Out of the darkness, twelve men stepped in front of him. They were dressed in old sailor uniforms, just like Henry, and the scent of death lingered on them. He turned back toward the boat but saw that the men had formed a tight semicircle around him.
One of the men, the leader of the group, walked forward. He was a tall, thickly set man with a bruised face and dark, curly hair. There was not a shred of kindness or mercy lurking in his eyes as he said, in a heavy Irish brogue, “We’ve been waiting for thee, Henry. ’Tis not polite to keep company waiting.”
“What do you want, O’Reilly?” Henry asked, looking the Irishman straight in the eye. He sensed the men tightly closing in around him, and he watched them all out of the corner of his eyes.
“Lad, is that any way to greet thy ol’ captain?” said O’Reilly.
“For a century now, O’Reilly, you have not been my captain, and I no longer take orders from you,” Henry snapped defiantly. He squared his shoulders, prepared to fight if necessary.
O’Reilly smirked. “Still insolent, just as you were on the boat. That stubbornness will be the death of thee, it will.”
“I asked you what you want,” Henry repeated, his voice firm and steady.
“Some might call it—poetic justice,” said O’Reilly. “Thou brought company hither to our nice little island—a lass, in fact. That is forbidden, is it not?”
Henry’s eyes narrowed, and he cast his gaze from one unfriendly face to the next, all of them loyal followers of O’Reilly.
“The boys and myself have been talkin’. We’ve been stuck on this island for over a hundred years now, all because of thy. . . What shall we call it? Indiscretion? The way we see it, thou art indebted to us. Wouldn’t thou agree?”
“I owe nothing to you or anyone else,” Henry growled.
“If my memory serves correctly, we are solely here because of thee, lad,” said O’Reilly, all evidence of his Irish charm melting into a sinister voice.
“Tell me who among you didn’t get yourselves here—some of our lot went into the light. We—this means you too, O’Reilly—have rules and breaking them will mean more than an everlasting existence between the third and fourth plane,” stated Henry.
“Oh, but we’re all sinners, Henry,” O’Reilly said, “and as the good Lord says, we shall repent and offer service or sacrifice. We choose a sacrifice instead. We are all weary of this place, none more so than I. Thou inquired as to what we desire. We wish to move on, and this is where you come in, my boy.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that I’d like to move on, too?” Henry said. “I know the misery of this existence, and trust me when I say I would help all of you if I could. Do you not believe that I regret what happened?”
“Ah, touching, but thy weak apology will not suffice. Thy words do nothing to aid us, but we think there may be—another way.”
“How?”
“I’ve been doing a little research, a bit of an investigation, and I’ve happened upon a clause, a loophole in the curse, if you will.”
“What kind of loophole?”
“He who is on the fourth plane can atone by giving up the thing he loves.’”
Henry frowned, trying to comprehend the meaning behind O’Reilly’s words.
“Use your imagination, boy,” O’Reilly snapped. “What is it thou loves most in the world?”
Henry was silent. If he was unsettled by O’Reilly’s evil grin, he didn’t let on.
“That comely little lassie thou brought here. Thou have been keeping much company with her as of late,” O’Reilly finally blurted out, wearing a maniacal grin on his face.
Alice? So that’s what this is all about. Henry swallowed, trying to control his rage. “Leave her out of this. This is between you and me.”
“Anything that concerns thee, concerns me, Henry, ol’ boy. We’re all in this together.”
“I swear, O’Reilly, if you so much as touch a hair on her head.”
“You’ll what? Kill me?” O’Reilly’s laugh was long, cruel, and hard. “Thou cannot kill one who is already dead. My heart is already stilled, but hers is not.”
“No! Not that,” said Henry, shaking his head. “Alice is innocent in all of this.”
“The bay wants her,” O’Reilly said, “and thou wilt surrender her to it.”
“She is not mine to surrender,” Henry said, trying to control his rage.
