Page 66 of A Duke's Christmas Carol
He glanced down to find his hand resting upon an ancient gate, damp moss pressing against his palm like a sponge. His head raised as the clock struck four, a figure emerging from the mist like the rose garden ghost that Mrs. Leggat had spoken about.A vision in white, a maiden with long, honey blonde hair, blown back by a teasing wind. An oh-so familiar maiden.
“Valerie!” he called out, but she did not glance his way; she did not seem to see or hear him at all.
He called for her again, his hand pushing open the gate. The shriek of hinges could have woken the dead, but she continued to wander through the gravestones as if in a dream of her own. Oblivious to his presence.
Five o’clock…
Instinct urged him to run to her, but in his dreams, he was not in control of what his body did or did not do. Instead, his feet trudged forward, as if each were tied to heavy boulders that he had no choice but to drag behind him.
Six o’clock…
Just then, another figure appeared among the dead and buried, as though he had risen from a grave himself. Dark hair and waxy skin, eyes bloodshot, with a wiry frame that belied the violent strength he possessed. Another familiar face, twisted by the dream… or, perhaps, Adrian’s fatherhadalways looked like that.
“Get away from her!” Adrian roared, but no one listened.
His father extended a thin-fingered hand to Valerie, and with that radiant and naïve smile of hers, she put her own hand into his.
Seven o’clock…
“Valerie, get away from him!” Adrian yelled, his throat burning.
All the while, he continued to lumber toward them, desperately willing his dreaming body to move faster. Could it not tell that Valerie was in danger? Or did it mean to make him watch as another person he loved died before he could save them?
The two figures, one so beautiful, one so ugly, turned in unison and walked together toward the towering doors of that gray and gloomy church.
Eight o’clock…
As Adrian’s father opened the doors and guided Valerie inside, swallowed up by the darkness, the bonds that slowed Adrian seemed to snap. All of a sudden, he could run… and he did, as fast as his legs would carry him, toward the church.
Nine o’clock…
He burst through the doors to find a candlelit scene, the pews all empty, a hooded priest standing at the altar, while Adrian’s father led Valerie down the aisle toward…
Adrian came to a jarring halt, unable to move at all as the clock struck ten. At the end of the altar, a shadow waited for its bride. The same shadow that had lurked in his dreams for as long as he could remember. The unknown, shapeless darkness that mocked him from the corners of his nightmares, never revealing itself or its purpose.
Eleven o’clock…
“Valerie, no!” Adrian shouted, as his father passed her hand to that dreadful thing of shadow and misery, that spectator of Adrian’s darkest moments.
Once again, whatever was holding him back released him. Breathless, he lurched forward, sprinting with everything he possessed down the altar to Valerie.
But as he lunged for her hand, the shadow caught him by the wrist, that vaporous entity of black mist suddenly becoming flesh: fingers, a hand, a wrist, a forearm...
Adrian followed that slowly revealed form to the shadow’s face, a cry rasping from his throat as he saw himself reflected back. Only, the other him was smiling, his eyes bright with merriment, and Valerie was gazing at him with such affection that the dreaming him immediately withdrew his hand.
With a nod, his smiling self gently released his hold upon Adrian’s wrist and turned his attention back to Valerie, eyes burning with such love that Adrian’s heart ached.
Midnight…
As the clock chimed that final stroke, the church vanished along with the happy couple… and Adrian awoke to the canopy of the guest bedchamber. Alone and drenched in sweat, panting as if he really had sprinted across a graveyard.
“I cannot be the shadow,” he whispered as he sat up, clawing a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “I cannot be the watcher of my own misery anymore.”
The message had been clear, but the solution was not so simple.
Valerie…His gaze darted toward the window, the night sky tinged with the bluish hues that signaled the slow transformation into dawn. It would be hours yet until the sun came up, but he did not have a moment to lose.
Indeed, he had a wedding to stop, if he was not already too late.
