After several more moments of silence so profound that Ethan could hear his own heartbeat, Curtis looked up…
And he smiled, a more open and genuine smile than Ethan had seen from him before. It was like he had been freed from invisible shackles, a profound weight lifting from his shoulders. For the first time, Ethan thought he was seeing Curtis fully as he was in life, even though he was fading fast.
~Thank you, everyone, for all your help,~he said.~I think I’ll be going back to my Alice and our dear children, now.~
“Bye, Curtis,” Chloe said tearfully. “We’ll miss you.”
“Like I said – come back any time,” Eula said, well beyondtearfuland somewhere intoblubbering. “Watch whatever you like on the TV, you hear?”
“Yeah, what she said,” Janie monotoned, her eyes suspiciously shiny. “You don’t tell me off for throwing popcorn, so you’re cool, I guess.”
Fare thee well, foul specter!the pegasus hollered, its horsey chin wobbling with repressed emotion.Your presence was a curse upon us all! Do not forget it!
Ethan swallowed hard. “Catch you ’round, Curtis,” he said – and he meant it. “I hope we’ll see each other again someday.”
Curtis smiled, and inclined his head.~We will, Ethan. Thank you most of all. I could not have done this without you.~
Ethan nodded back – and then, all of a sudden, Curtis was gone.
Eula slumped down into her chair, clutching the locket in her hands and sobbing.
Ethan watched on, surprised, as Chloe and Janie awkwardly tried to comfort her. He’d known that Eula would take it hard, but he hadn’t realized justhowhard.
Still, it made sense. Curtis had been not only a relative of hers, but potentially a connection to loved ones who had since passed – it was possible that he had even met Eula’s grandparents. Ethan wondered what the two of them had talked about last night, sharing memories and things that the other never knew about their family.
Feeling at a bit of a loss – and trying to ignore a pegasus that was apparently in mourning for a ghost it had been afraid of – he went to the fridge and pulled out every drink he could find, whether alcoholic or not, and then put on a kettle to boil.
It felt weirdly like a wake – which, he supposed, in a way, it was.
It was obvious that Sylvie had been one of the people who had stopped by yesterday, if the fresh box of cakes was anything to go by – and so he spread those out as well, before raiding the fridge and cupboards for anything else that seemed even mildly appropriate.
“Cup of tea, anyone?” he asked, bringing in four already-filled cups on a tray. Apparently everyone was getting tea, whether they liked it or not.
“Thanks, Ethan,” Chloe said with a gentle smile, before turning back to Eula. “Oh, Eula. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Eula said, blowing her nose with a honk. “Ol’ Eula will be fine. These are happy tears, you know? More or less, anyway.”
She sighed, dabbing at her eyes and looking down at her lap. “It’s just that… well, I’m the oldest one left in my family. All my parents’ generation are long gone. It was so nice to have that connection back, you know? And then, to have it all go away again…”
Janie gave her a hug, and Eula sighed again, stroking Janie’s hair. “Don’t get old, is all I can say.”
“I don’t know, Eula,” Chloe said with a smile. “You seem to be doing pretty well for yourself. Most of the people I know who’re half your age don’t seem to have a quarter of your zest for life.”
“Heh, I guess you’re not wrong there,” Eula said with a watery smile. “I do like to enjoy myself from time to time. I’m not quite as wild as I used to be, though!”
Eula laughed, a genuine laugh, looking down at the locket again. “Like the time I lost this – I don’t think I’ll be rushing into something like that again. But me and Ambrose, we had some fun times, I tell you what. You don’t want to know what we used to get up to.”
Ethan’s head whipped up faster than should have been possible, like an overstretched rubber band snapping. His stomach dropped into his feet.
Inside his head, the pegasus whinnied in horror.
“Ambrose?” he said, though a voice inside his head tried to reason that it didn’t mean anything, and there were plenty of people called Ambrose in the world.
Well, notplenty, butsome, and that was all that mattered, right? It would be too much of a coincidence.
No.
Noway.
