A Lovely Kind of Madness

By Cindy Rae

For Halloween, 2015

It was a night for ghosts.

Still, the first night Jacob saw Margaret's ghost, the lovely apparition was entirely unexpected, even if it was Halloween.

He'd not been thinking of her. He'd been thinking of Vincent, more than anyone else, and only so much about him, considering he’d already left to join Catherine. So, Margaret was very nearly the last person he expected to see.

And considering he knew it was her spirit he looked at, as she stood steadily on the Whispering Bridge, he wasn't sure he could say he was seeing a "person" now.

The evening had begun traditionally enough. He'd read the children a bit of HG Wells and told them a few ghost stories, some of them the same ones as last year, by request. The costumed audience had listened attentively, waiting for darkness to come so they could disperse toward the homes of helpers, and get what loot they could wrangle. Vincent, like them, had waited impatiently for the late October sun to set.

Stories done, the children had scattered, most to fuss with their Halloween costumes before trick-or-treating began in earnest.

William had brought him a covered tray. Pumpkin soup, with some cookies on the side. Vincent had bid him good evening and left, over Jacob's predictable (and by now, predictably ignored) objections to him walking the city streets. It wasn’t an argument they’d never had before, and the results were the same: Vincent had insisted things would be fine, taken the used dishes away, then left.

Jacob had read for a bit, and then ... drifted off to sleep in his chair? Was that right? His mind scrambled to make sense of the enchanting vision before him.

Ah, that's what this is! She's a dream! And such a lovely one, too, Jacob thought, enjoying the sight of her in one of the pretty tailored frocks she'd worn while she'd stayed with him. She was wearing her favorite sweater, as well.

"You're thinking I'm a dream, Jacob. You know that isn't right," she chided him, barely moving a step as she maintained her position on the bridge. Her hair was done in the loosely curled, beauty parlor style she'd favored.

She was right, of course. He remembered drifting off, but also waking up, restless. He'd gotten stiffly out of his chair and come walking.

For no particular reason, his feet had carried him here.

"Margaret?" Jacob asked, not daring to hazard the bridge with his walking stick. Not when his hip was paining him this badly.

"And who were you expecting? That odd little friend, Mouse? Great, huge Vincent?" she asked, smiling.

"I wasn't expecting anybody," Jacob confessed, realizing he could see through her left sleeve just a bit.

"No. No, you weren't," she agreed. "Isn't that sad?"

He had no idea what she meant.

"How ... how can you even be here?" he asked, not answering her question.

"Oh, Jacob," she scoffed at him in the way only Margaret could do. "You have only to ask Vincent. Sometimes ..." she indicated the air around her and over her head, "the sound falls through." She smiled her loveliest smile. "Sometimes, other things as well. This is one of the magic places in your world. One of the places in between. Where the walls between the worlds ..."

"Grow thin," Jacob finished for her.

She simply nodded her assent.

"I don't normally come here," he confessed. Had she been here all along? Surely not.

"Neither do I," she replied, stepping a little closer to where he stood. He wasn't sure if she should do that. For some reason, it felt important that he not try to touch her, not try to keep her here by holding her. And he knew that this was very much not a dream.

"I much prefer that pretty little room where you said good-bye to me," she confided. "The one with the water, and the stars that shone in it."

"The mirror pool?" he asked. He hadn't wanted to tell her about it while she was living. Somehow, it sounded too sad, considering what they used it for.

"Ah, yes. The mirror pool! Lovely spot. You were so unhappy, then. And I was so sorry to have to leave you."

He regarded her with sad eyes, full of memory.

"I understood, you know." He had. He, above all others, understood the cycle of life and death, and what a body did when the end was near. How she’d struggled, and then … peace.

"I know you did.” Her voice was a gentle benediction. “It was a blessing to be here. To be with you."

"You have no idea how much I felt the same." His voice held no regret. Just simple truth.

She sat down on the bridge and let her legs dangle.

"Should you be doing that?" he asked.

"Why not? No more arthritis in my knees."  She grinned, kicking her legs a little. "And there's a lovely woman named Narcissa who sings to me, sometimes. Old songs. Island songs. You'd have– well, come to think of it, you'd probably have hated them. But she's nice." The smile remained.

