I was beginning to figure out how I managed to open a portal to the past and make contact with Blythe Summers back in the Jazz Age when she was the celebrated star of the silver screen.
It was as easy as taking a lesurely stroll through Blythe’s garden.
I began as I did several days before, walking the turf maze and resting at certain points to pause and reflect. It really was quite calming walking the curving paths in the rain, and I felt peace and joy in doing it.
After some time, I sensed I entered into a deep, meditative state, and knew it was time to go back into the house. I walked back up the gentle grassy slope and entered the kitchen. She was waiting at the entrance to the dining room, as if expecting me.
“I suppose I’ll have to accept you as a houseguest,” she whispered.
Her beauty struck me—I don’t know why it didn’t at our first meeting—perhaps it was the shock of an unexpected first encounter.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“I’m sorry—you’re very beautiful.”
A tiny smile played across her lips, “Oh, I see. The first time you detained me because you admired my poetry—but now, it seems, you admire my beauty. I would think with a surname like Wesley you’d be a man of good intentions.”
“I am well-intentioned,” I protested, “I just admire beauty. I guess that’s the reason why I put your discarded portrait back on the wall above the mantel—it’s lovely, but it doesn’t do you justice, in real life.”
Her eyes danced, mischievously, “And so you think this encounter of ours is ‘real life’, Mr. Wesley?”
“I don’t know what to think,” I said frankly. “To tell you the truth, I’m confused. I hoped you might clear up the matter.”
“Really? And you think I’ve been privileged with some sort of preternatural insight into The Mysterious Realm?”
“Yes, I was hoping you might know more than me, because I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. I have no experience talking with ghosts.”
Her face darkened with anger. “You think I’m a ghost? —You… you interloper!”
“Well, it seems a sensible conclusion seeing as you’re dead.”
“What—what did you say?”
“Look, I don’t mean to offend you, but it’s the year 2014 and you were thirty in 1935—so, do the Math.”
She stood there, mouth partly open, a terrified look in her eyes. I stared back.
After what seemed an eternity, she began to shake and waver unsteadily on her feet. I ran instinctively to her and grabbed her arm to support her, and to my surprise, she was not ectoplasm, but flesh and blood—her skin as warm and solid as mine.
“You’re real,” I gasped.
“I’m not feeling very real,” she said, “help me sit down.”
I helped her to a dining room chair and sat down beside her at the oak table.
“Are you okay?”
She placed a finger to my lips to silence me, looked deeply into my eyes and gently kissed me.
I had never been kissed like that before. The blood was rushing in my ears and I was breathless and tingling all over.
“Are you satisfied?” she whispered.
I stared at her but couldn’t speak.
“I think you must know by now that I am not dead,” she smirked, “and I can tell by your reaction that you’re certainly alive as well.”
Again, I found myself blushing like a schoolboy.
“This is awkward, Blythe.”
“What is awkward—your ineptitude with women or our meeting across time?”
I colored again. “I’d hardly describe myself as inept with women. I have been married you know.”
“Ah, I see—you ‘have been married.’ Delightful. How long did it last?”
“Two years. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“And how long have you been single again, Mr. Wesley?”
“Please, call me Theo. And it’s been six months—does that matter?”
“Well you used the present perfect tense to describe an action that took place at an unspecified time. I just like to be accurate.”
“Are you married?”
I had to ask—I couldn’t recall any details of a specific man in her life.
Her face fell and she grew somber. “You don’t have to answer that,” I said, feeling miserable for asking.
She lifted her chin and said haughtily, “No—fair is fair. I asked you and now I have to answer. I have never been married—nor ever been in love.”
I was devastated. That certainly wasn’t the picture the media created. She was portrayed as the consummate femme fatale.
And now that I penetrated the veil of her mystery and found her disarmingly vulnerable, I had to accept the undeniable truth—I had fallen in love with a ghost.