“We demand justice, Henry, a life for a life. Thou knoweth the rules.”
“If a life is what you require, take mine in her place.”
O’Reilly’s laugh was maniacal this time, his face darkened and turned uglier. “If I could, I would. Truth be told, nothing would give me greater pleasure, but it works not that way.”
Henry was silent for a moment and bowed his head. His brow furrowed, he looked up. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Have I not been clear? You must sacrifice her life to the bay.”
Despite his usual bravery, Henry began to tremble.
“You have until the next evening tide to surrender her,” O’Reilly said. “If you fail, we will come to do it ourselves.”
Chapter Eighteen: Point Pinos
On Sunday morning, Henry parked his truck a couple of blocks down the street, where we had agreed to meet at noon. Dad and Sophie had already left for church, and I spent the morning doing housework and laundry. I was anxious to see Henry again; the memory of our time in his cabin, the dance, and our kisses were still vivid. When he called, I practically flew out the door.
I jumped into his waiting truck and immediately felt revived, a charge of electricity coursing through my veins. I glanced across at Henry in the driver’s seat, remembering our sweet time together the previous day. I leaned forward to embrace him, but when I did, his body stiffened. “What’s up?” I asked, aware of his anxiety.
“Nothing,” he replied, not looking me in the eye. His brow creased, and for a moment, he appeared to look his true age.
Something bothered him, and I didn’t need to be clairvoyant to sense it. “What’s the matter?” I probed. “Just tell me.”
“I am simply—not comfortable deceiving your father, that’s all,” Henry said. “I was brought up under the rule that children should respect their parents.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’ve been without parents for a very long time.” As soon as I the words left my lips, I regretted them.
“Correct, but their absence only makes me value them all the more, and I try to adhere to the values they taught me,” said Henry, his voice softening. “I wish I had my parents even now.”
I was silent for a moment, missing my own mother. I completely understood his feelings and I felt foolish for saying something so cruel.
Henry started the truck, the rev of the engine breaking up our melancholy.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“A place where we can talk,” he said.
I hoped he would take me back to his lovely cabin near Big Sur, but he turned left. Instead of going up the hill, toward Carmel, he turned right, heading down the coast, toward Asilomar. It was low tide, and the water slowly lapped up over the rock pools, which shone like jagged black diamonds on the beach.
We passed a lush green golf course that stretched all the way to Point Pinos, a rugged headland that jutted out into the bay. Henry swung the car into the parking lot and stopped near some small sand dunes. He gestured for me to jump out, and we walked along the golf course, toward the sea.
“Why are we here?” I asked, full of curiosity.
“We’re heading for that lighthouse over there.” He pointed to the tall building in the far distance.
Point Pinos Lighthouse stood over the rocky point of a headland. It was built in the 19th century as part of a house; its tower stuck up from the top like a very tall chimney. It was in a great location to warn ships of the treacherous, slippery rocks, and I read in a tourist brochure that the lighthouse is the first and last one operating on the West Coa
st.
As we approached it, I craned my neck to look up at the lighthouse. It stood almost one-hundred-feet tall, majestic with white brick reflecting the sun. I had never been there before, though I had glimpsed the building from a distance. I had also seen its light shining like a beacon on some of the dark, stormy nights outside my bedroom window—a strangely comforting sight.
“So, why are we here, exactly?” I asked again, puzzled.
“Follow me,” Henry coaxed. “I want to show you something.”
He opened the black, rusty door to the lighthouse, and we took a quick look around.
“No one’s here?” I asked.
“The keeper is away,” Henry said. “The light operates automatically. It has for a few years now, although it used to be manned.”
The inside of the lighthouse was furnished with solid wooden furniture, an antique clock in the corner, and the bookshelves held volumes about birds. On the walls hung old maps and prints of the bay.
A black, winding staircase led up the tower. I followed Henry up the stairs; there must have been over two-hundred of them leading up to the observation deck at the top of the tower.
