Castle by the Sea

by JG Faherty

  “You have come a long way, then. We do not see many people on holiday this time of year, not here. The storms, you know. Maine is much nicer in the summer.”

  “Maine?” Erika looked like she might faint.

  “Of course. Where did you think you were? Now, please, come with me. You must get out of those clothes before you take ill. You can speak with the professor at dinner. I am sure he will have all the answers you need.” Maria headed for the stairs, leaving no chance to ask further questions. Burns called out to her, but she simply shook her head and continued walking.

  “C’mon,” Jason said, taking Erika’s hand again. “We might as well dry off and have something to eat. Then we can get a ride to the nearest town and catch a plane home.”

  “But how can we even be here in the first place? We were in Oklahoma, and Maine is—”

  “I don’t know, love,” Jason interrupted, before fear and confusion got the better of her again. “And right now I’m too cold and wet to try and figure it out. Maybe Professor Osvald can explain.” He gave her what he hoped was a confident smile and brushed a wet lock of hair from her forehead. “At least we’re safe and we know where we are. We’ll worry about the rest later.”

  Erika returned his smile with a half-hearted one of her own. “Okay. But no one back home is gonna believe this.”

  “Hell, I don’t believe it.”

  As they followed Maria, Charles and Lilly up the stairs, he couldn’t stop the nagging voice in his head from speaking the one thing he didn’t want to think about.

  That’s if you ever get home.

  Jason’s hopes of a hot shower were dashed the moment Maria opened the door to the room they’d been assigned. A bowl of water sat atop a medium-sized dresser, with coarse towels and washcloths folded next to it. On the floor was a metal container with a heavy lid and a long wooden handle. Although he’d never seen anything like it in real life, he recognized it right away from movies and illustrations in history books.

  A chamber pot? God, I hope that’s just for decoration.

  He wondered what kind of place didn’t have running water, or at least not in the bedrooms. Was there a communal shower they were supposed to use?

  “Dinner is at seven. I will come back for you then. There are dry clothes in the drawers. You should rest now,” Maria said, shutting the door on her way out.

  Erika hurried past the grandly appointed bed and opened the tall armoire. Inside the top drawer, she found an assortment of pants and rough-knit sweaters. Subsequent drawers held thick woolen socks and old-style nightclothes.

  “It’s like Little House on the Prairie,” Erika said, holding up a faded nightgown.

  “As long as it’s warm,” Jason replied. He already had his shirt off and was unzipping his pants. A wooden rack stood next to the small fireplace opposite the bed, and he draped their wet clothes over it after he toweled off and dug through the drawers until he found cotton long johns his size. Although they’d been patched and sewn a dozen times over, they were dry and warm, and that was all he cared about. He pulled on the underwear, which was a one-piece unit that buttoned up the front from crotch to neck, and then got to work starting the fire, using the kindling already in the hearth and some long-stemmed matches he found on the mantel.

  Erika joined him a moment later. She’d already put on the nightgown, which was easily three sizes too large for her, and a pair of heavy socks that came to her knees.

  “You look like a dork,” Jason said. Erika did an exaggerated modeling twirl, the lace cuffs and hem flapping in her wake.

  “Maybe I do, but it’s warm and comfy. Want one?”

  “No thanks. I’ll stick to something a bit more manly.” He tugged at the collar of his long johns and did his best he-man pose, flexing his biceps like a pro wrestler.

  Laughing, Erika pointed at the mirror in the bureau door. “We’ve turned into a couple of senior citizens.”

  Thinking about age brought Jason’s mind back to their improbable leap through time and space. Erika’s smile faded away as well, and he guessed she was thinking the same thing.

  How had they gone from Oklahoma to Maine in the blink of an eye? Possibilities swirled in Jason’s head, spinning and twisting like the wind-driven rains of the ferocious gale outside. A wormhole? A military experiment gone wrong? Some kind of anomaly that affected time and space? Anything was possible, but none of the options seemed probable.

