“Do you think it would be okay with the people living there if I asked to go inside?” I asked Ben.
“There just aren’t any boundaries with you, are there?”
“Apparently not,” I replied as I exited the Audi, already on my way to the front steps of the house. Ben quickly got out of the car and followed close behind.
I quietly knocked, almost afraid someone would answer and throw me immediately off the porch. An older woman, perhaps in her 70s, opened the heavy wooden door.
“Um, hi, ma’am,” I said. “This may sound a bit odd, but I used to live here and I was wondering if I could come in and just look around to ... you know ... reminisce?” I wasn’t lying. I really did live there at one time.
“What’d you say, dear?” the old woman asked.
“She wants to know if she can come in and look around. We used to live here,” said Ben as he stepped in front of me speaking quite loudly. I found it peculiar that he said, ‘We used to live here.’ This told me that Ben was as far into this as I was.
“Sure, young man. Just don’t touch the teacups in the dining room. They’re very delicate and were given to me from a dear friend of mine who passed just last year,” the woman replied, opening the door widely to invite us in.
“Thank you. We really appreciate your hospitality,” I replied, stepping directly into my past.
“Ben, this is amazing. Everything looks just like it does in my dreams.” I grabbed his hand and we walked further inside the house.
My right hand glided along the ornate wallpaper in the foyer to the entranceway of the living room. The furniture was different, but the chandelier in the middle of the ceiling was exactly as I had remembered. The trim above the doors and around the windows was as grand as in my dreams. I felt a sense of comfort come over me because in a way, I’d come home.
When we entered the dining room from the kitchen, I saw the teacups that the owner had asked us not to touch. They were displayed, under subtle light, in the curio cabinet towards the left side of the room. As I got closer, I could tell I was about to transport myself to 1878.
* * *
I, as Caroline, stood in the very same spot I left as Danielle.
“Caroline, my dear, why are you standing in the middle of the dining room? Come and relax with me outside for a while,” said Robert.
I realized, after focusing on the teacups for a moment, that the very same cups in the present were in the same place in the past.
“I will be out in a minute, Robert,” I replied, still facing the teacups.
I carefully opened the cabinet and pulled out a delicately painted lavender and white cup. Inside the cup, just above the lip, a Lily of the Valley was precisely placed. There were about 20 teacups spaced perfectly apart on each of the shelves.
“I’ll have another one for you when I return from New York next month,” said Rebecca as she made her way over to me and pulled another cup from the cabinet.
“You do not need to bring me one from each of your travels, sister,” I replied.
“Of course I do. You love them and I will continue to bring you one from every end of this earth for as long as I live.”
“What takes you to New York this time?” I asked.
“The usual. I simply need to fulfill my desire to see the world.”
“I admire you,” I said. “You have no reservations about picking up and leaving for whatever city suits your fancy.”
“You could do the same, you know.”
“I simply couldn’t. I have Robert and the baby.”
“Well, when that baby arrives, Auntie Rebecca will show it the tops of the Egyptian pyramids; the grand buildings of New York city; and the oceans of the Antarctic.” She said this as she spun around in excitement, circling the dining room table.
“What would I do without you in my life?” I asked as I hugged Rebecca.
* * *
The transformation back to 1878 was so quick that I returned just seconds later to present-day Cape May. Ben didn’t even realize I had left.
“Ben ... Ben!” He wasn’t paying attention to me because he was focused on the woodwork in the house. “I think these teacups belonged to the Marcum family.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I just had a mini-flashback. Remember when the old woman said that these teacups were her friend’s?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I just saw these same cups in this same spot in the flashback I just had. They were right here. Displayed just like this, only there are more now than there were. Oh, this is messing with my head. I wonder if this woman knows who Caroline was?”
“I don’t know, but it can’t hurt to ask. How did I not notice that you were gone? I mean, not gone really, just transporting yourself again.”
“It doesn’t matter. Apparently this is all happening for a reason. It’s as though my mind is trying to reveal the truth to me and this is the only way to understand. It’s like when psychics tell you that you have to open yourself up to the possibility that maybe there is more to this world than we know. That you can only see ghosts if you allow yourself to be receptive to the idea of them. I feel like I’m allowing myself to see into a past I never knew existed. As though it’s something I’m meant to see when other people can’t.”
“It’s all freaking me out a bit,” said Ben, with a particular emphasis on “freaking.” “With that being said, it’s intriguing as well and I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
“See, now you’re starting to understand how I feel.”
As we wandered through the large house, I carefully inspected each piece of furniture to see if anything else evoked a past memory of Caroline’s. Nothing sparked a flashback, but I studied each room like an artist would study his subject; taking in each and every detail in the room, down to the color of the walls and the dust motes that twinkled in the sun streaming through the windows. Adding snapshots of the furniture and the way the light entered each room.
We finished our tour of the house and found the old woman sitting in a rocking chair in the living room.
