Deep River Burning

by Donelle Dreese

  Born of wind and water far out in the Atlantic, the waves came spilling onto the beach one after the other, slowing down in a rush of confusion as the momentum to blow forward and crash was counteracted by the pull to leave again and regroup. These waves had a story to tell of their own. They were not young waves boiling their white caps over in eager anticipation to lunge, but the kind of waves that are long and rolling, building up their event in a large, swelling mass and then crashing in a sudden tumultuous roar. These waves had been places. They had traveled far. They came from a place where palm fronds are swiftly blown and when the wind hits your face, it stings.

  Out in the open sea, there were boats passing one another in what seemed like a perishable highway, one that could simply swallow up their tiny sails in a blink and she’d know nothing other than the direction they were traveling. From the beaches’ perspective, the boats know one another, pass by and say hello, perhaps share wine and stories about perils on the sea, but they are as distant as so many of us are, sharing land with so many others who remain nameless.

  The tide was high and the seagulls scrambled away from its push. When the beach became dark, she still didn’t want to leave. Instead of watching the boats pass one another, she watched their lights blink in from the horizon and then out again. Once it was dark, she saw that there was a lighthouse up the beach some distance. Its revolving round light broke through the darkness and signaled the boats to come home. On second glance, in the direction of the lighthouse, a figure of a young woman in a long, blowing dress stood by the water line waving a lantern out to sea. She walked back and forth allowing her dress to soak around her ankles and fill with salt. An uneasy feeling passed through Denver at the thought of what this woman might be looking for and why she waved an old lantern to the wide, dark sea.

  She walked toward the woman slowly and listened for a call to the waves. She didn’t know exactly when she stopped walking toward her or when the recognition entered her consciousness that the woman’s lantern was not lit. All that illuminated her was her dress. It was bright like the foaming waves, but not white. Denver had no understanding at that moment of what she saw, a woman holding a dark lantern up to an even darker sea. She felt a nervous flutter tumble like marbles rolling from a leather bag, moving through the depths of her stomach, and then she chose to turn away.

  She walked to the other side of high dune jutting out onto the beach, knelt down, and hid there until the half moon was high over the ocean. Unlike the visions she saw in the cabin in the woods at Desert Ring Island, she heard no sound this time. She was too far away and the sound of waves caressing one another kept her from hearing even her own movement or sigh. She didn’t know if the woman was from the past or a vision of the future, other than the fact that the lantern she carried did not look modern but antique and worn.

  There is a whole world out there that we can’t see, she thought to herself, a world of energy and light and picture and sometimes even sound made by beings that exist in another realm, beings that sometimes try to communicate and sometimes want you to see them. But think of what they know, what they might be trying to tell us. Maybe this material world is only a small fraction of a larger reality, but we have closed our minds off to other possibilities. We have anchored ourselves to a physical place that is only part of the story because we are afraid. Aunt Rosemary was maybe the one person who did understand. She once told Denver that she wasn’t afraid to die.

  After a while, Denver crept around the side of the dune and looked down the beach in the direction where the woman was walking. She was gone. Denver went to the spot on the beach where she had been standing, but there were no footprints or remnants in the sandy stretch by the retreating current. Denver returned to the place where she had piled her belongings on the sand and took out a jacket and a towel. She told herself that she needed to go soon. She needed to find a place to sleep for the night. She didn’t want to leave just yet so she put on the jacket and gently laid the towel down in the bumpy sand and laid her head back on her bag again to sit and watch. The peacefulness was intoxicating and the temperature coming in from the surf was cool and comfortable.

  There on the beach, she could see the stars sharp and plentiful. There were lights behind her, but they didn’t stop the starlight from piercing through the night sky. She gazed upward and listened to the sounds and felt the breeze dance like soft socks over her face. She never wanted to leave. As she melted into the sand, she felt as if much of her stress lifted from her body, extracted by the salt air, and pulled up into the wind where it was blown out to sea. A few tears rolled back from her eyes and floated down into her hair.

  There was only one other time in her life when she had seen so many stars. It was in Pennsylvania on the border to New York, at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. She was with Helena on a road trip to visit a family member of hers when they pulled over to the side of the road to see if Helena’s front left tire was going flat. They were on top of a mountain in a clearing where the road was narrow and framed by wide fields filled with singing crickets and tree frogs on branches far in the distance. Out of habit, Helena turned off the car. Denver reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight to check the tire. The tire was fine, only a little low.

  When Denver turned the flashlight off after checking the tire, the night was dark, very, very dark. The moon was a pencil thin sliver far to the east horizon only barely sticking its nose up above a tree line. There were no houses, no farms, no street lights, no cars coming in either direction. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face or the car or Helena. All they had to go on was sound and touch and smell to determine what was around them.

  “Helena, where are you?” Denver said softly.

  “I’m right here,” Helena whispered.

