From a distance she saw his face swimming towards her as though through murky pond water. Her eyes were pricked by the light shining on its surface. And then she opened them to see Mr. Giles leaning over her, face white, eyes red-rimmed.

“You fainted. What’s wrong with you?”

Such a very good question. One of the multitudes she did not have an answer for. She was overtaken with this possession. This surrender to the past. Where time meant nothing and she was still there with him in his dark room, their breaths floating up the ceiling, borne up by desire and a fate that would later careen off into nothingness. She struggled up onto her elbows. Mr. Giles had placed a cold cloth on her forehead. She wrenched it off. She was laid out on the couch like some sort of invalid. She was not weak. She could not afford to be. Only if she gave up now would she be lost forever. He would be lost forever.

She sat up on the couch and smoothed back her tangled hair.

“I’m FINE.”

He shook his head.

“I don’t think you are. You look so unwell. When was the last time you ate a real meal or slept soundly?”

More than twenty years. She had been without peace for so long; she did not even know what it was.

“I said I’m fine.”

“I think you should see a doctor.”

“But the doctor’s dead.”

And then she covered her mouth and started to laugh hysterically. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Mr. Giles stared at her. He looked afraid. She felt a curious sense of satisfaction that she could arouse such strong an emotion. Hadn’t someone once said if you cannot make them love you, make them fear you?

“I am afraid for you, Buffy. Your strength is your weakness. Do you not see that you are destroying yourself by searching for answers that are not there?”

She scrambled off the couch and backed away from him, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Do not tell me how to live my life.”

“Is that what you think you’re doing? Living?”

“I do what I choose.”

He sighed heavily.

“Very well. It is nearly morning. I let you sleep since you obviously needed it desperately.”

He got up from the armchair and straightened his collar.

“And Dr. Travers?”

He looked at her oddly.

“From what you told me of your conversation with him, I cannot fathom what his comments meant. I…I do not understand what possessed him to do what he did. But he was very ill.”

She did not remember telling him about what Dr. Travers said. She remembered so little these days of the present unless it was him. Only his words had the power to ensnare her memory. Everything he ever said lived inside her very flesh and bone.

Mr. Giles moved towards the front door.

“I must return to sort through his papers. The funeral will be tomorrow.”

“That soon?”

“These things are best dispensed with quickly. Less pain for all concerned. It is what he would have wanted. I expect you will attend?”

She nodded.

He opened the door but halted at the threshold, turning to look at her, face unreadable.

“I know you think you are doing the right thing. Perhaps you are. But be careful that in chasing ghosts you do not become a ghost yourself.”

When the door banged shut behind him, she sank against the wall and covered her eyes with her hands. Shaken with the truth of his words. All the years away, she was never really gone. Just her body had left. But her essence remained in this house. A ghost girl wandering up and down the halls waiting for his shadow.

From the crack in the curtains, the morning light entered. Creeping over the room, pouring over the bookcase, the couch, the chairs, pictures of her on the mantle. Illuminating all but revealing nothing. Just an empty house where a girl had haunted and a woman had died. Suddenly a wave of unbearable grief overtook her. Unbearable longing to find a mother who was always so close and always so closed.

She ran to her mother’s room and flung open the door. The scent of mothballs was overwhelming and sickly sweet. She never used to come in here. It was her mother’s private place. It had been the stage for the birth and death of a marriage. She went through the closet, the beside table. Nothing. She wrenched open the dresser drawers and hunted through her mother’s things. Looking for some piece of the woman underneath the mask. As a child she had never been curious about the woman who had cared for her, fed her, carried her once in her own body. She only saw her as Mother, never a person or a woman. Abstractly she had always known her mother had had a life before she was born but to her, she was always just Mother.

And even now, even when she had moved beyond her forever, there was still so little to be uncovered. Carefully mended and remended stockings. Simple clothing in neutral colors. A Mother’s Day card she had made in second grade. At the back of the bottom drawer, her fingers met cool plastic. It was a cassette tape, unlabeled. She took it with her into the living room and popped it into the dusty tape deck with trembling hands. Pushed the play button.

Silence then a soft mechanical whirring. She turned up the sound, desperate to hear something other than empty dead air.

When the singing began, it came on like a gathering of black clouds. First low male voices murmuring words in an ancient language and then the clashing of cymbals. Of thunder. She had never heard it before. The pounding of drums, of the inhuman shrieks of singers possessed, echoed the pounding of her blood. She could only make out one phrase.

O Fortuna

O Fortune. Why have you forsaken me?

Over and over on what seemed an endless loop. She stood and listened through that one song repeated, doubling in on itself. Replicated on both sides of the tape and then the mechanical whirring again. And silence. She removed the cassette and clicked the tape deck off. There was only silence.

