In the Midst of the Sea

by Sean McCarthy

  I nodded. How could he know of Jeremy? It made no sense. I had barely ever even mentioned him to Hiram, never mind strangers. It had been so many years earlier, but we had been very close. My older brother—just two years older. He was always looking out for me.

  “He is over there with your grandfather,” said Mr. Randolph. “They are together. With someone else. A woman. She looks like you, only heavier. Your mother. Your mother is with them. Has your mother passed?

  I nodded.

  “Yes, I can see her now. She wasn’t coming through before. She has passed, but your father has not. Her name is—”

  “Susan,” I said.

  “Yes, Susan,” he said. “But don’t tell me next time. Let it come through. From her. She is concerned about you, very concerned, but it is not clear about what. They are all concerned. I see others—several more people standing at the foot of the tunnel, the light. Some you know, and others are ancestors you have yet to even meet. But they know you, love you. You are well loved, over there—the afterlife, the next dimension, is all about love—and they are all concerned. Something to do with your home. Your marriage.” He glanced down at my hand. “You are still married?”

  I nervously slipped my hand over my ring finger, but I nodded again. I didn’t want to nod, I didn’t want him to know, and even now, after everything that transpired, I cannot be sure why that was.

  “A religious man?” said Mr. Randolph. “Although some might say his perception of God, of Christianity, is somewhat skewed. He doesn’t know what to make of it; they don’t know what to make of him.” He paused. “You don’t know what to make of him.”

  I looked away. Didn’t answer. My heart was fluttering again. He couldn’t possibly have known who I was, anything about me, and yet, he seemed to know everything. Unless … Mr. Pratt … Maybe Mr. Pratt had seen me in the audience, said something to him following the lecture. But why would he? By the time I approached the stage, Mr. Pratt was gone, and he would have had no way of knowing that I would come to speak to Mr. Randolph. I was not even sure I was going to speak to him until I stood right before him. And Mr. Pratt, despite the many failings that Hiram has attributed to him, has never impressed me as one for idle gossip. No, it could not have been Mr. Pratt.

  Mr. Randolph was quiet again, his eyes boring through me. Then: “And I think that is where the danger lies.”

  I could hear voices, footsteps, in the hall, but everything seemed distant. I was completely alone with him, and not just in the room. Alone. Everything was far away, and nothing could touch us. I could see him clearly, his outline, but everything else around him had blurred. Muted colors. Shadows.

  “How do you do it?” I whispered.

  “How do I do what?”

  “Everything.”

  He smiled. “I don’t do anything. They do it. They do it through me. I can show you.”

  He asked me to lie on the floor then. I didn’t move at first, but then he reached out and put his hand over mine. “It will be fine,” he said. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

  I lay on my back at the foot of the table, and kept my arms at my sides as he had instructed, my eyes locked on the ceiling. It seemed very high up, very far away. Clouds. At first just clouds, broken and thin, white and gray, moving together and moving apart. And then thin lines of faces, lines and shadows, fading in and out. I could vaguely hear the wind, the surf, but these things too seemed quite far away as if I were no longer on the island and neither was he. He knelt down on one knee beside me, brushing a wisp of hair away from my eyes, and then he opened his hands, palms to the ceiling. He told me to relax again, shut my eyes.

  People were talking around me, but their voices, too, were faint. There were many of them. They were all talking at once, and I could not make out clearly what anyone was saying, but I did hear my name. Then the names of others. Then somebody, quietly, hushed somebody else, and I could only hear the voice of a woman. The voice of my mother. All in an instant it sounded just like her, but somehow, it also did not. I cannot explain it. Not then. Not now. It was a feeling, more than the sound, the tone, I suppose, and the words. The words were hers, ones she would choose. Little Lizzie, she called me, my Little Lizzie. “Sing a song of blackbirds,” she began to sing—the nursery rhyme she would sing to me when I was small. No one had called me Lizzie in years. Then her voice began to fade, the others all talking again at once, and then my body began to rise from the floor.

