by Vicki Hinze
She’d been right, too. Seascape Inn was special. Very special.
Another image flashed. He saw himself crossing the line, walking into the village and waving to Jimmy, whose long, brown hair needed a trim. Though in a squat, changing a flat tire on Horace Johnson’s dusty blue ‘53 GMC pick-up truck, Jimmy paused to wave back. His brown eyes never missed a thing—by necessity, T.J. supposed. Jimmy had always had to look out for himself. T.J. walked on, then paused again at Miss Millie’s Antique Shoppe’s big window. Sitting in her rocker, she sipped at a cup of steaming tea, enjoying the warmth from her Franklin stove. He smelled the wood burning, heard its friendly popping. Next door, Fred Baker was sweeping the porch of the Blue Moon Cafe, hiding the dirt behind a huge anchor propped against the wall, his gold nugget ring catching the sunlight and, across the street, the stuffy, social-climbing Lydia Johnson, who’d renamed herself Lily years ago because it sounded more regal to her, stood near the gas pumps at The Store, overdressed and all excited, telling the pastor about her and Horace’s new Slurpee drink machine. “It’s the height of modernization,” she said, preening. T.J. shunned the urge to shake some sense into her. The woman wanted it all and was so busy running after it all that she didn’t realize she already had everything worth having: her family’s love.
Pulling the sights and sounds and smells of small-town life into his heart and holding them close, T.J. issued himself his standard pre-attempt reminder, then stepped across the line.
For a long moment, he stood there feeling as if he were dangling at the edge of some invisible, mystical precipice. Hope flared in his heart. The wind burned his eyes, but he was afraid to blink. If he moved, would he break the magical spell and fall?
His instincts screamed at him to run, but he couldn’t move. Seemingly suspended in this mysterious place that was neither there nor here, he felt torn, at war with himself. Did he risk taking another step? Did he risk losing what could prove to be his only opportunity to run for his life?
He had to run!
As quickly as the thought properly formed, the temperature plummeted.
That veil of icy mist blanketed him.
Those hated fingers of cold applied debilitating pressure at the soft hollow of his shoulder. And his hope died.
“Nooo!” he screamed. “Nooo!”
What on earth were they doing out there?
Kneeling on the turret’s window seat in her room, Maggie sank into the soft cushion pads and leaned closer to the glass. Bill and Miss Hattie stood watching MacGregor as if he were about to singlehandedly evoke the Second Coming.
Thank goodness she’d phoned Bill last night and asked him not to mention she and Carolyn had been related. It had taken some talking, but he’d finally agreed. Too, he’d imparted an interesting bit of information. MacGregor believed Carolyn had been an orphan. Technically, that had been true, but why hadn’t she mentioned Maggie’s parents or Maggie to him? She’d lived with the family from the time she’d been orphaned at twelve until she’d graduated high school.
Miss Hattie and Bill backed away from MacGregor. Why was he standing on the rocks holding the painting from Lakeview Gallery of Seascape Inn? Why was he drawing a line in the sand with his foot?
He closed his eyes and just stood there. Maggie clocked him on her watch. A minute, twenty-four seconds. Was he praying? Meditating? What?
He stepped over the line. Just stood there, still and stiff as a statue. Maggie glanced at Miss Hattie—definitely worried—and then at Bill. Hands clenched at his sides, he looked serious. Solemn. Scared.
MacGregor jerked. The painting flew through the air toward Bill as if MacGregor had tossed it. Bill caught it, and Maggie looked back at MacGregor just as he spun around. He glared back at the house, an expression of horror, then sheer terror, on his face, and he screamed: “Nooo! Nooo!”
Maggie gripped the window sash and squeezed. MacGregor was swinging his fists. What was he fighting? There was nothing there. And why were Miss Hattie and Bill just... standing there watching him? Not trying to calm him down? Not moving an inch toward him? Should Maggie go down there?
MacGregor slapped his left hand to his right shoulder, gripping and grimacing and bending and twisting, as if trying to release himself from some godawful, wrenching hold. What was happening to him? Was he having some kind of seizure?