  Instinctively or perhaps in awe or fear of the darkness, they both stood dead still on the side of the road near the car. Denver reached out her hand to feel for the warm car hood for some stability or security, but every sound she made seemed out of place as if she was disturbing some profound sacred stillness. Several minutes passed while they stood in silence waiting for their eyes to adjust, but it never happened. Their human eyes were not created for that kind of darkness, but they realized that other eyes were. It was the darkest, most silent place she had ever been and the air smelled like lilacs, although it was too late in the summer for lilacs. When there was a sudden sound of weeds rustling near the road a few feet ahead, they hurriedly felt their way to the car doors, jumped in, and locked the doors with a half-scream and half-laugh.

  Denver was not sure what Helena was thinking about during those minutes when they stood still and silent in the blackness of a Catskill mountain, but she was looking up at the stars transfixed by the sheer number and brightness of them. It was not the first time they star gazed together. Sometimes they stretched out on their backs on a hillside and stared up at the stars while talking and laughing about things that didn’t matter. If it is true that stars give off light long after they are dead, then the sky is deceiving in how alive it looks, like the young woman waving her lantern out to sea, still giving off her own light, long after she walked into the gray sea looking for her husband whose ship never came back to port. That is what happened to her in Denver’s imagination. That is what the woman’s silhouette told her. People tell stories without ever saying a word.

  Denver wanted to stay there in the darkness on the beach until she no longer thought about coal. On the bus ride to North Carolina, she tried to forget about the color of coal. She thought the coast would be the perfect place with its washed out, natural hues. Her mind started to swirl thinking of Adena and Josh and his antics by the river, and Helena ramming her husband’s truck into a tree, and her parents, what they said the last time she saw them, her father and his books, the smell of her mother’s cooking, her father’s pipe, those cigarette butts by the coal pit, flower
pedals in a pool of rain, Josh under a tree on Desert Ring Island, tears mixed with sweat, river water, leaves, pine needles, his hair so soft in her hands, his eyes smoky with sleeplessness, the carbon monoxide monitors keeping people awake, sleeping with windows open in January, wanting to run, wanting to stay, wanting to love, what you need to hate to divide yourself from history, to work for a living, to be grateful to be here anyway. And the wild geese that flew over the Susquehanna always returning in spring, no matter what.

  Chapter 16

  Father Allen

  Denver was lying in her bed waiting for Josh, hoping he would come, surrounded by her maps and photographs mounted on the walls. A small fan in the corner of the room was blowing on her making her cold. She waited so long, and he hadn’t come. She began to sink inside. Didn’t he know how important it was to her that he be there? She needed to see his face, to speak to him, to tell him the stories she knew, to listen to his. She heard his voice, muffled and strange, speak a word that didn’t sound like her name. He touched her arm, and she was so relieved to know he was finally there . . .

  “Miss,” his voice said. Denver opened her eyes to see a misty, pastel pink, blue world, cool and sharp with distinct lines making waves and sand ruffles as a seagull stood at her feet on guard. “Miss,” the voice said again. A man wearing a priest’s collar was kneeling beside her, looking down at her with a soft smile.

  “Yes?” Denver said startled.

  “What is your name?” he asked, unafraid.

  “Denver Oakley.”

  “Did you come to see the sunrise, Denver Oakley?”

  “No,” she said honestly looking over at the horizon line trying to get her bearings.

  “Where do you live?”

  “I don’t live anywhere at the moment,” Denver said awkwardly.

  “Are you homeless?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Well, perhaps I can help you with that.” His voice was calm and soothing as he stood up and held out his hand for her to grab.

  “How?” She stood up coming to realize herself and the dream she was having.

  “There is a wildlife sanctuary just down the beach a little way. Why don’t you come with me and get some breakfast?”

  “They serve breakfast at a wildlife sanctuary?”

  The priest laughed. “Sort of,” he replied, “and it’s always free.”

  She was suspicious of him, even though he was a priest, but her hunger got the best of her, and she agreed. He picked up her bags so that she only carried the towel that was weighted down by the sand, and they both walked down the beach. He was very tall and thin, and the first priest she had ever met who didn’t have gray hair. He looked like he was in his mid-thirties maybe. He walked through the sand effortlessly and turned and gazed out to sea where a shred of sunlight was just making its way over the pale blue water.

  Father Allen glanced over at Denver several times. She had the look of tragedy. He had seen it many times as a priest, but rarely did he witness it this acute in someone so young. If it weren’t for the slight glow on her cheeks, perhaps from the morning sun, he might have thought she was anemic, but somehow he knew that her deep suffering came from a place within her heart and not her body. She had streaks on her cheeks from crying the night before, and to prevent her from feeling any embarrassment, he turned his eyes toward the surf as she tried to wipe them away.

  “Where are you from?” He asked softly.

  “Pennsylvania,” Denver said still in disbelief that she had slept the whole night on the beach.

  “Really? Pennsylvania? Why, we have something in common then. I grew up in Pennsylvania, in a small town near Gettysburg. I still miss the green hills and the golden trees in October.”

  “Do you go back to visit?” Denver asked.

  “Perhaps I will . . . sometime . . . soon. Do you have family in Pennsylvania?”

  “No, I don’t,” she said quietly.

  “You must have some history you can tell me about.”

  “I studied Environmental Science at Branton University.”