  I felt completely relaxed, but unable to move, and I kept going up. Mr. Randolph stood as I did, his palms still open to the ceiling. I shut my eyes, and then, somehow, I was out of my body and looking down upon the whole scene. Myself, floating, eyes shut, and Mr. Randolph standing beside me. I could see the crown of his head—he was beginning to go bald, just a small bare spot in his thick hatch of hair, and his shirt had begun to come untucked in the back. I wondered if he realized I was now above him, and for a second, I wondered if I were dying, if perhaps my heart had stopped. I could see directly into the pitcher of water, see the furniture all about the room, his open bag, full of books, the still-made bed. The voices of the others were louder now, taking turns speaking, my mother again, my grandfather, and the small voice of my older brother, all there for a second, and then gone. And I felt myself being pulled, and then pushed, stuffed, my soul back into my body. It hurt only slightly, but jarred my whole being.

  I felt his hands on me then, one on my shoulder and one beneath my hip, my buttocks, steadying me, ready to catch should I begin to fall. But I didn’t. I stayed floating there, my eyes still shut. I feared to open my eyes. He ran a finger up my middle. I wanted him to stop—he had to stop, I am a married woman—and yet I didn’t want him to. If I kept my eyes shut, did not look into his, it wouldn’t be real. It would be like the rest of the entire experience, the entire night. An illusion of some sort. It had to be an illusion. The voices were still there, but now even more distant, talking to one another, but not to me, going back to the tunnel. With my eyes shut, I could see the tunnel, and the shadows moving in, the light emanating from it far too bright to allow me to make out any of their features. I hoped they could not see me, and even in my trance-like state, I began to blush. I felt the man’s breath as he leaned over closer. He kissed my cheek, holding his lips against my flesh just for a second, and then I felt myself descending. Settling gently upon the floor. He kissed me one more time, and then I could hear him, settling back into his chair at the table, and everything else was gone. We were back in the room at the inn, and nowhere else. I opened my eyes, glancing down quickly to make sure I was appropriately covered, and then I looked his way.

  He sipped his glass of water. “You’re a beautiful woman,” he said, “amazingly so. If I were not married, you were not married … Ah … well … There are a lot of ifs in this life I think.”

  It was some time before I moved from the floor. I turned on the my side, my hands beneath my head, looking at him, hoping he would lie down beside me, but not wanting to speak. Not wanting to initiate anything more as it would be wrong, but not wanting to stop him if he initiated it first. But he wasn’t going to. A man gets a look in his eye when he is going to advance upon you, and he gets a look in his eye when he is about to surrender, and Mr. Randolph had neither. A complete lack of tension, a complete look of peace.

  “It is perhaps none of my business,” he said at last, “but the spirits concerns are rarely in vain. If they are worried, you should perhaps think things through. Protect yourself.”

  “Protect myself?”

  “The Lord may have created the institution of marriage.” He raised his water glass. “But it is the man who corrupts it. You must be careful, Elizabeth.”

  When I woke in my room, it was half past three, the wind and the sea still roaring outside my window. I didn’t remember returning to my room, and I began to wonder if I had ever left at all. If it were all a dream.

  31

  Late February. She ran into Michael again dow
n at Ocean Park. Standing on the lawn with an easel in front of him. He was painting the Corbin Cottage. The Corbin “Cottage” was actually an enormous Victorian mansion. Queen Anne style, and three shades of green, it caught your eye as soon as you stepped onto the island from the ferry, impressive enough to stand out among the numerous Victorian mansions and elaborate gingerbread homes. The roof was surmounted with both a turreted tower and a widow’s walk behind. Rounded steps leading up to the wraparound porch.

  Ford was sleeping, and Samantha was at preschool, giving Diana three free hours. Despite the chill, the air was surprisingly calm, even coming in off the sea. Little to no wind. The park was mostly empty, and only a few cars lined the boardwalk overlooking the beach. Michael had his back to her. He wore a peacoat, work boots, and faded jeans, and she could tell by the small balding crown on the back of his head that it was him. She stood behind him for five minutes or more, before he realized she was there. He had the full structure outlined on the canvas, most of the color. Working on the detail. Using oils. Thick and alive.

