Dreadful Sorry (20 page)

Now Hob was murmuring his favorite song into her hair: "
Oh my darlin', Oh my darlin', Oh my darlin', Clementine—
"

She was already lost to him, though he couldn't know that, and she would soon be gone forever—once they got over to Benson. "We'll both be 'dreadful sorry,'" she teased, quoting from the song and pulling away from his embrace with a deliberately lighthearted giggle, "if we don't get going
now!
"

But he drew her closer, hard against his body, heedless of his bruised knee. He wrapped his arms around her more tightly and breathed a sigh of deep contentment. "To be with you, Clementine, all our lives long—I couldn't ask for more," he murmured. He took her chin in his hand again and tipped her head. She saw the expression in his eyes then, and with the teasing gone it was pure longing that shone out. His lips pressed hers warmly in a soft kiss, her first kiss.

Then there was a clattering of footsteps on the narrow wooden stairs, and the bedroom door opened. She struggled out of Hob's embrace and turned to face Mrs. Wilkins.

But it was Uncle Wallace who stood there in the doorway. He held her sewing basket and hatbox, and his face was dark with anger.

"Clementine Horn!" he barked, and Clementine stood there, trembling.

Mrs. Wilkins, behind him in the doorway, pressed her hands to her round cheeks. "You see, Mr. Holloway, here she is—safe and sound! Just visiting my boy, who has hurt his leg."

"Hello, Uncle," Clementine began in a soft voice. "It's just as Mrs. Wilkins says. Poor Hob has twisted his knee in a fall. I heard about the accident and thought I should see if I could help in any way—"

"Yes, I see you have your way of cheering him up!" His sarcasm filled the room. "You told Janie you were off for a sunrise picnic on the headland, but Dr. Scopes told me he saw you down here in the village!"

"I was running errands for Aunt Ethel. She—"

"So you told Mrs. Wilkins. And the doctor, too, I understand!" He opened her wicker sewing basket, and her dress, undergarments, and
Hard Times
flew out and dropped to the floor. He opened the hatbox and dumped the contents onto Hob's bed. Mollydolly's green velvet party dress fluttered to the floor.

"Errands, you say, girl? With a change of clothes and your little box of treasures?" His hard voice made her wince as if he had struck her. She felt her face flushing deeply as she bent to gather up her scattered belongings.

"You owe me an explanation, Clementine. I'm taking you home at once." He ignored Hob entirely, nodded curtly to Mrs. Wilkins, and stepped out into the tiny hallway. Clementine picked up her hatbox and turned desperately to Hob, who had reached for his pajama shirt and was pulling it on again, his face stricken.

He cleared his throat and manfully stepped toward Uncle Wallace, his injured knee nearly buckling. "Sir, I can explain," he began. "Clementine and I plan to marry. We love each other, and—"

"Silence!" roared Uncle Wallace. "Get back in bed, boy. You're not marrying anybody."

Before Hob could speak again, Clementine turned to him. "Meet me at the wharf tonight," she mouthed, her words mere wisps of breath aimed in his direction. "Eleven o'clock."

She thought she saw him nod just as Uncle Wallace's fingers dug into her shoulder and turned her back toward the door. He kept his heavy hand on her shoulder as they descended the steep stairs, then he pushed Clementine outside the door ahead of him into Mrs. Wilkins's carefully tended garden. He moved his hand to Clementine's arm and propelled her through the blue gate, out onto the lane. She stumbled, her head lowered in embarrassment and fury, but said nothing. She could feel Mrs. Wilkins's eyes on her and knew the woman was watching worriedly from the doorway.

Her uncle reached for the sewing basket. "Running off to be married, Clementine? After all we've done for you these past seven years? After we've told you how we need your help with the children? Not to mention what you told me at the dinner table last night!" He shook her arm as he led her along. "Lying to me through your teeth, weren't you? I told you only last night to keep clear of the village boys, and this morning I find you right smack in the lap of that half-naked village lout. I thought we could trust you!" She stumbled along beside him, hugging the hatbox, determined not to say anything.

"This will not go unpunished, my girl," he said coldly, and he kept his fingers tight around her upper arm all the way up the steep road to the headland.

