may as well have remained far away and unknowable for its impossibility. The key is forgiveness.

Chapter Five: The Extent of the Gauntlet

Don and Alma walked onto the porch of the beach house in Florida holding hands after their stroll by the shore. Don estimated this to be the hundredth time he'd taken this trip with her or, at least, it felt like it. She'd feel the same but she was aware only of the current circuit of the loop. Their usual first meeting and ensuing relationship had proceeded to this point in its normal fashion.

Alma sat down in one of the two patio chairs separated by a small round table. Don turned and gazed out at the empty waterfront to the vast open ocean beyond it. He returned his scrutiny to his alluring fiancé as she smiled at him from underneath a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses. He then hit the "on" button of the radio set upon the table. Out of the diminutive box strummed the guitar melody of a somber Gordon Lightfoot ballad.

"A song about ghosts?" Alma asked as Don settled into the other seat. She leaned her head back taking in the morning sun.

"Heh, no," he answered. "Maybe the ghost of a dead marriage. It's about his divorce."

"Provocative. Tell me, Don," she changed the subject, "when will we visit your hometown? To show-off your newly betrothed love?"

"Oh, soon enough," he lied knowing her true motive venturing to Milburn. Don braced himself to broach the subject he recognized she would not react to pleasantly. He has died before by her hands but this time had the potential to become far more severe, far more excruciating than any previous demise. He inclined a bit rubbing the back of his neck.

"Uh, Alma, there is something important I need to put forward to you."

"Are you breaking our engagement?" she interrupted. "Do you still love me?"

"Of course I do. Always," he answered thinking, I've never heard you say it, though. "Every time we meet, I love you more than the time before. That's not the problem."

"That's good," she returned to feeling the sun's rays. "But what problem would that be?"

Here we go, he resolved and turned to face her directly. "I know that 'Alma Mobley' doesn't exist. I've known before we met." He reached to touch her hand, and felt her tense at his touch. She allowed him to hold her hand, however. "I can hold your hand. I can hold your wonderful body. I feel you solid, smooth, and with a gentle warmth the how of which I don't understand."

She pulled her hand away and stared back at him. He continued. "You are a ghost, Alma. I've come to learn a kind called a 'revenant.' You are the ghost of Eva Galli."

"Why are you saying this to me now? Saying you love me, you've been playing me for a fool!" She angrily moved to stand but Don spoke before she could.

"It may not make any sense, Alma, to you or me," he said gently, "but you orchestrating my falling for you then our engagement has worked. I love you, anyway." Alma stood and Don quickly followed suit. "I also realize me revealing this to you has put my life in jeopardy, but before you react, I need to tell you the whole story."

Her ire had not been quenched but Alma continued to listen. "How do you know this?"

"I've lived this before," he inhaled to get it all out, "many times over what must be decades all added up." He held out his hands palms upward. "I'm physically thirty years old but I've really lived twice that."

Alma studied him. "We've been here before? Had this conversation before?"

"No to that second question. This one's a first. I'm trapped in an ever-repeating loop in time. From the day we first meet to the day of your- Eva's- funeral." He looked at her fixedly. "You've killed me. Many times in many ways."

Her eyes narrowed as she processed his story and contemplated her designs. "Have I?" She removed her hat and sunglasses.

"I've seen you covered in my blood. I awake in my apartment on the same morning after every death. The fact, though, Alma," he took a step toward her, "is I'm not alone in this trap. We are both ensnared in our own cages. Mine is this loop. Yours you have made yourself."
"No, Don Wanderley. I am free. Free to pursue the justice your father and his friends have thus far escaped. In my freedom will be my revenge."

"What you call 'freedom' is the very thing that holds you fast. Your revenge will not let you go, Eva. You must let your mission go if you ever want peace and rest."

"Tread cautiously here, Don." Her mood and manner turned decidedly dark. "Choose carefully the next words you speak."

He faced her without confrontation. Placing his hands on her shoulders he pleaded, "Remember how I love you, Eva. Hurting you in any way is the last thing I'd ever want to do. As justified as your anger and rage are, they are causing you more damage than you know. You have to let them go for your own sake, not theirs."

Eva grabbed his right forearm from her shoulder sending blazing pain through that side of his body. Her eyes flared severely and she squeezed. Both his ulna and radius bones crushed, Don collapsed instantly in agony holding his ruined arm with his left hand. Fury flashed from her face and resonated in her voice.

"Nowhere will they hide from me. I will chase them down no matter where I find them," she seethed, "and I will see the life run out of them. Out of all of you." She placed both of her hands on the sides of Don's head and pressed them together like a vise. Don screamed as his skull cracked audibly under the increasing strain. Blood sprayed from every aperture in his head. Shards of bone and cartilage were exposed from his pulverized cranium. His body went slack and fell from her hands.

Ferocity coursed through her being as Don Wanderley died before her. She fell to her knees next to his corpse and erupted in tears and pain. Half a moment of confusion then she wailed in lamentation from all she had endured both in life and in death. Then she placed a hand upon her chest in reaction to an unexpected twinge in a heart long ago destroyed.

After having awakened in his apartment and dazedly gotten out of bed, Don Wanderley stood under the severe cascade of the shower. Hands on the wall, Don leaned forward allowing the water to assail the back of his head. Incapacitated by hopelessness, he poised immobile for a good twenty minutes.

The woman he loved had murdered him again and in such a manner that had truly devastated him. Trying to convince Eva to forgive the men responsible for her death was an impassable quagmire. They may have intended no demise but they had left her spirit awake and aware in an intemperate crypt submerged in saturate darkness. For fifty years she languished there.

He forced himself to halt the water. "I can put the key in her hand," Don said aloud, "but I can't make her turn it." He looked up at the ceiling allowing water from his hair to stream over his eyes. "I love you, Eva but I just don't know what to do."

Don had dressed and driven to the university. Alma had passed him in the hall with her "Mr. Wanderley…" but, this time, he gave her no reaction. He continued on to his History of American Literature lecture on D.H. Lawrence. He gave an adequate effort but his students could see he was clearly shaken by something.

After the class had vacated the room, Don sat at his desk staring sullenly at the empty seats. He hadn't even gotten the word out and she had brutally ended his life. Heh, he thought darkly, forgiveness- the new f-word. Don sighed resigned to the likelihood that this was going to be a one day wonder of a circuit through the time-loop. He stood to start the march down to the Dean's office. He knew if he didn't, she'd come find him.

Ten minutes later, he was situated inside the office door, but hesitant to approach her. She discerned him there, and fixed her eyes upon him. Their silent scrutiny persisted for some seconds threatening to reach half a minute. Alma brought the pause to an end.

"May I help you, Mr. Wanderley?" She inclined her head slightly to spy in his eyes what should have been an impossibility. "You know who I am," she expressed bluntly.

Don stepped forward then gazed downwards and ran his fingers through his hair. He inhaled sharply then exhaled with deliberation. "I am very tired, Alma. Exhausted," he finally voiced.

He approached around her desk, pulled a chair up next to her, and sat down. Don set his weary eyes on her and said "Yes. I know. I know Alma Mobley and I know Eva Galli. I know my father and the Chowder Society." He rubbed his hand over and down his face. "I know whenever I reveal myself this early, I tend to die this early. That's a lovely shade of violence in your eyes, by the way."

The Dean's revenant secretary softened her features and replied, "Have dinner with me this evening, Mr. Wanderley. We'll discuss matters then."

"And you offer me the invitation, this time. How novel," he deadpanned. "There's no escaping you, Alma. I learned that long ago. So, here's a little preview of tonight's 'matters'."

