Chapter 19
“So she came to visit you,” Jamie says, warming her hands on her cup of tea. “What was that like?”
It’s not quite midnight, not quite the moment where time passes over from night to the wee hours of the morning, and you haven’t talked about Shakespeare at all, even though you would much rather prefer that. Still, you can understand the other woman’s curiosity. You would be curious about that as well.
Jamie had seemed surprised when you brought up that your host visited. Apparently she hadn’t mentioned it to her. You aren’t sure how to feel about that. Not good, certainly, but perhaps some things are meant to be kept private. Unfortunately for her, your host hadn’t communicated to you to say nothing on the matter, and so, she knows.
You hadn’t meant to start a conversation about it, though. You had only meant to comment on it in passing.
“Different,” you say, finally, settling on a word that said enough without saying anything. You tap your fingers against your teacup and then push one hand through your host’s blonde hair, leaning back against the arm of the couch. “It felt different.”
“That doesn’t mean anything to me, ghostie.” Jamie’s eyes narrow. “I don’t know what it’s like in there normally; how am I supposed to know what different feels like?”
You shrug. “You didn’t ask what it felt like normally, only what it was like when she came to visit. My apologies for not being able to read your mind.” You look up through your lashes, smug smile creeping to one corner of your lips.
“You knew what I meant.” Jamie groans and leans back. “Blimey, you’re infuriating.”
“I am quite certain that you are not the only one who has thought just that in the time they have known me.” You prop your elbow on the arm of the sofa and then rest your chin in your hand, watching her with that quiet little smile. “Infuriating seems to be my specialty.”
Jamie rolls her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that, ghostie.”
You raise one brow. “What’s wrong with it? Am I doing something wrong?”
“No.” Jamie looks away and sighs. It’s another minute before she gathers herself to speak again. “Tell me about the visit. Quid pro quo – I told you about my fight with Dani, you tell me about your fight with her.”
You blink. “You aren’t Friar Lawrence in this equation. I am not in love with my host, and she certainly is not in love with me.” Your smug grin fades into an even softer smile. “And I doubt that you would appreciate either of us dying for the other.” Your head tilts. “Perhaps you would accept it if I died, excepting that I’m—”
“—already dead,” Jamie says at the same exact moment you say it. She gives you a blank stare. “You need a new joke.”
“Why should I get a new one when this works just as well?” Your smile fades as you glance down into your teacup. As much as you might acknowledge your own death, you don’t like to dwell on it. You can’t even remember how you died in the first place, although you expect it must have been something horrifying or gruesome. How else would you have ended up lingering here afterwards, if not out of the feeling that something was ill done? You glance up again. “Would you truly try to give me advice on how to make peace with my host?”
Jamie shrugs. “Poppins’ll feel better if she’s not fighting with anyone. She’ll feel better if she quits acting like you’re some beastie out to get her”
“That might be a bit too much to hope for,” you murmur. You glance outside. A streetlamp lights the sidewalk just outside of their house, and where it hits, the street seems to glimmer with the damp of melted snow. Perhaps it is ice and not snow. From your perch, you cannot tell. “I take it Valentine’s Day ended with your fight.”
“It went well before that.” Jamie grins. “I know how to treat my girl right.” She winks at you.
You feel as though you should blush, as though your cheeks should grow red and hot from the attention, and yet neither of these things happen. Instead, you merely smile. “I suppose that any girl would be lucky to have you. Other than the whole talking with the ghost aspect.” It’s easy to switch the subject, to focus on Jamie instead of focusing on yourself. “I take it that the two of you are much more agreeable now?”
Jamie nods, interlacing her fingers around her cup. “Yeah. Dani’s not very good at fighting. Not for long.” She gives you a look. “If she came around for me, she’ll come around for you, too. Might take a spot longer than you want.”
“It’s different with you.” You continue to look outside. With your newly sharper eyesight, you can almost see weeds growing between the cracks in the sidewalk, even now, in the dead of winter. They look a bright green, as though for them it is spring. “She likes you.” You sigh and look back. “I don’t think it much matters whether or not she likes me. I will survive either way. Some people simply do not get along, and while in this case it is upsetting, I cannot make her like me.” You glance back to your companion. “I cannot make you like me either.”
“Never said I did.”
“I know.” You laugh to yourself. “But at least you will speak with me. That is enough.”
“Doesn’t quite seem like enough,” Jamie says, and her words touch a raw ache within you, one you cannot quite deny.
Still, there is nothing else you can do. “She asked me what I remembered,” you say, finally, musing on it. “I thought it would not be wise to share that with someone who so absolutely loathes the very sight of me, and when I refused to answer, she asked about my daughter.” You sigh. “I answered, in small part, and then I forced her out.”
Jamie’s eyes narrow. “Forced her out? What does that mean?”
