Charlie St. Cloud

by Ben Sherwood

  She tried to concentrate on what Charlie and Sam were saying, taking turns describing the afterlife and the road ahead. They made it all sound like the most natural transition in the world. After a while, she interrupted Charlie. “I need to understand how this works. How can you see Sam?” She hesitated for a moment. “And how can you see me?”

  “When our accident happened,” Charlie explained, “I crossed over too. It was a classic near-death experience, and when they shocked me back to life, I was graced with this gift. I could still see people in limbo between life and death.”

  “That’s where I am now?”

  “I think so,” he said, “but you threw me off a little. You don’t really look like most spirits.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Tess said. “Now, what about touching? How did we kiss last night? How can I open doors and change clothes and feed Bobo?”

  Charlie smiled. “Right now, you have one foot in both worlds. You’re here and not here. You’re literally in between.” He reached out and took her hand. “Folks who die very suddenly or who don’t want to let go can exert a very strong physical presence. They can do stuff like throw baseballs, drink beer, or flush toilets. They’re the ones who make lights flicker and things go bump in the night.”

  “How come I haven’t seen any?”

  “Besides Sam, there aren’t any around right now,” he said. “Mrs. Phipps from the high school moved on this morning. And I haven’t seen a firefighter named Florio in a while.”

  “See, God picks when you live and die,” Sam added. “But when you’re here in between, you have a choice too. You can stay here as long as you want, just like me. Or you can go to the next level right away. It’s your call.”

  Tess felt a wave of worry. “Why hasn’t my dad come to see me?” she asked. “I always thought he would be here waiting.”

  “Don’t worry,” Charlie said. “He’ll be there for you, but you haven’t crossed over to the other side yet.”

  “I thought this was the other side.”

  “That’s what everyone thinks,” Sam said. “They watch John Edward on TV. They read those books about the afterlife. Everyone tells you that when you die, you see the light and you pass on. Period. The end.” He smiled and lowered his voice into a whisper. “It’s actually more complicated.”

  Then he stood up and began to gesture with his hands. “There are actually lots of levels and places on this side.” He drew a circle in the air. “Imagine that this is the land of the living. Marblehead is right here in the middle of everything. Your mom, your friends, Bobo.” Then he traced another circle around it. “We’re right here. One level beyond. This is the middle ground.”

  “Think of it as the way station between life and death,” Charlie said. “It’s like a rest stop on the highway. I was actually there for ten minutes before the paramedic shocked me back.”

  “I don’t get it. If this is a rest stop, what’s Sam still doing here?”

  The brothers looked at each other. Sam hunched his shoulders and was about to speak when Charlie cut in. “We made a promise.”

  “What kind of promise?”

  There was a long silence. Neither of them answered. “Fine,” Tess said. “Don’t tell me. But am I right, Sam? You can stay here as long as you want?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I stay here too?”

  “You’re getting ahead of yourself,” Charlie said.

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “There’s time for all of that later. Right now, you’ve got a lot to learn.”

  “Go ahead,” Charlie said. “Show her how it works.”

  “My pleasure.” Sam looked up at the sky, waved his hands in a small circle, and suddenly the wind soughed through the trees. A shower of leaves swirled around them. “Not bad, huh?” he said.

  “You did that?” Tess asked.

  “Piece of cake. We can fill your sails. We can touch your face.” He shook his hand gently, and Charlie’s hair rustled.

  “I never had any idea,” Tess said.

  “And we can dreamwalk too,” Sam said.

  “What’s that?”

  “We can go right into people’s dreams. We can hang out wherever their unconscious takes them. And we can tell them stuff.”

  “You mean when I dream of Dad—”

  “Exactly,” Charlie said. “Spirits at any level can dreamwalk, even after they’ve crossed over.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You can never be sure of anything,” he said, “but that’s the way it seems to work.”

