“Lewis! I want to be sure Belle is all right!”
“Myrtle, we can’t be there,” Lewis said softly.
“But –!”
“We’re ghosts Myrtle. Don’t you think they have enough to worry about without two ghosts hanging around?”
She snapped her mouth shut.
Then she burst into tears.
Lewis pulled her deeper into his arms.
“I want her to be all right, Lewis! She has to be all right! She’s sweet! She’s Belle!” Myrtle cried into his boyish chest.
He stroked her hair.
“She’ll be all right,” he lied.
It was a lie because he feared she wouldn’t.
The bad man was there.
How he was there, Lewis didn’t know.
He hadn’t been there for over two hundred years.
Or, at least, Lewis had never seen him, never sensed him.
But he’d pushed Belle down the stairs. Lewis saw him do it.
Myrtle’s head tilted back, non-existent tears the colour of pearls still sliding down her cheeks.
Her voice was quivering when she asked, “You promise she’ll be all right?”
He nodded solemnly and, even though it was against the rules, Lewis lied yet again, “I promise, Myrtie Mine.”
Myrtle pressed her cheek against her brother’s chest.
And Lewis closed his eyes tight, trying to shut out his fear for Belle and his terror of the bad man so he could think about what he needed to do to keep himself, his sister, and Belle (if she was all right) safe.
He held Myrtle a long time.
But he didn’t come up with any answers.
* * * * *
Belle
Belle opened her eyes and she knew immediately she was in a hospital room.
She didn’t hurt.
She didn’t feel anything.
But groggy.
Her eyes focussed and she saw Jack sitting by her hospital bed illuminated by the soft glow from the lamp on the nightstand.