“Excuse me. You said your friend had given you those teacups in the dining room?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s right,” the old lady replied. “Her family used to live here.”
“Could you tell me her name?”
“Michelle Donaldson. Why do you ask, dear?”
“Oh, no reason. But, could her mother have been related to the Marcum family?”
“Now how would you know that? Her maiden name was Marcum.”
I took a breath. “Thank you for your time. Enjoy your day.”
Chapter 22
“Did you hear that, Ben?” I asked as we exited the Victorian home.
“I did. I’m not sure what to say.”
My curiosity was getting the best of me and I felt the need to close the gaps of knowledge in the Marcum family tree, so we got into the Audi and moved on to the library to see if we could find any more information.
The library was very modern compared to many of the historical buildings in this beach town. Its bright blue roof and stark white façade stood out amongst the native trees and plants growing around it. We sat down at a group of tables in the center of the main level and began searching through the archives. Ben got up almost immediately and said he wanted to check out some old books. I think the thought of finding out more about my dreams was overwhelming him and he just needed a break. I found him minutes later looking through the oldest books the library had. He was in his element and I had to go find mine, so I left him alone.
I found records of births, deaths, and marriages from 1878 and brought the giant reference book to a small table towards the back of the room, away from everyone quietly reading. I quickly found the announcement Ben had shown me about the marriage between Robert and Caroline. The passage below the wedding photo described the weather that day and the townspeople who attended. Then I found the announcement of the baby’s birth - G
race Ann Marcum, born July 1, 1879. That confirmed the time of year in the photo I had found earlier, since the baby Caroline held couldn’t have been more than two months old.
I slowly read about the history of the town, some of its early inhabitants and, of course, the fire. It named every building and home that was erased off the map that day and had scanned copies of every newspaper article that came out within the week after the fire occurred. There was a section towards the back with deaths listed line-by-line starting from the early 1700s. I was very hesitant to read any of it, but I couldn’t help myself. My curiosity took over when I finally got to the 1870s. There, in black and white, Robert F. Marcum, deceased on October 29, 1880.
I slammed the book closed and shot up from my seat, pushing the awful thing away from me as if it was contaminated.
“He’s DEAD?” I asked myself out loud. In doing so, I received an unwelcome audience. “OH MY GOD!”
I ran to get Ben to tell him we had to leave immediately. I couldn’t stay in that building for one more second. I felt the walls closing in on me and became very claustrophobic. When I stepped outside, I threw up in a bush next to the entranceway while Ben held me up.
“What happened in there?”
“Robert’s dead.”
“Of course he’s dead, he lived in 1878. He can’t live now.”
“No, I know that. I mean, he died in 1880 and my dreams take place in 1878. Oh my God. I think I’m gonna be sick again.” It was as if I had just learned of a friend’s death. I had come to know this person and love this man in my dreams. I wasn’t prepared to see his death certificate in print. I knew he died. I wasn’t an idiot, but that meant that Caroline/I only had just over a year to spend with him after the birth of Grace. It was too much to bear. I needed to get back to the bed and breakfast and sit on the beach and not think about anything for the rest of the day - and it was only noon.
Robert and Caroline were real. Rebecca, John, Mrs. Bigsley, and Grace all existed and these dreams I was having were more than just dreams. What was happening to me? And how had I come to be in the car of a present-day man who bore an uncanny resemblance to the man from the 1800s in a town I’d never been in until now? I, as Caroline, loved him then; and now, as Danielle, I loved him again.
Ben helped me to the car and I immediately lowered the back of my seat into a deep, reclined position so I could calm down.
“Dani, this is all too much to take. You’re driving yourself crazy trying to figure all of this out and it’s literally making you sick.”
“I know, but I need to come to a conclusion as to why this is all happening. It’s great that I can do this. I mean, who can? I don’t know of anyone who can. Do you? Nope. You don’t. So, why me? What am I supposed to do with this wealth of knowledge?” I was delirious. It had finally happened. I had cracked. Since the very first dream when I fell in the lake, I thought I had been pretty calm about everything. I didn’t freak out too much, I just really wanted to find out what it all meant. And now that I knew everything was real and actually happened, I couldn’t bear it. “Maybe I should have just left well enough alone and not made the trip to Cape May. I would have been happier in an ignorant state of confusion.”
“Okay. Let’s take a deep breath for a moment. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t love you. Not many guys would stay with a crazy person. Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy, you know,” Ben said through laughter.
With that, a smile came across my face for the first time all day. I had to hand it to him. Even through bouts of delusion, Ben could make me laugh at myself. He had a way of making a serious situation a bit lighter.
“Let’s go back to the room and take it easy for the rest of the day. How about we get our bathing suits on and go to the beach for a while? Look, there’s a little mini-mart up ahead. I’ll run in and grab some sandwiches and waters for a picnic on the beach,” said Ben.
“Yeah, that sounds perfect,” I replied with relief.