Giving her no warning, Don angled in and kissed her. He then added to the bewildered Alma, "I already genuinely love you, Eva, so there's no need for any Machiavellian craft on your part."

Don returned to his feet and regarded her. "Forgiveness is the key to both our prisons and no amount of ferocity or raging at injustice will change that." His say concluded, Don left the office.

Alma continued to contemplate his words as her eyes narrowed glaring at the door her intended target had just vacated. Her glowering then diminished and her eyes focused on her hands tightly gripping the armrests of her chair. Her vision elevated as she developed a malevolent smile. "Tonight, Mr. Wanderley."

Later that evening, the pair stood soaking wet in Alma's living room regarding the weather outside. "Told you a rainstorm was coming," Don reflected with a soft laugh. He turned his face to behold Alma's beauty in the flashes of lightning. "But you wanted to play games with ice cream." He then reached his hand to brush some clinging strands of wet hair from Alma's face surprising her with a bold and forceful kiss. She leaned back slightly from Don's encroachment then met and matched his intensity. He abruptly ended the sensual almost bestial contact. He stepped back from her stripping his drenched shirt and dropping it to the floor.

As Alma observed Don quizzically, he raced up the stairs towards her bedroom. Pivoting to stare back down at her, the grinning man turned the ghost's words around on her as he unbuckled the belt of his still damp trousers. "If you want to make love to me, Eva, you'd better hurry."

Rolling with Don's attempted maneuvers, Alma materialized completely nude directly behind him. She then shoved the bewildered Don down on her bed. She concluded the removal of his clothes and climbed on top of him. "Now," she spoke into his mouth as she crushed her lips upon his, "keep saying my name." An infinitesimal moan escaped her as Alma positioned Don inside her.

"Eva. Eva," he haltingly breathed matching the quasi-succubus' blissful movements until, at last, her name erupted out of him. Alma's revenant body spasmed almost imperceptibly and she fell down on top of him. Her face rested on his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. Don gently kissed the top of Alma's hair.

Folding her leg over his while tightening her embrace, Alma nestled her face deeper into Don's chest. She kissed the spot just above his heart and breezily asserted, "So, at dinner, you were saying that we are actively engaging the same span of time repeatedly?"

Don lightly caressed Alma's breast then rested his hand on her abdomen. This elicited from her a warm breath and a smile. "With me the only one who remembers," he replied.

She elevated her head to peer into his eyes and challenge him. "Yet you lie with me still, knowing what you are touching?"

Unflinchingly, Don responded. "It is always a risk to be around you whenever you are aware of what I know." He sighed but did not shy away his gaze. "That is how deeply spellbound you have me, Eva. I have never been more vulnerable to whatever you wish to do to me as I am right now."

Alma ran her fingernail up the length of Don's chest over his throat to his carotid artery. "You feel no revulsion lying with me? No fear?"

"I refuse to believe in what you want me to fear. Your rotting body is 1500 miles away in the backseat of a submerged car not lying here next to me." Don immediately regretted his impulsive words as he felt Alma bristle.

"Do you mean this 'rotting body'?" she angrily demanded. Her entire frame turned slate grey and slickened with pondwater. Her jaw slacked wide open on her rapidly deteriorating face she brought upon his. An impossibly high-pitched wail assaulted his from within her bringing a searing pain to his ears that cupping hands could not alleviate. She held his head still as she brought her decaying lips to his own. From out of her mouth exploded gallons of putrid white pondwater into Don's throat and down his trachea to completely fill his lungs. The wasting corpse-form of the ghost of Eva Galli kept Don powerless and paralyzed as he drowned. When the last wisps of life had left the now deceased Don, the ghost of Eva Galli reverted to her fully young and animated self.

The naked and exquisite spirit stood next to the bed and inclined to tenderly kiss her victim's lifeless lips. She then wiped the residual pondwater from her mouth with the back of her hand. She gently stroked her fingertips down his face and mused, "Poor Don. Will you remember this?"

Don Wanderley awoke in his bed the morning of his first meeting with Alma Mobley. He thrust his face over the side of the bed hacking and coughing. Very shortly he realized he had no trouble breathing. He was not drowning and he grasped where and when he was. He angrily spat "Damn you, Eva!" at the ceiling. He turned and sat over the side of the bed and hung his head. "No," he caught himself. "Damn me." He quietly began to weep.

Chapter Six: The Penultimate Circuit

Once again, Don Wanderley had lost count of the number of cycles through the time-loop he had passed. He was growing numb to the advancing of the years. Despite the violence that tended to reset each cycle, Don felt himself falling ever deeper in love with its perpetrator. The torment of death at Alma's hands continued to be assuaged by the succor of her arms the following circuit.

The exhilaration that carried him as they lived and laughed and loved together encouraged his soul. The despair, however, weighed heavier with every post-demise awakening. No progress had been made to persuade Eva away from her all-consuming craving for vengeance. Through some cycles he took a break from even launching an attempt.

Don wanted to avoid a violent death this time around, so he decided to just enjoy being with the ghostly paramour for as long as it lasted. Their trip to the beach house had ended and they had returned to Alma's residence. It was at this moment that Don usually terminated the engagement.

Exiting the pouring rain, the pair entered her Florida home. "Do you remember the first night you were here? It was raining then." Don looked down then back at the door they had just passed through. He paused with a notion he had never before considered. He now questioned why the idea had never before occurred to him.

"What is it, Don?" Alma probed noticing his hesitation.

"Nothing… okay," he put on a wide smile and lobbed his arms around her waist. "I'll agree to our wedding being in Milburn as long as we still honeymoon in Crete."

Surprised at the moment she had always before become crestfallen, Alma radiated jubilance. "Oh, wonderful, Don!" she exclaimed completing their embrace and kissed him. The joy she exuded brought some light to Don's own heart. Alarm to what this would bring to Milburn shaded his mirth a trace.

Several weeks later, their plane had landed at JFK in New York. They rode a Greyhound bus the rest of the way to Milburn. At times during the trip, Don marveled at the idea he was riding a bus with a ghost. He turned to Alma and reflected on her being a revenant. He wanted to ask her how she appeared and felt so alive despite not having a physical body. Ah, the supernatural, he shrugged. He smiled and kissed her cheek as she stared out the window.

Hours later the bus arrived at the depot in Milburn. They then rented a car to drive into town. As on the bus, Alma stared out the passenger side window appearing to be in a trance. In a subdued voice she asked, "Have all the arrangements been made for our ceremony?"

"Yeah," Don answered, "despite the short notice. I guess Dad being the mayor has its advantages."

"And he and all his friends will be there?" Her voice rose a little in anticipation.

"Well, of course. He thinks it odd, though, that he's never met you." Although he certainly has, he thought and then placed his hand on hers.

"I'm sure I'll be worth the wait."

During the drive into town, they traveled past the old Galli house. The shuttered grey mansion stood foreboding. Fishing for a reaction, Don offered, "Hey, as kids, we all thought that house was haunted." He looked over at Alma, "It certainly is spooky. I suppose nearly every town has a house like it somewhere."

"A beautiful home in its day," she responded.

"Undoubtedly," he squeezed her hand and she squeezed back. "I love you, Alma Mobley. Are you ready to become Alma Wanderley?"

"I haven't given that much thought to be honest."

"You can keep your name. I like the sound of 'Alma Mobley' anyway."

