The Shells Of Chanticleer (29 page)

“I don’t remember any of that,” I said, thankfully. “I only remember knowing Sebastian.”

He looked wistfully past both of us, the Rhode Island landscape coming alive again.

“She could never hide her affection for you, son, although she was as gangly and awkward as a colt when you joined up. She grew into a beauty while you were away and asked about you all the time. As parents we had spoken of our hopes for the two of you when peace returned. We assumed there would be plenty of time, but time runs out for all of us. You’ve heard me say that before. Sebastian, when you died it altered her future as well. She was never the same after that and I believe she departed the earth of her own volition. I think the universe is righting your destinies by bringing you together here. I wondered where Marceline was and why, if she loved you so much, she never caught up with you. When she never showed up I just assumed I had been wrong to see a future for the two of you. I am glad to know I wasn’t off base. Now it looks as if she is here, after all.”

I hadn’t been imagining it. The farm, the soldier, the goodbye at the gate. I was Marceline and I was Macy.

“Well, well, what a pleasant development,” Crispin chuckled. “I knew there was something different about you Macy. I probably stared at you a bit more than I should have, trying to figure it out. For that I apologize.”

“Oh, no problem,” I said. He did stare too much but at least he admitted it. So I hadn’t been imagining that I knew Sebastian before—I had been remembering another life, with him in it. It didn’t seem impossible to me; it seemed to explain everything.

“I of all people shouldn’t be surprised that she was reborn as a modern girl,” he continued on. “Love is the most powerful force in the universe. It never gives up. It never dies. The search for a lost love, or an unrequited love, has driven many a soul back to earth. Now here is a young lady who followed her heart for centuries, through time and space, to get that happy ending the war cheated her out of. I wonder what took her so long to find you son? She must have lost her way in the universe, or never thought to come look for you in Chanticleer, until now. Oh well. No one ever said she was brilliant,” he joked.

“I said you were an old soul, remember? I must have recognized you all along,” said Sebastian and the joy in his face matched mine.

No wonder we were drawn to each other. No wonder he had crossed the line with me so easily. We were not only old souls; we were old friends who had grown up together under the same sky.

“So history repeats itself,” I murmured.

I could die at sixteen again, of my own volition, and in renouncing my life on earth, right a wrong that fortune had dealt us hundreds of years ago. On earth my death would be a tragedy. The news would shock. Tears would be shed, lives altered, and hearts torn open. But in the unseen, it would be a reason for joy, spilling over.

I suddenly felt far removed from my old life and numbed to it. I could turn my back on it easily and stay in Chanticleer. I loved my dead friend more—I surprised myself.

“How would I die?” I asked.

“It’s very simple,” said Crispin. “Your heart can fail, your lungs can clog, a prescription can be misread. Human life is so frail, the options are numerous.”

“Do you really need to think about it Macy?” Sebastian asked. “Make no mistake about where I stand. I want you to stay here with me.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it until I had to motion to him to let up a little.

“Don’t pressure her son. Give her time to mull it over. Listen to your heart Macy. It will tell you what is right. You have up until the last minute to decide.”

“If I choose otherwise,” I said, avoiding Sebastian’s eyes, “I will tip back home, like others have, on schedule?”

Crispin nodded. “You will finish the coursework and resume the life ahead of you. You have done the work; you have earned the right to that life. You should see the world. Paris and Spain, the savannahs of Africa, the Amalfi coast. I saw it all, hundreds of years ago, and it was worthwhile.”

My dad would take me to Africa; I had only to ask. “But I feel wonderful here,” I said.

“Or course you do. It’s hard to leave a place this close to heaven,” Crispin agreed.

I finished my warm caramel sugar and stood up to go. Suddenly I needed to be alone and to be quiet and listen to the voice within me. Breakfast was over, too much had already been packed into the early morning hours. I refused their kind offer of a ride back to Summer Hall. I said my good byes quickly. They walked me out, through the front door this time.

Once alone, I took my time, walking slowly down the tree lined drive back to the circuit, happy that the walk back was a long one. I had a lot to mull over. I could stay in Chanticleer. I was an exception. Sebastian and I were fated to be together. I was the luckiest girl between heaven and earth.

