Maidenstone Lighthouse

by Sally Smith O'rourke

  Reeling from too much of Krabb’s high-cholesterol cuisine and their even higher octane caffeine, we left the restaurant twenty minutes later.

  While we had been inside, the gray sky had ominously turned the color of overripe plums. Now the wind was picking up in short, brutal gusts and there were whitecaps speckling the protected waters of the harbor.

  “No doubt about it,” Dan observed as we huddled in the shelter of Krabb’s recessed doorway. He sniffed the freshening wind like one of the old-timers who’d spent a lifetime at sea and now whiled away their days telling stories while they fished from the end of the wharf. “The weather forecasters were dead-on accurate for a change,” he announced. “I’d say we’re in for one big mother of a blow by nightfall.”

  I squinted up at the sky. “Isn’t that what we had last night?” I queried, noticing as I said it that new lines of dirty-looking clouds seemed to be lowering nearly to the level of the sea, and that the usual mob of screeching gulls was curiously absent from the area around the wharf. “The wind was so strong that it broke several limbs off my trees.”

  “Last night was nothing compared to what’s coming,” Dan grimly predicted. He pulled up the collar of his blue denim jacket and hurried me across the rain-wet parking lot to the Mercedes.

  “The good news,” he said, “is that it’s a perfect day to huddle up in front of a good fire.” Dan smiled and touched my hair as we ducked into the soft, leather-lined cocoon of the car interior. “So I suggest we go straight back to your place and camp out in front of the fireplace while the storm blows through.”

  “Sounds great.” I grinned, leaning over to give him a quick kiss. “But before we get started on the huddling we’d better pick up some fresh groceries, unless you’d prefer canned chili and spam for lunch, dinner and tomorrow morning’s breakfast.”

  He returned a tender, lingering kiss. “‘Drink to me only with thine eyes’ and I’ll not ask for wine,” he whispered, pulling away and starting the engine.

  “Good thing, I’m all out of wine, too,” I said, laughing. “So get thee to the nearest supermarket, lover.”

  Dan groaned and slowly eased the big car out of Krabb’s parking lot. “Your wish is my command,” he said. “And on the way you can finish telling me about the rest of your visit with Aimee.”

  As we cautiously drove to the Food Mart, our tires splashing through the deserted streets of Freedman’s Cove, I tried to explain to Dan what the tragic ghost of my ancestor had said happened to her, following the actual moment of her death.

  “Dan, it was so eerie,” I began, shivering involuntarily at the still-fresh memory of Aimee’s haunting recitation of the night before. “Eerie and disturbing,” I emphasized. “Because Aimee’s description of being drawn upward toward a beautiful golden light was almost precisely the same as Damon’s so-called ‘delusional’ near-death experience.”

  Dan kept his eyes on the road, expertly swerving to avoid a fallen metal sign. When the Mercedes was again gliding smoothly along the partially flooded street he turned and frowned at me. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” he asked. “I mean, it supports Damon’s story of a supernatural encounter during those lost minutes when he was technically not living.”

  I slowly nodded, invigorated despite my weariness by the bizarre story that I was about to relate, and anxious to hear his opinion.

  “That much of what Aimee told me is good,” I haltingly agreed. “Just like Damon, she described entering a brilliant shaft of radiance. And there, waiting for her just beyond the dazzling light source, she could clearly see the figures of her long-dead grandparents and a beloved cousin who had drowned when she and Aimee were both twelve years old.

  They were all waiting for her in the Light, their arms extended in welcome, ready to enfold her…”

  I paused to dig a tissue from my purse, and wiped my nose again, then nervously crumpled the sheet in my hand. “But before she could cross over to embrace her loved ones,” I said, “Aimee realized that Ned wasn’t with her. She turned away from the Light to look for him, and felt herself being pulled back down to Maidenstone Island.”

  I looked at my hand, pale as death in the pallid light filtering through the windshield, and clenched my fist more tightly around the tissue, reducing it to a tiny ball. “Aimee’s spirit has been trapped here ever since, still waiting for Ned Bingham,” I said. “She’s free to move only between the lighthouse and her old bedroom in my aunt’s house.”