  When Michael turned he had one brush in hand and one clenched between his teeth. He smiled, pulled the brush from his teeth, pointed.

  “I know you,” he said.

  Diana stepped closer. “Sorry. I was just watching a bit.” She blushed. “Not for long. Just for a few minutes. I like to watch people paint—it always amazes me what they can do. If they’re talented I mean.” She hesitated, took a step backward. “I’m sorry. I’ll go. I don’t want to disturb you.”

  “No,” he said, “Don’t worry yourself with it. I was looking for an excuse to take a break anyway.” He put both brushes down on the easel. Wiped his hands on a rag he pulled from his pocket, looked at the canvas. Diana stepped closer.

  “That’s amazing,” she said. “I can’t imagine being able to do anything like that.”

  “Well, the wonderful thing about buildings is that they don’t move. So I can return tomorrow and pick right back up where I left off. The light may be different, but with a painting like this, that isn’t as important until I’m near the end.”

  “You look pretty close,” she said.

  “I suppose. Still a ways to go.”

  “I love this house. I can’t believe they’ve kept it in the shape they have for so many years. It’s got to be well over a hundred years old, right?”

  “In spirit, yes. This house is actually a replica of the original. The owner uses it as summer cottage, believe it or not. He bought it some years back when it was a mess and renovated it, and then it burned and it wasn’t old at all.”

  “You’re kidding me?” Diana said.

  “No,” Michael said. “Burned to the ground. A faulty wire, I heard. Then the owner started from scratch, ground up, using the original plans, everything painstakingly perfect. So what we’re looking at is pretty much the same thing that people crossing the park in 1891 would see. Remarkable, isn’t it? A wonderful view to the past.” He looked back at his picture. “Which reminds me, I was thinking of you recently.”

  Diana looked at his eyes. “You were?”

  “Yes, I was viewing a photograph I took, and it got me thinking about you—the conversation we had. I think I have it with me.” He had a saddlebag on the ground beside him—full of his supplies—and he crouched down beside it. Undid the buckle, and began flipping through a stack of pictures.

  “What’s it a picture of?” Diana asked, but he didn’t look up, still scanning.

  “This place,” he said. “The Corbin Cottage. A lot of times I’ll shoot a number of photos of a building before I paint it, different angles, distances, and perspectives. Then if the weather is bad I can use them to work on the piece inside.” He stopped. “Here,” he said, standing up. The photograph was four by six, taken from approximately the same angle they were standing at now. “I usually take a shot in black-and-white, and a shot in color. I like the black-and-white because it can give me a better feel for the shadows. Anyway, I was looking at this one, and I noticed something I found curious.”

  Diana gazed at the photo. “What?”

  “Well, look at the front porch. What do you see?”

  “It looks like a man standing there.”

  “You’re right,” he said, “it does, and there wasn’t. I’m sure of it. I remember taking the picture quite clearly. It was only about two weeks ago when I was down for the weekend, and there was no one up there, no one in there. As a matter of fact, there was no one around here anywhere. The wind was wild, and the temperature couldn’t have been much above twenty. I was the only one mad enough to be out here. Anyway, I took several shots of the house, up close and further back, and there was no one there. I am sure of it.”

  “He looks like he’s wearing a suit,” Diana said. “Three-piece.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought, too. I mean, the image is not very clear, it’s too far away, but it certainly looks like a person, I think, some kind of top hat on and one hand resting on the rail. And you don’t see too many people around looking like that anymore, now, do you?”

  “It looks like he’s watching you take the picture.”

  “I know. I almost wonder if I should place him in the painting.” Michael looked at the photo a moment longer, and then crouched down and slipped it back in his bag. “Anyway, it did make me think of you. Who knows? It might just be shadows, or a trick of camera or something.”