  “Well,” he said smiling, “You will probably feel quite comfortable here.” They approached the front door of a simple yet sizable building. “Welcome to Isabel Beach Coastal Wildlife Sanctuary and Education Center.” They walked into the building and entered a large room filled with posters, photographs, displays, tables that held neatly lined up pamphlets, and glass cases, all of which were designed to educate the public about North Carolina’s coastal regions and wildlife, particularly its birds. A woman who looked like she was in her fifties came from another room in the back to greet Denver and the priest.

  “Well, hello,” the woman said.

  “Iris, this is Denver. I found her this morning sleeping on the beach.”

  “My goodness! Father Allen usually brings me injured birds, not healthy and lovely young women, bless his heart,” Iris said laughing at herself. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, really, I must have been exhausted last night when I fell asleep. I didn’t intend to spend the night on the beach.”

  “Well, there’s a little kitchenette in the back, and I’m fixin’ some pancakes. Would you like some breakfast?” Iris led Denver and Father Allen toward the back room.

  “That would be great,” Denver said. “If it is no trouble.”

  “Oh Lord no, it’s no trouble at all. Would you like strawberry, blueberry, or plain?”

  “Strawberry is fine,” Denver said.

  “Strawberry is Father Allen’s favorite as well. So, where are you from, Denver? Are you passing through or fixin’ to stay a while?”

  “I’m planning to stay for a while. I need to find an apartment. I was hoping to start looking today.”

  “There’s an apartment building across the street here and down a few blocks, on the same block as Father Allen’s parish. Mrs. Denkins owns it. Oh, wouldn’t it be great if you got an apartment so close to the beach? Does Mrs. Denkins have any open apartments right now Father Allen?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s a very short walk if you’d like to inquire after breakfast,” said Father Allen.

  “There’s also a hotel down the beach about six blocks or so if you need a temporary stay,” Iris said. “Now where was that you said you were from?”

  “I didn’t say where I was from,” Denver said watching Iris flawlessly flip the pancakes that were a perfect golden brown.

  “Oh, well you don’t have to tell us, honey. Your business is your business.”

  “Denver studied Environmental Science in Pennsylvania,” Father Allen told Iris.

  “Really? How about that! Father Allen studied Marine Biology at UNC Wilmington before he went into the seminary. Can you imagine, an environmentalist priest! But there he is, in the flesh.”

  At that moment, a petite, gray cat rubbed her head and arched back against Denver’s leg and began to purr. “My, aren’t you friendly,” Denver said as she put her hand down for the cat’s dark gray nose to sniff. The cat jumped up into her lap and looked at Denver with her large, sage green eyes.

  “Get down from there bumblebee,” Iris said.

  “Oh no, it’s okay. I love cats. You named your cat bumblebee?”

  “No, her name is Isabel, but I call her every name you can think of . . . tinkerbell, butternut squash, purrface, kitkat, turtle, doodlebug . . . the possibilities are endless. Somehow she still knows her name and is not confused.”

  Denver laughed and said, “She is so pretty!”

  “She is a friendly cat, but she has her favorites. It looks like you are one of them. She likes Father Allen too.”

  After breakfast, Denver followed Father Allen’s directions to the apartment building owned by Mrs. Denkins. She walked passed his parish and a few clothing
shops before she arrived at the office door. Mrs. Denkins had one apartment open, but it wasn’t ready yet. It needed a fresh coat of paint, a carpet shampoo, and a good cleaning. “The best I can do is have it ready in two days, if that is okay with you?” Mrs. Denkins said. Denver was ecstatic. She wrote out the check for the security deposit and walked back down the beach in search of the hotel Iris mentioned.

  Being that it was on the beach, the hotel room was expensive, but she booked a room for two nights and felt very proud of herself for accomplishing so much on her first full day in what was looking like her new home, at least temporarily. Her lease was for only three months, just in case she wanted to go somewhere else for a while. Maybe she would choose a nomadic life. But for now, the town of Isabel Beach suited her just fine, and she wished she could thank the taxi driver for dropping her off in a place that could only seem like paradise after Adena’s world of coal and fire.

  When she entered her hotel room, she found a small room with a double bed, a dresser with a television on top, and a desk in the corner by a window that overlooked the ocean where birds hovered back and forth across the horizon. Her room was on the fourth floor so she had a magnificent view. She took some time to get acquainted with the room, while she sat on the edge of the bed not knowing what to think.

  After a while, she walked out onto the small deck and saw Father Allen sitting on the beach with his head slightly bowed in prayer. He was engrossed in his own world with only his words and God in focus. She resisted the feeling in her chest that he was the most handsome priest she had ever seen. They may have come from the same state, but there was nothing about him that was familiar to her. She squinted her eyes in order to see him more clearly. She had studied him since the first moment she saw him . . . his hair, very dark, almost black and its gentle wave back over his ears, his stride, his voice, his smile, yet there on the beach, he looked enveloped in sadness, as if there was some problem that prayer just couldn’t fix. As she watched him, it dawned on her that she had no idea what she was going to do with her life, in this new place.