“Please,” she said.
“I want to talk to you.”
Gwyn waited.
The dead girl drew her feet up to the second step, propping her elbows on her knees and leaning forward so that her chin was cupped in the palms of her hands. She said, “I saw you talking with Jack Younger a while ago.”
“And?”
“Do you like him?”
Gwyn was unable to respond, her throat constricted, her tongue clinging to the roof of her mouth.
“He's quite handsome,” the dead girl said.
“Why don't you chase after him, then?” Gwyn asked.
The specter laughed. “I'm beyond that sort of thing now. I have only one love, the one that brought me back to this world of the living. I love you, Gwyn, my sister, no one else.”
Gwyn turned away from her.
“Don't go away,” the dead girl said, rising to her feet and reaching out toward Gwyn.
Sensing this approach without seeing it, Gwyn walked quickly across the beach, to the edge of the sea. Without removing her shoes, she let the cool water break across her feet, let it stir frothily around her slender ankles.
The specter appeared beside her.
The white dress swished back and forth in the sea breeze, while the golden hair streamed behind her like a lighted torch, just as Gwyn's own hair did.
“I love the sea,” the ghost said.
Gwyn nodded but said nothing, watched the incoming waves, hoping that their hypnotic flow would lift her up and away from all this, settle her down in some quiet place, alone.
“Even though it killed me, I love the sea,” the ghost said. “It has such power, such beautiful power.”
Far out, a luxury liner ran southward, full of holiday passengers intent on a four-week cruise to and through the Caribbean. Gwyn wished that she were with them, instead of here. And she wished, too, that Jack Younger would show up now. If he saw the dead girl too, then… But that was sheer nonsense, for the dead girl did not really exist.
“I don't think you're ever going to accept me,” the specter said, as if reading Gwyn's thoughts.
“That's right.”
“We could have so much fun together, if you would really listen to me, if you'd stop thinking that I'm nothing more than an illusion. But I suppose that, in the world of the living, a ghost is just much too much to be believed. When I was alive, I doubt I'd have believed in one. I've made a serious mistake coming back, and I see that now. I really do. I'm an anachronism. You think that you're seeing things, and that maybe you're even going crazy. I didn't mean to bring you unhappiness, Gwyn, just the opposite. I wanted so badly to be with you once more, to be close to you. Twins are always closer than regular brothers and sisters; it was easier for me to come back, because my ties were closer to you than most ties the dead have with the living… I wanted to see you again and share all the things we once shared, to have the fun together that we used to have when we were young…” As the dead girl spoke, incredibly, her voice cracked and grew small, as if she were on the verge of tears.
This startling evidence of feelings, of emotions in the specter, was more than Gwyn could stand, crazier and more frightening than almost anything else that the vision, the hallucination, had done to date. She began to cry herself, silently, big tears running down her cheeks. She wanted to turn and run, to scream for help, but she could not. Once, this fear had seemed to energize her, to give her the strength to flee. Now, all strength was gone, energy sapped, resources used up. She felt more weary, more sleepy than before, all soft and muscleless, limp and cold and nearly dead herself.
The specter said, “There's only one other solution, then, as far as I can see.” She seemed to have thoroughly recovered from her momentary lapse into that emotional and very unghostly self-pity. Her voice was strong again, unwavering.
Gwyn continued to watch the waves, did not look at her and did not ask what this solution might be. Whatever the specter said, it would not be good.
The dead girl said: “Instead of me crossing over to be with you, here in the world of the living, you could join me, in death… Yes… There, neither of us would be an outsider. We would both belong, and we would be happy together…”
Gwyn's heart was racing, her face flushed, her mouth as dry as the sand that lay behind her.
The dead girl went on, rapturously, “It would be so easy, Gwyn. You needn't suffer, not at all. It would be nearly painless, and then there would be all of eternity for us.”
Gwyn wanted to run.
She couldn't.
She was rooted there, weak and sick.
“Take my hand, Gwyn.”
She made no move to do as the ghost asked.
Seizing the initiative, the dead girl reached out and quickly took Gwyn's hand in her own, held it tight.
Gwyn did not have the energy or, indeed, the will to resist this unpleasant intimacy.
And why should she resist, after all, when absolutely none of it was happening, when the entire episode transpired only in her own mind, an utterly senseless fantasy, a mad illusion, a fragment of her mental illness…?
“We could just walk out there, into the sea, together. We'd let the warm water pull us out, caress us. We'd let it carry us away,” the dead girl said, her voice pleasantly melodic, convincing. She made death sound as desirable as fame or fortune, as sheltering and wonderful as love. “Come along with me, Gwyn, come be with me forever, forget all the worries you have over here…”
The dead girl's voice echoed from the hot air all around them, now tinny and strange, deep and shallow at the same time, melodic but flat, like a voice from some other dimension.
Perhaps it was just that.
The specter said, “We could shed these bodies in the cleansing salt water, just as I once did by myself. We'd never need them again, for we'd be going where flesh is unheard of and not useful, where everyone is made of force, of energy, where we'd never need to be apart again, not for all of time…”
“That's— No. No, I—”
“Come, Gwyn.”
