by Luanne Rice
Gavin held her tight, helping her step into the first tidal pool. The water felt cold and wonderful on her burned feet. She stood still, waves swirling around her ankles. When she was ready, he took another step down, onto the ledge that dropped off into the Sound itself. Because the tide was out, the waves were breaking a few yards away, leaving them in peace here.
Sheridan braced herself against Gavin, and together they lowered themselves onto the ledge, sitting waist-deep in the cool, healing salt water. A hundred yards behind them were noises from the fire: axes hacking wood, water gushing from hoses, people crying out in distress. Gavin sat quietly beside Sheridan. He didn’t ask if she was okay, didn’t ask if she wanted to go back to her yard, be there with her house as it burned. He just sat with her.
“My grandmother always said salt water healed all wounds,” she said.
“Well, it sure feels good now,” Gavin said.
“When you put your mouth on mine, up at the house, I tasted salt,” Sheridan said. “Even through the smoke. I think it woke me up.”
Gavin laughed softly. “I swam early this morning, a hundred years ago; didn’t have time to shower before heading to Nashville.”
“Maybe it saved my life.”
“Then I’m glad I swam.”
The water splashed over their feet and legs, spray coating their faces; Sheridan watched as bits of ash were washed from their bodies and drifted out to sea on the waves’ foam. She stared at one piece, circling in an eddy, then disappearing underwater.
“He told me everything,” Sheridan said.
“I knew he planned to,” Gavin said, putting his arm around her.
“Randy told you…”
“I wanted so badly to get back here, so you wouldn’t have to be alone to hear. I wanted to be with you when he told you.”
“I know,” she said softly. “And I love you for it.”
Had she just said that? Her heart, aching from all that had happened, crashed around in her chest, and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
“It must have been so hard to hear what he had to say,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “And also good to hear. Because now I know what happened. Nell was right; we had to know.”
He nodded. Sometimes resolution made things better. Not at first, but once it all sank in; it made it easier to accept and go on. She wondered whether that was why he’d become an investigator. Because knowing was better than not knowing.
“How did the fire start?” he asked.
“I’d lit candles…because I was tired of being alone in the dark. I was…thinking of you. And then Jeff came, and then Nell. I…really don’t remember the rest. It was an accident. It happened so fast.”
“Thank God we got you out.”
“All of us,” she said.
“Jeff, too?”
“Jeff, too,” she said.
She felt Gavin looking at her, glanced up to meet his eyes. The water swirled around them, cooling her burns. She waited to see disbelief in his face, but he just gazed at her.
“That’s my Sheridan,” he said.
“I’m just thinking of Charlie,” she said. “Of what he would want. He’d want his brother to be safe.”
“I don’t…” he began. “I never really believed in your family’s magic. You know that, right?”
“I figured,” she said. “You were always so practical.”
“But tonight…” He shook his head.
“What?”
“Well, after I’d picked you up, leaving the living room, I couldn’t see where I was going. I felt myself starting to pass out, and I swear I heard…”
“Charlie,” Sheridan whispered.
Gavin nodded.
Sheridan stared at the shining black water. She had heard her son—and seen him, too. With the flames all around them, and Jeff lying on the floor beside her in that burning room, she’d seen a white shape, so graceful and true. The smoke was thick, obscuring her vision. He’d touched her, told her he loved her. But then he’d faded away.
“He saved us,” Sheridan said.
“I know,” Gavin said. “Charlie was there, right there with us. Aphrodite, too.”
Sheridan sat on the rock ledge, half submerged, trying to hold the moment in her mind. If Charlie had been with them in the fire, why couldn’t he be here now? Why couldn’t her son come back to her? She cried softly, tears rolling down her face.
Leaning into Gavin, Sheridan felt the salt water washing around them both, healing their burns, and scars, and even her broken heart. She coughed, feeling her lungs start to expand. The fog cooled every breath, soothing her throat. And then she knew: the fog had brought her ghosts home to her.