Impulsively, Don pulled the car over and parked in front of the looming ruin once a house. He exited the vehicle and bid Alma to follow him. Taking her hand, he led her towards the house stopping halfway from the street. "My dad always told us to stay away from this house. He never said exactly why- beyond simple trespassing, of course." Don looked over at Alma to gauge her reaction to returning to what he knew was her house. She intertwined her arm with his but remained silent.

"Do you believe in ghosts, Alma?"

She looked at him as if taken aback by the question. She considered him now in a different light and wondered if he knew more than he let on. "To answer honestly, yes."

"Good," he smiled at her. "I have a brief story for you. When David and I were younger... eleven or twelve, we found ourselves over here on our bikes. He dared me, as kids do, to walk up to the "haunted house" and knock on the door. Scared and shaking, I managed to reach the door despite my uncooperative legs. I made a flurry of loud knocks and waited. Then, BOOM! I heard a loud thump inside the house. I could swear I heard what sounded like footsteps flying down a staircase. I flew back towards David like a bat out of hell. When we reached our bikes on the road, I dared a look back at the house. Time may have added doubt to the memory, but I believe I saw something. Maybe it was a trick of the light or shadows on the glass, but I think I saw the form of a woman looking out at me through that window. I couldn't make out any features and I took off and never looked back."

Alma clung to him tighter and asked "Did you tell anyone what you saw?"

"No. Not until right now." They stood there for a few beats holding each other before Don motioned them back to the car. He opened the door for her as Alma passed through onto the passenger seat. Don walked back around the front of the car to the driver's side door. Before getting in, he stole one more glance at the house. He knew, however, that he would see no apparition in any window, for he understood that the ghost he saw that day in his childhood was now sitting in the front seat of this car. "Well, let's get on to the hotel and get settled." They continued down the road.

She took his hand and placed it on her inner thigh as he drove. Though surprised, Don did not remove his hand. She held him there gazing directly at him until they reached the Archer Hotel.

Three days later, Alma stood alone in her wedding gown in an adjacent room of the town's main church. Don knocked on the closed door.

"Oh, Don, you cannot see me until the ceremony begins."

Don stood on his side of the door contemplating the image of Eva in her dress on the stairs of her dilapidated mansion. I have seen you already, Eva, he thought. So lovely… and so terrifying. He tried to steel himself for what his imagination was warning was to come. If it wasn't for the time-loop resetting later, he thought, I would be sharing responsibility for whatever happens. I could have prevented it.

An hour later, Don and Alma stood at the altar before the pastor. Behind them sat a packed congregation. The pastor spoke to Don. "Will you, Donald Wanderley, take this woman, Alma Mobley, to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold, to love and to protect, to honor and to cherish for so long as you both shall live?"

One of us, anyway, he paused before saying "I will." Before the pastor could continue, Don addressed his bride. "I sincerely hope this day ends in every way you have ever dreamed. I do not know if you intend for me to survive this or not. I do hope you can find an accord that brings you rest and tranquility." He ignored the shocked pastor. He then spoke softly so only she could hear. "It may not have been real for you, Eva, but it was all very real for me. I love you." He kissed her hand and then stepped back.

Alma was taken aback by Don's words and use of her true name. The lights in the sanctuary flickered wildly as a wind brewed inside the building. Paint on the wall rapidly aged and began to peel. Water first drizzled then cascaded down the walls as if they wept.

The assembled Chowder Society sat in the front row of pews and witnessed the bride of Edward's son turn to face them. The wind now howled as she approached. The bride moved to lift her veil revealing to them her identity. The beautiful ghost of Eva Galli and fifty years' worth of guilt and disgrace prevailed before them.

Edward Wanderley, John Jaffery, Sears James, and Ricky Hawthorne all screamed in unison. The windows of the church exploded inwards. More screams followed. Most of the wedding guests had fled. "Eva?" Edward managed to choke.

John Jaffery clutched his chest straining to say "No pulse… no pulse."

"Eva Galli," Sears James stated at the unimaginable sight. The church began to quake and the ceiling to convulse and sway. Ricky Hawthorne moved to cower by the nearest wall.

Edward kneeled to place two fingers on Jaffery's neck. "Gone," he disclosed as his friend had died of an apparent heart attack. At that moment, a beam ruptured from above, and plunged down upon the elder Wanderley. Edward expired as the beam had crushed his chest pinning him to the floor.

The tumbling beam had missed Sears James but its impact carried him back onto the pew. When he stood again, he slipped his footing on the wet floor. He fell driving a shard of stained glass window through his throat. The elderly attorney bled out on the church floor.

The ghost of Eva Galli stood resolute observing it all. Her face had taken on the appearance of mild decomposition. Her eyes wept black tears. The wind was dying as she turned to advance on her strangely calm groom. Ricky Hawthorne sat trembling in a chair against the wall seemingly forgotten.

The features of the ghost's face had regained their display of life as she stood in front of Don. He studied the cause of all this death and destruction around them with only concern and affection in his eyes. She seemed to reflect the same interest but experience gave a different account.

"It is time for you to join me now, Don." Her intent became imminent in the act of raising her hands to him. "Join me in the dead and the wet and the cold." The ghost of Eva Galli draped her arms around him. The embrace startled him but there was no violence in the act. She kissed him then brought her right hand back around to his front. The hand had returned to the withered and blackened appendage she had grazed across his face so long ago. She placed it directly over his heart. Don was frozen in place.

"Every time you kill me, Eva, you just send me back to you."

"I will take you places you have never been. I will show you things you have never seen. And I will-"

"Yeah, I've heard this song before." Don stepped back from her with some exasperation. "What is it going to take, Eva? What do I have to do? What do I have to show you?"

"I do not understand." A little angry at having been interrupted, she took a step to follow his retreat. "I am free now. I have taken my revenge."

"You are not free. You will never be set free until you... can... let go..." Don heard his own words unearthing a memory. "'...As long as I'm a ghost you can't see.' Could that be it?" An idea formed and raced through his mind. Decisively, Don stepped back up to Eva's ghost and grasped her deadened hand. "You've killed me so many times, maybe I've become the ghost you can't see. I've got to make you see me, Eva. I think I may have an idea how."

"You will not distract me from bringing you with me, Don."

"I have to reset the circuit one more time." Don replaced her dead hand onto his chest and continued. "So you can take my heart, Eva. It belongs to you, anyway. It always will."

A sprayed mist of blood burst from Don's mouth spattering sanguine color onto Eva's face and neck. Her hand, dripping crimson, protruded from Don's back. He managed to brush her cheek as she retracted her scarlet arm out of his chest cavity. Don was dead before he hit the floor.

The ghost of Eva Galli held still upon the altar of her betrothed's hometown church an angelic image of silvery white. The image was blemished, however, by the rose shade that crossed her mouth and painted her right arm. She surveyed the fallen form of her groom. Her inspection then rested on the wet mass in her hand dripping spots of red on the floor.

Black tears fell once again as she held the torn organ of her tormentor's son. Her revenge had been decisively accomplished beyond all doubt or dispute. Her long anticipated triumph did not bring the reaction in her she had expected. Not understanding what exactly she was feeling from within, the ghost of Eva Galli lifted her face toward the ceiling and screamed heavenward. She wept for her lost life and future and anguished over her death and the void in her being she could not name. She looked down again upon Don's lifeless body lying in a vermilion pool. Her grand achievement abruptly felt empty. She remained an unknowing prisoner of unseen chains tethered to this world.

Don Wanderley awoke in his apartment the morning of his first encounter with Alma Mobley. He sat up and sighed heavily clutching his chest. He pondered on a coming day in which the accumulated trauma of all this pain and death must be dealt with and unburdened. He sat with his face in his hands.

