SandPeople: An Across Time Mystery

by Cheryl Kerr

  "No." Greta shook her head.

  "Good." He nodded. "It’s hard work trying to keep up with everything I’m supposed to do." He grinned at her. "Want to sit down?"

  She looked doubtfully at the wet deck.

  "Not here." He led her round to a small bit of deck behind the cabin. Here the wind was blocked and the sun had warmed the deck. Greta stood, pleased. She was reminded of their old mother cat at home, sleeping away warm, still afternoons in the doorway patch of sunlight. She let her shawl drop from her shoulders and felt the sun warm the skin of her forearms.

  Chapter 3

  On Wednesday Lea woke early like she had at home. Through the high window reflections of the sun on the waves washed and rippled across her ceiling. She lay for a moment watching them. The morning was already getting hot. Her covers lay wadded at the foot of the bed where she had kicked them off. She lay for a moment and listened to the sigh and swish of the waves hitting the beach. A flurry of bird calls came in on the breeze and she tried to identify the sound. She caught the sharp scold of a hungry gull, then many voices answering it. She imagined a flock of birds following his lead to the food. The high, clear call of a curlew came less often. She could imagine one wheeling through the air as it spiraled down to find what the gulls had left.

  She swung her legs out of bed and stood up. The breeze flowing through her porthole window was warm when she came back from her shower and slid her clothes on. She wondered where Mom was in New York. A world away from here, she thought with a sigh. She got out jean shorts and a purple and white striped t-shirt. She missed her mother suddenly and thought about the day they had bought the t-shirt.

  They had driven into Richmond to the mall before school ended to get Lea some summer clothes. She had grown more than two inches during this year and everything seemed to be either too short or too tight.

  "Wow, that purple is bright," Mom had said when Lea held it up. The purple was grape jelly colored but the shade was so bright that it seemed to throb. She had begged and Mom had given in, at last, saying, "Well, we wanted you to start choosing the clothes you want to buy." Lea had bought it.

  Now she stood with her bathing suit in her hand. Then she shrugged and slipped it on and put the shirt on over it. She looked at herself in the wavery glass of the old mirror. Her image was short and squat; the round glass distorted some of the picture. The image made her think of the funhouse mirrors of the circus that came to Harper's Ridge last summer. But it didn't tone down the glow of her shirt. She would wear it, she decided, whenever she felt homesick. It would cheer her up right away, she was sure.

  She made her bed and went down the narrow stairs, her feet making whispery sounds on the worn boards. Carrying her shoes, she wondered if she were the first one awake.

  "Good morning," Aunt Meg greeted her with a smile. "Did you sleep well?" She was standing in front of an easel next to the big front windows. In an old work shirt knotted at her waist, she was in the middle of setting up to work. She was brushing a light color over the entire canvas.

  "Hi. Yes," Lea answered.

  Lea moved to the kitchen counter and put two slices of bread in the toaster. While it browned she poured a glass of milk and got out jelly and butter. She took her plate to the high bar and hitched herself up on a stool to eat.

  "What do you have planned for today?"

  "I thought I'd explore a little bit," Lea said. "Maybe ride my bike to the end of the road you were telling Mom about yesterday."

  Aunt Meg nodded. "There's nothing beyond here. We're sort of on a finger of land out here." Lea nodded, she had heard Aunt Meg tell Mom that. "The road is called Shell Ridge Road. This little bit of land has a lot of broken shell mixed in with the sand. It doesn't wash and change as much as some other parts of the beach.”

  "You know, it isn't very far into town," she added casually. "We can go in and look around if you want to."

  "Okay, not today though," Lea said. Today she just wanted to ride her bike and find out what the area was like.

  "Do you like to be alone?" Aunt Meg asked Lea.

  Lea took a bite and thought about it. "I guess so," she said. "I mean, I'm pretty used to it." Besides Laura, there hadn't been anyone else near her age that lived very close to their house. Well, T.J. had been around, but he didn't really count, she decided. She had learned to be careful so she would be allowed to go places. Otherwise, she would be stuck at home.

