by Devon Glenn
Finn rose to his foot and peg, offering his hand to Beth. “I’m not making any promises. You need someone from the Other Side to show the way. Edgar wants us to stay here, and we’re not sure the Other Side is ready for us.”
Elerick focused on the warm light of the candle and said, with as much gentleness as he could, “What happened to you two?”
Beth and Finn looked at each other and nodded with certainty. “We drowned,” said Beth.
Elerick looked at the gaunt faces and remnants of rum and laudanum bottles before him. “Are you sure you didn’t overdose on something?”
The ghosts shook their heads simultaneously. “That was the trajectory,” Finn said, “but no. In a weakened state, we each followed a voice to our doom.”
“A blessing in disguise,” Beth said. “I thought I’d spend an eternity in hell for what I did, and all I got was a century or so in a seaside resort.”
“Why would you go to hell?” Elerick asked.
Timidly, the ghost took Elerick’s hand. Her memories came to him in rapid, angry flashes of Beth’s father yelling, her mother falling down the stairs, and of Beth standing in the kitchen with a bottle in her hand. She smashed the bottle on the counter and grabbed one of the shards with her bare hands. Elerick could feel her fear, her pain, and her rage as she walked over to where her father stood and slashed his throat. He wondered what Emily would say to her in this moment—Emily always knew what to say. But Elerick could try.
“Beth, in my time, no one would blame you for that,” he told her. “That was self-defense. In the heat of the moment…I don’t know…you did what you had to do to survive.”
“It was hardly the heat of the moment,” Beth argued. “In my time, here in New Jersey, a person wouldn’t be convicted of murder if the victim had committed sodomy. Dar tried to help me; she told me to run away. But one night, as I watched my mother fall down the stairs, all I could think about was that law—that loophole—that could rid me of him forever without consequences. He had violated me so many times through the years that I didn’t see how I could spend even one more day in this world with him still in it. I killed him knowing that if I were forced to stand trial, I could expose my father for the terrible person that he was. As it turned out, the police investigation determined, incorrectly, that my father’s death was an accident. But the ends didn’t justify the means. I’m a murderer, and if I cross over now, he and I will spend eternity together in hell.”
“Hell doesn’t exist if you still have time to avoid it,” Elerick said quietly. His mind wandered, unexpectedly, to his last few days on the job at In Lieu of Flowers. How could he promise the donors that his charity could help cancer patients when it hadn’t helped his mother? His sales pitches had felt hollow. Elerick recognized the pain in Beth’s eyes; he knew that what she really wanted was not to be saved but to be redeemed. “Can you help me save Emily?” he asked Beth.
Finn answered for her. “Aye, but we need to go to the lighthouse first.”
With Beth and Elerick close behind him, Finn stepped cautiously out of the closet and into the foyer, his voice shaking when he realized that he could turn the doorknob and push the door open on his own. “It must be this storm,” he said. “And your energy. I can open a window and tip a bottle of rum, but I haven’t turned a doorknob in ages.”
Finn led the other two into the street and down to the water’s edge. Elerick felt sick with dread when he saw the state of the beach, hoping against all odds that Emily had moved inland before the storm hit. “There’s a lighthouse somewhere in all this wreckage,” Finn said. “We need to find it and go inside.”
Floating above the waves, the three souls passed along the shrinking coastline in search of a light.
Built at sea level, the Cape May lighthouse looked smaller than its 157 feet, 6 inches, when Elerick, Finn, and Beth finally spotted its blinking top above the waves. Elerick thought he could see two other lights farther away, fading in and out of view as the water swelled and receded below.
“The other lighthouses were destroyed before your time, Elerick,” Beth explained.
“Ghost lights!” Elerick exclaimed. “Which one is still standing?”
“Depends on who you ask.” Finn shrugged. “Let’s go in the first one.”
Elerick shuddered as Beth and Finn sank into the water. All around him, he could sense the others who were lost at sea. They reached toward him with bloated hands, but their faces stayed just outside of his peripheral vision.
