Black Wave

by Devon Glenn

  “She’s not there,” her father said gently, as if to soften the blow. He didn’t know how much Dar’s relationship with her mother had deteriorated in his absence. “The other spirits tell me that she’s cleansing her soul for a fresh start. Have you seen this before?”

  Dar furrowed her brow, trying to remember what Finn had said at the séance. “Yes,” she said. “Reincarnation. Mother is going to come back as someone else in order to get, as you said, a fresh start.” That would at least explain why she hadn’t been back for a visit.

  “Then I’ll follow her,” Mr. Crossing said with resolve. “I have traveled everywhere in this life except to the arms of the one woman who would have saved me from utter loneliness. All the trains in the world are worth nothing if they can’t take you to the one you love.”

  Dar felt a flutter in her chest, the first stirrings of hope she’d had since Rahul disappeared into the blackness of the sea. “I’ve heard that you don’t get to choose when you come back,” she said anxiously. “Are you sure you’ll be able to find her?”

  “Do you believe in second chances?” her father asked, his cool, translucent hand taking Dar’s in earnest.

  “Always,” said Dar. “You have my blessing and my best wishes.”

  “And what will you do about your situation?” he asked as he looked at her specter from top to bottom. He shook his head at her still-wet bloomers and sandy boots. “Shouldn’t you be heading off to wherever you’re supposed to go next?”

  Dar smiled mysteriously. “I’m still waiting for instructions,” she said. “You go on without me.”

  His fate sealed, Mr. Crossing gave his daughter one last smile and dissipated into the ether.

  CHAPTER 17

  The last will and

  testament

  Dar floated back to her home, which was now a pile of rubble and seaweed. Her corner of the Mount Vernon tract in south Cape May had gotten the worst of the storm. A handful of houses, including hers, had been destroyed with its residents still inside. She imagined Mr. and Mrs. Fields had put down their scrubbing brushes, let go of the reins to their horses, and floated to an afterlife of leisure. She didn’t really know these things, of course, because she had not yet crossed over, but she supposed she could ask the spirit world for an update while she waited. And as soon as Rahul got there to escort her, she would check in with them all and tell them how glad she was that she hadn’t bothered being obedient, since she was doomed to an early grave, anyway.

  Dar tried to draw in a breath to center her energy, but energy was all that was left of her, and she didn’t have much to spare. The simplest way to reach the spirit plane, she decided, was to think the questions and to wait for an answer. “Could anyone tell me where Rahul has gone?” she called silently.

  “He’s not coming back for you.”

  The voice was neither male nor female. It had come from inside her head, but its tone was too cold, too harsh, to be her own. Dar turned in a circle, hoping to see who it belonged to, but she found that she was alone, still hovering above the rubble of her old house, where a flock of gulls was picking through the remains. “What do you mean? Why not?”

  “You’ve chosen different paths,” the voice replied, and Dar remembered her first séance with Rahul, when he had said that religions, when practiced correctly, were like rivers and streams that flowed into the sea, bringing people ever closer to one another. She and Rahul couldn’t be kept apart for their differences, could they? “Whether you stay here or cross over is up to you. But don’t bother waiting for him; he’s moved on without you.”

  Finn hadn’t been very specific about how reincarnation actually worked, but he was right about its existence, just as he was right that she would meet her true love. Until that night, she had never believed the word of a ghost.

  Without her mortal body, Dar had no way to stop her fears from consuming her. The thought of spending another lifetime without Rahul sent a chill through Dar’s entire being. She knew that if either of them went to the spirit plane without the other, they might be recycled without warning—and then they’d be separated for good.

  Dar had no voice to ask the police if they had seen his body wash ashore. She was a whisper of her former self. She couldn’t go for a swim or take a walk to calm her nerves. Her feet no longer touched the earth. She had been left alone, and worst of all, she had been left alone with her thoughts.

