Choosing Eternity Page 3

  There was no one else but me within.

  I stared out the window as we wended our way through the Maine countryside. I had a little reticule on my wrist, and I knew what that was. A “reticule” is a purse, made of leather, very small. I opened it up, took out a little mother-of-pearl case. It was filled with calling cards, and I took one up, staring down at it with wide eyes.

  Melody Westfall.

  And I knew, instantly, the truth.

  I was Melody Westfall.

  I inhaled deeply, my mouth open, my heart pounding against my ribs.

  The year was 1890.

  And I was about to meet Kane for the very first time.

  I took off my crocheted gloves, stared down at my hands, my fingers, turning them this way and that in front of me. They were not my hands, but at the same time, I knew they were mine. My little feet encased in the pretty boots, the curves of my body stifled in the corset—they were all mine. I reached up, touched my face gingerly, feeling unfamiliar contours beneath my fingertips, and then I emptied the rest of the contents of my reticule onto my lap.

  There were only five things in it.

  A small leather purse for my coins.

  The mother-of-pearl case for my calling cards.

  A handkerchief embroidered neatly along the edge with the monogram MW.

  A silver vial that—once opened—revealed lavender smelling salts. I wrinkled my nose, stuffed this back into the reticule, and then grasped up the last object.

  A tiny hand mirror with a little golden tassel dangling from its handle.

  I held it up in front of me, and I gasped.

  I was Melody. The Melody. The Melody who came back to the Sullivan Hotel, who almost took Kane from me…

  I reached up, pressed my palms to my face, tried to take deep breaths.

  I was Melody, and I was also Rose.

  I knew then that I was reborn as Rose, reincarnated as Rose, and that…was a difficult pill to swallow. So I put the realization away for the moment. I would take it down, examine it until infinity if I must, but right now, I needed to consider the fact that I was reborn to fall in love with Kane again.

  I was reborn to find Kane.

  Kane.

  My intake of breath was quick, my heart beating a rapid staccato against my ribs.

  I stared down at my hands, closed my eyes, felt the rocking of the coach beneath me.

  I was reborn for love.

  I placed the objects back into my reticule, replaced my gloves on my hands. A woman was never seen outside of the home without gloves. I knew that.

  I knew that…and I knew so much more.

  Kane.

  I was going to meet Kane.

  It was strange, because I was in this body, and I was also a witness to this body, like when you’re dreaming, and you know you’re you…but you can also see yourself go about the dream.

  I knew that, but something strange began to take effect as the sun descended in the sky. For, while I’d been able to examine my hands, my face, glance at myself in the mirror...that autonomous power was seemingly fading away from me.

  I began to forget that I was Rose. That I loved cheese lasagna. That I was addicted to my phone.

  I began to forget everything—except being Melody.

  By the time the coach drew to a halt in a field, the sun almost completely swallowed by the edge of the earth, I felt myself fade away entirely. Well, that is—perhaps—not fully accurate.

  I felt myself become myself. And I know that is a strange sentiment, but it is the only way I know to describe it.

  I was only Melody, then.

  And, as Melody, I will tell you the rest of the tale.

  As I descended from the coach, as I gave the coachman what was due to him, as the young man took my luggage from the top of the coach, my carpetbag and my case, and handed them to me wordlessly, I felt a strangeness unfurl within me.

  I assumed it was because I was so very weary.

  “Are you sure you want to go there, marm?” the boy asked, a little breathlessly. He appeared pale in the half-light. “People say that the Sullivan Inn…that the place is cursed!”

  “Harry, leave her alone,” snarled the coachman. “Get back up here at once.”

  “Sorry, papa,” murmured the boy miserably, but he squeezed my hand before darting up the side of the coach again. I nodded to him and his father, but the coachman didn’t glance my way again as he slapped the reins on the horses’ backs, urging them forward with a chirp.

  The carriage rumbled away, and I was left alone, on the outskirts of this little town at the foot of a great hill.

  I glanced up that hill, took a deep breath.

  There, at the summit of the hill, was a building tall and red as blood and as imposing as an eclipse. I shivered a little as I glanced up at it, and I began to set out down the main street of Eternal Cove.

  Eternal Cove was much smaller than what had greeted me as Rose, of course. The town was in the very beginnings of its life. There was the little main street, a dry goods shop and a mercantile and only three or four houses. There weren’t too many people milling about in the twilit hour, but there was an older gentleman in a leather apron sitting outside of the building closest to the road—a blacksmith shop.

  “Pardon me, sir,” I told him, indicating the town before us. “Might you please direct me to the Sullivan Inn?”

  He looked at me askance and shook his head, dusting his hands off on the leather apron before standing, gesturing to the hill.

  “Up there. The building that looks like the devil himself built it,” said the man, his voice low, menacing. He pointed.

  Ah.

  The blood-red building. The one that had made me shiver.

  Of course.

  He stared at me, brows raised. “Are you staying there tonight, miss?”

  I shook off that shiver and chuckled a little. “Where else is there for me to stay?”

  His eyes narrowed further, something I wasn’t even sure was possible.

  “You came by coach. Where you headed?” he asked me.

