But they were having a nice day, nice enough that she didn’t want to ruin it, so instead of saying anything, she stood up and walked along the edge of the water, picking up smooth stones and skipping them across the water. She had set a personal best at eleven bounces when a stone whizzed by her and bounced a respectable seven times before sinking. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Brett poised to skip another. He wasn’t so bad for an uptight, city-type.
“Let’s see that tattoo,” Casey said, dropping the rest of the stones from her hand and walking back to where they’d been sitting.
“Only if I can see the rest of yours.”
Casey wasn’t wearing a bathing suit. She had to think for a moment about what bra she had put on and whether or not taking off her shirt would constitute an act of seduction.
“Come on,” Brett said. “I know you’re only going to make fun of mine, so it seems only fair that you at least let me see yours.”
“Right, I show you mine, you’ll show me yours. I feel like I’m in middle school.”
Brett took off his sunglasses and set them on the rock and then he pulled off his shirt to reveal his tanned and toned stomach and chest. Then he stepped close to Casey turning so she could look at his shoulder.
She bit her lip and resisted the urge to laugh. “It’s cute,” she said, reaching up to trace a finger along the outline of the design. “Still a Giants fan?”
“Till the bitter end,” he said.
“I guess you have no choice as long as you’ve got that tattoo.”
“Your turn.”
“I didn’t agree to your little plan,” Casey said, crossing her arms.
And then Brett did the most surprising thing. He turned and kissed her. He had swept in so quickly that she hadn’t had time to even think of resisting, not that she wanted to resist. She leaned in to him, smelling the salt and sweat mingling with cologne on his skin. Briefly she thought about his girlfriend, but hell, he had initiated this, so what did she have to feel guilty about?
His hands slipped to her waist and then his fingers found their way under her tank top, sliding up her back. She withdrew her mouth from his long enough to tug the tank top over her head and then resumed kissing him. His mouth dipped to her neck and then he turned her around so he could see her back. He ran his hand over her inked skin, leaned down to kiss her between the shoulder blades, and then put his hands on her waist and drew her against him, her back to his chest, and kissed her earlobe gently.
“It’s beautiful,” he murmured.
Casey stepped out of his embrace and turned around to face him, her conscience getting the better of her. It was wrong to let this happen.
“You have a girlfriend,” she said.
He sighed. “Okay, you caught me. I lied. She broke up with me when I told her I wanted to land this development deal and relocate to the East Coast.”
“So you don’t have a girlfriend?” Casey said, crossing her arms.
He shook his head and smiled apologetically.
“And you lied because?”
“Because you looked like trouble.”
She had heard that one before. She almost laughed, but then she rewound his words. Development deal. His girlfriend dumped him over a development deal. What exactly was he doing here, on her island? “So you’re here working on a development deal?”
He gave her a funny look. “Rosetta must have told you.”
Some scheme orchestrated by Rosetta. Of course. But Rosetta hadn’t said a word to her about development. She shook her head.
“I’m sorry. I figured that you’re her family, and I thought you knew.”
From the way he was hedging, Casey understood that this wasn’t just a deal, it was a big deal.
“She’s selling the hotel. I work for Sweet Water Resorts,” Brett said, stepping toward her and reaching out a hand.
Casey took a step back and shook her head. Rosetta would never sell the hotel. It was her life’s work. She and Phil had bought the hotel in the early 1980s. The place had been condemned. It was a rundown wreck of building. And they restored it and turned it into a quiet family vacation spot that they had loved. After Phil died, Rosetta threw herself into her work at the hotel as if the only way to honor Phil’s legacy was to make sure the hotel succeeded. Rosetta would want to keep it in the family. Casey had always assumed the hotel would be hers someday. She hadn’t especially wanted it and all the responsibility that came with it, but she had been certain Rosetta’s plan was for her to have it. Never in a million years would she sell it to some resort company.
“I’m sorry, I thought you knew,” Brett said, trying again to close the gap between them.
Casey evaded him again, hurrying back to her kayak. She wanted only to get away from him. She needed to talk to Rosetta.
Chapter 35
St. Nabor Island, South Carolina
This time Calliope suggested they gather in Angela’s mother’s room, since it was only her mother they wanted to speak to. She had brought a new assortment of props this time, which she arranged around the room, explaining that the goal for tonight would be to free Deborah’s spirit from the house.
“What do you think your mother feared most in the world, Angela?” Calliope asked.
Angela shrugged. Her mother put up a tough front. She wasn’t afraid of anything.
“She’d already lost one child,” Marilyn said. “I’m sure she was terrified that she’d lose you, too.”
Angela gave a half-nod, half-shrug. She had agreed to go through this again, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
“And when she died, did it happen quickly? Did she suffer?” Calliope asked.
The doctors had told Angela that it had been swift and that she hadn’t been in pain, but Angela hadn’t believed them. If her mother had been able to call for help, she probably would have gotten to the hospital in time to save her life. Instead, she died alone on the cold concrete floor.
“I don’t know,” Angela said.