"Will you please stop this and tell me what the hell is going on?"

Molly blinked at the voice, rubbing the place above her arm where she felt the imprint of Uncle Wallace's fingers. She turned slowly away from Hob's gravestone, trying to restore her sense of the present. And then her hands flew to her mouth as she saw Hob himself standing at the low stone wall.

"I saw you come in here," Jared explained in a flat voice. "I. called to you, but you didn't answer. I've been ... listening." The strained tone disappeared as his voice rose. "My God, Molly! You're freaking me out!"

And she lowered her hands. It wasn't Hob Wilkins—of course not! How could she ever have thought it? They looked nothing alike. This was Jared Bernstein. Just Jared—or was it? She widened her eyes; his tousled dark hair and swimmer's muscled body dressed in cutoff jeans and a green T-shirt was superimposed for an instant over the image of Hob as she'd last seen him—straight blond hair, wiry body dressed in baggy pajama bottoms.

Whoever he was, he leapt over the wall and walked toward her. The image of Hob seemed to flicker, then melt away. He stood right in front of her, clearly Jared now, not Hob at all. Angry Jared, frightened Jared, Jared whom she felt sure she had somehow wronged quite terribly.

But wait—what did that mean? Molly pressed her hands to her stomach. She felt hollow. She sank down onto Hob's gravestone as her knees gave out.

"Hey, are you okay?" Jared knelt in front of her. "Stupid question—obviously you're not okay. But what's going on? I was walking up to your house when I saw you standing here in the graveyard." He paused and searched her face. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Is that what you're going to tell me? Were you muttering to ghosts?"

She drew a shaky breath. "Would you believe me if I said I just don't know?"

She had seen
something,
been talking to
something,
all right. Felt
something.
Molly shivered, remembering the warmth of Hob's embrace. But that hadn't been
Molly
he'd held—it was
Clementine.
Still, Molly could sense Hob nearby. She could feel Clementine, too. Call it spirit, or call it soul—or call it just some tiny piece of consciousness that existed apart from bodies—something was reaching out to Molly with a message. She felt it as a tiny nudge inside her head. A push toward Jared, who knelt in the grass to read the inscription on the gravestone where Molly perched. Head down, his face was shadowed. Molly blinked in the bright sunlight and reached out her hand. She could not pretend to herself any longer that he was not somehow connected to her, to this—to all that was happening. She touched his dark curls and felt them spring soft under her fingers. As he reached up his own hand to touch hers, she knew with a quick certainty that his hand on hers was no different from Hob's hand on Clementine's, and that their bond ran deeper than any of them remembered.

"Hobson Wilkins," Jared read in a hushed voice. "Is that—I mean, the name you called me,
Hob
—is that him?"

Molly nodded and knelt next to him, tracing the inscription with her finger. "It's Hob, all right." A weak smile flickered across her face. "I guess it really is time that we talk," she said softly. "You ask about ghosts? I'm being haunted by hundreds of them. A whole village, actually. And what's more, I don't just
watch
them—nothing so ordinary.
I'm one of them.
"

"Better tell me about it. I mean
really,
Molly. Tell me everything you know. This seems to concern both of us, but don't ask me how."

She left Hob's stone without a backward glance. "Not in here. Let's go somewhere else."

"How about walking down to the wharf? I just got hired on at this little fish shop called Day's Catch. It's across from a little café. We can have lunch." Jared smiled slightly. "My treat—in exchange for a real conversation with you. At long last."

She shook her head. She'd been on her way home from the library—it seemed so long ago. "I've got to get back up to the house. My dad and Paulette will be back from Benson soon, if they're not back already." She explained about Paulette's appointment at the hospital.

"Then I'll walk you home," he said. "We can talk on the way." She nodded and they stepped back over the wall and out onto Main Street side by side. "Do you promise you won't run away screaming again?" he asked as they paused by the church and antique store.

"At this point I have no idea what I'm going to do," Molly replied. She glanced in the window, half expecting to see Miss Kent conducting a geography lesson in the village school. But the school was full of antique furniture and tourists. They moved on.

"
Yoo-hoo,
Molly Teague!"

Molly and Jared wheeled around, and Molly recognized Grace Wilkins striding up the road. She moved very fast for someone so old.

