CHAPTER 3
The constant hush of passing cars and blaring fire engines resounded in the world outside. A world that Marcus and Abigail were not a part of, and for their own respective reasons, didn’t want to be.
Motionless, Marcus watched on as Abigail’s stare fixed on the ceiling for long seconds of silence and unawareness. Quiet moments where, for Marcus, moving was unmanageable, a proper breath impossible. Faltering in rhythm, he knocked their private symphony of breathing off tune, and it crumbled it into a secret conversation of give and take.
She exhaled. He inhaled.
He exhaled. She inhaled.
In this shrouded intimate exchange of life, a strange sensation rose within Marcus and tightened his chest. It was a familiar feeling. He’d felt it before. Not on many occasions, no, just a few times with which to remember its warm feeling. It was that of a lazy Sunday morning in the English countryside or of a quiet house in the middle of winter. Marcus sighed quietly. Memory of the last time he felt the sensation drifted off, too blurred along with the rest of his humanity for him to properly remember. However, then and there it was peace that warmed his bones.
He trailed Abigail’s gaze to the shadows of moving cars stretching past her ceiling. They weaved through the strands of light that filtered through carelessly closed curtains and expanded until stretching to nothingness. He looked back at Abigail. A faint smile tugged at the corners of her lips, a genuine smile that wrinkled the corners of her eyes.
What on earth did she see? he mused, but he held fast to his silence. Accepting his blindness to her universe, he rejected the urge to say a word. He couldn’t bear to disturb her there, not in her world. Not when she looked so devastatingly happy and nothing like the girl he met the prior night. In those brief moments, watching darkness pirouette across her personal concrete heaven, she was alive.
Palpable apprehension washed over her face swiftly. Though she hadn’t seen him, Marcus was certain she sensed him. Her fingers spoke of this consciousness. They grasped the white sheets until her knuckles blanched with fear. She sat up, releasing a shaky exhale. Her green eyes brimmed with alertness, though she had yet to notice him, pressed against the wall beside her bed, veiled by the shade of her dilapidated piano. Looking out to the center of the room through narrowed eyes, she waited for a clue, a confirmation.
Marcus braced himself. His throat swelled with choking indecision. He wanted to say something, he did, but what? She tossed aside the bed coverings and brushed away his intent. With her sight fixed on the openness of the room, she stood up. Unearthing a slender hand, she pressed it against her lips and paced forward like a ghost, her willowy figure lost within a white shirt five sizes too large.
At once, a cold wave of indecision ripped through Marcus. What was he doing there? Why hadn’t he taken her, and when did it become so hellishly difficult to breathe? Numbed by uncertainty, he watched her reflection appear gradually in the oval mirror tucked in the corner of the room.
Her eyes found his instantly.
Bit by bit, all color drained from her face. In equal dread, his heart took his chest in slow, sharp spasms of regret. Truth was, he shouldn’t have been there. But accepting of his folly, he rose. And under the study of Abigail’s stare, he quit the shadows of his hiding place. She remained unmoving, her stare constant as he took one cautious step toward her, and then another.
Marcus hauled in a slow breath. Each consequent step birthed a question in his mind.
Step. Would she scream?
Step. Would she throw things in a fit of panic?
Step. Whether in anger or to beg him to take her, would she near him? Would he touch her?
The thought halted his approach and he curled his fingers into a tight fist. He couldn’t touch her. Wouldn’t.
Silence suspended over them for a moment where her eyes were all Marcus saw and his heartbeats the only sound he heard. Refusing to extend the agony, he dragged in a breath with which to speak, when—
“Is someone there?” Her gaze toured about the room as if trailing the echo of her words.
Marcus swallowed tightly as her words unearthed a bitter awareness within him. Unlike their previously shared night, she no longer saw him. Felt him, yes. But saw him, no.
He stood deathly still, not knowing how to feel. He could simply turn and leave the room. Abigail would never know he was there. Problem was, in knowing she no longer saw him, his chest tightened with a disappointment he didn’t understand.
