“I reside in the fourth plane—a different plane,” Henry said, “neither alive nor dead. I am trapped in my own private hell.”
Fourth Plane. The word conjured up a place where people were forced to stay as punishment for wrongdoings, a place where the dead stay until they evened the score—service to humans. But what did Henry do for such punishment?
“What year were you born?”
“In 1897.”
“1897?!” I asked. It was incredible to hear him say it, to admit that he was born in an entirely different era, at the end of the nineteenth century.
“I realize it does not make sense, but we are the undead,” Henry said. “We walk among you, but humans know not of our existence.”
We? So there are more like him? I suddenly had an image of an army of ghosts marching through Pacific Grove. It was too terrifying to imagine; the stuff of nightmares. I wanted to run away from him, but, for some reason, I stayed rooted to the spot like one of the cypress trees that bordered the shore.
“How many of you are there?” I asked.
“A few,” he conceded.
I wondered who the few might be. The librarian? The florist at the mall? Mr. Johnson, my schoolteacher? The thought terrified me: ghosts and ghouls; pulseless, empty shells living among us; lurking about in our supermarkets, schools, and streets. It all sounded too fantastic to be possible.
Henry studied me for a minute, registering every look, every mental process, every breath that I took. Finally, he spoke. “Do you still want to go sailing? I mean, that is the reason we have come here, is it not? To help you overcome your fears?”
“I-I don’t know,” I stuttered, turning my head away. I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. “Right now, I just wanna be alone.”
I started to walk away, heading down the coastal path, but I sensed him watching me as I turned. I could feel his penetrating gaze on my back, like the striking heat of the sun, but I didn’t dare turn to look at him, partly out of fear and partly because of my confusion, so unsure of my own feelings. I could no longer look at him in the same way. I thought I fell for a charming, old-fashioned guy, but now I had no idea. How can he live without a beating heart in his chest? Is it even possible for him to love? And, even more, how can I ever love him back?
Monday morning during biology, I doodled away in my notebook. Even though I wasn’t much of an artist, I managed to pencil a relatively decent sketch of Henry. All I could conjure up was how his hair curled at the base of his neck. Not something I should have focused on in biology, but far more interesting than the mating rituals of the amphibian.
Emily nudged me.
Quickly, I covered up the drawing with one hand, shame registering on my face.
“What’s with you, Ali?” she asked. “You’re acting all strange again.”
“I just haven’t been feeling like myself.”
“Hmm. Well, you’ve been acting weird for a week now,” she said with a sigh.
I sensed that she was beginning to get impatient with me, finding me exasperating, and I couldn’t blame her. I received similar comments from my father and sister, but I was stuck in a place difficult to move out from under, almost as stuck as Henry.
I shrugged. How do I tell my friend that I’ve been dating a century-old ghost? Then again, he isn’t really a ghost, he is still flesh and blood, even though his heart doesn’t beat.
I spent most of the day in anguish. I wondered what Henry did during the day, where he spent his time, and who kept him company.
The bell finally rang for school to end, and I carried my books and walked out into the schoolyard, ignoring the cries of some of the jocks calling me over.
“Hey, Alice!” Christian yelled.
I carried on walking, as I had no desire to speak to him—or to anyone, for that matter.
“Alice, wait up.”
“Sorry, Christian. Not now,” I said and rapidly walked toward the gate, leaving him staring after me.
Then, right there at the gate, I spotted him, looking more handsome than ever. His wiry frame stood tall, like a sentinel or the mast of a proud ship, not at all like the other guys, who tended to slouch, all scruffy-looking in their low-hanging trousers and t-shirts. Henry wore a battered leather jacket, jeans, and a checked shirt, and he looked like the coolest kid on the block. Whenever I saw him, my heart flipped wildly, and I felt a rush of oxygen to my head.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I wanted to see him, but at the same time, I didn’t—something like my own personal curse.
“I needed to see you,” Henry said. “I have been unable to think about anything save you.”
I nodded. “Me, too. How did you get here?” Knowing it was a long and steep walk up to my school.
“I drove,” said Henry, pointing an old truck in the parking lot. For a moment I was impressed. Maybe he was human after all.
After a short pause, I asked, “So…where do we go from here?”
“Well, how about a walk?” he offered.
We left the school behind and took the coastal path over the peninsula. Down below sat Monterey Bay, with the late afternoon sunlight glittering on the water.
I glanced at him sideways, walking next to me, his arm lightly brushing against mine. Being so close to him seemed to push every button in my body, intentional or not. Even dead he could make me feel more alive than ever.
“So you’re really dead, huh?” I said. “What is it like?”
“Like anything, it has its drawbacks.”
“What kind of drawbacks?”
“Always being around this bay, for a start.” He glanced around the huge expanse of water and cursed, then said, “God, it is so beautiful—but I am weary of this place.”
“Yeah, I see how that might suck to be here for so long. I’ve only been here a while, and it’s not so bad, but I couldn’t imagine spending a full century here.”
We smiled, bonded in our mutual dislike for Pacific Grove.
“Can everyone see you? I mean here in the bay?”