She was in distress, too, but if his conjecture was right, she would soon be free. If he was right, this would be the last circuit.

Chapter Seven: The Lock and the Key

Don and Alma walked along the beach in the afternoon grasping each other's hands. The warm Florida sun shone down on them while the Atlantic Ocean lapped at their feet. He stopped his stride breaking their hold to turn toward Alma. He smiled at her long auburn hair moving in the breeze. He pulled her to him in a tight embrace.

"Oh, I like this," she said.

"Very underrated," he replied. "Sex after a rainstorm certainly has its appeal but just holding you in my arms, pressed up against me, there's really nothing like it."

Alma constricted their hold slightly then, grinning wickedly, shoved him away. She spun around laughing and raced towards the beach house. Don returned the laugh playfully giving chase. He caught her just as she reached the front door. Stumbling in, Alma avidly kissed him spinning them into the couch. She threw Don down then climbed on top to straddle him.

Alma unfastened her light blouse down to the last button. Her chest exposed, she arched forward to resume her kiss. "Now, Don, we're going to determine which of the two is the more 'appealing'," she purred.

"I'm sure much research will be required," he spoke through her lips.

"Considerable." The two lovers exchanged passions and appetites until the sun descended into the sea.

Lying with his hands clasped behind his head, Don listened to Alma's breathing as she slept. Midnight had passed an hour ago while he pondered the "physics" of a ghost inhaling and exhaling. He touched her shoulder and found her to be as soft and warm as he expected. Tomorrow is the night, he thought to himself, when her trance happens.

In the early morning hours before sunrise, Don will awaken to find Alma in the front room, nude, staring out the window. This was common to every cycle of the loop that reached this far. She will then say the phrases he can now recite: "I will take you places you have never been. I will show you things you have never seen and I will see the life run out of you." Returning to bed, she had become unnaturally cold to the touch. That would be the beginning to the "wrongness" of Alma's being that lead eventually to the breaking of the engagement.

"That," Don muttered into the night, "is not what a guy wants to hear from his fiancé." He looked over at her but she had not stirred. Since this current circuit had begun, Don tried to decide when best to attempt his theory. He couldn't banish the vision of Eva in her wedding dress on the stairs in Milburn.

It would be there, he determined, where he first withstood the post-Alma ghost of Eva Galli. Don weighed all the necessary changes to the original composition of that evening. He wanted to enter her house alone, without Misters James and Hawthorne. He would do what he could to play his role as best he could remember.

Months later, Don stood in Milburn's cold and snow before the Galli House. He had convinced Sears James and Ricky Hawthorne to postpone their planned gathering at this place to the next day. He mentioned the imminent threat of Greg and Fenny Bate as his reasoning.

The truth was the Bates currently sat in a cell in Sheriff Hardesty's jail. Don knew they were going to break into his Dad's house to frighten and intimidate him so he set a trap for them. This time, the Sheriff was ready and now, they were safely out of the way.

He placed his hand on the unlocked doorknob and inhaled a deep breath. He opened the door, and took the plunge inside. He absorbed the sights and atmosphere of the unsettling and eerie interior. He walked across the creaking floorboards to the base of the stairs. He observed the point against the wall where he once waited with a broken leg. It was there he had first endured the horror of the apparition in white descending the stairway. It was also there she had asked the question that had haunted so much of his life since. It was there, too, that she had first assaulted his senses with her decomposed face of death.

Setting one hand on the banister and one foot on the step, Don prepared to ascend to the second floor. To avoid breaking through the decrepit stairs and suffering his previous injury, he would stay on the inner portion of the steps. He commenced the climb.

On the second level of the aged and wasted mansion, down the hall as the rat scurries, a soft green phosphorescence flared then faded under the third door. Next to a plain, dusty mattress left doubtlessly by some past squatters, the ghost of Eva Galli stood resplendent in the dress intended for her nuptials with a Wanderley.

She sensed Don's presence before he entered the house. She was expecting to sense three mortal personalities pass through the entrance but Don was alone. She glided to the room's aperture intending to approach him on the stairs while he remained on the ground floor. Stepping into the hallway, she primed to pivot toward the staircase.

"Eva Galli."

The ghost arced her vision down the corridor regarding the unexpected voice. Poised at the end of the crumbling grey hallway, adjacent to the crest of the staircase, was Don Wanderley. He stood inspecting her spectral form devoid of anything resembling fear. With a slight tilt of her head, the ghost of Eva Galli bodily turned to face him.

"They told you my name," she said taking a step forward. She wore an enigmatic smile as she clasped her fingers before her.

"They told me everything."

"Everything." The smile faded and her hands fell to her sides. They observed each other from opposite ends of the corridor. Long seconds ticked by. Don broke the expanding silence.

"I love you, Eva."

The ghost, genuinely astonished at his statement, did not allow her face to display any reaction. "Really, Don?" A now sardonic smile returned to her with a taunting bite. "Have you been longing for me?"

Don ignored her question, and moved forward. He did not walk swiftly, but stepped with a respectful measure. His words began circumspect as he did not want to upset her. "It took a while, with my thick skull, but I think I figured it out. Why your hate makes it so easy to kill me- and David- though we did nothing to you."

"You believe I hate you?"

"Not me the person or the man. You hate the fact I exist." He was halfway to her. "How dare Edward Wanderley move on with his life after what he'd done? How dare he meet and marry a woman after putting you in the lake?" His voice was rising. "How dare he have children when you were barely past childhood yourself when you drowned? How dare he live on as if nothing happened while you were left in the dead and the wet and the cold?" He had reached her, now. "How dare he!"

Those beautiful eyes blazed enmity at him out of a visage of stone. Don's exclamation echoed into silence. He opened his palms and bent his head in supplication. "I am so sorry for what my father did to you. You have every right to what drives you. You are utterly justified in your anger and rage."

"And what do you know of my rage?" Eva spoke in a tone that frightened him.

"I've experienced it. You've poured it out on me many times."

She stared at him. "What could you possibly mean by that?"

Don smiled faintly. "There's much to explain but, first, you asked me an earlier question. Please remain as you are while I give my answer." He reached tentatively to lift her veil. When no ghastly sight of wasting dead flesh greeted him, he leaned into her. Both arms wrapped around her waist as he pulled her into him. His lips met hers and he kissed her with all the tenderness and gentle affection he could manage.

The ghost of Eva Galli stood still allowing Don to finish his "answer." Almost reluctantly, Don ceased the contact and lightly set his forehead upon hers.

"Serious question or not," he softly breathed, "I have been 'longing' for you every moment of every day since you vanished from my life as 'Alma Mobley'."

"So you do…" Eva trailed off as Don nodded.

"You intended to seduce me into falling in love with you for revenge sake. Congratulations. You succeeded. Twice."

The ghost of Eva Galli regarded him as she internally debated. She then addressed him in a fashion as their first encounter in her house. "Do you want to make love to me?" Was it with the same mocking intent this time?

"Of course, I do. I just can't completely trust you at the moment."

"Indeed? Even knowing what you touched?" She extended forward her hand transformed to one as a blackened and shriveled corpse.

A child's test, he mused, as his actions had already answered. He took both her cadaver hand and her warm, full hand and clutched them together to his chest. He kissed the warm appendage and said, "That challenge has been settled, Eva. I touched you, not decay. I made love to you, not putresce." Both of her hands resembled life again.

