Widow's Tale

by Miller, Maureen A.

  "Serena, we’re not going to argue over this." He flicked off the flashlight to conserve it for a time when he would really need it. For now the moon was sufficient enough to guide him down the treacherous course. A cloudbank coming in from the east warned him that he had to move fast though.

  "Look," he said. "The path is pretty clear most of the way, and by the time it turns dicey I should be able to get a good glimpse of what’s down there. It’s probably garbage from a passing ship."

  Brett thrust the long end of the flashlight into the back pocket of his jeans so that his hands would be free for negotiation.

  "No, I won’t let you go." Serena yanked on his arms so that he was forced to face her.

  "You don’t know what it’s like," she pleaded. "A wave can erupt from out of nowhere. A path that looks so innocent, so simple to read, can get wiped out with one quick surge of water. It could draw you out and I’d never be able to reach you." Her fingers bit into his arms. "Brett please, I don’t want anything to happen to you."

  Wind lashed at their faces, stinging their eyes. Brett thought this might account for the tears in Serena’s. He reached for her collar and gently drew her closer, into his arms.

  Into his heart.

  For an instant, he shared Serena’s warmth in an embrace that did little to console her.

  "No," she read into the finality of the gesture. "Just let it be. It’s probably some old rag wrapped around the rocks—it’s not worth it."

  Convinced otherwise in the brief glimpse he had, Brett grazed her cheek with the back of his knuckles.

  "I’ll be right back," he smiled gently. "And then on the walk home you can go into great detail why you don’t want to see anything happen to me."

  The taunt did little to goad her. Dread overwhelmed Serena as she watched Brett begin his descent. It was madness she thought, madness to negotiate that trail in the dead of night, under a moon that made wraithlike appearances. Irrationally, she believed that yet another ghost would besiege her if Brett ever reached the bottom. Shouting to him, her words lashed back in her face, a sarcastic slap from the Atlantic’s blustery hand.

  With Brett’s tall frame already engulfed in the impenetrable shadows of the sea cliff, Serena strained to hear whether he slipped or called out. Frothing waves ebbed in a constant stream, while the piercing scream of the wind droned in her ear until she thought she would go mad. In the distance, the solemn bell of a buoy clanged its alert that the seas were choppy.

  She clutched her arms about her and prayed.

  Listlessly pacing the overhang, unable to stand by any longer, she finally hoisted down the erratic trail carved out by the elements.

  Nature’s spiral staircase.

  Gloved hands grasped ineffectively at the bedrock as Serena scaled downhill, cringing with each furious wave that broke below to shower her in an arctic mist. Hugging the cliffside, repeating Brett’s name in a mantra that went unheard, she continued until the path became nothing more than a checkerboard of gleaming rocks. She hurdled onto the nearest ledge, praying that the slick surface would support her. With a hand held over her eyes to deter the spray, she assessed the immediate area.

  Unaided by the moon, she was trapped in the shadow of the headlands and balanced only by a well-placed foothold. She screamed out Brett’s name.

  The hiss of the tide answered her.

  Moonlight freed from the clouds gravitated towards the coast, illuminating the crags on which she now clung. Risking another leap, Serena landed on the sheared end of a rock, her leg slipping and plunging into the frigid water. She shrieked.

  "Serena!"

  Scrambling onto her knees, her sodden gloves encased useless fingers as she tried to regain stability. Her head snapped up, swearing she heard her name on the wind. Madly, she thought it was Alan finally coming to claim her and draw her out to sea.

  She swallowed a sob and fought against the obsession. Hoisting herself upright, she focused through the mist. There he was, coming towards her, a soaked creature that looked as miserable as she felt. She struggled to keep the weakness out of her knees at the sight of Brett.

  "Serena."

  She saw his mouth move rather than hear the word, but not until he negotiated the last rock that separated them did she hear her name and reached for him. Brett enveloped her in his arms, using his back as a shield against the next spray of an errant wave. He dipped his face against her ear and admonished with pain in his hoarse voice.

