Forevermore Ch. 02

"So what do you think?" Shelly asked with a smile.

"I think that's the first carbohydrate I've ever seen you eat," Belinda said with a laugh, "so it must be serious."

Shelly sighed and reached for Belinda's hand. "I'm serious, Belinda. I know you're tired of writing the romance novels but the money is too good to say no."

Belinda twisted her mouth up. Whatever Shelly wanted to sign her up for was just more torture. When was enough money enough? Belinda couldn't outlive what she had now, especially not the way things were going. "I think we can talk about it," Belinda murmured and pulled her hair back over her shoulder. What difference did it make when the whole world would shift into madness once she returned home.

Shelly had accomplished her mission and visibly relaxed. Her agent picked at her food as she caught Belinda up with all of the gossip that she might have missed with all of the people that Belinda didn't care about. Finally, after the waitress left the check on the plastic tray, Shelly poked at the elephant in the room. "And then there's Steven."

Belinda saw the cigarette pack in her backpack as she reached for her wallet. Dammit, why did they have to do this? Steven and Trish and baby made three. Were people going to keep talking about her ex next month? Next year? When the baby had a brother or sister? Weren't they supposed to tread carefully around Belinda's suicidal tendencies?

"I heard," she whispered as she threw her American Express card on the tray.

"I'm sorry," Shelly said as she checked her reflection. Her agent reapplied a slicker of neon pink lip gloss in the center of her bottom lip. "If it helps, everyone hates her."

Trish wasn't the problem though, Belinda thought as she signed the credit card slip. Trish probably thought she was in love with Steve. She probably believed everything he said, just like Belinda had before her and the first ex-wife had before Belinda. "I don't really want to talk about it," Belinda muttered as she grabbed her backpack. "Come on, I have to smoke."

They walked slowly up the cobblestone sidewalk and Shelly continued her narrative on how fabulous Fantasia's life was going. Always fabulous, always flawless, Belinda's doppelgänger was having the time of her life and thanks to Edgar, was about to publish the best book of her career so far. Fuck, why couldn't Fantasia just slit her wrists? Walk in front of a bus?

Eat a bad chicken sandwich?

There was a fluorescent sign that flickered, "PSYCHIC", in hot pink, all caps and Belinda tugged on Shelly's sleeve. "Come on, let's go talk to her."

"Sure, why not?" Shelly giggled.

The buzzer announced their presence and before Belinda could make a crack about how a real psychic wouldn't need an alarm system, a young red haired woman came through the beaded curtain and nodded at them. "Good evening, ladies," she nodded, unsmiling, unimpressed, "You're here for a reading." She wasn't asking, she knew. Belinda couldn't explain why but she knew she needed one.

"She wants one," Shelly pulled Belinda by the arm to the counter. "I have a tarot girl in LA," the agent excused herself. A tarot girl, a head shrinker, a life coach, a dog analyst, Shelly had a hundred people in her life to tell her how great she was. No wonder she seemed so together.

They all did. All the Hollywood people were in touch and completely out of touch. Perfectly imperfect. Belinda had hired an assistant and a stylist and a yogi and a coach when she lived there, all to no avail. She'd never fit in their perfect world. She belonged here in Fells Point, where drunks fell down and died in the street. These were her kind of people. Dysfunctional.

So why did she still feel so shitty? Belinda put her hand out, "Yeah, I do. I want a reading." Whatever that was. If it was Belinda's future, it would be short, wouldn't it?

The redhead gestured and kept a wary eye on Belinda as she stepped inside. Belinda felt a chill run down her spine as she stepped behind the beaded curtain. The redhead led her down a dark corridor that smelled musty. She led Belinda around a corner and they paused outside a rickety, old wooden door. There were strange symbols written in chalk on the door and Belinda reached out to touch the pentagram in the center.

"Don't touch," the redhead barked at her and her voice alone was like a punch to the gut. "You carry something with you."

Belinda felt the echo of the woman's voice. It called from here but it strummed in the walls around her as well, like a harp's chord, plucked and reverberated. Before she could ask the woman what she meant, the redhead opened the wooden door. The hinges squeaked and announced her presence.