  It was none of his business, and I thought as much, but manners were important, and so I must obey them.

  “I am a painter,” I told him, holding my carpetbag close to me. “I am on my way to Massachusetts. There is a Chautauqua camp for artists setting up this summer in Northampton, and I go there to teach.”

  The man’s face went from menacing to sneering in a heartbeat.

  “A woman painter? Huh,” he snorted.

  “Women can paint just as well as men, sir,” I told him with a forced smile. I didn’t bid him “good day,” which was my rebellion in the conversation, and then I turned, marching down the middle of the road toward the hill at the end of it.

  “You’ll be right at home up there, then,” the blacksmith crowed after me. “In that den of sin.”

  Normally, after the coachman and the boy’s worrying words, this might have made me pause.

  But “den of sin” sounded practically delightful coming from this man.

  What he thought of as sin, I was probably going to enjoy as quite a good time.

  From a child, I had always known I was different. It chafed me, how my fellow childhood companions grew up around me, taking the same painting lessons as I did. But they did so only to be respectable. Only to ingratiate themselves to a man.

  This I did not like. When I painted, when I sang, when I played the pianoforte, these were things I did for myself and no one else. I did not learn to paint because I wanted to impress a man.

  I learned to paint because I wanted to create beauty. The world was too vast and too lovely to be translated by my little pots of paint and canvases, but I had to try. The world was too beautiful; my heart cried out at its loveliness.

  Most people did not understand me. They looked at my paintings and pronounced them fine, but my passion for beauty made them uncomfortable. I walked along the meadowed paths, and my heart skipped beats when I heard the b
irds singing in the trees, when I saw a lone doe step out from between the branches, her eyes wide, her grace unsullied. But it seemed that no one else saw things as I did.

  It seemed as if no one else saw the world as I did.

  And so I was alone in it.

  This was all right, but it was also lonely. I had never found a friend in whom to confide my deepest aches and joys, had never found a man I thought to pass the rest of my days with.

  So I painted.

  And I sinned.

  It was not a sin, of course, to be bosom companions with a lady. It was not a sin to give her little gifts, to whisper sweetness in her ear, to kiss the corner of her mouth with soft lips.

  It was probably a sin, however, to taste her sweetness, to make her cry out in the dark, to make her pant, to kiss her breasts, to touch with tongue and fingertips and skin and bring out of her a sweeter passion than any I had heard my married acquaintances speak of.

  If it was sin, it was a delicious one.

  And I was not ashamed of who I was. On the contrary. I had always known myself; I had always known my own heart, and my heart knew what it wanted.

  Finding other women like me, however, was proving to be difficult in rural Maine.

  And so, when I was offered the position of teacher at this Chautauqua camp, my heart soared.

  Maybe I could find others like me there.

  Maybe, just maybe, it would be the happiest summer of my life…

  I had high hopes, therefore, as I ascended the hill in my traveling boots, the dust kicking up beneath me as the angle grew increasingly sharp. I panted beneath the heavy load of my luggage, beneath the heavy dress. It was difficult for me to take deep breaths, even though I’d purposefully had my corset laced loosely this morning.

  By the time I reached the summit of the hill, I was panting heavily. The sun had long dipped beneath the horizon, and the first smattering of stars were peeking out from behind pretty pink clouds hung low in the sky. I reached into my reticule, took up my handkerchief, and patted at my brow as I recovered my bearings and my breath.

  The Sullivan Inn lay before me.

  Back then, it was the Sullivan Inn, before its name was changed to “Hotel.” It was the exact same structure as stands today, a large red building that reminds one of blood, an unsettling sight that assures you, in no uncertain terms, that this is not the place you wish to stop for the evening.

  But I was tired; I’d had a very long day, and so this must be, indeed, the place where I would seek shelter.

  So I took up my luggage again and strode across the lawn—no parking lot in those days—and up to the big front door.

  I knocked twice before I grasped the doorknocker and made it sound out smartly three times.

  It was a long while before someone answered the door. I stood patiently, waiting, listening to the last birdsong of the evening, listening to the roll of the waves pounding the shore. I could hear the sea, even up here, and the sound of it put my heart at ease.

  But that ease did not last long.

  The woman who opened the door was tall, which was the first thing I noticed about her, because I had to tip up my chin to see her face.

  And then my breath caught in my throat.

  She had short black hair, cut to just below her ears, and she wore men’s pantaloons, suspenders, a man’s work shirt.

  And, like a man, her hands were dirty.

  “Hullo,” she said, her head angled to the side as she took me in, her bright green eyes narrowed. She had high cheekbones, a strong jaw.

  She made my knees feel a little weak.

  “May I help you?” she asked, voice low, throaty.

  “I…wrote ahead. My name is Melody Westfall. I procured a room for this evening?”

  Her eyes widened in surprise.

  “You want to stay…here?” she asked.

  “Well, yes. Isn’t that what one does at an inn?” I asked, my mouth curving up at the corners. This, too, seemed to surprise her.

  I realized then that I liked her.

  I liked her a great deal.