  Tess shook her head. This was too much to handle; she could scarcely breathe. She was overwhelmed. She had dreamed of her father almost every night for a year after he died. She had always thought those images were proof of how much she missed him. But now this? Was he visiting in her sleep? She didn’t know what to believe anymore. And then a spark of anger ignited in her soul. She knew one thing for sure: She didn’t want to spend eternity making the wind blow or wandering through people’s dreams. She wanted her life back. She wanted to sail. She wanted to live. She wanted to love.

  It was suddenly all quiet in the clearing. The breeze died down. And Tess gave voice to the one question that felt more important than any other: “What happens if I don’t want to cross over?” She reached her hand toward Charlie. “What if I just want to stay here with you?”

  “There’s no rush,” Charlie said. “You have all the time in the world.” Then Sam got up and went to her side. He put his hand into hers and he pulled. “Come on, Tess, let’s go.”

  “Go where?”

  “I’ll show you around. It’s like orientation. It won’t take long.”

  Tess wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t want to go anywhere. She just wanted to hold on to this place and this moment lest it never be the same again. Then she heard Charlie’s calming voice. “Don’t be afraid. When you’re finished, come back to my cottage.”

  She looked into his caramel eyes and couldn’t believe her misfortune. She knew it sounded spoony, but she had waited all her life to meet someone like him, and he had been right there all along. She had been ready to sail around the world to find her mate, and he was waiting right there in Waterside.

  She felt Sam tugging. “Come on,” he was saying, and she found herself walking hand in hand into the Forest of Shadows with a dead boy and his dead beagle. It boggled her mind. After a few steps, she turned back and saw Charlie silhouetted alone under the moon.

  “Promise you’ll be here when I get back?” she called out.

  “I promise,” he answered.

  And then Sam looked up at her with his wide, wonderful eyes. “Don’t worry, Tess,” he said. “He always keeps his promises.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  TESS WAS A NATURAL AT FLYING. ACTUALLY, “FLYING” wasn’t quite the word. It didn’t look anything like Superman with his arms outstretched and cape flapping. It was called spirit travel, Sam explained, and it was controlled by the mind. You only had to imagine the possibilities and you could run, swim, dive, or glide through any dimension. It was almost like using the Internet. A click here, a click there. You just had to think of a place and you were there.

  For Tess, it felt like the ultimate extreme sport, with no limits on how fast or far she could go. She had never believed in any of this supernatural stuff, but soon she was soaring over downtown, circling the gilded weather vane atop Abbot Hall, then shooting down to the harbor to check out the boats.

  “Sure beats PlayStation 2, huh?” Sam said as they materialized near the top of the Marblehead light.

  “Blows my mind,” she said, watching the powerful green beam slice right through her.

  Next stop: the Sunday night submarine races on Devereux Beach, where SUVs and trucks with steamy windows were jammed into the parking lot.

  “Charlie says kissing is like baseball without the bat,” Sam said.

  “I think it’s more like football without the pads,” Tess laughed. “You ever kiss a gir
l?”

  “Nah,” Sam said. “Tried once, but Stacie Bing popped me in the nose and knocked me out. I woke up in the principal’s office.”

  “Really?”

  “Swear.”

  “What about now? You know, in between? Is there anyone your age?”

  “Not really,” he said. “They don’t show up here very often, and they usually move on pretty quick.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Where do you want to go now?”

  Tess thought for a moment. “How about my mom’s?”

  “Okay, lead the way.”

  And just like that, they found themselves near Black Joe’s Pond on Gingerbread Hill. This was the hallowed ground of her youth. On this drop of water, nine generations of Carrolls had swum in the summer and skated in the winter. It was also home to a bale of snapping turtles and a siege of great blue herons.

  Tess looked across the rolling lawn where as a girl she had run through the sprinklers. The family home, a charming colonial with opposing brick chimneys, sat like a toy house overlooking the pond. With a gabled roof, clapboard siding, and double-hung windows, it had barely changed since it was built by her ancestors in 1795. The downstairs lights were on in the living room, and in the window on the second floor, she saw a shaggy face. It was Bobo, looking down blankly on the grass where she was standing. He was sitting in his usual chair, still waiting for her to come home.

