1895: The Duchess's Soul Returns

Chapter 25 ·Isabella·

Isabella! What are you doing!

　　Consuelo's scream echoed in her mind. Like a kite tethered to Isabella, she drifted behind, unable to match her speed. This time, however, Isabella ignored Consuelo's words entirely, hurrying through the crowd with her face hidden beneath her hat.

　　This was Manhattan, this was New York, this was her hometown. Buildings changed, eras changed, but these streets remained constant. Isabella navigated the flow of carriages and pedestrians with the ease of a fish returning to water. She didn't know where she was headed, but she knew she wouldn't get lost.

　　She turned right the moment she stepped out. A left would lead to St. Thomas Church, just around the corner, where everyone connected to the wedding gathered. She wouldn't be foolish enough to walk into a trap. Isabella kept walking until she reached the intersection of West 51st Street, then turned right. She glanced at the brick building on the corner, wondering if it knew it would become a Victoria's Secret lingerie store over a century later.

Isabella, have you lost your mind? Consuelo finally caught up, hovering before Isabella and pushing her arms futilely—though Isabella felt a strange resistance she dismissed as her imagination. “Why are you running? Why now? What are you thinking?” Consuelo fired off questions in rapid succession.

　　Because I don't want to lose you!

Isabella screamed inwardly as they reached the curb of Sixth Avenue. To her left, Radio City Music Hall—which would later become the spiritual home of all theater actors—had yet to be built, only a few listless buildings stood.

Quiet, Consuelo. I need to think.

　　Isabella bit her lower lip anxiously, staring at Sixth Avenue as it was then. The streets of New York City unfolded one by one in her mind. The quickest way out of Manhattan was to keep going straight—no, that would take them right through Hell's Kitchen. Though Isabella wasn't familiar with the 1895 crime map of New York, she wasn't about to risk crossing that neighborhood. Sixth and Seventh Avenues were too crowded; her photo was plastered across newspaper headlines everywhere, making her highly recognizable. Perhaps she should take Eighth Avenue until she spotted Madame Tussauds— —whatever building it was in 1895—then turn right until she reached the Hudson River. There, twenty dollars in 1895 should be enough for a small boat to ferry them across to New Jersey. Once on the other side, she should be able to find a carriage in Union City to take them south to Philadelphia—

　　There is no town called Union City on the other side. Consuelo's faint voice echoed in her mind. There is one called Jersey City.

　　The distance between these two cities is at least five miles. With New Jersey's terrible public safety, we could never make it there on foot, let alone find a carriage! Isabella trembled with panic. Within minutes, Eva would discover her absence. Without a solid escape plan, standing at this intersection just a block from the Vanderbilts, Eva would snatch her back effortlessly.

　　“We shouldn't be standing by the road,” Consuelo urged. “Even though you're wearing a simple morning gown, a woman dressed like this would never walk alone on the street.”

　　She was right. Isabella noticed several men across the street already eyeing her with unsettling grins. A few seemed poised to approach, prompting her to pull her coat tighter—the paper bag holding $1,000 was concealed beneath it—and hurry further down Sixth Avenue. Anna had spent considerable effort this morning persuading her to wear this coat, thick enough to be almost unnecessary indoors. Now Isabella was profoundly grateful for that decision. As she neared the next intersection, she swiftly blended into a group of chattering young ladies from middle-class New York families who had just disembarked from several carriages, redirecting her path toward West 49th Street. When she glanced back again, the men were standing on the opposite side of Sixth Avenue, scanning the street for her. Isabella darted into the narrow alley between two buildings, slipping out of their sight.

　　I think we should wait here a while, figure out a foolproof escape route before leaving, Isabella thought to herself, surveying the alley. Its end led to the back door of a building on West 50th Street, but judging by the dust and cobwebs accumulating there, it hadn't been used in ages. Moreover, two massive trash bins stood beside the door, with a large pile of rags heaped next to them. The crowds on the street seemed to ignore the alley entirely, making it an ideal hiding spot.

She walked over and sat beside the trash bins, ensuring she'd be hard to spot even if someone peered into the alley. Her nerves remained taut. Every TV show and movie she'd watched in her past life taught the same lesson: when the protagonist lets their guard down, that's when trouble begins.

“Isabella, why?”

Consuelo sat down beside her and asked softly.

“There's no reason. I don't want to lose you, even if it means I can't marry Albert.” Isabella muttered gloomily. A part of her mind was still racing, trying to figure out how to get them to Philadelphia as quickly as possible. Unlike in those dramas and movies, however, no brilliant ideas were lighting up her thoughts.

“I'm just a ghost, Isabella,” Consuelo said softly. “I shouldn't even exist in this world anymore.”