There was a shell of me standing in the gallery of Crispin and Sebastian’s home. What an odd turn of events, my drugged body passed onto the stretched-out hands, then locked into the van and driven into the night. The audience that had watched me float and crumple in the tank. Bing and Miss Clarice must have been there. My hair that was impossible to dry, they probably hadn’t expected that. The lady in the wig room. It was all so odd and yet I didn’t care. It hadn’t taken anything away from me; it couldn’t really touch me anymore.

When I got back to my room I felt the damp patch on my pillow and buried my face in it. I had too much to think about. I had to decide in what universe my immediate future lay. I had to decide if I was ready to die.

It was two days later that a note came with my breakfast tray to go to Miss Clarice’s office again.
I couldn’t have much more to accomplish in Chanticleer,
I thought. I knew it might be the end for me. My call time was 6 pm, almost sunset. I spent a wistful day walking the circuit, taking in the details of Chanticleer, wondering what, if any, memories I would retain. I wavered between seeking out Sebastian or not. I didn’t know how to handle the day. In the end, I kept to myself, avoiding the conflict.

Sebastian was sitting in my chair when I arrived at Miss Clarice’s office. I took a deep breath and entered the room. He jumped out of the velvet chair and motioned for me to sit in it, as usual. He went and stood behind Miss Clarice.

“Sebastian will be your shadow, tonight,” she said.

I nodded. I knew Bing would be mad when he found out Sebastian had taken his place in what I suspected was my last coursework. He would miss the ending that he had wanted to share with me. There had been a note from Bing under my door the other morning. It simply said,

“
I wasn’t there that night, Macy. I refused to participate.
”

I wasn’t mad at Sebastian about making my shell, but I couldn’t stop the tears when I read Bing’s note. He had been loyal to me until the end. I would miss him.
If only Sebastian and Bing would quit picking at each other….

Miss Clarice showed Sebastian some notes in my file and when she shut it she closed her eyes. A small smile of contentment seemed to fall across her face.

“Let’s go,” said Sebastian, “the night is getting away from us.”

Miss Clarice didn’t get up. She looked at me and said, “Good luck my dear.”

I waved back a silent goodbye. We left the room and headed out of Summer Hall.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To the Cornish Manor.”

We walked quietly, side by side. I knew Sebastian was there instead of Bing because I hadn’t told him my decision yet. I hadn’t because I knew it was going to disappoint him.

I was not going to stay in Chanticleer.

I was pretty sure of my decision, but I had put off telling him as long as I could, lest I change my mind. I knew he wanted me to stay. The Marceline in me wanted it too. It would be so easy to slip away and soothe my soul with the easy, painless passing I’d been promised. The first day after our discussion I was sure that I would do it. I decided I wasn’t afraid to die once I knew we kept living. It was just the not knowing what happened after death that I feared, and the potential for pain. Take away both of those elements and there was no punch to it.

But I began to be haunted by the girl in the hospital bed, and she became difficult to ignore. She wailed and she head-butted and she flailed in her restraints, screaming not to be tossed aside. She had been brought, alone and afraid, to the strange world with the deep pink sky. She had been yelled at and laughed at and had cried with frustration and loneliness. Gathering everything within her, she had crossed the bridge in the Fir Forest that day with Paolo. Afterwards, she had felt exhilarated, courageous and joyful, feeling as if she could do anything. Having her best day ever. She had earned that feeling of exhilaration, had paid for it by shaking and crying and holding on for dear life. She had done whatever had been asked of her and some of it had been weird and some of it had been wonderful. She had been afraid but she had figured it out and in the end had overcome it all. She was a Paolo, not a Poppy, and I loved her for achieving that. That girl in the hospital bed wanted it to have been for a reason. She wanted me to choose life.

I tossed and turned and wrestled with my decision. In the end I decided that giving her that chance was the right thing to do. She had seen the prison gates lift and I could not reject her. I could not put her in the ground and let the cemetery gates clang behind her.