“Please, no, I…” But her voice was thin, and she could not say what she felt, could not express her terror.
The dead girl stepped farther out into the water, still holding Gwyn's hand. She kicked her feet in the water and grinned, as if to show how much fun it would be, like a game, a water sport: drowning. She held Gwyn's hand so tight, insistently, tugging at her, smiling enticingly, her blue eyes bright, almost fevered.
“No…”
“It won't hurt, Gwyn.”
“I don't want to die.”
“It will be nice.”
Gwyn still held back.
“It'll only be bad for an instant, when you panic,” the dead girl explained, patiently. “You'll feel like you're lying in a wet, warm blanket — and then that you're smothering in it. Before you know it, the panic will pass and the resignation set in, and then the joyful acceptance will come to you, and you'll embrace death.”
“I won't.”
“Yes. It's not at all as you've heard it is, not like anyone living has ever imagined it.”
Gwyn found that, involuntarily, she had taken a step into the water, so that it sloshed well above her ankles.
“Come along…”
“No!”
“Gwyn—”
Gwyn tried to turn and pull away.
She could not.
The specter held tight.
“Wait, Gwyn.”
“Let go of me!”
“Gwyn, you'll like it.”
“No!”
“We'll be together.”
Gwyn whimpered, struggling to escape the grasp of the pale, dead hand, telling herself repeatedly that none of this was actually happening, that she was caught up in a web of madness, of self-deception. Yet, she was unable to shrug off the deeper, more irrational fear that the ghost was genuine…
“Die with me, Gwyn..”
She slapped at the pale arm, twisted, pulled.
&n
bsp; “Death is not so awful.”
Screeching like one of the terns, her teeth clenched tightly together, Gwyn gave one last, desperate, wrenching twist with her body and was suddenly, surprisingly free. She staggered backward, kicking up the water. She whirled, nearly fell, somehow regained her balance and ran for the flight of stone steps.
As she ran, she saw something in the sand which, in a single blazing instant, drove all thoughts of madness from her. She saw something there that proved the ghost was not a ghost and was not a figment of her imagination.
However, she did not stop, for what she saw terrified her almost as much as had the idea of insanity — and the possibility that the spirit was genuine. As frightened as ever, but for different reasons, she gained the steps in short order and, sobbing, ran up them without any regard for her safety, taking them two at a time. She had to find Uncle Will and tell him; she had to get help at once.
ELEVEN
William Barnaby watched Gwyn take several long swallows from the glass of cold water, then said, in a measured voice which was intended to soothe her, “Now, are you feeling any better?”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”
“What on earth's happening?” he asked, smiling, sitting down on the edge of the desk.
Only minutes ago, she had raced up the stone steps, miraculously avoiding a fall, had crossed the wide, well-manicured lawn and entered the manor as if there were a pack of slavering devils close at her heels. She'd found him in the study, sitting behind his desk and working through an enormous sheaf of papers. She had been so incoherent — both because of fear and exhaustion — that she had been unable, at first, to tell him what was the matter. When he'd ascertained that she was not hurt, but only badly frightened, he made her sit in the easy chair where Edgar Aimes had sat earlier, then went to fetch her a glass of cold water from the kitchen. Now, she had drunk most of the water, and she felt that she'd gathered her wits about her enough to tell him what had happened. She said, “I have a strange story to tell, about ghosts, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't interrupt me.”
“Ghosts?” he asked.
“In a way.”
“Go on, then.”
She told him all of it, from the beginning. Once near the start, he shifted uneasily and interrupted her to say, very adamantly, that there just weren't such things as ghosts; she reminded him that he'd agreed to let her tell the whole story in her own way and at her own speed before making any comments about it. Then, she told him how the apparition had first appeared to her in her bedroom, how she'd thought that it must be only the remnant of a dream, went on through the subsequent visions, until she finished with a detailed explanation of what had transpired today on the beach, by the stone steps, and most importantly at the water's edge, only a short while ago.
He did not move from the edge of his desk during all of this, and he did not move even when she was finished, almost as if he thought that a change in this own position would somehow act as the catalyst to set off the explosion which he fancied he saw building inside of her. He looked at her strangely, warily, and he said, “I'm quite intrigued by this, Gwyn. But it's all so — well, baffling.” He was choosing his words carefully, keeping an un-felt smile on his face.
“Isn't it, though?” she asked.
“How do you explain it?” he asked. He was extremely cautious, not wanting to upset her. Clearly, he believed that she was more than slightly emotionally disturbed, and he felt that he must handle her with the proverbial kid gloves. She didn't mind his reaction in the least, his treating her as he might a mad person, for she had not expected him or anyone to swallow such a story without doubts.
Candidly, she said, “Well, at first, I thought that I was losing my mind. In fact, I was sure of it. I was convinced the ghost was an hallucination, until something I saw on the beach, a while ago, proved me wrong.”