  She held the door open for me, and when she saw that I had luggage, she reached out and took it from me, her hands closing over the handles, brushing against my fingers.

  I started: Her skin was cold. Frozen, actually.

  “I apologize for how long it took me to answer your knock,” she said, bending her head toward me, her hair falling in front of one eye with a roguish handsomeness. “I am just in from the stables, and I was washing up. I am Thomasina Sullivan. But please,” she said, and her mouth drew into a lovely, sly smile. “Call me Tommie.”

  I put my head to the side and took her in, her own impish smile making a matching smile spread over my face. “Well, Tommie, it is very nice to meet you. Do you work here?”

  She shook her head. “No. I am one of the owners.”

  Wide eyed, I followed after her, glancing down at my feet. The floor was the red-and-black checkered pattern I know so well now, but back then, the black and red seemed stark and daring.

  “I heard that a Kane Sullivan owned this place. Is he about?”

  Tommie glanced over her shoulder as we approached the wide front desk. She took the guest book in a dirty hand and set it in front of me, indicating the pen in its inkwell.

  “She does own it, yes. We all own it together,” she answered.

  She?

  I hadn’t thought Kane to be a woman’s name.

  I signed the guest book with a flourish, and then I glanced about. “Do you offer supper here?” I asked, and when Tommie shook her head, my brightened spirits were dampened. “Oh,” is what I sighed, and she furrowed her brow.

  “Were you under the impression that we did?”

  “This is an inn. I merely thought—”

  “Miss Westfall—”

  “Please, call me Melody.”

  “Melody.” Tommie smiled, and the way she tasted the word on her tongue—oh, how I liked it. How I liked her. It was always so difficult to ascertain if the woman you had in your sights was like you…but the way she swaggered, that glint in her eyes when she took me in, her gaze traveling over me…

  Surely she was like me?

  And if she was like me, perhaps this was going to be a better evening than I had anticipated.

  “It’s no trouble, really. I’m famished, but I have an apple in my bag,” I told her, gesturing to the carpetbag she’d slung over her shoulder.

  “No, that won’t do. You need food for your journey,” she said, and her forehead creased as she considered something. “I can have the cook fix you a cold plate. Some mutton, perhaps a potato. Would that serve?”

  “And well, thank you,” I told her gratefully. “What room am I staying in?”

  Tommie shrugged, glanced at the far wall behind her. “You have your pick. But the best room is on this first floor.”

  “I’ll take it gladly.”

  She winked at me before taking a key from a hook behind her.

  “If you’ll follow me. I’ll show you to your room, and then the dining hall.”

  I nodded, and Tommie strode ahead with my luggage. This, of course, gave me quite an impressive view of her backside, which I’m not ashamed to admit that I enjoyed immensely. She walked so differently than the women I was used to. We were taught, from primer school, to take short steps. Never stride. Striding was something a man did, not a woman.

  But Tommie didn’t seem to care about what was and was not expected of a woman.

  It was refreshing.

  And it was very, very attractive.

  We wended our way along the corridor. The darkly stained oak panels in the dim hallway were bare, save for the gas lamps in their sconces casting but a little light onto the floor. It was hard to see, and when Tommie paused abruptly, I found myself colliding with her, my hands reaching out in the dark to stop myself from falling headlong against her.

  She was soft in every right place, her muscles hard…

  She
felt good beneath my hands.

  She made my heart beat quicker.

  For her part, Tommie chuckled, turning to glance at me over her shoulder and offering me another wink in the soft light. “My apologies. It’s just here.” And Tommie reached out and pushed one of the oak panels back.

  A lovely little room opened up before me, as if flowering in secret. It was small but serviceable, with a narrow bed and a little footstool, a washing basin propped up on a pretty stand.

  There was only one window, a tall one with rippled glass that told me it was quite old.

  “Thank you,” I said warmly, stepping inside. “This will do nicely—but how ever will I find it again?” I gestured to the oak panel she’d pushed open to access the place. “Is this a secret chamber, perhaps?”

  “No,” she chuckled again. “But the doorknob is broken. I’ll fix it by the time you come back from dinner. I’ll go tell cook about you. When you’re freshened up, just exit this chamber and continue down the hallway. You’ll find the dining room soon enough. Just keep going.”

  I turned and took in the room again as Tommie entered, as she deposited my luggage at the foot of the bed. I stepped closer to the window, running my gloved fingers over the rippled glass, feeling its waves beneath my fingertips…

  But then my eyes focused on what was beyond this window

  And my breath froze in my throat.

  I’d been so determinedly focused on Tommie that I’d noticed little else. Oh, surely, I’d seen that the room would do me well for a night’s accommodation, but what else mattered? I liked Tommie. I thought, from her winks and flirtatious grins, that she liked me, too. I thought we were of a particular…sisterhood, she and I, and if we were, well, this evening could be delicious.

  But all of my thoughts and feelings faded away to a sort of background tune as I stared out of that window at the garden just beyond the glass.

  Out there, rows of hedge and pine trees grew, and a riotous landscape of blossoms that the fading light could only hint at spread about like a sumptuous carpet.

  I was sure that, in the morning, the view would leave me breathless.