When I told Sebastian this he only said, “I’m disappointed. I thought I would finally have someone all to myself here who would never leave me. But I understand.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

There didn’t seem to be anything left to say. It was quiet when we entered the Manor, worlds away from the raging crowds, the chatter and crush of the festival. The vaulted passageways were hushed. I followed Sebastian silently as he led the way. We had been there together only once before, the night we met. How fitting to be there again at the end. My heart was beating fast. I knew this was all ending.

Eventually he stopped at an old wooden door at the very end of a dark hall.

“This is it. I’m going to have to leave you here.”

I panicked a little. “It’s so deserted and dark. Can you wait for me?”

He shook his head. There was no intent to indulge me in his eyes. “No, I cannot. But remember, Macy, you have everything you need. Do you know what I mean?”

“I don’t know if I do,” I conceded.

I was falling apart. I wasn’t sure anymore, all of a sudden. These were my last moments with Sebastian. Letting go was harder than I imagined.

“Macy, before I let you go I want to say one thing. I know I have acted in ways that made you doubt me, and I know I hurt you. You weren’t supposed to find out about your shell. It was supposed to be a secret. But it isn’t easy having Crispin as a father. I was so angry with him for leaving your hair wet, but he insisted that you should know the truth. And he always does whatever he wants. Well, I guess I got that trait from him, too.”

“I bet you did.” I couldn’t be mad at Crispin. I was eternally grateful that he had made me the kind offer to stay with Sebastian.

“Never mind. That doesn’t matter now. What does matter is that before you open that door, I need you to know that you were never just a project to me. The minute I first saw you I knew my job was compromised. Then when you danced with me, even though you so obviously did not want to, you made me laugh right away. And I knew right then that I was going to break the rules with you and I didn’t care. We make each other happy, don’t we? Say you believe me.”

I needed to hear that. He knew it had to be said. I had thought recently about his lack of fear. ‘I’m not afraid to go after what I want,’ he had said. He had taken me from my bedroom, had borne my unconscious weight on the stretcher, pushed that elevator button that took me to the catwalk. He let the pieces fall wherever they would, and I had been one of those pieces. But that was the price I paid for linking myself to him. He had always acted in his best interest.

There was a time when I might have looked down at that as a flaw, called it selfish. But he had become my model of what it meant to not be afraid to follow what your heart tells you is right, believing that the universe will cooperate. I had been his universe, and I had been more than willing to adjust to him. Sebastian was the master of it. In the end, I was still in his thrall.

“Of course, I believe you,” I assured him hastily. “Even when I didn’t want to. I simply couldn’t help myself.”

“What do they call it on earth … love at first sight? Except for us it was technically our second sight, but you know what I mean,” he laughed, and he grabbed my hand, our fingers interlocking one final time. Then he pressed his lips against mine in one last attempt to sway me.

“Change your mind,” he whispered, and right then I hated that voice inside me, playing on an infinite loop, that was persuading me to walk away from him. The longer we stood there the more I remembered Crispin saying I would have until the last minute to change my mind, and I was sorely tempted.

However, I felt so much love and loyalty toward that girl in the hospital bed, begging me to stay alive, that eventually I had to pull away and whisper back, “I can’t.”

I saw the resignation in his face and I hated it. For a minute, he didn’t say anything back to me. When he did speak he sounded like he had given up, and that wasn’t the Sebastian I knew and loved. “Okay, I surrender. I could say it is going to kill me to wait for you but ….”

I finished his sentence for him, “We’re way too late for that. Now it’s your turn to adjust to what I need to do. And my shell is there to talk to until I get back,” I teased, trying to make him smile. “I’m glad that a little bit of me is being left behind. It made it easier for me to leave you.”

“Then I wish I hadn’t done it,” he said.

“I’m glad you did.”

“I see I can’t convince you to stay. I won’t pretend I haven’t thought about how difficult it was for you to decide what to do. Believe me, I don’t want to make this harder for you. So I’ve been thinking up a way to make it feel better for both of us. Well, mostly for me. But you may like it too.”