The Cypress House(52)

“No.” Paul shook his head. “I’m staying.”

“It’s time we leave.”

“You know I’m not going to do that.”

“Paul,” Arlen said, “I don’t think you understand…. You need to leave this place. It’s just like the train, son. I can feel it.”

Paul lifted his head and stared at him. “What?”

Arlen nodded.

“You mean right now? You can see it in me right now?”

“Not now. Before. When they were here.”

Paul was quiet for a moment before saying, “Well, it was probably that fight. Maybe he would have cut me or shot me or something.”

“It was after the fight. When Wade touched your shoulder.”

Paul frowned.

“You know I’m not lying,” Arlen said. “You know it’s the truth, Paul. You saw what happened to those men from the train.”

“When he touched my shoulder?”

Arlen nodded.

“Well,” Paul said after a lengthy pause, “it’s gone now, right?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point.”

“Sure it is. Whatever was there, it passed. It’s gone now.”

“Paul, that’s not how it—”

“Stop it,” Paul said. “I don’t want to hear it. It’s gone, okay? It’s gone!”

He turned and stomped back inside the Cypress House.


That night Arlen spent some time lying in the dark, watching the patterns of shadow shift as the moon rose, sipping from the flask and adjusting his position constantly on the bed, as if sleep were just one angle-change away. By now he knew the routine too well, though, and gave up earlier than usual, got to his feet and dressed again, walked downstairs and topped the flask off before going outside.

For a time he stood just below the porch and smoked a cigarette and watched the waves. Their tops sparkled as they broke. When the cigarette was gone he began to walk, heading south. He walked for a long time, sticking close to the waterline, his hands in his pockets and his mind dancing among Solomon Wade and Edwin Main and his father. Paul was in there, too, and Rebecca Cady, and every now and then someone else would slip through those chinks that even the whiskey was unable to caulk. When an unusually strong wave drove far enough up the shore to catch his feet, he finally came to a stop, looked around to see that the moon was much higher and the Cypress House was nowhere in sight. The coastal forest had encroached quietly around him, the stretch of beach much narrower here, the trees leaning close to the sea. He turned and started back.

Eventually the silhouette of the Cypress House showed. He had the passing thought that he needed to finish the widow’s walk, and then he saw something moving along the beach and everything else faded from his mind.

It was a shimmering white shape that seemed to emerge from the waterline, and for one short, frozen-heart moment he had visions of all the stories of ghosts and haints that he’d heard in his boyhood. Then the figure turned, and he saw that it was Rebecca Cady. She was wearing a white gown, and she’d walked all the way down to the water’s edge and was now wading into the surf.

He advanced slowly, grateful for the sand that allowed silent steps. He could see that she was holding something in her hands but couldn’t make out what. She stood for a moment as if in hesitation, then backed out of the water and set the object down in the sand. It looked like the cigar box Wade had given her.

She dipped her hands and grasped the hem of her gown and lifted it up her body and over her head and then it was off and she was standing naked on the sand. Arlen felt his breath catch, a flush rising through him. She was a tall woman, and somehow both soft and absent of fat, each curve sublime and sculpted. Even in the moonlight, her body was enough to numb his brain. He stood dumbly and stared as she picked the box up and went back into the sea.

She paused when the water reached her knees, as if adjusting to the temperature, and then stepped out deeper, lifting the box as she went. When the water reached her breasts, she stopped and, for just a moment, stood with the box over her head and the waves breaking high enough to drench the ends of her hair. Then she pivoted back toward the shore and whirled out to sea again, flinging the box away from her.

She didn’t get it far. The wind was working against her, and her motion was awkward. The box tumbled maybe fifteen feet out into the sea and landed flat, barely making a splash. For a few seconds it floated, riding back toward shore with the swells, almost all the way to where she stood, and then it began to sink and disappeared from sight.

Rebecca Cady stayed in the water and watched it. She looked for a long time at the place where it had vanished, and then she turned and waded back out of the sea and onto the beach.