Part 26 (1/2)

She looked directly into his eyes, straight-faced. Now her hand was slick with sweat. ”What did you think? It was a blacksmith-circa 1860. High leather boots, canvas pants, a slick rawhide ap.r.o.n. He was hammering a strip of metal, and alternately yanking the bellows chain. So I said, *Hey, what the h.e.l.l are you doing?' and I said it loud. But he didn't hear me, just kept whacking away.”

”What did he look like, I mean, his face?”

”Big bushy mustache, and the skin on his face was like pitted leather. He wore this hat that was sort of like a leather cowboy hat but without the sides curled up, and the front flopped down. I yelled at him again, and he kept ignoring me. He walked back around the side of the forge and that's when I saw him dipping the crucible into the vent. He took it out and poured it into a stone mold that looked like it had wax or something in it, and he did it very carefully. Then he picked the mold up with tongs and dunked it in a tub of water.”

Collier could feel the pulse in her hand pick up.

”He brought the mold around, knocked the metal out with a hammer, and started beating on it-the cycle beginning again.”

Collier felt dour when he asked, ”Was it a mold for shears?”

She looked at him, startled. ”Yes. Why do you ask?”

He knew he couldn't possibly mention the morbid nightmare. ”I saw one in Mrs. Butler's display cases. A mold chiseled out of stone, for wooling shears.”

”Well, that's what these things looked like. They were big, like tin snips. He had a mold for each half, and after he'd banged on them a while, he tossed them aside with the tongs. There were two piles of them on the ground, sizzling.”

”Did you tap him on the shoulder, give him a nudge to get his attention?”

Dominique seemed tired now. ”To tell you the truth, that's the first thing that came to my mind, but I didn't. Because I was afraid if I touched him-”

”There'd be nothing there.”

She nodded. ”I shouted at him one more time, and I mean at the top of my lungs...He obviously didn't know I was there, but when I shouted, he kind of paused and stood up straight. Then he turned around and looked right at me.”

”I thought you said he didn't know you were there.”

She made a nullifying hand gesture. ”Or I should say, he didn't look right at me, he looked right through me.”

Collier thought on that.

”Then”-she visibly gulped-”I noticed the rest.”

”What!” Collier nearly yelped in frustration.

”His eyes,” she said in the lowest tone. ”The whites of his eyes. They didn't look human. The whites were yellow, like someone with a disease, with darker smudges like soot. His face, right just then-the way his eyes looked, I mean...I was more terrified at that moment than I've ever been in my life-that one second of looking in his eyes. Because I got the sickest feeling that for maybe a sliver of a second, he saw me.”

Collier was keyed up. ”What did he do next?”

”He grimaced, and it turned that pocked, leathery face into the grossest mask. Then he starting pumping the bellows again.” She let out a long sigh. ”So there. That's my story.”

Crickets chirruped around them. The night had deepened and grown more humid; Collier felt clammy at his armpits.

”Wow,” he said.

”I forced myself to walk back into the inn, all that light and heat raging behind me. It was a wall of heat. I got back inside, looked out the window, and-of course-the backyard was dark. The furnace was cold, and there was no one there.”

Collier believed her at once. Unlike many he'd met thus far, bulls.h.i.+tting wasn't her style, nor was exaggeration. But he'd seen some things, too, hadn't he?

He elected not to mention them.

A question popped up. ”Was this...back in your drinking days?”

She smiled. ”Fair question. And, no. This was years later. Hallucination? Sure, it could be, but I don't think so, and I don't think it was lucid dreaming or any of that stuff, and I wasn't on medication for anything. I'll never know the answer”-she pressed a hand to her heart-”but in here, I think it was a ghost. A revenant, discorporate ent.i.ty, or whatever it is they call it these days.”

” *Ghost' works just fine for me. And that was the last time you ever took a catering job at the inn?”

”Oh, no,” she said. ”I've done a bunch since then. But that's the only time I ever saw anything funky.”

Funky is right. I've got voices, p.i.s.s stench, dogs, nightmares about SHEARS, and some woman flas.h.i.+ng my keyhole with a shaved crotch. Could we BOTH be crazy?

Collier dropped it.

She half laughed but it didn't sound convincing. ”Anyway, now that I'm done telling it, it all sounds pretty silly.”

”You're wrong about that,” Collier argued. ”The Gast House is a pretty chilling place if you're in the right frame of mind-or, I guess in this case, the wrong frame of mind. Mr. Sute said that many, many people have had unusual experiences there.”

She tossed a shoulder to dismiss it, but it was obvious her retelling left her discomfited.

”Enough of all this ghost stuff, though,” he said more softly now. Her hand remained clasped in his.

He was looking at her again. He drew her back to him-had the story kindled her desires?-and found she was even more eager to kiss than before. Each tongue played around in the other's mouth with more fervor this time. Her breath seemed hotter now, if that were possible, and a bit of that push-back barrier had lessened. Her hand ran up his arm and over his chest as her tongue seemed desperate. Collier fell into a luscious void right then. Dominique was the fresh-baked bread still warm from the oven, and he was the b.u.t.ter melting into it.

The words in his head arrived like a zombie's drone: I could really fall in love with her...

Next she draped one leg over his to afford closer contact. For a moment he expected that smooth, bare leg to slide over his groin...but that never quite happened. Instead her hand around his back pressed him tighter to her.

He began to slowly suck down the side of her neck, and when his tongue laved over her jugular vein, he could feel her pulse beating like a hummingbird's, but as his tongue continued to glaze her throat and bare shoulder, the taste of her sweat, plus the commingling scents of body spray, soap, and shampoo magnified his rising horniness. He had one hand around her side, part of it over the gap between the clinging top and waist of her skirt. He knew he was testing her now, encroaching her obscure boundaries, but she didn't flinch when his hand pressed flat against her belly and the tip of his pinkie slipped an inch beneath the waistline of her skirt. Collier's Evil Twin voice returned: Congratulations, stud! Right now your finger's about four inches from Party Central! but Collier was too fevered to listen. He didn't move his hand but let his tongue trace the rim of the cami-top. Something told him not to slide the top down and expose the b.r.e.a.s.t.s he'd sell his soul to see, but he very gently ghosted his lips over the top of the ruffly fabric.

Then his lips inched closer to the nipple...

”Oh, jeez!” came a frustrated whisper.

Collier brought his lips away, but his hand remained in place. ”What?”

”This is my fault,” she sighed. ”I know better. I need to tell you the rest...”

Collier was almost indignant. ”No more ghost-story stuff!”

She paused to collect her breath. ”No, more me stuff.”

Collier didn't relieve his embrace. ”If you don't want to go all the way tonight, that's cool.” He tried to sound understanding.

”I should've explained everything earlier but I don't want to go all the way ever. What I mean is I don't have s.e.x-at all-anymore. I probably didn't make that clear before.”

Collier contemplated a thoughtful response but couldn't.

”I'll put it bluntly,” she continued in a wearied tone. ”I don't f.u.c.k. I haven't since college.”

Collier tried to manage his reaction. ”I understand,” he a.s.sured her but really didn't. A small chuckle. ”We weren't f.u.c.king, you know.”