Aphrodite had believed in so few rules, but she’d always told them to be careful in the fog. She’d told Sheridan and her sisters not to step on fairy tablecloths—cobwebs stretched between blades of grass, silvery with fog’s dew—and not to stand with their backs to a mirror, and that when they saw animals on foggy nights, they were really human ghosts. For the first time, Sheridan realized that Aphrodite’s prohibitions had not been so much to protect her granddaughters—as to protect the dead.
To give them rest, to not call them forth. She glanced up, saw scraps of fog breaking up, the first stars shining through.
“I hope they can save the house,” Gavin said.
Sheridan didn’t reply. She thought of her guitars and equipment, her stacks of sheet music, the notebooks full of songs she’d been writing. She thought of Charlie’s room, of all his things. And she thought of Aphrodite’s kitchen, all the dried herbs and seashells and bits of sea glass. She thought of her grandmother’s book of spells.
“I don’t care,” she whispered.
“Don’t give up,” Gavin begged, hugging her. “Sheridan…”
“I’m not giving up,” she said, gazing into his eyes. She wanted to explain it all to him, make him see: tonight was a beginning, not the end. A house was made of wood and glass and bricks and stone. It was filled with things—objects that mattered, but that were not the whole story.
Songs could be rewritten, guitars could be replaced, the things in Charlie’s room were just things, not Charlie himself. Sheridan had Charlie with her every minute of every day. He was in her heart and soul; she’d given him life, and he’d given it back to her.
She held Gavin’s hand, rocking back and forth. Sitting in the water, she felt the power of the sea. Her grandmother had been named for the goddess of love, who’d been born out of the ocean, had come to earth in a beautiful scallop shell. They had all come from the sea, and would return to the sea; Sheridan watched as sparks from the fire drifted over the treetops, fizzling in the bay like drowning stars.
An ember landed beside her; Sheridan touched it, a charred piece of her house hovering on the water’s surface. She watched, expecting it to sink, but it didn’t; the small ember floated away, a small boat, borne by the waves until it disappeared into the darkness.
“Sheridan,” Gavin whispered.
“I’m almost ready to get out,” she said. “But not quite.”
They put their arms around each other. Sheridan felt the warmth of Gavin’s body through their wet clothes; she felt her heart beating against his, the rhythms melting together as if they were one, as if they’d always been together and would never be apart. Time away from the one you love disappears once you realize that distance is only in your mind, that it never really mattered at all.
She kissed Gavin on the lips. He still and again tasted of salt. They looked into each other’s eyes and didn’t have to say a word. Together they stood and, holding hands, stepped off the ledge into the cool, dark Sound. They swam side by side along the shore, buoyant in their home waters.
Sheridan and Gavin swam, their path illuminated by the stars in the clearing sky, their backs to the fire as the fog finally cleared.
ONE NIGHT PASSED, then another. A third, a fourth. The fifth day was August thirty-first, the anniversar
y of Charlie’s death, and Nell returned to the cemetery. She had been so sure she’d see him in her dreams the foggy night of the fire. She’d left everyone standing around Sheridan’s house as the firefighters tried to salvage at least something of the frame. She’d run up the street, her legs aching as she tore through the beach roads.
Hurrying to Charlie’s grave that night, she’d almost expected to see him sitting right there waiting for her. But of course he wasn’t. She’d sat on the grass, her back to the gravestone, willing herself to fall asleep. Minutes had passed, then an hour. She’d watched as the emergency vehicles drove away. Sometime in the middle of the night, exhausted and knowing that Stevie would be worried, she’d headed home.
Her father had returned from London. His joy at Stevie’s agreeing to marry him had been tempered by his devastation over the loss of Sheridan’s house. They’d grown up together here at Hubbard’s Point, and her sorrow was his. Stevie tried to tell him what Sheridan had told her: that it was only a structure, that she carried everything important—the love, the memories, even the magic—in her own heart.
