Chapter 21
“I think you—”
“Jamie, please.” Dani turns to her with brows furrowed, lips pressed together in a thin little line. “Don’t bring up the ghost again. I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t like her. She’s demanding and infuriating and—”
“—should calm down.” A thin smile lifts the corner of Jamie’s lips, and she leans just close enough to press a kiss to Dani’s cheek. “I think we’ve been working and toiling away for months, and you’ve been getting stressed, and I’ve been at the shop, and I think it would be nice to take a little vacation.” She lifts an eyebrow. “We spent all that time wandering about, and now we’ve found ourselves a nice place to settle, but that doesn’t mean we can’t up and wander every now and again.”
Dani meets Jamie’s eyes and bites her lower lip. “But what about the shop?” she asks. “You can’t just leave the shop. Not in the middle of spring. That’s when people need to get flowers. More importantly, that’s when they need someone who knows what they’re doing to get their flowers to grow.”
“In the summer,” Jamie says, brushing one fingertip along Dani’s skin. “I’ll make sure to set up a sprinkler to keep our apple tree watered. And you and I can just—” She flicks her fingers in midair. “Go.” She grins, but it seems jilted somehow. “We should probably only be gone a week or two, though. The plants will take care of themselves, but I should get back and—”
Before she can finish what she is saying, Dani wraps her arms around Jamie’s neck and kisses her properly. “Yes,” she says, and it’s a little more breathless than she thought it would be, but she feels breathless saying it all the same, so that’s about right. “Let’s go. Where do you want to go?”
Jamie rubs the back of her neck. “I hadn’t thought that far. Thought it would be better to ask before we just up and went somewhere.”
Dani knows better than to believe that. Jamie had been the one who planned out their traveling up until this point, and it was Jamie who figured Vermont was the best place for them – not just because they liked it, but from a cultural standpoint, too. Dani wouldn’t have been able to guess at the best place in America for them to stay and still be okay, but her girlfriend must have been taking notes as they traveled, must have been paying attention to how people paid attention to them, because she had known that here was the best spot. And it has been.
Ghost notwithstanding.
But she doesn’t push. Wherever Jamie wants to go, she’ll spill eventually. She’ll have a better plan in place – and they’ll probably end up going to more than one place, making multiple stops as they get to their final destination (and making more stops as they return to their little house, as well) – before she brings up the place she has been considering.
Still.
“You thinking of staying in America, or going to another country?” Dani asks, tongue between her teeth. “Do I need to update my passport?”
“Told you, didn’t I?” Jamie gives Dani a gentle, playful push. “I haven’t decided yet!”
“Alright, alright.” Dani sticks her tongue out at her girlfriend, stepping back so that Jamie can’t hit at her with one of her bare hands. “Just tell me before…. Well, you know! It might take a few months, and if you’re planning summer, we might only have a few months, so—”
“Okay, how’s this?” Jamie starts, giving Dani a little look. “You and me, somewhere here in the summer, but over Christmas, I say we go visit Owen. I think he’s going to want to see family around the holidays, but he came here last year, best we return the favor, ay?”
Dani stares at her, blank-faced, considering. “Has he settled anywhere? Do you think he’ll settle somewhere, in a few months?”
“More than a few months, I’d say,” Jamie says. Then she shrugs. “Even if he hasn’t settled, I think if we can talk to him about it now, if we get in early, then he’ll be able to find a place for us to all go together.”
Dani meets her eyes, and her head tilts to one side. “You’d really let him plan all of that without you?”
“Yeah. He’s got wanderlust, we like wandering, so we can meet up with him wherever he is and do some wandering together.” Jamie shrugs. “Up to him, of course, but if he’s good for it, and you’re good for it—”
“One request,” Dani says, interrupting her. She presses her lips together and takes a deep breath before saying, finally, “I don’t want him trying to talk with the ghost.” Before Jamie can say anything, she continues, “Even if she tucks me away and he happens to be awake when she does, even if you’re still having your book club with her,” and she can’t keep the frustration out of her voice when she says that, “I don’t.” She shakes her head and forces herself to swallow. “I don’t want him getting all friendly with her. I trust you to not….” She doesn’t know how to say it, doesn’t know how to word it. “You won’t want her to stay,” she says, finally, taking a deep breath. “Instead of me, you won’t want her to stay. But Owen—”
“Owen won’t want her to stay either, love.” Jamie comes toward her. “He loves you, too.”