  Suspended in eternity, Dar watched the sun set and rise again, hoping to see Rahul’s face appear with each dawn. Without a proper home to haunt, she visited the White Cottage Inn, which had survived the storm just as well as it had survived the fire that had ravaged the city a decade ago, and where she knew from poking her head around town after Robert died that today his lawyers would be reading his will. She still felt guilty that Lottie had followed Rahul to the street to make sure he was on the right path when the storm surge swept Lottie off her feet and into the abyss. Dar really wished her friend could be there to see her husband’s will being read. Years ago, Lottie had stolen the document from Robert’s office and made a number of unauthorized, handwritten revisions, mostly to punish him for leaving her alone.

  “To my darling niece,” the attorney read aloud, trying to hide Lottie’s personal touch with a solemn voice, “I leave my French perfume and my prettiest ball gowns. I hope they are back in fashion by the time I am gone.”

  It was getting difficult for the attorney to hide his irritation. “His wife must have had a hand in writing this,” he muttered. But it was about to get worse.

  While the young niece squeaked her excitement at the mention of French perfume, her parents were waiting for something more substantial. “Can we skip to the real estate and deal with the smaller items later?” Carl asked. For most of his life, Robert Digges had been less sentimental than his wife; his brother was no different.

  “Of course,” the attorney agreed, sighing with relief. “The townhouse in Washington, DC, I bequeath to Carl Digges and his immediate family. My business, the White Cottage Inn of Cape May, New Jersey, will be”—the attorney had to squint to see the sentence written above another sentence that had been scratched out—“the property of my bosom friend, Darthilda Crossing.”

  Carl gasped. The attorney put up his finger for silence as he continued. “For the purposes of hosting séances for the guests.”

  Frustration burned in Carl’s cheeks as he patted his nervous-looking wife on the knee.

  The attorney put down the paper and glared at the family. “I’m told that Miss Crossing also perished in the storm and did not have a husband, which means that as the next of kin, you will inherit your brother’s business.”

  “Think of the upkeep,” Mrs. Digges moaned. “Must we hold on to it?”

  “You may keep it or sell it—whatever you see fit,” the attorney added.

  Dar heard none of this. She was touched by Lottie’s gift, even if Lottie had thought of it long before the two friends had quarreled. She knew that ghosts had limited mobility compared to spirits who had crossed over, but she had heard the attorney say aloud that the inn belonged to her now. And until Rahul came by to escort her to the Other Side, that was where she would wait.

  PART II

  CHAPTER 18

  Exit Zero

  Winter spread through the seaside town with the cracks and groans of old wood and the rattle of frozen pipes. Elerick squirmed in his sheets, mashing his pillow with his hands and pushing it against the headboard. It was barely thirty degrees outside, but he had already stripped down to his boxers, and he was still covered in sweat. He was too riled up to sleep.

  I shouldn’t have tried to drive from Brooklyn to Cape May on a Friday night, Elerick thought. The directions said it would take about three hours, but that was assuming the Garden State Parkway wasn’t already packed. By the time he pulled off at Exit Zero, the exit nearest New Jersey’s southern terminus, it was w
ell past midnight. Luckily, the Black Wave Beach Hotel had a twenty-four-hour lobby. Cape May was a sleepy town in the winter, and Elerick would have hated to wake up the owners to ask them to turn on the lights and unlock the doors. That would be a bad start to a stay that was to last the entire season—and hopefully longer.

  Elerick was surprised by how big the hotel was. There must have been hundreds of rooms. He had known the owners, Joan and Burt, since he was in high school. After 9/11, his mother had sent him down to the Jersey Shore to escape the grief and panic that consumed the city, where she had worked at the FEMA office. In those days, Burt was running his bed-and-breakfast out of his home while Joan worked for the arts commission.

  In the new hotel, they had built a brand-new spa on the first floor, where Elerick would have his very own room and massage table. For tonight, he was given a room with an oddly stacked fireplace in the corner opposite the bed. The bricks, which were painted white, rose in a staircase formation to a trapdoor set in the ceiling. He stared at the door now and told himself that something about the long drive and the old building must have rattled his nerves. Otherwise, how could he explain the nightmare he had just had?