Jacob turned over her words, and her appearance here. Had she been in the tunnels since her passing? But that had been nearly a year ago. Surely...

"You aren't ... trapped here, are you?" he asked, worried that that had happened, somehow.

She laughed at him. Actually laughed. The Margaret laugh, the one she'd had too seldom while she was in his company last.

"My dear. I'm not trapped anywhere. At least, I don't think I am. ‘Trapped’ was what I was before. In a body that was failing. My heart, of all things. No, Jacob. I'm not trapped. I'm just ... here, right now,” she offered by way of explanation.

“I take it you’re not here for the caramel candy,” he prompted.

“You were caramels. I always liked butterscotch,” she returned.

Oh, yes. That was right. She had. And he felt like a heel for forgetting it. Such a simple thing. And so vitally important, now. Now that she was gone. He wondered how much more of her he’d fought to hold onto, in memory, which had slipped through.

"Margaret ..." He struggled for something to say. What could he tell her? What, that they hadn't already said? That he'd been missing her desperately? That there was a truth beyond knowledge, and he wasn't sure how much he believed in it, sometimes? That Vincent had left to take Catherine on a walk around the city and he was scared to death and trying not to be? What?

"It's all right, Jacob. You know it's all right." Her voice tried to soothe him.

He regarded her thoughtfully. "Is that why you're here? To tell me it's all right?"

"Maybe. But you don't need me for that, do you?"

He had no idea. He had no idea what he needed her for, or why his imagination had conjured her, if that’s what it had done. Or what she even referred to, specifically, when she said it was “all right.”

Jacob took in the image of the long, dilapidated bridge, and the chasm that stretched below it. And his wife, looking like she was delightedly dangling her legs off a local fishing pier.

"Vincent told me of this place,” Jacob said. “How he used to come here, as a child." Jacob had no idea why he was discussing his adopted son, or what any of it meant. They were simply the words that sprang to his tired brain, so he gave them to her.

“And they always found him. Just like you found me.” She slipped her foot out of the heel of her slipper and made a little circle with her toe. She looked very pleased with herself.

Her voice sounded just as content as the rest of her looked.  "Ah, Vincent. Catherine is taking him through the park, in a carriage, right about now." She cocked her head a little to one side, as if she could see something Jacob couldn't. "Do you think the horse is frightened of him?" Margaret asked.

Such an odd question. Didn't she know? Didn't ghosts know ... things like that? Jacob realized he had no idea, on any count. He settled his weight down on the hard ground near where the bridge began.

"I think Vincent has a very special relationship with all manner of horses," Jacob answered, thinking of the time Vincent had ridden the carousel with Devin.

Margaret played with slipping her heel in and out of her shoe as it dangled. If she wasn't careful, she'd lose it to the abyss.

"I've missed you, you know." He leaned carefully against the corner of the bridge post.

Her beloved head tilted again. "I know, Jacob. I try not to look, then. It only makes me sad, knowing it was me who wasted the time between us, when we could have had more."

His mourning affected her? No. That could not stand. Especially not about the lost years between them. Years which couldn't be helped, no matter what.

"Don't.  Margaret, please don't. I beg you not to have that regret. It's not what I would have wanted for you, for either of us." He looked at the vaulted ceiling over their heads. "In a way, all of that... it's what prompted me to be here, make this place happen, for me. For everyone else who needed it."

Margaret smiled at his charity, and his correct assessment. "And they do need you,” she assured. “My, that little Jamie certainly is a fireball, isn't she?" Margaret beamed, seeming to see the impulsive teenager in her mind's eye.

Did a ghost have a mind's eye? Jacob marveled at her expression, sure that this one did.

"She is," Jacob answered. "She'll keep me up nights, in a few years. Give both Vincent and me a run for our money." Jacob gave a rueful smile to his love. He had no idea what this conversation was about, exactly, but he was content to talk about whatever she wanted.

"Money you don't have," Margaret reminded him with a gentle verbal nudge.