But Nell’s dad was an architect, and to him structure was very important. He knew that Sheridan’s house had been her home, that the complete reality of loss probably hadn’t yet hit her. He’d asked Stevie to pull out all the photos they’d taken over the years, visiting Sheridan—for Charlie’s birthday parties, for Sheridan’s impromptu concerts, for visits with Aphrodite. He wanted to make sure they had them, to give to Sheridan when she was ready.
Today, five days after the fire, Nell had gone back to work. She’d just finished her shift at Foley’s, walked up to the cemetery for her daily visit. Her throat still ached from breathing smoke from the fire; she’d brought a lemonade with her to sip as she walked. Coming down the dirt road, she saw shadows dappling the green grass. The sun was setting behind the trees, glowing orange through the leaves. One year ago tonight, Charlie had died.
Nell shivered. She remembered the first time she’d seen Jeff, right here in the graveyard. She walked over to Charlie’s grave, stood staring at it for a few minutes. The guitar-playing angel looked so peaceful, as if she were playing Charlie a lullaby. Nell closed her eyes, wondered whether she had imagined seeing him the last time.
After a while, she sat down on the grass. She drank most of her lemonade, then set the cup down. A bee buzzed drowsily around the rim, then flew away. Overhead, birds were singing in a last burst before nightfall. Nell watched the robins hopping across the grass a few feet away; this year’s babies were all grown up. Soon it would be autumn, time to fly south for the winter.
She stared at the lemonade again, thinking of how she’d spilled those two glasses on those people who’d carved their initials in the table at Foley’s. So much had happened since that day. Now Jeff was under arrest for manslaughter. Randy was being investigated as well, and he was cooperating with the police. Nell had done what she’d set out to do: find answers.
Maybe Sheridan had been right all along: losing Charlie was what counted, not how or why it had happened. Nell stared down at her ankle, now bare of the scrap of towel Charlie had tied there. It had come off in the fire. She gazed at her bare ankle for a long time, then slid down and lay still, listening to the crickets. She’d dreamed of him here once—it had seemed so real, so she prayed for him to come to her again. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she drifted off.
“Charlie,” she whispered, begging him to come. “Charlie…”
And tonight was the night, because he whispered back: “I’m here.”
And when she opened her eyes, he was. He stood in front of her, solid and strong and tan and real. He had never gone away, never died. He was alive, and he was smiling, and he touched her and came to sit beside her.
Nell held him.
“Charlie…” she whispered.
He laughed, kissing her. “You’re the Boy Whisperer,” he said. “That hasn’t changed.”
“Where were you? I’ve come every day…”
“Shh,” he said. “Let’s not talk yet. I just want to be with you.”
He caressed her with his strong hands, running them down her arms. They kissed, feeling each other’s bodies. Nell tangled her fingers in his hair, traced the back of his head, touched the skin of his neck, ran her hands up under the sleeves of his T-shirt to feel his shoulders, touch his muscles.
Charlie eased her down onto her back; he lay beside her in the grass, brushing the hair back from her forehead, gazing into her eyes. He smiled; she reached up, touched his lips with her finger. He lowered his head to kiss her, parting her lips with his tongue. His cheek rubbed against hers, scratchy with scruff, as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days. It felt so sexy, making Nell squirm and kiss him harder.
They lay on the grass, making out like crazy, as if a whole year hadn’t passed. Nell knew every inch of his body, and it was clear he remembered every bit of hers. She squeezed her eyes tight, seeing stars, convincing herself that the last year hadn’t happened at all—she had had a bad dream.
People had told her Charlie was dead, but he wasn’t. He was here, alive, with her, and they were young, and it was summer, and overhead the first star was starting to glint in the twilight sky.
“Make a wish,” she said, pointing up.
“Nell,” he said, touching her face, unable to look away.
“Star light, star bright,” she said, laughing. “Come on, let’s make a wish.”
He smiled, still staring into her eyes. She tickled him, and he laughed. “You first,” he said, kissing her.