As I climbed the steps, I remembered Emily’s words. She’d had a vision of me climbing stairs, almost stumbling in the darkness, though a light shined at the top. She did not see what happened next and that frightened her. An eerie sense of foreboding fell upon me while remembering her strange vision. Still, there was no going back, and I certainly did not want Henry to see my fear or to think I did not trust him, so I continued following him up the tower.
When we emerged on the observation deck, the panoramic view of the bay was breathtaking. To the south—the beaches and cliffs of Carmel; to the north—the Monterey peninsula; and beyond a glimpse of the historic village, Moss Landing.
The deck was about twenty square feet, and a rail ran around the top, protecting visitors from what would be a fatal plummet to the rocks below. I peered over the edge and shuddered. We stood almost a hundred feet above sea level. I had never really suffered from a fear of heights, but the view from the top dizzied me. Down below, waves crashed against the rocky shore in a rhythmic explosion of foamy blue and white.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Henry asked, squinting, mesmerized by the ocean.
I nodded.
“They say this lighthouse is one of the most haunted in all of America,” Henry said, gazing at me strangely. “If you listen carefully, you can hear piano music from the former lighthouse keeper. She died falling down the stairs.” He paused to listen.
I strained my ears, but all I could hear was the sound of the crashing waves far below. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked, looking around nervously. “And why did you bring me here?”
“Because there is something I must do,” replied Henry.
“What is it, Henry?”
Henry’s face became tormented, and he opened his mouth with great pain. Gripping the side of the lighthouse rails, he turned his anguished face toward the sea.
“Ah!” he screamed. “No! I-I cannot do this. I shall not, damn it!” He gripped his hair tightly, white knuckles clenching it as he continued to bellow at the sea.
I stared at him in amazement and confusion as his contorted features took on the face of a madman.
“Henry? Henry! What’s wrong with you?”
“I should never have brought you here. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he said, gripping his head in pain. It looked as though demons tormented him. Clasping his head in the palm of his hands, he sunk to the landing as though very ill all of a sudden.
“Tell me, Henry!” I couldn’t help but run to him. Clearly, he was in torture over something and I knew I could help—would help no matter what. “You must tell me what it is that tortures you so! You would demand I tell you, so I demand you tell me!”
Then, as suddenly as it had come on, his fit seemed to subside.
“Why did you bring me here and why do you now regret it?”
“To kill you, Alice,” he said, the terrible confession tumbling out of him in an almost inaudible tone. “To give you to the bay,” he whispered then looked at me, searching my eyes.
“What!?” This, I did not expect. Henry planned to murder me? Was he going to push me over the railing? Maybe that’s what Emily saw that made her so afraid.
“I have avoided telling you about the shipwreck. There are some facts you must know.”
“I’m listening.” I said, shaking uncontrollably and putting a little distance between us.
“That terrible, fateful night, we—the boat was lost at sea. . . I never told you the whole story, Alice, but now I must.”
“So tell me then!” I blurted out, now more angry than afraid.
“We set sail from San Francisco, on Evening Tide,” Henry began, “We left port with thirteen crew members, including myself. O’Reilly, he was the skipper. a big, brawny guy from Ireland, handy in a fistfight. I met him at a poker match in one of the old gambling houses. He traveled west from New York to make his fortune. San Francisco, with all its saloons and pioneer spirit, attracted men like O’Reilly, men who longed for quick riches.
“O’Reilly won our fishing boat during a lucky hand of poker in a saloon, the Stars and Bars Inn, on North Beach. I visited the place on Friday nights, as I enjoyed the atmosphere, the girls, and the gambling. The night I met him, he said he was putting together a crew and needed twelve hard-working men, and he invited me along. A glut of squid was sighted off Monterey Bay, and many fishermen tried to take advantage of the algae bloom the squid fed on. It sounded like a grand opportunity to me.