She stabbed the blade of confusion deeper, asking “Are you here?”
You.
Marcus shut his eyes at the fragile, hopeful edge in her voice. She waited for him still. She wanted him to be there. Making matters worse was that in knowing she waited for him, the dull ache in his chest ceased. Maybe the Timekeeper was right, he forced himself to concede. Perhaps his reasons for not taking Abigail were the deliriums of centuries old loneliness. Marcus stepped back. He should leave. He was a complete and utter monster for denying her something as natural as death for his own selfish, manic reasons. Being there was no longer safe for her, for him, for Margaret.
He made to turn.
“You are here,” Abigail uttered with damning certainty, wholly unafraid. His heart pounded. He had to leave. Yet before he could think another thought, Abigail extended her hand into the air as if casting a spell of her own dark, fairy magic. Her fingers trembled as they reached into the open spaces between them, seeking him, wanting to feel him. “You are here.”
Rooted, Marcus lowered his eyes. Looking at her, it complicated things. He was supposed to have walked out. It was supposed to have been simple. He stiffened. Sadly, his body knew the lure of Abigail’s melody all too well, the singular song of temptation. It was the familiar tune that in his years of a normal, human existence, he hadn’t been able to resist. The same song that sent laudanum pulsing through his veins until he lost all awareness, the enticement that allured him into the smoky back rooms of countless brothels. It was that cursed tune that seduced him into trading sacramental wine for that of brandy and rum, communion bread for a taste of opium.
Weakened by past failures, Marcus lifted his gaze and surrendered. He took a step closer to her outstretched hand, and then another, until the silent pulse of his steps closed the distance between them.
Abigail stroked the air, and as if wishing to heighten her senses, she closed her eyes. she caressed the keys of this silent piano, her song that of a siren’s, urging Marcus closer and closer still, until if he were to dare a breath, her searching fingers would brush against the rhythm of his shallow breathing.
He was close. Too close. But he couldn’t step back.
Bewitched, he lifted a hand. It trembled, just barely, yet each quaver shook his soul. He caressed the air just beside her pale cheek in torturous longing, resisting the burn that bloomed in his palms. Duty seared him, warned that though her name was not on the list, touching her would end her life all the same. But furthering the anguish, Abigail leaned into his invisible touch, as if she knew he was there.
A slow exhale escaped her, and though incapable of blowing away a feather, it slammed into Marcus like a whirlwind, jolting him back to the present. Remembering where he was and why, he curled his fingers instantly, denying the bittersweet burn. He could not touch her. Heaven knows he wanted to. Yet, temptation was as cunning as it was swift, and it whispered an irrefutable truth. But she can touch you…
Marcus bristled. She could. Abigail touching him was never the concern. The hex was on his hands to never stroke or feel the skin of another, except when burning through the invisible bonds that fastened a soul to its host.
Couldn’t he allow himself just a little taste with which to remember the simple feel of skin against skin? he mused in the darkness. What if he let her? Just one touch…
Marcus drew in a breath, and wanting all of these things more than he could bear, he took a step back. Biting his lip, he shut his eyes tighter as agonizing pressure gathered in his chest. The pain of denying his body pleasure embedded itself deeper with each tightened breath. Knees weak, he stumbled back. Skin dampened in cold sweat, he shivered. For once he had done the right thing. But if so, why did it hurt so badly? Pained, Marcus watched Abigail’s arms drop to her sides.
“Of course you’re not here,” she said finally, staring right through him. Her frame bounced with a sad chuckle. “Why would you be?”
Finding himself without an answer, without a voice with which to speak, Marcus watched her shed all suspicion and disappear into a connecting room. The quiet hush of a running shower then resounded. Marcus fell back onto the bed. He leaned forward onto his elbows and raked a hand through his hair, fisting the black locks until it hurt. After so many years, he’d almost dashed it all to hell for a simple touch? Groaning, he pinned his eyes on the hardwood floors, at the play of morning light against the dark wood. He was indeed a monster, a selfish, poor excuse for a man. How could he have risked being so close? In how many other ways could he fail Margaret? The room grew smaller and colder around him.