  "Of all the stupid things to do, woman. Why on earth did you follow me?"

  "You—you—" Her teeth were chattering so much it was hard to speak.

  Brett pointed back up towards the lighthouse.

  Her head swayed in denial. "Did—did you find it?"

  It was dark again, but not enough to conceal the desolate steel of Brett’s eyes. "Just get back up there before the tide gets any higher."

  Wrenching out of his embrace, dread possessed her. Something in Brett’s eyes−something in the tightness around his mouth and the gruffness of his voice, had her surging past him, grappling for a foothold on the next rock.

  "Serena, no!"

  There, trapped between the jagged channels was a strip of scarlet fabric, bobbing erratically in the surf. It was belligerent in its struggle to reach shore. She peered up and waited for the moon to emerge from a bank of clouds. Blindly, she inched forward until nature threw on the lights and the bright globe burst free.

  Serena’s scream nearly doubled Brett over in pain. He reached her a second too late and spun her about, collapsing her against his chest, containing her despite the fists that pummeled his body.

  "Let me go, dammit." Her muffled voice sounded from inside his jacket. "I’ve got to see him. Brett I have to see—I have to know—"

  This was something he could not protect her from. Brett relaxed his grip and felt her tear away.

  Serena dropped down into a half crouch, one palm flat against the freezing granite to keep her balance, the other thrown across her mouth, trying to keep from being sick. Several feet away, a body bobbed up and down, ensnared by a shackle of serrated rocks, battered by the oncoming waves. The surf’s frothy maelstrom roared into the alcove, momentarily shrouding the crimson jacket.

  When the tide finally retreated, she was left to stare into the lifeless eyes of her husband.

  Instinctively, she recoiled, the moon clipping those dead black eyes, animating them for one horrifying moment as she expected Alan to rear up from the ocean and draw her in. Instead, the red vinyl jacket billowed about the twitching corpse still snagged on a barbed rock.

  The moon once again vanished behind a fog dense enough to matt the sky black, leaving her to gaze into darkness. Listening to the ebbing surf and the haunting buoy, knowing that Alan was only a hand stroke away, but unable to see him, she wondered frantically if it had all been a cruel hallucination.

  Like a strobe light, the moon erupted from the clouds to expose his body again. Serena gasped at the lifeless eyes and dark hair matted against pale skin, like blades of seaweed. Several emotions vied for dominance, numbing her against the frigid water as she stared at Alan. Even in death she still feared the hateful glare in his eyes.

  A persistent wave surged through the maze of crags to collapse into his corpse, rocking it on its side so that an arm lobbed to the surface, dead fingers extending towards her.

  She choked on a scream.

  "Enough." Brett called in a hoarse voice.

  He reached for Serena’s shoulders to hoist her away from the sight. "We’ve got to get back and call the police."

  Noting the vacuous gaze with a lump of dread, he cupped her chin. "Serena, you’re going to freeze to death out here."

  Another frothy surge crashed atop the broad rock, swirling about their feet with a hearty tug. "We’ll be lucky if we can even make it back up those cliffs, the tide is coming in."

  "But—but—" she pointed.

  Brett was certain that Alan would forever haunt her now.
<
br />   "The body hasn’t moved in almost a month." He needed to refer to it as an object because if he stopped to acknowledge that the bloated corpse belonged to his brother, he would risk his own safety to haul up the remains. Right now it was more important to worry about the living.

  "Serena, look at me. No, look at me. We have to get out of here." Shaking her, he yelled above the din of the Atlantic. "Do you want to drown out here with him, is that it?"

  Serena blinked against the saltwater clawing at her eyes. No, her mind cried in anger, but not loud enough to pass her trembling lips. She felt Brett’s grip on her arms, stable, alive, and again she screamed no. He seemed not to hear as his gaze grew increasingly frantic.

  Brett. Suddenly she was obsessed with the need to protect him, to keep him alive at all costs.

  No more ghosts.