“Pain leaves a residue on the place where the suffering occurred,” Calliope said. “We need to soothe your mother’s pain so she can move to the next world. We need to help her feel loved, and reassure her that you are okay and will be okay without her. Even what she said to you, ‘Go back to sleep,’ that’s the sort of thing a mother says to a fussy child, right? You see, mothers always think of their children as being young and helpless, and it’s usually not until a mother becomes a grandmother and sees her own children become parents that she can see her children as adults. Your mother didn’t get to have that, so to her spirit, you’re still a child, and you need her. She needs to understand that you still love her, even though you no longer need her.”
But I do need her, Angela thought. I need her to help me figure out what to do with my life, and to go shopping with me someday for my wedding dress, and to hold my hand when I have babies of my own. She’s my mother, and I will always need her. Angela had been so angry at her mother for lying to her that she’d had a brief reprieve from missing her, but as Calliope counseled her now, she found that she didn’t care about the lies. She cared only about the loss.
“And how do we do that?” Marilyn asked, clearly skeptical.
“We listen, and then we talk, and then we pray.”
Pray? Calliope’s whole psychic medium thing didn’t exactly seem compatible with religion, Angela thought. But her mother had been a religious woman. Her mother would want her to pray, so if that’s what Calliope said they should do, they would do it.
Calliope asked Angela to gather some of her mother’s favorite things, and then she used them to make a sort of altar on her special blanket. Again, she lit candles around the room, and then she instructed everyone on exactly where she wanted them to sit. She had Angela sit in the very center of the blanket, facing the makeshift altar, and then she took the blanket from her mother’s bed and wrapped it around Angela’s shoulders.
“Now, we’re going to begin. I need y’all to unde
rstand that things might happen during our communication, but I need y’all to stay where still, and to stay quiet. Do not speak unless I ask you to. Understand?”
Angela could feel Calliope behind her, hovering over her. She glanced at Randy and Marilyn sitting along the wall to her right. They all nodded. Angela wanted to ask what sorts of things might happen. Things like the candle flickering as it had the night before?
Then she heard Calliope doing her deep breathing, and then she began to speak, addressing Deb directly, inviting her to join them.
When her incantation was done, she began to walk slowly in circles around the blanket, waving incense and repeating some sort of chant over and over. She was on her third lap when there was a sound of breaking glass behind Angela. Everyone jumped. Angela looked around for the source of the noise and saw that the the picture frame holding the family portrait on her mother’s dresser had fallen over.
“Thank you for joining us, Deborah. I understand you’re hurting and you’re upset, but we want to talk to you,” Calliope said, freezing where she stood.
In response, the decorative, antique perfume bottles that lined the back her mother’s dresser fell like dominoes. Angela drew her legs to her chest, drawing the blanket tight around her to keep from trembling.
“You have our attention. You don’t need to resort to these childish displays,” Calliope said. She sounded like a bored kindergarten teacher.
All the candles except those at the edges of the altar went out, and Angela realized she’d been holding her breath.
“Your daughter is here, Deborah, and you’re frightening her. You aren’t the sort of mother who scares and intimidates her daughter, are you?”
Angela felt a gentle pressure then, as if a big soft animal was resting gently against her back, and she gasped. Calliope turned to her and indicated that she needed to be quiet.
“Something’s touching me,” she said in a strangled whisper.
Calliope nodded and resumed circling the blanket.
“Your sister Marilyn is here, too. They’re here because they love you and because they don’t want you to go on suffering this way.”
Angela stuck the edge of the blanket into her mouth and bit down hard to suppress a scream as she felt the distinct sensation of hands running through her hair. At first the hands combed through it gently, playfully, but when Calliope said Marilyn, it was as if the hand closed in a fist, grabbing a handful of hair and yanking hard. Angela’s own hand shot out to her scalp. There was nothing there.
“Deborah, we have to insist that you play nice, or we can’t continue. You’re very unhappy, I know, and we want to help you so you can find peace.”
And then Angela heard the voice, ringing in her head again, saying, “You should have listened to me. You should have listened.”
“Listened to what?” Calliope said, and Angela looked up at her in astonishment. Calliope had heard it, too! Even though the voice seemed to be inside Angela’s own brain, Calliope had heard it.
“We were happy. We were a good family,” the voice said.
“Of course you were,” Calliope answered.
“We only did what was best,” the voice hissed.
“Of course. And now you have to let us help you,” Calliope said. “You did everything you could, but you shouldn’t be here any more. This isn’t a good place for you. What can we do for you?”
Angela couldn’t believe how calm Calliope was. Randy was right. She was the real deal.
“We only did what was best,” the voice said again, and then again, faster and faster, rising in intensity at it had in the past when it was telling Angela to go back to bed. She clamped her hands over her ears and pressed her face into her knees.
Calliope knelt in front of Angela and lifted her hands prayerfully. “Dear Lord, we pray today for the repose of the soul of Deborah Ellis, the mother of Angela and Ryan, sister of Marilyn. She was a good woman taken too soon from the bosom of her family. Please help her to find comfort in your arms and to know that not a day passes that her family doesn’t remember her with love.”
