The Ice Cradle

by Mary Ann Winkowski

  “O’Malley. We know the O’Malleys, Eileen and Colm and the twins, Peter and—” She faltered. “What’s the other boy’s name? Patrick? No. Peter and—”

  She look so befuddled that I took a stab in the dark. “Paul?” That was kind of twinlike: Peter and Paul.

  “Paul? Yes. Paul.” She didn’t seem convinced. She looked up searchingly. “Are you related?”

  “Oh, probably somehow!” I chirped. “Your baby’s beautiful. What’s his name?”

  “Leopold. Leo. My little lion.”

  In response, Jamey surprised us with a spontaneous growl. Someone must have taught him that that was the sound lions made. He was adorable, chubby and spirited. It was hard to believe he was a ghost.

  “Right!” I said. “That’s what the lion says! Rrrrrr!”

  “Rrrrrrrrr,” replied Jamey.

  “What does the doggie say? Doggie …?” I asked.

  “Uff-uff!” he barked, eyes beaming.

  “The kitty?” Emilia prompted.

  Jamey looked stumped for a moment.

  “Meow!” I said quietly.

  Instead of answering, he flung his body forcefully backward, trying to slip out of Emilia’s grasp. She set him down and he immediately raced away. Emila turned and followed him.

  “Nora will let you in,” the ghost called over her shoulder. “The fabric is in the sitting room.”

  Fabric? Sitting room?

  “We chose the beige damask. You can work on the dining table. Nora covered it with oilcloth, so you needn’t worry about scratches.”

  I watched her wave and then follow the chubby little spirit toward the road. I fought my urge to go after them or call her back. For what would I do, right now, if I was to take up my subject this very minute? Confront her with a story she would never believe, even if she had the mental capacity to understand it, which it didn’t appear she did?

  What would I say? You’re dead? You’re a ghost! And so is the baby you’ve cherished for a hundred years. And by the way, your little lion? He’s not yours. You’ve kidnapped the child of a dead stranger.

  I had learned something vital in my few minutes with Emilia. I now knew that I would never obtain her cooperation if I had to rely on the truth. To do the kindest thing for everyone involved—to reunite Emilia, Jamey, and Vivi with the much-missed members of their own families—I was going to have to tell a little white lie. Or maybe a very big one.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  MOST OF THE spirits had their backs to me, which was fortunate; as a group, they’d remained curiously oblivious to my conversation with Emilia.

  I turned and made my way slowly toward the assembly. Daylight was fading, bathing the building and the lawn and the rocks in an eerie greenish glow, the kind that usually presages the approach of a tornado. Suddenly, the spotlight in the tower came on, sweeping the seascape and all the creatures in it with a harsh, almost fluorescent band of luminescence. There was a murmur and a rustling among the gathered phantoms, but the circulating beam was silent.

  I wanted to be anywhere but here. It’s one thing to deal with earthbound spirits one at a time; I’ve been doing that all my life. But to have so many ghosts assembled in one place filled me with an unaccustomed sense of dread.

  What was I afraid of? I knew they couldn’t hurt me, even if they were furious and turned on me all together, flying at me in alarming waves of impotent rage. I consciously tried to slow my accelerating heartbeat. They might not like my ideas, but if so, they’d just refuse to cooperate and carry on with their plans to descend en masse upon the Grand View. Two or three of the spirits glanced around at my approach, their woebegone looks briefly leavened by curiosity. One, the ghost of a young man about twenty-five, continued to stare at me as I came closer.

  I paused but did not make eye contact. Obviously concluding that I, like every other live human being he’d ever encountered, was unable to see him, he turned his gaze back to Baden, who was speaking from the steps. I suddenly understood the foundation of my grave unease. I wasn’t afraid of the assembled spirits; I was burdened by the enormous sadness of the whole situation, and by the fact that I had it in my power to end the suffering of each and every one of these ghosts. Well, any one of them that wanted my help, at least.

