by Devon Glenn
Tonight, and for as long as he could stall Carl, Rahul’s family and his future were oceans away. He stuffed the letter back in his jacket pocket, which was hanging from a chair, and left the rest of the letters on his nightstand unopened. Through the window he watched the white glow of the moonlight dipping into the waves that separated him from his destiny. Rahul could hear a faint melody drifting up from the street, where an organ grinder cranked out his tune and sang along in a raspy tenor:
“It won’t be a stylish marriage
I can’t afford a carriage
but you’ll look sweet
upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.”
Rahul hummed the song under his breath as he closed the window and turned out the lights.
CHAPTER 4
Larkspur
Rahul sank, cross-legged, into the sand. He pulled his feet on top of his thighs and sat, tangled, weightless, and as still as driftwood. “I could stay outside all day and watch the sunlight flash on the waves,” he said.
Dar hadn’t noticed; she was too busy noticing the sunlight shimmering in Rahul’s eyes as he sat down to join her. The wind grasped at tendrils of glossy black hair that Dar was tempted to smooth with her hands. A man like Rahul must have known how to charm every woman he met. And gauging by the size of the crowd on their blanket, his calling card must have appeared on other doorsteps besides hers. Dar sighed, feeling a twinge of jealousy. Maybe she was wrong to think that she had captured his attention more than any of the others had.
“The energy here is unusually strong,” Rahul said to her. “Did you notice?”
Out of the dozens of men and women who had gathered on the beach that morning, a few who were sitting within earshot nodded in agreement, but Dar was the only person who knew what he had truly meant. The southern tip of New Jersey’s peninsula had an unusually highly charged electromagnetic field due to the water surrounding it on three sides, pinching the land between the Atlantic Ocean and the northern shore of the wide Delaware Bay, and the energy kept the spirits at the shore like the magnetic pull of the moon against the tides. Looking beyond the surf and sand and sun into the spiritual plane, Dar could see the souls of residents past still splashing in the water and peering through attic windows.
“Better here than Atlantic City,” Lottie remarked, interrupting the medium’s thoughts. The stream of guests who poured into Cape May every summer on bicycles and trains had nearly dried up since Atlantic City had thrown open its door fifty miles up the coast. The White Cottage Inn itself was one of few buildings that survived a ravenous fire that had wiped out much of the town. The inn seemed almost old-fashioned now among the modern wood-paneled homes with gingerbread trim that had sprung up around it. Still, the white-columned structure had a loyal following among the residents of Washington, DC, and Philadelphia who made their way to Cape May every summer, even as the economy sagged and industrial smokestacks belched dark clouds into the skies above.
Today Lottie looked better prepared for an inaugural ball than a day at the beach. She had worked her naturally frizzy hair into perfect ringlets and rubbed extra rouge on her cheeks, which she clearly didn’t need. The innkeeper’s wife loosened her collar as if to let the steam out. She fanned her face with her palm and then looked back at Rahul.
Dar had put on her woolen bathing costume for the occasion, but she was beginning to regret wearing black. At night, the color blended well into the darkness of her séance room; in the daytime, it was a magnet for the summer heat.
As she glanced around at the other women in attendance, Dar recognized many of them as the wives of Robert’s colleagues in the capital. Cape May brought many visitors from neighboring states—often the same ones every year—and the man who joined them now was a refreshing change of pace.
Dar had to squint to get a better look at Rahul’s face in the glare of the daylight. He possessed an uncanny ability to return a woman’s gaze without looking at her at all. While the women around him were swooning at his feet, Rahul did not appear to notice them fiddling with their curls and batting their eyelashes.
He was giving a quizzical look to a local merchant, Mr. Kahn, who was originally from India and was now making his way to their blanket to offer them a selection of silk scarves, postcards, and other knickknacks. He nodded to Rahul, who reached into his pocket and produced a coin. “I’ll take one of those postcards, please.”
