by Wendy Webb
His words warmed me from the inside out. “That’s a really nice thing, what you just said.”
We gazed at each other for a moment, and I wondered if it was going to lead to more, when he broke the spell.
“All right,” he said, clearing his throat as if he had been feeling it, too. “I’m going to find us something to watch.”
He clicked on a drama, and I snuggled down next to him, reveling in the decadence that was having absolutely nothing to do during an afternoon other than watch a movie. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt that, and I knew that if indeed I went back to teaching in the fall, I wouldn’t be able to indulge in that kind of sloth for the foreseeable future. But at that moment, I just enjoyed it. I didn’t so much care about the movie. It was the supportive, wonderful man by my side who wanted to give me a distraction from a strange, upsetting, and eerie day.
We watched the movie for a while, laughing and talking together until my eyes began to feel heavy. I caught myself dozing now and then, but soon it was no use trying to stay awake. All of that intense dreaming the night before had exhausted me.
The last thing I remember before drifting off was Dominic smiling down at me, saying, “Sleep well.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
My eyes opened with a start. I pushed myself out of my pillow nest and sat up. The television was switched off. Dominic was sitting next me, a book opened in his lap.
“You okay?” he asked. “No more upsetting dreams, I hope.”
I rubbed my eyes and yawned, glancing at the clock. Not more than an hour had passed. It felt as though I had slept forever.
“No,” I said. “But something occurred to me as I was waking up. You know that time when you’re not quite sleeping but not quite awake?”
Dominic smiled. “The in-between time, my grandmother called it,” he said, gazing off into his past. “She used to tell me it was the place where everything seen and unseen met up and danced. Present, past, and future, all at once. We who are living, and spirits of the dead. It’s all right there swirling around together in that mystical in-between time.”
His face softened, and his eyes began to glisten. “She told me that a few of us, a lucky few, can travel there by choice. Get out of the river of time, so to speak, and rise above it to what really is. Those are the seers, the psychics, the visionaries of this world. Or so she said.”
Alice, I thought.
“She sounds like a wise lady, your grandmother,” I said, imagining Dominic as a little boy listening to her tales.
“She was.” He quickly wiped a tear away and cleared his throat, bringing us both back into the present. “You were mentioning that something came to you?”
“It was the oddest thing, but when I was just waking up—when I was in the in-between time—I started thinking about elephants.”
He furrowed his brow at me. “Elephants?”
“There’s an old legend about the elephants’ graveyard,” I said to him. “The way the tale goes, elephants can sense when they’re going to die. When the time is near, they separate from the herd and make their last journey alone to the place where their ancestors have gone before them, the place where they will die.”
“Wow, that’s heavy.” Dominic leaned back against the pillow nest. “Go on.”
“Explorers have talked about the elephant graveyard for years. Centuries, even. Hunters have sought it out for the ivory alone. Nobody has ever found it, not that we know of.”
“But the elephants know where it is,” Dominic said, his voice soft.
“They say spirits of the dead are guarding it, casting a shadow over it so no man can find it. That’s okay with me.”
“It’s a cool story. But what makes you bring it up now? The elephant graveyard isn’t in Wharton. I think we can be relatively sure of that.”
“I think it’s related to something that happened today,” I began. “Something I didn’t tell you, what with Alice and everything.”
“What’s that?”
“I went to see Kate’s husband, Nick Stone,” I said.
A look of surprise, even alarm, drifted across his face and was gone just as quickly. “The chief of police? Why?”
“I wanted to know if they had identified the lady who died in room five.”
“And?”
I shook my head. “They haven’t. They’re sort of half-heartedly checking missing-persons reports now, but she died of natural causes, and she was in her nineties, so it’s not really a police matter, even though she did break in.”
“You’re saying they’re not doing anything to find out who she was and what she was doing here?”
“That’s right. That’s the situation. Her body is with the county coroner, and she’ll be cremated if nobody comes for her. They’ll keep her remains for a few years and her information on file, just in case, someday in the future, someone comes along to identify her.”
My eyes welled up with tears, and a cold breeze washed over me. “I was thinking about how lonely that sounded,” I went on.
“Like the elephants, journeying off to die alone,” he said, his voice reverent and soft. “That’s the connection you made.”
I put my hand on his arm. “Exactly,” I said. “You hit on it. But there’s more.”
He leaned in toward me.
“Those elephants sense they’re going to die, so they travel to a special place to do it,” I said, the thoughts formulating in my mind as I spoke. “What if she did, too?”
“Here?” he said. “LuAnn’s?”
“Yes!” I said, sitting up straighter and facing him, my legs crossed. “What if she knew she was going to die? Maybe she had been given a diagnosis, maybe she sensed it . . . I don’t know. But what we do know is, she was near death. And she came here to LuAnn’s, in the middle of winter, when everything was closed up tight and dark. She wasn’t a resident or even a frequent visitor. Someone in town would have known her or at least recognized her from the photo that I know police showed around town. On the other side of that coin, if she knew anyone here, she would have contacted them.”
He nodded. “What you’re saying sounds right to me.”