Jacob chuckled back at her. "I don't, do I?" he agreed, not minding his poverty in the least, at the moment.

"There's money in the account I left, you know," she chided him. "You could at least have Catherine buy you a pair of decent gloves." She eyed the fingerless ones. They were the same ones he’d had when she’d been with him.

"We agreed that would be for the children's education, and then swore we'd waste no more time speaking of it." He wiggled his exposed fingertips at her.

She good humoredly shook her head at him, then looked down into the abyss. Her husband. He was ... stubborn, for lack of a better word. And as deep as the chasm beneath her.

"Besides, these serve me well enough. I can't take a pulse with proper gloves on," he pointed out correctly.

The look she gave him was a gentle one. "My husband. Ever the doctor."

He was. It was the thing he'd been when all else had fallen away. When he'd been stripped of everything: all he owned, his relationship with her, even his ability to remain above the ground. Even then, he'd still been a doctor in his own mind, in his heart, and in the world Below.

"I am. I am that," he agreed. "I'm just so sorry I couldn't use it to ... to save you, Margaret."

She regarded him lovingly. "Ah, but you did save me, don't you remember? We had seven days. If the Lord could make the world in that time, saving me from my deepest regret was easy, by comparison. And you did save me. You let me be at peace, even if I didn't deserve your forgiveness. I do love you, Jacob."

"And I love you," he said, wishing he'd moved closer. He did so now. Just a little ways out. Not close enough to touch, not even fully on the planks of the bridge itself, but just a little closer. She let him advance, without saying anything.

He knew, still, that he shouldn't try to touch her. Something in him sensed that wouldn't be allowed, that she might disappear if he tried. But he inched a little further out, away from the post, and was happy to realize he could hear her a little better, in spite of the other noises around them.

"There's a full moon out tonight," Margaret stated.

Was there? He had no idea. He'd not gone Above to look.

"Do you think she'll take Vincent down Fifth Avenue? Find a place to buy ice cream?" Margaret asked. There was no need to explain who "she" was. That pronoun had always only ever stood for one woman, when it came to Vincent.

Jacob had no idea what they might do, specifically. And he wasn't even sure why that particular adventure might be important, though if Margaret mentioned it, it must be.

"I don't know. Did we ever do that?" he asked, struggling to remember if they had, if that was why she'd brought it up.

"No, not us. We had ice cream at the state fair. Remember?"

He did, and the memory pleased him. It was when he was courting her, and close to the day he’d proposed. "On top of the Ferris wheel,” he said, remembering the sight of her with a dripping vanilla cone he’d had to help her eat, lest it ruin her gloves. “You had butterflies in your stomach." He fondly recalled the sound of her amazed delight as they’d gone over the top.

"Such a beautiful day,” she recalled. “The sun was so warm. The sky was perfectly blue." She shimmered a bit at the memory, and seemed to grow more opaque. Was he losing her?

"Margaret?" He lifted his hand to reach out, but she "solidified" back into existence. The look she gave him was a serious one. So was her no-nonsense tone.

"She wants that for him, Jacob. Not the Ferris wheel, perhaps, but as much of the rest of it as she can have, to give to him. She wants that blue sky, wants that ice cream. That feeling of butterflies in your stomach. Of going over the top. She wants it. For him. Catherine does."

Jacob inhaled deeply, completely understanding, yet not knowing quite what to say to her. So he went with his heart, as he always did, with Margaret.

"I know she does,” he answered. “It's ... something we all want for him. Something I've wanted for him since he was a boy." His tone was somber as his brown eyes turned sadly reflective. "But it can't be, Margaret. Not all miracles happen, even if you pray very hard."

He knew it was true. Both before Margaret's reappearance into his life, and after. She knew it, too. But this was not about lost chances. It was about found ones.

"She had a dream, once," Margaret confided.

Did ghosts know about dreams? Did they know about all of the dreams? Jacob wondered. Perhaps they did. Perhaps that was their job.   Perhaps that was part of whatever this was.

His wife's soft voice continued: "It was a long time ago. She was hurt, and in a hospital, and she had a dream. She was walking with him down Fifth Avenue and he bought her ice cream. And no one looked twice. Isn't that amazing?"