  Hands that had refused to cooperate now rose to clasp Brett’s forearms. She would have shoved him back up the path were it not for the icy tendril of water that ensnared her ankle. Manacles from the deep wrapped around her boots, as the suction of the tide yanked her from his grasp. She screamed in terror, positive it was Alan drawing her back in.

  Brett lunged forward to catch Serena’s hand just as it slipped off the rim of the rock and submerged beneath the surf. With only her arm visible, he held on and climbed up her jacket until she surfaced with a wheeze. She struggled against the current, her free hand uselessly scrambling to grip the slick surface, but he connected with her fingers, and with one strong lurch, plucked her from the sea.

  Wasting no time, he wrapped his arm around Serena, and urged her up the cliff, sensing the dogged vines of water that sought to haul them back to hell.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Racked with chills, Serena stumbled into the loft. She could not speak. Her jaw was locked. Still functional, her eyes skewed frantically until she located Brett behind her, his hands red and shaking. He quickly shrugged out of his suede jacket and reached to haul off the sodden mass of down that trapped cold seawater around her like an icy shroud. Trembling in place, her feet felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each, making it impossible to inch closer to the fire that was a haunting afterthought of glowing embers.

  "Y-you got to g-get out of those clothes." Brett’s hands seemed uncooperative as he tried to draw the sweatshirt up her arms, which gradually lifted at his prompting. "The boots—you have to take off the boots."

  Serena stared down at the soaked hiking boots as if they were a million miles away. Distantly, she acknowledged that if she did not remove them, the damage could become irreparable. She made a valiant effort to bend over and reach the laces. Realizing that her gloves were still on, accounting for the numbness in her fingers, she tried to peel them off and cried out in frustration when her hands would not cooperate.

  Brett managed to strip to the waist, lugging off his own shoes, stoking the fire so that he could return to her.

  "Okay. It’s okay." He soothed as he stripped the sodden material from her white hands, and then stooped to attack the stiff laces.

  Numbly, she obeyed as Brett asked her to lift one leg, then the other. Equally as dazed, she responded mechanically when he hoisted the turtleneck over her head. Lastly, she stepped out of drenched jeans after he yanked them down to her ankles.

  Brett moved fast, reaching for the quilt draped across the loveseat, wrapping it around her, moving her closer to the fire.

  Uneasy, he watched Serena, noticing that her hands still shook. Her cheeks, however, had begun to develop a healthy blush—a much welcome change from the ashen shade of hypothermia.

  Shedding his jeans, he disappeared into the guest room to yank the spread off his bed. He draped it across his shoulders and returned to draw her down onto the loveseat where he wrapped them both beneath the queen-sized quilt. He pulled the knit cap off her head and rubbed at her hair with the edge of the spread, and then brusquely tried to dry his own.

  Everything smelled of the ocean.

  Serena burrowed closer, and he touched her tangled hair, drawing in the scent of the sea that could have so easily claimed her. Trying to dispel that morbid thought, he waited until her trembles subsided and her cold flesh began to warm against his.

  With Serena’s head tucked beneath his chin, her soft breath tickling his throat, he finally opened himself up to the memory of his brother’s lifeless face.

  Their youth in Boston passed by seemingly straightforward, yet it was not without hostility. Many of the ruthless experiences Brett managed to withhold from his parents. Alan seemed to be their wonder child, born late in life to a couple in their late forties who hadn’t expected this belated marvel. That should have been Brett’s first warning, but he paid it no heed.

  As they grew older, it seemed the more Brett concealed from his parents to protect Alan, the more Alan tried to get away with. Only when he reached his teenage years did Brett begin to recognize that his younger sibling bore true signs of malice.

  Now sitting in this secure loft, holding his brother’s widow in his arms, Brett contemplated his emotions. There was grief, as there should be when a family member is taken. There was also anger. Anger at Alan, and anger at all the things Brett felt he should have handled differently.

  And lastly, there was hope. Hope that Alan might have finally found peace.

  "Oh God," Serena sobbed.

  Brett tensed, holding her. Her body grew restless in his arms.

