He bites his lip, as if preparing his words carefully.
“Cassandra…this is my uncle’s private beach. At his home. He
built it three years ago. It’s never belonged to anyone else. The
year is nineteen twenty-five.”
Now it’s my turn to stare.
Is he trying to be funny? Or is he truly crazy? Schizophrenic?
Or…
The image of Lawrence vanishing into the air like a cloud of
steam returns to me. An undeniable event. Tested five times.
A terrible thought pierces my mind. What if he’s the ghost?
Haunting this beach for the last ninety-plus years? That would
explain why he thinks it’s 1925, why he acted so strangely the
first time I saw him.
But…he’s a solid entity. I can feel him. He breathes. He
gets wet. He’s changed clothes. I’m not well acquainted with
ghost rules and decorum, but I’m pretty sure they don’t change
outfits. I take his hand in mine. Warm flesh. The firmness of
bones beneath it.
“Cassandra…what are you doing?”
I don’t respond, but instead press two fingers to the smooth
inside of his wrist. My head and body are in too much turmoil.
I can’t get a read on his pulse. He stares at me but doesn’t move,
as if he’s watching me in a strange dream.
I set my fingertips on the base of his neck, where the jawline
and the throat connect. And there it is. The soft, warm movement of blood passing through the carotid artery.
“You’re definitely alive,” I say softly.
His eyes, still latched onto mine, flicker with a strange intensity, and I retract my hand, suddenly self-conscious.
“Which is a good thing,” I add. “Because you would make a
lousy ghost. Not scary in the slightest.”
We share a smile, and then all too quickly, return to reality .
I sit back and try to gather my thoughts.
“So…you really think it’s nineteen twenty-five.”
“It is nineteen twenty-five,” he says. “But I gather you don’t agree.”
“I don’t. Because it’s two thousand fifteen.”
Lawrence raises an eyebrow. “You believe you are living a
hundred years in the future. When your parents own Ned’s
house. When Ned is long gone. When…I’m long gone.”
His words send a chill through me.
Lawrence squints at the gap in the bushes. “Is it possible?”
he whispers.
I’m asking myself the same question. Is it possible that he
actually is from 1925? That he’s traveled here somehow? Or did
I travel back to 1925?
Lawrence’s voice trembles slightly. “I gather that you are
living your life as usual in this house, in your time.”
“And you’re doing the same thing. In nineteen twenty-five…”
“Yes,” he says. “Exactly. And yet, somehow, we intercept on
this beach, and this beach alone.” His eyes get wide. “This
would explain why you thought I didn’t meet you the other
night, why I waited and waited but you never came. I did wait
on the street, but it was in nineteen twenty-five.”
I massage my temples. Too many thoughts in my brain. It
feels like a balloon that has been overinflated, sure to pop
any second.
“I don’t know what to think right now,” I say. “I feel…kind
of sick actually.” Nausea has crept into my stomach. I’m dizzy.
Weak. I just want to lie down.
I stand, and Lawrence jumps to his feet. “Where are you going?”
“In. I …I need some time to process this.”
“Will you come back? Will you meet me here again?”
“Why? I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
I back away from him. “Because it’s insane. Because you can’t
possibly be from nineteen twenty-five. It can’t be real.”
“But it is,” he insists. “And we have to try and understand it.”
“My brain can’t handle any more right now.”
His eyes plead with me. “Tomorrow. Please. Meet me here
on the beach.”
I bite my bottom lip. Inside, past the tangle of confusion and
fear, a thrill spreads through me.