The Ghosts of Watt O'Hugh: BEING THE FIRST PART OF THE STRANGE AND ASTOUNDING MEMOIRS OF WATT O'HUGH THE THIRD (The Memoirs of Watt O'Hugh the Third Book 1) by Steven S. Drachman

Author:Steven S. Drachman [Drachman, Steven S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chickadee Prince Books
Published: 2011-06-28T06:00:00+00:00

It took me a few minutes just to get my breath back, to blink the fire and soot out of my eyes, and to erase from my mind the conviction that, as blackness closed in, I had heard, once again, the children screaming when the mob pulled them from my arms.

“That was quite an afternoon,” Emelina said gently. “Quite a performance.”

Shaken, I agreed. “Lucy was never one to do as she should.” She was too disobedient even to engage in a bit of organized civil disobedience! I described her to Emelina, her selfeducation, her impossible temper, her fierce intelligence and a moral code that seemed to have wandered lost through a mirror from another world. My voice was filled now with more affection than usual, discovering, as I just had, that although Lucy had been forced to flee New York, she had done so with her mind filled with genuine love for Watt O’Hugh the Third. I realized, too late, that I was describing Lucy as though she were still mine, as, in fact, I deep-down believed she always would be, no matter how many miles, years, or gentlemen-callers separated us. “I guess she thought she’d get respectable in London,” I explained. “Settle down to a regular, comfortable life. That sort of thing eludes her.”

“You love her still,” Emelina said. “You will always love her. Now you know that she loves you, as well.”

I said that I was sorry in a dozen different ways, muttering and explaining and even trying a little prevarication in the cold midnight air; I almost said I’d marry her anyway. Why not marry her anyway? Lucy made me giddy, entranced, crazy and worse, but she didn’t make me happy. I was happy with Emelina; now, decades and decades later, I can say that I think I was never as happy, before or since, as I was riding that rickety train with Emelina, a new future, we thought, opening up in front of us. Yeah, and that engine blowing. I’ll never forget the way that train engine blew, the look on Emelina’s face and I guess probably the look on mine, too, and thinking that this is what my life would be like from now on.

I didn’t ask Emelina to marry me, though. I touched the side of her smooth face with one calloused hand.

“I must be out of my mind,” I said.

“You must be,” she agreed readily and sadly. “You must be crazy, Watt O’Hugh.”

I just looked into her eyes, drinking them in, a thirsty man embarking on a long journey with one last sip of water.

She spoke to me again in my mind, her lips not moving.

You can join us, I heard her gentle voice whisper. Don’t you see, Watt, my Darling, what I can offer you if you will turn your back on the past, and Lucy Billings and terrible memories? Join us. Become like me. Never get old. Never die. Or, at least, not for a very very long time.

With these words,

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