  All my life, I’d kept my eyes down, picking and choosing which spirits I would help, and declining to reveal myself to so many more—thousands upon thousands of wandering phantoms that had crossed my path over the years. I’d made an uneasy peace with this, primarily by trying not to think about it too much.

  That’s how people got by, wasn’t it? By changing the TV channel when implored to “adopt” a suffering child for the daily sacrifice of pocket change. By walking past the homeless men and women shaking cups full of coins on the street. By skimming through the reports on Google News of floods and famines and suicide bombings in crowded marketplaces, instead scrolling down to the breathless dispatches that constituted the Entertainment section. Because there was just too much pain in the world, so much sadness and suffering that it hurt even to look. So much need that if you really took it upon yourself to try to respond every time you could, you wouldn’t be able to get through the day, much less life. That kind of selflessness, I’d always assured myself, was not for ordinary people, even those with extraordinary gifts. It was for saints. And martyrs.

  I wasn’t looking away now, though. I couldn’t, because now that I was close enough to see clearly, the ghost on the steps to the right of Baden looked so much like my dad that I honestly felt my hands begin to tremble. Every one of the phantoms assembled here had once been somebody’s father or mother, or somebody’s son or daughter. This time, I couldn’t pretend not to see them, even if it meant taking on more needs and expectations than I’d ever attempted to manage before.

  I walked toward the lighthouse, beginning to pick up snippets of the conversation. With any luck, Baden had simply told them that I could see and speak with ghosts, not that I actually had the power to help them cross over to what came next. If they didn’t yet know that, we’d be able to remain focused on the question of the memorial, leaving the subject of the white light and all that it might mean for them to be unpacked at a later time, when I had a clue about how I might handle things.

  I was struck by the irony: I’d been so annoyed by Baden’s reticence, by his skepticism, by the way he kept his cards so close to the vest. Now I was immensely relieved that his temperament tended toward the secretive. This had probably spared me a lot of drama, for I seriously doubted that Baden, ever the cautious and strategic businessman, had told the ghosts anything but the facts that were relevant to the issue at hand: the wind farm, their watery graves, and the possibility of our erecting a more permanent memorial.

  As I reached the back of the crowd, Baden turned away from the ghosts he was speaking with, whom I took to be the spirits he had mentioned by name, Colonel Hannah and Mr. Duffield. Though dressed, like all the others, in the clothes they were sleeping in when the Larchmont was struck, they still projected confidence and authority. They had probably been leaders in life, and now they were leaders in death.

  Baden gave me a questioning look, turning his hands palms up in a gesture I read as meaning, So, what do you want me to do here?

  A number of the ghosts were now looking in my direction. I took a deep breath, fixing my gaze on the ghost who looked like Dad, and stunned myself by deciding at that very moment that I had no choice but to come out of hiding.

  “I’m Anza O’Malley,” I said. “And yes, I can see you.”

  There was a flurry of breezes and some shrieking, and a few of the ghosts began to rush toward me. Frankly, irrationally, I was scared to death, so I shouted, “No! Keep away!” I glared directly at them, and they stopped in their tracks. But a lot of them were talking excitedly now, and a couple appeared close to tears. The air seemed to hum with massive waves of released electricity, and it was 100 percent clear to me that I had to take control of this entire situation
. Immediately.

  I stood up straight and said, “I will walk away right now if any one of you comes near me. I mean it. I will. I want to help you and I can help you, but we’re going to do this my way.”

  I looked around. The ghosts who had rushed me—a woman in her forties wearing a tattered silk dressing gown, a man in his sixties attired in a midshipman’s uniform, and a teenaged girl with braids encircling her head, looking like an angel in a Florentine painting—retreated a few steps. The girl sank down onto the ground, and the man rejoined a clump of other spirits at the edge of the pack. He glared at me suspiciously.

  I advanced nervously toward Baden. The phantoms stepped aside as I passed, like Moses through the Red Sea, and I pretended not to notice that many of them reached out and touched my arms and my clothes. I ascended the steps, turned, and faced them. Baden willingly relinquished the spotlight.