Willing his soul to return to the inn, Elerick struggled to sit up, but his body was too heavy. He tried to move his mouth but failed.
Finn could feel him slipping away. “Stay with us, Elerick,” he called.
“Why are they following us?” Elerick wanted to know.
“Can you see their faces?” Finn asked.
“No.” The more Elerick turned and strained to see them, the less distinct they appeared. They were shadowy and gray, and not just because of the murkiness of the water.
Finn clapped Elerick’s shoulder. “They want to observe you without being seen,” he explained. “Ignore them and keep moving.” His hand felt cool on Elerick’s back, like the water.
The ocean was a mess of driftwood and fish, the churning above disrupting the sand below. Elerick almost laughed when they hit the bottom, and Finn opened the door to the lighthouse.
Inside, the tower was bone dry.
“We mustn’t disturb the others,” Beth whispered, lifting her skirts as she made her way up the winding staircase.
Elerick tried to float, but here in the lighthouse, he found that he had to use the steps. He recalled from brochures he had seen how many steps the lighthouse had: 199 to the top.
He, Finn, and Beth moved past the alcove where the old photographs that usually lined the walls of the lighthouse had vanished. Elerick could see the lighthouse not as it was now, but as it had been long before. The tiny steps didn’t creak beneath his feet, either, but he felt a different sort of gravity beneath him as he made his way forward.
When he reached the 199th step he paused, confused.
“One more,” Finn said. Elerick drew a deep breath and took one last step.
They were inside the light. He, Finn, and Beth all but disappeared in the glow of the lighthouse’s summit, which burned without heat all around them.
“Am I dead?” Elerick asked.
“No,” said a voice he didn’t recognize.
The top of the lighthouse tore open, and a new source of light made the simple electrical pulse of the tower’s great bulb look dim by comparison. Finn lifted Beth off the ground, letting her climb on his shoulders to peer inside.
“Pure art,” she said, her voice sounding farther away as she uttered the last syllable. Suddenly she gasped. “Who’s this?”
A dainty pair of silver slippers floated down through the hole between them, revealing a shimmering gown made of crude polyester and sequins and a pair of wings trimmed in tinsel. A heavenly face appeared with tufts of cotton for hair.
“Are you an angel?” Elerick asked.
The visitor’s eyes were shut, but her smile was radiant as the being opened her mouth to speak. “I am no one in particular,” the figure replied. “Do I look familiar?”
“You look like you’re wearing a kid’s costume,” he said. “Why won’t you open your eyes?”
Finn shook his head and said, “You can’t look her in the eye.”
The winged figure put her hand on Elerick’s head and let a warm current pass between them. Elerick surrendered to the feelings of detached bliss that overwhelmed his sense of duty, of guilt, of fear. He didn’t need to save Emily; Emily was already safe if, at the end of her life, she would pass through this portal.
“What does Emily want right now?” the heavenly being asked Elerick.
“She wants to leave home,�
�� Elerick said.
The angel nodded. “Start with that,” she said. “The rest will come in time.”
Finn and Beth, lost in their own worlds, were laughing so hard that tears were spilling out of their eyes. They turned to Elerick with such rapturous expressions that Elerick suddenly thought of Emily, much younger, as she and Sadie held their pretend séance and started shrieking, “I’m covered in feathers!”
“All this time,” Beth said. “I never knew it would be so easy.” Her ashen complexion had grown rosy, and for the first time, she looked carefree.
Finn threw his arm around Beth’s waist and spun her around the circular tower. His wooden leg had disappeared; he was once again whole.
Elerick watched them for a moment before steeling himself for the fight ahead. “Who else knew Darthilda?” he shouted at the spirits that surrounded the tower. “Who knows Emily?”
He leaped to poke his head in the portal that Finn and Beth had left. There seemed to be more answers up there than where he was. Finn stopped him with his hand. “Look me in the eye and promise me you won’t come up here,” he said. “There are things on this plane that mortals aren’t supposed to see.”
