“Celeste!” they yelled. “Please, Celeste!”
“No,” she whispered. There wasn’t any way she would give up now. She could see the opening that led to that room in the middle, and it wasn’t dark now. In fact, it was a faint yellow. And she heard voices from the middle too, but those voices were different. One was a woman. Adeline, perhaps? Or was it someone else?
Celeste paused to rest again, tuned out the voices behind her and focused on what the woman was saying.
“Chère, it’s going to be okay,” Adeline said, her voice a little higher than usual, as though she were talking to a child. “Don’t worry, Ike, my Dax will take care of you.”
Dax. Someone-Ike-was going to see Dax, and Adeline was about to send him through.
“W-wait,” Celeste said, but her voice was so weak that it barely formed a whisper.
Did Adeline hear her?
“Sure, chère, you can tell your mama and daddy bye. I know they’d like that, and that they’ll want to know that you’ll be okay. Dax will help you do that, and you’ll like him, but if you don’t mind, I’d like for you to visit with me for a little while before you go. My Dax is taking care of something right now, and he knows you want to see him, but he needs to see a-a friend of his before he goes back home. I can show you some really nice things while we’re waiting for him.”
Thunder roared in the distance, and Celeste heard Adeline again, her voice a bit worried as she spoke to the boy. “I won’t keep you too long, chère, and of course, if you want to go on through, you can. I can’t stop you, you know.”
“What can you show me?” the little boy asked as Celeste licked her lips and tried again.
“Wait, please,” she said hoarsely.
The two people in the room ahead of her continued to talk, and she wanted to cry. No, she wanted to scream.
But she couldn’t.
Celeste braced her hands against the wall and forced another step, then another. Nearly there. Just a few more. She wasn’t going to lose this chance.
“I can show you what the other side of the clouds looks like,” Adeline said. “Or we can go hide in the middle of them and watch the planes go by. Would you like that?”
“Cool!” Ike yelled.
“Wait!” Celeste’s attempt to scream was so weak it sounded more like a whisper, but thank goodness, the little boy heard her.
“Who’s that?” he asked, moving toward Celeste as she entered the middle room, then slumped against the wall.
“Oh, no,” Adeline whispered. “Celeste, dear,” she said, then she frowned and looked behind her as a loud boom of thunder roared through the room. “I thought you’d gone to rest. You need to go back, chère. That’s the way to Dax.”
The thunder boomed even louder, and the middle wall opened, the light filling its center and warming Celeste’s cold spirit.
“I thought I was going to Dax.” The boy pouted.
“You are, Ike, but remember, I’m going to show you a few things around here first. Dax needs to take care of some things, and he’s working on that now.”
Celeste blinked, and fought the way the light pulled her toward it. The entire middle wall was open and glowing and beckoning her now, but Dax wasn’t there. “I want to go with you,” she whispered to the boy. “To see Dax.” Then she looked at Adeline. “Let us through.”
“You can’t go that way again,” Adeline said, frowning as she shook her head. “Oh, chère, please. You have to trust me this time. The way behind you is the only way for you to go now.” She lowered her voice. “It’s the right way, chère. Please, trust me, I can’t tell you more.”
Again, booming thunder roared around them, and the light got so warm that Celeste squinted at its radiance.
“This is it, Celeste,” Adeline said. “You have a choice, but Dax’s way isn’t part of your decision anymore. That path is closed to you now, you’re too weak for it. And you’re not going to be strong enough to go down it again, chère.”
Celeste looked at the light, and then turned toward the dark path behind her, where those voices were still calling her name. She listened to them, the same voices she’d heard time and time again. Every other time, they’d merely blended in an incomprehensible mix of screams and sobs, with none of them really standing out as unique. But now…
She swallowed, leaned toward the sound. Then she turned back to Adeline. “That’s Dax’s voice, isn’t it? Dax is there? Back there?”
“I’m going to keep Ike company for a while so that Dax can take care of a few things before he visits. That’s all I’m allowed to say, chère.”
“Dax.” Celeste started toward the darkened path, but the light pulled her back, caused her to stumble. She held up a hand and saw that her glow was almost blinding now, and her feet refused to cooperate; they wouldn’t move down the path. Instead, she was inching her way backward, toward that vivid, powerful light.
She didn’t want to go. But she was too tired to fight it.
“Help me,” she whispered, reaching out to Dax’s voice.
18
“MAMA, LOOK! It’s lower than before!” Horrified, Nelsa pointed to the monitor beside the bed. “We have to get someone!” She ran out of the room with her mother close at her heels.
“Hold on, baby,” Marian pleaded before she left. “We’re getting the doctors. Don’t you dare leave us!”
Her husband moved to one side of the bed and grabbed his daughter’s hand, and Dax, still fighting the little boy’s laughter in his head, gripped the bedrail in a determined effort to fight the pull of the little spirit. No way would he leave her now, and he prayed she wasn’t going to leave him…for good.
“She’s wanted you. Let her know you’re here,” Mr. Beauchamp demanded. “She hasn’t come to us. Maybe she’ll come to you.”
Dax gazed down at the woman he loved, and listened to the beats of her heart growing fainter. He blinked past the pounding in his head and said the words he’d only spoken once before.
“Celeste, I love you. Please, come back to me, chère. I’m here. Don’t-” He didn’t look up at Mr. Beauchamp to see his reaction, but simply forged on with what he believed she needed to hear. “Don’t try to get to me the other way, chère. I’m here. On this side. Don’t you dare cross without me.”
“No!” her father cried, and Dax heard the beeps growing further apart, at the same time that the little boy’s laughter got even stronger.
They were losing her because she was trying to go to him, trying to go the other way, to the Vicknair plantation. And if she did…
“Celeste!” Dax yelled fiercely. “Don’t leave me, chère, please. I don’t want to live without you.”
“Dear God!” Her father shook his head in denial. “No! Somebody help! Dammit, where is her doctor?”
Dax’s tears fell upon Celeste’s cheeks. “Don’t leave me.”
“In here!” Nelsa ran into the room with her mother and two nurses close behind.
“She’s crashing. Get Dr. Pavere,” one nurse directed, while the other relayed the information through the intercom by the bed. They quickly took over, with one of them examining the machines hooked to Celeste and the other one checking her pulse. Then a tall, bald man with glasses and a stethoscope rushed in.
“We need the room cleared,” he said briskly, stepping around one of the nurses to get to Celeste.
The nurse turned toward all of them, hovering helplessly around the bed. “I’m sorry. We need you to step into the hall.”
Nelsa wrapped an arm around her crying mother and ushered her out, while her father followed, but Dax stood-stock still, unable to leave her now that he’d found her.
“No,” he said. “She can’t die now.”
Amazingly, at that very moment, the little boy’s laughter grew softer, so faint, in fact, that Dax barely heard it at all.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse said, placing her hand on Dax’s arm and effectively turning him around toward the door. “You have to wait in the hall.”