The Feel of Echoes

by Mari Labbee

  Bri shifted her weight from one leg to the other, leaning on the tall counter that separated the two women, waiting for Chris to continue.

  “At least that’s what they say. Personally, I’ve never seen anything or heard anything suspicious myself, and I’ve been here…oh, since 1979. I’ve never been up there. Whoever lived there was long gone when my husband—rest his soul—and I, bought this place. Anyway, the inn’s previous owner mentioned a family had lived there, but they’d been gone at least ten years by then. And they had moved away in a hurry. He also said it was haunted. Maybe someone from the family told him.” Chris gave a little shrug.

  Bri listened patiently. It sounded a lot like a yarn; they loved a good yarn up here.

  “Not many people even remember that the place is there. You can’t see it from the road, and it’s completely covered by the woods.”

  Chris set one folded towel aside and grabbed another one from the laundry basket. She shook it out, set it on the table, and then folded it in one quick and practiced move, something she’d done hundreds of times before.

  “So why do people think it’s haunted?” Bri asked.

  “Well, supposedly a woman who lived there when it was first built killed everyone living in the house, then she killed herself; she went crazy. It’s her ghost that haunts.”

  “Who was she?” asked Bri.

  Chris shrugged and set another towel aside.

  “What about the family who lived there most recently?” Bri asked.

  Another shrug.

  Bri stifled a smile. “Do you think any of that is true? Not the haunting but whether any of it happened?”

  “Who knows? It was all a long time ago.”

  Bri glanced at her watch. It was barely noon; there were hours of daylight left, and packing wouldn’t take long. Suddenly the thought of whiling away this last day just wouldn’t do.

  “I wonder if there is a way in there,” Bri said, thinking out loud.

  “You want to go out there?” Chris looked up.

  “Why not? It might be interesting,” Bri said.

  Chris stopped folding towels. She hated disappointing a guest. What harm could come of it?

  “Well,” she began, her voice measured, “I can tell you where I think it is; again, I can’t be positive.” She paused, thinking a bit, and then she looked directly at Bri and continued. “And you’ll have to keep in mind that as far as I know, it’s still private property,” she warned.

  Bri could see how an old house and its lonely lighthouse on a hard-to-reach hill would inspire a story or two. Whether the story was based on anything resembling a fact was moot. If there was any truth to it, it had likely been embellished upon so much over the years that whatever might have actually happened there was lost forever.

  It was odd, though, she’d never known that lighthouses could be privately held. She wondered why that was the case here. And she was sure of one more thing: someone probably still owned it; if not, a developer would have scooped up the property by now.

  In her previous life, Bri would have glanced at the lighthouse, admired it, and then her thoughts would have immediately returned to work. But there wasn’t much on her mind anymore, and she’d had enough solitude. She needed a little excitement, so feeling like a kid on an adventure, she drove out of the Cutter Inn and onto the highway.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Bri followed Chris’s directions.

  “The road’s got lots of turns, but it follows the coast for the most part. You go up the highway. It’ll curve away, then back in. Go up about three miles. Should be there, but you won’t see a road in.”

  Even though she’d followed the directions to the letter, she had gone farther than she should have and hadn’t seen anything resembling anything that might have once been a road. When Chris said there would be no road, she wasn’t kidding.

  Bri backtracked and parked on the side of the road at about the right spot, as she figured it, and began looking. Both sides of the road along this stretch of the highway were heavily wooded, and she couldn’t imagine any kind of road leading to anywhere out here. But after about fifteen minutes, she found it. Unless you were looking for it or knew exactly where it was, the road was impossible to see, but there it was. She felt a wave of excitement.

  The woods had entirely reclaimed what had once been a gravel road. It hadn’t ever been much of road, either, from the looks of it, more of a path leading from the highway into the woods of Jackal’s Head Point.

  It might have been called woods, but overgrown and thick, it was more like a rainforest. Bri squinted as she stepped into the shadowy interior. She reached out to steady herself by placing a hand on one of the trees and pulled it back quickly, grimacing. The thick canopy allowed little sun in, and a slimy, wet moss covered almost all the trees. She rubbed her palm against her jeans wiping the slime off and continued on, following the path for a few feet before it vanished in the shadows. She started out in several directions before finally finding it again. Once back on the path, she ventured farther in.

  The ground under her was a minefield of twisted roots and burrows. Above her, the web of vines continually caught her hair. No matter how careful she was as she parted her way through, branches kept snapping back at her—yes, there would be welts.

  “Well, at least Chris knows where I am, should something happen,” Bri muttered to herself with a nervous little laugh.

  About twenty minutes into her trip through the woods, she was sure this hadn’t been a good idea and thought about turning back, but she didn’t. How could she leave without seeing it? She was too far in now. There was no turning back.

  She emerged on the other side, dusty and disheveled, shaking leaves and cobwebs out of her hair. She turned around to look at what she had just walked through, and it had already closed up as if she had never been there.

  The house loomed. Two stories, with long narrow windows running the length of it, and all of them boarded up. Even the door into the house had been boarded up. After all that work—fighting her way through the woods, almost breaking a toe against the pointy root of an ancient oak—she might have nothing to show for it, not even a peek inside.