  Dan tore his eyes from the road just long enough to shoot me a quick sidelong glance.

  I sniffled noisily before continuing. “And what makes it so terrible for her,” I said, “is that she’s seen that golden Light, Dan. She knows it’s there, waiting…”

  Dan frowned. “You couldn’t convince her to go back to the Light again?”

  “Not without Ned Bingham.” I sighed in frustration. “You see, Aimee thinks her lover got lost somehow when they…she…jumped, and that he’s just a heartbeat behind her. So her spirit wanders endlessly, waiting and searching for him.”

  Dan thoughtfully chewed his lower lip for a moment. “If you told her the truth, about Bingham,” he suggested, “perhaps it would set her free.”

  I shook my head dubiously. “I don’t think she would believe me,” I replied, remembering how recently I had myself been convinced that Bobby could not possibly have died on me, despite an overwhelming volume of hard evidence to the contrary.

  “No,” I said. “I think that hearing the truth about Ned Bingham would simply drive Aimee farther away from reality, and the Light.”

  The glowing red sign atop the Food Mart’s flat roof appeared through the steamy windshield. Dan did not speak again until we had pulled into the crowded parking lot and found a space between a new Explorer and a rusting Chevy pickup.

  “And what about Damon?” he asked, switching off the engine and turning to face me, as though he’d been reading my next thought. “Could Aimee explain why your friend had such an unpleasant and frightening encounter with Bobby in the Light?”

  I shook my head helplessly. “That was the most disturbing thing about our conversation,” I answered. “Aimee didn’t really seem to understand what I was trying to ask her when I brought up the subject of Damon’s near-death experience.”

  I turned to look out through the mud-splattered side window, recalling the unfortunate phantom’s unexpected reaction to my question about Damon’s terrifying encounter with Bobby.

  Dan tapped his fingertips softly on the steering wheel as he awaited my reply. “Sue, what did she say?” he finally prodded, with just a tiny note of impatience in his voice.

  “She laughed at me,” I haltingly replied, my eyes fixed on the ominous, lowering sky over the Atlantic.

  “She laughed?”

  I slowly nodded without looking at him. “Aimee insisted that nothing like what Damon reported could ever happen in the Light,” I muttered, my voice barely audible in the stillness of the car. “She told me that the Light illuminates a place of supreme peace and goodness,” I continued, listening uneasily to the flat, dull sound of my own words. “It is the portal of entry to the Other Side. A neutral place of welcoming and joy, where all Earthly pain is forgotten.”

  I suddenly turned and looked at Dan. “She laughed at my question and told me that Damon could not possibly have met Bobby in the Light,” I whispered. “Not unless they had been the dearest and most devoted of friends in life.”

  I lowered my eyes to the clenched, bloodless fist in my lap, feeling the tiny ball of the tissue compressing further within my palm. “But, as I’ve told you, Damon and Bobby were never friends,” I said. “They didn’t even like one another. So what can that mean?”

  Dan’s brow furrowed and he thought about my question. Suddenly, the worry lines vanished and a broad grin creased his features. “Obviously it doesn’t mean a damn thing, Sue,” he said, reaching over to pry open my clenched fingers. He took the crumpled tissue from my hand, unfolded it and dabb
ed at my wet cheek. “Except that Alice Cahill may have been partly right after all.”

  I stared at him, uncomprehending.

  “Don’t you get it?” Dan laughed. “Damon’s near-death experience in the Light and some bad dream or feeling about Bobby that he’d had, either before or afterwards, simply got tangled up together in his memory.”

  “Oh,” I said, not entirely convinced of his logic.

  “Look,” Dan said more gently, “let’s cut Damon a little slack here. We have to remember that the guy miraculously survived a devastating plane crash. Then he spent a whole night bobbing around in near-freezing seawater before finally lapsing into a coma.”

  Dan threw up his hands at the sheer impossibility of Damon’s being alive at all, much less having returned from his ordeal with 100 percent perfect recall. “Given the same situation,” he proposed, “I suspect that you or I might have suffered a minor hallucination or two ourselves, don’t you?”