Nell closed her eyes. It was a long, slow kiss that made her spine tingle, filled her body with warmth all the way down to her toes. A wish came to her, but it seemed too easy. So she looked deeper, tried harder as the kiss grew more intense. Many wishes flew through her mind, all of them good. But she returned to the very first one. They kissed another few seconds, and then Charlie pulled back, still holding her, looking into her face.
“Okay,” she said. “Done.”
“What was it?”
“If I tell you, it might not come true. Now you—your turn to make one.”
He smiled at her as if being very patient. Then he closed his eyes. She stared up at his face for a long moment; her hand hovered close to his cheeks and chin, wanting to touch him but for some reason holding back. She watched the smile get bigger for a moment, then drain away. When he opened his eyes, he looked sad.
“Did you make your wish?”
He nodded. “I wished…”
“Shh,” she said, putting one finger to his lips. “Remember, if you tell me, it won’t…”
“It won’t come true,” he said.
“But only if you don’t tell me,” she said.
He shook his head. She saw anger in his eyes, then the glint of tears. “No, Nell. It won’t come true no matter what…”
“That’s not true,” she said. “You of all people should know—coming from your family, with all the spells and magic—wishes are important! And if…”
“Nell,” he said, stroking her cheek. “My wish can’t come true…because I wished to stay with you. And I can’t.”
“Charlie, but…”
“It’s time for me to go.” He paused, kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her lips again. “This past year, I wanted to stay forever. I couldn’t bear to leave you, Nell. Or my mom, either.”
“Charlie…stay!” Nell said, gripping his hand.
For a moment she saw a flicker of hope in his eyes. Maybe they could live that way—love each other forever, live side by side, never seeing one another but counting on the other’s constant presence. Maybe that would be enough…
“It wouldn’t be fair to you,” Charlie said.
“Oh, Charlie,” she whispered.
“It’s time, Nell,” he said, taking her hand.
Nell stared at him, her beautiful friend, her only love. He was humble and dear, and she knew that she had to let him go, that it was time for him to sleep.
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“Okay,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
She wasn’t, but she nodded anyway. “It’s time…”
Something made Nell turn. There beyond the graves, in the tall grass filled with fireflies, she saw a fragile, evanescent form. Aphrodite, holding out her arms to him.
Nell turned back to him. He hadn’t stopped gazing at her, even for a second. He took her hand, and they looked deeply into each other’s eyes. Nell swallowed, trying to memorize everything about him. She traced the outline of his face; he grabbed her finger and kissed it. Then he put his arms around her.
They rocked, and he felt so solid, she almost changed her mind. He tilted her head back, lowering his mouth to hers. He tasted so good, so much like he always had; he tasted like summer. Overhead a night bird flew through the trees, its call deep and low. Nell never wanted to stop holding him, couldn’t bear to pull back. She thought of her wish, and it welled up inside her, filled her eyes with tears.
“I have to leave,” Charlie said, his hands gripping Nell’s elbows.
“You know what I wished?” she asked.
“You told me you couldn’t tell me…that it wouldn’t come true.”
“It won’t anyway,” she gasped. “But I want you to know.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding, waiting.
She swallowed hard. “It’s dumb,” she said. “But it’s what I want more than anything…”
“Tell me,” he whispered.
“I wish I still had that piece of towel you’d tied around my ankle,” she said.
Charlie was practically holding her up; she felt as if her knees might buckle. Very gently he let go of her, then crouched down. He picked a long blade of grass from the edge of his tombstone. Still kneeling, he tied it around her ankle. Then he stood up.
“It’s the best I can do,” he said, smiling.
“I like it,” she said, smiling back.
Then he kissed her. He took her in his arms, their feet in the shadow of his grave and their faces in the light of the stars, and he held her tight. She reached up to hold him, tasted his summery taste, felt his hot lips, and the feel of his cheek rough against hers, and the way his arms pressed her into his body, as if making them one and the same person.