“Thank you very much,” Mr. Kahn said. He spread his postcards like a fan, waiting for Rahul to make his choice.
Rahul looked at the unusual array of postcards before him: there were pictures of the Cape May lighthouse and the pavilion but also of the Taj Mahal and, even more surprisingly, a wandering yogi. While he had no need for a picture of a religious person he didn’t know or an architectural landmark that was nowhere near his home, both were a welcome sight. Feeling suddenly homesick, he chose the wandering yogi, who was serenely walking on hot coals.
“What an unusual picture,” Elva Burns said as she peered over his shoulder. “Have you ever walked on hot coals?”
“I can’t say that I have.” As Rahul tried to think of how to explain the wandering yogi to Elva, he struggled to articulate the nuances of Hinduism. It couldn’t be contained in a building or a book, much less a simple postcard. “Have you ever flogged yourself to feel closer to Jesus?” he retorted.
“Good heavens, no,” Elva replied, instinctively clutching her cross. “I pray.”
“The man in this picture is not performing tricks; he is praying, too—not just with his mind, but with his whole body,” Rahul said. “Through yoga, he can master his reaction to hunger, to pain, to anger, to greed, or, in this case, to heat. He hopes to bring himself closer to God. To liberate his soul.”
He saw Elva put her hand on her heart and close her eyes when he said greed. “Amen,” she said. She placed her palms together in namaste, but Rahul supposed she wouldn’t have called it that.
“Most people don’t go quite that far in their practice.” He tossed the postcard in the sand. “But you don’t really need a bed of hot coals for meditation, which trains the mind to help us connect with our higher selves. Would you like to try it? It’s much better for your health than walking on fire.”
Now the women on the outskirts of the crowd were scooting closer to Rahul to listen. “We’ll start with an asana, or posture, to prepare our bodies for meditation,” he said. He sat as straight as a sundial, his body casting a long shadow across the sand. “It’s easy. All you need is a good seat.” Rahul gestured to Lottie, who was kneeling on the sand with her limbs tucked beneath her. “See? You are already in Virasana—the hero pose—without even trying. The rest of you can stay where you are,” he instructed the group. “I will assume that your skirts are hiding your good technique. The point is to be seated comfortably with your back in alignment with your head and neck.”
While Rahul was cool and comfortable in his white kurta and pajama, he could see that the American women were suffering in their heavy wool bathing costumes. “Let’s continue with pranayama,” he said. “Take a deep breath from your diaphragm and blow it out completely. Using our muscles to control the breath sends our prana—our life force—all through our bodies. These first few breaths are to purify your nerves.”
Lottie mimicked his exhale into Dar’s ear, turning her head over her shoulder seductively. “I could go for some heavy breathing right about now,” she said as she watched the muscles in Rahul’s chest expand as he inhaled the salty sea air. “How about you?”
Dar had to hold her palm over her face to smother her laughter.
“May I offer you a handkerchief, Dar?” said Virginia, whose face was now crimson, which Dar suspected was not only from the sun. She narrowed her eyes at Dar and Lottie. “Is the sand blowing in your face?”
Both Lottie and Dar shook their heads, trying to compose themselves. “No, Mother,” she whisper
ed, turning back to the front.
“When you’re comfortable,” Rahul continued, “place your thumb and forefinger over your nostrils,” he instructed the group. “Close your right nostril with your thumb and count to four as you breathe in through your left nostril…one, two, three, four…now hold your breath for sixteen counts.”
Dar could feel her heart beating with each count.
“Now exhale in one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I’m counting for you now, but I usually chant the holy word om in my head while I breathe.”
Steadied by her breathing, Dar sat perfectly still, counting in time to the rhythm of the waves behind her. She didn’t have a holy word, but the word she most wanted to say was no. No to her mother’s matchmaking. No to white hair that she had to hide under her hat. No to unwanted visitors spooking her at night. No to the large group of women sitting between her and Rahul. No. No. No.
