From:         orive@ASMUS1.GENETICS.UGA.EDU
Subject:      Blue 
 
I wrote this before the "Forever Not" challenge was issued,
and I'm not sure I like this particular ending, but I was
sick, and had a fever, and in a dream there was a woman in
a blue dress . . .
Recently (and I'm sorry for forgetting the author) a story
was posted here where a certain photograph haunts Janette.
Well, it cuts both ways . . .
 
Comments to orive@bscr.uga.edu
 
**********
 
Blue
A Forever Knight Story
by M. E. Orive
 
     The old woman sat restlessly in first class, clasping and
unclasping her hands.  From time to time a member of her
family, seated around her, would say something; she barely
heard them.
     "I'm going to bury my husband," she thought, and was
surprised, once again, at the sharp stab of pain brought on by
that thought. They had been so happy at first, and then again
for a long time. There had only been a brief time of grief,
that she had feared he would not survive.
 
**********
 
     "Nicholas," softly, almost sadly.
     Nick turned and went cold. He knew this moment would
come, had been fearing it. LaCroix had been so contemptuous,
so angry.
     "If you think I am going to wait around for you to die,
and offer that one, last chance, you are sadly mistaken."
     And he had left, with Janette, for God knows where. But
Nick knew he would be back, that LaCroix could not accept
defeat so easily.
     "You will have to kill me, because I'm not coming back."
He swallowed, his mouth dry, suddenly aware of his own fragile
mortality.
     LaCroix walked away from the window and into the light of
the lamp. He stared at Nick for a long time, as if trying to
decide something.
     "Kill you?  Not today, my dear boy. Although I am most
definitely going to hurt you."
     Nick swallowed again.  "Stay away from Natalie . . . "
     LaCroix interrupted him, "Please, don't be a child.  I
come with some . . . news . . . for you."
     "News?"
     LaCroix didn't answer right away. He ran a hand along the
lampshade, as if checking for dust.  Nick noticed the
slightest tremor, the slightest unsteadiness.  LaCroix pulled
his hand away, and he knew, then, what LaCroix had come back
to say.  For a moment he wondered how he could not have known,
then remembered. He was mortal now; the ties had been cut.
     "The east balcony of the house in Paris, the one on the
Boulevard Saint Germain.  I was surprised at how quickly she
burned; I scorched myself on the flames trying to pull her
in."
     In the light of the lamp, Nick saw the half-healed burns
on his hands. LaCroix turned away again, towards the window.
The pain in his stomach surprised Nick. Grief is always that
way, some part of his mind whispered, always surprising.
     "I have been having the strangest dream. You know I
rarely dream . . . "
     "LaCroix . . ."
     "I am in the sitting room, just beside the east balcony.
It is mid-morning and the shutters are all open, the sunlight
streaming in.  Janette is there, bent over some needlework, in
a pale blue dress.  Did you ever see her wear blue?"
     "No, never," Nick felt something in him struggling, as
though trying to be free, struggling against his chest. His
own heartbeat, he realized with surprise.
     "Pale blue, it matched her eyes. I never bought her,
among all the thousands of dresses, a blue one."
     Nick wanted to tell him something, to respond with
something angry, but all he could think of was how LaCroix's
hand had trembled, ever so slightly.
     "She is in the sunlight, bent over her needlework. She
looks up at me and I see . . . that she is happy."
     LaCroix looked at Nick now, his eyes pale in a pale face,
and smiled. It was a bitter smile, and a look that you might
cut yourself on.  He reached out and touched the side of
Nick's face, his hand cool against the warmth of his cheek.
"Did that hurt?"
     "Yes",  the reply was only a whisper.
     LaCroix nodded his head.
     "Good," and then he was gone.
     The window had been open, Nick realized finally. That was
how he had gotten in.  He would have to remember to lock the
window, to lock all of the windows, and then nothing would
ever get in again.
     "Nick?"
      He didn't say a word to her, but crossed the living room
of the loft and buried his face in her hair.
     "How was work?" he finally asked, his voice rough.
 
**********
 
     A few years had passed, and Nick had forgotten about his
former life, forgotten how something had once struggled to
free itself from his chest.  At least, a part of him did, the
part that was busy with his work, with his family. And then,
of course, as is always the case when we are most happy in our
lives, something happened that made him remember.
     The package had come for him at work; the return address
was Paris, Boulevard Saint Germain. Inside was a box, of
sandalwood. No carvings and no latch, just smooth wood.  He
looked at it a long time, and didn't open it that day, or the
next. When he finally did, Natalie was with him. Inside was a
fine gray ash, almost like dust, and a silver ring.  He was
surprised to hear a roaring in his ears, as if he were about
to faint.
     There was a small voice in his mind that whispered, "Does
that hurt?" and answered for him, "Yes."
     Natalie watched his face.
     "Damn you, LaCroix," she thought, "I hope you are in
hell."
 
**********
 
     Natalie had been afraid then, because for a little while
she thought he would lose his mind. When he had announced that
he was going to Paris, she had simply packed for both of them,
and arranged for the children to stay with Myra and Don.  He
didn't speak on the plane, not to her, not to the pretty Air
France flight assistant who kept asking if there wasn't
something that they needed.  The woman was worried about the
handsome blond man in first class.  He couldn't seem to hear
her, or his wife.
     They stayed in an old townhouse, richly decorated, but
now fallen into some disrepair.  Natalie spent her days
wandering around the rooms, looking at the accumulated
belongings of a lifetime, of several lifetimes, of
generations.  Once, she found a richly paneled closet, filled
with women's dresses. As she walked further and further into
it, the dresses became older, the delicate beadwork pulling on
the rotting silk.  Black silk, and velvet, and the faintest
scent . . . of extreme age, of death.
     The fourth night in the house in Paris, Natalie woke up
to the sound of crying. She found him in the sitting room. He
looked up at her, and she could feel the tears in her own
eyes.
     "Don't cry, Natalie, it's all right." He smoothed her
hair back from her face. "It's just that I've had the
strangest dream. We were all here, in this room, Janette in a
blue dress, and LaCroix reading something aloud, the way he
did when he had found something that he had to share.  And I
was there, too.  The sun was shining on us all, and we were
happy."
     Natalie held him close to her, and tried not to think
that she had not been there, in the sunlight.
 
**********
 
     The old woman stared at the marble crypt in the Parisian
cemetery, oblivious to the soft voices of her children, her
grandchildren.
     "Why here," her daughter-in-law was asking, "Who were
these people?"
     "Shhh," answered her husband, the oldest son, soothingly.
"Does it really matter so much, now?"
     Three names were chiseled in the cold marble, each with a
single date, the date of death, beneath them.  The old woman
placed her hand on the name in the center, and leaned close,
as if sharing a secret.
     "He's yours now," she whispered, "I give him back to
you."
     The sun broke through the mid-morning clouds, lightening
the somberness of the place, tracing the names in pale winter
light. Her youngest grandchild ran up to her, the boy with the
bright hair. She picked him up and walked away.
     Three names in the sunlight, and above them a single
word, which was, curiously enough, written in English.
 
FOREVER
 
The End