Chapter 11 - A Week Passes

Monday night Jeremy walked to the park after dinner. She wasn't there, but instead of waiting around hoping she'd show up, he went home. He finished revising the ghost story (among other things, he revised the description of the ghost to make it still scary and horrible but less disgusting).

He took it to work the next morning and looked up "Horror" in the latest Writers Digest, which the library had in its reference section. He picked out the best-paying magazine, found their website to double-check that they were still publishing and still had the same editor (some magazines change editors like shirts).

On his lunch hour, he wrote a cover letter and printed it out, and walked over to the post office and mailed out the package.

That night, he again walked to the park after dinner. Lilian was there waiting for him. She came home with him and they made love late into the night. The next morning, he was late for work, and was tired and listless all day. He planned to go to bed early that night, but he found himself walking to the park again after dinner, and when Lilian wasn't there, he went home and wrote four more sonnets -- or perhaps three and a half, since the last one was terrible and would have to either be completely rewritten or abandoned.

He was surprised to look up to find that it was two a.m.

The next day, he was late again. Cecelia pointed out that he'd been late two days in a row. She didn't say anything about the way he looked, but he knew he must look awful, and he dragged through the day barely able to think. He didn't do a very good job. He felt really bad about that, but he got through the day.

Tired as he was, he still walked to the park after dinner, and he couldn't keep himself from sitting down and outlining a story that had come to him during his walk, and writing out the opening scene. He only let himself write for an hour, though, before turning in.

Thursday night, Liliana was waiting for him at the fountain pond.

Friday he called in sick.

After lying to Cecelia, claiming that the last few days he'd been coming down with something and now had full blown symptoms best not described in detail, he went back to bed, but he got up about noon and started writing. He wrote two more sonnets, polished a couple of earlier ones, and finished the story he'd started. He made what he now thought of as his nightly walk to the park, but did not see Liliana.

He wrote late into the night, slept until noon, got up and started writing again.

He knew there was something strange about his sudden inspiration. He had gone through of periods of productivity before, he'd even had a few poems and stories that poured out of him in a rush, as if he hadn't written them but they'd been written through him, like someone had poured them like water into his head and they'd flowed out through his fingers on the keyboard onto the computer. That's what this was like, but it wasn't once or twice, but every night, every day, every time he sat down to the computer or picked up a pen and pad of paper.

He knew that he was writing like this because of Liliana. He didn't know exactly how or why, what exactly it was about her that affected him in this way, but it was too much of a coincidence that this had started happening to him at the same time that she came into his life.

And the sonnets were all about Liliana.

He wrote other poems, too. And story ideas were coming so fast he couldn't even get them all down on paper. In addition to the two stories he'd finished, he'd written scraps of half a dozen others that he might or might not write later, if his inspiration ever flagged.

Saturday night he went to the park, and again Liliana wasn't there, but this time she was in his bed when he got home. He no longer questioned why or how she showed up in his life, he just accepted it and was happy when she did.

That night, after they made love, while they were cuddling in his bed, he asked her about the holidays."

"Holy days?"

"You know. Thanksgiving. Christmas. My parents are expecting me to go down there Thursday. To their house, I mean, which is in . . . well, it's a little town a hundred miles south of here, I'm sure you've never heard of it. It's called Caledonia."

"Caledonia? You mean . . . I don't understand, I thought Caledonia was called something else now. Something . . . Scotland. Yes. Caledonia is Scotland, isn't it?"

"Scotland? I think . . . I don't know. Maybe. Now that you mention it, I think that is an old name for Scotland, but it's also the name of a small town here in Missouri, and that's the Caledonia I'm talking about. It's where I was born. Where I grew up. Where my mom and dad still live. I'm . . . I'm supposed to go down there for Thanksgiving dinner Thursday -- that's this Thursday. You do know that this Thursday's Thanksgiving, right?"

She looked stricken.

"Who are you? Where do you come from?"

She looked distressed. She bit her lower lip. "I do not want to answer that right now, Jeremy. Please."

"OK, OK. I'm sorry. It doesn't matter. Or . . . well, it does matter, but I can wait. What's important is this Thursday. I'm going to have to go out of town. Or at least I'm supposed to go out of town. I'd like . . . I don't suppose you can go with me?"

She smiled sadly. "I think not. You will go in your . . . car, will you not?"

"Oh, right. You don't like cars. Well, yeah, you can't go 100 miles in a couple of hours on foot. I'll have to drive. And if I go by myself, I . . . well, I won't be back until late, so I won't . . . I won't be able to go to the park that night."

She smiled. "I will see you Friday, then. And at least once before then. Missing Thursday won't be a problem."

"And what about Christmas?"

She frowned.

"You do know about Christmas."

She nodded. "Yes, but we . . . do not celebrate it. Are you of the Christian faith then, Jeremy?"

He shrugged. "I haven't been to church in a long time. I don't know what I believe, I guess. But everybody celebrates Christmas, don't they? I mean, it's not really a religious holiday these days. Just a season of goodwill and buying presents for each other."

"We called that Saturnalia, once upon a time."

"Well, anyway, in the past I've gone down to my parents for Christmas, too, but I'd really rather spend it here with you, if that would be possible. But I don't know if . . . I mean. . . "

He looked away, bit his lip.

"I'm afraid this is going to sound really silly, but I just have to ask. Is it even possible for you to be here in the daytime?"

She smiled the same sad smile she'd given him earlier. She leaned over and kissed him. "It may be possible for us to be together on December 25," she said. "Let's wait and see what happens. You'll have to trust me, though. It will be a bit . . . strange for you."

"I love you," said Jeremy. He was surprised to realize that he'd never actually said the words to her before.

"Ah, Jeremy. Your love is a precious thing to me, yet also a burden. I feel rude and unkind not to repeat your words back to you, but I am not permitted to."

"Not permitted? What do you mean?"

"I mean that . . . it is hard to explain exactly what I mean. My . . . existence is more complicated than you realize, though I think you suspect more than you allow yourself to think about. But please," she added before he could ask a question, "no questions tonight."

She kissed him, and ran her hands over his body, and he found himself becoming aroused.

"If you will promise to ask me no more questions until I tell you that you may, I promise I will give you a chance to have your questions answered before Christmas," she said.

He would have acquiesced at that moment to any request she made of him, because he knew that she was going to fulfill other thirsts than knowledge.

"I love you," he said again, and they came together.