Energized, I went on. “We can only surmise that she journeyed here specifically last winter. She wasn’t just passing by and stumbled upon the place. Nobody passes by. Wharton is a destination unto itself. There’s nothing else around. You don’t pass through Wharton to get anywhere. She came here to die.”
Dominic’s eyes grew wide. “That’s quite a theory.”
“I’m not finished!” I said. “If she did indeed come here to die, the question is: Why? Why Wharton? Why LuAnn’s?”
“Why room five?” Dominic added. “All of them were empty.”
“Exactly!”
“What do you think?” Dominic asked.
“I think this place, and that room, meant something to her,” I said. “From where I sit, that much is obvious.”
He squinted at me. “How do you get to ‘obvious’? It’s all pretty out there, Brynn.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not. Put yourself in her shoes. You’re dying. You come to Wharton, to LuAnn’s, to live out your last days. Alone, no less. If I’m doing that, this place means something to me. I’ve been here before. Spent significant, meaningful time here.”
Dominic’s eyes danced. “Maybe she honeymooned in room five as a young bride.”
“Maybe she worked here before LuAnn bought it, when it was a boardinghouse,” I offered. “Nick told me the coroner put her at around ninety years old.”
“Wow,” Dominic said. “That’s a good run, right there.”
I chuckled. “That’s exactly what he said.”
He smiled at me. “I think you’re onto something,” he said. “It just feels right, in my bones. But you know that doesn’t put us any closer to finding out who this lady was.”
“I know,” I said, a little deflated. “Sure, LuAnn must have guest registers, but names aren’t going to mean a
nything to us. And there are probably photos somewhere, but since LuAnn didn’t recognize her, that means if the woman was here before—and I believe in my gut she was—she was here as a much younger woman. Maybe she was an employee. Maybe, I don’t know, her parents owned it a century ago, and she was born here, in room five. Maybe she was a guest. But I don’t think we’ll ever know.”
Dominic looked off, as if gathering his thoughts. “I don’t see any way to find out for sure, unless someone comes forward.”
I sighed. “I guess that’s the end of it,” I said.
“Unless you meet her in the in-between time again,” Dominic said, a grin on his lips.
“Nick Stone said if I dream about her again, I should ask her who she is.”
“Not a bad idea,” he said.
We talked of different things then, but my mind kept drifting back to our lady. I realized that I felt okay about the mystery involving her identity and the reasons she had come here remaining just that. A mystery.
If everything I had supposed was true, if she had come back to Wharton, to LuAnn’s, to die because this was a special place to her, her death seemed much less cold and lonely. Less stark. It was her choice. What she wanted. Where she wanted. And for the time being, that was enough for me.
We watched the rest of the movie and discussed going to dinner, but I was exhausted by the day’s events.
“I should probably go back to my room,” I said, not really meaning it.
He rolled over on his side and smiled at me. “Why in the world would you want to do that?”
I shrugged, my face reddening. “I didn’t want to assume anything.”
“If you want to be alone—”
“I don’t,” I jumped in, too quickly. “I mean,” I fumbled, “I didn’t mean—”
He reached over and stroked my cheek. “I know exactly what you mean. You’ve had a rough couple of nights. And today, too. Otherworldly shit is going on up in here. Alice spouting off about weird stuff. Gary seeing ghosts around every corner. And you’re upset about the lady, too. It’s a lot.”
He was right. The truth was, the idea of sleeping alone had my stomach in knots. “Would you mind if I stayed?”
Dominic let out a laugh, that sense of joy returning to his handsome face. “Mind? Let me see. A beautiful woman wants to lie next to me in my bed. What to do? What to do?”
He kissed me then, gently and sweetly. I closed my eyes and let the aroma of him, a hint of cologne mixed with his own musky scent, wash over me. All at once, the mystery of the lady in room five faded. It didn’t seem as important as what was happening here in Dominic’s room, in the present. I looked up at his impossibly handsome face.
“You know I’m falling for you, right?” I asked him, my voice almost a whisper.
He smiled. “It’s about time,” he said, stroking my hair.
In the middle of the night, we were awakened by a loud banging on the door.
“Dominic!” A man’s voice. More pounding. “Dominic! Wake up!”
Dominic gave me a concerned look and slipped out of bed in just his boxer briefs and a T-shirt to open the door. It was Jason.
“I’m sorry to wake you at this hour,” Jason said, running a hand through his thick white hair.
“What is it?” Dominic asked.
“It’s Alice.”
At this, I climbed out of bed and joined them at the door. “What’s happened?” I asked, a sense of panic rising inside of me, turning my stomach into knots.
“She’s gone,” Jason said. “I just woke up and checked on her. She’s not in her bed. Gil is checking the house, but I have a very bad feeling.”
“How long ago was this?” Dominic asked, pulling on his jeans.
“Just now. Moments ago.”
“I’m going across the hall to get dressed,” I said, hurrying to my room and jumping into my jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. I pulled on my anorak and stepped into my shoes, closing the door behind me. In and out in under thirty seconds.