  I nodded, mentally reliving those last insane weeks in New York, when I had gone out each day fully expecting to run into Bobby on every street corner, certain I’d even caught fleeting glimpses of him.

  I looked up at Dan again. He was still talking, his deep voice turned soft and persuasive. “Haven’t you ever had a dream that seemed so vivid you had to force yourself to separate it from reality?” he asked.

  The image of Bobby placidly smiling down at me while I pleaded to be saved from an icy death in my dream of two nights before flashed into my mind.

  “Yes,” I said, suddenly feeling much better than I had seconds earlier, and managing to smile. “I guess I have at that,” I confessed. “Of course you’re right. That must be what happened to Damon.”

  Dan rewarded me with a triumphant kiss and opened the door, admitting a blast of Arctic air into the car. “Good,” he said. “And, as for Aimee, we won’t forget about her now that we understand what’s keeping her here. We’ll do some serious research into trapped spirits. Maybe we can find some nontraumatic method of pointing her back toward the Light.”

  “Oh, Dan, it would be wonderful if we could help her,” I said, loving him all the more for his concern over my poor lost ancestor.

  “We’ll do our best for her,” he promised. “Now, let’s go into that store and grab a few supplies so we can hurry back over to your place and settle down in front of a big, roaring fire.”

  “Right,” I happily agreed. “And while you’re building that big, roaring fire and, by the way, planning what you’re going to prepare for our dinner tonight, I’m going to take a long, scalding bath.”

  Taking my hand he pulled me out into the cold. We scampered like a pair of carefree kids into the crowded store, where everybody in Freedman’s Cove seemed to have gathered to stock up on batteries and bottled water.

  We staggered back outside almost an hour later, our arms filled with bags containing everything we thought we could conceivably need or want to make it through the worst of the storm and the several meals we planned to share.

  In the interim, the wind from the intensifying storm had increased dramatically from seaward. It tugged stubbornly at our coattails, blew its icy breath down our collars and tried to jerk the bags of groceries from our arms as we hurriedly ran across the parking lot and dumped everything into the trunk of the Mercedes.

  “I really don’t like the looks of that sky,” Dan grumbled when we were once again safe inside the car. He squinted out at the low, ragged clouds scudding over the rooftops. “Maybe we ought to consider driving inland a few miles and finding a motel.”

  “What? And give up our roaring fire?” I exclaimed. “Not on your life, buster.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” he said only half-jokingly. “Your house is awfully close to the water, Sue. And my folks’ old place by the wharf is no better.”

  “Well, I don’t know about your house, Dan Freedman,” I challenged, “but mine has stood right where it is, through hurricanes and blizzards, for over one hundred and twenty-five years. One more little storm certainly isn’t going to blow it away.

  “Besides…” I pouted, moving closer to him and boldly tucking a hand between his thighs. “I really wanted you to see my new Jacuzzi tub and my great, big, warm captain’s bed.” I slid my hand just a little higher up his thigh.

  Defeated, Dan laughed and started the engine. “Is this what the Mafia calls an offer you can’t refuse?” he asked as we drove back onto the street.

  “Everyone has told me you are a very smart man,” I growled in my best Brando-as-the-Godfather tone.

  “Your house it is, then.” Dan’s grin widened.

  “Since you have agreed to do me this small favor, I am in your debt,” I whispered, squeezing him very gently with the naughty hand.

  “I’ll collect in a little while.” Dan chuckled before carefully extricating the roving hand from its snug hideaway and dropping it back into my lap. “Meanwhile, I think you’d better let me concentrate on driving us there, or we’ll end up in a ditch.”

  “Very well,” I smiled. “But we must very soon go to the mattresses.”

  “I don’t believe this!” I heard Miss Romantic’s astonished voice cheering me on from somewhere far in the back of my head. “Oh, Sue, I’m so happy. I never would have believed you had it in you to get your way by deliberately seducing him.”

  Miss Practical chimed in with a wicked little laugh. “If she keeps this up, that’s not all she’s going to have in her,” she sarcastically observed.