Henry shook his head. “No, not everyone. It depends if they are looking or not. It’s amazing how many folks don’t pay attention to what’s right in front of them.”
“So…what else?” I probed, running my hand through my hair as the wind started to pick up.
“It is difficult getting to know people, because long after they die, I will carry on here—not living but not dying either.”
I was silent for a moment, pondering his dilemma. I tried to imagine the tragedy of outliving everyone he cared about. I knew being left behind felt like, but I’d only lost my mother so far. “It must be hard losing the ones you love,” I sympathized, recalling my own pain. My mother was young, only in her early forties, and so full of life. I could only hope at least a slim chance exists of an afterlife, so I might be with her again.
“Everyone dies,” he said, “except us. We are not so lucky.”
Lucky to die? I wondered, the thought twisting in my head as I struggled to make sense of it all.
“After you drowned, did you try to contact your parents? I mean, did you ever try to let them know that you weren’t—gone?”
Henry shook his head. “That is not an option. There are no second chances.”
I stopped abruptly on the path and looked at him. I thought back to the waitress at Magnolia Bakery and Connor, the surfer dude, both of whom had denied seeing Henry in the flesh. “Are you trying to tell me you’re just a figment of my imagination?”
Henry shook his head again. “No. I only meant that when you die in the bay, you are unable to return to your family or the ones you love. Those are the rules.”
Rules? Drowning in the bay has a rulebook? This really is some kind of ancient curse, because the afterlife didn’t seem to make sense. Then another thought came to me. “Is that why you rescued me? Because you didn’t want to see me drown, for me to end up like, uh. . .”
“Like myself,” Henry finished for me, nodding. “Yes.
I refused to allow you to be cursed, to have to suffer this same cruel fate.”
Silent for a moment, I tried to fathom how it I would feel to be in the same predicament. I wouldn’t be able to see Dad and Sophie, and I wouldn’t be able to see Mom again. It would be a terrible and lonely situation, for sure. For a moment, I truly pitied him.
He seemed to sense what I was thinking. “Have no pity for me. I do not wish it, and nor do I deserve it.” His eyes remained steady as he gazed out over the bay.
“I don’t pity you, but what do you mean you don’t deserve it? What have you done?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged the question away and kicked a pebble.
I studied him for a moment, not sure if he spoke the truth.
We had reached Cannery Row and wandered along the sidewalk, looking at the shops and the wares for sale. An array of goods and good eats: clam chowder, ice cream, and toffee apples—things we could see, smell, and taste.
“I bet you’ve seen a lot of changes over the years,” I said, motioning to the storefronts.
Henry smiled and nodded. “You could say that. That was Doc Ricketts’s place.” He pointed to a blue and white shack that faced the ocean, but it is now a hardware store.
I knew of Doc Ricketts because I read Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. The good doctor was the hero of that timeless tale and a real person. “You knew him? What was he like?” I asked, intrigued.
“He was a good man and a fine naturalist. He appreciated the details of the world around him, a great sailor too. He and I often went sailing in the bay. I was sad when he died, and I miss him still.”
“I would have liked to have met him,” I said.
“Over there was the old salt bathhouse,” he said, pointing to a building now home to a restaurant.
“A bathhouse!” I exclaimed. “That sounds so cool. I bet the water was cold though.”
“It was. It caused quite the sensation when it opened. Nobody had seen the likes of it before. A gentleman named William Smith opened it in the early 1900s. Over at Lovers Point, there was also a Japanese tearoom and garden.”
I giggled. I never would have imagined that sleepy old Pacific Grove teeming with such a colorful history. Henry witnessed so many of the changes, and I somewhat envied that. “I would have liked to have been here then,” I said.
“They were fun times,” he admitted, but then his face darkened. “But that was all before the shipwreck.”
“That must have been a terrible time for you. Did you just wake up and find that you had drowned?”
“No. The current carried me a few miles. I washed up on Asilomar Beach with the morning tide.”
“How did you feel when you woke up? I mean, you were dead.”
“Very strange,” he replied. “I had a weird perception of the world. I could no longer feel cold or pain. My body seemed alive, just empty inside. I had this terrible feeling of being utterly alone.”
I tried to imagine what it was like to be a ghost.
We passed John Hopkins Marine Station and continued on. The purple flowers nodded their heads in greeting as we passed by. Up ahead, the rocks of Lovers Point shimmered in the distance, and it wasn’t long before we arrived at the lane leading up to Forest Avenue, where I lived.
I stopped under the boughs of one of the large Monterey pines. “I’ve never dated a dead guy before,” I said.
“I would hope not,” he said, smiling back at me. “But I do hope you would consider it.”
I nodded.
The next few days were some of the happiest in my life. Henry took me on a number of dates around Monterey. He was gentle and kind, old-fashioned and considerate, qualities absent in the boys that went to my school. Some of my classmates were kind, like Christian, but never before had any managed to challenge my mind or fill me with so much life. More than anything, I loved the way Henry looked into my eyes, like he shone a light into darkest corners of my inner soul.
We visited the aquarium and strolled around the glass exhibits, watching the sharks, rays, and jellyfish glide through their underwater worlds. Henry had a fine appreciation of nature; quite like my dad in that respect. He was familiar with the Latin names of every animal and plant in the aquarium and could pronounce them correctly, too.