It couldn’t be. Certainty slammed into her with the force of a sledge. Whatever was happening to him, Miss Hattie and Bill Butler had expected it. Miss Hattie’s lack of alarm proved it. Bill’s lack of assistance verified it.
MacGregor fell to the ground.
Maggie watched, horrified. She couldn’t move.
Bill calmly walked over to MacGregor, circled the larger man from behind, wrapping his arms around MacGregor’s ribs, then dragged him over the rocks back onto what must be the Seascape side of the line T.J. had marked. Gently, Bill lowered MacGregor back to the ground, released him, then backed away.
When Miss Hattie bent down, Bill retrieved the painting and checked it over. Looking for damage? Miss Hattie did the same thing to MacGregor, running her hands over his scalp. Evidently she was satisfied that he wasn’t seriously hurt because she reached beneath her coat and into her apron pocket, withdrew her hankie, then fluttered it over MacGregor’s face.
Was he unconscious?
This was definitely strange. Shocking and strange. Something glinted on the window and Maggie shifted to see past it, her heart thumping hard in her chest. Frankly, this whole episode went beyond strange. It was weird. Dark and—
Oh, no. It couldn’t be some kind of cult ritual. Miss Hattie? Bill? Involved in a cult? Not even MacGregor could be involved in a cult.
So what was going on?
MacGregor sat up, rubbed at the back of his head, and said something to Miss Hattie, who was fussing over him, plucking dry, dead grass from his coat and hair.
They talked back and forth, with Bill adding something intermittently, then Bill and Miss Hattie began walking back toward the house.
Miss Hattie glanced up at Maggie’s window.
To avoid being seen, Maggie leaned back, away from the glass. But it wasn’t her window Miss Hattie stared at as if she were highly peeved. It was the attic bedroom window—or maybe the room below it. But why would Miss Hattie be glowering at her own rooms?
When they walked under the porch roof below her own windows, Maggie could no longer see them. She darted her gaze back to MacGregor. Where had he gone?
He hadn’t moved.
His shoulders slumped, knees bent, feet flat on the brown grass, he sat on the rocks, looking out through the sheer haze to the open sea.
Waves of despair washed through Maggie. Despair she somehow knew was his. He had been in physical pain during the course of whatever had been happening out there, but now that it was over, his pain hadn’t subsided. It had strengthened and deepened, invaded his spirit and soul, and she felt it as if it were her own pain.
Stunned, weakened by its powerful force, she rested her forehead against the glass and fought letting the sympathetic tears blurring her eyes fall to her face. Maggie Wright never cried.
An unbidden thought spilled through her mind on a whisper. Help him.
On Saturday, Maggie witnessed the same scene again, minus Bill and Miss Hattie, who for reasons unknown to Maggie were absent.
On Sunday, shortly after Miss Hattie had left for church, Maggie watched MacGregor’s third attempt. Watched him fail. Watched him then sit on the rocks and stare out to sea for over two hours. And again she suffered those same waves of despair. Heard that same muffled but calm and insistent voice whisper: Help him.
Maggie wanted to help him. It was frightening to watch him fall, and it sickened her that she had watched and hadn’t lifted a finger much less rushed out to see if he was all right. She would have. She’d tried. But for some mystical reason, when he had fallen, she hadn’t been able to move.
It was as if some unseen hand held her there on the cushions at
the window, reducing her to doing no more than watching, waiting, holding her breath and gripping the window sash so tightly her arms ached to her elbows, until MacGregor sat up and she saw with her own two eyes that he was okay.
She denied it at first. But each time she witnessed his attempt and failure, the waves of despair in her grew stronger, hurt her deeper. Each time, the calm, steady whisper grew a little louder and clearer, a little more insistent—and a lot more frightening.
T.J. grabbed the bannister, started up the stairs, and saw Maggie, standing looking at Cecelia’s portrait. He walked on, then stopped three steps below her.
“Who are they, MacGregor?”
Her question surprised him. She hadn’t shown a sign of knowing him there. “The Freeports bought the land from the Stanfords and built this house in 1918. Collin carved all those boats and fowl in the case in the living room. Talented man.”
