A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [60]
More mystery, confusion. Part of me wanted to stay, hold her, make her a prisoner in my embrace until today passed and dawn broke tomorrow. And she’d see, it didn’t need to be our last day, she didn’t need to tell me we couldn’t be together.
“Go now, before I lose the strength to let you leave.” Despair cracked her voice.
“I ... I could stay.”
“You can’t. Go now. Do what you must.”
“When I come home ...”
“When you come home,” her mouth caressed the words, as she might kiss a lover. “Those words ... please, don’t speak them anymore. Go, leave me. It’s almost time. Hurry.”
She turned away. Then I felt her hand go cold on my skin. The smell of briny rot crept up, her skin faded, lost its tanned glow, turned sallow. Her soft sobs became choked gurgles, and I knew. Knew I’d see the hideous decaying corpse, so I stood and paced to the door, the stench of rotten sea water, putrescence, filled the air with each step. I heard water drip behind me, and knew.
I didn’t turn around. I went downstairs, through the living room, out the door. I didn’t turn back for fear of seeing her, the image of her, dead. And I wondered what caused that, what made me see her so horribly. Instead of questioning her sanity, I should question mine.
I went down the hill, and thoughts of how I might find her name hammered in my head.
I was gone much longer than I wanted. I made no progress with my task. I floundered in failure so complete, so utter, I couldn’t remember what I did. I didn’t know her name any more than when I bathed in her sorrow at first light. I’d lost most of what she called our last day. The sun languished in a pool of its own blood near the horizon. I wanted to scream at it, stop it from slipping further. Rage and frustration confounded me, mocked me, tormented me. I sprinted toward the bungalow, strained to get there sooner than before, even if only by minutes, to catch her, stop her, hold her. Keep her somehow.
I banged through the door and the darkened room answered my internal question: she was gone. I failed. I’d missed her, with her convinced this was our last day.
I screamed my furious rue at the ceiling, my fists shook at my sides, my throat strained. When the sound died flat in the empty house, tears stung my eyes with salt, and I dragged a savage wipe over them with my fist. I pounded the wall and the tiny Cape Cod’s frame rattled.
More senseless, useless time wasting. I knew where to find her, but didn’t know what to do. My dread grew at the thought of the cove. Something horrible, frightening, slithered up my spine. Would she already be swimming toward the kelp bed? A shiver twisted down my back at the image of frothed, foam-laced breakers tumbling up the beach.
I paced, hands on my head. Think, think! What can I do? How can I stop her from leaving? Think, damn you, think!
I raged past the coffee table between the worn sofas, my legs brushed the edge and rattled it. I glanced down, unfocused, uncaring.
The Lighthouse Mysteries and Legends book lay open on the table, covers spread to a full-page photo of the cove down the hill. The photo framed the lighthouse against one side, the cove’s edge jutted into the sea beyond. It was the exact view I had as I clambered nervously over the crag where the lighthouse perched sentinel.
My mind reeled, my brows knit. I sat on the couch in front of the book. I had precious few moments but could not ignore the short, concisely written story. It held me like gravity, pressed me to sit and read like the pressure of the ocean’s depths.
It was the story of the missing lighthouse keeper’s daughter. The very one I’d been eager to read when I bought the book two weeks ago.
The words hit me like bullets.
The lighthouse keeper and his wife lived in the beacon’s residence from when they were young. Their daughter was born in that house. She lived there her entire life. She grew up happy and nurtured, and