The Ghostly Past

Chapter 36

Clara felt wrong. The vision, combined with the argument had confused her and she found a bench in the shade just outside of the walled town, drinking a bottle of water. She wasn't surprised that Harriet hadn't believed her. She had explained it all wrong in her confusion.

It had been a long time since a ghost had touched her, and she hadn't had visions since that one of her and Oliver running into the woods. That it would happen here in Malta, was bizarre. She'd never been in contact with Dorian's spirit. She shouldn't be seeing his memories.

And yet she had. She had dreamt them too. Long before a ghost had ever touched her, on her first night in Gloomsdale, she had dreamt of Mdina, through Dorian's eyes.

"I can't be..." Clara breathed, feeling suddenly faint. "I can't be." She called Elias. "Hi, Elias." Her voice sounded strained.

"Clara, how can I help? How are you finding Mdina?"

"Very interesting." She answered, feeling cold even in the afternoon sun. It was getting late, Harriet would no doubt be heading into dinner soon. The sun would be setting within a couple of hours. "Listen, can you send me a photograph of the painting of Sir Percy? I just need to cross reference with something here."

"Sure." Elias asked. "Think I have one on my laptop somewhere. I'm in the office, just give me ten minutes."

"Thanks. I appreciate it!"

He was quick. It wasn't long before her phone pinged and she opened the file to see another stylised portrait, like the one of Arthur.

Her ears were ringing. It was the blond man from her vision.

"No." She said aloud, "It's not true."

She walked back around, not to the main bridge, but the old, original entrance. She should be catching a bus back, not exploring but she couldn't help herself, dazed and confused as she was.

She stumbled her way into another vision.

She was walking down the road away from the city, walking a horse. "Dorian!" A voice was shouting after her. "Wait! I command you to wait!" After a few moments, she paused, turning.

Arthur was behind her. "Haven't we said all there is to be said, Arthur?" Dorian asked him, his voice cold.

"I did not intend for you to leave!" Arthur was angry, swinging down from his horse when Dorian starting walking again. He followed.

"You still have your orders." Dorian answered. "You should go back. I'm going onwards."

"I don't wish us to part in anger, my friend." Arthur said.

"Nor, I."

"Let us walk together awhile. Walking is good for the soul. Isn't that what you always say?"

Dorian recognised an offer of peace when he heard it, and smiled. "I may go back to La Valette's new town, visit our friends."

"And then?"

"I think I will travel on. Perhaps I will even go home."

They walked companionably for a long time, as the sun started to set, leading their horses down the road. His legs ached a little but they kept pace together. He smiled again as Arthur stopped. "I should be travelling back. Percy will be wondering where I am." Arthur's voice was soft. "I wish you would return with me."

"I almost wish it too." Dorian said. "Perhaps we will see one another again one day. I think I will visit Richard, and young George and then be on my way. It will be good to walk among my own people again. I tire of being the outsider."

Farewell, my friend." They clasped hands for a moment and then Arthur swung up into the saddle, returning the way he came.

Clara came back to herself, shaking by the side of the road. It was dark. The sun had set, and she had no idea where she was, standing alone on a silent road flanked by a few stray cactus plants and what seemed like desert wasteland.

She was very cold in shorts and a shirt, sinking onto the ground, feeling weak and shaken. She was lost. At least she could see Mdina on the hill way behind her. She wondered if the buses were still running, if she could get back to her hotel.

Why was it so cold? The ground was icy, and even in the Maltese warmth, it hadn't yet melted. She shuddered. Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

Elias had tried to call her twice in the last few hours. So had Harriet. Both had left anxious messages, wondering at her silence.

She needed to think.

There was no way she could doubt it, not after another vision like that, again before dark, through the eyes of a man she had never known.

As she began to accept it in her mind, the realisations came fast and heavy. The cycle had begun when Oliver moved to the village, she'd been told, the same time Clara had herself passed through for her interview at the Cantabile Academy. She'd had dreams of this place, this exact place right from the start, long before she'd ever been touched by a ghost.

The visions she'd had were more intense than had been recorded after she was touched. She'd been inside Amelia's head and Amelia had never touched her, yet she'd seen the girl's story. The connection had been there all along.

They had shared a soul.

It had been the same the day she saw the vision of Oliver. She should have been Oliver in the vision, but she had not. She'd been herself.

Max had been right when he'd said he felt connected to her. He was. And she'd known it too, that feeling of bonding with the others, the intense emotions she felt towards them and they to her, both positive and negative.

Her friendship with James and Leo, Ryan's immediate dislike of her, all had been dictated by their past lives.

She had to accept it.

Oliver had never been Dorian. That was why his death, though tragic, had changed nothing.

No, Oliver wasn't Dorian.

Clara was.