  A car pulled into the driveway, and Tess noticed a jam of vehicles near the house.

  “Wonder who’s here,” Tess said.

  “They’re your friends.”

  “Oh my God. What are they doing?”

  “I guess they really liked you.”

  Once more, Tess had that overwhelmed sensation. Then she said, “Come on, let’s go look.”

  “You sure you want to?” Sam said.

  “Yeah.”

  “It can be a big bummer.”

  She recognized most of the cars, including Reverend Polkinghorne’s red Subaru, and she hesitated. The last time he had been over to the house was when her dad had died. The thought of his visit the night of the heart attack brought back so many images from that first week: the steady stream of friends, the casseroles dropped off quietly on the doorstep, and the phone calls. The second week was different: Only a few friends came over, the care packages ceased, and the phone was almost silent. That was when her mom realized how alone she was in the world. Would her mother have the strength to go through it all over again?

  Then she resolutely started across the grass, covering the ground in twenty steps. The side door to the mudroom was open. Her father’s boots for fishing, hunting, and hiking were arranged neatly on the floor. He had been gone for two years, but her mother left them there as a comfort.

  Grace was in the kitchen stirring the old chowder pot. Her face was long, her eyes were red, and her blue blouse and brown skirt didn’t belong together. Her hair was primped and lacquered in a way that suggested she had sprayed it into submission just before her guests arrived. She had looked this way for weeks after Dad’s funeral. When Tess had encouraged her to pay attention to herself, she had answered that she was barely clinging to her sanity and who gives a fiddler’s fart about clothes?

  Tess walked over and stood right beside her. She wanted to hug her so badly, but just as she reached out, Sam cut between them. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but you really shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “It freaks them out.”

  “What do you mean? It’s just a hug.”

  “Trust me, it scares the bejeezus out of them or it’s not enough and they crave more. Either way, it just makes things worse. That’s why we never touch them.”

  “But don’t they know it’s us? Can’t they tell?”

  “No, they don’t get it. They think they’re hallucinating or they end up drinking too much or popping Valium.”

  “But she seems so upset.”

  “No one’s going to stop you from doing whatever you want. You can hug her or kiss her, but eventually, you’ll see there are much better ways to let her know you’re here.”

  “Will you show me?”

  “Sure, but you’ll figure it out.”

  Tess stepped back and watched Grace finish preparing the chowder. A few of the last ingredients were laid out on the counter. It was Great-grandma Carroll’s recipe, with haddock, salt pork, onions, leeks, carrots, and one pint of heavy cream. They had argued endlessly over the deadly fat in that last ingredient. For years, Grace had tried to cook more healthfully, especially for George, and she often skimped on the cream. Tess thought that was downright sacrilegious. She called it Chowder Lite, and it belonged with Diet Coke, Low-Carb Beer, and Lean Cuisine on her MOST HATED list. Whatever the consequences, she was sure that special things in life were worth all the calories and cholesterol.

  Tess heard the kitchen door swing open. It was Reverend Polkinghorne, who had shown uncommon interest in Grace ever since her husband had died. As always, he was sporting the greatest hits from the L. L. Bean catalog: a blue checked sweater, tan cords, and Blucher moccasins. “You’re working too hard,” he said. “Won’t you let me do anything? I’m very handy in the kitchen.”

  “You can bring some dishes into the other room.” While Grace pulled bowls from the cabinet, Tess saw an opportunity. She hurried over to the stove, checked that no one was looking, and poured the pint of heavy cream into the pot. Then, out of habit, she tossed the empty carton toward the trash near the door. It banked off the rim and landed on the floor.

  Grace spun around. She saw the container on the ground and walked over to it. She kneeled down, picked it up, and shook her head. “I must be losing my mind,” she muttered, throwing it away. Back at the stove she gave the chowder a few stirs and touched the wooden spoon to her lips. Delicious. She went to the fridge, pulled out another carton of cream, and emptied half into the chowder. Then she churned it a few more times, picked up the pot with oven mitts, and headed into the dining room.