As Ben went inside the little corner store I tried to think of something else other than the fact that now I had a definitive date when Robert died. I never thought about the people I met in my dreams as actually dying and experiencing their death in real life. Up until the visit to the library, I had looked at the dreams as an alternate reality and there was still a small part of me that believed it was all just that - a dream - but it couldn’t be, not with the evidence we had just found. As I lay back, I looked around outside and took in the scenery. Cape May felt so familiar in parts, but it was mostly unrecognizable to me except for the homes they called “painted ladies”.
I picked up all of the pictures and documents we had copied at the library from the floor mat below my feet and flipped through them again until I found of a large hotel of some sort. I got a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach when I looked at it. Frowning, I studied it again.
It was massive, with hundreds of windows. It almost looked like someone took an old steamboat, chopped off the bottom part, and stuck it on land. Wooden arches framed every window and two giant steeples peaked from the roof. I could faintly make out a sign at the entrance and I thought it said, “Congress Hall.” Maybe it wasn’t a hotel, but a political meeting place back in the early 1900s. I wondered if it was still standing, and how I’d feel being inside if just looking at the picture sent chills through my body.
When we finally got back to the room, I wasn’t in the mood to be sexy. I just wanted to throw on my bathing suit and go, but Ben had other ideas. He watched me get changed in the bathroom through a small sliver of an opening between the wall and door. The news of Robert’s death had sent me into a tailspin and I quickly fell into a disparaging mood.
“Are you okay in there?” Ben asked. “I could take your mind off of everything very easily.”
“I’m sorry. It’s too much, Ben. It’s all too much.” I fell to the floor and he quickly came to my side, wrapping me in his arms. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why this is happening, but it is and I can’t take it anymore.” I collapsed onto him in a pitiful heap of sorrow.
After a few moments he broke the silence. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I wish I could help you. It’s just that sometimes it’s hard to deal with all of this. Imagine being me.”
In between shaky, stuttered breaths I responded. “I know. Let’s just get out of here.”
Ben stood and extended a hand to help me up. We packed up the sandwiches Ben bought in a small cooler with the two water bottles and headed to the beach for the rest of the day.
The sand beneath our feet was hot, so hot we had to put our flip-flops back on to walk to an open space where we could put down our towels and settle into the crowd. Lifeguards sat in high pastel-colored chairs on towers spaced a quarter-mile apart. It was always a regret of mine that I never spent a summer at the beach with my friends to earn some money in between my years at Gainesville. I knew I’d never get the chance to spend my days carefree on the beach for an entire three months now that life was taking me in a different direction.
“Last one to the water buys the beer tonight,” said Ben, already in the lead.
“Damn it,” I whispered to myself as I bounced to my feet and ran to catch up with him while disentangling myself from my cover-up.
And then, we were in water. Now I was ready to be sexy.
“Do you realize that we have our best moments when we’re submerged in liquid?” I asked Ben as I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck.
“It must be our thing. I kinda like you wet,” he said as he kissed my face, then my lips. The world seemed to stop when Ben wrapped his arms around me.
A strange feeling suddenly came over me, and the people on the beach began to disappear. The sounds of the waves faded into silence, and before I could even begin to blink, the present dissolved. It was as if I was looking at a freshly-painted landscape that had gotten caught in the rain. The details blurred and slowly dripped away. I desperately tried to hold onto th
e present, but it disintegrated. The modern-day coastline, peppered with houses, was now a large beach with only a few buildings scattered upon it. In the distance, I could see Congress Hall, the building Rebecca and John stood in front of in the picture. I had flashed back to 1879.
* * *
“Caroline, you look pale, my darling.” I looked up, and there stood Robert where Ben once held me. When I looked down at the ocean, I saw my humongous belly with our baby inside. Time had advanced and I must have been seven or eight months along now.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You are the most beautiful woman in the world to me,” said Robert.
“Can we go back to the beach and sit for a while?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said as he led me out of the water. “Is there something you need me to do, Caroline?”
“No, my dear. I’m just tired. This baby is taking the energy out of me and I have to lie down for a while.”
We got back to our blanket and umbrella and Robert pulled me close to him so I could rest. Cape May literally took the life out of me and I became engulfed in the past. So much so that the control I had before was completely lost. Now it felt as though Caroline didn’t really exist anymore as her own person. She was me.
Pain pierced my back at that moment and I let out a scream. Something was wrong.
“Caroline, we have to get you to the doctor,” said Robert as he tried to bring me to my feet.
“No, I can’t move. You have to go find the doctor and bring him here. This baby is coming right now. AHHHHHHHH!” The pain was so intense I thought I might pass out. With each flashback, I experienced something new and the feeling of hurt wasn’t something I could relate to in my dreams until now. “Oh Lord God, I can’t take this. This isn’t right. Robert, you have to go NOW. You have to go and get help, please!”
As I Close My Eyes Page 14