“They were decent, dedicated, and brave shipmen, most with young families to feed. O’Reilly promised that we would earn at least a hundred dollars apiece on the trip. That may not sound like much now, but a century ago, it was akin to a fortune, and we were all desperate for money. Many lost their homes in the great San Francisco fire of 1906, and when their houses burned to a crisp, people had to find work to get back on their feet, to put a new roof over their and their children’s heads.”
“But you didn’t have a wife or children, right? So why did you join them?” I asked.
“Because of a girl I met.”
“Marie-Rose?” I guessed. “The girl in the portrait?” I said, vividly remembering the woman’s beautiful face etched by Henry.
Henry nodded. “Yes. At that time, she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen with hair as red as claret wine, and her laughter could charm a thousand Irish rogues.”
“Go on,” I said with irritation when he obviously paused in recollection.
“We set sail on November 13, 1915. No one had predicted the fog that floated down the coast as we sailed that night. It shrouded everything in a thick blanket. Our plan was to sail down to Monterey, fish in the bay for a whole week, then return home, our nets bursting with catch. I couldn’t help thinking about beautiful Marie-Rose when we set sail, dreaming of how I could shower her with gifts when I returned with a small fortune. We planned to elope—we were desperately in love.”
I swallowed. Despite the circumstances, I felt a tinge of envy creeping in. I wondered if Henry loved me as much as he had loved Marie-Rose.
“Marie-Rose came from a well-to-do family in San Francisco. Her father was a merchant banker, and her mother a bit of a philanthropist—one of the first suffragists busying herself assisting charities and orphanages in the city. Marie-Rose and I met on New Year’s Eve at one of her fundraising balls in the city.”
“That evening, she stole my breath away. I could not take my eyes off her, her lacy black dress, skin like porcelain, and wide china-blue eyes. After that night, she agreed to our courting.”
“Despite her parents’ objections, we started a clandestine romance. I often took her sailing in San Francisco Bay in my dinghy. One day, her father returned home and caught us together. He threatened to kill me and exile Marie-Rose from the family. Madly in love, I wasn’t willing to give up so easily. I h
oped to save enough money to elope as I knew her father would never approve of me as a husband. He was a very wealthy, prominent man, and I just a fisherman. We were so in love, neither of us considered the truth that I would not be able to keep her in the manner she had grown accustomed to living, so instead, I enlisted to be part of O’Reilly’s crew.”
As I listened, it occurred to me everything that had happened to Henry happened because of love. He had truly fallen for Marie-Rose. I thought back to the curse of Monterey Bay and the tale of White Dove with her lieutenant lover and their tragic ending.
“Marie-Rose was at the docks when we set sail, waving me off. When I returned, we would catch a wagon train and head east, maybe to Chicago or New York after eloping. We had to escape San Francisco because we knew her father would forever haunt us if we stayed. Marie-Rose promised to be waiting for me when our boat returned to San Francisco Bay.
“As we sailed, we took watch shifts. The fog rolled in quickly, and by the time we reached Monterey, it was so thick it blinded us. When it was my turn to watch, my mind drifted to my darling Marie-Rose, and I stopped being as watchful, not paying enough attention to the sea. I had been awake all night the evening before, sorting out our plans for when I returned: train tickets, wagon fares—all the details. Then my eyelids grew heavy, and I fell asleep while on my watch.
“That night, I dreamt of Marie-Rose. I must have been asleep for only a short time but that was all the sea needed. I awoke to a sudden jolt when our bow crashed into some rocks just off Monterey Bay, and the boat instantly split in half. Seawater began to gush inside. Being split in half left no hope of salvaging the boat. Soon, we were all up to our waists in freezing, salty water. O’Reilly gave the order to abandon ship, and we jumped into the icy bay.”
Henry then closed his eyes and said no more. He kept his eyes shut for several seconds.
I could tell it was very painful for him to relive the torment. I shuddered, imagining the horror he must have gone through since drowning is my own worst nightmare.
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