  In his dream, Elerick had still been in his hotel room, but his feet hovered above the floor like they weren’t bound by gravity. Was he dead? No. A soul had merged with his, and he was now looking through another person’s eyes.

  Elerick knew nothing about this man who had taken up residence inside him. All he knew was that there was a woman who was in another room within the inn that he needed to find. In his waking life, Elerick had never felt the kind of romantic attachment that compelled the spirit to reach this woman right now. It wasn’t as though the spirit was desperate—he seemed powerful and rested, as if he’d just come from a long vacation, or perhaps some kind of fitness boot camp; and Elerick was pretty sure the woman wanted to see him as much as he wanted to see her—but the spirit was on a mission that couldn’t wait. Hammers. A crowbar. Dynamite. What would it take to set her free?

  Guided by the spirit, Elerick’s hands seemed to know what to do. He pulled open the dresser drawers across from his bed, where the scent of flowers greeted him. Squinting in the dimly lit space, Elerick gathered the stems and bound them together with bits of twine, digging farther into the drawer for a book that the spirit inside him seemed eager to find. He would do this to every room in the inn if he had to.

  The scent was just beginning to overpower his senses when Elerick heard a rap at the door. Gently, he pulled on the knob and was greeted by a one-legged pirate and a red-haired girl in a long dress, who each put their fingers to their lips to stop him from speaking.

  “Edgar doesn’t know we’re here,” the girl whispered. “We’ll help you find her, but you must be quiet, and you must come now.”

  Before Elerick could see where the two ghosts were leading him, he woke up drenched in sweat, with his heart beating wildly inside his chest.

  He hopped out of bed, threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and wandered into the hall, hoping to find a vending machine where he could get a bottle of water—or at least a can of soda—to cool down. Finding none in the hallway, he made his way to the lobby, where the sound of low voices stopped him in his tracks.

  He peered through the doorway and saw Joan and Burt, who were sitting side by side in oversize armchairs. With their backs to him, Elerick could see only their profiles, but he noticed that Burt was much grayer and frailer than the last time he had seen him. Joan was remarkably well preserved with smooth ivory skin and bronze highlights in her hair. She looked elegant in a tailored suit and high heels.

  “Emily’s got another letter from the college in the mail today,” Burt said. “I can’t believe she’s finally transferring to a four-year school.”

  “I know.” Joan sighed. “I wish we could keep her here a little while longer.”

  “Should I throw the letter away?” Burt made a tearing noise with his lips and ripped the imaginary letter in half, tossing the invisible scraps over his shoulder.

  It was good to see that Burt’s dad-jokes were still in top form.

  “Tempting, but no,” Joan replied. “She has to grow up sometime.”

  Elerick hadn’t seen Emily in ten years. She had been a somber kid with a pale complexion and wide, knowing eyes. She used to follow him all over the house while he made the rounds changing light bulbs, tightening loose headboards, and unclogging toilets. It was hard to believe that she was in college now. He didn’t want to think about how old that made him.

  Elerick heard footsteps behind him. He turned to find a woman struggling beneath a large pile of wet towels as she waddled to the front desk. She pushed past him, walked through the lobby past Joan and Burt, and plopped the towels on the floor in front of the counter.

  “Hello, Hannah,” Burt said. “Is there something we can help you with?”

  “Burt, I don’t know what to say,” said Hannah. “There’s a leak in the bathroom. I haven’t turned on the shower once, and look at how wet these towels are.”

  “You didn’t have to carry those down yourself,” Joan said, her tone soothing but unmistakably businesslike. “We can send maintenance over to look at the leak and housekeeping to replace the towels for you.”

  “Sometimes I just don’t think you believe me when I say that your plumbing is busted,” Hannah replied. “This used to happen at your old house, and here’s proof that it’s happening here as well.” She kicked the pile of towels on the floor.

  Elerick coughed, causing Joan, Burt, and Hannah to turn around to where he stood in the hallway.

  “Well, hello, Elerick,” Joan said. “I see you found the key we left for you at the front desk. We figured you might be in late. I heard the traffic was terrible.”