Rahul led the group through another round, this time closing the left nostril and breathing through the right; and then again, this time exhaling and holding for sixteen counts at the release before drawing another breath.
“Now soften your gaze and look just past the tip of your nose,” Rahul called out, his tone becoming more resonant with each breath. The women sat still as they followed his instructions, transfixed either by the flow of their energy or by the richness of Rahul’s voice.
“As you sit, focus on the way the sunlight streams through the loose weave of your hat, casting latticed shadows in the sand. Now you’re at the Taj Mahal in Agra, peering through jali screens carved from stone.
“As you count your breaths, imagine pulling an invisible string from the base of your spine through the crown of your head. Now you’re at the flower markets in Calcutta, browsing tables filled with colorful garlands for offerings, for celebrations, for mourning. One at a time, place the flowers at the top of the string and push them down as you pull the string up.
“If it helps you to imagine another country as a safe place for your thoughts, then take them there. Eventually, they’ll be safe inside your head.”
The longer Dar sat, the lighter she felt. Before long, she slipped out of her body, discarding it like a silk robe. In the astral plane, somewhere between waking and sleeping, she hovered above herself and looked down at the scene.
Gazing at the tops of bonnets and bare heads, Dar could hear the mundane thoughts and worries of a few of the women twittering like insects. Most of those gathered on the beach were praying that their dresses would not get soiled in the sand, but one voice rose clear and harsh above the others: “Father in Heaven, please deliver us from this barefooted charlatan” came Virginia’s thoughts.
Dar brushed away the rudeness of her mother’s brain and looked ahead at Rahul. To her astonishment, he looked right back at her. He appeared to be in two places at once: while his physical body remained rooted to the earth in front of his legion of overdressed ladies, his soul had decamped to the astral plane and was floating above his head. All she could do was wave to him as she hovered above the crowd in billowing skirts. He stretched out his muscled legs, first one and then the other, and moved toward her. The other women couldn’t see Rahul moving deliberately among them, but Dar noticed that Elva would shiver when his astral body brushed her shoulders.
“I owe you an apology about the ghosts last night,” Rahul offered. “I couldn’t keep my eyes off you. I didn’t want the shadows to darken my view.” He reached into the air, summoning a bouquet of larkspur in a brilliant shade of purple. “I read about these in a flower language dictionary,” he explained.
Dar hoped he hadn’t learned all his tricks from ladies’ coffee-table books, especially ones so old-fashioned. But she forgot her skepticism when Rahul placed the flowers in her hands. “I believe larkspur means ‘beautiful soul,’” Rahul said. “That’s you.”
Dar took the flowers and smiled, the rest of the material world fading from her consciousness as she closed her eyes and dipped her nose into the blooms to capture their scent. She couldn’t tell if she was really meeting another soul in the astral plane or simply fantasizing, but she had never had such a beautiful meditation.
“You’ve come untethered,” Rahul said, glancing down at the body that Dar’s soul had left behind in the sand.
A gull’s cry overhead brought the medium back to reality. She stood blinking in the sun, once again lost in the crowd as Rahul finished the meditation.
Across the sand, Lottie waved her arms at Dar. “Over here, Miss Crossing!” she called. “Come say hello to Rahul!”
Dar picked up her skirts and made her way through the sand, her heart beating furiously against her corset.
Rahul straightened when he saw Dar heading toward him and Lottie. Virginia also picked up her skirts and followed Dar to where they stood.
Lottie piped up as soon as she was in earshot. “Rahul, you remember my dear friend—”
“Miss Crossing!” Rahul interrupted, nodding at Dar. “How lovely to see you down here.”
Dar’s stomach clenched. She wanted to push Lottie straight into the sand so that she could talk to Rahul alone about the astral plane, about spirits, about everything that they could see that other people couldn’t. But she didn’t dare exclude her friend from the conversation. That would be rude—and it would aggravate her mother.