As Calliope prayed, the voice continued to echo in Angela’s ears. She didn’t know how Calliope was managing to talk over it. Then she felt Calliope tap her hand, which was still covering her ear. She opened her eyes and saw that Calliope had gestured for them all to join hands. Angela did as instructed, holding Calliope’s hand on one side and Marilyn’s on the other. Then Calliope began to pray the Hail Mary, and they all joined in. As Angela spoke, the voice gradually faded. By the third repetition of the Hail Mary, it had gone completely, but they continued praying until Angela completely lost count. At last Calliope squeezed her hand as they reached the end of another Hail Mary, and then Calliope said amen, and they all let go.
Calliope got up and turned on the lamp on the bedside table, and they all blinked in the light. Angela looked at the dresser and saw that the glass in the picture was intact, and the perfume bottles were all standing up in a row as always. She looked back at Calliope, confused. She had seen and heard the broken glass and toppling bottles. All of them had jumped at the sound. What had happened?
“Why don’t y’all go downstairs while I clean up here, and then we’ll debrief, okay?” Calliope said.
The three of them stood and went slowly back downstairs, each and every one looked dazed and frightened.
“That was the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever experienced,” Marilyn said.
“You heard it?” Angela asked.
“Calliope’s weird chanting?” Randy asked.
“What language was that?” Marilyn asked.
Angela looked back and forth between them to see if they were joking. She’d understood every word Calliope had said. She’d been speaking English.
“My mother,” Angela said. “I could hear her, and Calliope could, but could you?”
Randy shook his head. Marilyn shrugged.
“Did you hear me, when I said something was touching me?” Angela asked.
“I heard you make this strange sound, but you didn’t really speak,” Randy said.
But she had spoken. Calliope had told her to stop.
A few minutes later, Calliope appeared in the kitchen with her box of enchanted artifacts. She sat at the head of the table and said, “I can’t say for certain that she won’t be back. I think we soothed her somewhat, but she’s angry, and anger is a powerful emotion. Honestly, you might want to consider having a priest in to bless the house, and you might also keep a rosary on you when you’re here.”
Marilyn let out a snort of a laugh. “That is some superstitious nonsense if ever I heard it. Tell me this, how did you make that glass-breaking sound? And the candles, how did you get them to go out like that?”
Calliope studied Marilyn, rolled her eyes, and turned to Angela. “I think she’s afraid that you’ll end up resenting her, that you’ll lose sight of your happy memories. When you pray, be sure to say prayers of gratitude for her. Pray for her soul so she can get to heaven. That’s all you can do.”
Then Calliope pushed back her chair and stood. “Call me anytime, sugar,” she said, blowing a kiss to Randy, and then she took her things and left.
Chapter 36
Devil’s Back Island, Maine
Sitting in her office contemplating the tale Casey had told her that morning, Rosetta did the only thing she could think of: She set about finding Casey’s daughter. She didn’t have a lot of information to go on, but she figured that the Internet would turn up something if she was persistent.
Rosetta refused to be one of those old ladies who cringes at the sight of a computer, who listens to young people describing new technologies and says, “Gosh, that all sounds a bit too complicated for me. I’m no good with these newfangled whatsits.” No, thank you. She might be old, but she wasn’t dumb. She had kept up with the technological times. She ran the website of the hotel and the tourism bureau and kept a Facebook page for each as well. She had drawn the line at Twitter, which she
could never quite understand despite her best efforts, but in general, she considered herself savvy enough to get done whatever needed doing online. Still, the task of finding a person about whom she knew so little was daunting.
The first problem was that she didn’t know Ryan’s parents’ first names or what they’d named the baby. Ellis was a very common last name, but she knew that Ryan had died in 1992, so she started there. She found his obituary right away. All she needed was his name, year of death, and the town where he lived, which she had guessed was the same town where Casey grew up, Beechmont, Massachusetts. She almost couldn’t believe how easy it was. And of course the obit named his parents: Deborah and Richard Ellis.
Next she searched for Richard Ellis, but that turned up nothing that seemed relevant, at least not in the first few pages of results. Richard Ellis was too common a name.
At first she thought Deborah Ellis would similarly prove a needle in a haystack. Three of the results on the first page all led to a Deborah Ellis from South Carolina, some real estate maven, and Rosetta would have completely dismissed those as the wrong Deborah Ellis if it hadn’t been for a picture of Deborah and her daughter that came up from some small town newspaper.
The picture was from a high school awards ceremony. In it, Deborah had her arm around her daughter, identified as Angela Ellis, who was holding up an award plaque. The picture was a couple years old, which made the girl about the right age. Rosetta clicked on the picture and it opened up in its own window. She zoomed in and studied the girl’s face. Was it her imagination or did that girl have Casey’s eyes, Casey’s cheeks, Casey’s chin? Could that be her niece’s long-lost daughter?
Rosetta saved the picture and then turned back to the results, opening up the other returns on Deborah Ellis. The first was for her real estate firm. Deborah was gym-thin, perfectly coiffed, wearing a prim business suit with a silk scarf around her neck, her too-white smile beaming from the page’s header. Aside from the picture, there was no real information about her.
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