by Mari Labbee
Matt wrapped the towel around his waist and looked at her.
“Maybe you should get out of those.”
Bri looked down at the puddle at her feet.
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
He walked to the closet, and searched inside.
“Here you go,” he said, handing her a pair of Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt.
“Thanks,” she said in a small voice.
He reached out, their faces just inches away from each other.
“Hey, are you OK?” he asked.
“Sure. I’m just a little shaken up after coming through that storm.”
How would he react if she told him that it just came to her that she was in love with him? Actually in love. Was it too early to say that? And what if he didn’t feel the same way? All her insecurities surfaced. Obviously he liked her company, and she would say that he liked her personally, but love—that was a very different thing.
“Sorry about that. The weather got heavy quickly; I should have checked earlier, but I thought we’d be OK. You sure you’re all right?”
“Yes.” She nodded.
Something was different; he had picked up on a subtle shift, he was sure of it, and wondered what it was about, but he didn’t ask.
“OK,” he said.
Bri struggled in the bathroom. Her clothes were stuck on, and she peeled them off, letting them drop to the floor. She’d mop up later. She pulled on the shorts and T-shirt and then bent over and wrapped a towel around her hair turban style. A moment later, she stepped out. Matt heard the head door open and looked over.
Few things in the world made him go weak in the knees more than a beautiful girl with her wet hair wrapped up in a towel. He had no idea why he found this so sexy; he just did. And the fact that she was completely unaware of how she looked made her even sexier.
“I figured we could wait for the weather to break before going back.”
Go back to Jackal’s Head Point; she’d have to go back eventually. She nodded in agreement.
The rain never let up the rest of that day and continued into the night, soaking the whole region—the summer version of a nor’easter. The Audrey Natalia rocked in her slip, but inside the cabin was a world of calm. It enveloped them in a cocoon of warmth and safety, and they shared the small space easily, never feeling crowded, falling into a comfortable rhythm that neither of them stopped to analyze.
Matt peeked out just after sunset.
“We don’t have to go back tonight. We can stay on board and go back tomorrow morning. Is that OK?”
Bri was more than fine with that idea and nodded her approval. She wasn’t sure that she was ready to go back to Jackal’s Head Point anyway. But instinctively she knew that for the dreams to end, she would have to go back and face whatever waited there. How would it be? Would the house look different? Would it feel different, knowing what she knew? The diary had told her so much—but not what ultimately happened. She could only guess about that. Matt interrupted her thoughts.
“We still have cold cuts. Do you want a sandwich?”
“That sounds great,” she said, feeling hungry.
All through the day, she thought about the diary, what she’d found in the historical archives, and what Angela had told her and tried to connect it all together.
Why had Rosabel become so paranoid? What was she afraid of? It was frustrating that the diary left her hanging and didn’t tell the whole story, so she was left to guess. Had Rosabel actually gone crazy, or was there something more sinister at work? And what about Isabel? Rosabel had trusted her but then caught her in the lie about being in the room, and Bri knew with complete certainty that Isabel had lied about being in Rosabel’s room. God knows, she’d been there too, witnessed it firsthand. Another thing, Isabel’s words, and actions didn’t match. She wrote about Isabel’s kindness, but something was amiss. Whether Rosabel was conscious of this would remain an unanswered question. Bri wanted an ending, but there wasn’t one.
Matt poured a glass of wine for her then turned back to finish the sandwiches. It was a relief to be here, with him. It had been a long few days. Tomorrow she would be better equipped to deal with what was to come. The storm outside raged, but the Audrey Natalia handled the beating beautifully, and the cabin felt incredibly cozy. She watched Matt finish making the sandwiches, standing shirtless at the galley counter, admiring his muscled back for what had to be the hundredth time.
He set the sandwiches down and flipped the booth light on. He looked quite handsome in the soft cabin light. Oh dear, she thought; hiding the depth of her feelings for him would take a miracle. She was sure he could tell right now as he looked at her.
But then he asked, “So anything interesting in that diary you found?”
Had she found anything interesting? Plenty. Where to start? She nodded, thinking about what to say.
“Well, I’m sure it belonged to Rosabel Bennett-Browne. She lived in the house when it was built. And, in fact, her husband, Elias, built it for her, and he is the one who made the mantel in the great room.” Bri paused. “And it seems she had a sister. Her name was Isabel.”
How could she put this so it would make sense to Matt? Sometimes it’s best to just lay it all out there and see what floats.
“And it seems I saw her.”
“In your dreams?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said carefully.
“Rosabel wrote about one incident in her diary that I know is true because I saw it.” She glanced up at Matt, who was nodding for her to go on.
“But I also saw something in those dreams that Rosabel didn’t write about, and I suspect she must have forgotten. And it’s the reason they sent her away.”
“They sent who away?”
