For the Love of Two Chapter 1

A/N
It has been a year and a half since Victoria Van Dort left the Land of the Living forever. Victor is so distraught that he's seriously considering giving up his life in exchange for love... but whose love? Warning: character deaths (but that's not so bad in a story like this). Rated T for brief allusions to adult themes; the language is all K.

o

Victor and Victoria Van Dort had a very happy marriage, according to the few people who cared.

His parents paid the new couple little attention. They were so thrilled at being included in the newest edition of Burke's Peerage, socializing with the nobility, and being invited to join all the right clubs and societies that they didn't have much time to keep track of their son and daughter-in-law. They'd never paid him that much attention anyway, so this wasn't much of a change. Her parents had even less inclination to follow the doings of the new couple. They finally had the money to make some much-needed repairs on the old manse, plus some long-overdue improvements, like hiring an artist to paint some properly flattering portraits of themselves. Victor and his precious Vicki were left to their own devices, and that suited them perfectly. For the first time in their lives, each of them had found someone else who loved them and cared about them, and they reveled in it. They didn't even try to join any of the clubs and societies that his wealth and her lineage entitled them to. They were quite happy spending all their time together in the smallish but well-made mansion he'd bought for her, enjoying his piano playing and each other's company.

When the doctor informed her, about ten months after the wedding, that she was in the family way, she and her husband were both thrilled (although he fainted when he heard the news). Both sets of parents were quietly pleased that their family lines would go on; they all assumed she would give her husband a son, because that was what respectable young ladies did for their husbands. Victor picked out some little girls' names, just in case. They turned one of the upstairs bedrooms into a nursery, and began looking for a nursemaid to join their maid in the servant's wing of the mansion.

But in her eighth month, something went wrong. Victor had called a cab as quickly as any human could, and Vicki had been rushed to the hospital. The doctors did what little they could. But after two hours, the surgeon stepped out of the operating theater, shook his head, and said, "I'm sorry."

Victor scarcely remembered the funeral, or much else from that time. His parents had said the customary words of consolation, then wandered over toward a young lord and his lady who were reputed to be among the Queen's favorites. The Everglots' words of consolation boiled down to, "We assume we won't be seeing much of you anymore; is that correct?" He couldn't remember how he'd answered, or if he'd answered at all. It didn't matter anyway. The joy and the meaning of his life were gone, snatched away, never to return.

It might be fair to say that the Van Dort mansion became haunted at that time, because its principal occupant was more of a ghost than a living soul. He had no desire or energy to do anything. His drawing ink dried up and was not replaced; the only reason his beloved piano wasn't covered in dust was that the maid dusted it daily, as though it were a religious icon of some kind. He was fortunate that his parents had given him a sizable sum of money to live on, as befitted a young gentleman. If he'd had to work for a living, he certainly would have starved.

o

Most people adjusted fairly quickly to being dead. Once the initial shock wore off, the advantages of the situation – no more hunger, no more pain, no more sickness, and the fact that one had to die only once and never deal with the whole nasty mess again – outweighed the disadvantages. Victoria Van Dort, née Everglot, was one of the few who did not adjust well. She cared little for her own condition, or the fact that both of her hands were now skeletal; her recurring phrase was, "Poor Victor!" She fretted and worried endlessly about how he would get by without her.

Someone finally directed her to the tower in the center of the town. Elder Gutknecht lived there, sometimes ruled from there, and occasionally dispensed good advice from there. He also was a storehouse of mysterious knowledge. If anyone could help her, it was the Elder.

He listened to her entire story, nodding politely in several places, before answering. "Free passage between the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead isn't normally allowed. The last time we tried it was at Victor and Emily's wedding, and it turned the entire town upside-down. The living were glad to see their deceased loved ones again, but then they had to go through the grieving all over again when we all returned to our home afterward. I'm sorry, but I don't think you should go to see your Victor again."

Victoria scowled. It wasn't a threatening scowl; there wasn't much threatening about any part of her. "Well, if I can't go to him, is there some way I could at least see him? I need to know if he's all right!"

"Hmm," the Elder said. "Let me think about that for a moment." He dropped a shiny red gemstone into a mortar, ground it to powder with a pestle, weighed out a precise amount of the powder in a balance, then dropped the rest of the powder into his chalice of wine and drank it. "There's nothing like some ruby dust for ruby-red lips... but I doubt it will do much good in my case. Ahh, I have just the thing! Follow me, please." He led her through a narrow passage between stacks of books to a little-used chamber behind his tall desk.

