Charon's Crossing

He dreamed of a tall-masted ship upon an azure sea. He could read her name, Atropos, and he smiled, for she was his ship.

But then his smile vanished, for the ship became a battered hulk sinking slowly into a dark sea, with her crew dead and dying on her shattered deck. He heard them crying out for him to help them but he could not, God, he could not!

He sprang awake racked with anguish.

"Why?" he whispered, and then his voice rose to a roar. "Why?" he shouted at his reflection in the oval mirror, and he pounded his fists against the glass.

The glass shattered, the shards falling to the attic floor in a hundred bright, shiny pieces.

Catherine had done this. She had destroyed him and everything he'd ever believed in.

There was a roaring in his ears. The pieces of glass flew into the air like arrows and into the frame that had contained them.

The mirror was whole again, and Matthew stared into it.

"When will I be free?" he whispered.

The mirror imploded and sucked him into a spinning vortex of light.

He'd cried out, certain he was being swept away to some plane even more awful than the one in which he'd so long languished.

Instead, he'd found himself in the rose garden, behind Charon's Crossing.

Catherine was there, too. And even after everything, the sight of her made the breath catch in his throat.

Like a starving man brought before a laden banquet table, he feasted on the sight of her. The soft, lush curves of her body were hidden beneath a demure cotton gown that buttoned to the neck. Her hair was plaited, giving her a look that was, he knew, falsely demure.

The memory of how it felt to hold her in his arms had raced through his blood. Despite himself, he'd whispered her name and when she turned towards him he'd gone to her, taken her into his embrace and kissed that luscious, lying mouth until her protests had become sighs of pleasure.

Matthew buried his head in his hands as he remembered that moment.

If only he'd killed her then. Christ, why hadn't he? It would have been so simple.

It was his disgrace that he had not done so. He'd been too caught up in tasting her, touching her. By the time he'd begun to regain his reason, a white mist had surrounded him. When it had cleared, he'd found himself back in the dreary attic, alone.

Enraged, despising himself for his senseless stupidity, he'd pounded his fists against the unyielding walls.

"Enough," he'd bellowed. "Damn you, let me out!"

But, of course, no one had come.

There was no jailer to hold him captive at Charon's Crossing. It was he and he alone who had sentenced himself to this eternal captivity just as it was he and he alone who could set himself free.

In Catherine's death, he would find peace.

Now, at last, the waiting was over. Catherine had come, and he would kill her.

His torment would end at last.

Matthew rose from the chair in which he'd been sitting. He walked slowly to the window and looked out. The sky was already beginning to lighten. It would be dawn soon.

He closed his eyes and grasped the sill with both hands, drawing in great breaths of air, savoring the scents of far-off places lying far beyond this prison. Then he turned and made his way to the door.

He slipped through it, a dark shade blending into the greater darkness of the silent house, and made his way down the narrow attic steps to the second floor. There would be no dramatic moans and rattles on this night.

He had no wish to warn Cat that he was on his way.

At the doorway to her bedroom, he paused. The door was shut, and he thought of slipping through it without bothering to open it. But it somehow seemed important to come to her as if he were still of her world on this night. Slowly, he put his hand on the knob, and turned it.