with his intelligent eyes, and I felt all fear and resistance leave me. He sniffed my arm and then nuzzled my chest with his head. I let him rub his warm fur against my neck all the while taking in his familiar scent, the same one from my dream. I was reveling in this exchange when, without warning, the animal turned and ran away. I watched his thick haunches retreat. His legs sprang from the earth with a kind of preternatural buoyancy that I had previously not witnessed in man or beast. It was as if some unseen power were pushing him from below, giving additional spring to his gait. He jumped over a pile of rubble, random stones that had fallen from the abbey’s central tower. Leaping through one of the lower windows, he disappeared into the shell of the abbey.
I tried to get my bearings. I knew exactly where I was-the abbey is a rather conspicuous landmark-but the question of whom and what I was became harder to answer. I shuddered, hugging myself tight. The fog that had disappeared earlier settled once more over the promontory. It seemed darker now as the mist thickened, and I heard a hollow moan sweeping through the interior of the abbey’s shell. It’s only the wind, I told myself. I knew I should get back to the rooms, but without my animal companion watching over me, I was afraid.
I wanted to follow him into the abbey, but even by day, I found the building’s hulk too foreboding. The arched windows stood like dark open mouths waiting to spill secrets, mysteries from a past better left undisturbed. But this had been a holy place, not some medieval torture chamber where dark spirits wandered, seeking revenge for horrific acts committed against them. This had been the home of saints and of the saintly, of God’s chosen. There was nothing to fear. I had had a strange dream. I had walked in my sleep, and I had encountered the animal that had come over on the wrecked vessel. It was a simple story.
Looking up at the abbey wall, I started to rise. I would take one peek inside to see if I could catch a glimpse of the animal. But before I could take a step, a shadow glided across one of the windows-not a dark shadow but something white, something not quite whole-and I dropped back to my knees. As it passed, I heard a whooshing sound, like the winter wind that rushed through Miss Hadley’s halls on the coldest evenings. From somewhere within the abbey, the wolf dog howled, sending great spiraling wails into the night. Had the animal also seen the apparition? I could have sworn that it was the outline of a female form, but I credited the old whaler’s story of the long-dead abbess with that thought. I hoped that my eyes were playing tricks on me as eyes often do in the dark. The fog and the moonlight and my sleepwalking had conspired to make me see strange things. The animal was merely responding to the sound of the wind. Yet the calm I had felt while with the wolf dog was now gone, and I was aware of every nerve in my body.
The night grew colder and darker as the moonlight dissolved into the fog. I knew I had to make a move, though I also felt safe in my inertia. Finally, it was the dampness of the earth seeping through my clothes that forced me to rise. I turned toward the churchyard but was stopped dead by what I saw before me.
I tried to take a breath, but my lungs failed and my knees grew weak. Was he a man or an apparition? He was not dressed in evening clothes, but it was unmistakably my savior from the riverbank, the man who had somehow made his way into the Gummlers’ photograph. How had he found me in the middle of the night on the Yorkshire coast? He looked illuminated, like a figure on stained glass, not by moonlight but by his perfectly ivory skin, which turned the mist surrounding him into a halo. I backed away, stumbling on a rock, but he did not move.
“Whoever you are, please go away,” I said. My voice was full of fear, with nothing in it that might inspire him to obey me. He was not transparent but was solidly before me, wearing a long, tailored waistcoat, the kind a gentleman would wear for a country walk.
“Why are you following me?” I asked, my voice trembling.
He did not speak, but I heard his voice in my head and recognized it as the voice from my dream. The accent was vague in origins but aristocratic. The words were pronounced with care to each letter and syllable. The tone was deep, almost bottomless, authoritative. I did not know how to respond, or if I should respond. My heart pounded in my chest. As long as I did not move, and he did not move, I would not be harmed-or that was the flawed logic that guided me at that moment. I put my face in my hands to avoid his stare.
“What do you want with me? Why are you doing this to me?”
“I don’t know why! I don’t know anything!” I started sobbing and did not stop until my hands were wet with my own tears. I had no idea how long I stood there crying, but when I looked up, he was not there. I waited, convincing myself that he had been an apparition after all. When I felt safe again, I turned to run away, but he was again in front of me, standing statue still.
“Who are you? What are you?” I screamed the words, angry now that this being was taunting me, following me so that there was no relief and no escape.
“Please leave me alone.” The insistent tone disguised the fact that my words were actually prayers meant to play upon his pity. He had saved me once; perhaps he would not harm me if I begged for my life.
“Quit following me,” I said, turning and walking away from him. I hugged myself tightly as I walked toward the cemetery. After a few moments, out of curiosity, I turned around. He was no longer there but had disappeared into the fog, leaving me alone and shivering, my hands still wet with tears.
I did not need my eyes to witness the absence; I felt it in my very being. Disappointment washed over me. Where had he gone? I found myself wanting to find him, to track him down as he was tracking me, and to demand an explanation. I was shocked at my own courage in even thinking this way, but something drove me on. I was sick of the weak person I had been. I wanted to yank her out of my body and stamp on her, making myself strong and brave.
“Come back to me,” I demanded, but nothing happened.
My pulse calmed, and I was able to breathe again. The winds seeped through my damp clothes, chilling me clean to the bone. I was so cold and tired that I thought my spine might crack if I did not get to a warm place.
Suddenly something came out of the mist and enveloped me, like the cocoon that had earlier wrapped me and brought me into the night. It was not anything that I could see or feel, but an energy, a vibration, an invisible shell that cosseted me.
The only structure I could see was the hollow shell of Whitby Abbey.
I did not have to say anything. My body submitted for me. I felt myself moving through space, though I did not know where I was going. Either my eyes were closed or I was in total darkness. I felt like some winged creature soaring over unknown territory, being steered by something outside myself, but knowing that I was not lost. Lights like stars whirled past me from out of the darkness, and when I opened my eyes, I was lying on a bed covered in rich tapestry and piled high with pillows. The room was lit by candles in colossal iron holders that flickered on the walls. A great fire was ablaze in the hearth. I recognized the triptych of slender, arched windows, though I was seeing them for the first time from the inside. No longer empty, they were fitted with glass through which I could make out some of the stars that hovered over Whitby on a clear night.
We were inside the abbey, though apparently outside time. The room was warm and the roof intact, and he was lying beside me.
Now that I saw him in the candlelight, he was more beautiful than I had imagined. Skin marble white, paler than mine and glowing, and hair like the night sea’s glossy waves. His face was long and angular with a strong brow, like the artists’ renderings I had of the Arthurian knights. With his midnight blue wolf eyes, he stared at me, taking me in.
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice timid and feeble.
His lips did not move, and yet I heard every word that he said. I wanted to ask a thousand questions, but one long and slender finger reached out and touched my lips. Locking eyes with me, he slid my nightdress from my shoulder. Shock waves rippled through my body as his finger followed the curve under my neck, dusting my chin, and slowly sliding to the other ear. Surely just one finger could not create this bedlam inside me.