  On second thought, none of them seem possible, either.

  Still, here they were. And not just them. Burns and his fiancée as well. One couple from 1985 and one from 2014.

  Are we in their time or are they in ours? Or did we all travel to a third time? He hadn’t thought to ask Maria or the professor.

  And what did the carnival have to do with it?

  That there was a link, he had no doubt. Two couples, both in the Tunnel of Love at a Halloween carnival, both transported hundreds of miles to the same location.

  “Jason, how could any of this happen?”

  He glanced at Erika. She’d moved over to the windows and stood staring out at the storm, her arms wrapped around her chest like she was still cold. He hurried over to her, pulled her close.

  “I don’t know,” he said, wishing he had a better answer. “But it must have something to do with that carnival. We’ll have to talk to Charles and Lilly. C’mon, why don’t we lie down for a bit?” Seeing the bed made him realize how exhausted he was. It had been close to midnight when they’d entered the Tunnel of Love, but according to the clocks in Osvald’s house, it was only four; he assumed that meant four in the afternoon because neither Osvald nor Maria looked like they’d been woken up by their unexpected guests.

  Whatever had moved them from one side of the country to the other had also displaced them in time by several hours.

  I hope that’s all it’s done. Because if we’re not even in our own time…

  He tried not to consider what that would mean.

  “God, I feel like this is all a bad dream,” Erika said.

  “Maybe it is,” he said, stroking her hair. “Maybe we’ll wake up and none of this will have ever happened.”

  Even as he said the words, though, Jason knew it wasn’t a dream. The sensations were too sharp, the details too fine. Dreams always had some aspects that were fuzzy or surreal or out of order; what they were experiencing now was, despite all the unbelievable aspects, too real to be a dream.

  They lay down, and moments later Erika fell asleep against his shoulder. Exhausted as he was, however, Jason found he couldn’t doze off, thanks to his added worry that they might not even be in their own time anymore. He gently slid his arm from beneath Erika and got out of bed. Standing with his back to the fire to get warm, he stared out at the storm-battered ocean in the distance, and the pine trees closer up, their tops bending back and forth in the gale-force winds. Despite the early afternoon hour, it was nearly dark outside, the downpour obscuring the sun as effectively as nightfall.

  After a few minutes, he turned away from the depressing view and went to the dresser, where he’d laid out his wallet and both their cell phones. He hit the Power buttons on both of them, but got only blank screens for his efforts.

  “Damn.” It really had been too much to hope for. A long shot, one he’d taken only because both phones were fairly new and marketed as water resistant. Dunked in the waters of the Tunnel of Love, submerged in the ocean, drenched by rains—he doubted any of those were in the manufacturer’s definition of resistant.

  Although he knew there was no realistic chance of salvaging the phones, he removed the batteries and laid them electronics-side down on a towel, then turned the phones over as well. They were dripping wet, but he hoped that maybe, just maybe, one of them would dry out and work by morning, even if it was only long enough to call someone—anyone—back home and let them know where they were.

  And then, as he stared at the phones, the solution to their problem came to him, one so obvious he felt lik
e smacking his own forehead for not thinking of it earlier.

  There had to be a phone in the castle.

  Sure, there was nothing in the bedroom, but there had to be at least one somewhere else. The kitchen or the professor’s study. And the professor or Maria—one of them had to have a cell phone.

  Maria’s probably in the kitchen. I can find her and make a call right now.

  Jason took two steps toward the door before he stopped. He couldn’t leave Erika alone in a strange place—what if she woke up and he wasn’t there? Besides, he had no idea where to look for either the professor or Maria. He didn’t even know where the kitchen was. In a house the size of Osvald’s, he could wander around for hours.

  What’s a couple of more hours? We can wait until dinner.

  With one enormous load lifted from his shoulders, he returned to the bed and snuggled in next to Erika.

  A few seconds later, he was asleep.

