The Dark of Summer

ghost.”

After some additional smalltalk, he said, “How about going sailing with me tomorrow?”

“You've got a boat?”

“A fourteen-foot beauty,” he said, grinning. “I keep her moored in Calder. Tomorrow's my day off, so…”

“I'd love to,” she said.

“Be up and ready to go at nine,” he said.

“Aye, aye, Skipper.”

“But leave the corny sea talk behind,” he said.

“Right, Cap'n,” she said, with a mock salute.

“Gwyn?”

She sat straight up in bed.

Her hands were full of twisted sheets.

She was perspiring.

Tense, leaning forward as if she had just been hit in the stomach, she listened intently.

“Gwyn?”

She got up, without turning on any light, trying to be as silent as possible, moving like — like a ghost.

She stood in the center of the room, weakly illuminated by the remnants of the moon, and she looked around, trying to catch sight of any stranger, any shadow darker or lighter than the ones the furniture threw.

She saw nothing.

“Gwyn…”

This was no dream. Someone was most definitely calling out to her in a dry, whispery voice.

She walked cautiously to the door, reached for it, found that it was open.

She stepped into the corridor.

Tonight, as the moon waned, there was insufficient moonlight for her to tell whether or not the hallway was deserted. She might have been alone — or she might have been one of a half a dozen people standing there in the darkness.

Holding the door frame, one hand to her heart as if to still the rapid beating she listened.

She waited.

Time passed like syrup running sluggishly out of a narrow-mouthed bottle, drip by drip by drip…

The voice did not come again.

She willed it to return.

It did not.

In a whisper of her own, hoping she would not wake anyone else, Gwyn said, “What do you want?”

She received no reply.

“What do you want with me?”

Nothing.

“Ginny?”

Silence.

She walked the length of the corridor, first to the right of her room, and then to the left, moving on tiptoe, expecting to bump into someone — or something — at any moment. She encountered no one and nothing at all.

She stood in her doorway a while longer, listening, then went into her room again and closed the door.

With her back to the heavy door, both moist palms pressed flat against the cool, slick, varnished wood, she cleared her throat softly and, still whispering, she said, “Ginny, are you here?”

She felt like an utter fool, but when she received no answer, she repeated the question: “Ginny, are you here?”

Only silence…

And darkness.

Ben Groves, in that so-reasonable voice of his, had told her that everyone should keep an open mind on everything — even about ghosts and netherworld visitors. He had convinced her. But now, it seemed stupid for her to stand around in the dark, in her nightgown, talking to the air and waiting for a supernatural reply. She had never been one for astrology, for belief in anything beyond the human ken.

“It was a dream,” she said. “A repetitious dream.”

Then she remembered that the door had been standing wide open, and that she had most certainly closed it when she came to bed…

She tugged at it now, without twisting the knob, and she saw that the latch was slightly loose. Perhaps, because the door did lean slightly inward, it had slipped its latch during the night, all by itself, and had gradually drifted open. She'd had a dormitory room at college with a door that did that very same thing. In any event, it was easier to accept a mundane explanation like that than to put any credence in the existence of ghosts!

She got a drink of cold tapwater from the bathroom, let it soothe her parched throat, then returned to bed.

In a while, she slept again.

She did not dream.

Yet, in the morning, when she got up, she found that her door had drifted open again, during the night… She took this as proof that the latch needed to be replaced and the door set more evenly in its frame.

SIX

At four o'clock the following afternoon, having trimmed the bright white sails and — at the last possible minute — having dropped them altogether, Ben Groves brought his sailboat, Salt Joy, into its slot on the graded beach. This section of the shoreline had been especially built up, then sloped to provide an easy landing zone for the dozens of colorful sailboats that plied the waters around Calder. The flattish bottom of Salt Joy, unlike the curved bottoms of some of the other sailboats, slid up the incline with a wet, hissing noise and came finally to rest.

Ben leaped out seconds before she did, grabbed the front of the small craft and, staggering backwards, pulled it all the way out of the water. His arms bunched with muscle, and sweat stood on his brow.

“Are you sure I can't help with this?” she asked. She had turned even a more golden brown color, after nearly a whole day in the glare of the sun, in the reflecting bowl of the sea.

“We brought two cars so you wouldn't have to stay and help,” he said.

“Still—”

“Besides, I'm a perfectionist. I'm afraid you wouldn't fold or roll anything to my approval.”

“I could keep you company anyway,” she said.

“And have to listen to me cursing the canvas when it won't roll right?” he asked, mockingly incredulous. “I won't have you finding out how perfectly foul I can be.”

“You're sure?”

“Positive.”

They stood quite close. She felt as if, in the shadow that he threw, she would be always protected, watched over, safe. She had not had this strong a feeling of belonging even with her Uncle William.

“I want you to know,” she said, “That this was the most wonderful day I've had — since I can't remember when.”

“I hope that's true.”

“It is, Ben.”

“We'll do it again, soon. We haven't even begun to cover some of the better sailing areas to the south.”

“I'm already anticipating it,” she said.

Then, without warning, he bent toward her and, putting his arms around her, kissed her lightly on the