“Come on, Finn.” Elerick was losing patience.
“Look. Me. In. The. Eye.”
Elerick sighed and looked at Finn. It didn’t take him long to realize what Finn was doing for him: the light had caught Finn’s eyes in a way that projected everything he was seeing on the Other Side to where Elerick was standing below.
Elerick gasped at his own reflection. Instead of short dark hair, he saw long gray tendrils. His eyes were also gray, and his clothing was from another era.
“We used to call you Darthilda,” Finn explained.
Elerick didn’t know what to do. Impulsively, he reached for his own face. Instead of cool, it felt warm. “Can you still see me?” he asked Beth.
“I can see you as you were and as you are,” Beth said quietly. “The last time I saw you alive, you were at the White Cottage Inn doing yoga with Rahul and your friend Lottie.”
“And Rahul is…?”
Beth smiled. “Rahul is now called Emily.”
Elerick’s heart tightened in his chest. In his dream, he had seen Rahul searching for Darthilda in the hotel. She had waited for him to pass on before she crossed over, and when he finally did, she vowed that the two of them would find a way to be together in their next lives. Having grown up with his mother and father in Hoboken, Elerick finally knew what it meant to have a family who truly cared about him and how much it hurt to have failed them. It humbled him to realize that Rahul, who had come from British India in such a volatile era in history, had been willing to risk his family’s security and his personal safety for the woman he loved.
But if Dar had known nothing about the world beyond her beach house, it was not for lack of desire. Though she had lived a free country, she was beholden to a system in which two people from different backgrounds were made to believe that they had no right to love each other. Her willingness to see what she had been raised to ignore had opened her eyes to love.
Beth nodded. Without the vessel of his body, anybody on this plane could hear his thoughts. “As Emily, Rahul has once again found his perfect match in you, Elerick. Though, in your time, I see that Mrs. Crossing still doesn’t approve.”
“Mrs. Crossing?” Elerick asked.
“Joan,” Beth said.
“She’s what we on the Other Side call a ‘lifer,’” Finn interjected. “She loves life so much that she’s barely two minutes out of one body before she’s into the next. Her husband, Darthilda’s father, followed her to this century to make amends. After a failed marriage to Jenna’s mother, he and Joan were finally able build their beach house and live under one roof. Joan may be protective of Emily at this stage in her life, but she means you no harm. Time has been good for her soul.”
“And where is Emily right now?”
“She’s not in our world yet,” a voice answered for him. “But you should get her before it’s too late.”
Elerick took his eyes off Finn’s to glance at the spot where the winged being had been standing. There was nothing left but a pile of clothing. The voice he had heard was his own.
Elerick finally understood why he’d left his job to sail around the world. It wasn’t to help the rich ladies (or even, as Emily had suggested, to save the whales from back pain). It was to heal an old wound. Darthilda had died trying to leave Cape May.
And now was her time to return. Elerick wasn’t here to become a massage therapist or a Luddite. He was here to be with Emily. If anything from the rubble of his old life as Darthilda was worth salvaging, this was it, and he and Emily had known it the moment they reconnected. Like the tide reaching for the shore, the two of them would never stop reaching for each other, no matter how many times they were pulled apart.
It was then that Elerick realized where he had to go. “I’ll be back at the house if you need me,” he told Finn and Beth. “I need to call in a favor.”
Moments later, Elerick was gasping for breath as he returned to his chair at the inn with a jolt, an electric current buzzing through his head. Running to the office, he grabbed his laptop, releasing a stream of obscenities as he waited for it to boot up.
“Seriously?” he muttered. “The most expensive computer on the market takes this long to load?” When the home screen finally appeared, Elerick clicked on the browser icon and opened a window. Thankfully, he had some battery power left, and the internet connection hadn’t been lost. But he didn’t know how to get through on Orbies now that Edgar had hijacked the site.
