Queen of the Sea and Sky Finale

It was pitch black except for the stars.

Imile was silhouetted at the far end. Her voice carried faintly. Brianna couldn’t make out the conversation.

“Imile,” she called. “Red Lady.” Her whole body hurt.

They turned. She could see that Imile was crying. “She’s sorry,” Imile said, and it really was Imile. She didn’t mean to take so much from you. You should be fine, though, after a few hours.”

Brianna took that in slowly. She nodded. She fought the urge to sit down on the deck. “It’s okay,” she said, even though she wasn’t sure it was.

“I’m not sure we can make this right,” Imile said. It felt more like she was talking to herself than to Brianna. “I can’t get her out. I…” she trailed off. “Company…” she seemed to be repeating something. Her voice firmed. “Yes.. I can do that. I can keep you company.”

Brianna felt something very wrong. But at the other end of the deck, Imile looked perfectly peaceful. She wavered, and then she was standing next to the Red Lady. Imile reached out and gave the ghost’s hand a squeeze. It was totally impossible, and yet it happened.

“What?” Brianna felt hopelessly slow.

Imile looked at her again. “Take that off if you don’t want to stay,” she repeated. She shook her head slightly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have given you that. And I’m sorry… I’m sorry about this.” She turned away.

“You’re sorry about what?”

Brianna struggled forward. She felt comprehension dawning. But she couldn’t cross the space in time to stop Imile from gripping the railing and using it to steady herself as she stepped up and then over. She glanced back once. Brianna and the Red Lady were both transfixed. “Goodbye,” she said to Brianna. “I’ll see you in a moment,” she said to the Red Lady. And then she let go and pitched forward.

Brianna felt herself scream.

She must have lost some time. She must have passed out. When she came to, it was still black out. She could make out that the man helping her sit up was a face she knew.

“You set off the alarms,” Sheffield said. He was far too calm, his tone genteel. “You’re clearly not feeling well. Here, have a drink.” He held a silver travel mug.

“I…” Brianna trailed off. Maybe it had been a dream. She took the cup, but she didn’t drink. “Imile….”

“She’s not here,” Sheffield said. “Have a drink.”

She obeyed. She didn’t know what it was, but it was sweet. Everything felt surreal. “Did I faint?” She wondered. “I think… maybe I was sleep walking.” She took another long drink.

“Probably,” he said. His gaze trailed down her neck, to the jewelry there. “I’m sure you aren’t well.”

Comprehension hit her like cold water. He knew. He knew there was something wrong with the necklace. It was real.

The Red Lady flickered behind him. Her little face was solemn.

“Imile is dead,” Brianna said, marveling that something so awful could be true.

“What?” Sheffield’s grip on her shoulder tightened painfully. “What are you talking about?”

“She was here,” Brianna spilled out, “the Red Lady went into her and she walked off the deck and-” she felt her breathing become shallow. Her head felt faint.

“She was here- tonight?” Sheffield ran a hand through his hair. “She was…” he trailed off. “Was she doing something?”

“Was she a witch?” Brianna cried out, even though she knew Imile had been. “She was- she was doing something to the ghosts, and I broke the salt line.”

The grip was bruisingly hard now. “Stupid girl.”

Brianna cried. She curled up and cried because it was true.

“Straighten up.” Sheffield commanded. He seemed to be collecting himself. “Maybe… no…. there’s nothing but the streets below.” His voice was harsh. “I said straighten up. Stop that. Finish your drink. Don’t be hysterical.”

She obeyed. It was something to focus on.

“And I thought that Imile was losing her nerve.” Sheffield watched her drink. His green eyes were as intelligent and intent as Imile’s were-

Had been.

Brianna retched. Oh god, she was dead. Imile was dead.

Sheffield took a step away from her, lip curled up in disgust.

“Her nerve?” Brianna repeated belatedly. She blinked. Her head felt fuzzy, stressed to the point of static where her thoughts should be.

Oh. Sheffield was talking. She narrowed her eyes, trying to focus. It was so hard. Her heartbeat was loud in her ears.

“She’s really dead,” he said. It sounded as if he was repeating it. He was tasting the concept. He didn’t seem to be as sickened by it as she was. Sheffield shook his head. “I can’t— would she have?” he wondered. He looked around speculatively. He didn’t seem to find what he was looking for in the darkness and stillness.

Brianna looked anyway. She struggled to lift her chin, seeking whatever it was that Sheffield was looking for. She found it.

“I… Imile.”

“What?” Sheffield said sharply. “Where?”

Through the painful fog, Brianna managed to point a finger at where the elegant woman was standing. Imile was at the end of the ship deck, pausing in contemplation. Her face was pale in the starlight. Then she climbed up on the railing and—

Brianna threw up for real this time. It didn’t matter, though. After a few moments, the ghost appeared again on the deck, flickering wildly. Imile paused at the railing. She looked out at the sky. She climbed. She fell.

Someone- Sheffield, Sheffield was shaking her. It was rough. Brianna managed to make a wounded sound. His annoyed voice came through to her.

“What is it? You see her— she made a ghost?”

The wording was odd until it wasn’t, because Imile had been some kind of creepy ghost-binding witch who wanted to stay forever among the beautiful things she had collected. Brianna felt tears rolling down her face. They were cold in the night air.