When I questioned him about that, he smiled and said, “When you live for over a century, you find a lot of time for studying.”
Some white jellyfish floated in a large tank, their bodies seemingly suspended in the water. With a squeeze of their bell-shaped bodies, they gently pulsated through the aquamarine environment, tentacles trailing in their wake.
“They’re beautiful. What are they?”
“Moon jellies,” said Henry. “They drift with the tide, and they often migrate for hundreds of miles, floating with the ocean current. Occasionally, there are blooms in the bay. It’s a truly spectacular sight. I do hope you manage to see it sometime.”
I marveled at the creatures’ graceful movements through the water and their diaphanous beauty, like dainty sea-creeping ballerinas. “They’re so delicate, like miniature clouds lined with silver.”
“Swimming among them is something else,” said Henry. “I have had the privilege of swimming in some blooms once or twice. The whole sea appears tinged with tiny clouds, like it is a sky all its own. It truly is beautiful.”
We watched the moon jellies in their large tank, and in that very moment, I felt more glad to be alive than ever before.
On another occasion, Henry and I had a picnic at Lovers Point. I had brought my favorite blanket, a checked woolen tartan, and I spread it out over the grass bordering the sea. We watched the waves crashing against the shore. Henry had brought some cold chicken for us to share, and I had made a salad with my favorite sun-dried tomatoes and artichokes.
After we had eaten, Henry reached into his jacket pocket and pulled something out. “For you, Alice,” he said, handing me a small book.
I took the book curiously and read the cover. It was by Edgar Allen Poe. “Poetry?” I asked in amazement. I carefully opened the tiny tome to the copyright page and read it was a first edition, published in 1896, a year before Henry’s birth.
“His writings are a bit—macabre, but I hope you like it,” Henry said.
“Yes! I mean, no one has ever given me a poetry book before,” I answered, fondling the cover. This is true; the only gift I’d ever received from any boy was a box of candy, in the eighth grade, and my love for the candy ended up lasting longer than the relationship. “It’s very sweet. Thank you.”
“Sweet? Since when has poetry been sweet?”
“It’s just. . .I’m not used to guys giving me anything, that’s all. So you’re a Poe fan, huh?” I said, flipping through the pages.
“Yes,” said Henry. “An incredible writer. I enjoy his short stories as well.”
Inside was a page of lilac paper and I was instantly drawn to it, since purple is my favorite color. I read the inscription: “To Alice, with fond and sincere wishes, Henry.” I smiled over at him. “It’s beautiful, thank you.” I turned the pages and settled on one of Poe’s most famous poems, Annabel Lee.
“Will you read it for me?” Henry asked, jointly holding the book between us.
“Um. . .okay.” I looked down at the book and read, “It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea. There lived a fair maiden whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee.”
Henry’s arm brushed against mine as I read the poem, and again the thrill ran through my spine like an electric current.
“And this fair maiden had no other thought than to be loved and be loved by me,” I continued, my voice becoming hoarse.
I looked into his eyes, and he kissed me—long, wet, and cool. I was drowning, but this time I knew he wouldn’t be able to save me.
Chapter Nine: Premonitions
Pacific Grove is famed for its monarch butterflies—big, beautiful brown creatures with yellow spots under their wings. Every year, they flutter from M
exico to California and back again, an incredible 10,000 miles roundtrip. They hang in the pine and eucalyptus trees of Pacific Grove, illuminating the canopy with their golden iridescence. In the early hours of the morning, dew forms on their wings, sparkling like tiny beads of diamonds.
In honor of this incredible journey, the people of Pacific Grove celebrate their return every fall, a festival known as the Butterfly Parade. The local schoolchildren dress up in papier-mâché costumes and parade through a section of the old town. It’s a great occasion for families to get together and celebrate one of the most truly marvelous sights of nature.
Saturday morning I helped Sophie make her butterfly wings. Sitting at the kitchen table painting them bright gold and decorating them with large red spots, brought back memories of when Mom and I spent hours working on my school assignments. We loved to paint, and sometimes we even made Christmas crafts or designed greeting cards for friends. I missed those times, but glad I could share such special moments with my little sister. It was tough for her to grow up without a mom, too, but at least we had each other.
“Help me out, Alice,” Sophie said, stretching her arms out. “I wanna try them on for size.” She twirled, pleased with the gold and black wings she painted.
“Okay,” I said. As she stretched her little limbs out as far as she could, I helped her wiggle into her costume. The wings neatly folded back when she put her arms down and spread out when ready for flight as she raised them. Her soft, blond hair framed her oval-shaped face, and she looked happier than I had seen her in a long time.
“How are my girls?” asked Dad, poking his head in through the kitchen door when he heard the peal of laughter.
“Ready to fly,” I said.
We all giggled as Sophie started to flap her arms around the kitchen, as if about to take off.
Dad drove us to the school gates of Pacific Grove Elementary School and parked the car. We jostled through the crowd for the best spot to see the parade. Sophie skipped into the classroom to join the other kids, all decorated with colorful designs, iridescent wings, and quivering antennae.
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