The voice that came from inside was old. It was as old and as rusted as the hinges. It was old and damp and fragile and the scent in this room was of earth and the metallic traces of buried treasures. Perhaps whoever was inside had sent Belinda the Ouija board. The voice croaked, "I have been waiting for you. I knew you would come."

Well of course she did, Belinda thought with a wiseacre grin, she had the security system. "You just think you have all the answers, don't you?" The gray haired woman at the table asked in her rusty gate voice. "Sit down," she whispered and pointed with a thick, twisted arthritic finger to the chair opposite hers.

It wasn't a request and Belinda felt the power that emanated from the bent, wiry woman. People didn't refuse her, Belinda thought as she took her seat silently and drew her legs close into her. She suddenly felt as if she needed protection from whatever vibrated in the air around them.

The redhead was in the background and she kept one eye on Belinda at all times. The gray haired woman put both gnarled hands on the table and murmured, "Give me your hands, girl."

Belinda felt as the air left and she fought to take a full breath. Come on, panic attack, sure, because it's just one more thing. One more hallucination, one more little blurb that the lithium is sure to smooth over. Belinda reached out and clasped the old woman's papery skin between her fingers.

"He was there, waiting for you," the gray haired woman said and her smile showed gaps where her jack-o-lantern smile opened up. "You know each other," she nodded.

Belinda watched the air in front of them. It was a circling, swirling bit of light that opened up between her and the old woman. It moved and became a chasm that even their joined hands couldn't traverse. In the center, there were two shadows. There they were, she and Edgar, shapes in the light. Her long, black hair blew in the wind that had come up from nowhere in the damp and shade.

Jesus Christ, this was just more insanity, wasn't it?

"You two have known each other many times before." The old woman's voice was right next to her and simultaneously, it was an echo from a far away, in a dream.

The other face in the mist was a man with black, curly hair, a man with gray eyes. The man that laughed beside her, that could only be the specter that had haunted Belinda since she had come to Fells Point. "We must know each other," Belinda agreed in a sleepy voice. Was she actually here or was she still passed out on her couch? Was it all a dream within a dream?

"Lovers, always star crossed lovers," the old woman muttered and something rippled through the swirling mist.

"He's real?" Belinda asked, her heart hammered in her chest as she wondered herself.

The old woman cackled, "How did he mark you if he's not real?" It was the same question Belinda had been asking herself ever since the first night.

"Maybe it's just because I'm going crazy though," Belinda whispered. The tears welled up in her eyes and gave everything a wet, mirror image.

The old woman growled and grabbed Belinda's hands harder, almost as if she'd shake Belinda if she could. "You aren't crazy. Don't let anyone tell you that you're crazy just because they behave badly."

The mist between them cracked open and there she was, it was Belinda but it couldn't be. She was another Belinda from another life. She waited under an enormous oak tree. The branches blocked out the midday sun and made it shadowy and cool in the shade below. The other Belinda waited for him.

"He was always sad, that one," the gray haired woman said, her voice, a stir of echoes, a ripple in the vision. "You couldn't help him. You couldn't help him last time and he doesn't remember that you tried," her voice shook. The black haired girl under the tree held her legs close with her arms, just like Belinda did now.

"I love him," Belinda whispered and finally spilled her secret. She spilled it with a tremor in her voice. "I know it's wrong but I love him."

"It's not wrong to love him, girl," the rusty voice told her in an echo that she heard all around her. Edgar appeared under the tree. He knelt with the black haired girl and he took her into his arms. Belinda watched as they kissed. Even like this, as she watched from another life, another time, she could feel the inexorable draw to him. "He's just a heartbroken man," she whispered, "just a man in love."

They lay in a tangle of limbs, curled up together, under the tree. Belinda's hair spread out on the ground and Edgar's mouth was a smile and their hands were clasped together. The sunlight shifted in the mist and suddenly it was much darker.

"But this time, it's not just a man," the woman told her and the swirling mist caved in on itself. The lovers were lost. The two of them had disappeared in the dark and something else came up from the vibration that shimmered there between them. It was a life force that didn't need a name to be familiar.

"Something came with him this time, girl," the old woman warned and she let Belinda's hands drop on the table as she gasped for air.

Suddenly it was all gone and the room was just a room once more. They sat at an old, wooden table and the gray haired woman was just an old woman. Her voice came from her mouth instead of everywhere, all at once. Still, the redhead hovered over the two of them with her suspicious eyes riveted on Belinda.