A tear escaped Jacob's dark eyes. Yes. It was amazing. Amazing and utterly impossible.

"That's a lovely dream.” His voice choked, a little.

He'd never known about this particular vision of Catherine's. She'd never told him. Sadly, he realized there was no reason why she should. He'd been very mistrustful of her at first, and Margaret had said this had happened long ago.

Margaret brushed at her skirt with her hands. She still wore her wedding rings. "It is a lovely dream. And you're going to help them to it, Jacob."

Jacob blinked. Him? What could he do?

"Margaret, the shopkeepers on Fifth Avenue are not going to accept ..."

"Not Fifth Avenue. Connecticut," she interrupted, turning toward him a bit. "He had a dream, too. He had a dream once where he thought of going there with her. She had a dream of a blue sky and ice cream, and he had one of a blue sky and her, taking him to a place from her childhood." She let the words settle, let them sit.

Connecticut? Above the ground and in another state? She might as well be discussing a trip to Paris for them. Jacob was astounded at the audacity of her pronouncement.

"They can both have what they dream of. At least some of it." She sounded unshakably sure.

Her left hand extended to him, and the simple diamond he'd bought her for their wedding sparkled. He knew that in reality, her rings were tucked inside a box, in his chambers. How lovely that this image of you still wears my rings, he thought, distracted by the jewelry.

"It's time, Jacob," Margaret nudged, dropping her hand. "You have to let him go. Have to tell him he has to."

What? Jacob came back to present concerns. Connecticut. No.

"That would be madness. He can't take such a risk." It was Jacob's immediate and honest reaction.

She laughed at him again. But her tone was both serious and inviting. "Madness. Yes. A lovely kind of madness. The kind that makes a doctor stand on a street corner, waiting for a woman to step out of a taxi cab." She lifted her hand again and waggled her be-ringed fingers at him. He couldn’t believe what she was suggesting.

"Oh, Jacob, let them have their madness. They've earned it. Besides, he’d be far safer on private property than he is wandering through that park at all hours. Think of it."

"Margaret..."

"And you are the one who has to bring it up. The one who has to … suggest that he goes. Now would actually be a good night to make the trip, considering it's still Halloween. It's his safest night for travel, after all."

No! And… maybe? Maybe… yes? She wasn't wrong. And his mind struggled to wrap itself around what she was proposing. Was there a way to do this?

"The risk ..." he began.

"… is worth taking, Jacob. Husband."

Husband. The thing she'd called him on their wedding day, and several times after. She liked the word. She'd liked using it with him. It usually meant she was about to get her way.

"You're suggesting he go to another state?” His tone conveyed his disbelief. “Outside the protection of his home, and away from all safety? Think of that, Margaret. Think of what could happen to him when the sun comes up."

She smiled at him, a sad little smile. "Ah, my love. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for what all of them did to you, and what I did, after. How we all made you so afraid of risk, so afraid to take chances, in the world over your head. How abandoned we all made you. I own part of that fear, Jacob, and I'm so sorry for it."

Jacob Wells shook his head at the image of his wife, aware they were disagreeing fundamentally. "It isn't you, Margaret. It's the rest of the world that keeps me worried, for him."

She looked out and swung her legs a little more, and the shoe was indeed in peril.

"Jacob, think. If he doesn't go. If he never goes, what do you see for them?"

Jacob studied her lovely, concerned image, trying to pierce the veil of her intentions with the question.

"I have no idea," he replied honestly. "I marvel that they've come this far."

"So do they," Margaret agreed, and her legs stilled.

"And for now, that's distraction enough,” she continued. “But what happens on Halloween next year? And the year after that? And the five after that? What happens when the novelty of the carriage ride each year wears thin, when the trip to the top of the Empire State Building becomes a repetition, when they've done those things, and done them again, and the years are gone?"

She seemed to sigh. "Those things are distractions, Jacob. Lovely distractions, and beyond precious to him, but distractions, still.  Like the sunrise he stays to see but can’t stay with. They are both pretending they can share a life together. As long as they only ask for one night a year."

