Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 122946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
This time she was the one who flew back, sliding across the library floor. I glanced at my hands, not sure what was happening. There were no directions this time, but I was going to roll with it.
“Why are you attacking me? I’m not the one who killed you!”
She didn’t snap back up in front of me like she had done the other times. This time when she rose from the ground, it was like a human. Her face was fuller, less sunken, less pale. She looked more like she was a sickly woman on the verge of death, and less like the woman in black out to give me nightmares. For the first time, I saw what looked like a crown of thorns. It pierced her neck, and I remembered another female, another artist who had drawn the same thing around herself. Frida Kahlo.
“Summon him,” she insisted again.
“No.” I shook my head gently. “I think the reason why you can’t go to him is that he’s being punished for doing that to you.” I pointed to her neck. “And everything else he must have done before and after that. I, for one, do not want to interrupt that punishment.”
“Die!” She shrieked, getting up and lunging.
“No,” I said again at the flick of my wrist. Even though there was no wind, the gust knocked her to the ground. “That’s why you’re attacking me? Do you think if you hurt me or someone else that you’ll be able to get punished with him?”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t even try to get up. Instead, she crawled toward a now ripped and broken canvas on the ground.
“No,” I said again, hands outstretched and the canvas came into my hands. “You don’t get to hide and wait there, either!”
“Give it back!” she cried out, it was purely a scream but a sob. “It’s mine!”
“You can’t own anything because you’re a ghost!” I reminded her because apparently, she had forgotten. “You’ve been hiding in this painting, haven’t you? Waiting for another witch powerful enough, or stupid enough to help you. Unfortunately for both of us, it was me. And this is my way of helping.”
I felt the fire heat through my left hand, and smoke started to rise from the canvas.
“No! No!” She tried to rush me, but with my right hand, I sent her back to her stomach.
“You are a ghost, Elisa-Maria Götze. Your husband murdered you. He murdered you because cursing you wasn’t enough. Cursing you didn’t stop you from being the great artist you were. He could not handle being inferior to you. Your talent scared him.”
“It was my fault,” she whispered, peeling herself off the ground. “I should have been happy painting. He brought me to the school to paint with him. It was my fault. I should have never—”
“Been yourself?” I asked, dropping the burning canvas. “If a person can’t love you for who you are, then they can never love you at all.”
“We…we would have been happy.” When she looked up to me, her tears fell from her green eyes without reservation. Her face was full and pink and round. No longer the ghost, but now fully Elisa-Maria Götze and still with a crown of thrones around her neck.
“Happier than when you were painting?” I asked gently. “Happier than when were you in that moment—right before he killed you—that moment when you must have thought how lucky you were to be with him, to be so supported?”
She hung her head and sobbed, her body shaking as she cried her heart out. Who knew ghosts still felt pain?
Walking over to her, I knelt in front of her. “There is nothing I can do for you but tell you the truth. Your mortal life ended in tragedy. It’s actually very common, unfortunately—”
“You are not making me feel better.” She sniffled and inhaled once before lifting her head to glare at me.
“Says the ghost who made me want to claw my ears out, threw me all over the world, and nearly scared me into a grave with your evil ghost face,” I shot back.
“It’s what you get, showing off your love in front of me like that,” she muttered and tried to push herself off the ground.
Grabbing her arms, I lifted her with me.
“Showing off what?” I stood back up defensive. “I wasn’t showing off anything.”
“You and your husband.” She nodded behind me, and when I turned, Theseus stood beside his father and mother, watching me. Her eyes were wide when I turned back to face her.
“I forgot that they were there,” I whispered, knowing they could hear me, but it wasn’t like my thoughts were private, either.
“They? As in us? Are they talking about us now?” Ulrik questioned, but I just kept my face forward.
A small smile appeared on her lips. “Even to the unearthly, you must look like a madwoman to them, now, brawling with yourself.”