  "Can I take a sandwich?" Lea asked.

  "Of course," Aunt Meg said, vaguely. Lea looked around to see what she was doing. She didn't stop looking at the canvas. She didn't say anything else as Lea finished her breakfast. She washed her plate and put it in the drainer next to the sink to dry. Quickly she made a peanut butter sandwich and stuck an orange into her bag. She added a water bottle and then padded around looking for her shoes. She was always losing them, it seemed. At last, she found her shoes out on the deck. She poured yesterday's sand over the deck railing and slipped them on, bending over to tie the laces already grimy with salt and sand.

  "No swimming by yourself, okay?" Aunt Meg said through the screen door behind her.

  "Okay," Lea agreed. That rule was the same as at home.

  She walked outside on the deck and stood for a moment looking at the water. The day promised to be hot and clear. There were no clouds as far out as she could see. She went down the stairs and wheeled her bike from under the deck where she kept it. One tire looked a little low and with a sigh, she pulled the foot pump out and began refilling her tire. Once it was full she ran her fingers along the surface looking for a leak. She didn't find anything. Probably just low from the trip down here, she told herself and put the pump back under the house. She flipped her kickstand up and took off up the driveway. Her bike tires hummed against the pavement. A lot of sand was drifted over the road in places. For a while, she rode over it listening to the crunching and popping under her wheels. She wove her bike back and forth between the drifts, pretending it was an obstacle course. This stretch of road past Aunt Meg's had a lot of sand on it, she thought, with fewer cars to keep the road clear.

  She rode for a while in silence. The ground slid by. There wasn't much out here, she thought. Sand and silence. Suddenly the land on either side of the road narrowed in. The pavement meandered to a place wide enough for a car to turn around and then just stopped. Lea halted her bike and sat straddling the seat and looking. It felt good to be by herself. She had felt in Aunt Meg's way this morning.

  She eyed the beach. Aunt Meg did actually live on a tiny finger of land that jutted out into the water. Just then a cow mooed and she started. She had heard a cow last night. Lea dropped her bike in the grass and scrambled to the top of the nearest dune and met two big, limpid eyes staring back at her.

  "Hi there," she said softly and walked towards the rusty barbwire fence. The cow gave her a suspicious look and trotted heavily off into the brush. Lea sighed; even the cows weren't really glad to see her.

  She turned her attention back to the beach. The tide had gone out and the long, low curve of sand lay drying in the sun.

  There might be some good looking out here, she thought and slid off of her bike and dropped it to the ground. Suddenly she noticed that the day had grown gray and hazy. She hadn't noticed it getting dark, she thought and turned to scan the sky for dark clouds or curtains of rain. It was just gray of coming rain, she guessed, but it wouldn't be here for a while. She should have more than enough time to look around and head home.

  The sand was damp and firm under her feet. She walked along swinging her bag and gazing at the water. She liked the way fingers of water ran into the low places in the sand. A long way back from the tideline were pools of water left from high tide. She sloshed through them. The water was almost bath temperature, warm and still. Small creatures scuttled away from her as her shadow moved across the sand and puddles. She shaded her eyes and looked back along the way she had come. The shoreline made a long, gradual curve. Toward the end of the curve, the ro
of of Aunt Meg's cabin was just visible above the dunes. The beach was shiny and flat, still wet from a high tide that had just recently gone out. Fifty feet back from the water's edge dunes rose. The front of them was marked with the smooth wash of the tideline like a giant eraser had swiped the beach clean of all markings. Above the tideline, the sand was tumbled and tracked, cut into mounds, and small rifts by the wind. Tiny trails ran over the tops in all directions. Lea saw crab tracks, beach insects, and turtles. In a deep hollow between two dunes, she saw a single fox track in the soft ground.

  Lea stepped onto the smooth beach and walked toward the water's edge. She stopped to look at each bit of shell showing in the sand, hoping to find something for her collection at home. But all she found were broken pieces. She reached the water and the wavelets splashed around her ankles. She was surprised at how warm it was. At home the June ocean was cool, warming as the summer went on.