Jacob tried to keep pace with her, tried to wrap his head around what she was implying.

"New York is rather … large,” he supplied. “I don't think they'll run out of things to do. That he could even get in a carriage at all is a marvel. And with a woman he's in love with."

"In love with. Yes." She slipped the heel of the shoe firmly back onto her foot and gave him a long stare.

"They are both pretending they can share a life together. As long as they only ask for one night a year," she repeated. Her expressive eyes pleaded for understanding. "We were the opposite, Jacob."

"The opposite?" he asked, confused by her assertion.

She nodded, sure of her point. "You waited a year, a year almost to the day, you said, to see me step out of a yellow taxi. And then you made sure we were together every day after that you could. You paid the year and tried for your happily ever after.”

Yes, he had. That had been part of their love story.

“They're the opposite,” Margaret insisted. “They’ll pay the year just to have one night, one dawn. They're trying to cram happily ever after into this one night they wait a year for.” She was undeniably emphatic.

“But then the night ends, and they have to wait, again,” she continued. “Think about what that must feel like. Think about what November first must feel like, for them. Husband."

Jacob did. And he realized she was right. All Saints Day would become a despised one for Vincent, if it wasn't already. Not at first, not when he was sitting with her as dawn broke, but as the day wore on …

But what could be done about it? Surely not what Margaret suggested ...

"He's in love with her. Deeply. Irrevocably." The ghost before him would not be put off.

“I know he is,” Jacob assented. Only a fool would conclude otherwise, and neither of them were that.

"He needs to marry her, Jacob. Needs to be a husband to her. And he needs to do that away from here. At least at first. So he knows he can."

"Margaret ..." Jacob shook his head.

"Let him go, Jacob. Better than that. Encourage him to go. He needs to hear it from you. Even if he doesn’t think he does. Tell him it’s all right.”

Ah. So that’s what she’d meant.

“Tell him you've been thinking about it,” she pressed. “Get some things together for them, see if you can get a message to him before sunup, so they can be on the road before dawn. If you don't ..."

Jacob's mind was struggling with the enormity of what she was proposing.

“You’re saying I should send them away together,” he confirmed. “With my blessing,” he tacked on.

They stared at each other for a long moment, Jacob clearly envisioning the ramifications of such an act.

"You could marry them before they go, if that's what's bothering you.” Margaret said it with a certain aristocratic air. One she usually saved for when she was about to skewer him.

“Though I'll point out that might make you a bit of a hypocrite, if it is." She arched a familiar eyebrow at him, forcing him to recall a particularly heated exchange between them when they were engaged. He’d come very close to taking her virginity before their wedding night.

"You know it isn't that," Jacob replied gently, remembering exactly what she’d wanted him to. "I'm not sure those rules apply to anyone, anymore. Not these days. Or if any of them apply to him."

Her hazel gaze was clear. "Perhaps he wants them to apply to him, Jacob. Perhaps his entire life is about sensing the possibility of that, of wanting to be a part of this very important dance. He wants to be her husband. Wants to find out what that means for them, to see if it means the same thing for them that it means for other people. Or at least if it means something, somehow."

He didn’t disagree with her. He couldn’t. Not when he knew how right she was.

"He might hurt her. He's afraid of it," Jacob said bluntly.

"He'd sooner chew off his own arm, I think." The bright spirit before him almost chuckled at the notion. "But let them find out, one way or the other. They need to, Jacob. They've been so brave, thus far. So brave. And now they’re out there, being brave again. Let them reap the rewards of that courage."

"And if that 'reward' is disaster?" he asked.

"Then let them find that out, too.” She was unequivocal in her support of this idea. “Let them move through their fears, and solve those. They both think they need to 'fit' inside either his world or hers." She raised her hands to encompass the enormity of their surroundings, and that of the city above them.

"There's a third choice,” she insisted. “One he had a dream about, that was part nightmare. He's pushed it aside, and been struggling, since.”

Jacob had to admit she was right about that. The last year had been a difficult one for Vincent and Catherine. Not that it had been an easy one for Jacob.

