Charlie St. Cloud Page 0,55

dimension. It was almost like using the Internet. A click here, a click there. You just had to think of a place and you were there.

For Tess, it felt like the ultimate extreme sport, with no limits on how fast or far she could go. She had never believed in any of this supernatural stuff, but soon she was soaring over downtown, circling the gilded weather vane atop Abbot Hall, then shooting down to the harbor to check out the boats.

“Sure beats PlayStation 2, huh?” Sam said as they materialized near the top of the Marblehead light.

“Blows my mind,” she said, watching the powerful green beam slice right through her.

Next stop: the Sunday night submarine races on Devereux Beach, where SUVs and trucks with steamy windows were jammed into the parking lot.

“Charlie says kissing is like baseball without the bat,” Sam said.

“I think it’s more like football without the pads,” Tess laughed. “You ever kiss a girl?”

“Nah,” Sam said. “Tried once, but Stacie Bing popped me in the nose and knocked me out. I woke up in the principal’s office.”

“Really?”

“Swear.”

“What about now? You know, in between? Is there anyone your age?”

“Not really,” he said. “They don’t show up here very often, and they usually move on pretty quick.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Where do you want to go now?”

Tess thought for a moment. “How about my mom’s?”

“Okay, lead the way.”

And just like that, they found themselves near Black Joe’s Pond on Gingerbread Hill. This was the hallowed ground of her youth. On this drop of water, nine generations of Carrolls had swum in the summer and skated in the winter. It was also home to a bale of snapping turtles and a siege of great blue herons.

Tess looked across the rolling lawn where as a girl she had run through the sprinklers. The family home, a charming colonial with opposing brick chimneys, sat like a toy house overlooking the pond. With a gabled roof, clapboard siding, and double-hung windows, it had barely changed since it was built by her ancestors in 1795. The downstairs lights were on in the living room, and in the window on the second floor, she saw a shaggy face. It was Bobo, looking down blankly on the grass where she was standing. He was sitting in his usual chair, still waiting for her to come home.

A car pulled into the driveway, and Tess noticed a jam of vehicles near the house.

“Wonder who’s here,” Tess said.

“They’re your friends.”

“Oh my God. What are they doing?”

“I guess they really liked you.”

Once more, Tess had that overwhelmed sensation. Then she said, “Come on, let’s go look.”

“You sure you want to?” Sam said.

“Yeah.”

“It can be a big bummer.”

She recognized most of the cars, including Reverend Polkinghorne’s red Subaru, and she hesitated. The last time he had been over to the house was when her dad had died. The thought of his visit the night of the heart attack brought back so many images from that first week: the steady stream of friends, the casseroles dropped off quietly on the doorstep, and the phone calls. The second week was different: Only a few friends came over, the care packages ceased, and the phone was almost silent. That was when her mom realized how alone she was in the world. Would her mother have the strength to go through it all over again?

Then she resolutely started across the grass, covering the ground in twenty steps. The side door to the mudroom was open. Her father’s boots for fishing, hunting, and hiking were arranged neatly on the floor. He had been gone for two years, but her mother left them there as a comfort.

Grace was in the kitchen stirring the old chowder pot. Her face was long, her eyes were red, and her blue blouse and brown skirt didn’t belong together. Her hair was primped and lacquered in a way that suggested she had sprayed it into submission just before her guests arrived. She had looked this way for weeks after Dad’s funeral. When Tess had encouraged her to pay attention to herself, she had answered that she was barely clinging to her sanity and who gives a fiddler’s fart about clothes?

Tess walked over and stood right beside her. She wanted to hug her so badly, but just as she reached out, Sam cut between them. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but you really shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“It freaks them out.”

“What do you mean? It’s just a hug.”

“Trust me, it scares the bejeezus out of them