  “Is that what you think?” she asked.

  Michael chuckled. Blushed. “Well … no, I don’t think that at all. But I don’t know you very well, and I don’t want you thinking I’m nuts.”

  The wind had picked up now, almost out of nowhere, the crests of the waves rising in the distance, and Diana felt a chill. “I could tell you a few things that would make me think I’m a lot crazier than you,” she said.

  Michael packed up his supplies, dropped them at the bed-and-breakfast, and they walked over to Circuit Avenue to get a cup of coffee. Diana felt a little uncomfortable, a little nervous. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, she kept telling herself. It was just coffee. But if someone who knew her, knew Ford, saw her, she wondered if they would say anything. And if that happened it wouldn’t be good. But there were few people about, most of the shops still closed, and the only one in the coffee shop was a ruffled man, scribbling in a notebook. He kept looking at them from time to time. Look, write, look.

  She told Michael all about the house, the cellar. The history. The man she had seen on the front porch of the gingerbread cottage, the man in the cemetery, the man she had seen behind the desk in the hotel. Sam’s imaginary friend, and the voice upstairs. And she told him about the journal.

  Michael mostly just nodded, listened, stirring his coffee with his spoon. He didn’t look skeptical, and he didn’t look amazed. “And these people you have seen, have they ever spoken to you?”

  Diana hesitated. “No. Well, the man in Trinity Park looked to be yelling, but I couldn’t hear anything. Maybe the others said things, and I just didn’t hear. I’m not sure. My heart was racing so badly each time that anything is possible.”

  “Possible,” he said. “But it almost sounds as if you might be seeing imprints.”

  “Imprints?” she asked. The man with the notebook looked at her again, but then when she looked away, and looked back, he was still there. Real.

  “Yes. Paranormal imprints. We have spirits, and we have imprints, or so I’m told, and they’re not the same thing. I’ve read a little about them, imprints, I mean. People think they’re ghosts, but they’re not. Well not really—I mean they are not what we would think of as ghosts, watching us, able to interact with us if they wanted to. Imprints are not something active, intelligent. They’re oblivious, if you can even refer to an image as oblivious—to everything around them. People say they are just sort of like a residual high energy, often left behind—or traveling back—from some sort of emotional incident or calamitous event. Murders, battles, accidents, acts of violence. Things like that.”
<
br />   “But what would cause that? I mean, it’s not like they are all over the place.”

  “Are they not? I’m not so sure. Maybe we’re often seeing people who aren’t really there, passing them on the street, but we don’t realize it. It sounds mad, but who knows? Some men speculate that the earth’s electromagnetic field can serve as a sort of tape recording device. And if given the right conditions, events of the past can be played back. But that’s all they are—recordings. Once real but not anymore. Something like a window or door to the past. Times gone by. I mean, we really have no idea how time functions, right? Whether it just exists here—”

  “Here? Like the earth?”

  “No, this dimension. Or everywhere. And sound can travel out into space and come back, hundreds, thousands of year later, so who’s to say that images can’t, too?”

  “Is that what you think was going on with the man in your photograph?”

  “Possibly. There certainly didn’t seem to be anything traumatic going on with him—he was just standing there—but you never know. Sometimes apparently mundane events aren’t at all what they seem. You don’t always know the circumstances. The emotions. Maybe that man had just stepped back outside after murdering somebody.”

  Diana was silent.

  “Or possibly,” Michael said, “he is just one of many. Countless people. Countless souls. Maybe most of us just aren’t seeing people who really are there. Just a few of us, sensitive souls, getting a glimpse of them from time to time, out of the corner of their eye, the peripheral vision. True ghosts of some sort. Maybe they are all around us, living their lives, or post lives, in their own time, but standing right beside us. What did that man Einstein say? The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”

  Diana hesitated. “What did he mean by that?”

  “I think he meant that time is just an illusion—a man-made one—because our brains can’t tolerate the fact that everything is going on all the time. We’ve always been here.”