by Devon Glenn
But Rahul couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Dar in that position. And he believed his mother would value a person’s integrity more than money. He would send her the newspaper article about Dar to add to the collection of marriage ads. It contained her picture and a brief but honest description—“eccentric but comely”—that his mother might appreciate. He would tell his father that, in lieu of a dowry, she had foiled Angus’s plans by helping a reporter who wanted to expose his cousin for tax fraud. That would be good for business, would it not?
Although his marital ad was politely worded, it signaled in code to those who knew how to read it that his parents were looking for a girl they could love like she was their own daughter. And if Rahul loved Dar, so might they.
Rahul thought about Dar’s face—and the rest of her body—as he quietly walked to the side of the hotel where the bicycles were stored. With almost obsessive attention to detail, he kicked the great tires and jiggled the handlebars and seats of every tandem bicycle until he found one that seemed sturdy enough to hold two people and a couple of small suitcases. He visualized where every curve of her body would fit, lingering over the bicycle’s seat.
After a couple of failed attempts to pick the bicycle lock, Rahul pulled out the long metal stake that tethered it to the ground and shook the bicycle out of its chains, rolling his eyes at Lottie’s poorly executed antitheft system. He swung one leg over the bicycle and was reaching for the pedal with his foot when another set of footsteps froze him in his tracks.
“You know, I would have let you use the bicycle for free. No need to steal one in the middle of the night!” Lottie called from across the lawn as she made her way to the storage area.
Sighing, Rahul rested the bicycle against the wall and turned to face the innkeeper’s wife, who looked unusually tousled and smelled of sherry. “My dear Mrs. Digges,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping off the night’s festivities? I would hate for one of your guests to find—or hear—you in this state.”
Lottie wagged her finger like an angry schoolmarm. “Be more discreet, Lottie,” she mimicked. “Stop speaking so loudly, Lottie. You’ve had enough to drink, Lottie.” Her eyes narrowed. “What, did my husband send you here to spy on me?”
Rahul cringed at her candor. He motioned for Lottie to follow him to the side porch, where they could sit and talk behind the protective branches of an overgrown tree. “What I have to tell you may not be easy to digest, but I believe the truth is better than any lie I could make up right now.”
Lottie made a spinning motion with her hand to coax more words out of Rahul. “Please just say it.”
Rahul took a deep breath. “I need a tandem bicycle to pick up Dar and get us both to the train station without being seen or heard by anyone else, especially her mother. I’m in love with her, she is in love with me, and her mother is—”
“About to marry her off to a buffoon with a handlebar mustache,” Lottie said.
“Exactly. So I take it you already knew about us?”
“Ladies are very sensitive to these things,” Lottie replied, “especially ladies who are used to receiving more attention from men.”
Rahul could tell by her tone that they were no longer talking about the reporter or the politician.
“I am sure you have many admirers,” he said desperately.
Lottie was not that easily fooled. “It’s my hair, isn’t it? I have to tease it up, you know, and then fill the rest in with tufts of hair from my hairbrush,” she said with a sigh, smoothing her pompadour. “It would be thin and lifeless if not for the tiny birds’ nests inside. I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if I found an egg in there one day.”
Rahul cringed, but out of diplomacy he offered, “I am not so easily swayed by ladies’ hairstyles.”
A single tear slid down Lottie’s face as the truth settled in. He could hear her thoughts in his head: Dar was her friend, and her friend was in love. It didn’t matter that Lottie had a crush on the object of Dar’s affection or that her own husband would likely never ride a bicycle, much less steal one for her; all that mattered was that Dar was happy. Which reminded her: “So tell me again where my tandem bicycle fits into your little romance with my friend.”