“You have to help them, Jacob. Have to help them see that there is a way. That there is this third choice, and then whatever choices they make after that, no matter what those are.  Here. There. Everywhere. That it isn’t a question of ‘this way or that way.’ It’s a question of every possible choice they can find, or make, between them." She tapped the faded boards of the bridge with an index finger, for emphasis.

He took in her words as she spoke, then watched her as she turned again, to look out at the network of bridges and tunnels before her. She’d made her case. She wouldn’t keep pressing. It wasn’t her way. Ladies like Margaret Chase were raised to never badger, or nag. They were raised to make their point, then wait.

She folded her hands in her lap and sat quietly on the bridge, letting time spin out, between them. The sounds of a Halloween night drifted down around her, sometimes loud, sometimes whisperingly soft. Children were trick-or-treating. A taxi horn blared. Jacob knew it was yellow. Music played, something from the big band era, something with lots of sax. The mighty crack of a bat as it hit a ball, and an unseen crowd roared its approval. It jarred another memory loose, for Jacob.

"There was a ticket in my pocket the day I came down,” he said to her profile. “Ebbets Field," he clarified, remembering it. The sound of the home run had made him think of it.

"Ah. Baseball.” She turned her head back his way, a little. “You were quite intrigued by the sport, for an Englishman," she noted kindly, knowing he was changing the subject, yet not.

"I was. It's a wonderful game. So … team-oriented. So much about … working together. Every man has a place, has a job.  No one person could be everything.  Do you think I liked it because I was trying to fit in, back then?"

She shook her head, and her pearl earrings caught the torchlight. "I think you always liked the notion of a place for everything and everything in its place. Like the nine men standing in different positions on a ball diamond, everyone doing their job. It’s organized and easy to understand. Like Catherine in her place and Vincent in his. You in yours. It’s easier that way, easier to see if everything’s all right, if everyone is safe. It’s all right, Jacob,” she repeated.

He gave her a long look. And a longing one.

“Did you ever see the game you had a ticket for?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No. The ticket was still in my pocket the day I came down. I found it when I went back Above. The day I went to search for you."

"And walked right into the tragedy I'd made of my life. Right into Henry Dutton, and you were thrown in jail because they thought you'd killed Alan. I'm so sorry, Jacob. It seems all I do is make you afraid to put your head up out of this place."

"That isn't true." He rasped the words. "Margaret ... loving you ... knowing the power love could bring ..." He looked down into the depths of the abyss, where things seemed to fall, endlessly. “You can’t know what it meant. What it always meant.”

He hesitated, before he spoke next. "I was bitter, when I first came here," he confessed. “Angry at them, but not at you. For us I was just … almost unutterably sad. I knew you did the only thing you could, considering, and I was … relieved, in a way, that your father hadn't disowned you over all of it. I just ...."

He compressed his mouth in a thin line for a moment, then let the tension go.

"I knew what it was to be in love, to be a married man. And it was wonderful. That love always ... reminded me of what love could do. And I never lost that, even when I lost everything else. In a way, that love was what made me able to build this place. Made me able to offer people like Vincent a refuge."

She leaned closer to him, loving the compliment he'd just paid her.

"Ah, Jacob. There are no people like Vincent. But I do know what you mean."

He sighed heavily and sat with her for several silent moments. Time was ticking away on them. Her time here was ending. Without knowing how he knew, he knew.

"Will I see you again?" he asked. She knew he'd just capitulated, without admitting it.

"Probably. Maybe. Sometimes. Maybe not, Jacob. Perhaps you'll be busy with grandchildren. Who knows, in a world as wondrous as this one?" She shook her gentle head. "I don't know the rules, my love."

He closed his eyes at that. If she didn’t, he surely didn’t. Not now.

 "Perhaps it doesn't matter if there are any,” he whispered. “Perhaps those are meant to be broken." He opened his tired eyes and regarded his incandescently beautiful wife.

She smiled a full smile. "Perhaps you're right."

He nearly fought down a chuckle. She was complimenting him on reaching a conclusion she’d guided him toward. No wonder women ruled the world.