Still, whereas the prior night Abigail had seen him, she no longer could. What could have possibly changed? Marcus flexed his hand. Feeling the fires of duty recede, realization kindled. Abigail wasn’t on his list anymore. He settled back and rubbed his chin in delayed thought. If Abigail couldn’t see him, then he could control when she did. The same way he did with all humans not on the list. The same way he remained unseen with Margaret when guilt was overwhelming and he couldn’t bear to look into her eyes.
Yes, Marcus decided, by remaining invisible he could watch Abigail and gather his clues without any interaction. Interaction was much too risky. But in her shadow he could watch her, study her, and maybe he could learn why she waited for him. In silence, he could uncover the root of her misery. Once he gained his answer, he would go back home to Margaret and never see Abigail again until her name appeared on his list once more.
That was all.
Wholly confident in his choice, Marcus lifted his eyes. Catching sight of his own reflection, he paused, seeing something there he hadn’t in quite some time.
A smile.
Twenty minutes later found Marcus frowning. Covered in a gray chemise, Abigail surfaced from the bathroom with a slew of garments draped over her arm, clothing which she now deposited opposite Marcus on the bed. His brows dipped. Surely she didn’t mean to wear it all.
Yet, sliding on gray stockings, she started her ceremony. Patterned pants much larger than needed followed, trailed then by an ankle-length gray dress, a blue long sleeve shirt, black hooded sweatshirt, and the putrid brown coat from the night before.
When he thought it couldn’t get any worse, she wrapped a hulking brown scarf around her slender neck until it shielded her mouth and nose. Black rimmed glasses too large for her willowy face made the last of her armor. The end of her affair came when she brushed her hair over her face and, without a single glance in the mirror, strode from the room with death in her shadow.
Café lined streets along hectic Hell’s Kitchen offered Marcus slight optimism. There was promise in the endless string of exotic restaurants and trendy shops. Though exotic and trendy were not words fit to describe Abigail in any way, he believed her steps seemed determined enough to warrant some hope. Trailing behind, he embraced the empty expectation, contemplating what the morning held for the peculiar girl buried beneath piles of fabric.
Maybe his assumptions had been wrong. One made of a weary mind and downed spirits. Maybe she was a dancer en route to a class, maybe she was meeting friends, or a suitor even?
Marcus snorted. Who could possibly see her beneath her mess of garments?
All speculation crashed underfoot when she trod into the confines of a small record store. He shadowed her steps as she barely greeted an elderly gentleman at the front counter of the store. Though he smiled at her, Abigail fidgeted nervously until the man reached under the glass counter and handed her a book of sheet music, some of which spilled from within. She clutched the book to her chest and strode unseeingly past tunneled aisles lined with vinyls. Foregoing all the genres, she retreated to the back corner of the store without a word.
For a long while she sat in the shaded corner between two oddly spaced standing shelves that looked as if they were there simply for her hiding pleasure. Quiet, with the book in front of her, Abigail stared at a bare tan wall, looking at nothing at all.
Marcus plucked at a nail on a nearby shelf hoping to keep from bashing his head against it. It was either that or explode. It couldn’t be that her life consisted of watching shadows and hiding in record stores staring at vacant walls. Maybe he would take her that night.
Yet, knowing that taking her soul was as impossible and confusing as understanding her, he smoothed down his black coat and abandoned all tact. He walked to the back of the store. Sure that no one watched, he willed himself seen and approached her. His pulse quickened with each step, and he felt his forehead at the sudden rush of heat that warmed him. Whether of illness or whatever it was that propelled him forward, he didn’t stop until his shadow merged with hers.
He cleared his throat. “Pardon me, Miss, but can you tell me of a song about close encounters with Death?”
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