“I’m the reason Hannah’s gone,” Dani says, unable to meet her eyes. “I’m the reason she’s gone, and she was the reason she could stay as long as she could. I think, given the choice, Owen would probably have rather the ghost still be at Bly so that Hannah could still be at Bly so that he could still be with her. But she didn’t stay. She came with me. So now he just has us.” There’s weight to the words, and she’s not sure she entirely believes them herself, but they’re there all the same.
Jamie brushes hair back out of Dani’s eyes and carefully turns her face so that their eyes can meet. “That doesn’t mean he wants her to stay, love. That means he wanted Hannah to stay.” Her lips curve into a gentle smile. “I think, if he’d known about whatever it was you did with your ghost, he’d have taken Hannah with him.”
“It wouldn’t be what he wanted.” Dani looks away, unable to maintain eye contact with her girlfriend. “It really wouldn’t be what he wanted.” She presses her lips together. “And I don’t think she would have accepted it, either.”
“But your ghost did.”
It’s a gentle reminder, and one Dani doesn’t want to hear. As far as she is concerned, there were three kinds of ghosts on Bly Manor – those like Peter Quint, waiting to coerce and manipulate those around him into giving him their bodies as his own; those like Hannah Grose (and, to some extent, Rebecca Jessel), who still remembered who they were and maintained the kindnesses towards others that they held during their lifetimes; and those like the ghost still living within her – those faceless beings who had forgotten entirely who and what they were.
Of course, Dani had only met four of the ghosts. Her ghost is the only faceless one she met. But Peter had mentioned ghosts, other faceless creatures, had mentioned speaking with them, which would suggest that not all of them had forgotten that they forgot. But, then, Peter Quint had proven to be nothing other than manipulative; it was likely that he was speaking more in lies and half-truths than anything completely certain.
(But, then, how had he found something so true and certain as to do what she had done with her ghost, to do what he had done with Miles? That didn’t sound like something he could have just made up. So maybe there was some truth in what he said. Not much, but a little.)
Dani takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly. “That isn’t a good thing, Jamie. I wish you didn’t make it sound like that was a good thing.”
“All I’m saying is that she could have said no, Poppins.” Jamie brushes a thumb along her cheek. “She could have said no and continued on with Flora just as she was. But she said yes. Freed everyone there by doing it.”
“Freed everyone except me.” Dani turned to Jamie, meeting her eyes, plaintive. “I know Owen is grateful to her, but I don’t know why you fight so hard for her. You should be fighting for me.”
“Maybe it’s the same thing.” Jamie presses her lips together and shakes her head. “Don’t know how I know it. Not sure I do. Just a feeling. Kind of like the feeling I get about you.”
Dani smiles, then, and it’s a soft thing. Her head lowers. She’s blushing; she can feel the heat rushing to her cheeks; and when she looks up to meet Jamie’s eyes, she can see that Jamie is grinning wildly at her. “Well, the feeling you get about me is right.”
Jamie’s grin fades, grows more somber. “So maybe this one is, too. That’s all I’m saying, Poppins.”
Dani nods, letting out another deep sigh. “She told me how to make the coffee better for you,” she admits, voice soft. “Means it’s shit for me, but if it’s good for you, then—”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Jamie holds up a hand and steps back. “Your ghost taught you how to make good coffee, but it’s no good for you.”
Dani crowds her lips to one corner, almost a half-frustrated, half-disgusted look. “I got used to creamer and sugar proportions for an entire pot. It’s harder to figure them out for a single cup.” She glances away before she can see Jamie’s expression, but she can still hear her sniggering. “Sorry, I’m so used to trying to make good coffee for everyone—”
“Even though you know we don’t drink it—”
“Oh, hush.” Dani reaches over and swats Jamie’s arm, but Jamie dances just out of reach, still laughing. And Dani can’t help it, Jamie’s laughter brings a smile to her face, too. It’s calming. Relaxing. She can’t help but laugh, too.
And somehow, that’s it. That’s enough. Whatever disagreement they are having isn’t forgotten, but it’s pushed aside for another day, another time. Not avoided or ignored. Only had a pin put into it to be analyzed later, when they have more of the mental fortitude for it. For now, they are here, and they are together, and they are laughing, and it is enough.
Dani believes it will always be enough. For as long as she still has, however long that it is.
Jamie is still determined to make that as long as they would otherwise hope for, without having to worry about the whole ghost situation.
Belief and hope are powerful things made even more powerful in the face of strong love.
Let us hope that their enough truly is.