Black Wave

by Devon Glenn

  “That’s good to hear. So I take it her cruise was cancelled?”

  “Delayed, yes,” Elerick said, too impatient to get into the details about the fake email. “But that’s not why I’m calling. When’s your race?”

  “It’s in a couple of weeks.”

  “Good. I just received a donation from one of the guests,” he told her. “Hannah. Do you remember her from the séance?”

  “I think so.”

  “Should I read you the letter?”

  “Please!”

  Elerick cleared his throat. “Dear Indra, etc., etc.,

  I was so sorry to hear about Katherine. There I was, blubbering away on the massage table about my twin sister, Donna, and I didn’t even realize that your nephew had lost his mom. I always wanted to do something nice in Donna’s memory, but there aren’t any charities for people who Jet Ski too hard. Anyway, since you’re doing that run for cancer research, I thought I’d send you a donation, from one sister to another.

  In solidarity,

  Hannah

  “I can drop the check in the mail for you when I get back from the hospital,” he finished.

  Indra’s voice caught on the other end of the line. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Elerick.”

  “And…I’m sorry that I didn’t do more for Mom toward the end,” Elerick added, his voice wobbling. “I know I put a lot of the burden on you and my dad.”

  “That wasn’t your doing, El. Your mom said not to worry you with it. I kept trying to tell her that getting more help would improve her quality of life, but she wouldn’t listen. Honestly, I think it cheered her up to hear you sounding carefree and happy when you called. That was your gift to her.”

  From his bench in the lobby, Elerick gazed down the hall at all the doors to all the hospital rooms, each one filled with blood and guts and hope. When he had given his mother her last energy session, her back had told him a story of aches and pains but also of defeat. If he were honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he had known all along that she was dying. It comforted him to know that his aunt and her friends had also been in denial, but it didn’t change the facts. If he wanted to make a difference, he’d have to start with the people who were right in front of him—the ones who loved him unconditionally—and work his way out.

  “How do you feel?” Joan asked Emily. “The doctor said you were so unstable I was worried you wouldn’t wake up.”

  “Heartbroken,” Emily admitted, “but I’ll get better.”

  Joan smiled. “I know you’re disappointed about the job,” she said. “But you almost drowned. I came into your room to offer you a ride to the cruise terminal as soon as the storm passed, and you had already left. Why on earth did you do that?”

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” Emily said weakly. “You didn’t seem to want me to go.”

  Joan responded with an exasperated sigh. “It’s not that I didn’t want you to go; it’s just that I was sad to see you go. People express their sadness in different ways, you know. Some prefer tears; I prefer rage.”

  “I see.” Emily handed her mother a pillow. “Want to smother me with this?”

  “Not yet,” Joan said wickedly. “Your father should be here soon.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s filling out the insurance paperwork. He’ll be really happy to see that you’re awake,” she said. “And then he will kill you.”

  Emily laughed and then coughed. It hurt to laugh.

  “I think I talked to some of your ghost friends on the internet,” Joan said seriously. “It made me feel better. Am I losing it or what?”

  “I heard,” Emily said. “What did they say?”

  “One of them told me that the devil was after your soul. So your father and I called the Coast Guard.”

  Epilogue

  Whales

  Emily thought she might have been spoiled by the ocean view at her parents’ hotel. Then she checked into her tiny ship cabin and realized just how much more beautiful it would be to look out her window and see nothing but blue sky against an even bluer sea. If she lived another hundred years, she would never tire of this view.

  The real cruise director had heard about the Orbies scam and agreed to hire Emily after all. Ghosts and spirits were still a daily part of Emily’s life, but in the transient space of the open sea, she drew in the friendly, translucent kind who stopped by to say hello and then drifted through the walls when the show was over.

  She checked her email and found new messages from her parents. Joan and Burt had rehired Madame Selena to take Emily’s place at the hotel until she returned. Selena’s historical lectures and phony levitating objects were enough to keep the guests entertained, if not completely convinced that she could talk to ghosts. In the end, the restaurant, the gift shop, and the spa drew enough visitors to keep the Black Wave going in Emily’s absence. “Next to you, this hotel is my greatest achievement,” Joan wrote. “It was worth the struggle and worth the wait. I hope one day, no matter where life takes you, you’ll be able to say the same.”