  It never occurred to him to wonder why neither the professor nor Maria had offered them a phone.

  Maria came for them exactly at seven, knocking on the door until a groggy Jason called out for her to come in. She entered with her eyes angled down and away, as if she’d caught them doing something more than sleeping or she wasn’t comfortable with unmarried couples sharing a bed.

  “Dinner is ready,” she said, her voice only a touch louder than a whisper.

  At her words, Jason’s stomach started growling like a caged tiger. How long had it been since they’d eaten? Six hours? Eight? Did candy apples and cider donuts at the carnival even count? He forced thoughts of food away, however, to focus on more important things.

  “We need to let people know where we are. I have to call our families, tell them we’re safe. Then they can come get us.”

  “The professor will know more about that.”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  She gave them a sad look. “You will. Now, please, get dressed. The others are waiting.”

  Erika, her eyes still murky with sleep, looked at him and shrugged while Maria stepped outside. “Maybe the lines are down from the storm.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that,” Jason said, pulling on pants and a sweater over the long johns. Even with the fire going, the room was still chilly enough to raise goose bumps on his arms. Since their shoes were still wet, they settled for two pairs of woolen socks each and then went out into the hall, where Maria stood waiting.

  Taking Erika’s hand, he told Maria to “lead the way”.

  The diminutive maid escorted them back downstairs, each step creaking under their weight. At the bottom, she turned in the opposite direction from the sitting area. A short walk down a narrow hallway brought them to a dining room large enough to host a small wedding. Osvald was just taking his place at the head of a long table; Burns and his fiancée were already seated. Even after Jason and Erika chose chairs across from the other couple and said hello, eight empty seats still remained on either side of the table, giving the room a desolate quality.

  The intoxicating odors of fresh-cooked meat and thick gravies filled the air, and Jason felt his salivary glands flood his mouth in response.

  It wouldn’t hurt to get some food in us before we pass out.

  Osvald waved to Maria to begin serving, then turned to his guests with a weak smile. “Good evening. I trust you found your rooms to your liking?”

  “They were fine,” Jason said, accepting a plate piled high with meat and vegetables. “Thank you. But we need to talk to you about going home. How soon can we go into town?”

  The professor frowned. “Town? I am afraid it will be a few days before you can get off the island. The ferries cannot run in the storm. Besides, tomorrow is the Sabbath, so the boats would not leave port anyhow.”

  Osvald’s words froze Jason in his seat, his fork halfway to his mouth. Before he could say anything, Erika beat him to his question.

  “Did you say island? We’re on an island?”

  “Of course. What an odd question. White Shad Isle. How could you possibly get here without knowing that?”

  “We don’t know,” Jason said. “We were at a carnival—”

  “Carnival?” The professor’s frown deepened. “I’m not familiar with the term.”

  Burns spoke up. “A carnival. You know, rides, games, greasy food, screaming children. Surely you’ve been to a carnival.”

  “Ah! A fair!” Osvald smiled and nodded before his face resumed its naturally morose countenance. “But there is no fair on the island. Never has been. And it only comes to the mainland in the summer.”

  Ignoring the professor’s odd confusion, Jason tried to bring the conversation back on point. “That’s the problem. The carnival we were at…we were somewhere else. And then we were here. We don’t know how it happened.” Jason eyed their host, knowing how strange the tale sounded. The last thing they needed was for him to brand them as lunatics and kick them out into the storm.

  But Osvald accepted the story with no indication of surprise. “Hmm. Most strange. Most strange indeed.” He speared a potato with his fork and chewed, his brows furrowed, as if he was considering the ramifications of their situation. Or the texture of the potato. It was impossible to tell.

  “Anyway,” Jason continued when the professor didn’t say anything further, “I noticed there were no phones in the room. Is there one down here or in your office we can use to call home?”

  “Us too,” added Burns. “Ours got ruined.”

  “Phones?”

