Valon: The Ghost of Cambria - Book Three

Chapter Four

Kristen stared through the dining room window at Tony's van parked beside the house near the end of her driveway. The white live-in conversion had been his home for the past two years. Tony had opted to live in the small parking lot in front of his workshop, nestled in the back of a local storage complex, to save money while he grew his carpentry business. After deciding he should stay at her house to protect Kristen and Penelope, Tony moved the van here. However, he hadn't slept in once during the past three nights. Instead, Tony slept beside Kristen in her bed.

After last night, Kristen's concerns about Tony's safety from the ghost had waned. Valon hadn't visited her sleep once since Tony moved in. Instead, Kristen fell asleep utterly exhausted in Tony's arms after their lovemaking, which was always a riot of pleasure she succumbed to, even when the roughness of their play intimidated her at first. It didn't bother Kristen that Tony was a night owl and would get up shortly after they finished, seeking to read in the bathtub or even walk through the house. He made his presence felt. It was comforting in every way and no small consolidation while apart from Penelope.

Kristen's dog remained at the veterinarian hospital, her stay extended by the doctor because of his concerns about possible neurological damage from the attack. Penelope's response upon waking has been too lethargic in the doctor's opinion, and she would remain under observation until at least tomorrow.

Kristen knew they slept in a haunted house, but the woman couldn't help but feel queerly at ease and safe from danger with Tony by her side. Her initial objections to the notion of being in the master bedroom had fallen away entirely by the second night. It wasn't just having another person close by to rely upon—to her surprise, Kristen found she loved having the guy there. Tony had changed in ways Kristen hadn't foreseen: the young man was now self-assured, assertive, and reliable in a manner she had never expected from him. Tony spoke to her with an honest and empowered self-confidence she'd never rarely found or even looked for in men.

Kristen could sniff out insecure bravado within moments of meeting a man, and the slightest whiff of it killed any chance he might have with her. She was an intelligent, accomplished woman, and for several reasons, men often felt the need to assert themselves with blustering machismo. It was a mindless attempt to establish themselves as authoritative but invariably proved to be an off-putting device to hide their insecurities. So, Kristen naturally tended to "wear the pants" in her relationships—stole them, it seemed, before a suitor could disappoint her. The tactic was mostly an unconscious safety precaution.

But Tony had delighted her, even if her initial response to most conversations was a health bit of resistance. Taking charge of Penelope's emergency had left Kristen with such a sense of comfort, even if she couldn't recognize it while the nightmare was playing out. And each day since, Tony had shown her more of the same self-assuredness. It was a trait she'd previously only witnessed from him before during their sexual play, and to find it in the simplest actions now was a breath of fresh air.

"You don't have to leave your van there. You might as well move it back to your workshop," Kristen smiled playfully. "It would do you more good over there than it will here."

Tony stopped his work to look at Kristen, giving her a slight nod of acknowledgement. Since moving in, he'd taken to wearing his preferred wife-beaters instead of the loose t-shirts Kristen had mandated for him during his first days on the job. It was a policy she'd instituted to make herself more comfortable, as his sweaty physique had become too large a distraction. In truth, the return of the white tank was a silently negotiated compromise to his being shirtless all day, something Kristen likely couldn't have coped with successfully. Her friends might have chastised her for wrecking an idea horny-housewives scenario, but Kristen had too much to accomplish to let construction porn distract her all day—she'd get nothing done.

In response to her statement, Tony shot a look of taunting hunger for Kristen. When he approached her, unashamedly in pursuit of another "break," Kristen laughed outright and shook her head.

"Later," she promised with a smirk.

But Tony didn't stop his advance until her cellphone rang and she walked away to answer it.

"This is Doctor Cole," she said.

"Hello, ...is this Kristen?" a meek woman's voice asked.

"Speaking," she answered.

"My name is Alana Hoffman. We've never met, but you knew my brother, Ryan."

***

Valon stood in the living room, watching Kristen as she spoke on the phone with a concerned expression. Whoever she spoke with, the call prompted her to leave Tony in the dining room and walk upstairs for privacy. Valon was tempted to follow her, but he's become absorbed by his observations of the young man.

For the past three days, the ghost had quietly watched Tony's every movement, waiting for another sign that his master resided within the young carpenter. Since the shock of being recognized, Valon couldn't reconcile how the invisible and grave voice that had spoken to him for decades was now breathing within this living body. When Tony's eyes located Valon to deliver a cunning smile, never stopping to fornicate aggressively with Kristen. The sight had paralyzed the ghost as much as it had infuriated him.

"You may escort her upstairs if you wish," Tony said aloud and turned from his wood-staining to glance back at Valon.

The simple statement stunned the ghost, and he couldn't stop himself from approaching the young man in response. He drew up to just beyond an arm's length to stand at Tony's side while the young man worked to reseal the oak wood of the dining room sideboard.

"Who are you?" Valon whispered as if to contain the voice no one could hear.

"My name is Anthony," the young man responded. "My friends and associates call me Tony. You may address me as Master."

"How is this possible?" Valon asked, again whispering his bafflement.

Tony continued with his work, not taking his eyes from the job in front of him.

"How is this possible?" Valon repeated himself, anger rising along with his volume. "Have you done this to me? Are you the one who's kept me in this hell for so long? Did you trap me here to be alone?!"

Tony's eyes spun sharply to the ghost, and Valon's body flew backward to slam against the wall behind him. The shocking pain of striking the plaster was as unexpected as feeling the wall itself. During the thirty years it had trapped him in this house, Valon had never touched a solid surface aside from the floor. Even the ground he walked upon seemed to be unreal. But now the ghost felt the wood painfully at his back like he was mortal flesh and bone again.

The pain did not subside as the pressure that had cast Valon backward remained constant, holding his limbs with invisible and unyielding stone hands.

"Why did you kill Ryan Hoffman," asked Tony, finishing his question after a moment with a single designative word, "slave?"

The young man stared at Valon, who struggled to move his limbs. Tony's face was not a mask, differently animated by a foreign intelligence. Instead, he appeared as he always did, with generous brown eyes alertly anchored within a stunningly handsome and young face. Valon began to cry as he struggled to hold onto his composure.

Seeing the first tear fall down the ghost's face, Tony approached him and reached slowly to hold his face and wipe the tear away with his thumb.

"Jealousy?" Tony asked gently with perplexing concern.

As if acknowledging the young man's question with his eyes, Valon felt the invisible pressure holding him against the wall slacken, though he didn't dare more.

Tony drew in and kissed Valon's wet cheek, laying his warm face against the ghost for some time. It was an intensely intimate and unexpected act that filled Valon with a relieving calmness. The temporary pain soon became only a memory, replaced with... something else.

"I forgive you," Tony whispered tenderly in Valon's ear.