  She turned and looked behind her. Her tracks were the only ones on the sand, wandering back and forth from the low spot in the dunes to where she stood now.

  She smiled. She had thought she walked straight down to the water.

  She sat down with her arms around her knees. The feeling of homesickness returned. What would her mother be doing now? she wondered. Was the house closed up and shuttered? She tried to imagine it that way, still and dark, but the only way she could remember it was with sunshine and breezes blowing the white curtains at the windows. The deep porch, where Mom would sit reading a book, comfortable even in the hottest afternoons. The small figure of T.J. kept dancing and darting through her imagination, sticking his tongue out and wiggling his fingers in his ears. She sighed. Brothers didn't behave any better in imagination than they did in real life. Like it or not, T.J. was a part of home she just couldn't ignore.

  She sighed and looked at her watch. The hands showed 9:30 a.m. Maybe lunch would help, she thought. The nice thing about going somewhere on your own was you could eat lunch at 9:30 in the morning if you wanted to. She walked up the beach, unbuckled the straps holding her bag in place, and pulled it off the luggage rack on her bike. She trudged back through the sand. She chose a spot next to a dune and sat down, opening her lunch sack. She unwrapped her sandwich. The warm peanut butter smell made her stomach rumble. She took a big bite, savoring the heavy, sticky taste and the sweet tang of the jelly. She finished up with the orange, wading into the water to wash the sticky juice from her fingers in the tiny waves at her feet.

  When she was finished she lingered, not ready to go back yet. I'll build a sandcastle, she decided and set to work trying to scoop sand with her lunch bag. It didn't work well, the soft sides kept caving in when she pressed it against the ground. With a sigh, she tossed the bag to one side and went back to moving sand in her cupped hands.

  She finished her castle and sat back, pleased. One end of it was a tall, square tower with tiny windows on two sides. The little windows even had a sill, a tiny ridge of wood beneath the opening. She walked down to the water to rinse her lunch bag out. Holding it so the water would pour out, she turned and started back over the sand, dusting off her legs as she walked. The breeze blew soft and warm as she walked across the beach.

  She stopped short. Her sandcastle was gone except for the tower she had made. As she watched, a wave licked at the bottom side of the tower closest to the beach. The tower collapsed gently into the sand with the next wave's rush. Near it were two little heaps of sand that looked like people. They were leaning forward as though they were running. Lea sat really still, her shoulders prickling with the odd sense someone had been just behind her.

  "Who could have done this?" she whispered.

  Suddenly she shivered, a quick, light silvery feeling crept along the back of her neck and ran down along her shoulders. It was how she felt when T.J. was spying on her. She wheeled around. Was she being watched?

  Just in front of where she had built her sandcastle stood a girl. She had her back to Lea and stood looking out to sea. Lea watched her for a moment, wondering why the girl hadn't spoken. There was something different about her. Lea studied her carefully. She had long blond hair that hung in two heavy braids down over her shoulders to stay out of the way. Her dress was blue and long. The next minute she was facing Lea, studying her, though Lea hadn't seen her move or turn around. She looked straight at Lea for a moment and then, suddenly, a gust of wind blew a flurry of sand from the nearest dune. Lea closed her eyes against the sand, and when she opened them again the girl was gone.

  Lea was alone on the beach.

  "Wait," Lea called. But space and the slosh of a rising tide were all that answered her call. No one was in sight. The faint mewing of a gull circling far overhead reached her ears, hungry and questioning.

  Lea ran toward where the girl had been standing in the small hollow between two dunes. She ran up the side and stopped on the top. She slid down the loose side and stood up in the small hollow. It was like standing in a bowl, still and quiet down where the wind didn't reach. The wind hummed overhead, snatching at the beach grass that grew at the lip of the hollow. Down here it was warm and still. She looked around her for footprints. With no wind touching the sand, any footprints should be able to be seen. There weren't any, except for the single line of fox tracks like she had seen earlier on the faint path between the dunes.

  That gave her an idea. That old cow was so spooky. If anyone went near her, Lea would have heard her for sure. But the cow was standing up next to the barbwire fence, watching Lea curiously.

