The Glimpsing (39 page)

When Jack heard those words, when he heard that voice, his mind emptied of all thought.
 
A lone word came trembling forth.
 
Gabrielle?

The corpse’s grin became a beautiful smile.

Gabrielle!
he
thought, confounded.

Her form still draped in shadow, the woman he once knew, the woman he once loved, slowly stood to her feet.
 
She began to approach him, moving slowly, gracefully.
 
There came a moment when she passed into a swath of light cutting across the closet… and what he saw made him marvel like nothing he’d seen before.
 
She was completely unmarked.
 
Not a trace of blood was visible anywhere.

Oh my God, he thought uncontrollably, watching her come ever closer.
 
Oh my God.
 
She’s alive!

She came and stood before him, her form now eclipsing all sight of the closet behind her.
 
Jack could only peer at her awestruck, marveling at the warmth of her skin, the loveliness of her face, and the life in those wondrous brown eyes.

And then another miracle took place.

She raised her hand and passed it toward him.
 
He watched it disappear beyond his field of view… and soon after he felt something, actually felt something.
 
It was her open palm gently caressing his face.

He buried his face deep into it, so taken by its touch, by its softness that he was moved to tears.
 
And as he gazed into her eyes, as the truth of her return from death began to harden in his mind, he felt something first bubbling,
then
exploding within his soul.
 
Finally, it began to overwhelm him.
 
He was about to give it expression, just about to tell Gabrielle just how deeply he loved her, when everything suddenly went black.

There was a pause that lasted but a second, and then Jack found himself
laying
on his back, gazing up into the boxy dimness of the closet.
 
The closet door was now off to his left, its opening betraying an angle of the bedroom he’d never seen before.
 
There he saw a jutting corner of Portia’s bed, a maroon vase sitting on a black pedestal in a corner, and, toward the center of the view, the bedroom’s ominous oak door.

Jack was cold and naked.
 
His body felt like it had been completely leeched of strength.
 
Stinging chills ripped through him.
 
But arms also held him—arms so warm they almost seemed to impart life.
 
Struggling, he turned his head up to see
who
it was.
 
Gabrielle was looking down at him concernedly.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered, then laid a kiss to his forehead.

Jack could only gape at her dumbly.
 
As difficult as it had been to accept her death, he was now having difficulty grasping her return to life.
 
Mere minutes ago he was being assailed by the thought of watching her corpse rot and decay, and now she was here, alive, holding his feeble body in her arms.
 
It was all so very impossible, and yet somehow it was actually happening.

Still, as if not fully convinced, he reached a trembling hand up and passed it along her cheek.
 
“You are real,” he managed weakly.
 
“You are… here.”

“Yes, I’m here,” she whispered in return.
 
Then added:
 
“We’re here.”

Jack frowned slightly, not understanding.
 
Gabrielle then took his hand and rested it on her belly.
 
“We’re here,” she repeated, eyeing him intently.

Then he did understand.
 
Gabrielle had not merely returned from death.
 
She had returned from death still carrying his child.

Both dumbfounded and elated, Jack was about to ask how such a thing could be possible.
 
But before he could utter a word, she placed a finger to his lips.
 
“
Shhhhhh
,” she urged, still whispering.
 
“Save your strength.
 
All your questions will be answered in time.”

Jack obeyed, relaxing back—although a boyish smile did materialize beneath Gabrielle’s finger.
 
He lay there in her arms, overcome with joy.
 
Everything was going to be okay, just as Gabrielle had said.
 
Everything was going to be just fine.

Then he turned and saw Portia standing there looking down on them, her hand holding the door open.

Jack gasped, but quickly realized that his alarm was unfounded.
 
It was the look permeating every tissue of Portia’s face.
 
He saw no rage there, no violent vexation as he might have expected, but staggered surprise, shock, perhaps even a touch of fear.

Gabrielle’s face, however, did show signs of rage and vexation, although she was clearly tempering it.
 
She gazed at Portia for a moment that seemed like it would never end, and then, very carefully, she eased Jack’s head to the floor.
 
Without removing her eyes from Portia, she extended her arm behind her and, with her hand, tightly grasped the hilt of the stiletto.

A loud “crack” soon followed, one that was so sharp, so piercing that Portia visibly flinched.
 
She watched in breathless awe as Gabrielle began to ease the blade out of the hardwood.
 
Splinters flew, and another loud crack bit the air as Gabrielle turned the blade, finally wrenching it free.
 
Then, in a movement that was both smooth and eerily graceful, Gabrielle rose and stood to her feet.
 
She elbowed the stiletto out to her side, allowing its silvery blade to catch some of the bedroom light,
then
began moving toward Portia, passing in perfect silence, almost as if she were a ghost.

Portia immediately began drifting backward, moving in what seemed to Jack like a very awkward retreat.
 
It was almost as if Gabrielle’s resurrected body cast some brilliant light, making Portia withdraw, as might a vampire from the approach of dawn.

The two moved in near perfect concert, Portia backing away and Gabrielle advancing,
one impossibility
in pursuit of the other.
 
Bumping into the vanity, Portia was finally forced to stop.
 
Several perfume bottles rattled, then fell.
 
Portia looked over her shoulder, seemingly stunned that she could retreat no further.
 
She jerked her head back to Gabrielle, as if expecting her to pounce, but Gabrielle had stopped just beyond the closet door.

Gabrielle peered at Portia curiously for a moment.
 
She then tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at the woman.
 
“You feel it, don’t you?”

“What?”
Portia blurted, unnerved.

“It’s here; the darkness.
 
You know what’s about to happen.”

At first, it appeared Portia did not.
 
She merely stared at Gabrielle, blinking confusedly.
 
Then something almost seemed to move over her.
 