“Isabel. In one of my dreams, I was in the lighthouse, and there was a little girl there. I am positive there was something wrong with this child, and I’m also positive this was Isabel as a child, and she was trying to hurt her sister. I have no doubt of it. The other incident Rosabel wrote about is of finding Isabel in her room in the middle of the night searching for something.”
Bri sighed heavily and sat back in the leather booth, watching Matt take it all in.
“The night you stayed over, I had that dream. I was in our…um…my room, but it didn’t look anything like it does today. There were heavy curtains on the windows and a canopy bed. I was sitting on the bed and saw a woman searching through a dresser that was against the wall. She must have heard me and turned around. I got the distinct impression”—she cleared her throat—“the distinct impression…that this woman wanted to hurt me…or, actually, Rosabel, because that is who I was in the dream. Here in the diary…”
She picked up the diary and began flipping through it to where Rosabel wrote about finding Isabel in her room. She turned the diary toward Matt so he could read it.
“That,” Bri said, pointing, “is exactly what I dreamed that night. Not similar—exact.”
As he read, she tried to think of how to explain the dread that lingered after the dreams and that she feared they would eventually change her if they continued. She didn’t want to end up like Angela’s mother. Somehow Rosabel was reaching out across time; how was a mystery but more importantly why? This was without a doubt the craziest thing she’d ever lived through…but it was real. She would not deny that; it would be dangerous to do that.
“It’s all in there,” she said. “All of it. Elias. How much he had changed when he came back, her sister Isabel. And I can’t put my finger on it…but there is something, something from the dreams that I just can’t quite…”
She kept nodding, subconsciously trying to deny what she was saying.
“I know…I know it sounds crazy, but this is happening. I can’t explain it, and I won’t deny it. The diary confirms the dreams.”
She suddenly remembered another detail, and her eyes grew wide.
“The furniture! I almost forgot! The furniture that was just delivered, the pieces sitting in the
house right now—they are exactly as they were in the dream I had of Rosabel painting the mural. The same fabric…and…and you pushed them up against the wall, in the exact same spot. How can you explain that?”
“Coincidence.” He shrugged. “I just left them against the wall so you could put them where you wanted later. And you said the store owners told you that fabric was vintage, right?”
She nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Well, it was probably a popular fabric of the time. There may have been hundreds of pieces of furniture covered with that same fabric in those days. It wasn’t like it is today with all the choices. And you could have dreamed about similar fabric but are remembering it as the same now. Similar but not the same.”
He made it sound logical and coincidental, but she knew better.
“It can’t all be coincidence,” she said, waiting for him to respond. When he didn’t, she went on.
“I dream about the woman painting the mural, I dream about the woman in my room. Both in the diary? That’s quite a stretch.”
She left out one detail, though, and she wondered if she should tell Matt. Rosabel had painted part of that sky with her own blood. It was in the dream, and it was in the diary. She decided to keep it to herself for now; it would be too much for Matt to handle just yet. Why was she having these dreams? What did they want from her?
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Matt flipped through the pages of the diary casually, skimming over it, not really reading it and thinking, thinking back to when he first met Bri.
Could she be making this up? Why would she make this up? Where had she actually gotten this diary? He really liked Bri, actually more than liked, but this threatened whatever they might have. He had no idea what to do with this information. He didn’t believe in the supernatural. If asked what he thought of it, he would have said he didn’t. So if he didn’t believe in all this, then he’d have to believe that Bri was either lying or had one heck of an imagination or worse.
Bri looked at him clear-eyed and continued.
“I know from the newspaper articles that Elias’s ship had disappeared, and everyone assumed it had been lost, but he had been stranded somewhere; nobody knows where. It’s about the time when Rosabel begins to hear voices, begins to see things, and…maybe she starts to go a little crazy; we know that from the mural. Then Elias just shows up at the door. He never tells her where he’s been, but maybe he’s in shock. There was certainly something wrong with him. She writes about how different he is. It’s weird—he got weird. Then out of the blue, the sister she thinks died years ago, appears on her doorstep.”
She looked at Matt. Then she continued, thinking out loud.
“Why do I feel Elias’s disappearance and Isabel’s reappearance are somehow connected? It’s nothing Rosabel wrote, but I just have a feeling.”
Matt had stopped on a page. He didn’t look up; maybe he just didn’t want to look at her. The whole thing sounded insane. She was living it, and it still sounded insane. What was happening to her defied logic.
“I’d also have to guess that Rosabel was depressed. Maybe not at the beginning but toward the end…I’m positive, I could feel it coming through the pages,” Bri added.
“Maybe she was. That would explain suicide,” Matt said as he finished the rest of his wine.
All he could offer was logic. She was lost in this fantasy, and it was the only way he could help her.
Bri realized he would not accept anything other than a perfectly logical explanation. This would forever be just a series of coincidences as far as he was concerned. From reading the diary, Bri knew that Rosabel had become depressed, and that could easily alter her perspective. She was young, naïve, and probably easily manipulated. Then a thought occurred to her.