  But before she could reply to the message, Elerick tapped on her door.

  Elerick barely had time to deposit his shoes on the floor before Emily pulled him into the bed with her and pulled up the covers. He had bought a ticket to join her for her last week on the job. Now that she was done floating around the world, he was ready to ask Emily to be his girlfriend again—and hopefully someday his wife. He knew that he and Emily had been waiting more than a hundred years to be together, and the tension between them was exquisite.

  Elerick had just drifted off to a sleep filled with pleasant dreams when he was jarred awake by Emily’s sudden shriek.

  “Whales!” Emily called happily.

  Elerick looked out the window and, sure enough, a pod of humpback whales broke the surface, blowing sea spray into the air before plunging back into the waves.

  “I wish we could swim with them,” Emily said.

  “We can!” Elerick reminded her. The two of them lay on their backs and took long breaths until they fell into a second sleep; their muscles stiffened, and electricity buzzed between their ears. Hand in hand, Emily and Elerick slipped out of their bodies to dance on the water, together at last, and finally free.

  Acknowledgments

  It took me many years to research and write this book, and it still sounds made up. But I learned a couple of things: (1) A series of storms really did wipe out the buildings of South Cape May at the turn of the twentieth century, but they were not as deadly as the one depicted here. Several of the Cape May landmarks mentioned in the story, including the White Cottage and the Black Wave, were invented or disguised to allow for artistic license. Cape May was my sanctuary, and I traveled there many times while writing this book. (2) Indians brought yoga to Americans in the late nineteenth century, and we refused to give it back. The yoga in this book was inspired by the writings of Swami Vivekananda, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, but I must also acknowledge the influence of rubber mats and stretch pants.

  Thank you, Natasha Bhagat and Tapas Nayak, for your guidance with Rahul’s character. Your insights and suggestions lit a collaborative fire within me that continues to burn. Thank you, Craig McManus, for the excellent channeling sessions and wine recommendations, the phrase twilight sleep, and for your explanation of the difference between ghosts and spirits. Thank you to my second doctor, Dr. Dang, for explaining the difference between night terrors and sleep paralysis in such a reassuring way. Any errors, omissions, or misinterpretations are my own.

  Thank you, Hurricane Sandy, who nearly wiped out my neighborhood in Brooklyn, for giving me hands-on experience with storm surges. Thank you to my classmates in Mediabistro’s romance writing course—and especially my instructor, Sarah MacLean—for helping me outline and begin my first draft. Thank you, Bonnie Bezon and Eric
a Harmon, for your critiques and encouragement. Thank you to my collaborative editor, Sandy from Kirkus Editorial, for your valuable feedback and advice. Thank you, Perry Crowe, for being my travel buddy, my copy editor, and the hero of my real-life love story. Thank you, Erica Harmon and Patrick Harmon, for the beautiful illustration and cover design. Thank you, Sammie, Marsha, Sandy, Mary, and the rest of the Balboa Press team for your patience and professionalism. Thank you, Lisa Bernier for the thorough proofread. And a special thank you to Patty Gift and Margarete Nielsen for making all this possible.

  Finally, I’d like to thank my Kickstarter backers, who have made me feel like an old-timey artist with very indulgent patrons: Anonymous, Carolyn Barbre, Sarah Casey Rasmussen, Bo Cordle, Vicky Crowe, Scott Duncan, Donna Glenn, John Glenn, Ken Glenn, Josh Graybill, Heidi Hevener, Corey Heffernan Houchin, Travis Kraus, Kat Laurinovics, Lauren Lemke, Martin McNicholl, Jamie Montgomery, Jen Pearson, Lesley Robin, Chris Shaushkin, Sean Stentz, Casey TerHorst, and Liz Warner. I am humbled by your enthusiasm and support. Thank you also to my former colleagues at Mediabistro, especially Jason Boog, for indulging my experiment with what was, at the time, a new fundraising platform.

  Please note that if the characters are named after you as a pledge reward, they will still think and talk like me, especially the naughty ones. To my backers who opted to have a ghost named after them, I am sorry I killed you. I tried to do it in a way that I don’t think you will die in real life. May you rest in peace.