My mom had called my grandmother a few days after we got the news and reluctantly told her that I’d be at the funeral. When I’d reached my hand out for the phone and asked to speak with my grandmother, my mom hissed at me and pulled the phone away. She then took the phone into the study and closed the door behind her.
That’s what it was like in our house the week before I left. I was trying to provoke her by constantly bringing up the idea of me going to Beaconfield. Dad tried to keep the peace between us, but it was all anger. Mom would ignore me every time we were around each other, looking away and trying to leave the room if she could.
We hadn’t spoken about Grandad either. I tried to bring it up a few times, but I was met with angry glares and silence.
It was hard for me to pack, as I’d never been to Beaconfield in the fall. I caught myself trying to pack a bathing suit before I remembered the weather. I packed slowly, thinking that leaving my parents for a week would be good for me, a chance to get away from all the fighting. I thought it would make my parents see me as an adult. Maybe if they’d tried treating me like an adult, or someone with her own thoughts, then I wouldn’t have had to act this way.
I slammed the top of my suitcase and forced the zipper closed. I brought my bags downstairs and set them by the front door. Scout followed me down, then sniffed at the bags and sat down next to them. She knew what a packed bag meant for me.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon,” I said, scratching her under the ear.
She made a whining noise as if she understood me.
I was headed back to my room when I saw my dad standing in the hallway.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” he asked, looking at his shoes.
“Sure,” I said under my breath, turning to face him with my arms crossed against my chest. We didn’t speak for a few moments, then my dad motioned toward my bags.
“We’ll miss you,” he said, smiling slightly.
“Are you going to try to convince me not to go?” I asked. I knew I was sassing him a little bit too much, but the emotion was still raw for me.
“No, that’s not it. I just want you to know that your mother and I love you very much and the fight we all had the other day hasn’t sat well with either of us. Your mother is hurt by what happened, so cut her some slack. Okay, kiddo?”
I tried not to roll my eyes. He leaned down in front of me and tried to make eye contact. I glanced away, but nodded reluctantly.
Dad sighed and rubbed a hand through his graying black hair.
“I’m still going,” I said, standing taller in front of Dad.
“I know,” he sighed. “Just be careful and call us if you need anything. Okay?”
He rubbed a hand down my arm, and I nearly gave in. I pulled my arm from Dad and turned away from him.
He sighed again, but I avoided eye contact. Seeing Dad with this much emotion made me think back to all of the things that I’d said in the past few days. All I wanted to do was press my face into Dad’s chest and apologize as he hugged me.
But I couldn’t—I couldn’t give in.
Instead, I went back to my room. I closed the door behind me and rested my head on the door. I released the deep breath I’d been holding and slid to the floor. Pulling my legs into my chest, I finally let out a sob.
As I rested my head on my knees and closed my eyes, I saw the image of my grandmother in my mind. I was nervous to see her. She’d been like my second mother as a child. I’d confided in her about everything, and she’d taken care of me.
I hadn’t thought that the next time I’d see her would be under these circumstances, that I’d be the one who’d need to take care of her this time.
The next day was crisp but comforting as my parents drove me to the bus station. It was a thirty-minute drive and we didn’t say anything to each other on the way there, but I saw Mom’s head pop in and out of the rearview mirror while she looked back at me. I hadn’t said anything to her after the conversation with my dad in the hallway—I didn’t know what to say.
I rolled my window down slightly and let the cool fall air hit my face. I took a deep breath and felt the crisp air move through my lungs. Closing my eyes, I let the cold wash over me and settle my nerves.
“Mari, roll up the window. It’s freezing,” Mom snapped at me.
I jumped but left the window down. I settled back into my seat, leaning my head against the door.
Mom smacked Dad on the shoulder and then my window rolled up.
“Hey!” I shouted.
“I said, ‘roll up the window!’” my mom shouted back.
The car was uncomfortably silent after that until my dad reached out and flicked on the radio to a classic rock station. Then the car was uncomfortably silent with a guitar solo in the background. I could feel the anger dripping off Mom from my seat behind her.
I glanced at Dad. He gripped the steering wheel tighter and made eye contact with me in the rearview mirror, briefly.
What my dad had said last night made me realize that they just wanted to keep me safe. Maybe Mom didn’t want me to go to the funeral because she thought that it would be scary for me.
I fiddled with my grandmother’s necklace and stared out the window. I’d be with my grandmother soon and I’d comfort her and feel closer to my grandad for the first time in years.
When we pulled into the station, I tried to jump out of the car and say goodbye so that my parents wouldn’t come with me, but my dad pulled into a parking spot. I got out of the car quickly and ran toward the gate ahead of my parents.
I pushed my way through the crowded station toward the arrivals board. I scanned for the bus up the Maine Coast. The bus was going to be thirty minutes late. I groaned slightly and turned to see my parents behind me.
“You guys can head out, I can wait by myself,” I said.
“That’s okay, we can all sit here together,” my dad said. He motioned to three open chairs in the waiting area. I tried not to roll my eyes again and slouched down into my chair.