Elias had reappeared and, within months, so had Isabel. Were those two somehow involved together? Something else nagged at her. Why was Rosabel afraid of going up into the lighthouse? What had happened there? She never says. Was that why Bri had suddenly become overcome that first day in the lighthouse? A lost memory surfacing, except that it wasn’t any memory of hers.
The diary did one thing—it confirmed that the dreams she’d been having, the feelings were all real, and everything in them had happened. Whether Matt or anyone else believed her didn’t matter; she knew the truth. She wasn’t going to try to convince Matt of anything; in fact, she wasn’t going to try to convince anyone of anything. Then that nagging thought, the one that confused her, broke through. Why, if Rosabel had been so afraid of going up to the top of the lighthouse, had she gone up there at the end?
This bothered her.
Matt was thinking about everything Bri had said. He was extremely uncomfortable with all of it. He wanted to help but didn’t know what to do, and that frustrated him. He thought that living in the old house with all its creaking and thumping had to have prompted the dreams. Whose imagination wouldn’t be stirred by that mural or the lighthouse—take your pick. He had to admit the diary was creepy, and he couldn’t fully explain how she’d known where to find it among all the places it could have been. He needed to get his thoughts in order.
She said she started having the dreams before the diary, but he found that doubtful. There had to be an explanation for all this.
It was well past ten o’clock, and they were both tired. The rain was still coming down hard. Matt stretched and yawned, and she stopped talking.
“Go on,” he said, encouraging her.
“Actually I’m tired. I think I need a break.”
They both fell into an easy sleep almost immediately. Matt’s arms encircled her, and she felt safe cocooned inside them. She slept a still and dreamless sleep until her eyes popped open to a shadow-filled cabin.
Matt’s digital clock radio read 5:20 a.m. The rain had finally stopped, and the soft clang of the buoys bobbing on the water just outside the harbor drifted in on an ocean breeze. She tiptoed into the cabin, and once there, she pulled the diary out of her tote bag and flipped it open.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Matt’s cell phone was ringing, and he reached for it. It was his brother.
“Mom’s in the hospital.”
Matt sat up. “What? Is she OK?”
“She’s OK. She’s stable now.”
“What happened?”
“Not completely sure. They’re still doing tests, but she said it’s her heart.”
“Is that what the doctors told you?” Matt asked his brother.
“It’s what Mom told me—they told her.”
Matt shook his head when he heard that. His mother had the heart of a thoroughbred, and he hoped this was not a move to manipulate him into coming home. As he thought it, a pang of guilt shot through him.
“So she’s OK for now, right? What are they doing now?”
“They’re going to run more tests later today.”
“And she’s stable.”
His brother hesitated. “At least she looks it to us.”
“Us?”
“Me, Betty, and…Susan.”
“Susan?”
“Yeah.” His brother coughed nervously.
Matt heard voices just beyond the phone.
“Um…in fact, Susan wants to talk to you.”
Before he could tell his brother not to put Susan on the phone, he heard her voice.
“Hi, Matt.”
She sounded like she had been crying. She sounded like she was planning a funeral, and this annoyed him.
“Hi, Susan.”
“Your mom is OK for now. I was with her when she felt faint, and then she just toppled over. I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to help her. We’re all taking care of her. But the doctors haven’t been able to give us a good prognosis.”
He was upset to know Susan was there. Her attempts to integrate herself into his family were transparent and irritating. But now was not the time for a fight; it would have to wait. At least his mother was stable, according to Tom, and she wasn’t in any immediate
danger.
“Well, we don’t have any prognosis at all yet, do we?”
“Well, no, but…”
“Best not to get ahead of ourselves then. Tell Tom I’ll be there as soon as possible.”
With that, he hung up.
Bri was in the cabin and had started breakfast.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi, sleepyhead!” she said, walking over to him.
She kissed him and immediately sensed something was wrong.
“What’s the matter?”
He looked at the phone in his hand.
“I just got a call from my brother. My mother was taken to the hospital last night.”
“Oh my God. Is she all right?” Bri asked, stepping back.
Matt nodded. “Yes, yes, she is fine. For now. But I have to go.”
“Of course you do. Can I help?”
He thought about what he needed. He’d have to call for a flight.
“Can you help me pack?”
“Sure.”
The first flight available wouldn’t be until tomorrow afternoon with a connection in Atlanta. If he drove, he could be there either earlier or at least arrive about the same time as the flight. But he’d have to leave immediately.
“I’ll follow you back to the house, then set out from there,” Matt said.
“What? No. That’s out of your way. You need to get on the road as soon as you can.”
“I want to make sure everything is OK.”
He had no idea why, but he needed to make sure she was safe. It wasn’t too far out of the way. It might cost him an hour of time at the most.
Despite her protests she could see he wasn’t having it. He wasn’t going to let her go back to Jackal’s Head Point on her own.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Matt held Bri’s hand as they walked into the house. He tried the light switch by the front door, but nothing happened.
“Power’s out. Are you sure you—”