Part 10 (1/2)
Charlie hesitated. Emma looked away. Aggie's eyes felt all hot again, but she swallowed down the ache and said, ”I need to talk to Charlie for a minute, okay? We'll be right over there where you can see us.”
Emma raised her gaze; old eyes, haunted eyes. She glanced at Charlie's shadow and said, ”You're leaving.”
”I don't have a choice,” he said, and Aggie heard the pain in his voice, the hoa.r.s.e hush.
”Okay,” Emma said, and reached out to hug him. Her arms pa.s.sed through his body, but Charlie wrapped her up in himself and she whispered, ”I'll miss you.”
”I'll miss you, too,” he said. ”You changed my life.”
Emma began to cry. So did Aggie. Charlie pulled away, gliding fast over the meadow away from the car. Aggie stumbled after him, wiping her eyes.
”Charlie,” she called after him. ”Charlie, stop!”
He did, waiting for her to catch up, and though he was not solid, Aggie still pressed against his apparition, soaking in his heat, his presence, the comfort of knowing he was there. In all her life, she had never felt such a need to simply be with a person; but here she was, and her heart was breaking because-I need to breathe, I need to eat, I need to love.
”You'll find someone new,” Charlie said, rough. ”You'll forget me. You didn't know me long enough for anything else. We were barely friends.”
”We could have been best friends,” Aggie said, shaking. ”I think, maybe, we already are.”
His body seemed to contract in on itself-at first she thought he was going to disappear, but it was nothing; a shudder maybe. One to mirror her own. She wished she could see his real face... and then thought perhaps it did not matter. This was Charlie. The real him.
”Agatha,” he whispered. ”I wish things could be different.”
”Tell me,” she breathed. ”Tell me why they aren't.”
”I don't own myself,” he said, and if there had been pain in his voice earlier, it was nothing compared to now: broken and hollow, dull and dead as stone. ”I'm... locked up. My brothers, too. All of us kept, like animals.”
Aggie thought of her future memory, the sand and the woman, and Charlie said, ”Yes, her.”
”Why? How?” How, in this modern world, with so many eyes, so many ears?
”How was Emma taken? And that boy you saved? The most terrible abuses happen in plain sight, and no one sees. Hearts go blind. Do you know why, Agatha? Because it takes courage to help others. More courage than anything, because it means opening yourself, dedicating yourself to something that is beyond your life. Easier to just... walk on by. Ignore and pretend. It's safer that way.”
”You didn't do that.”
”But I have. Maybe I will again. I hope not. I don't want to be that man anymore.” He stopped, pressing her tight within himself. ”That's not something you need to worry about. You, Agatha, are a champion. True blue. My huntress.”
And you are my dark knight, she thought, my mysterious companion. She could not say the words out loud. They felt intimate, somehow. As though to say them in the air would be exposing a part of her that was raw. Thoughts, though... thoughts were still reality. And she meant them. She really did.
”Mysterious companion,” Charlie echoed. ”Dark knight. Maybe I'm not quite Batman material, but I like that. I like being that for you.”
Her mouth curved. ”And the woman who keeps you? You haven't told me why. Or how.”
”Because she can. Because she wants something from my brothers. Their obedience, their pride, their strength to draw on in order to make herself more powerful.”
”But you're here. You're able to dream your way out.”
”No,” Charlie said. ”This-me, what you're looking at-is not a dream. It's my soul, Aggie. My spirit, my consciousness, whatever you want to name it. And the only way... the only way for me to separate my soul from my body is through death.”
Understanding was slow. Her mind tasted the words, rolling them around, horror growing as she sounded out the concept in her mind. Death. His death. It was impossible.
”No,” Charlie said. ”Every time I came to see you or Emma, I had to die first.”
”But when you left...”
”It was because my body came back to life, calling back my soul. My kind are hard to kill, Agatha. We... regenerate our vital organs. Call it a... a consequence of our early purpose, which was to battle creatures more powerful than ourselves. It gave us an edge.”
”But if you have to die in order to be here, then how? Who does it?”
”The witch-the woman keeping me. She would... cut out my heart. All my vital organs. Doing it that way takes longer, so I could stay with you and Emma. But she found out. Got angry. To be here this time, I... had to do it myself.”
Aggie choked. ”Why? Why would you put yourself through that?”
”How could I not?” His hands pa.s.sed over hers and warmth rolled up her arms into her chest, her heart. ”Death really wasn't a high price to pay.”
She couldn't talk. It was too much-Charlie dying, Charlie murdered.
Charlie killing himself.
Aggie shook her head, helpless, and Charlie said, ”You don't have to find the words. I hear you.”
He heard her. He heard everything. She wanted to say, Don't go, please, we only just got started, but it was no good begging him to stay. Instead, because she had to say something, anything to fill the silence inside her breaking heart, she whispered, ”You're warm.”
”Yes,” he murmured. ”I can be warm, even as a dream.”
”You're no dream. Don't keep calling yourself that. You're real. You're more than idle fantasy.”
She wondered if he smiled; the warmth around her body intensified. ”My body is quite some distance away. I'm also dead. I think to call me anything but a dream-”
”Ghost. A big hulking scary ghost.”
”Scary.”
”Terrifying. My knees knock when you're around.”
”I'll take that as a compliment.”
”Yeah? You like that?”
”I do,” he said, and then, softer, ”Take care of yourself, Agatha. I wish I could be here to watch over you. Maybe... maybe I'll get another chance one day. Just to say h.e.l.lo.”
It was the wistfulness in his voice that got her; the sense that he had already given up. Anger threaded through her gut; pure stubbornness. ”I don't live on maybes and h.e.l.los, Charlie. Not this time, anyway. I'm making my own future.”
”Agatha.”
”No. Where's your body?”
”She'll kill you.”
”She can try. And if you won't tell me, then I'll do it the hard way. You forget who I work for. I'll figure it out.”