  Tess and Sam followed. The living room was filled with friends. The ladies from the Female Humane Society were ensconced in one corner, while Bony and the guys from the wharf were sipping cider in another. Fraffie Chapman and Myrtle Sweet of the Historic District Commission were nosing around the entrance hall and examining the architectural details. The Four Seasons played softly on the stereo, the television flickered silently, and Bella Hooper, The Woman Who Listens, sat patiently waiting for someone who wanted to talk.

  Tess moved around the room, eavesdropping on conversations, not surprised at all by what she heard. These moments were always awkward and uncomfortable, and folks carried on about the darnedest things. Fraffie and Myrtle were grousing about the historically unacceptable shag carpeting on the front stairs. Myrna Doliber, the funeral director in her helmet of black hair, was wedged on a couch with some friends relaying another superstition: “If three people are photographed together, the one in the middle will always die first.”

  Then in a flat, strained voice, Grace called out from the dining room: “Come ’n’ get it,” and she stood patiently at the buffet table ladling chowder into bowls. When everyone had been served, Reverend Polkinghorne led them all in prayer. “Let us thank God for food when others are hungry, for drink when others are thirsty, for friends when others are lonely,” he began. “And may God’s light surround our beloved Tess wherever she is. May God’s love enfold her, God’s power protect her, and God’s presence watch over her. Wherever she is, God is. And may He bring her home to us safely.”

  “Amen.”

  From the corner, Tess stood and watched them devour her mom’s soup. Then came the usual compliments, and she couldn’t help grinning. “Wow, it’s so creamy,” said Todd Tucker, her favorite sail cutter from the shop. “Did you put the whole cow in here?”

  “You know, the first settlers in Marblehead in 1629 made chowder with scrod,” Fraffie proclaimed to no one in particular.

  Grace smiled politely. She was obviously doing h
er best to hold it together. Her lips were pinched, and her eyes were slits. A few more visitors ooh’d and ahh’d over the chowder, and then Grace began to crack. Her fragile smile crumbled, and her eyes filled with tears. With a quick flick of her hand she wiped them away.

  Tess was desperate to do something, but Sam put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t,” he said. “She has to go through this. There’s no other way.”

  Then the bell rang, and Grace hurried to the door where Tink’s bulk filled the frame. He bent down to give her a big hug and followed her into the living room. The crowd quieted down to hear the latest on the search. “The last boat is back,” he began. “They found some more junk and debris. Could be thrown over from a fishing boat. Could be trash from Querencia.”

  “No sign of her yet?” Bony asked. “No radio signal? No flare?”

  “Not yet, but we’re going out at first light tomorrow and we’ll find her.”

  “Why wait for tomorrow?” Grace asked. “What about now?”

  “There’s no point. We’ve got thick overcast and the moon’s gone. Can’t see a damn thing.”

  “How long do you really think she can hold on?” Grace asked.

  “You know her better than anyone,” Tink said. “She’s a fighter. She won’t give up until we find her.”

  Desperately, Tess looked at Sam. These poor souls were clinging to false hope. Then Reverend Polkinghorne jumped up from the couch, straightened his cords, and asked: “Shall we all join in another prayer?”

  “No,” Grace said emphatically. “No more prayers, please.” She walked over to the window, wiped her eyes, and stared out into the distance.

  Tess moved closer. How could it not calm her to touch her? Carefully, gently, she laid her hand on her mother’s shoulder. Grace stiffened, then shuddered, whirled around, and with a look of fright in her eyes, hurried back to her guests.

  “I just got the worst chill,” she said to Reverend Polkinghorne. “It was just like when George died. I could swear this house is haunted.”

  Sadness overwhelmed Tess. “I can’t stay here anymore,” she said to Sam. “I’ve got to go. Now.”