“I’ll have to go look at them. Haven’t made it down there yet.” Maggie leaned back against the bannister. “What about her?”
MacGregor leaned back, too. His arm brushed against Maggie’s shoulder. That she didn’t move away pleased him. After yet another failure, the warmth of another person, even impersonal and seemingly innocent warmth, felt good. “Cecelia assisted the village doctor until he died. For years, she and Collin tried to find another doctor to come to the village, but they never did. The locals kept coming to Cecelia to treat them.”
“Did she?”
“As much as possible, yes, she did.”
“A healer.” Maggie looked up at him and smiled. “I sensed she was special.”
“She must have been.” The urge to paint Maggie seeped through T.J.’s chest, into his arms, and set his fingers to itching to pick up a brush. Knowing the futility and frustration that attempt would bring, he buried the urge deep inside him, then folded his arms across his chest to hold it there. “They say the night Cecelia died, hundreds of villagers and people she’d helped came out into the bitter cold and held a candlelight vigil on the front lawn. Mothers with babies she’d brought into the world, those she’d healed and kept from prematurely departing it. Must have been something.”
“Mmm, kind of makes you feel if you aren’t as devoted to others as she was, you’re just taking up space, doesn’t it?” Maggie studied Cecelia’s face, as if trying to figure out something. “What do you think it is, MacGregor? Do the rest of us lack some special gene or something?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Or maybe it’s got to do with looking out rather than in.”
She swiveled her gaze up to his. Her brow wrinkled. “Looking out what?”
“Outside ourselves. Cecelia definitely looked out.”
“I don’t get it.”
He hadn’t either for the first couple of months he’d studied the painting. Then as if a light bulb went on in his head, it seemed so simple and clear. He propped his socked foot against the spindle behind him. “It’s like when you’re going to paint something. You see it with your eyes, but you feel it with every fiber in you. It isn’t until you feel it in here,” he cupped his fingers and thumped them against his chest, “that you can paint something and do it justice. For Cecelia, healing was like that. She felt it in here.”
“Empathy versus sympathy.” Maggie nodded.
“Yeah.” Quick, and a lot more intuitive than he’d given her credit for being.
Maggie smiled. “So how did you learn all this—about the house, and them?” She nodded toward the portraits. A shadow streaked across her chin.
“Miss Hattie. She’s lived here most of her life. Loves this house and everyone in it.”
“Sometimes I get the feeling she’s reading my mind. Not like a psychic, or anything like that. I don’t know. Like she somehow sees inside me.”
“I’ve had that feeling, too.” Why had he admitted that? It opened the door to all kinds of questions he didn’t want asked because he’d have to refuse to answer them.
“It doesn’t bother me, really. It’s just sort of”—she shrugged—“oddly comforting. As if you’re unconditionally accepted as you are and you don’t have to explain anything.” Maggie worried her lower lip with her teeth. “When you painted the gazebo, did you look outward?”
She knew. He felt his face flush. “Um, no.”
“But you did when you worked on canvas.”
It wasn’t a question, more of a statement. He hesitated before answering, certain that if he had any sense, he’d shut this conversation down right now. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I did.”
“You don’t paint on canvas anymore, then?”
He looked away. “I haven’t for some time.”
“Why not?” She rubbed her forefinger down the bannister.
He stiffened. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Sorry.” She sounded as if she truly meant it. “I didn’t mean to pry—and this isn’t another session of Twenty Questions. I’m just curious.”
“I’ll bet you drove your mother nuts.”
She grinned. “Just about.”
He looked down at her coat. “Are you on your way out?”
She nodded. “I thought I’d walk down to the village and soak up some serenity.”
Envy, hot and hard, slammed into him. “Enjoy it.”
He stepped around her, then took the rest of the stairs two at a time. Would he ever again be able to say that—that he was going for a walk in the village?
“Hey, MacGregor.”
“Yeah?” He paused and looked down at her.
“You’re not half bad when you’re civil.”
He grunted. “Show your appreciation, then. Leave me some hot water.”
