this is the land of the living. Marblehead is right here in the middle of everything. Your mom, your friends, Bobo.” Then he traced another circle around it. “We’re right here. One level beyond. This is the middle ground.”
“Think of it as the way station between life and death,” Charlie said. “It’s like a rest stop on the highway. I was actually there for ten minutes before the paramedic shocked me back.”
“I don’t get it. If this is a rest stop, what’s Sam still doing here?”
The brothers looked at each other. Sam hunched his shoulders and was about to speak when Charlie cut in. “We made a promise.”
“What kind of promise?”
There was a long silence. Neither of them answered. “Fine,” Tess said. “Don’t tell me. But am I right, Sam? You can stay here as long as you want?”
“Yes.”
“Can I stay here too?”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” Charlie said.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “There’s time for all of that later. Right now, you’ve got a lot to learn.”
“Go ahead,” Charlie said. “Show her how it works.”
“My pleasure.” Sam looked up at the sky, waved his hands in a small circle, and suddenly the wind soughed through the trees. A shower of leaves swirled around them. “Not bad, huh?” he said.
“You did that?” Tess asked.
“Piece of cake. We can fill your sails. We can touch your face.” He shook his hand gently, and Charlie’s hair rustled.
“I never had any idea,” Tess said.
“And we can dreamwalk too,” Sam said.
“What’s that?”
“We can go right into people’s dreams. We can hang out wherever their unconscious takes them. And we can tell them stuff.”
“You mean when I dream of Dad—”
“Exactly,” Charlie said. “Spirits at any level can dreamwalk, even after they’ve crossed over.”
“Are you sure?”
“You can never be sure of anything,” he said, “but that’s the way it seems to work.”
Tess shook her head. This was too much to handle; she could scarcely breathe. She was overwhelmed. She had dreamed of her father almost every night for a year after he died. She had always thought those images were proof of how much she missed him. But now this? Was he visiting in her sleep? She didn’t know what to believe anymore. And then a spark of anger ignited in her soul. She knew one thing for sure: She didn’t want to spend eternity making the wind blow or wandering through people’s dreams. She wanted her life back. She wanted to sail. She wanted to live. She wanted to love.
It was suddenly all quiet in the clearing. The breeze died down. And Tess gave voice to the one question that felt more important than any other: “What happens if I don’t want to cross over?” She reached her hand toward Charlie. “What if I just want to stay here with you?”
“There’s no rush,” Charlie said. “You have all the time in the world.” Then Sam got up and went to her side. He put his hand into hers and he pulled. “Come on, Tess, let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“I’ll show you around. It’s like orientation. It won’t take long.”
Tess wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t want to go anywhere. She just wanted to hold on to this place and this moment lest it never be the same again. Then she heard Charlie’s calming voice. “Don’t be afraid. When you’re finished, come back to my cottage.”
She looked into his caramel eyes and couldn’t believe her misfortune. She knew it sounded spoony, but she had waited all her life to meet someone like him, and he had been right there all along. She had been ready to sail around the world to find her mate, and he was waiting right there in Waterside.
She felt Sam tugging. “Come on,” he was saying, and she found herself walking hand in hand into the Forest of Shadows with a dead boy and his dead beagle. It boggled her mind. After a few steps, she turned back and saw Charlie silhouetted alone under the moon.
“Promise you’ll be here when I get back?” she called out.
“I promise,” he answered.
And then Sam looked up at her with his wide, wonderful eyes. “Don’t worry, Tess,” he said. “He always keeps his promises.”
TWENTY-THREE
TESS WAS A NATURAL AT FLYING. ACTUALLY, “FLYING” wasn’t quite the word. It didn’t look anything like Superman with his arms outstretched and cape flapping. It was called spirit travel, Sam explained, and it was controlled by the mind. You only had to imagine the possibilities and you could run, swim, dive, or glide through any