"What do you mean?" Belinda cried out.

"Are you okay?" the redhead asked the gray haired woman. Her pale hands clasped the old lady's shoulders and she kneaded her bones. The old woman seemed exhausted suddenly and Belinda wondered if she didn't need those hands to prop her up.

"Fine, fine," the old lady assured her with a pat of her thick, twisted fingers. "We'll be fine."

"Listen lady," Belinda tossed her backpack on the table and fished inside. "I've got money, I'll pay you whatever you want. I just need some answers." She was desperate, first rehab, now psychics. If she joined a cult next, it would just be so Hollywood.

"I suppose you want to smoke that cigarette too," the old woman's face creased deeper with her own smart ass grin.

"No way. No smoking back here," the redhead barked.

Belinda unzipped her hidden pocket in the wallet and lay two crisp one hundred dollar bills on the table. "Can I get an ashtray, please?" she whispered.

"You aren't the first person to be haunted by their last love," the psychic started as she took Belinda's money and folded it into her hands. "It happens all the time. You make love, you give your heart away, and then, suddenly you die. All that love lingers behind."

"You mean, it doesn't just end when you die?" Belinda wondered as she clicked the lighter.

"Not at all, girl. Love is forever," her rusty gate voice hung in the darkness. "Forever. You all think that emotions are just thoughts you have. Like your secrets. You think those only exist as long as you do too." That one made her cackle. "Love, hate, secrets; they all last long after you've shuffled off this mortal coil."

"So Edgar and I were together?" Belinda murmured.

"Oh, nothing that happy, girl. I didn't say you were together. Just that there was love. But there are different kinds of love, aren't there?" The old woman quizzed her with blazing eyes, buried in crinkled skin. "Unhappy people don't have happy love stories," the old woman said and pointed a gnarled finger at Belinda.

"Great," Belinda muttered and blew a smoke ring. "So even in another life, my relationships were bullshit," she exhaled fully. Why wasn't that a surprise, Belinda thought as she took a long drag.

"Obsession," the gray haired woman whispered. "Possession. Regret. Guilt. Shame. These things live beyond too, just like love. You can feel them in the air. In the walls. All around you."

Belinda nodded.

"This time is different though, girl. This time, something came back with him from the other world. He and it are one."

"Edgar and what?" Belinda wondered, her whole body was covered in goosebumps as she waited.

"That I don't know," the woman said with both hands up, like Belinda was crazy to ask. "It feels very dark though, girl, so I'd be careful if I were you."

"Like it wants to hurt me?" Belinda gulped hard and felt the sting of the hand on her throat.

"Probably," the old woman nodded. "It's obsessed," she said like it was an answer all on its own. "You need to protect yourself."

"Like getting a gun?" Belinda asked as she put her cigarette out. "I don't believe in guns," Belinda shook her head. "Maybe a taser."

"You can't hurt it like that girl. This is the spirit world," the gray haired woman scowled at her. "No matter how much blood you give it, it's still a spirit."

Jesus Christ, there were no secrets anymore. At this rate, she might as well go to group therapy and spill her guts. Hi everyone, I'm Belinda, I'm an alcoholic. And a dirty slut. Hi Belinda. "I mean protect your spirit," she continued and waved to the redhead. "Bring it to her," she told the other woman.

The redhead sighed and shook her head. "I knew you were going to need this," she sounded like nothing ever surprised her. A long, copper colored curl escaped and dangled down her shoulder as she reached into her pocket. The redhead scooped up the black beads of a rosary and placed them in Belinda's hand.

Great, she asked for help, she got superstitious, voodoo horseshit. "Great, yeah this is lovely," she shook the beads at the two women. "I'll wear this the next time he chokes me. I'm sure it will make all the difference." Belinda pulled her collar down and showed them both her throat. "Still think prayers are going to help me?"

The redhead shrank back. If Belinda's neck looked anywhere near as bad as that expression warranted, it was no wonder that Shelly was concerned. The gray haired woman shook her head, "Obsession. That's what that is. Take the rosary. Say the prayers. And remember that love will protect you."

The redhead beckoned to Belinda at the door. "That's all the time she has today," she seemed very protective of the old woman and she was about to throw Belinda out. She was fucked. Fucked forevermore and there was no one left to help.