The ghost of Eva Galli lowered her face, but kept her eyes fixed on Don. "My intention and sole objective is avenging myself against my tormentors. Your father murdered me. Your 'love' means nothing to me." She straightened her entire frame and advanced menacingly on him. Don retreated several paces. "There remains surviving members of the Chowder Society. Perhaps I'll save you for last." She then turned, and headed for the staircase.

"Eva, wait," he pleaded following her. "That won't help you. You'll still be held here. Trapped here." He caught her arm. She stopped but did not turn around. "That same vengefulness that you've made your entire being will, in the end, damage you more than those men already have."

"It is all they have left me with."

"I'm not begging you for their lives or for mine. I am begging you for yours. Please listen to me."

With her back remaining towards him, Eva turned the side of her face to Don. "You ask for what I cannot give. All they will get from me is what they deserve."

Don moved to the front of the ghost and faced her. "All these years I have been imprisoned in this damn repeating circle of time. I thought I had tried everything to reach you. Given everything. I even took us all the way to our wedding hoping that giving you the full revenge you craved would somehow free you. As I feared, it didn't."

"What is this you are offering, Don?"

"They destroyed your heart, so take mine. They shredded your soul- I give you mine. You're a ghost, Eva. Possess me. No resistance. My body, my mind, my heart, and my soul I freely give to you." Don embraced her once more, almost willing her to ethereally enter him.

"Everything that you are." The offer confounded Eva. "It might not be undone. You may cease to exist. Forever."

Don placed his hands on the sides of her face, his eyes welling up again. "If it will bring an end to your purgatory, do whatever you need to do." He closed his eyes and Eva shaped their embrace into a literal merging. She disappeared entirely into him. An outside observer would be left with the sight of a singular man, alone, standing in the grey ruined corridor. His head limply tilted and his eyes colorless. All time slowly diminished to the cold stasis of the house silence.

Chapter Eight: A Mile in My Shoes

Eva Galli opened her eyes to find herself outside in the winter cold, standing before a casket. The dark mahogany coffin, highly polished to a gleam, was poised to be lowered into a fresh grave. A familiar voice spoke from the opposite side. The voice belonged to the elderly Ricky Hawthorne. He was talking about her and how her life was tragically cut short. He was revealing everything about his and his friends' actions that night fifty years ago. He was publicly confessing. After the service, Ricky accompanied the Sheriff down to the station for further questions.

A variety of people from the rather large crowd, attending what turned out to be her own funeral approached her. They approached her unafraid as if she were not the ghost of who they just buried. They offered condolences for the passing of "his" brother and then father days later.

Abruptly, she was standing in front of a mirror with a toothbrush in her mouth. She perceived in the mirror a reflection that was not her own. "Don?" her reflection mouthed back at her. She left the washroom and entered a bedroom. She looked down seeing Don's body instead of her own. She laid down and was immediately accosted by… herself. A second Eva Galli moved atop her and brandished razor-like talons.

She felt her chest slice open and then the blazing agony in her eyes. Knowing death and its grip, she recognized it for what it was.

She then awakened in a warmer climate. She felt her movements predetermined as if she were merely acting out a life already lived. Don's. She was experiencing the life of her killer's son. Every one of his thoughts, words, and deeds she was observing and, at the same time, participating in them. She was feeling his emotions, as well.

She felt his confusion in what was happening to him. Repeating time? She felt his terror at discovering Alma Mobley at the university. She felt his resolve melt away and his trepidation grow with proximity to her presence. She felt his reason and rationality become eclipsed by his craving to give in to Alma's seduction. She felt the war within him as he made love to her. She also felt the peculiar sensation of recognizing and comprehending both perspectives of the sexual coupling at the same time.

Her memories of her own experiences during these time-loops became open to her. Just as she experienced the sexual acts from both their views, she now perceived his murder by her through them both. She ripped his throat out by her teeth and felt his throat being ripped out by her teeth. She felt his agony and death as she caused his agony and death.

As the still slumping form of Don Wanderley, bereft of his faculties and spirit, stood immobile on the second floor of the crumbling Galli House, Eva was lost in time. The fifty years' worth of accumulated time that Don had lived she was now reliving, as well as her lives in the loops. Every one of the deaths he died, she died. Every one of them- every impalement, every bisection, and every decapitation- she caused.

She felt his fear drive him to impersonate a loving fiancé for safety's sake. She felt a new kind of fear the day it dawned on him that it was no longer an impersonation. When she felt true love swell in Don, she felt it stir in her as well. It had been an eternity since she had felt anything beyond darkness, much less love itself.

The heart Don had given her was resurrecting her own. The shattered and torn remnants began to stitch themselves back together. The shadows that dominated her core essence were retreating from the flickering of a long-extinguished dawn.

She felt his love for her deepen with every cycle. She felt his exhilaration at discovering the key to ending his prison of time. She felt his spirit fall at the implication that to free her required the impossible- forgiveness. She felt the waning and the waxing of his resolve and his despair. She felt the anguish of death wake to the elation of meeting Alma again.

She felt his fragile hope in approaching her about letting go of her rage and hate. She felt his fear of her reaction and the violence that followed. She felt his love drive him forward through the failures. Through it all he loved her and she felt his joys and sorrows.

Cycles became years. Years became decades. For half a century she bathed in his devoted affection and in his blood. She could feel her emotions and attractions mirroring Don's. She fought a losing battle to deny the affinity for her enemy's son blossoming in her resurrected heart. Then came the wedding.

His beloved passion for her had led him to acquiesce to her full plan for revenge. He had stood at the altar and had given her all she wanted, come what may. What came was his chest impaled upon her arm with his torn and bloody heart in her hand. Her own, newly beating once again, broke at the sight of his hand caressing her cheek as he fell to her feet.

She remembered now her perspective of the episode. She had wept as though her spirit were not as dead as her body. It would seem that even without memory, living these cycles was influencing her. She froze incredulous as Don had in the bathtub. She loved this man. It couldn't be, yet, it was.

She wept again as she looked down at her hand. A vision of the red-splattered heart of the man she loved dripped within it. She fell to her knees and grieved.

Down, down in the depths of the yawning emptiness that remained of Don Wanderley's mind, smoldered a stubborn spark. Within that spark slept a man weary of so much violence and wretchedness. Elated laughter and delight threatened to rouse him from his slumber. Then in his sleep, he saw Eva cease laughing and begin crying. His eyes blinked open.

Don Wanderley awoke to a panicked confusion. He had no idea where he was. It was dark and cold and… wet. His legs were submerged in rushing water. Looking around, his vision became accustomed to his surroundings. He was in the backseat of a car- a very old-styled automobile.

The car was in the water of some lake and sinking fast. He turned to look out the back window into the darkness of night. He saw four figures outside with one also in the water. He pounded on the glass shouting for help. One of the figures shone a flashlight in his face. The water rapidly rose to his neck and the car fully slipped beneath the surface.

Don drew in as much dwindling air as he could before being completely enveloped by the cold wet darkness. He felt the impact of the car hit the bottom of the lake. His lungs burned until he could no longer resist them exhaling. He went into shock as his lungs filled with water and he drowned. This was a terrible death filled with panic and duress.

Oddly to Don, this death wasn't ending. He wasn't waking up in his bed the morning of his first meeting with Alma Mobley. He stayed underwater in the car at the bottom of Dedham Pond. His body was dead yet he remained conscious awake and aware. Aware of nothing but cold and deep unfathomable darkness.

Here in this state he would stay through winters to springs to summers to autumns back to winters. He only thought he had ever known hopelessness and despair. He had known nothing. The sheer desolation that had become his existence rained wretched alienation down upon him. It stormed despondent misery. The storm buffeted on and on until he became the storm.