Joan appeared in the office doorway, her face pinched with worry. “Need some help?” she asked. Emily’s mother grabbed the computer from his hands and logged in to her email before handing it back.
“Sadie told me what happened with the secret forum,” she explained. “But I’m still getting messages from Orbies. Let’s hope that one of the Orbiters can tell us what’s going on.”
As they looked at all the pending messages in the inbox, one message caught Elerick’s eye.
Elva: I am not sure I understand how to use this inkless typewriter, but if you can read this, be warned!!! EDGAR is outside. These legions of sinners were sent by the devil. They lured my son away from the light, and they’ll do the same to you.
In the astral plane, Elerick had stopped just short of the top of the lighthouse. He didn’t know what was or wasn’t beyond it. But he knew that Elva was worried for her son, and if anything could pull him away from the flames of hell or whatever awaited him, it was a guilt trip from his mother. Immediately, Elerick clicked Reply.
BlackWaveBeachHotel: Elva, thank you for your timely warning. I believe Edgar has kidnapped Emily. Will you please tell her, if you can find her, that Elerick is “covered in feathers”? Could you also send me an invitation to the migration forum? We’re going to need help.
Elerick held his breath and counted to ten. On cue, the message box lit up with one new message.
Elva: Oh dear. Yes. I will tell her. Thank you.
Elerick sighed with relief. Emily may have been lured into a storm with the false promise of a job on a cruise ship, but he believed that she was right when she said that not everyone on Orbies was as bad as Edgar. Rahul had once told Darthilda that enlightened souls vibrated on higher frequencies, and Elva’s words were positively shaking with love.
Sure enough, Elva sent Elerick an invitation immediately, granting him instant access to the private forum. He opened the video chat tool, clicking Public and then Livestream. Elerick could see and hear nothing, but in the back of his mind, he knew that there were many eyes on him as he spoke.
“I am trying to find Emily. She used to be called Rahul. Edgar is not who he seems to be; I think he’s trying to hurt her. Can you help me?”
Suddenly the message board
lit up with green dots. The messages poured in one by one, the sentiment bar shifting from green to an angry red as the crowd responded to Elerick’s request.
deathbeachcombsher: NO!! she is trying 2 leave us here with no power.
head0ncollisi0n: Let her drown.
Joan, who was peering over Elerick’s shoulder, knew exactly who had sent that last message. “You of all people should be on her side, head0ncollisi0n,” she snapped, a hard line appearing on her forehead as she spoke. “Emily is the one who kept your mother from swallowing an entire bottle of antidepressants in her hotel room. Who else could have told her that you hadn’t gotten the brakes fixed on your car that day like you promised?”
Elerick opened his mouth to ask the others more questions, but Joan wasn’t finished. “And you, Towel Lady’s sister, have no business holding Emily hostage in Cape May, either. She was the one who told you that you were dead so you could say goodbye to your twin. And I can’t tell you how irritating it’s been cleaning up after you all these years. How many towels does a dead person need?”
The message board went silent for a moment, but a flash on the screen let Elerick know that the camera had caught an orb. A message appeared. Someone was with them in the room.
silversiren: Dar? Is that you?
Elerick: Yes, it’s me. Who is this?
silversiren: It’s Lottie—Lorelei now. You should have told me you cared about Rahul all those years ago. I never would have made such a fool of myself if I’d known. I would never have let a man come between us. I wish I’d had the chance to prove that to you.
Elerick smiled with relief. With the help of the ghost filter, he saw a slender, beautiful woman looking back at him with a mischievous smile. Of course Lottie had been reincarnated as a starlet; how else would she have gotten the admiration she craved?
Elerick: I know that now; after he died, Rahul came back and told me that you tried to help him. Thank you for leaving me the inn in your will, too. You were and always will be my best friend.
Streaks of gold light flashed across the screen as Lorelei blew him a kiss. He reached into the air and pretended to catch it in his fist. It was a strange thing for him to do, he knew, but Darthilda would have approved.