  The woods engulfed the side of the house closest to where she stood. Vines crept up the sides, all the way to the roof, and they were slowly winding themselves around the colossal posts holding up the eaves that extended over the spacious porch. It was clear nobody had lived here for some time, but it wasn’t abandoned. If it had been, it would have been gutted and graffiti-ed. Someone had taken great care to secure it so that no one would be able to get in.

  Well, it seemed there wouldn’t be much for her to explore here, but she wasn’t up to trekking back through the woods just yet. She stared up at the house. It could have been bleak and gloomy, sitting there half-eaten by the woods, but it wasn’t. It was made of creamy yellow stone, and the opposite end of the house—the one not in the death grip of the woods—was washed in sunlight. The pale stones glinted in the afternoon sun, almost happy. The afternoon was hers, and she was already there, so might as well use the time.

  The house was quite beautiful. It was an odd mix of farmhouse and manor. Interesting combination, she thought. The roof looked modern, which, of course, made sense. It would have been replaced many times over the course of a century, and she guessed that the house was built sometime in the early eighteen hundreds.

  Gingerly she tested the first step up to the porch. It held steady. The treads were solid inch-thick planks that had weathered well. The porch floor was the same, level with no warp. No shortcuts had been taken; she could appreciate that.

  She looked for a spot where she might be able to steal a glance inside, but it was futile. Someone had done an excellent job of sealing it off from the outside world. The house had been built to last, built to withstand the harsh storms that were part of life here. Up close, it was even more remarkable. Other than the obvious lack of maintenance, it seemed intact—better than intact. Maybe the
re was a way to look inside around back. She headed back down the porch steps and turned toward the far end of the house. As she came around the side, she froze, hardly believing what she saw.

  A flat stretch of land ran unbroken from the house to the edge of the cliff—and there stood the lighthouse. Bri was stunned. A fierce wind blew in from the sea and rushed past her, whooshing around the side of the house, whistling as it went.

  She could see the lighthouse clearly now. Its glass beacon reflected the sun’s rays like a mirror, and seagulls floated on drafts around it. She smiled. It was magic. Yes- this had been worth it.

  She wondered how long it had been since someone had stood there, looking out over this expanse.

  The lighthouse was a white tower against a blue sea, and today it was an incredible blue, like the bluest sapphire. Had the sea been this blue since she’d been here? Every day she had looked out at it, waded in the water, and walked along the shore, but she couldn’t remember it being this blue.

  It beckoned.

  As she neared the lighthouse, the sound of the wind and the waves drowned out everything else. She thought she could feel the vibration coming up through the earth beneath her as the waves crashed against the rocks, but that was impossible.

  The door to the lighthouse was short and stout with a rounded top, looking very much like the entrance to a hobbit’s house. Knowing there was no way it could possibly open, she tried it anyway. Of course, it was as secure as the house was. Following the curve of the lighthouse, keeping her back against it, she came around to where it met the edge of the cliff. No more than ten to fifteen feet kept the lighthouse from falling into the sea, and the side facing the sea was quite a different thing. Pockmarked and battered, it bore the marks of nature’s fury. Cautiously, she inched forward just enough to be able to look over the edge.

  One after another, the waves came in, an unstoppable force crashing against the side of the cliff. From here she could see that, in reality, the cliff didn’t drop off into a deep sea, as she had guessed. Shallow shoals surrounded it. The rocks below stuck up like shards, appearing and disappearing with the waves-looking almost like teeth. It was equally thrilling and frightening to look at.

  She rounded out the rest of her discovery trip exploring the back of the house. It was as tightly sealed as the front, so she still wasn’t able to look inside, but she did find the remnants of a garden. Only then did she see a single “private property” sign hanging forlornly from a tree; there were no others.

  The garden path was half-buried but still visible. The stones had broken apart, and where they weren’t buried, they were covered with a fine layer of velvety moss, and persistent little weeds had taken root in all but the tiniest crevices. The garden was nothing more than a ruin now. It made her sad to see it in such a state, but she was sure that it had been quite beautiful once. The path led to a single door at the back of the house.

  A French door there would actually complete this view, she thought vaguely.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Later that afternoon, while doing last-minute shopping in Pegottie, Bri ran into Chris Cutter.

  “Ah, there you are,” Chris said with a knowing smile. “I knew you would change your mind about Jackal’s Head Point and end up in town for some shopping.”

  Bri smiled. “Actually, I found it. It was nice.”

  Chris’s eyes widened in surprise. “You found it?”

  “Um-hmm.” Bri nodded.

  “Well, that is a surprise,” Chris said. “Good for you.” After a short pause, she continued. “Will you be coming to dinner tonight?”

  There was always a home-cooked Sunday dinner for guests of the Cutter Inn. Last Sunday, Bri’s third night there, she had joined in the festivities. The dinner was delicious, but the night was a little corny and included a sing-along and charades.

  “Not tonight, I’m afraid. I’ve still got packing to do. Actually, I think I’ll just grab a sandwich and go to bed early,” Bri said. As eventful as the day had been, she didn’t really want to share it. And at dinner, the guests all shared their stories. Chris would never let her get away without telling them about her visit to Jackal’s Head Point. She still needed to pack for her flight home the next day. That part was true.