Finally, Lottie was listening. Rahul tried to sound confident as he explained his plan to Lottie, whose eyes sparkled with amusement as he described the clandestine bicycle ride through the darkened streets of Cape May, their suitcases bobbing on the handlebars as the pair of lovers made their way to the train station to catch what would likely be the very last train out of town. “And when Mrs. Crossing wakes up tomorrow, we will both be gone, and you can tell her that I took your property in the middle of the night without telling you, but that you found the bicycle safely chained at the train station the next morning,” he finished. “It’ll be much easier that way.”
At this, Lottie’s lip quivered for a split second before she burst into tears, burying her face in her hands to muffle her sobs. Rahul fumbled inside his coat for a handkerchief.
“I’m sorry,” she said with a sniffle. “It’s not every day that a handsome stranger comes along to steal one’s best friend and bicycle.” Lottie took the thin piece of cloth and dabbed her eyes in a feeble attempt to contain the fresh grief pouring down her face. Rahul couldn’t quite understand what came out of her mouth next, but it sounded like “unfinished roads” and “sandbanks” and “Beach Avenue.”
“Am I to take Beach Avenue to avoid those things, or is the road itself unsafe?” he asked, hoping to fill in the gaps.
“Yes.” Lottie nodded.
“Which one?”
“The first one,” Lottie said, regaining her composure at last. “But you’ll need to hurry.”
“Why?” Rahul asked with concern. Lottie pointed up at the sky, which had turned an ominous yellow as the moonlight hit the gathering storm clouds and the wind began to blow through the trees.
“It wasn’t forecast in the paper this morning, and it’s definitely not the right season for it, but I’ve seen clouds like that before,” Lottie said. “There’s a storm coming. A big one.”
“Will you do one last thing for me?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Rahul pulled a sealed envelope out of his coat pocket. “Will you drop this in the mail for me? It’s vital that this letter reaches India before I do.”
Lottie acknowledged his request with a playful smile. “You do realize, though, that I’ll be copying your address from the envelope so I can visit you two.”
“Please do.”
CHAPTER 15
Black wave
Dar paced in front of the spot where the moonlight shone into her bedroom, throwing eerie shadows on the wooden floor beneath her feet. She had flung the windows open as wide as they would go, hoping to hear Rahul’s footsteps padding through the grass the moment he arrived in her yard. Unfortunately, the wind was rattling the glass so hard she had to shut the windows again, pressing her body against the wall to avoid being struck by a branch and cursing each drop of rain that she wiped off her face. She wasn’t sure how well Rahul would handle a bicycle in the rain—or if the weather would impact the train schedule—but she prayed silently to the whispering spirits in the walls to be her eyes and ears as the two of them made their way to the station. If Lottie ever lets him out of her inn, she thought darkly.
She sank to the floor, just close enough to the window to hear what was happening outside. While the spirits weren’t whispering Rahul’s estimated time of arrival, they seemed to have heard her plea, and Dar felt that familiar urge to channel their response. She reached up to grab a pen and parchment off her desk, closed her eyes, and wrote:
The tree in Summer’s arms grew tall
—its branches touched the eaves—
but shriveled at the sight of Fall
and threw its crinkled leaves.
The Moon had lent the tree her cloak
(a glowing, milky hue).
The Sun arose to find the oak
adorned in salty dew.
Winter bound the tree in snow
suspended in its pain.
With Spring’s warm breath the tree will grow
to touch the eaves again.
The moment she laid down her pen, Dar heard her name, loud and clear, coming from outside. Surely Rahul would know better than to stand outside her house and yell. But she couldn’t deny what she had heard.
Without thinking and without even looking to see where the sound had come from, Dar flung open the windows once more and shimmied down the oak tree, ignoring the scratch of the climbing plants on the side of her parents’ house and the sheets of rain that pelted against her back. The wind was so strong that it nearly tugged her skirts over her head. Throwing caution—quite literally—to the wind, Dar stripped down to her bloomers and boots, letting her skirt and petticoats fly away into the night. She would pull another skirt from her bag before she got to the ticket booth, she told herself.