  "Oh, oh, oh," She rocked against the grief.

  "I’m sorry baby," he whispered. "I’m so sorry. I wish you didn’t have to see that."

  Closing his eyes, feeling Serena’s pain−immersed in his own, he tried not to think of what his brother’s last moments on earth were like. To have fallen into such a quandary that someone would murder him for it, was initially incomprehensible. But that was grief doing the talking. There was still no concrete proof of murder. Although, if he were to recite all that he had already learned about his brother’s time in Victory Cove, he knew that Alan was capable of inciting such rage.

  "H-he’s still down there. We just left him there."

  "I know," Brett touched her hair. "But I didn’t want to sacrifice you just to bring his body up here." In a husky voice, he added, "We’ll call the police first thing in the morning."

  Serena lifted her head and stared into the fire. He watched her study the twitching flames—flames that cast spasmodic shadows—writhing figures on the wall which reminded him of hell.

  "Brett," she whispered. "Can the cold make you so numb you don’t feel anything emotionally?"

  He explored the shadows on her face. "Yes, yes it can."

  "I should be feeling something more," she choked. "I—I was married to him for ten years. Am I so cold that I can’t feel anything for Alan?"

  Serena shook her head before he could respond. "There’s pain—oh God, the pain, but I don’t think it’s from seeing him dead, I think it—" she hesitated, "it’s so much more."

  Grappling to find the words, she tried to pull free from his hold. His eyes remained closed, but his embrace was steadfast.

  He spoke solemnly. "I want you to do something for me, Serena."

  In his arms, he felt her go still. Her lips parted and dark green eyes rounded in horror. "Brett, oh I’m so sorry, he was your brother, oh baby, I’m so sorry."

  For a second, he almost smiled at the endearment. But he persisted. "Serena,"

  No, don’t smell her, he thought, don’t feel her warmth seeping into your cold body. Just ask her.

  "Tell me what happened out on the boat that day—that day you lost—" Okay, he couldn’t finish the sentence, but he sensed from her stiffness that she understood.

  For a time, Serena sat in silence, staring blindly at the fire, and he presumed that she would not respond.

  "I was so happy about the baby when I found out I was pregnant," she hesitated, "but I guess, in retrospect, it was for all the wrong reasons."

  It was painful. Painful to dig up the memories. But this
was Brett, Serena thought. The man who had been there for her. The man who deserved answers. The man she was falling in love with.

  "I guess I was happy because for once I wasn’t going to be alone," she said. "Yeah, I duped myself into believing that this would somehow mend a relationship that was un-healable."

  The mantle over the fire was an afterthought, the dark of night, absent. That left only the haunting memory of bright sunshine and optimism on that fateful day.

  "—but the bottom line was that I wouldn’t feel deserted. I’d have someone with me, someone to love me. Needless to say Alan was not pleased with the news—" She breathed in, because encapsulating that statement cost her dearly.

  In dire tones she proceeded to recite the events leading up to this moment, until a gloomy silence descended upon her snug loft.

  It was a night that Brett would carry with him forever. A night he discovered his brother’s body. A night he grieved his loss. A night he confirmed the disease that possessed his sibling’s mind. And a night that he would bring his feelings for Serena to a higher level, a level that might cause them both pain.

  And when it was over, and when dawn approached to envelop the living room in an unearthly radiance, he bent to kiss the soft crown of Serena’s hair. He left her sleeping prone on the couch and made phone calls that were both distressing and necessary.

  "Brett!"

  The plaintive call reached his ear. In haste, he spun the faucets and sprang out of the stall. Swathing a towel around his hips, he hoisted the door open and surged into the hallway.

  "Are you okay?" His eyes sliced the living room in search of danger.

  Serena glanced up at him, wide-eyed from the heap of blankets she had furrowed into. Only her face and the tips of her fingers were visible from inside the fluffy mass. Green eyes roamed the length of his body, lingering on his chest, which he felt heave as her glance dipped down to the rim of the towel.