"Was it good?" Shelly wanted to know once the redhead had guided Belinda back to the front. "Did she say that you'll be on the New York Times best seller list? Because I could have told you that." Her agent smiled wide and showed all the lipstick filled cracks that needed to be spackled.

Belinda jammed the rosary into her backpack. "Not exactly," she snarled at the redhead. "Come on, I need a drink," she said to Shelly as she glared at the redhead.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Shelly told her, just above a whisper as she bit her bottom lip anxiously.

"Neither do we," the other voice came from the other side of the room. The redhead hadn't opened her mouth, she hadn't said a word. It echoed in the air around her though, even if it was just another voice that Belinda wasn't sure was real.

Just to check, Belinda paused and put up her hand and whispered to Shelly, "Did you hear that?"

Her agent burst into laughter. "Oh Belinda, you're always joking. I just don't get your sense of humor."

"Right?" Belinda asked and opened the door as she smiled one more time at the psychic.

***

Shelly refused to come inside and neither of them needed to discuss why. It was obvious the minute that Belinda stepped inside and locked the door behind her. She saw her frosty breath as she placed her backpack on the table. The chill was back, the air was like a tomb, a crypt. Exactly the kind of place where you'd expect to bump into Edgar Allan Poe.

Belinda still had the rosary beads wrapped around her right hand and as she made her way upstairs, she wondered if she could even remember any of the old mumbo jumbo.

She sat on the bed slowly. There was no sign of him anywhere but she could feel his life force as it emanated from everywhere. Icicles and snowflake patterns had formed on her window and the mirror. Belinda felt the frost in her hair and on the back of her neck but still, in the center of it all was a glowing, pulsing heat.

He'd brought something back with him, Belinda remembered the old lady's words. Which was the other and which was Edgar? Was it the demon that demanded blood or was that just the master of the macabre who couldn't help but come back a little more depraved than he'd left?

She held the rosary tightly and as she did, she looked at the angry, purple welt that he'd left behind with the cuff. Belinda swallowed hard and felt as if she might just burst into tears. Her breath was a puff of warm steam in the icy air and she whispered, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee."

"My love, where were you?" he asked. The voice came from the walls. There was the stir of him on her skin and the fingers in her hair.

"Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb Jesus." Belinda continued with a shaky voice.

"What is this, my darling? What happened to you?" Edgar materialized behind her. He placed one strong hand on the center of her belly and the other swept her hair from the back of her neck to drape down her left shoulder. "Belinda," his breath was hot on her frozen skin and he left condensation that dripped slowly down her spine. "I thought you were gone," he murmured in a voice that sounded like he'd been crying.

Belinda bit her bottom lip hard and her left fingers lingered on the rosary beads. Did she really need protection from this man? He'd only wanted to come back to love her. No other man on earth had ever wanted her like that. "No, I thought you were gone," Belinda whispered. She turned to face him and there were those eyes that devoured her, body and soul. The full, perfect mouth, the mouth that tormented her with pleasure like she'd never known. "I woke up on the couch, completely dressed," Belinda shook her head. What had they been doing? How long had it been since they made love? She seemed right on the verge of remembering something but it slipped away. "My agent stopped by."

"And?" Edgar took her left hand and held it to his lips. He turned it, palm up. His tongue traced her life line and her heart line and Belinda felt that he must feel himself there in both.

"Well, she thinks that the book you wrote is the best thing I've ever done," Belinda said with a sigh as he pressed her left hand to his chest. Edgar let her feel the strum of his steady heartbeat there.

"Wait until she reads the second book," he said with a grin as he reached for her right hand.

Edgar didn't take her hand but merely stared at it as Belinda held it out for him. "Well, as happy as I am that it's getting done, I'm sure you can understand why I'm a little irritated," she told him as she reached for him with the beaded hand.

"What's this?" Edgar asked without touching her.

"The rosary?" Belinda murmured and tried to reach for him. She was cold, in fact a freezing sensation had just run down her back and left the hair on the back of her neck standing at attention. "It's just something an old lady gave me," she assured him. Nothing, nothing but two hundred dollars of stupidity. It actually was a good thing he had written another book since Belinda blew through money like it was water.