The Ghost of The Lightner Museum

Chapter Forty

My boots tore through the sand in my mad haste to get away from Lord John. My heart was still beating violently from not only his egregious assault, but from the eery, supernatural phenomena that had just taken place.

Tripping, I stumbled forward when I heard a crunch beneath my feet. Jerking my gaze down for a fleeting second, my eyes caught sight of a pair of Raybans sticking out of the sand.

I sucked in a sharp breath, quickly reaching down for them before continuing to run towards the small horse buggy. Not wasting any further precious time or looking back, I hopped up into the driver's seat and took hold of the reigns, snapping them harshley in my hand with a,

"Ya!" 

The chestnut, Tennessee-Walker mare knickered in response before its legs were launching into a speedy gaiety of a gallop. When I had gained an ample distance from the shore, I finally turned to look over my shoulder at the form of Lord John standing inside the waves, staring directly back at me with a dark, smoldering glare. A chill instantly ran down my spine.

How could I ever face that horrible man again?

I snapped the reigns again and rushed away from the beach back towards St. Augustine. The buggy was horrendously wobbily along the rough dirt trail beneath glades of palm trees and live oaks. My hands were also uncontrollably shaking in adrenaline and nerves.

Being from the modern era, I had never felt the need to learn how to drive a horse buggy. Who would?

But now, I desperately wished I knew how. The horse kept moving straight onward no matter how much I pulled and yanked on the damn reigns.

"Oh come on, Sea Biscuit! I know you can turn right up here!" I grunted out in frustration. The horse merely tossed its head away from the reigns, biting down on its clamp and pulling the buggy wherever the hell it felt like going. Which unfortunately ended up being right in front of the Alcazar Hotel.

Halting directly in the front of the courtyard, the horse whinnied at me brusquely as if to tell me to get the fuck off it's buggy, which I did promptly.

Gathering up my wet skirts in white fists, I ran down King's street towards the only place I knew to go. However...a thought instantly stopped me in my tracks.

If Aaron finds out what Lord John did, he'll most assuredly confront him. This could kill him.

I froze in the middle of the cobbled street, listlessly ignoring the carriages moving to and fro all around me, the flocks of people living their lives entirely unaware of my presence among them. The wind whipped around me in hot humidity in the first signs of an impending rain, yet I still remained there feeling overcome with anxiety, turbulent emotions and extreme despair.

The sounds of life all around me seemed to fade into muted hazes.

Why of all people would I fall back in time? Why, out of anyone else, did it have to be me?

Slowly I turned away from the lane that would take me to Aaron's house. I began to walk as if out of my own body, witnessing the world, hearing the world, yet having no part of it.

My feet carried me to an old, looming cathedral I had passed by several times in the future. My eyes drifted up to the great wooden, double doors where I remembered standing months ago taking photographs with my sister and mother like a happy, carefree tourist.

My hand braced against the wood, pushing one of the doors open. To my fortune it was blessedly unlocked. Walking up the three stone steps of the entrance, I slowly made my way down a center aisle of a grand, open sanctuary lined with pew after mahogany pew.

Large stained-glass windows arched up to the ceiling on one side of the wall. The front of the sanctuary held a giant stone statue of the Virgin Mary while a backdrop of enormous stained glass panned behind her up and out of sight into the balcony of a shadowed second floor.

I slid into one of the pews and took a seat in the empty sanctuary, staring up at Mother Mary's face with a deep look of anguish. Although I had never been one to dabble in religion, I simply was out of answers and seeking solace wherever it may be found, and in this case, was in the stony face of a big statue.

"What am I to do?" I whispered out into the emptiness. My voice echoed off the stone walls and ground as the distant chirps of birds came from outside, "Should I jump through the veil of time and disappear, would that change anything? Anything at all? Or should I stay in knowing I will never see my family again? God, I may already never have that chance again. What am I to do?! What must I do for the right path?!"

Tears trickled down my face yet I didn't bother wiping them away. I simply sat there staring up at the baron sanctuary, the rays of sunlight filtering through the colored glass above, feeling more hopeless and alone than I ever had before.

My fingers grasped around the pair of broken sunglasses in my skirt pocket then in sudden remembrance. Hesitantly, I reached inside and pulled them out to rest in my lap. Slowly, I removed my lace gloves and gently caressed the side of one dark frame with my finger.

The girl's face entered my mind and my heart did a strange lurch. She had seen me just as well as I had seen her. Whatever happened, time had met in the middle for a split second. More than a split second. The girl had managed to rip Lord John off of me.

I had heard her voice, I was holding her shades. 

This changed things...

"How did you see me?" I murmured aloud with a deep gaze down at the Raybans.

All at once, a wild, insane idea fell into my head like an anvil dropping from the sky. I shot up to my feet with a gasp.

"Why didn't I think of it before?!"

Turning, I ran out of the cathedral and out into the rainy street. Racing through the busy intersections, I made my way back to the Alcazar Hotel with a single thought in mind.

Running past the courtyard and fountains, the opulent entrance and casinos, the tea rooms and parlors, I only stopped once in the servants quarters to swipe a metal nib and ink bottle from Miss Petrim's desk.

I took the velvet steps up to the ballroom two at a time before dashing across the mahogany floors to the end wall on the other side of the room.

Although the wall was, of course, presently blank, I tried desperately to recall how the large painting of myself would appear exactly framed here in the future. Near the lower left corner, I bent down and traced my hand over the baron wall before turning my head to check behind me for anyone else around. The third floor ballroom was blessedly empty save for me.

Extracting the metal nib from my dress pocket, I dipped it quickly into the ink bottle before writing a message on the wall itself, praying inwardly that it would survive the test of time.

There was a small wooden table nearby.  I walked towards it and gripped the edges, pulling it foward to cover my message. There was very little chance in this idea actually working, but I could only hope. Once my work was completed, I swallowed and clasped my hands, leaving the Alcazar and striding towards home with a renewed determination.