The Dark of Summer

BOOK TWO

EIGHT

At dinner that evening, in the smallest dining room, Gwyn had considerable difficulty keeping her mind on the conversation. Her thoughts kept drifting far afield, indeed, down strange avenues of inquiry as she gave serious consideration to ghosts, specters, the living dead, the occult in its countless facets… She thought, often, about the nature of madness, hallucination and even self-hypnosis… All of these were decidedly disturbing and unpleasant, though nonetheless pressing subjects; she could not bring herself to ignore them for very long, because she felt that they must all be faced as part of the solution to her condition. At times, however, she was caught wool- gathering. Having lost track of the table conversation, she would have to ask her aunt or her uncle to repeat a question.

“I'm sorry, Elaine,” she said, for the sixth time in less than an hour. “What did you say?”

Her aunt smiled at her indulgently and said, “I asked how you enjoyed your sailing today.”

“It was a lot of fun,” she said. And it really had been. But right now, the joy seemed to have paled; the only truly vivid memory she had of the day was her encounter with — the ghost.

“You didn't meet Jack Younger again, did you?” her uncle asked, his brows furrowed.

“No,” she said.

“Or any of the other fishermen?”

“No,” she said.

He blotted his lips on his napkin and said, “Gwyn, I don't want to pry at all…” He hesitated, then said, “But I do think that something's wrong here.”

“Wrong?” she asked. She tried to sound bewildered, and she smiled tentatively, though not genuinely. She reminded herself of her earlier decision. This was to be only her problem; only she could solve it.

“For one thing,” her Uncle Will said, “you're clearly preoccupied.”

She put down her fork and said, “I'm sorry. I know that I've been terribly rude, but—”

“Don't worry about that,” he said, waving his hand impatiently, as if to brush away her comment. “I'm not interested in the symptoms — just the source of the symptoms. What's the matter, Gwyn?”

“Really,” she said, “it's nothing.”

Elaine said, “Will, she's probably just tired out after all day on the water.”

“That's right,” Gwyn said, grasping at the offered straw, anxious to avoid any situation where she'd be forced to mention the ghost. “I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

“You're sure that's all it is?” he asked. His eyes seemed to bore right through her, to discover the convenient lie.

“Yes,” she said. “Don't worry about me, Uncle Will. I'm having a marvelous time, really. What could be bothering me?”

“Well,” he said reluctantly, “I guess there's nothing. But if something were upsetting you, Gwyn, you would let me know about it right away, wouldn't you?”

“Of course,” she lied.

“I want this to be a perfect summer for you,” he said.

“It will be.”

“Don't hesitate to come to me for anything.”

“I won't, Uncle Will.”

Elaine smiled and said, “He's got a bit of the mother hen in him, doesn't he, Gwyn?”

Gwyn smiled and said, “Just a bit.”

Will snorted, picked up his fork again. He said, “Mother hen, is it? Well, I suppose that's not so bad. I'm sure I've been called a lot of other things much worse.”

At two o'clock in the morning, unable to sleep, Gwyn heard the first soft, almost inaudible squeak of unoiled hinges as her bedroom door was opened. She sat up in bed in time to see the white-robed girl standing on the threshold.

“Hello, Gwyn.”

Gwyn lay back down without responding.

“Gwyn?”

“What do you want?”

“Is something the matter?” the ghost asked.

Gwyn lifted her head once again, for the voice had sounded much closer than before, too close for comfort. She saw that the dead girl had crossed half the open space toward her bed, a strangely lovely vision in the thin moonlight.

“Gwyn?”

“Yes, something is the matter,” Gwyn said.

“Tell me?”

“You,” Gwyn said.

“I don't understand.”

“Of course you do. You're not real; you don't exist, can't exist, except as a figment of my imagination. I'm not going to lie here and talk to you. I can snuff you out if I want; you're little more than a dream, a fancy daydream.”

“No, Gwyn. I do exist.”

Gwyn lay back and closed her eyes. “No.”

“Yes, Gwyn. Oh, yes.”

The voice was very close now.

Gwyn rolled over onto her stomach, reached out and hugged the feather pillow, trying to force herself to sleep. But that was, of course, quite useless.

She felt the bed sag: the dead girl must have sat down on the edge of it…

The dead girl said, “I told you, on the beach earlier, that I am not transparent, not made of smoke. When I chose to visit this realm of the living, I came cloaked in flesh. To the naked eye, I am as real as you are.”

Gwyn said nothing.

Suddenly, without warning, a soft, warm hand touched the back of Gwyn's neck, delicately, tenderly.

Gwyn leaped, rolled onto her back, terror-stricken, looked up at the dead girl. “You can't touch me! You aren't real, or substantial, not at all. You're a dream, a delusion, an hallucination, and you must be gone when I tell you to go.”

The dead girl smiled.

“Stop it!” Gwyn said.

“Stop what?”

“Stop being here!”

The dead girl reached out to touch Gwyn's cheek.

“No,” Gwyn said, desperately. She got out of bed on the far side, hurried into the bathroom and closed the door behind herself.

“Gwyn?” the dead girl called from beyond the door.

Gwyn looked at her face in the mirror. It was pale under the tan, and lined with fear and fatigue. Yet, it did not look like the face of a madwoman…

She splashed water in her face, took a long drink, then decided the best thing to do was to return to bed. Perhaps the night's fantasies were concluded.

In the main room, the dead girl stood by the window, her hands on the sill, leaning toward the night. She