All that he had known, all that he had felt, all that he ever was or would be had been stripped down to the bare bones of persistence. That was accompanied by an unrelenting drumbeat sounding to war against those responsible. Anger, rage, hate, and an incessant thirst for vengeance festered uninterrupted for the next fifty years.

Milburn, Vermont in the year nineteen seventy-nine continued in its winter of only twice in a century intensity. On the second floor of the old shambling Galli House, stood a man accommodating two souls converged into one. He held upright and motionless transfixed for a total of three minutes. A moan emanated from his mouth as the merging of the souls came to an end.

The man's body fell to the ground in a splash of cold grey water. His collapse left a beautiful woman in a white wedding dress to occupy the space. The ghost of Eva Galli blinked recognition into her environment understanding the endless repetitions of time were over. She had returned to where she began. She had returned and had been changed. She then noticed the inert drenched form at her feet.

Don Wanderley lay in a pool of water on a splintered wooden floor. His skin was grey and his eyes sunken and sable. Soaking wet, he coughed up more water. He looked not unlike the apparition Eva employed to send Edward over the bridge railing.

The ghost observed Don with a concern she did not and could not feel only minutes ago. Her resuscitated heart drove her to lovingly inspect his condition. She gazed upon the man, who she now loved, yet entreated in a neutral expression.

"Now do you understand, Don, what it is you have asked of me? Could you offer them forgiveness?"

The sopping grey form of Don Wanderley stirred. His coughing had trailed off and he gathered his arms and strength beneath him. He lifted himself to his hands and knees. With a voice sounding wholly inhuman, the pitiable, stricken man replied with every word slow and drawn. "Impossible. No… forgiveness. Only suffering… and death. Vengeance…"

He brought his face up toward the direction of her voice. Upon seeing Eva, the black pools that were once his eyes lightened with a shade of life. His voice regained a semblance of humanity.

"Eva… to see you at last set free, finally at peace, I would do anything." His meager strength drained, his head fell back down. "Even the impossible. Yes… I forgive them." Don then promptly vomited slimy grey water onto the floor before him.

Her new emotional state overwhelmed, the ghost of Eva Galli bent down to her knees to cup her beloved's face in her hands. At the points of contact, Don's skin began to return to its natural pallor. The ghost of Eva Galli closed her eyes summoning all the spiritual strength she could from within her. Opening her eyes, she prepared to relieve herself of the tremendous weighted burden she had been carrying ever since she drew her final breath. She cast her focus back down towards Don. "For you, then, I, too, forgive them."

The very instant the words passed her lips, the two figures were enveloped by a bluish-white electrical energy field emanating from within them. The intense blazing rays of light, crackling with rolls of lightning, expanded to fill the entire corridor. After a few moments of total radiance, the brilliant aurora retracted back onto and into both figures. When the last of the light effect had faded, the scene revealed an incomprehensible reconstruction of their environment.

Eva slowly focused her vision on the world around her. She was half-naked lying in a bed. Sitting next to her over the side of the bed was the stunned and silent person of the young Edward Wanderley. His bedroom was the space they occupied. It was the spring of 1929.

Chapter Nine: At Last, Set Free

Eva Galli threw off the covers and dressed herself in the clothes she had draped across a chair so long ago. Standing on the side of the bed opposite the still silent Ned, Eva felt an all-out assault on her senses. All her physical properties roared to life following eons of dormancy. The sound of her heart beating in her chest thundered in her ears. The actual tangible organ pumped blood throughout her body.

Her body! She looked down at her chest and abdomen. She marveled at her hands and arms. She gaped in astonishment at the sight. Living flesh and bone and tissue made up her being. She was alive! She inhaled deeply a lungful of air. Sweet air. She breathed in. She breathed out. She shout out with joy.

Eva ran to the window next to the sitting Ned. She peered her face out to meet the new sunrise. She closed her eyes and beamed feeling the warmth of the sun's rays on her skin. These were sensations she had not truly felt in so very long a time. Tears flowed but they were not of sorrow.

She put her hands upon herself starting at her legs. She took in the tactile impression of her solid flesh and blood anatomy. Her hands surveyed higher over her hips, her stomach, her breasts, her neck, her face, and her fingers ran through her hair. No longer a phantom, she simultaneously laughed and cried.

Eva turned to study Ned. This was the morning of their attempted dalliance. Ned's body had betrayed him that night. The apparent wound to his character and pride ignited a chain of events that culminated in her doom. She opened her mouth to address him but he had moved.

Ned Wanderley stood on the other end of the room before a large dresser. He was examining his hands and body in the small mirror on the dresser's top surface. He wore only the undergarments of the period. He touched his face and ran a finger over his moustache. She heard him speak a single word. "Dad?"

Eva tentatively approached him. "Ned? Edward?"

The man rounded to meet the voice, and answered "Eva?" He immediately recognized the difference in her. "Am I hallucinating?" He looked around the room noticing the open window. "Where the hell am I?"

"Is that you, Don?" She touched his arm. In the mirror, she discerned both their faces. The singing of nearby voices rose from the grounds outside.

"What is that godawful noise?" Don asked using his father's voice.

Eva ran to the window having remembered this moment. "Ricky! John and Sears! Could you boys come back later? Ned and I are conversing and have a matter to settle." She waved at them.

"Uh, sure thing, Miss Galli," a young Ricky Hawthorne replied.

"We'll meet for a nice breakfast at seven o'clock, boys," Eva smiled. "Goodbye!" She rotated back inside the room to find the figure of Ned staring at her.

"You're alive, aren't you? Not a revenant but truly flesh-and-blood alive. While I'm apparently occupying my father's body." Don sat back down on the end of the bed. "Have I lost my mind or are we living an H.G. Wells novel? I don't want to meet any morlocks."

Eva stood before him. "It's 1929, Don, and neither of us is dreaming."

Don put his face in his hands. "I remember… cold… the dark." He looked up at her. "I remember you."

"I spoke words I never believed I ever could, then a blinding light with… arcs of…?"

"Lightning? Electric current? I don't understand."

She sat down next to him. "It appears, I think, that your consciousness has accompanied my spirit back in time. How? I do not know."

"Well, I never knew the source or reasoning behind the time-loops. I guess I just chalked it up to God or the supernatural or whatever. Ghosts turned out to be real, so, why not?"

"Is there a 'reasoning' behind all this?" Eva placed her hand on his.

Don looked at the contact and then back to her as if seeing her for the first time. "Eva! You did it!" He hugged her hard and laughed. "You turned the key. You set us free."

"Oh, Don, you saved me. You loved me and wouldn't let me go."

"All I could do was give you the chance. Only you could make the choice."

Shock hit Eva. "I remember everything! Enveloped by the soul you'd given me, I lived your life through all the cycles. I relived all of mine. Oh, my…" Horror dawned on her face and tears fell almost immediately. "All that I did to you! I- I- killed," her mouth opened as to cry out.

"Eva, no. Don't do that to yourself." He placed his hands on her shoulders. He desperately wanted to comfort her.

"All those things I did to you," she cried. "I crushed your head! I held your heart in my hand. I drowned you right there in my bed."

"Eva, please. Listen to me," he pleaded.

"I can still taste your blood on my lips," she wept.

Don became emotional, as well. "Oh, Eva, listen to me." He took her hands and brought them to his lips. "All of it, Eva," he kissed them. "ALL of it- forgiven before the first drop of blood hit the floor. Remember I told you once, every time you killed me, you just sent me back to you. The pain wasn't fun but the end result was worth it."

