The Dark of Summer

“Don't you know me?” the double asked.

“No.”

The double smiled.

She said, “How's the view from your window?”

Gwyn felt a chill that did not come from the air conditioner, a chill that welled up from deep inside of her.

“You've decided properly.”

“Decided what?”

“To love.”

Her double stepped back from the open door and turned away, walking quickly out of sight to Gwyn's left, down the second floor corridor.

“Wait!” Gwyn cried.

She pushed back the covers, got out of bed and ran to the door.

The hallway was dark, except for the moonlight that filtered in through the windows at either end. There was no candle. And by the pale, unearthly luminescence, Gwyn could see that the length of the corridor was utterly deserted.

Numbed by what she'd seen, she knew she must be asleep. There was no other logical explanation for it: she must be dreaming. She bunched some of her right arm in the fingers of her left hand and pinched herself hard, almost cried out with the pain. That was not the reaction one might have in a dream, surely. She was awake…

She stepped back into her room and closed the door. She went into the attached bath, washed her face in cold water and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her face looked drawn, her eyes wary.

“You need a suntan,” she told herself.

Her reflection obediently mimicked the movement of her lips. It did not start to make movements by itself, as she had almost expected that it might.

“You were merely dreaming,” she told her reflection, watching it closely. “Just dreaming.”

It simultaneously told her the same thing, moving its lips without making a sound.

She leaned away from the mirror and said, “Is it possible to have a dream last on, after you've wakened?”

Her reflection didn't know, or, if it knew, wasn't saying.

She sighed, turned out the bathroom lights, and went back to bed. She supposed that her aunt, and Ben Groves, so solicitous of her with their reminders of Ginny's death, had primed her for such a delusion as she'd just had.

The clock read 4:10 in the morning, still four hours before she would have to get up for breakfast. However, she slept very little the remainder of the night, dozing on and off, waking again and again to listen for the sound of a whispery voice calling her name…

FOUR

Half done with their tour of the grounds — which turned out to be far larger and more elaborately landscaped than Gwyn had at first thought — she and Ben Groves stopped at a white stone bench near the perimeter of the dense woodlands, within sight of a birdbath where two robins played. They sat and, taking a break from the nearly non-stop conversation they had thus far indulged in, watched the birds frolicking.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Gwyn asked him, without preliminaries, turning away from the robins.

They had talked about so many things during the last hour, jumping from one subject to another, sounding each other out on various topics, trying to get to know each other better, that it was unlikely he would find her abruptness strange.

“How do you mean?” he asked.

“Ghosts,” she said. “You know, old friends to haunt you, old enemies here to take revenge.”

He thought a moment, then said, smiling, “I believe in them.”

“You really do?”

“Yes.”

She was surprised. “Why?”

“Why not?”

“No,” she said, “I'm serious. Why do you believe in ghosts?”

“I believe in ghosts,” he said, “because I believe in anything that's fun.” He grinned at her.

“Ghosts are fun?” she asked.

He leaned back against the stone bench, folding his hands behind his head and crossing his ankles out in front of him. “Oh, most assuredly! Ghosts are an enormous lot of fun.”

“How?”

“Everyone enjoys a good fight.”

“I don't.”

“Sure you do,” he said.

“Nope.” She was adamant about it.

He turned sideways, his hands still behind his head, and he said, “Didn't you enjoy Halloween when you were a kid?”

“Yes, but—”

“Didn't the idea of frightening other people — and of being frightened yourself — appeal to you?”

“That's different,” she said.

He smiled. “Okay, then.” He seemed to pause for thought, then said, “Have you ever gone to see a horror movie — you know, one with vampires or werewolves — or even ghosts?”

“Sure. But what's that got to do with—”

He interrupted her by holding up a hand for silence. He said, “Just bear with me. Now, did you go to see any more of this sort of movie, after you saw the first?”

“Several,” she said.

“Why did you go?”

“What do you mean?”

He said, “Why did you keep going back to this sort of movie?”

“To be entertained. What else are movies for?”

“Exactly,” he said. He seemed pleased with himself. “And since the whole point of a horror movie is to frighten the audience, you must have enjoyed being frightened.”

She was about to disagree, when she saw that he was right, and that there was no point on which she could prove him wrong. She laughed. “I never looked at it like that before.”

“So,” he said, “I believe in ghosts because they're fun.”

They watched the robins a while longer. In time she said, “But aren't there — evil ghosts?”

“Probably most of them.”

“What if one of these has in mind to do more to you than frighten you? What if it intends you harm?”

“Then I stop believing in ghosts,” he said.

She laughed and slapped his shoulder playfully. “It's no use trying to be serious with you.”

He sat up straight and cut back the power of his smile. “I can be as serious as anyone else.”

“Sure you can.”

He said, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“No,” she said.

“You should always keep an open mind,” he said.

She threw a particularly sharp look in his direction, as if she thought she might catch him in some private and revealing expression not meant for her eyes, and thereby know what he was thinking. She said, “And just what is that supposed to mean?”