  The next morning, while she was packing, there was a knock on the cottage door. Expecting to find Chris there, Bri opened it to find a complete stranger standing there with a broad smile on her face. Dana Domke extended her hand and business card at the same time.

  “Chris tells me you were out to look at the property on Jackal’s Head Point yesterday.”

  Flustered, Bri quickly apologized, “I’m so sorry. Chris did tell me it was private property. It’s my fault. I…I…should have tried to find out who owned it but—”

  Dana interrupted her by placing a hand on her arm and shaking her head dismissively, saying cheerily, “No, no, it’s perfectly fine, perfectly fine. Actually, it’s an amazing coincidence! I was so surprised when Chris told me you’d asked about it and then gone out there because I received a call from the owner just a few days ago. They’ve finally decided to sell it after all these years. I haven’t had a chance to put a sign up, and, of course, there’s a lot of work needed before we can open it up to prospective buyers but…” Her voice trailed off as Bri realized why she was there.

  Never having known a property she couldn’t sell, Dana had taken the initiative to “come by” after Chris mentioned that Bri had gone up to Jackal’s Head Point. She was selling the property; that’s why she was there.

  Bri interrupted. “There must be some mistake; I’m just here on vacation…I was just out for a walk yesterday and…um…in fact, I’m getting ready now to…”

  It was as if Dana hadn’t heard Bri at all; she kept on selling. Dana was pushy and forward, everything a real-estate agent needed to be successful. Bri could not determine whether Dana picked up on this because she continued on, undeterred, despite Bri’s protests.

  “The owner has assured me the house is a well-built one. And it’s priced accordingly because, of course, some work is needed. But it really is a fine old home. A grand estate!” she exclaimed. “And oh, it has that beautiful lighthouse. You don’t see a feature like that every day,” she said with a wink.

  Dana had a perfect circle for a face and a smile that stretched from ear to ear. Bri smiled politely and repeatedly told Dana she wasn’t looking for property and that she couldn’t afford it now anyway, but finally it became apparent that Dana would not be leaving under her own power. Nodding all the while, Bri escorted Dana to the door and out of the cottage with a promise to think about it so she could finish packing. She threw Dana’s card into her suitcase and continued packing.

  Back in New York, Bri returned to an unrepentant Ryan. She had e-mailed him the first day back, but he hadn’t responded. She didn’t want to e-mail again and knew that eventually, they would have to talk, but she couldn’t find it in her to call just yet, and he wasn’t calling her. She found out why he hadn’t called and the question of what to do with the townhouse was related. Through Emily, she learned that Ryan had installed himself in “their” townhouse while she was gone, never mind that the contractor wasn’t finished working on it yet. That didn’t matter. Ryan had taken advantage of the fact she was out of town. She wondered if he had installed Pat in there with him, but she didn’t want to know—it was better not to know.

  Was he over it already? It seemed so.

  Ryan had never tried to reach her while she had been in Pegottie. There had been no pleadings of “come back; I was wrong.” She wondered if he had thought about her at all. How could she have been so wrong about him? It was embarrassing to think what a bad judge of character she turned out to be. Not just about Ryan but also—dear God!—Pat.

  She found herself in a ridiculous position with no job and no plan for her life, rudderless and drifting. She couldn’t quite figure out how to help herself either, and for the first time ever, she was unable to focus. />
  Almost two weeks after she’d gotten back, she awoke to an e-mail from Ryan. It was to the point, asking her when she might be able to come by and pick up the boxes she’d left behind in the townhouse—except he referred to it as “his” townhouse. She’d forgotten all about the boxes she’d taken over there and didn’t really care about getting them back, but as she launched into what would be an impulsive and fiery response, she stopped. He hadn’t mentioned money, and she still needed to get her money back, so her response didn’t include when she’d be picking up her things or even an acknowledgment about how he had referred to it as “his” townhouse. However, it was a presumptive statement about where he could wire funds. Bri almost added, “Say hi to Pat for me,” but she deleted it before sending. I don’t care, I don’t care, she repeated to herself, but somewhere deep inside, she mourned—yes, she missed them, and yes, she hated herself for that. She had given herself to Ryan so entirely, and Pat had been like a sister. It was like a death.

  Two days later, her cell phone rang. It was while she was in the park with Winnie and Pooh, her elderly neighbor’s corgis that she occasionally walked on afternoons when it didn’t rain. She didn’t recognize the number and picked up. It helped that she was calm when she answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi!”

  “Ryan?”

  He sounded upbeat, and he surprisingly began chatting as if they were still friends. Her blood pressure rose instantly into her head, the cool of the spring day doing nothing to keep her blood from boiling. He talked, and she let him, allowing her nerves to settle down. Between what was going on at Restart and how well the Urbanite project was going, he slipped in the subject of figuring out how to settle the townhouse. He had done this innocuously, modulating his voice perfectly—not a raise or dip.

  “We thought it’d be best if you signed it over to me so I can buy you out.”