She sob-laughed at that last line. "How could I possibly ever atone? What could I ever say? What could I ever do?"

Don wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in close. Then he positioned the side of his face towards her mouth and tapped his ear. "Just place your lips right here and whisper the words I've waited so long to hear."

"I love you," she spoke so softly. "I love you. I love you!" She threw her arms around him kissing him as they both fell down upon the bed. They rolled around on top of each other all over the mattress. Eva ended up on top, pulled her blouse up over her head, and dropped it to the floor. She dove back down to resume kissing him. Her hands worked to undress him. Naked, they melded into each other's embrace. Together, they made love for the first time as two living people.

Some time later, downstairs at Ned's kitchen table, the pair smiled at each other as they sipped coffee. Glowing, Eva spoke first. "Well, that ended differently than before."

"Yeah, when Mr. James and Ricky told me the whole story, it seems Dad came clean about what really happened. His bragging was all bullshit," he took another sip. "Ah, Dad, I love ya, but… damn."

"Well, you exist, Don, so, obviously, he wasn't completely impotent."

"It happens. Nervousness. Anxiety. Pressure. Our bodies aren't always our friends." Don chuckled, "I tell you, Eva, sometimes when we want it to work, it abandons us and when we want it to keep a low profile, it announces itself to the world."

"I tried to tell your father that. I certainly didn't condemn or belittle him about it."

"I'm no psychologist, but maybe it was a subconscious realization that he wasn't worthy of you."

"That's funny coming from his own mouth," she smiled over her cup.

"Ha. I forgot you're seeing his face when you look at me." Don shook his head and smiled at Eva. "This is all so incredible I've scarcely taken the time to take it all in. Ghosts, time-looping, and now this? Everything I thought I knew about life and reality has completely blown up in my face."

Eva nodded in return. "This life feels like a hundred years ago. I embraced darkness to become a monster but was not so far gone that the light could not find me."

Don snapped his fingers and pointed at her. "I think you're exactly right. 'The Light' found you. This just might be God rewarding you for forgiving what many would consider to be unforgivable. He sent a ghost back in time to take possession of her own body. Resurrection via time travel."

Eva grew somber suddenly. "I was thinking about tonight. What happens."

"Won't happen. I promise you, Eva, there will be no late night visit from four drunken morons uninvited and unannounced with any presumptions of you owing them anything." Don furrowed his brow. "First of all, it was never their damn business about the two of you. That's what I'll tell them." He then smiled and looked at her with a wink. "Was Sears James ever not a pompous asshole?"

She laughed. "Please try to be diplomatic about it. After breakfast with the others, I want to spend the day with you."

"We should get dressed. I'll take you home but you'll have to show the way from here." Don felt a slipping in his mind as though he were losing hold of the body. The feeling faded and he thought, of course. It isn't my body.

They did spend the greatest day of Don's life together walking and laughing and loving. Late in the afternoon, they had come up to the front of Eva's house. "You were right," he looked over the dwelling. "It certainly was beautiful in its day. Eva, I can't stay here. Even now, I can feel the pull back to my time."

"I can't lose you, Don, now that I've finally found you."

"I can't live my father's life. He has to meet my mother under the same circumstances or I will never be born."

She clung to him her head upon his chest. "All those years spent with you and not one day did I treasure as I would now. And now is to be ripped from me. Am I to go on as a wraith of a different kind?"

He put his arms around her. "We both know that isn't true, Eva." He loosened their embrace and looked her in the eye. "You are a magnificent woman, Eva- no wraith, but a force of nature to be reckoned with. You most certainly will 'go on' and no one alive will stop you."

"I don't believe I should stay here in Milburn."

"Oh, no, you shouldn't. Try the Midwest or even California. The world is open to you now." Don felt the slipping grow stronger. He looked to the future. He drew close and kissed her. "Wherever you actually settle, try to be in Milburn the day in 1979 that we left. I will find you."

"Don, I'll be seventy years old." She met his gaze and shook her head smiling.

"We're both much older than we look. They're just numbers and I don't give a damn about them." The slipping was making it difficult to focus on her. "I have to go now. I don't want Dad 'beaming in' in front of your house."

They held each other for one more passionate kiss. Eva turned to enter her house. "Eva, wait," Don added as her hand rested on the doorknob. "Was that you I saw in your window when I was a kid?" He pointed at the front of the house. "That window right there."

Eva Galli, alive and well, no longer a ghost, smiled mysteriously. "Goodbye, Don." She opened the door, turned, and spoke to him one last time. "I love you," she left him with and closed the door behind her.

Don grinned and let out a short laugh. His vision then flashed blue for a fraction of a second and he set off for Edward's house. His brisk pace turned into a trot and then a full run as the slipping in his mind was becoming impossible for him to retain his grip. Just as he reached his destination, his consciousness lost its hold on his father's body completely as the bluish-white electrical energy field enveloped him returning Don to 1979.

Chapter Ten: Alma and Eva

When the light had finally faded and Don's vision returned, he found himself in a location he did not expect. He had assumed he would return to where and when he left: the hallway on the second floor of Eva's house. Maybe it wouldn't be a disastrous dire ruin anymore but if it wasn't, he couldn't tell. He was not there.

He was sitting at a large, expensive-looking desk in a large, expensive-looking office. He stood up from the upholstered chair and walked to the door. He opened it to an empty hallway he did not recognize. On the outside of the door was attached a sign that read "Donald Wanderley, Ph.D. Professor American Literature."

The Dean came walking by wearing a beaming grin and offered Don his hand to shake. "Good morning, Don!" he exclaimed in a loud friendly tone. "Congratulations on being awarded full tenure here at such a young age. Thirty! Astonishing!"

"Uh, thank you, I guess?" Don replied. Tenure? he thought. Being with Alma caused me to bomb out. What happened?

"Oh, and I see you have a new bestseller out. The New York Times' list. Even your brother David should be impressed. Your fifth, right?"

"Yeah, sure. Huh, my fifth," he let out a small nervous laugh, "bestseller?"

"Are you alright, Don?" the dean asked.

"Oh, I'm fine. Fine," he managed. "I, uh, just need another cup of coffee."

"Well, that's good," he clapped Don on the back. "Good lecture today." He continued on down the corridor.

"Five bestsellers?" Don wondered aloud reentering his office. "I've had five or six ideas kicking around up here but nothing put to paper, yet." Walking back to his desk, Don froze in midstride. "Eva! I'm in Florida! I have to get to Vermont. Do I have a secretary?"

By late that afternoon, Don was driving his rental car through the snow into Milburn. He parked his car in front of the old Galli House and opened the car door. He was floored by the sight that greeted him. The house was glorious in immaculate condition. Being winter, the tree in front was bare of leaves, but clearly appeared more alive than it ever had before. He ran up to the door and breathlessly knocked.

The ornate door opened to reveal an attractive woman of apparently forty years with flowing dark brown hair. "Yes? May I help you?"

Don did his best to look nonthreatening and smiled. "Does an Eva Galli live here?"

The woman's eyes opened slightly wider. "Wanderley? Donald Wanderley?"

"Uh, yes."

"Please come in, Mr. Wanderley," she invited him. "My mother left strict instructions that you are to be welcomed in on this date." Her speaking his name sounded quite reminiscent of Eva's voice. Getting a better look at her face, he perceived she did indeed resemble her. Eva has a daughter?

"Thank you," he said as he stomped and shook the snow off his shoes.

"You are very welcome," she replied. "Are you the same Donald Wanderley the author? The mayor's son?"