  “It was about what I expected. I just came down for a bottle of water.”

  “Vending machines are right around the corner,” said Joan. “What do you think of the new place?”

  Elerick glanced around the lobby. The furniture looked straight out of a design catalog, with plush leather couches topped with accent pillows in pastel blues and greens. Dangling from the ceiling was a pair of chandeliers fashioned from large pieces of gnarled driftwood. The look was not at all what Elerick was expecting from the frilly gingerbread houses that lined the street out front. “It’s very modern,” he said.

  Elerick thought about his dad, who had purchased a dilapidated building in Hoboken in the late ’70s and made a living as a landlord while his mom went to work in Manhattan. It wasn’t a pretty building. The narrow staircase leading up to the top floor was rickety and uneven; the walls between the apartments were as thin as papier-mâché, like a piñata, but instead of candy, they were filled with cockroaches and rats. His dad had spent long hours lugging around a box of worn-out tools to keep the plumbing and heating in working order, but each time a tenant moved out, the empty apartment looked like a war zone.

  Elerick’s first job at Burt’s old bed-and-breakfast had been an eye-opening experience for him; his dad had taught him to change a light bulb and everything, but he had never showed him how to keep an old building looking like new. Cape May residents treated their historical buildings like pampered pets—and this one practically purred.

  “I told the decorator ‘to hell with period furnishings,’” Joan explained. “This is a resort, not a mausoleum for dead fixtures.”

  “We can give him a tour tomorrow,” Burt said, poking his wife’s arm. “Let him get his water and go back to bed.”

  Elerick shot a grateful look to Burt.

  But Joan was too excited to be deterred. “I’m sure Emily will be glad to see you.”

  “She was a nice kid,” Elerick said. “Do you think she’ll remember me?”

  Joan nodded. “You were her hero.”

  “Well, let’s hope I can live up to her expectations,” he said, laughing. “Have
a good night!” Elerick could still hear the three people talking as he headed toward the vending machines.

  “Who is that?” Hannah asked.

  “Don’t you remember Elerick, Hannah?” Joan replied. “His parents were good friends of ours, and we gave him a summer job at our old bed-and-breakfast about ten years ago when he was saving up for college. He’s come back to work in the spa this season as a massage therapist.”

  “Huh,” she said. And Elerick prayed to all that was holy that he was misreading her tone when she looked his way and added, “Sign me up for that.”

  Irritated and still not sleepy, Elerick headed back to his room and flipped his laptop open. As long as he was awake, he had a task to complete, and it was not a pleasant one.

  CHAPTER 19

  Peaches

  Dear Prospective Student:

  We regret to inform you that we are rescinding your offer of admission for one or more of the following reasons:

  1. Your acceptance forms were incomplete and/or not received by the deadline.

  2. Your deposit was insufficient and/or not received by the deadline.

  3. Your final semester transcripts did not meet minimum standards and/or were not received by the deadline.

  At this time, our academic courses and student housing facilities have reached maximum capacity, and we are unable to admit new students under any circumstances. For more information, please visit our website. We thank you for your interest in attending our university.

  Sincerely,

  Dr. Bill Goodman, Dean of Admissions

  Emily dropped the letter. It was supposed to contain her dorm room assignment. She was dismayed and/or furious at the vague terms the dean had used to dash her hopes.

  Just a few weeks earlier, she had been admitted to the University of New Jersey after spending two unmemorable years in community college knocking out GE courses like targets in a shooting gallery. The day the big envelope had arrived in her mailbox had been the happiest day in her young life. Unlike this letter, the offer letter had addressed her by name. It had included signatures from multiple deans and was decorated with a gold seal. In response, she had filled out every form from top to bottom and sent them off immediately with a big check. She hadn’t said “and/or” to admission. She had said, “Hell yes, take my money.” How could this so-called Dr. Goodman betray her like this? She hoped he had felt guilty and/or gotten a paper cut after stuffing that letter into the standard-size envelope that had broken her heart.