"A telescope?" she marveled. "I've always wanted to look through one of those."

"This is a special telescope," the Elder said as he removed the dust covers from the lenses. "Most such instruments can look at other worlds, but this one can be pointed at only one world – the Land of the Living. It allows you to hear, as well as see, things that are going on in that land. If you know where your Victor is, you can watch him for a few minutes, if you wish."

"I do!" she exclaimed. He stepped aside as she eagerly put one eye to the eyepiece and swung the telescope around until it was pointed at her former home. She adjusted the knobs without taking her eye away from the eyepiece, and soon found who she was looking for.

Victor was slowly pacing up and down the length of their mansion, his hands behind his back, his posture stooped over. He didn't look around at the potted plants or the paintings on the wall (she'd picked those out herself). He just went back and forth, and back and forth, seemingly without an end. At last, she heard the maid's voice call him to supper. He sighed and changed his direction to head for the dining room.

"But... he didn't speak!" she exclaimed. "How can I know for sure how he's feeling if I can't hear him talk?"

The Elder gave a sigh of his own. "I have reason to believe that, if you come back on two Friday nights from today, you will hear him speak."

"I'll be here!" she promised. "Uhh... what day is today?"

"Wednesday," Gutknecht answered as he replaced the scope's dust covers. "Yes, it's hard to keep track of the days here. No sun, no moon, no Sunday edition of the newspaper... no newspaper at all, actually... so I'll see you in a week and two days?"

"I'll find a way to keep track of the days," she said earnestly as she left. She did, too. She could barely contain her excitement as the Elder led her to the telescope that Friday night.

"Don't adjust the scope," he cautioned her. "It's already pointed in the right direction. Just look through it. I can't promise that you'll like what you see and hear, but you will see and hear the truth."

She did as he suggested. It was nighttime in the Land of the Living, and the telescope wasn't aimed at her house this time, but at a graveyard. It looked familiar, and yet strange. As she watched, a heartbreakingly-familiar silhouette entered her field of view. He was carrying two bouquets of flowers. He stopped next to one headstone, knelt down next to it, and laid one of the bouquets at its base. She read the name on the stone; it was difficult in the dark.

"That's... that's my grave!" she exclaimed. The sound of her own voice startled her. She turned to Gutknecht. "He can't hear me, can he?"

"No, this telescope does not work both ways," he said somberly. She turned her eye back to the scope.

"Oh, Vicki," he sighed. "I thought I'd finally found something in life that was worth living for, and that something was you. Now you're gone, and who am I supposed to live for? My parents are talking about finding me another nice girl, now that a socially decent time has passed. But I don't want another girl! She could never be like you. I don't want to live with someone who says all the right things, and goes to all the right places, and knows all the right people. I just want you."

He sighed again. "You've spoiled me, Vicki. I can never hold you again, and I don't want to hold anybody else." He traced the letters of her name on the stone with his fingertip.

She turned to face Gutknecht. "I don't understand. What is the second bouquet for?"

"Keep watching, if you are willing," the Elder replied.

When she turned back to the telescope, Victor had stood up and was walking away from the gravestone. He went into the nearby forest, which seemed very foreboding. After a while, he stopped by a hole in the ground. Time and the elements had washed away the harsh edges of the hole; some ferns were growing out of it. He knelt and laid the second bouquet next to it.

"Emily... I'm glad I set you free, but I'm sorry I broke your heart. If things had been different, if there was no Victoria Everglot, I know you could have made me happy. You were dead, but even so, you were more alive than any other girl I've ever met, except one. Maybe I could have made you happy, too. I guess we'll never know." Again he sighed. "Is it possible I could meet a nice girl who's alive, and who will stay that way for a while?" After a few seconds, he stood and brushed the dirt off his knees. "My servant girl is wondering why I always come home on Friday nights with such dirty pantaloons." He blew a gentle kiss toward the hole, then another one towards Victoria's stone, and slowly slumped back toward his home.

"I warned you that you might not like what you hear." Elder Gutknecht's voice startled her.

"I'm not afraid of the truth," Victoria said, "and I'm not afraid of Emily. It's true that, once or twice, he called her name in his sleep. But he married me, not her, and he called my name much more often than hers. But I have one question. You told me not to adjust the telescope. How did you know where it should be pointed?"

"I don't know things like that for certain," Gutknecht said slowly. "I don't pry into other people's private lives. I just had a strong feeling that the scope was left pointing in the right direction by the last person who used it. You see, someone else has been watching Victor, too."