He seemed to relax when he realized that she was willing to face such a drastic possibility as insanity, though he appeared not to have heard her mention the clue to the ghost's real nature, for he said, “You're going to be fine, Gwyn. If you can admit that you've got an emotional problem, then you're a long way toward—”
She interrupted him before he could say anything more. “I haven't any emotional problems,” she said. “At least, I haven't got any that are tied up with this ghost.”
“But you've just admitted—”
“The ghost is not a ghost,” she said. “It's someone masquerading as a ghost.”
He looked shocked, and then he became wary again. He said, “But who? And for what reason?”
She shrugged. “I don't really know. I haven't had time to think it out, but — mightn't it be the fishermen?”
“What would they have to gain, and why would they strike out at you instead of at me?” he asked.
“I don't know.”
“Besides,” he said, his voice gentle and comforting again, “what makes you think this ghost is 'real'?”
“Hallucinations don't leave footprints behind them,” she said, smiling up at him.
“I don't understand.”
She said, “When I pulled away from that woman, when she was trying to drag me into the water, I ran back toward the steps. On the way, I noticed two sets of footprints leading to the water's edge, mine and hers. If I'd imagined the whole thing, how could there be two sets of footprints?”
He got up, at last, paced to the bookshelves and then back again, stood near to her, looking down. He said, “You chased this — ghost perhaps half a mile along the beach the other day, before she — disappeared. Did you see footprints then?”
Gwyn frowned. “I didn't look for them.”
“Think about it. Can you recall her prints in the sand? When you rounded the curve in the beach and found she'd disappeared, didn't you think to try following her prints?”
Uneasily, Gwyn said, “No. I didn't.”
He nodded. Sadly, he said, “Gwyn, I don't like to suggest this, but, could you have imagined seeing the footprints, as you've imagined seeing the ghost itself?”
That notion had not occurred to her. Now it did, and it rested on her mind like a dark, cold worm. Summoning up her last dregs of self-confidence, she said, “I'm sure the prints were real.”
“There's one way to find out,” he said.
She stood up. “We'll go look.”
They stood on the beach, looking down at the white sand, the sea wind ruffling their hair. They were both silent, each waiting for the other to say something, each aware that the silence could not last forever, each dreading the beginning of the conversation.
At last, Gwyn looked up at him, afraid, embarrassed, but determined to go on. She wiped at her eyes and said, “I didn't imagine them. I'm sure I saw them.”
Only one set of footprints led from the stone steps to the edge of the water, and only one set of footprints came back: both made by the same person, both made by a girl wearing a pair of tennis shoes, both sets made by herself.
“I saw them,” she said, again, more quietly this time, as if she had ceased to try to convince him and was only trying, now, to make herself believe it.
“I'm sure you did,” he said.
“I mean really saw them,” she insisted.
“Gwyn, you should come back to the house and rest.”
“I'm not crazy.”
“I didn't say you were.”
Desperate, striking out at him because she could not see anyone or anything else to strike out at, she said, “You implied it!”
“I didn't mean to imply it,” he said.
He was walking slowly toward her.
She didn't move away.
She looked at the sand.
It was still marked only by her prints.
He said, “I've told you, I don't think your problem is anything so severe as a complete mental breakdown. Emotional instability, yes. You've been through so very much, so many deaths, Gwyn. You need a lot of rest, a lot of relaxation. You have to get your mind
off the past and learn to look forward to the future.”
“I saw those prints.”
He said, “I feel responsible for this, in a small way. I shouldn't have given you the room with a sea view. I shouldn't have reminded you, that way, of your sister.”
Only half-listening to him as he drew nearer, she bent and looked more closely at the sand. “Look here,” she said.
“Gwyn, let's go back to the house. I'll call the doctor, and he can give you something to—”
She repeated: “Look here, Uncle Will.”
He bent down, playing along with her. “What is it?”
“Someone's taken a broom over the sand here,” she said. “You can see the bristle marks.”
He looked and said, “Where? I don't see any.”
She pointed. “Right there.” She looked toward the steps and said, “They swept out the 'ghost's' footprints.”
Sadly, and as if the words were the most difficult that he had ever been called upon to say, he told her: “Gwyn, lovely Gwyn, you are imagining things.”
“Damn you, I see those broom marks!” She enunciated the last five words with exaggerated care, as if she were talking to an idiot and wanted him to be sure to understand.
He touched her shoulder with one large, dry hand, as if he would quell the terror building in her.
She drew back.
“I see them!” she hissed.
Quietly, but with force that penetrated to her, he said, “Yes. But I don't see them, Gwyn.”
Their eyes locked for a long moment; then she dropped her gaze, a tremor rising from her stomach and spreading throughout the upper half of her body, an intense chill she could not throw off. She still saw the broom marks before her where some phantom had erased the tracks made by another phantom. She blinked, willing them to disappear, but could not shut them out.
He said, “There was no ghost. You never saw one, and you never spoke to one. And there were no footprints made by the ghost, either. It is all an illusion, Gwyn, a bad dream.”
She looked up, feeling small and alone, worse than she had felt since she got her uncle's letter back at school. She said, “You really can't see them, can you?”
The Dark of Summer Page 10