With her gentle countenance and inquisitive mind, Dar became fast friends with most people she met. But the same women who for years had come to her séances and had invited her to their parties in return had never once offered to introduce her to their single brothers. And the men who stopped to tip their hats to her in the street never came calling, either—not once they had heard about her preoccupation with ghosts. She was used to being liked; she wasn’t used to being desired. Her natural curiosity felt amplified—garish, even—in the presence of her new acquaintance, who had, unbeknownst to her mother and Lottie, already brought her flowers.
But she needn’t have worried. Lottie was twirling her hair and thrusting her bosom toward Rahul, completely oblivious to her friend’s reddening cheeks.
“If Mrs. Digges approves, I hope to see you again at the inn,” Rahul said. He excused himself with a nod of his head. Dar caught one last, long look at Rahul’s face to accept his request with her eyes before he walked away.
Lottie dropped her head dramatically on Dar’s shoulder. “Mrs. Digges,” she sighed. “It makes me sound so unavailable.”
Dar knew better than to engage Lottie in a public conversation about marital fidelity. Lottie’s voice carried well, and the less she spoke, the better.
“Yes, I suppose you will be unavailable this evening, with so many guests to look after,” Dar called, and a woman who had knitted her eyebrows at Lottie looked sheepishly away.
The other women were meandering back to their cottages and hotel rooms, dabbing beads of sweat off their foreheads with their handkerchiefs and chattering excitedly.
“Perhaps he’d meditate with me again,” Lottie continued, finally lowering her voice to an appropriate level. “Do you think you could join me—just so the others aren’t suspicious?”
“If I must,” Dar said. She linked arms with her friend and walked back to the White Cottage. “But you’ll have to be discreet. You are still married, you know.”
“You are so fortunate to be young and have your life ahead of you, Dar,” Lottie said wistfully. “Don’t waste a minute of it.”
Lottie was nothing if not dramatic. “What are you saying, Old Woman Digges?” Dar asked, finally taking the bait Lottie had been dangling in front of her nose all afternoon.
“You should have an affair is what I’m saying,” Lottie said frankly. “That way, if your future husband grows tired of your charms, you’ll always have something to fantasize about.”
CHAPTER 5
A straight razor
Dar awoke from a restless nig
ht with her sheets in knots at the foot of her bed and her body drenched in sweat. In her dreams, she had walked through fields of flowers, picking a few stems for her basket and calling out each of their names—larkspur, rose, forget-me-not—until she came to the top of a hill. When she looked at her feet to see how steep her descent would be, the earth had disappeared. She fell, screaming, until the sunlight through her window forced her awake.
Her parched throat ached, and sweat beaded her brow. “What are you telling me, Spirits?” she whispered to the room. “Am I falling in love or going to hell?” After her encounter with Finn and the ominous shaded ghost who had commandeered the board, Dar knew the Other Side was reaching out, but what was it saying?
Dar kicked her way out of her sheets, walked across the room, and examined her wardrobe for the day’s activity: a semiprivate meditation session with Rahul.
She thought about the man with amber eyes and unruly black hair. Her experience with Rahul had convinced her that she could benefit from meditation. But Dar wished that Rahul had acknowledged the talent she showed at the séance, where she had deftly spun warnings from the Other Side—from Horace’s dubious business dealings to the terrifying truth about Beth’s father—into lighthearted conversation. Dar had stayed in control the entire time, even when the mysterious Edgar had tried to scare her guests on the Ouija board. After all that, Rahul had dismissed channeling as being too dangerous. How could someone with his gifts be so resistant to talking to the dead?
If Finn’s information was reliable, Rahul was to be her lover; he had been the only bachelor in the room, aside from that blowhard with the ridiculous mustache, who obviously didn’t count. But the pirate clearly dwelled in the ghost plane, where departed souls lingered until they chose to cross over. How could he know her future without consulting with a higher realm?