He eyed her with the wariness of a married man whose wife had just asked for something outrageous, and was probably about to get it.

"You're sure about this? That I should just ... kick him out of the nest, here?"

"It's what good parents do, isn't it?" she asked.

He wasn't sure. They'd never been parents together. But yes, he had been "Father" for many years. Even more than he'd been just "Jacob," once, though the tally was close.

She reached down to make sure her shoe was securely on her foot and then rose, as he did.

"I have serious misgivings about this, you know," he confided unnecessarily.

"I'd expect nothing less from a good father," she flattered. "It's the right thing, Jacob. You know it is. Let them go. Make them go. Let them have an adventure."

"I thought they were already having an adventure," Jacob said, a bit testily.

"I know you do. And so do they. But it's a shadow compared to what awaits them, if this works. If they realize that they are possible. If they explore every boundary, making that happen."

"She can't live here. You know that." Jacob knew that Vincent feared burdening Catherine with his life's limits almost more than he feared any other single thing. Catherine knew that, as well.

"No, she can't," Margaret agreed. "Not right now, at least. But she can stay for a time. And he can stay with her." She held her hands up in a motion he recognized, palms up, then fingers closed, in a grasping gesture, as if she was trying to hold on to something.

"They're snatching moments, Jacob, and trying to make a lifetime out of those. They need to be together. He needs a blue sky and she needs to be the one that gives him that. Because she can. Because she loves him."

His reply was soft. "You stepped out of a yellow taxi, once. And my world was never the same," he said.

She was pleased. Beyond it. And she was starting to shimmer again, and fade. She tilted her head to one side, as if seeing something he couldn’t, again.

"And they're about to get out of the carriage. Lexington Avenue. Send someone, Jacob. Send Jamie, and tell her to hurry. Tell them to enjoy their walk but to come back in a few hours. That there's something very special you want to discuss with them."

Jacob's mind was doing somersaults. "Saul owns an old van. It's to carry groceries for his sandwich shop." Jacob couldn't believe he was considering this. Or at least trying to consider it.

"Sounds perfectly uncomfortable. And like Vincent will love every minute of it," his wife replied.

"There are no windows and it won't attract any notice."

"It sounds like you have things to do." She nudged him forward with her words.

He didn’t want to go. Not yet. Not quite yet. "Margaret, I ..."

"I know. I know you do. I love you too, Jacob. I always will. Now, go.” She shooed him with her hands. “You have meddling to do. Lovely meddling. And a particularly large bird to kick out of the nest."

Jacob smiled and shook his head, feeling her plan coalesce inside his head, as he felt it inside his heart. Vincent. A woman's husband, perhaps. Or at least her lover. In Connecticut. Maybe. Or … well. Whatever they decided to be.  Under a blue sky. All of it, or none of it, or some of it, or something else entirely. Whatever they wanted. Whatever limit they pushed, or wall they pushed themselves through.

When the walls between the worlds grow thin.

Maybe by this time tomorrow, it would all be happening for him. Maybe sooner.

"I love you." He had to say it. So he did.

Fading, she held her ground on the shaky bridge, wanting him to be the one who left, this time.  She’d left him, last time. Now it was his turn. He knew what she was doing, with her refusal to move.

"If this doesn't work, I'll hold you responsible." He said it with humor in his voice as he purposely turned his back on her, and made his way to the opening that marked one of the many doorways to his world.

He felt her pleasure as he felt her vanish.

"Hold who responsible for what, Father?" Jamie nearly bumped into him as he made his way into the tunnel. His voice had carried. The gift of the place he'd just been standing in.

Jacob smiled at her. She was wearing a blue cloth tied as a cape and good running shoes. Carrying a bag full of treats the helpers had sent down for the youngest children.

Too old for trick-or-treating by her own declaration, Jamie was now helping the little ones enjoy the night of magic, when the walls between the worlds grew thin.

"You," Jacob answered, even though she’d have sworn he wasn’t speaking to her a moment before. "I need a fast runner to deliver a message. Do you think you can find Vincent and Catherine in all the mayhem up above? I think they're near the carriage stand on Lexington Avenue."