I looked around the room at the other people waiting for the bus and picked at my fingernails. My mom smacked my hand to get me to stop doing the nervous tic that I only did when the stress was at its highest level.
It was the longest thirty minutes that I’d ever had to endure. I found myself twitching and not wanting to sit still. I got up and paced the entire bus station a few times. I looked at all of the people, waiting in line with their friends and their family, on their way to vacation or work or maybe home. Some people looked excited and some looked nervous, or tense, awaiting travel.
I tried to imagine where each person was going based on what they were wearing or carrying or who they were with. There was a young couple with their arms around each other as they strolled toward their gate. I saw a family with four children panicking about not making their bus on time, then an older couple arguing about which bus was theirs.
As I was grabbing a snack from the vending machine, I watched my parents. They sat with my open seat between them. Dad was on his phone, and Mom sat with her arms crossed and turned away from him, watching the news on the TV.
I felt a lump in my throat thinking about leaving my parents alone. That was one of the reasons I couldn’t go away to college. I wouldn’t want them to start fighting more because I wasn’t there. Who knew what would happen then?
But my grandmother and my grandad needed me now. They’d really been like a built-in second set of parents when I was younger. Having been separated from them really hurt, and I don’t think any of them had realized how much. My fists clenched just thinking about it.
I grabbed my small bag of cookies and water and brought them back to my seat. I threw myself down with a sigh.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Mom snapped at me. I flicked my head toward her and glared. She returned the gesture, her bright blue eyes piercing through me. When she didn’t say anything else, the three of us returned to silence.
Dad nudged me. When I turned to him
, he gave me a small smirk and a shrug that seemed apologetic. I smiled at him and put my provisions in my bag for later.
They finally called out the bus number and its destination. I took in a deep breath and we all stood at the same time and looked at each other awkwardly. Dad broke the silence by reaching his arms out to me. I waited a moment and then hugged him. I took in a deep breath of the laundry detergent that my mom had used for years and felt at ease. He gave me a slight squeeze and kissed the top of my head.
“Bye, Daddy,” I said, smiling up at him.
He squeezed my arm. “Bye, kiddo.”
Then it was time to say goodbye to Mom. We looked at each other for a moment, not saying anything, neither of us moving. My dad put his hand on my mom’s shoulder.
“Again, this is a boarding call for the Maine Coast,” the voice over the loudspeaker said.
This broke Mom’s trance. She wrapped me up in her arms and pulled me into her. I rested my head on her shoulder and took the chance to be content for a moment, taking a deep breath of her vanilla perfume.
“Have a good time,” Mom said, but it sounded like it was through her teeth.
“Bye,” I said to her simply. I was going to say something else, but I didn’t know what would fix our argument or what would make it go away. So, instead, I pulled myself out of her arms and looked between my parents. I nodded to them both then gathered my bags and started for the door.
“Mari,” Mom called after me. I stopped and turned toward her. “I’m sorry for being so insensitive. But I can’t go back there. And I wish you wouldn’t,” she said while she approached me. She opened her arms and pulled me into her again. This hug felt different, like if she could hold on tighter then I wouldn’t get on the bus and go away.
“I’m sorry and it’s okay. I know you’re hurting too,” I said as I leaned into her.
“I love you, honey. Be safe, please,” she breathed into my ear. A shiver went down my spine and that dark feeling of dread appeared in my mind again.
“I love you too, Mom,” I said, letting out a breath and giving her one last squeeze. I turned away and rushed toward the long line to the bus.
As I looked up at the bus that sat in front of me, I felt the darkness crawling around in my stomach again. I put my hand to my core and took a deep breath, swallowing the nausea. I stepped to the side and let the rest of the line go ahead of me. For some reason, I felt like I couldn’t get on the bus. I stood in front of it, breathing hard.
I couldn’t take the next step for a moment and just wanted to turn and run. But then the feeling fell away and I was left breathless.
“Ma’am?” asked the driver, suddenly standing in front of me. I looked up to him and swallowed my anxiety. He gestured to my bags. I handed him my suitcase and my ticket. The balding man handed off my bag so they could put it under the bus and then he stared down at the piece of paper and raised an eyebrow.
“Beaconfield, eh?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, nodding. “Is that a problem?”
He studied me and then shrugged and said, “All right, get on board.”
I stepped onto the bus, but before boarding fully I felt like I was being watched. I turned around and saw my parents watching me from inside. I raised my hand and waved to them one last time. My mom was in tears and my dad had his arm around her shoulders. They both raised their hands.
I shrugged my backpack onto my shoulder and climbed the steps of the bus. The seats were nearly full. I stood on my tiptoes to see if there was anything close to the back for my long ride, but it didn’t seem like it. And there were some questionable characters back there.
One of the seats in the very front was open, and I leaned down to speak to the woman who sat there.
“Mind if I sit with you?” I asked. The woman simply looked up at me, her impossibly dark eyes seeming to stare through me. I felt that darkness in my stomach again and a shiver went down my spine. The woman picked her bag up off of the seat and said nothing.