　　“But the fact is, you do exist.” Isabella spun around to face her. If Consuelo had a physical form, Isabella would have grabbed her shoulders. "You can think, you have memories, you—you have far more emotions than I did when I first arrived in this world. Aside from lacking a flesh-and-blood body, how are you different from the living? What you mean to me won't change based on how you exist."

“But Isabella, you love the Duke of Marlborough...” Consuelo sighed.

“Yes.” Isabella replied promptly. “But I love you more.”

Two strikingly similar yet distinctly different beautiful faces stared silently at each other in a filthy, dim alleyway in New York.

　　“I have no friends, Consuelo,” Isabella murmured. "I don't mean the usual sort of ‘friends’—no, I have plenty of those. Most I met at school, some at the hospital. They're kind to me, but they have other friends in their lives who matter more. I mean true friends, Consuelo—very, very close friends. Like Monica and Rachel, Serena and Blair, Meredith and Christina. I don't have that. I suppose it's one of the downsides of being a child with a congenital heart defect. While others are cementing friendships at school, you're stuck in the hospital pretending to talk to the leaves outside the window."

Consuelo listened quietly, not interrupting.

　　"Your death—I don't mean to imply it was a good thing—gave me a second chance to live in this world. I'm grateful, Consuelo, more than you can imagine. This feeling is more thrilling than a terminal cancer patient suddenly learning they can receive an organ transplant. It's almost like not only getting the organ, but discovering you can travel through time and start your life over again—that kind of ecstasy. At that moment, I would have done anything for you, Consuelo—anything you desired but hadn't yet achieved—to express my gratitude.

"You said your sole wish was to reclaim James's necklace. But I knew another unspoken desire: that we might escape the Vanderbilts and forge a new life, one you'd never known. I understood that, and I intended to carry out that plan, but..."

“You fell in love with the Duke of Marlborough.”

Consuelo murmured softly.

“Yes—but I've thought about it a lot since then, Consuelo. I tried not to let you hear—” “I didn't hear.” "Good. As I was saying—oh, yes, I've thought a lot. And I realized, Consuelo, you're not some stranger who gave me a second chance at life, someone I should be tearfully grateful to. You're my dear friend—good heavens, saying that makes me sound like a character in a third-rate soap opera. Isabella covered her flushed face, muffled words continuing from behind her fingers. "I've never truly loved anyone before. Maybe what I felt for Albert could be called love—I don't know. Maybe it was just a passing infatuation. Anything's possible. But even if I did love him, he could never compare to how important you are to me. From the very beginning, and even now, you are my only anchor in this world, Consuelo. Everything you've done for me is exactly what I dreamed a true friend would do for another. Without you, I couldn't survive in this world. If I lost a husband, we could always go to Philadelphia and find a hardworking, intelligent, cheerful American lad. But if you were to vanish from my life, I would have nothing left."

　　Isabella reached out, intertwining her fingers with Consuelo's pearly gray ones.

“So in that moment, when I realized there would never be another chance to escape as perfect as this one, I seized it. You were worth it. Though I'm pretty sure a few fleas have already crawled into my skirt by now, but...”

　　Consuelo chuckled at her words, her fingers curling slightly as if she were clasping Isabella's hand in return.

“Could you truly abandon your wedding to the Duke of Marlborough so easily?” she pressed.

　　“Of course not.” Isabella pursed her lips and made a resigned gesture. “But you know me. If congenital heart disease couldn't defeat me in my last life, losing a husband—especially one as handsome and gentle as the perfect candidate—certainly won't. I might cry for a few days, but trust me, I'll be fine.”

　　“Then what should we do now?” Consuelo asked.

“With this thousand dollars in cash, getting anywhere isn't the problem,” Isabella said. “The real challenge is how to avoid anyone discovering we have so much money on us. I was thinking—”

　　In the blink of an eye, what Isabella thought was a pile of rags beside the trash can suddenly stirred. A ragged, gray-haired old woman crawled out of her “nest,” her entire body reeking of a mixture of urine, feces, garbage, and that peculiar odor unique to the elderly. Her filthy, decades-uncut nails clamped down on Isabella's slender ankle beneath her skirt, leaving a dark, grimy handprint on the white stocking. Those cloudy, yellowed eyes darted greedily toward the bulging brown paper package tucked beneath Isabella's coat.

　　Minutes later, accompanied by a bloodcurdling scream that seemed to pierce the bustling street as if it didn't exist, a hunched figure darted out of the alley and sprinted up West 49th Street. A slender girl pursued her closely. Yet the moment the startled pedestrians lifted their heads, the pair vanished behind passing carriages. As if nothing had transpired, these New Yorkers resumed their day as if nothing had happened.