  “Yes. Don’t you have a telephone?”

  The professor’s face lit up for the first time. “Ah, a telephone! Marvelous contraption. Used one myself recently. Spoke to someone in Boston as clearly as if they were in the next room. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m afraid you will have to wait until you get to the mainland.”

  “You mean you don’t have phone service?” Burns asked, an incredulous look on his face.

  Osvald shook his head. “Of course not. Much too expensive to run all that cable out here to the island. I believe the closest one is in Portland.”

  Burns choked on a sip of water. “One?”

  Before the professor could answer, Jason asked a question of his own, one that made him shiver just to think it, but he couldn’t put it off any longer.

  “Professor, what year is this?”

  “Eighteen ninety-six.” Osvald scowled at him, the compacting of his features creating an even more rodent-like appearance than normal. Even his tone of voice grew annoyed. “What year did you expect it to be?”

  Erika dropped her fork. The sound of heavy silver striking china made everyone jump. “No! That can’t be true!”

  Jason felt numb, even though deep down he’d already understood they were no longer in their own time. Understanding and accepting were two different things, however. He wanted to scream, to cry, to pound his fists on the table, but he couldn’t move. His energy was gone, sapped by Osvald’s words. When he finally found the strength to speak, his voice was as frail as Maria’s.

  “Professor, it appears that we’re not only from a different place, but a different time as well.”

  “Oh, hmmm, that is a problem.” Osvald sipped his wine, his only reaction to the astounding news another furrowing of his eyebrows and a flick of his hand. Jason was beginning to realize that frowning was the professor’s natural expression. “But no matter. As soon as the storm lets up, we’ll get you on the boat to the mainland, and from there to the college. Something brought you here, so logic tells us there has to be a way to send you back. We’ll search the library there until we find it. In the meantime, keep a stiff upper lip and all that, right? Things could be worse.” He raised his glass to them but kept his gaze cast downward.

  Someone sobbed. Jason looked across the table, saw that Burns had his arms around Lilly, who wore a shocked expression. He whispered something in her ear but she just shook her head. Jason imagined he looked much the same. He glanced at Erika, saw her eyes had gone wi
de and the color had drained from her face as she tried to process the latest impossibility. Reaching under the table, he felt for her hand. She flashed him a grateful smile as she clasped it tightly in hers.

  There was an awkward silence, and then Burns spoke up, his voice surprisingly jovial, as if nothing at all were the matter.

  “Well, if we have to be stuck in the wrong time, better here than outside in that damn storm, eh? Maybe I should have been a professor.” Waiving a hand to indicate the room, he said, “Look at this place. It’s like some kind of grand European hotel. Think of the parties you could have.”

  Osvald’s already somber expression crumbled, as if Burns’s words had stripped away a pliable veneer and exposed the raw emotions hiding beneath it.

  “I do not entertain much, sir.” Before anyone could respond, he stood up, threw his napkin onto his plate and stormed from the room.

  “What was that all about?” Burns asked, looking around the table.

  “You are not to blame for the professor’s dark mood, sir.” Maria approached the table and began stacking Osvald’s dishes. “He’s not been the same since…since the accident.” She crossed herself and glanced around the room, as if afraid Osvald might return.

  “Osvald was in an accident? He looks fine to me.”

  “Oh no. Not him. It was much worse than that. His wife and children, they were lost to the sea. The three of them were returning to the island, a year ago to this very week, it was. They’d been shopping for the professor’s birthday. A bad storm blew in, worse than people had expected. Much like this one. No one knows how they convinced the ferryman to leave port in such weather. He must have been desperate for coin. They almost made it too. The boat turned over just before they reached the dock.

  The professor saw it happen from his window. He ran down to the pier and leaped into the waves, diving down over and over, until he could not swim anymore and the gardener had to pull him out before he, too, lost his life. When the storm passed the next day, the townspeople came to help but it was too late. They found pieces of the boat but no bodies.”