The roar of a car engine was like a shot ringing. She flew to the window and peeked out from behind the curtains to see his mother drive off. She gathered the things she bought him and the cassette. Was out the backdoor and over the fence into his yard, his silent melody calling to her. A wolf calling for blood.

O Fortune.

Only he could make sense of her senselessness.

The key was where it had been before. His mother had not removed it. She did not have time to reflect on this. Not when he was there on the other side. His silence making more noise than thunder.

When she entered the kitchen, he was not there. She set her bags on the table and wandered out. He was not in the living room either. The fear was sharp in her gut, in her throat. She walked into the hallway and saw her reflection in the mirror. The mirror where she had led his hand to paint her lips with desire. And then she saw him. Reflected in the mirror, standing on the stairway landing. Like he had done the first time she found him. She whirled around and he was there above. Shirt half unbuttoned, eyes smudged with fatigue.

“I knew you would come.”

She already knew her lines. The lines he drew in her negative space until she took form.

“How?”

He placed a white hand to his chest.

“You are here in me.”

“I’m coming up Will. I’m coming.”

“No. I will come to you.”

He walked slowly, haltingly down the golden stair. And into her arms. Or perhaps it was she that walked into his arms. Her face muffled against his sharp shoulder.

“Dr. Travers is dead.”

“I know. She told me.”

“I killed him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He died right after I talked to him.”

He stepped away from her embrace.

“Why did you go to him?”

“Because I need to know.”

“Why?”

“Because I am so lost.”

“You are looking for a truth that doesn’t exist.”

She grabbed his arm.

“I am tired of everyone talking to me in riddles.”

“I am telling you the truth. That truth has never set anyone free.”

“But you can.”

“No, I can’t. I do not know it myself. I am more lost than you are.”

“Should I go then?”

His face was transformed with such naked fear she wanted to cut herself to ribbons for her cruel words.

“I will die again if that happens.”

She held his face between her palms and touched her lips to his brow.

“I’m sorry. I will never leave you.”

He slumped against her.

“You did not kill him. It was not your fault.”

“How can you be sure?”

“You do not kill things. You bring the dead back to life.”

And he kissed her until her lips stung with his possession. She drew back gasping and laid her cheek against his.

“Do you know that I live for this?”

“Yes.”

“Come with me.”

She grasped his hand and led him into the kitchen. Took out the tape player and put in her mother’s cassette while he seated himself in a chair.

“What are you doing?”

“I bought you something.”

“You shouldn’t be buying me things I cannot keep.”

Her eyes stung with unshed tears. He heard her sniff.

“I mean, I can’t keep anything you give me here.”

“It’s okay; I’ll keep it for you. But it’s yours.”

“I still don’t know what IT is.”

She slipped the earphones over his ears. And pushed the play button. He sat still as a marble cemetery angel while he listened. Finally he took off the earphones.

“What is this?”

“I found it in my mother’s things. I don’t know what it means.”

“Does everything have to have a meaning?”

“I can’t help but think it’s significant. Have you ever heard it before?”

He shook his head slowly.

“No.”

He found her hand again and pulled her into his lap. She rested her head against his thin chest. The sound of his heartbeat the sound of the ocean inside a shell. Heard his sighing shudder.

“I had a dream of you last night.”

She smiled.

“Tell me your dream.”

“We were at the pond. Laid out on the grassy bank. I could see you. Your hair fanned out like a sunburst. I was running my hands through your hair. Your eyes were closed but you were smiling. And then you rose over me, naked and golden and said you were mine forever.”

She tugged him up from the chair and into the living room. She lay down on the couch and dragged him down with her. Wrapped her arms and legs around him, her front curled against his back. Sheltering him. Her arms over his waist, his hands on hers.

“I am yours forever. Until I die.”

He choked back a laugh. A sob?

“You will not die. You bring dead things back to life. You are life.”

She hooked her chin over his shoulder.

“Maybe if I close my eyes, I will join you in your dream.”

When she peeked at his face, his eyes were already closed. She closed hers too and tried to dream of them.

I did not tell you all of my dream. We were at the pond. Laid out on the grassy bank. Me, a lover that could not love. And you, not a lover but full of love. I could see you. Your hair fanned out like a sunburst. I was running my hands through your hair. Your eyes were closed but you were smiling. And then you rose over me, naked and golden and said you were mine forever. And when I looked up at your body, I saw that the earth had eaten away your side. I tried to warn you but found I could not speak. Your blood was dripping on my face, my lips. It tasted like summer. A dark night shot through with stars. And all around us the music. O Fortuna. Someone used to tell me that love is dead, there is only power. When will you learn this? This is the truth you seek. This is the truth of the world.

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