  "Strange," she murmured.

  No one. The dune grass rustled suddenly behind her.

  Suddenly she knew what had seemed different about the girl. "It's windy and her skirt never moved," she murmured to herself and shook her hair out of her eyes. The girl's hair had lain smooth, too. Lea shivered. The solitude wasn't peaceful anymore, it was scary.

  She shivered and ran for her bike, wheeling it to the road. She swung on and pedaled furiously, heart and legs pumping. As she rode, she remembered a time when she and Laura had turned out her bedroom lights and watched a scary movie on TV. They had made it through the movie, including the part where the aliens chased the people. But after they turned off the TV, got ready for bed and turned off the light, they laid there. The dark space of Lea's closet door became a yawning maw into space that would swallow them up. They laid there and the silence grew heavier and heavier.

  "I never knew quiet could be so loud," Laura had whispered. She had been sure that something would grab their ankles from under the bed. They had huddled in the middle of Lea's bed, giggling until Lea's dad came down the hall and turned the light on. They hadn’t wanted him to know they were afraid of the dark, that they giggled to wake him up on purpose.

  At least Dad had been there for us to wake up, Lea thought and pedaled faster. All the way home the rising sea wind plucked like fingers at her hair and shirt - like an invisible person who kept pace with her - no matter how fast she went. The whole time her mind raced. Had she seen the girl in the strange long skirt or not?

  Had she imagined it?

  Heart pounding, Lea dropped her bike in the yard and ran for the back door. SLAM! The screen door popped shut behind her. She stopped at the kitchen counter, breathing hard.

  "Aunt Meg!" she called. She was probably out looking for a new project, Lea thought. She didn't feel nearly as scared, the cabin was full of light and the smells of tuna fish and coffee. Everyday, noontime smells. Lea felt better.

  "Lea?" Aunt Meg came from the other room, wiping her hands on an old piece of towel and turned to go back to her painting. "I asked you not to slam the door, especially not when I'm working. Is something wrong?" She looked at Lea closely.

  Relief flooded through Lea. "Sorry," she said. "Aunt Meg, I saw something really weird."

  Her aunt frowned and sat on the arm of the sofa. Lea felt good at her concern, then it turned to feeling a little silly.

  "I saw a girl on the beach," she said slowly.

  "Good."
Aunt Meg was watching her. "Maybe you can be friends?"

  "I don't know." Lea shrugged. But she went on and explained about seeing the girl on the beach, and then not seeing the girl.

  "She just disappeared all of a sudden." She was out of breath and stopped.

  "Maybe she went home," Aunt Meg said reasonably.

  "No, there was nowhere for her to go." Lea shook her head so that her hair shook around her face.

  "There were these little figures made out of sand," she said. "They looked as though they were moving, but they couldn't because they were made out of sand." Her voice trailed off. Aunt Meg was looking at her oddly. Lea worked up to the question she wanted to ask. "What if I saw a ghost?"

  "Goodness, what a change in topic." Aunt Meg laughed. "Lea, aren't you a little old for that?" She got up and moved back toward her easel. "I think someone made those little figures and then snuck away. Someone is making fun of you, seeing if you'll fall for the joke."

  "But there was nowhere for the girl to go." Lea stuck stubbornly to her story. "She couldn't have hidden."

  Aunt Meg kept painting, her brushstrokes measured and sure. "Surely a person who lived here might know some places to hide that you might not see. After all, this is your first morning out there, right?" Her head floated back and forth above the easel like it had been cut off, Lea thought.

  Lea flushed. Her aunt didn't believe her. It did sound reasonable when she put it like that.

  Aunt Meg gave Lea a long, thoughtful look. "I think you are far too excited right now for us to have this talk. Let's chat later after we've had some time to let this sit awhile."

  Lea stared at her for a moment and then flew out of the room and up the stairs. She stormed into her room and grabbed the solid old door with her right hand. Wham! She sent it crashing shut. She waited, but downstairs was silence. She threw herself on the bed and looked out the window.

  "All she's worried about are her stupid paintings," she muttered.