The Dark of Summer

lips.

His lips were somewhat salty, warm, firm and yet tender.

She kissed back, surprised at herself.

They parted, ending the kiss, though he still held her close. He said, “Was I too bold?”

“No,” she said. Her voice was small, quiet, defenseless.

“I had as good a time as you did, Gwyn,” he told her. “Actually, I think I had a better time.”

She looked up into his dark eyes, saw that they returned her gaze with a steady, unwavering affection.

She stood on tip-toe and kissed the corner of his mouth. “I better be going,” she said, “so you can get the boat packed up.”

“Be careful on the drive back,” Ben warned her.

“It's only a short way,” she said. “No more than fifteen minutes.”

“The greatest number of traffic accidents,” he admonished her in almost fatherly tones, “take place within a few miles of home.”

“I'll be careful,” she conceded.

But on the way back to Barnaby Manor, her mind was not on her driving at all. Instead, as the road rolled toward her, under her and away, she let her mind wander through scattered memories which she had stored up throughout the day…

She hadn't been lying to Ben when she told him that the day had been so terribly enjoyable. Not since before her parents had been taken from her had she been given so much fun in a single day: the bright and rolling water, the baking sun, the clouds… They had played the old game with the clouds, watching them for some image that resembled a face or an animal. They had talked, endlessly, about this and that and nearly everything — and they had grown, or so it seemed to Gwyn, quite close in the space of just a few short hours. He said that often happened on a sailboat — if two people were at least somewhat compatible to begin with. Two people found themselves drawn quickly together, as if to ward off the immensity of the endless sea… Afloat on the blue, blue ocean, one was made small, until one seemed of very little value, little worth… But with someone to share the experience with, the huge universe could be pushed back, your own importance expanded until the ego was recuperated…

Now, as she parked the Opel in the four-car garage attached to Barnaby Manor, she wondered exactly what else had transpired between her and Ben Groves. She felt, inexplicably, as if some new and special relationship had begun, now quite fragile, but perhaps soon to blossom and flower…

By quarter past five o'clock — with a good deal of time remaining until dinner — she had showered, dried her hair, inspected her tan in the mirror and dressed. Still full of energy, despite the work that had gone into the day's sailing and despite the energy the heat of the sun had taken out of her, she wasn't satisfied to read or to relax to music in her room.

Downstairs, Fritz and Grace were at work in the kitchen. Though both were polite, neither was a particularly fascinating conversationalist. Neither her aunt nor her uncle were about, and Ben Groves had not returned from Calder. The house lay heavy, cool and quiet, as if it were asleep and must not be awakened.

She went outside to the steps by the sea, and walked carefully downward to the beach, where everything was beautifully golden in the late afternoon sunlight.

Far out to sea, a tanker wallowed southward, noiseless at this distance, like some immense, ancient animal that should have been long extinct.

Watching the huge tanker, Gwyn was reminded of the way that Jack Younger had followed her in his fisherman's launch only the day before, and she knew that she had, without realizing it, come here to the beach in hopes of meeting him once more and getting a chance to give him a piece of her mind.

However, though the time seemed right, not a single fishing boat lay on the swell in either direction.

Gwyn took off her shoes — white canvas sneakers — and walked into the frothing edge of the surf. She wriggled her toes in the rapidly cooling water, stirred up milky clouds of fine sand, and kicked at stranded clumps of darkening seaweed.

When she had walked nearly a mile, no longer charged with so much undisciplined energy, she stopped at the water's edge and faced directly out to sea, watching the creamy clouds bend toward the liquid, cobalt horizon.

She had built up a tremendous appetite and was looking forward to one of Grace's hearty meals, then to a couple hours of reading in her room, and early to bed. She knew that, tonight, she would sleep like a rock, without any strange dreams. She bent down and put on her shoes, turned to go back to Barnaby Manor — and was rooted to the spot by what she saw behind her.

As if following in her footsteps, her double stood no more than a hundred feet away. She was wearing that many-layered white dress that billowed prettily in the sea breeze and gave her an ethereal look, as if she did not belong in this world. And perhaps she did not…

Gwyn took a step toward the pale apparition, then stopped suddenly, unable to find sufficient courage to continue.

The other Gwyn, the Gwyn in white, remained where she was — though her own stillness did not appear to be founded in fear.

Despite the steady susurration of the sea wind — which fluffed the stranger's golden mass of hair into an angelic nimbus all around her head — and despite the rhythmic sloshing sound of the waves breaking on the beach, the scene was maddeningly quiet. The air was leaden, the sky pressing down, each second an eternity. It was the sort of silence, filled with unknown fear, that one usually found only in remote graveyards or in funeral parlors where a corpse lay amid flowers.

To break this disquieting quiet, Gwyn cleared her throat — somewhat surprised at the noise she made, and in a voice cut through with a nervous tremor, she asked, “Who are you?”

The other Gwyn only smiled.

“Ginny?” Gwyn asked.

She hated to say that. But she could not help herself.

“Hello, Gwyn,” the apparition replied.

Gwyn shook her head, looked down at the sand, trying desperately to dispel the vision. But when she looked up again, she found, as she had expected she would, that Ginny remained exactly where she had been, in her white dress, yellow hair fluttering.

“I'm seeing things,” Gwyn said.

“No.”

“Hallucinations.”

“And are you hearing things too, Gwyn?” the double asked, smiling tolerantly.

“Yes.”

The apparition took several steps toward Gwyn, cutting the distance between them by a fourth. She smiled again and said, in a comforting voice, “Are you afraid, Gwyn?”

Gwyn said nothing.

“You haven't any reason to be afraid of me, Gwyn.”

“I'm not.”

“You are.”

Gwyn said, “Who are you?”

“I've told you.”

“I don't believe—”

“Have you a choice?”

“Yes,” Gwyn said. “I'll ignore you.”

“I won't let you do that.”

Gwyn looked out to sea, searching for some possibility of help. She would even have welcomed the sight of Jack Younger in his launch, his whitened hair, his deep tan… But there were still no boats nearby — only the tanker which steadily dwindled on its trip southward. Already, it was little more than a dot against the darkening sky.

“Gwyn?”

She looked back at the — specter.

“How can you deny me, Gwyn?”