"Thought that was you! With your boyfriend, how nice!" Miss Wilkins caught up to them, panting. "I found the book about the
Titanic
you wanted and signed it out in your name."

"Um—thanks," said Molly.

"The
Titanic?
Where does that come in?" asked Jared under his breath.

Molly introduced Jared. "Miss Wilkins, this is Jared Bernstein. He's from Ohio, too. Miss Wilkins is the librarian. She was born on the same night the
Titanic
sank."

"My single claim to fame," added the old woman.

"Nice to meet you," Jared said politely, holding out his hand to shake Miss Wilkins's. "I haven't been to the library yet. I've been looking for a job and just found one this morning—down at Day's Catch. I'd like to come in and get a library card, though, when I have time." His voice was politely neutral, but as he held Miss Wilkins's hand, a change came over his face. Molly watched his cheeks flush and his eyes grow bright.

Miss Wilkins seemed similarly affected. She left her hand in his, looking puzzled as she studied his face. Her own wrinkled face was pink with—could it be excitement? "I think we've already met, young man. But not at the fish shop."

"You look so familiar to me," Jared agreed. "I know we must have talked before."

Miss Wilkins gently withdrew her hand from his and reached up as if to touch his cheek. "Strange," she murmured. Then she smiled and withdrew her hand. "I was a fisherman's daughter and ate fish pretty nearly every day of my life while my parents lived—but now I can't stand the stuff. It's pork chops or roast beef for me these days, sometimes sausages. Oh, I know what the doctors say about red meat and fat and all that. But I figure when you're my age, you can eat anything you like. Do you like sausages?"

Molly was relieved when Jared flashed his swim-star grin, even white teeth bright against his tanned face, and allowed the odd moment to pass. "Love them," Jared said. "Sausages and eggs for breakfast." But his eyes remained puzzled and his cheeks were pink as they chatted.

"Come visit me at the library. I like a boy who reads. Too many kids today just stick themselves in front of the box. Terrible thing." Miss Wilkins pointed back down the hill. "Library's just up Cotton Lane."

"I could use something new to read in the evenings," Jared told her. "I'm living over in a tent at the campground now, and I read by my campfire every night before bed."

"My gracious, a campground! I've got an extra bedroom, my boy. Maybe you should move right in with me." She stopped suddenly and looked surprised at herself. Molly could imagine she was wondering whatever possessed her to invite a young man she had only just met to come to her house.

"Um—well, thanks. I think I'm just fine in my tent..."

"Look, we need to go now," Molly said hastily. "Maybe you two can talk at the library later and arrange things."

"What?" But Jared couldn't drag his eyes from Miss Wilkins's.

"If you come to my house, look for number sixteen," she told him. "Look for the red door." She reached out and pressed his arm, then walked along to the condominiums behind the church. Molly hurried up Main Street with Jared behind her. He kept glancing back.

"I don't know what it is about that old lady," he said, shaking his head as they walked up to the drive across the headland. "Maybe it's just because I miss my grandma or something. She died last year." But then he shook his head. "No—I don't know. I just feel I've already met her. It's weird." He frowned over at Molly. "Just another weird thing to add to the collection of things that have happened since I met you."

"You want to hear about weird? You don't know the half of it." She slanted a smile at him. As they walked slowly up the hill, Molly searched for words.

 

The story was not an easy one to tell. In fact, she had never before thought of it as a story at all. Stories have a start and a middle and an end—but this one didn't. She tried to begin the story with the day—that fateful day—when she'd met him on the steps. Or when he'd tossed her into the pool. But that wasn't the real beginning, either. She had to backtrack, tell him how she'd always had a fear of water. She told him about her dreams of the long hallway and of the girl in the house—the girl she now knew was Clementine. She'd thought that her dreams were just the products of an active imagination—at least that's what Jen had told her—or were due to the stress of the swimming lessons and near-drowning. Yet here in Maine the dreams blurred with reality. She'd been brought up to believe there were no such things as ghosts, and she knew very little about reincarnation—the two explanations Bill and Paulette had offered. But how else to explain what was happening? She
knew
she wasn't having any sort of breakdown.