Defiance at Werewolf Keep (Werewolf Keep Trilogy) (19 page)

Hawk tried to process all that she’d told him. Did his little Marnie have an old relative with the same name? Families did that. But what was this nonsense about being able to see through him? She was right. He was quite solid. Of course he was. Now she was making him doubt himself.

However, she wanted to touch him, and that was the best idea he’d ever heard. He craved this strange fairy-woman’s touch like a drug. He took a step towards her.

‘You can touch me. I have already taken the liberty of touching your cheek while you slept.’

Her hand came up to her left cheek and she tested the sensation of her palm against her face. ‘I felt something… when I was waking. I felt something.’

He took another step closer so that his legs touched the mattress, but he didn’t feel the bed. Looking down, he saw that his legs weren’t flush with the mattress – they were overlapping it by several inches. Shocked, he jumped back.

‘What?’ She was leaning towards him now, as if preparing to reach out and touch him.

‘That is not possible. It is the moonlight. It can create optical illusions.’

‘What do you mean?’

He stepped closer, wary of maintaining enough distance between him and the bed. ‘It looked like I walked right into the mattress. Not just against it or on it, into it.’

‘Do it again!’ she demanded excitedly. It was such a childlike exclamation that he almost expected her to clap her hands in expectation.

He grinned at her and decided that he liked this dream. Playing along, he inched closer until his legs were inside the bed’s space. He saw the mattress, not his legs, from his vantage point.

The girl leaned over and looked at his legs. ‘OMG, this has got to be a dream! You can’t be a real ghost. I don’t believe in ghosts!’

‘I am not a ghost!’ His voice was angrier than he wanted it to be. It was rude of him to speak in this fashion to a strange lady in her own bedroom. A strange, bald lady who hadn’t invited him into her bedroom. But fear fuelled his anger.

‘Touch me!’ he held out his hand to her, palm up. It was more of a challenge than a request.

Immediately, her hand came out and rested in his. He couldn’t feel her as well as he should, but he was solid enough. So was she. They didn’t overlap in the bizarre way his legs overlapped the bed.

‘Wow, I can feel you, sort of…’ Her voice was hushed as she examined their clasped hands. He opened his fingers and wove them between hers. A strange charge exploded somewhere in his chest and he gasped.

The way her breath caught, and from the expression of shock in her eyes, he imagined she’d felt what he had. What was going on here?

Without asking permission, he sat on the edge of the bed. He did that well enough, although when he looked down at himself, he seemed to be deeper into the mattress than he should have been. Ignoring the phenomenon, he brought her hand to his lap while he stroked her arm with his other hand. He could feel her… just.

She took her free hand and touched the bed, then his leg. Then she repeated the action.

‘The bed feels normal, but you don’t. You feel… muted. What do you feel?’ Her wide eyes were filled with intelligent curiosity. As strange as it was, she didn’t seem upset by it. In fact, she was fascinated.

Without releasing the hand he held, he touched his own face with his other hand. It felt
normal
. Then he touched the bed. His hand disappeared into it as if it weren’t there. He felt nothing but air. Then he touched her cheek. It was somewhere between nothing and normal.

‘It’s like a hologram…’ she said, observing him touching the bed.

‘A what? I do not know that word, I am sorry.’

‘Hologram. Of course you wouldn’t. They don’t really exist yet. They’re more a science fiction thing. Like Princess Leia in
Star Wars
.’

‘Who is Princes Leia and what is
Star Wars
?’

‘Movie… Moving pictures. A film. You know those, don’t you? They had them in your day.’

‘In my day? Why do I feel like we are no longer communicating?’

‘Sorry. It’s my fault. I’ve never talked to a ghost before.’ She leaned in and he felt the slightest pressure where her body pressed against his side.

‘I am not a ghost,’ he said with less conviction this time.

‘How do you explain what’s happening then?’ she challenged.

Hawk frowned and reached over to the side table. His hand passed right through it and disappeared into it until it came out beneath the single, whitewood drawer. ‘I cannot…’

Suddenly, she was all gentle concern. With her free hand, she turned his face to her and stroked his cheek. The more they touched, the more he seemed to be able to feel her.

‘I get that this is hard for you if you don’t know that you’re dead, but how do you explain all the changes? Surely this room doesn’t look like it did in 1940?’

He shook his head without dislodging her hand. He liked her touching him, even when it was muted. ‘I cannot. This should be Marnie’s room. There should be wallpaper on the walls and a dark wood wardrobe where your dressing table is. And there should be model planes hanging from the ceiling.’

‘Marnie was into planes? That’s just like her! She became a physics lecturer, you know.’

‘A professor? But Marnie is only… twelve. She was eight when I was here last, four years ago.’

‘Hawk.’ She met his gaze as she breathed his name gently. ‘This is the year 2013. Marnie is an old lady, and I was a friend of her granddaughter’s.’