  “Go away, both of you!” I ordered.

  Chapter 30

  Sometimes even the best ideas turn out in retrospect not to have been so hot.

  More of my very own homespun philosophy.

  Standing out in the cold, gusting wind in the Food Mart parking lot, the prospect of a long, luxurious soak in the green Jacuzzi tub had seemed utterly delicious.

  But the moment I slipped into the seductively scented waters I knew I had made a big mistake. Because, in my exhausted condition, the lethal combination of searing heat, soothing bubbles and lavender all came together like a giant velvet fist, slamming down to remind me that I had not slept more than three hours out of the last twenty-four.

  Weakly clawing my way out of the tub like a drowning kitten, I barely managed to wrap a robe around myself and run a comb through my damp hair before my knees turned to Jell-O. I called out to Dan as the room started spinning around me. And the next thing I knew, he was effortlessly lifting me off the bathroom floor and cradling me in his strong arms.

  “Sorry,” I murmured sleepily. “I’ll be okay in just a minute.”

  “I think that’s highly doubtful.” He smiled. “I’m taking you straight up to your bed to let you sleep it off.”

  “Don’t you dare!” I shook my head drunkenly. “I wanna have slow, meaningful sex with you.”

  Dan lowered his head and gently pressed his lips to mine. “You will, my love,” he whispered. “After you’ve rested.”

  “Okay,” I readily agreed, burrowing my chin into the warm hollow of his neck. “But I wanna rest downstairs by the fire, where you’ll be close. And don’t forget about the lovemaking, later.”

  “No,” he promised, carrying my limp body out of the steamy bathroom. “I won’t forget.”

  Covered by a warm afghan I’d crocheted for Aunt Ellen when I was a teenager, I dozed comfortably on the parlor sofa until late that afternoon, opening my eyes from time to time to gaze into the crackling fire and marvel at the sheer violence of the newly arrived storm that was buffeting the house.

  The first time I awoke, Dan was on the phone, straining to hear over the crackling line. He hung up and came over to tuck the throw under my chin. “I finally managed to get a call through to the hospital in Boston,” he said. “Damon’s condition is about the same, but Alice promised to call if there are any new developments.”

  He saw the pain in my eyes and gently stroked my hair. “He’s going to be okay, Sue. Alice is sure of it.”


  I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.

  The next time I awoke, Dan was sitting in a chair across from me. His bare feet were propped on the ottoman and he was drinking beer from a can and watching a televised CNN weather report with the sound turned down. I favored him with a goofy smile and drifted off again.

  When finally I had slept enough I opened my eyes to discover that the room was bathed in candlelight and the TV screen was dark. Dan stepped in carrying a flashlight and gave me a reassuring wink. “Power went out about half an hour ago,” he explained over the roar of the wind in the eaves. “I’m starting our dinner and keeping an eye on the beach from the kitchen window. It hasn’t come up very much, so it looks like we’ll be okay here after all.”

  He looked toward the sea and his brow furrowed with concern. “I am a bit concerned about the lighthouse museum, though. I wish I’d thought to move all the records up into the attic. If the tide starts to come up much above normal, I may run out there.”

  I nodded my understanding and started to rise, prepared to tell him that I’d help.

  “Stay!” he ordered. “I probably won’t need to go out, anyway. And you need to sleep. I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”

  Far too comfortable to argue with him, I obediently snuggled down under the warm throw and slipped back into another welcoming slumber. It was so nice for a change, I thought, not to be having disturbing dreams.

  “Sue, wake up!”

  The voice seemed to be coming from a great distance. I opened my eyes and looked up at the dark figure silhouetted against the glow of the dying fire.

  “Dan?” I struggled to sit up and looked around the darkened room. “What time is it?”

  A match flared, illuminating his chiseled features. He touched the flame to a candle in one of Aunt Ellen’s old Georgian silver holders and set it on the coffee table. “Nearly ten,” he said, glancing down at the steel diver’s watch on his wrist.

  “Ten at night!” I abruptly sat up and swung my legs off the sofa. “You let me sleep away the entire day?”