With only her hopes and fears for company, Dar allowed her mind to wander as she walked toward the source of the noise. For one thing, she did not understand why women couldn’t wear trousers when it was windy out. “It’s suffrage or trousers!” she would tell Lottie’s husband once he had been reelected. “You must give us one of the two or we will riot!” Dar was halfway into a fantasy about her ladies’ protest group, the Bloomer Brigade, when she realized that she was sopping wet and quite alone in her yard. She leaned against the wall of her house for balance, shielding her face with her hand as she scanned the horizon for any sign of a bicycle. Again, she heard the voice calling.
“Dar.”
Dar moved toward the sound, shivering as she dodged wind-borne leaves and fallen branches.
“Dar,” the voice persisted. She followed the sound all the way to the shore, where the waves churned high and black, covering the sand completely and lapping at the road.
Rahul, from a few paces behind her, pedaled harder on his bicycle. His muscular legs could not move the tires quickly enough across the now-sandy road to where Dar stood. He had tossed aside his coat and hat, letting the rain slick back his hair and soak through his shirt, clinging to the thought of Dar warming him in her arms while he shivered through the pelting rain. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw her silhouette moving across the sand. Though she was calling his name and waving her arms, Dar’s back was turned to Rahul as she waded blindly toward the sea.
“Dar!” he bellowed. Rahul felt quite certain that even if some of the residents of the seaside homes could hear him, none would be willing to venture outside to source the noise. He pedaled his bicycle until the wheels rutted into the sand and spun. Rahul climbed off the seat, letting the bicycle fall to ground with a soft, slow crunch as he raced to Dar. The shoreline was growing ominously shorter as he desperately called out her name: “Darthilda!”
The medium stood in her tracks, straight as an arrow, and turned to face Rahul. The worried lines on her face dissolved into dimples as she stretched out her hands to hold her lover. She buried her face in Rahul’s hard, gleaming chest and breathed in the scent of his skin—a bit pungent now with the mix of sweat and brine, but underneath was the essence of this man she so loved. Pulling her face toward his, Rahul gave her one long, slow kiss, catching wisps of her hair in his mouth and wiping them away with his hands before kissing her again. And again.
Finally, Dar pulled back, staring into his face as if she could capture it and hold it in her gaze forever. “Beautiful Rahul,” she said. Rahul’s heart clenched as Dar’s lip quivered and her brow furrowed with sorrow.
“Why are you sad?” Rahul asked. “We’re together now. We can still make it to the train station.”
Dar shook her head. “It wasn’t you who brought me outside to the beach,” she said quietly, holding his hand in hers.
“Who else would it be?” Rahul replied, puzzled, tracing the curve of her cheek with his fingers and leaning in close against her body until his nose was nearly touching hers.
“It was one of them,” Dar whispered. Rahul squinted to get a closer look at the shadowy figures that had gathered behind Dar to take her out of his arms and drag her down with them. Their bodies were thick and more substantive than he expected from a clump of shadows. If typical ghosts were as wispy as smoke, these ghosts were as thick as fog. Rahul wished dearly that he had been wrong about Dar’s network of earthbound spooks, but the energy they projected—angry and insatiable—told him otherwise. Dar’s psychic ability was never prescience at all, he realized, but a function of her clairvoyance that required a messenger from the spirit plane to deliver glimpses of the future. Just as he had warned her, not every messenger’s intentions were good. Nevertheless, Dar finished the thought that had formed in Rahul’s head: “They’ll never let me go.”
All too soon, he realized that the shadows had, in fact, formed a wave—a great, black wave that had risen from the depths of the sea and now towered above them. Rahul didn’t even have time to utter a last goodbye before he and his lover were drowned in darkness.
CHAPTER 16
A wreath for a
gravestone
In the months that followed the great storm, Dar attended many funerals. Lottie’s hit her particularly hard, as her dearest friend hadn’t bothered to pay the medium a visit on her way to the Great Beyond. Dar had deliberately avoided sitting with the body before the burial, knowing that spirits don’t see the logic in watching their earthly vessels decay in the unnatural setting of a funeral home. All through the wake, Dar had slept on the fainting couch in the séance room, hoping Lottie would find her there. Now, she realized with remorse, she would never see Lottie’s face again.
