A Great and Terrible Beauty

"No, not yet!"



"You must concentrate on the place you've left behind. The door of light will appear. Then step through."



"But when can I talk to you again?"



"You can find me in the garden. It is safe there."



"But how" "Choose it and the door will take you there. I must move on."



"Waitdon't go!"



But her voice fades into an icy sheet of whispers that melts into ether.



Move on. Move on. Move on.



The light goes so bright, it blinds me. I have to cover my eyes with my arm. When I open them again, the temple is a barren ruin, the dirt floor littered with shriveled flowers. She is gone.



The mist is thick in the trees as I make my way back to where I left Sally Carny. I can barely see, but it's not the fog. It's the tears. More than anything, I want to stay behind in that lily- scented room with my mother. A dark figure looms on the path ahead, and for a moment, I forget everything except the terror in my veins, my mothers warning that I am being hunted.



A tall, broad-shouldered man steps out. He wears the military uniform of Her Majesty's guardsnot an officer, but a foot soldier. He approaches me shyly, holding his hat in his hands. There's a sweet boyishness to his face that's familiar. Except for the unearthly pallor, he could be the neighbor across the way or the loved one from a family photograph.



"Begging your pardon, but are you the one that's with my Polly tonight?"



"Polly?" I repeat. I am speaking to a ghost, so I can be forgiven any breach of manners. I am sure I've seen him before.



"Surely I saw you there with herMiss Polly LeFarge?"



A man in a uniform. A faraway smile. A fading tintype on a tidy desk. Reginald, Mademoiselle LeFarge's beloved fianc?, is dead and buried, nothing but a memory she can't let go of.



"Do you mean Mademoiselle LeFarge? My teacher?" I ask quietly.



"Yes, miss. My Polly often talked of teaching, but I promised her I'd make a right good bit of money in the army and then I'd come home and take care of her proper, with a church wedding and a little cottage in Dover. She loves the sea, Polly does."



"But you didn't come home," I say. It's more of a question than a statement, as if I still hope that he might walk into her classroom someday.



"Influenza," Reginald says. He looks down at his hat, twirls it round in his hands like a wheel of fortune at a country carnival. "Would you give Polly a message for me, miss? Could you tell her that Reggie will always love her, and I've still got that muffler she knit for me that Christmas before I left? It held up fine, it did." He smiles at me, and though I can see the blue of his lips, it's still a good smile, a true one. "Would you do that for me, miss?"



"Yes, I will," I whisper. "Much obliged to you for helping me cross over. And now, I think you should be getting back. They'll be looking for you here if you stay." He places his hat on his head and strolls back into the mist from whence he came, till he disappears entirely.



When I return to Madame Romanoff, otherwise known as Sally Carny, she's singing old church hymns in a shaky voice. The dead have all gone, but she's still holding on to that tree branch for dear life. She sees me and nearly jumps into my arms. "Please take me back!"



"Why should I take you back after the cavalier way you treat people who are grieving for their loved ones?"



"I never meant no harm, miss. I swear it! You can't blame a girl fer makin' a livin', miss."



I can't, really. If she weren't doing this, Sally Carny would be on the streets, having to pay her way through far more odious, soul-crushing means. "All right. I shall take you back. But only under two conditions."



"Anything. You name it."



"First, you shall never, ever, under any circumstances--and that includes public drunkennesstell a single soul what has happened here tonight. Because if you do" I trail off, not really sure what threats I can make, but it doesn't matter. Sally's got her hand across her heart.



"As God is my witness. Not a word!"



"I shall hold you to that. As for the second condition" I'm thinking now of Mademoiselle's kind face." You will convey a message from the spirit world to someone in the audience tonight, a woman named Polly. You are to say that Reggie loves his Polly very much, that he still has the muffler she knit him at Christmas." I add this next bit on my own. "And that he wishes her to move on and be happy. Do you have it?"



The hand goes to the heart again. "Every word." Sally puts an arm about my shoulders. "But Miss wot would you think a joinin' up wif me and me boys? Wot wif your gifts and me promotion, we could make a fortune. Fink on it. That's all I'm sayin'."