Midnight Bayou

sweat, the dust—and under it the faint, faint drift of soap from his morning shower. His cheek was a little rough against hers as he’d neglected to shave.
    If life were a fairy tale, she thought, they could stay just like this. Waltzing around and around on the satiny floor, while the sun slid down, the flowers rioted, and the lights from hundreds of tiny crystal prisms showered over them.
    “I’ve got such feelings for you. More than I ever had for anyone, or wanted to. I don’t know what to do with them.”
    “Give them to me,” he pleaded, turning his lips into her hair. “I’ll take good care of them.”
    She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. Hadn’t meant to. Now, when she would have drawn back, he pulled her closer. So close, so tight, she couldn’t get her breath.
    Her head spun, and the music inside it soared. The strong scent of lilies rose up and almost smothered her.
    “Do you hear it?” His hands trembled as he gripped her arms. “Violins.”
    “I can’t . . .” His voice sounded far off, and as she fought to focus on his face, another seemed to float over it. “I’m dizzy.”
    “Let’s sit down.” He kept his hands on her arms,lowered them both to the floor. “You heard it, too. The music. You felt it, too.”
    “Just hold on a minute.” She had to regain her bearings. The room was empty but for the two of them. There was no music, no crystal light, no pots heaped with fragrant white lilies. Yet she had heard, seen, smelled. “I didn’t know hallucinations were catching.”
    “It’s not hallucination. It’s memory. Somehow, it’s memory. They’d have danced here, Lucian and Abigail, like we were. Loved each other, like we do.” When she shook her head, he swore. “All right, damn it, he loved her, the way I love you. And there’s something still alive between them. Maybe something that needs to be finished, or just acknowledged. We’re here, Lena.”
    “Yes, we’re here. And I’m not living someone else’s life.”
    “It’s not like that.”
    “It felt like that. And living someone else’s life might just mean dying someone else’s death. He drowned himself in that pond outside there, and she—”
    “She died in this house.”
    Lena took a calming breath. “Depending on whose story you believe.”
    “I know she did. Upstairs, in the nursery. Something happened to her up there. And he never knew. He grieved himself to death not knowing. I need to find out for him. And for myself. I need you to help me.”
    “What can I do?”
    “Come to the nursery with me. We’re closer now. Maybe you’ll remember this time.”
    “Declan.” She took his face in her hands. “There’s nothing for me to remember.”
    “You hang witch bottles out in my tree, but sit here denying any possibility of reincarnation, which you brought into the mix in the first place.”
    “That’s not what I’m doing. There’s nothing for me to remember because I’m not Abigail. You are.”
    She might as well have slipped on a pair of brass knuckles and plowed her fist into his stomach. The shock of her words had him reeling.
    “Get out. That’s not possible.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because . . .” Flustered, oddly embarrassed, he pushed to his feet. “You’re trying to say I was a girl ?”
    “I don’t know why that’s such a shock to your system. A lot of us get along just fine female.”
    “I don’t. I’m not. I wasn’t.”
    “It makes the most sense, if any of this makes sense.”
    “No sense. None. No way.”
    “You’re the one who keeps hearing the baby cry.” She’d never seen him quite so flustered. “Mothers do, before anyone else. And you’re drawn to that room upstairs, the way a mother would be to her baby. Even though the room scares you, you’re pulled back. You said how you wandered through the servants’ wing, how easy it was to find your way. She’d have known it, but why would Lucian?”
    “It was his house.” But he remembered how he’d imagined looking out the window, imagined seeing the two men riding toward the house. Why would he imagine seeing Lucian riding home if he’d been Lucian?
    “A couple other things,” Lena continued. “One telling one. That day when I came along and saw you walking toward the pond. Trancelike. You walked oddly. I couldn’t figure out what it was about the way you walked that struck me. But now I know. You were walking the way a very pregnant woman walks. Waddling a bit,” she said as he