Sheffield sighed and let go of his hold on her. Without the support, Brianna fell. It should have hurt when her head bounced against the wood. Everything was muffled.

He let out an openly annoyed sigh. “Of course,” he said, shaking his hand as if to shed some filth from touching her. “You’re all but dead. Of course you can see her. She’ll be anchored somewhere else. Imile was always so dramatic. I’ll find her later.”

A kind of comprehension began to wash over her. It was slow and it was too late. It wasn’t panic making her limbs so heavy.

Sheffield must have noticed a change in the air. He glanced at her, cold and disinterested. He didn’t offer an answer to the questions she didn’t have the strength to vocalize. It was taking all she had to gasp for air. She closed her eyes, and her whole being vibrated. She opened them. She was on the stage, singing.

It was golden somehow, with gentle light permeating the rehearsal space. She felt herself smile. Imile was there, shooting her a knowing look over the piano. Red was there too, in full glorious color. The red glaze had always been from the scarlet dress she was wearing.

She blinked. It was dark. She was watching as Sheffield wrinkled his nose and crouched down to heft her body up.

It hurt so she blinked away to where it didn’t, on the stage. She added a dramatic flourish with her hands to help distract from the darkness and accentuate the aria. A few seconds later, she wondered about the vision. How could she have seen her body from the outside?

Something cold crept into her stomach. She sang harder, trying to hold on, but she was in the dark again. Sheffield was in the hallway now.

She crackled and lost time. He went inexorably on, in the modern parts of the museum now. He was silent and moved unerringly in the pitch black. Of course he didn’t turn on the lights. He didn’t want to be seen now.

Brianna faintly recognized the kitchen— they were passing the kitchen. Then there was a roar that wasn’t the blood inside her ears. It was coming from something large and metal that filled her with dread. A large rectangular outside of a door flowers faintly.

Sheffield let her fall to the door. He bent and fussed with something that she couldn’t see. When he stood, she realized that he was pocketing the necklace she had been wearing religiously. The special necklace, with the warm comforting stones— she protested.

He flinched. He went still and then looked around. She opened her mouth and screamed, wordless and wild.

Sheffield shook himself and leaned up to press a button. It released a lock on a handle, which he swiveled and then pulled on to open the glowing door. He shielded his eyes from the light. It must have been horrible hot. She couldn’t feel anything but horror.

She took a step back.

“No,” Brianna said. Her voice echoed.

Sheffield picked up her body again—

And it was just her body, she realized. She wasn’t in it. She was—

“No,” she repeated. “No, no, nononono-“ she clutched her head, shook, and then dropped them to lunge at the bastard. She passed right through him. She screamed again, shrill as he hefted her body one last time and shouldered it into the incinerator, where all the museum’s trash went.

Her stomach twisted. She was back on stage, a comforting balm spreading warm over her brain. Her hand was shaking, but it gradually drilled. Imile smiled over the piano. Red tilted her head, letting dark hair cascade over her delicate shoulder.

There was something— a flicker of something that almost caught her attention. She managed to see it later, though she didn’t know if it was seconds or days later. There were other people there. There were people at the tables that had always been empty. Faces, faces, faces that were wrong.

They were gone.

They were there.

It went on, a poisonous torture. She didn’t want to be there anymore. When was her shift going to end? When would it end? The people were different every time that she looked. She didn’t know any of them. They were eating, they were walking in, they were leaving. It happened relentlessly and in no particular area.

And then she saw him. Her whole being seemed to snap and solidify. She stopped singing to stare. Her voice went on. It was on the speakers, in a tinny quality that perfectly matched the recordings Imile had been making of their practice sessions.

The crowd murmured. Someone pointed at her. She didn’t care. Her gaze was trained on Sheffield. He was sitting with a few other people in suits. He looked older and wan. His dye job was much more obvious now that the collagen in his perfect face had given up. He was looking back at her, frozen in caution.

She knew, somehow, in her gut, that he had kept the necklace. He had kept the necklace that had siphoned off Brianna’s life to animate the Red Lady, and he had been feeding her.

“Murderer,” she said. She felt her voice ripple and echo. And she saw, out of the corner of her eyes, that the crowd reacted. They heard her.

A ghastly smile pulled across her face. Of course. She was a singer. A voice was crucial to her identity. Of course she still had her voice, even when the other dead were silent. “Sheffield is a murderer,” she said, louder now, damning him beyond a shadow of a doubt. The crowd was agitated now.  “Poisoner, snake-” she shuddered.

Sheffield was white as a sheet. The other men at his table were staring at him.

“Where is my body?” The words came out choked with pain because then she remembered. She screamed. She saw lights shatter and go dark overhead.

She was in the lounge. The lady in lucious furs glanced over and offered Brianna a glass of wine. She took it with her left hand, because her right hand was being held. She gave a little squeeze against the Red Lady’s little gloved hand.

Another hand was on her shoulder, warmer than the Red Lady’s. She knew without looking that it was Imile.

Brianna blinked, and the scene didn’t change. She let out some tension and a sigh. She could finally see the performer who had worked the lounge before her. He was a tenor with thoroughly white hair and a two part accompaniment of stringed instruments.

It felt right.