Her eyes wandered off, then began to look up and all around, as if tracking a presence only she could see.
 
Her
breathing then quickened, and both her hands strained against the edge of the vanity’s table.

Jack could sense it too, a sweltering black presence so dark that it actually seemed to sap the bedroom of light.
 
He felt himself wanting to cower, the darkness bringing with it voices that seemed to whisper, over and over in a hellish gait, something terrible was about to happen.

Portia’s face had gone pale and her hands, still gripping the vanity, now quivered.
 
And yet still a deep and poisonous scowl marred her face.
 
Although she knew what the presence meant, like a vicious animal backed into a corner by an even greater predator, she was still snapping and snarling.

“What do you think you’re going to do?” she fumed, panting furiously.
 
“Kill me?”

“There is no death,” Gabrielle said with striking calm.
 
“You know that.”

"Then what are you going to do?”

"I’m going to do what Janice could not,” Gabrielle said.

“Janice?
 
What couldn’t she do?”

“Send you back."

"Back?
 
To where?"

"To where the darkness should have taken you all along," Gabrielle said.

Portia blinked away.
 
She shook her head, chuckling half-heartedly, in disbelief that it was all going to end this way.
 
She then turned back to Gabrielle, speaking bitterly.
 
"Then do it, Gabrielle.
 
Do it!
 
But I can promise you this.
 
I won't go easily."

Gabrielle looked on for moment, then, one by one, eased her feet out of her shoes.
 
“But you will go,” she replied.

Once more, without removing her eyes from Portia, Gabrielle extended her hand.
 
This time she took hold of the closet door.
 
“You were right about something, Portia.”

Portia made no reply, though her face did brandish pure alarm when Gabrielle took hold of the door.

“It really isn’t the dying that’s beautiful,” Gabrielle continued. “It’s the waking up.”

Gabrielle then violently hurled the door shut.

Jack once more found himself peering into the dark.
 
He listened anxiously as a struggle ensued outside.
 
It didn't last long.
 
Soon he heard the neat flicking sounds of the stiletto passing in and out of Portia’s flesh.

The woman only groaned at first.
 
There then followed quavering cries of “Oh God.”
 
Finally, as the blade continued to fly, the screams began.
 
And once they did, it seemed like they’d never stop.

Jack could only
lay
there, listening fearfully, until the stiletto slowed, and the clamor faded… and the darkness claimed Portia once and for all.

It's hard to believe that it actually ended this way, that Portia’s demise was brought about so cruelly, and that by the very hand of the woman she had once murdered.
 
Who could have fathomed such a thing?
 
But there was one thing I did know, one thing I always believed, and that was that Portia existed by the power of a miracle, so by the power of a miracle she had to be destroyed.

I thank God every day, that’s exactly what came about.

Incredibly, however, another miracle was soon to follow.
 
At the moment of Portia’s death, Thomas and I also found ourselves
laying
on the closet floor.
 
Like Jack, we too had been liberated.
 
We too were now free.

As wonderful as that was, both of us quickly realized that we could not return to our former lives.
 
That was especially true of Thomas.
 
Still wanted for the murder of Holly Grace, he couldn’t so much as call a friend or contact a family member.
 
Doing so could lead the police back to him, where he’d be immediately arrested.
 
Thomas had little to be concerned about, however.
 
Jack Parke himself stepped in and, using his considerable wealth, got Thomas safely out of the country.
 
He now resides in a small city in Italy, living under an assumed name.

My own inability to return to my former life was born more of choice than fear of reprisal.
 
Twelve years imprisoned as I was, trying to cope with the torment of my disembodied existence, and witnessing not only Susanna’s murder, but those of Holly and Gabrielle, has left me changed.
 
In a very real sense, the man who entered the painting more than a decade ago, bears little resemblance to the one who so recently exited it.

I do not mean this only figuratively. My change was not merely psychological or emotional, but spiritual as well.
 
I have emerged with a gift.
 
I now see, just as Angela, Portia’s mother, once saw.
 
I now glimpse at all times.

As such, my former life means nothing. I believe my calling now lies along a higher path.
 
For I now see and understand this world in a way that I never have before.

As for Jack and Gabrielle, their sudden reappearances have resulted in a firestorm of questions concerning their prior whereabouts, both from the media and police.
 
To this point, both have chosen only to issue statements through their publicists and lawyers that the matter was private.
 
Two investigators, one of them being the man who originally discovered Thomas McCain’s fingerprints in Jack’s bedroom, continue to press them for interviews.
 
Those requests, however, continue to go unanswered.

Perhaps most astonished by all of this was Janice.
 
Before notifying anyone that they were alive and well, Jack and Gabrielle had gone to Janice’s apartment to make certain she was okay.
 
When she saw them, however, she was so shocked that she actually had to be helped to a couch.
 
She kept looking at them in disbelief, as if they were two ghosts who had somehow taken on flesh.

After they explained to her everything that had happened, they promptly informed Janice of their plans to marry.
 
They added also that they would love for Janice to move in to Jack’s estate and live with them.
 
When Janice questioned why, Jack took the opportunity to inform her that Gabrielle was still pregnant, and that they would love to have her help raising the child.
 
On that news, Janice eagerly accepted.

Everything has turned out beautifully, but sometimes I admit that I still have fears.
 
I wonder why someone like Portia, who had taken her own life when she was just eighteen, was able to return to this world and do the things she did.
 
I wonder if such a thing could actually happen again.
 
But then I remember the closet, and the miracle that I saw there, and realize that we are not alone, that we have no reason to fear.

Better days are ahead, not just for me, but for Jack and Gabrielle, for Thomas and Janice, for each and every one of us.
 
Times of great refreshing lie in our paths.
 
I firmly believe this because of what my eyes tell me, because of the good things I see, every time I find myself glimpsing.