  “Okay,” I said quietly. I didn’t really feel like going into the whole spiel—me, Nona, Vinny, Lola—but I didn’t see any way around it, so I launched into the highly abbreviated version, which takes less than a minute. It’s a lot easier to explain all this to ghosts than it is to people. Ghosts know you’re for real, because you’re probably the only live adult they’ve encountered since they died who’s been able to have a conversation with them. Kids can talk to them, sure, but nobody believes that kids have been talking to ghosts. Live people, as opposed to earthbound spirits, have to take a lot on faith; since they can’t see or speak with phantoms, there’s no way for them to check the facts.

  In my audience tonight, I didn’t have any doubters. I had people who wanted to ask question after question, most aimed at determining whether I could be of any help to them, personally. And breaking the promise I had just made to myself, I told them everything, even that I could create the white light for them and help them cross over.

  The crowd reacted noisily, almost violently, to this admission, and for a moment, I felt they might rush up onto the porch and overwhelm me. I took a step back, and the ghost who looked like Dad stepped to the front of the porch and shouted, “Silence!”

  He had to be the colonel. From his tone of voice, I could tell he was used to asserting authority over unruly subordinates, and he stopped them all in their tracks. This gave me time to close the circle of my idea: I would bribe them! If they helped me turn the attention of the ghost detectives away from the Grand View and abandoned their plans to block construction of the wind farm, not only would I create another memorial for them, I would open the white doorway for each and every one of them and help them cross over.

  “It’s true,” I said, when the noise had died down. “I have the ability to open that white doorway again. You remember the doorway, the one you saw that first day or two after the Larchmont went down? The one that closed and stranded you here?” The crowd was nearly silent. All I could hear was the crashing of the waves and, now that I was so near to the lighthouse, some squeaking from the revolving of the internal works.

  “You’re here because something was left unfinished in your life. I know that, but I can’t solve those problems. I just can’t. I have a child, and I—”

  I broke off. It wasn’t like me to be rattled in the presence of earthbound phantoms, but I was, and I had to stay strong. “You’re going to have to make a decision. Do you want to cross over, through the light? Or do you want to forfeit this chance, too, and stay here—forever?”

  “Is it heaven?” someone asked. “Is it heaven’s doorway?”

  “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. I can’t see through the light or past it. All I can say is that spirits like you seem really, really happy when they can see through. They call out to their parents, their husbands and wives, the people they loved most in the world.”

  There was someone pushing his way through the crowd, and as he came nearer, I recognized him as the young man who had been eyeing me. He was fair and tall and reminded me of a self-portrait I came across one day at the Gardner Museum. The picture had struck me as impossibly sad, not just because its subject had aged and died, but because the very colors of the paint were dead, having lost all glimmer of life. The resemblance to the young man before me ended there, though. He seemed possessed of almost fearsome energy.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “Use me! Show the others.”

  He came right to the foot of the steps and stood there, shoulders thrown back in a gesture of exaggerated bravery that revealed how he actually felt: scared to death.

  I walked down the steps as all the ghosts gathered around.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Redmond Mullins.”

  Redmond Mullins! I’d read his letter! He’d written to reserve the Larchmont’s private library, to ask his girlfriend to marry him! I’d imagined a much older man, but no, here he was, young and passionate and utterly bereft. I even recalled the name of the woman he loved: Evelyn Brosman.

  “Why didn’t you leave before? Right after the ship went down.”

  “I kept hoping—” He broke off.

  “You’d find Evelyn. Evelyn Brosman.”

  A strangled cry escaped his throat and he began to sob. “Yes! Yes!” He buried his face in his hands. The crowd became noisy, some spirits shouting, a few running away, some crowding in close and reaching out to touch me.

  “Are you ready to go?” I asked.

  “Yes!”

  “You’re absolutely sure.”