Jamie smiled the smile of the ever-confident. "He's so tall, he’s easy to spot. And she's in a beautiful white dress with silver and gold brocade down the front. They’ll stand out, even in a crowd. Her hair's all done up and she's carrying a fan, like a fine lady out of a book of stories."

She is a fine lady out of a book of stories, he thought, hastily scribbling a note.

"Get this to them as fast as you can. On the way back, please tell Saul I need to speak to him, and it's urgent. Can you do that for me?" he asked, knowing he could trust this fair, blonde Amazon of a girl with any task.

"Sure I can. Sure, Father. Want to tell me what's going on?" she asked, her dark eyes full of lively curiosity.

"I do. And I will. But for now, this must get done. Much depends on you." He leaned down a bit to hold her gaze. It was full of dark wisdom, and determination. "You're a good daughter, Jamie," he added.

Her smile was immediate, and beatific. "You can count on me."

"I know I can. Meet me back in my chambers after you see Saul. You'll hear what's going on, on the pipes. You must hurry, Jamie. I know this night is just getting started, for many, but we haven't much time to plan a surprise."

"I love surprises!" she said, handing him the bag of treats so they wouldn’t slow her down. "Is it for Catherine and Vincent?"

"It is. And I may need you to help me talk him into taking a chance."

"I love taking chances!" She was tucking the message into her belt.

 Didn't they all know it, Jacob thought.

"I know that, as well. Run, Jamie. I need your legs for this, and your stamina. You won't give up until you find them?"

The look she gave him was a scornful one. "I never give up." She turned and was flying down the hallway, her cape fluttering behind her, before he could utter another word.

He looked back through the opening that went to the bridge, still able to see its dilapidated length framed by the stones. It was empty. Utterly. Even the other sounds which normally fell through seemed quiet, at the moment.

He hadn't imagined her. He knew he hadn't. And he certainly hadn't dreamed her. And yet ... somewhere inside him he felt he'd needed her image to encourage him in this direction.

Had he somehow conjured the entire conversation, in this magical place? Had he known he needed to?

If he had, the thought gave him comfort. If seeing her was a thing he'd willed, perhaps he'd be able to see her again, sometimes. Sometimes when his heart needed her wise counsel. Sometimes when the walls between the worlds grew thin.

I won’t live a year just to wait for this day, he thought. But I’ll live always knowing we loved each other. Treasure this lovely kind of madness.

He would. It was as unshakable a truth as any other he knew. He reached into Jamie’s bag, and dug around until he found what he wanted. Butterscotch. He retraced his few steps and set the piece of wrapped candy on the post of the bridge.

“There you go. And now, you’ve set me quite the task, Margaret. Wife.”

She had. There was another couple in love, and they needed some help. His help. His and Margaret’s.

He turned back to his world, the sound of his makeshift cane on the stones keeping him company as he travelled. When he came to the first pipe, he rapped out a message with the stick on the metal, asking Mary, Rebecca, Pascal, and William to meet him in his chambers. Quickly.

They had a trip to Connecticut to plan. And perhaps even a wedding. It would all depend on what the most amazing couple he knew decided.

He checked his pocket watch. Nine thirty. They had hours to plan. Plenty of time. Plenty of time to make November first as wonderful as October thirty-first had been, for Vincent and Catherine. Plenty of time to indulge in a lovely kind of madness.

His step lightened as he hurried down the passageway. His son deserved a future full of more than stolen moments. And it was his job, as a father, to see to it that that future started to happen.

The image of a yellow taxi cab flitted by his memory. He was about to offer Vincent a rusting old van, instead. A dilapidated Ford was hardly a magical carriage, set to transform a life.

Unless it was.

Jacob hummed a little as he walked. It was going to be a long night. A long, wonderful night.

A night when the walls between the worlds grew thin. And maybe stayed that way, for longer than just a night.

He hoped the others wouldn’t think him quite mad when he broached the subjects he was about to. Or, if they did, they agreed with him that it was a lovely kind of madness.

~~

They did.

~~

No matter where you are when you realize you’ve gone a little mad, I wish you love ~ Cindy