You press your lips together. “When I’m not here, I’m in what appears to be a whole other world. I start in my room, and I travel from there down a hallway to the outside. There is a path that leads through the jungle and reaches a moat in front of a thick wall with an iron gate and lock that is rusted shut with its key still inside.” It is simple to explain, even though you know that the very idea of such a place must not make sense to your companion. “I live on one side of the gate, and my host maintains the other side, although she appears not to be much aware of it. When I want to make my presence known, as I do now, I climb over the wall and continue to travel along the path until I can see though her eyes.” You press your fingers to the bridge of your nose. “It is more complicated than that, but not in a way I can truly describe.”
Jamie nods slowly. “And when you forced her out—”
“I pushed her from my side of the gate onto her own side.”
“You slammed the door in her face.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” You run your fingers in circles along the threads that make up their couch, searching for a pattern that isn’t there to begin with. “I made it well known that I did not like the threads of conversation she was pursuing, and when she refused to allow for another topic, I stopped maintaining the conversation.” You shrug in the same manner that Jamie often does. “It is simple enough.”
Jamie groans and kneads her forehead with one hand. “After all the fucking work it took to get Dani to meet with you in the first place, and you slammed the door in her face.”
“What would you have had me do?” you ask, staring at her. “Roll over and show my belly to someone who would rather rip my intestines out and leave me to bleed? I don’t think that is the greatest idea.”
“You know she feels the same way about you.”
You cross your arms, eyes narrowing. “I think I have quite proven that I have no desire to harm her in such a manner. If I wanted to do so, I could have done it by now – quite easily enough, too. She, on the other hand, has had no opportunity and no such weapons to throw against me, which I’m sure she willingly would if she had them.”
Jamie lets out another groan. “Why do I feel like I’m having the same conversation with two different people?” She throws her hands out. “Might as well be the same person, since you’re wearing her body!”
“I would wear my own if I had it.”
“If you did have it, we wouldn’t be having this problem, would we?” Jamie shakes her head. “I think I’ve had quite enough of this for now, ghostie. The two of you are talking yourselves in circles, and until you come to the realization that neither of you is going to kill each other, I think you’re very much stuck.”
You press your lips together in a thin little line. “You would have killed me, too, Jamie, if you had the opportunity to do so. Don’t try to lie to me and tell me that isn’t so.”
“I’ve learned better,” she says, glaring at you, “because I took the time to learn better and you didn’t bite my head off for trying. Maybe extend the same courtesy to the woman whose body you’re living in.” She stands and claps her hands together. “And that’s the last I have to say about that.”
“I didn’t bite her head off,” you answer. “I think your love very clearly still has her—”
But Jamie is gone. Jamie is walking away, Jamie is leaving, Jamie is down the hall and ignoring whatever you have to say. Jamie is slamming the door behind her with a far too loud groan of exasperation, which you think is entirely unfair given that you aren’t allowed to unhinge your host’s jaw in your own guttural growl of a yell. It crosses your mind that this isn’t exactly the same thing, but the reaction would still feel the same. Exasperation. Frustration. Whatever the word for all of this is.
You sigh and push your hand through your host’s blonde hair. It’s bigger than yours, and whatever makes it that big makes it feel at turns hard or crispy crinkly, like tree bark after it has been thrown in a fire for too long but just before it turns into ash – when it still crackles and pops. For all Jamie says you should teach her how to make proper tea, you feel as though you should teach her how to take better care of her hair – how to get the volume she so desperately wants without having all of this junk in it.
It still seems to you as though you have done nothing wrong. You spoke with your host when she came to visit, and for the most part, you did your best to be nothing but cordial to her. You only sent her away when she continued to pursue a line of questioning you did not want to answer. In fact, you did answer her question; you simply sent her away before she could ask even more on that subject.
Your daughter is a sensitive subject. You are aware of this, more so when you spend time thinking on it. Something in you aches to remember her – what she looked like, what she acted like, how old she was. Deep in your heart, you know that it is likely that she is already dead. You died a long time ago, and while you are not sure how long it has been since then, you are certain that it is long enough that anyone you may have known at that time is now dead.
The thought sends your insides churning. You hate thinking about your daughter, dead. Worse, you hate that you didn’t get to see her one last time before—
You shiver once and force yourself to stop thinking about it. Even if your daughter might be dead, her descendants likely are not. If you could remember her, perhaps you could find them. It is an interesting thought, but not one you want to put much weight on. Your host would likely never accept a trip to go find your lost family. You are not sure you want to go on such a trip.
(Something in you aches for it, yells for it, so loud that you feel as though…as though….)
You take a deep breath and let it out. It is not the time to think about all of this. Perhaps tomorrow…perhaps you will try to get in contact with your host again – in a way that she will hopefully appreciate more than what you have been trying. You still do not know if she received the note you left her. She hadn’t mentioned it. She had mentioned many other things, but she hadn’t mentioned your note.
Perhaps—
You smile softly. Despite everything, you think the idea you just had is a good one. You will just have to wait and see.