All righty. I nodded and settled into the seat.
The bus driver climbed the steps in front of me and buckled himself into his chair. As he started the engine, he spoke into the loudspeaker. “Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Claude and I’ll be taking you up the New England Coast today. If you have any questions throughout the ride, I’ll be sitting right here, so come ask me.” The driver honked the horn and put the bus into drive.
And like that, we were on our way.
I stared out the front window as we drove up the New England Coast. The bus driver wasn’t driving as fast as I would’ve liked. He stuck to the rightmost lane on the highway as he hummed a tune to himself.
The woman next to me stared down into her lap the whole time while also humming to herself, though her tune wasn’t as cheerful. I sat in my chair as far away from her as I could with my arms crossed over my chest.
The sun shone in through the front window with a glare that I couldn’t avoid. The heat beamed onto my dark jeans, making me sweat. I shifted in my seat, pulling the seatbelt from my neck and picked at my fingernails.
About an hour in, we made a stop in New Hampshire. I watched as a few people filed off the bus, but no one else boarded. The bus took off again down the highway. Thirty minutes or so later I knew where we were. I felt my heart jump a bit in my chest and a smile come to my face. I knew what was coming up.
The green bridge appeared on the horizon and around the trees. The bridge was always a symbol of happiness when I was a kid, but as I sat there on the bus, staring at it, I was sad. I knew that when I got to Beaconfield nothing would be the same as when I’d left it.
And the number one thing would be the absence of my grandfather. His salt-and-pepper hair, his messenger hat and smiling eyes. A small, morbid part of me wondered if my grandmother planned on having an open-casket funeral. I shivered in my seat and pulled my leather jacket tighter around me.
The bus went over the bridge, and I could feel the bumps in the road under the tires. I looked out the window to my right. I could see Portsmouth in the distance through a light fog on the river. I looked up and saw the state line sign.
Maine.
It was another forty-five minutes before we stopped in Portland, Maine. The old woman who was sitting next to me grunted to be let off, and I twisted out of her way so that she could get past.
We only stayed at the station for ten minutes before we were on our way again. As we got farther and made more stops, the bus grew less crowded. At the last stop before Beaconfield, I glanced behind me and noticed that I was the only passenger left. It was just me and Claude.
I crossed my arms and settled into my seat. I began to space out as I stared straight ahead through the window, looking at the road in front of us. I was half asleep when Claude cleared his throat, making me jump.
“Strange things up that way,” the bus driver said.
“I’m sorry?” I asked as I rubbed my eyes and stifled a yawn, thinking I’d heard him incorrectly.
“Strange things in Beaconfield,” he clarified.
I nodded and looked out the window again. This guy was weird. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to start a conversation or was trying to actually tell me that there were weird things going on in Beaconfield. Maybe he was just strange.
Locals knew that Beaconfield had long been considered a “haunted” town. A portion of their tourism industry was dedicated to ghost tours. There was a tall ship that sat in the harbor which was said to be home to an angry and ghostly sailor.
As a child, I spent a lot of time running around the town, looking for ghosts, known or otherwise. Sometimes with one or both of my grandparents, other times with my friend Ridge Abbott, the kid who lived next door to them.
He’d been my adventure buddy every summer. He was a year older than me and a great kid. When I was younger, I’d definitely had a crush on him, but I didn’t want anyone to know. And as I got older, I told myself that Ridge would be the benchmark for all boys that I
ever considered dating. I’d never had a boyfriend, so maybe my standards were too high.
I wondered if I would get to see him on this trip or if his family even still lived in Beaconfield. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him. Were we at my grandparents’ house, or his? Or maybe we’d been on one of our adventures, looking for something paranormal.
“What kind of ‘strange things’?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at the bus driver as we continued up the highway.
“Well, you know those coastal towns all have some sort of secret they hold,” he said as he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.
“I guess you’re right. Have you ever stayed in Beaconfield before?”
“No, only spent the day at a small beach there, never overnight with the ghostly guests.” He smirked in the rearview mirror at me.
I smiled slightly. “Then you don’t know that the ghostly guests are the best guests.”
The man laughed at me. The noise was loud and seemed to echo the length of the bus.
“You speak like a local. So you believe in all that BS?” he asked, his tone suddenly turning judgmental.
I sat back farther in my seat, surprised at his hostility. “I mean, I don’t know about bullshit. And what would the problem be if I do believe in ghosts?” I retorted.
“No real problem.” He shrugged. “Just think that it’s childish and a bit insane. Personal opinion, though.”
“So, you know nothing about the town—you just wanted to speak negatively about it,” I replied dryly.
“I wouldn’t say that I know nothing.”
“Okay,” I said under my breath, curling back up in my seat. That was the end of our conversation.
What did this guy know about Beaconfield if he’d never experienced it?
I closed my eyes and tried to get comfortable in hopes of getting some rest.
Claude picked back up the tune he’d been humming, but this time it was darker, making a shiver run down my back.
Beaconfield Page 4