The three of us raced down the stairs through the darkened restaurant, where Gil was waiting.
“Nothing?” Jason asked him.
Gil shook his head. “I’ve checked the house from top to bottom. She’s not here.”
Time stopped as we all stood there, paralyzed for an instant by the realization that washed over us.
Without a word, we all made our way out the front door, into the darkness. We stood there for a moment, not knowing whether to go up the street into town or down toward the water.
As if understanding the question before it was asked, Dominic said, “Jason, Brynn, and I will head down toward the lake. I have a feeling that’s the direction she went. But just to be sure, Gil, check around the house and the neighborhood. She can’t have gotten far.”
Dominic took a step or two and turned back to Gil. “Did you bring your cell phone?”
Gil pulled it out of his pocket.
“Call the police,” Dominic said.
As we hurried down to the lake, I saw that the town was deserted, everyone settled in their beds for the night, the shops and restaurants buttoned up tight, illuminated with the yellowish glow of the streetlights. The two ferries bobbed at the dock, their runs across to the island long since done for the day. The cabin cruisers at the town slips were dark as well.
Fog had settled in, hanging low in the air, covering everything with a swaying, living blanket of white.
“I blame myself,” Jason said, looking up and down the side streets as we ran. “I know she wanders! I should have put an alarm on the front door or . . . something. This is all on me.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Let’s just concentrate on finding her.”
Dominic trotted ahead of us and then broke into a full-on run. Jason and I exchanged a glance and followed. Dominic was headed toward the lakeside park just down the shore from the pier. Families gathered there for picnics, concerts, and to sit on a blanket and enjoy the lake on a sunny afternoon. There wasn’t a beach, only a rocky shoreline with a steep drop-off a few feet away from land.
We scanned the shore, looking for Alice.
And then we saw what Dominic had seen before us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Alice was wading into the lake, her nightgown billowing around her as she walked deeper and deeper into the water. With the fog hanging in the air around her and the streetlamps casting an eerie glow, Alice’s hair loose and flowing, she looked for all the world like the Lady of the Lake descending into the mists of Avalon.
Jason and I stood there, at the water’s edge, frozen for a moment by the terror of what we were seeing. Dominic was already in the lake.
“Honey!” Jason called. “Dominic is coming! Stay where you are!”
“Alice!” I tried.
But it was like she was in a trance. She didn’t turn around, didn’t seem to hear us. And then she disappeared, seemingly swallowed up by the lake, not even a ripple remaining on the surface where she had been.
“No!” Jason cried, lunging toward the water, but I held him back.
“He’ll get her,” I said. “We don’t need you in the lake, too.” Jason wrapped his arms around my waist and we watched for a terrible, long moment as Dominic dove under, surfaced, looked around wildly, and dove again into the dark lake, and again, finally emerging with Alice in his arms.
The red and blue lights of a police cruiser slashed through the fog, its siren growing louder as it approached.
Dominic waded back onto the shore, both of them dripping wet, Alice’s head resting on Dominic’s chest, her bony hands clutching his arm. She was visibly shaking. Her eyes darted back and forth as if she was frantically searching for something elusive.
“Alice, honey, are you okay?” Jason asked, his voice thin and papery.
She coughed and shivered in Dominic’s arms. “Where am I?”
“You had a bad night. That’s all, Alice,” Dominic said as we hurried up the street toward the house. “But we’ve got
you now.”
He caught my eye. “She’s ice cold,” he said.
“I’ll run ahead and draw a bath,” Jason said, sprinting off, disappearing into the fog.
I put up my hand, waving down the squad car. It stopped, and one of the officers jumped out and opened the back door. Dominic slid onto the seat, still holding Alice in his arms. I ran around and hopped in on the other side.
“LuAnn’s,” Dominic said to them, and we sped off up the street.
“What happened?” one of the officers asked.
Dominic and I exchanged a glance. “She got confused and wandered off,” I said.
“Does she need the hospital?” the officer asked.
“She was only underwater for a moment, but maybe as a precaution?” Dominic started.
“It’s twenty minutes away,” the officer said.
“She’s freezing cold,” I said. “She needs to get into a hot bath, not sit shivering in the car for twenty minutes.”
“Agreed,” Dominic said. “We’ll watch her tonight.”
“We’ll get an ambulance if you need it.”
It seemed to take forever to get back to LuAnn’s.
Finally, we arrived. Dominic was out of the car with Alice in a flash and took the stairs two at a time. The upper hallway was dark, but Gil and Jason’s door was open, light shining from it all the way down the hall. Gil was fretting in the living room, but Dominic carried Alice past him, directly into the bathroom, where I heard water running.
“What happened?” Gil said to me in a harsh whisper. “Jason can barely—”
“Let’s get you out of that wet nightgown, honey,” I heard Jason saying.
“She was in the lake,” I told Gil. “Dominic went in after her.”
His hands flew to his mouth. “Oh my God.”
“I know. It was unreal.”
Dominic emerged from the bath, where I could hear Jason talking to Alice in hushed, gentle tones. “There, now. Doesn’t that feel better? I added your favorite bath soak.”