The weak sun felt good on her back. There were no sidewalks in this part of the village, so Maggie stopped on the worn, dirt path paralleling the street and watched all the activity. Across the street, two black boys rode their bikes hell-bent-for-leather, speeding dangerously close to the entry of Landry’s Landing.
A young woman with a red-and-white bandana circling her forehead like a sweat band rushed outside and cupped her hands at her mouth. “Aaron Butler! You and George slow down before you kill somebody!”
The boys breezed right on, not slowing a bit. Maggie grinned.
A man stepped out of The Store, next door to Landry’s. “Aaron, George, you heard Miss Landry! Slow it down!”
He was a plain man in his mid-forties, thin but not frail. His arms covered with dark hair, he propped his elbow atop a gas pump, then reached up and adjusted his green baseball cap. Local Yokel was embroidered above its bill.
Maggie walked on. Off to her distant right, she glimpsed a white picket fence. Headstones shone through the slats. A cemetery. Right in front of it sat a pristine little clapboard church with a tall, wooden steeple and a stained-glass window that looked pretty new. Looking at that window, feeling calm and restful again, Maggie made a vow. Come Monday, she would not watch MacGregor’s attempt.
Whatever was happening with him had nothing to do with her and it shouldn’t rob her of peace. Besides, she had her own agenda here. Carolyn.
Hooking a U-turn, Maggie headed back down the path, back toward the inn. She’d given MacGregor several opportunities to tell her about his troubles, but he’d elected not to do so. And, aside from the odd event that took place each morning on the shore, everything at the inn seemed the same as it had before she’d become aware of anything unusual occurring.
MacGregor acted like his habitual sarcastic and nagging self, though admittedly he had softened a bit on the civility front earlier today on the stairs. Miss Hattie continued being her usual angelic self. That woman really was a treasure. And Maggie’s conscience pestered her constantly because she hadn’t helped MacGregor. Seeing a stone, she nicked it with the tip of her sneaker. But she just might feel more guilty than pestered because a part of her wanted to help him. That made her disloyal to Carolyn, didn’t it?
The post office’s shadow slanted across the path. Maggie stepped
into it and saw Vic Sampson through the window. Polishing the brass framing the glass fronts of the old-fashioned post office boxes that lined the wall, he glanced up and clearly recognized her from when he’d delivered mail to the inn. She’d never seen boxes with dial combinations before, though she’d heard of them. Quaint, but hadn’t the postal system recalled them all? Mmm, how had Sea Haven Village managed to keep theirs?
Vic shook the cloth in a greeting and mouthed, “Hi, Maggie.”
Glad to see a familiar face, she lifted a hand and smiled back, then walked on. Maybe if she just had tried to help MacGregor her conscience would stop badgering her. Turning her back on anyone in trouble reeked of indifference to their suffering, and wasn’t indifference just the worst kind of insult? She’d always respected anyone who—right or wrong—loved or hated and fought for or against anything with the passion of their convictions. It was the bystanders, those who elected not to get involved, those who didn’t care, that she’d held in disdain. She frowned. Now she was one of them.
The porch of the Blue Moon Cafe was freshly swept and empty of people. To the right of the front door, a blue moon had been painted on the green cinderblock wall. Like everything else this close to the sea and its salt, it had weathered and faded a little. The sheriff’s car was parked in the lot.
Rounding a rough cedar staircase, Maggie nearly collided with a short, stooped woman who rushed to the cafe’s door on thin, birdlike legs. Her coattail flapping behind her, she muttered something about a Mister High Britches needing a reminder that she’d once been his teacher. She deserved a little respect and he was going to give it to her or she was going to blister his ears.
Maggie skirted a half-barrel of orange silk flowers, replacing those in the dirt that surely bloomed there in summer, and the biggest anchor she’d ever seen, rusted and propped against the wall with a little mound of dirt hidden behind it. She caught a whiff of fried chicken. If she weren’t so troubled, she would’ve stopped in and had some. But she was troubled so, heavy-footed, she kept walking, silently damning MacGregor. Even here, she couldn’t get the man off her mind.