  He clearly wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible, before he had a chance to back out. I closed my eyes and summoned the light. I imagined the pinpoint shining on the near wall of the cottage attached to the lighthouse. I opened my eyes and willed it to grow to the size of a sweet pea, then a grape, then an orange. I willed it into the width and height that would accommodate a grown man, and as I watched, the light grew brighter and whiter and cleaner, so bright that I had to look away.

  Cries of astonishment swept through the crowd as Redmond turned and began to walk toward the light. Unlike most spirits about to take those decisive steps, he needed no urging at all, no reassurances, no whispers of encouragement. He said no good-byes to the assembled multitudes, but as he paused before the doorway, an ecstatic smile spread across his features, and I heard him whisper, “Darling! My darling girl!” Then the light consumed him.

  At this point, there was a mad rush. I would never have predicted this, but before my astonished eyes, five or six spirits raced over and followed Redmond right through the doorway! If I had been able to think on my feet, I would have kept the doorway open until every last spirit had filed through. That would have solved the problem right then and there—no ghosts to haunt the Grand View! But I panicked. I summoned my power and shut it down. Several of the spirits cried out in protest. I had to think quickly.

  I surveyed the crowd. Several phantoms were hurrying away, either in anger or to broadcast the news of my feat far and wide.

  “Sunday morning!” I shouted. “I’ll do this again on Sunday morning for all who want to cross over. I promise! But if a single one of you arrives at the Grand View tomorrow night, the deal is off! For everyone!”

  I couldn’t believe I had said these words! This wasn’t me talking, it was Donald Trump issuing an ultimatum on Celebrity Apprentice!

  “But the park!” one ghost said mournfully. “The book! Will we have a monument, too?”

  “You have my word,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  DARKNESS HAD GATHERED as the spirits slipped away, leaving Baden and me with Colonel Hannah and Mr. Duffield.

  “Most extraordinary,” the colonel pronounced.

  Duffield eyed me suspiciously. He was tall and broad and looked like someone given to saying, “Preposterous!” whenever possible. Now, though, he said, “This changes nothing!” His handlebar mustache quivered with his intensity.

  “My good man,” began the colonel. “Surely you—”

  “Surely nothing!” Duffield bellowed before vanishing into the win
d. The colonel disappeared with him, and I could only hope that it was in order to try to bring him around to our thinking.

  Duffield was the real leader of the scheme, Baden explained as we took to the road. A minor civic official—Baden thought he had worked as an assessor for the Providence tax board—Duffield had achieved in death the prominence and influence that had eluded him in life, chiefly by teaming up with the well-liked Colonel Hannah.

  “He won’t relinquish it easily,” Baden said.

  “Relinquish what?”

  “The spotlight. The authority.”

  “Because they’re all he has?”

  “Perhaps,” answered Baden.

  I paused. This was sad. Was there no one Duffield wanted to see again waiting on the other side? It was possible. Maybe his parents had been cruel and cold. Maybe he’d been an only child, with personal qualities that kept him friendless. Maybe he’d never been in love. Maybe the companionship of the other waylaid spirits, here on the island, offered the most connection he’d ever had. If they crossed over and were reunited with all their loved ones, Duffield wouldn’t even have them. Once again, he’d be all alone—this time forever.

  Heartbreaking as this scenario was, I couldn’t think about it right now. I had Lauren and Mark to worry about. As Baden and I made our way along the shore road, we drew up a tentative plan. When the ghost detectives arrived at the Grand View tomorrow, Baden would make himself scarce, hiding out in the barn so as not to trip any alarms or energy sensors inside the inn. It would be up to me to get the ghost detectives to the lighthouse. I had no idea how I’d do this, but I had until tomorrow to figure it out.

  When the time came, Baden would make a circuit of the island and alert any of the spirits who were willing to cooperate. They didn’t actually reside at the Southeast Lighthouse, but in sheltered groves, empty attics, and peaceful barns all over the island. He would let them know that we were on our way and that they ought to gear up for a grand, if not positively operatic, performance. With any luck, we could short-circuit the ghost detectives’ interest in the Grand View by giving them more than their money’s worth at the lighthouse.