"Yes, I am," he answered. I have to read these books I wrote sometime, he thought.

"My name is Alma. Alma Galli. Eva was my mother."

Don stopped cold as the word "was" hit him like a hammer. "Please, what did you say?"

"I'm sorry but my mother passed away four years ago, Mr. Wanderley."

Losing all color, Don sat down in shock. He wheezed, "Please call me Don."

She smiled sadly at him. "Don. Four years ago. Cervical cancer."

Don swallowed and bent his head down between his knees. "Please, God, no."

"Forgive me my manners, Don. Do you need something to drink?"

"Water, please." He sounded like the life was running out of him. She placed a tall glass of cold water before him. He nodded thanks and drank.

"It is remarkable Mother told me you would show up here on this date like this. You were to be welcomed in immediately. That's why I'm here for a few days. She bought the property outright but we did not live here. She made sure it was maintained, however."

Don regarded the amicable woman. "Do you mind me asking a wholly inappropriate question?"

"Ask away, Don. It is rather difficult to hurt my feelings," she grinned.

"How old are you, Alma?"

"I'm fifty years old, Don. I think I've aged pretty well. Good genes from Mom. Ha!"

"Was your father around? Was he a part of your life?"

"No, I've never known him. Mom never told me his name." Alma concentrated on the young man in front of her. "She said she didn't consider the man whose sperm impregnated her to be my father. So, she never told him, either." She sat down in a chair opposite Don and regarded him with a quizzical gander. She then shook her head from some far-fetched nonsensical idea.

"Please tell me about her. Eva's life after Milburn?" Don requested.

"Oh, certainly. I'm happy to." Alma perked up. She talked as she got up and moved to another room. "Mom had left Milburn before she had learned of her pregnancy. If it hadn't been for her inherited wealth, a single mother would have been staring at an onerous future. Ah, here." She returned with several photographs some framed. Don accepted one with Eva's image holding a shovel. He placed a finger on the alluring bewitching face of the love of his life.

"Yes, that's Mom at the groundbreaking of her life's ambition for as long as I knew her. The Eva Galli Center for Lost and Exploited Girls." Alma beamed with pride and admiration for her dear mother. "She helped and cared for so many girls- and lost boys, too, it turned out. To them, she was an angel they badly needed. A stone angel prays atop her grave. Through her businesses and investments, Mom more than tripled the wealth she'd inherited."

Don remained stunned from the force of Alma's news. "My beloved Eva," he breathed to the photograph. "I knew you were magnificent. No one was going to stop you." He looked up to address his lovely and amiable hostess. "Is her resting place somewhere out west?"

"Oh, no, Don. Before she passed, Mom insisted being buried in Milburn. She said it was here that her life had been given back to her by a man she would never forget."

"Please take me to her."

Twenty minutes later, Don was kneeling before the gravestone bearing the name Eva Galli. Alma stood some paces back from her mother's burial place. She watched the young man intently, but with sympathy. He made no sound but she could tell from the rocking of his shoulders that he was sobbing. His lament touched her though she did not fully understand it.

An hour after Don had managed to tear himself from his heart buried under six feet of earth, he and Alma stood back in her living room. "No need to stay at the Archer, Don. Mom was very clear that you are to be always welcome here. I concur. Now excuse me, please. I have to go pack."

"You're leaving, Alma?" Don started. "I was hoping to get to know you better."

"You will," she encouraged, "but, although I own this property, my home, family, and businesses are in Chicago. I'll be back in two months. You can meet my husband and children then, too- if they're back from college by then." Alma walked over to the bookcase in the room and brought back a photo album. She opened it to a specific page and presented it to Don. The page showed a picture of Alma with a handsome chap alongside two boys, a girl, and an older Eva. Opposite the photograph was a newspaper clipping. Alma noticed Don's eyes following it and answered his unasked question.

"That is the birth announcement for you and your brother. She acted as if she knew it was coming and saved it. She would look at it from time to time to read over and over with a smile and, sometimes, a tear."

"Yes," Don replied quietly. "She did know." He looked up at his hostess seeing her mother in her eyes. He smiled warmly at her. "I look forward to meeting your family. Good night, Alma."

"Goodnight, Don," she replied with an affection she credited to her mother.

In the morning, Don bid farewell to his daughter whose birth occurred twenty years before his own. He watched her car turn the corner and disappear down the road. "She lives on in you, Alma. I love you, too." Alone in the house for the first time, Don turned to face the staircase. He marvelled at the difference between it now and every other time he had been here. Climbing the stairs he thought of their pristine condition and of having no fear of falling through them. Don reached the second floor and looked down upon the spot he had expected to return from 1929. He saw no grey water and felt no deathly infirmity.

"Eva? Are you here?" he called out searching down the corridor. "Can you hear me? Can I hear you?" No answer greeted him. No sight, no sound, nor the slightest movement of a shadow did he notice. Don was truly all alone. Partly relieved and partly disappointed, he managed a sad smile. "I guess you made into 'the light' this time." Don moved to descend the stairs finding his steps a little heavier this time.

Don spent the following weeks searching for a sign of life in his soul. The pain of loss twisting in his chest only increased with time. It showed no inclination of ever alleviating. Shortly into the third week, he stopped trying.

Near the record player in the front room was stored a sizable collection of classical music albums. He searched through them until one caught his eye. He placed the chosen album on the player and turned the chair next to it toward the staircase. Don sat down, set the player for continuous repeat, and commenced the player to play. Sergei Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini floated its melancholy notes throughout the room to permeate the entire house.

He settled in the easy chair gazing forlornly at the stairs upon which he first encountered his beloved ghost of Eva Galli. The small, shrinking candlelight flame of his spirit was nearly extinguished. He felt nothing but despondent wretchedness. Neither cold nor wet, Don had returned to the supernatural abyss in which he once spent fifty years. He could not escape and no longer desired to do so.

There in that position gazing at the same landing, Don remained eight days later. The regular maintenance and housekeeping crew had discovered his pale and emaciated form. They immediately called for the town doctor. Doctor John Jaffery and the mayor Edward Wanderley arrived as soon as they could.

"Move him to the table, stat," ordered the doctor.

"Don! Don! What has happened to you?" wailed his father.

Doctor Jaffery set his stethoscope on Don's chest. "My heavens, he looks like he hasn't eaten in a week."

"I'm calling David," Edward declared.

"Call an ambulance first."

Don's eyes were unblinking and he was grinning as if there were a fantastic and wonderful sight before him only he could see. He felt a sparkling tingle throughout his body before he felt himself detaching from it. He could see the ceiling approaching him, but, in fact, it was he floating up to it.

Don peered down to see Jaffery examining him and his father holding his hand. Other figures buzzed around the room. In the upper corner of his vision, in the direction of the stairs, a torrent of brilliant light poured out from above. Upon the landing above the first flight of stairs, the light coalesced into a figure standing alone. A vibrant, beautiful woman in a silvery white wedding gown broadly smiled at him her arms opened wide.

Don floated down from the ceiling over to the bottom of the stairs. He looked down at himself. He was wearing the tuxedo he wore at his wedding to Eva. He peered up at her as she reached an open hand down to him. The candlelight flame of his spirit flared like a supernova as he ascended the stairs.

When he finally arrived by his beloved Eva, he grasped her extended hand as a lifeline. On the landing with her, he pulled her into him. They passionately kissed each other twirling in a tight embrace. He was home in her arms and all darkness was forever gone.

"My love, at last," she whispered to him resuming their kiss. The pair dissolved as one into the heavenly light. They held each other close as they together tread their first steps into eternity.

The end