Instead, Dar stood over Lottie’s freshly dug grave in Cold Spring cemetery, where Lottie would lie for all eternity the “beloved wife” (so read the epitaph), whose memory would live on in the heart of her bereaved husband. Dar rolled her eyes.
All the floral wreaths that the women had made for the Fourth of July celebration were instead used to mark the fresh graves. Dar dropped a bouquet of sweet peas onto the mound and said sadly to her departed friend, “I never got to tell you the whole story about Rahul. You could have at least stayed for that.”
When she heard the soft patter of footsteps behind her, Dar turned, hoping to see Lottie stopping by to hear one last bit of gossip before crossing over to the Other Side. Instead, she saw Robert.
The stately figure, dressed in black, removed his hat and kneeled on the ground beside Dar’s feet. He rubbed his left arm, grimacing slightly, before placing his hand on Lottie’s headstone and running his fingers over her name. Dar nodded politely, but then scolded herself. Of course he couldn’t see Dar—she was dead.
“I know what you were like when I was away, Lottie,” he spat at her headstone, scratching his bare head in agitation. Dar peered down at him coldly. “But I can’t blame you. I wasn’t the most attentive husband.”
Robert looked terrible. Sweat poured from his forehead as he continued to grimace. Was it grief or guilt? Dar hovered over Robert’s shoulder, trying to decide if she should scare him off with a rush of cold air or give the man a moment to speak his piece.
She moved to touch his shoulder with icy fingers, but Robert cut her off. “I remember the first time I saw you,” he said. “All I wanted to do was grab you by your ringlets and carry you off into the night.”
Dar felt a sort of warmth return to her astral body. In her mind’s eye, she could see Robert the way that Lottie must have seen him when they first met: a passionate man on the verge of greatness, still believing that his political triumphs in Washington would be well worth her sacrifice of staying home.
Robert continued. “I shouldn’t have left you alone.” He broke into a muffled sob that sta
ined the dry soil below.
Dar felt a change in the air, a very subtle shift in energy that usually brought with it a higher entity than the usual wandering spook—perhaps Lottie’s spirit had finally returned to bring Robert comfort. “Lottie, is that you?” Dar asked hopefully. She never got an answer. Robert cried out in pain and fell dead on top of Lottie’s grave. Dar watched his soul exit his body and disappear in a burst of light.
Dar released a silent prayer that wherever Lottie was, she had heard Robert’s confession and would be waiting for him on the Other Side. As she hovered above the grave with her head bowed, her shoulder tingled with electricity. She turned her head to see what had caused the sensation and found herself face-to-face with Solomon Crossing. “Father!” she exclaimed.
“I was on the train with Mr. Digges,” he said, his expression grim. “We arrived at the station just before the storm hit and went our separate ways—we intended to surprise your mother and Mrs. Digges. The inn survived the storm, and so did Mr. Digges before this moment. As usual, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Away from your family, you mean?” Dar asked. There were no accusations in her tone. She wasn’t sure when exactly her father and mother had split. She knew only that her summers at the cottage grew longer and the winters in Washington, DC, shorter until her parents were living separate lives. Neither one of them would dare call it a divorce, but that’s effectively what it was.
“Your mother used to be a nervous creature, like you,” he said. “She told me that Cape May was the only place she felt at peace. I should have listened to her. I could have found a way for us to be together—all three of us.”
Dar wasn’t sure what to say. After all these years apart, her father was a stranger to her. Now, she realized, so was her mother. “Are you together now? In the afterlife?” Dar imagined Mrs. Crossing shooting straight as an arrow to whichever plane of existence was most socially acceptable and immediately trading her trampled clothing for a proper robe and halo.