A Beach Wish Read online

  Zoe could see people on the inn’s beach lying beneath the bright colorful umbrellas placed there for the use of the guests. There was no one sunbathing—nude or otherwise—on this side of the jetty. The beach was completely empty.

  “I’m Floret.”

  “Zoe,” said Zoe.

  “Life.”

  “Yes,” Zoe said, hardly taken aback by this second recognition of her name’s meaning. She was beginning to think that there was more to this town than she had anticipated.

  “Well, there is the beach.” Floret made a vague gesture with her hand, still clothed in its gardening glove.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “We’re not selling,” Floret said pleasantly.

  “I don’t blame you,” Zoe said, somewhat bewildered by Floret’s lack of vehemence.

  “Oh.”

  “But why is it called Wind Chime Beach? I don’t see any wind chimes.”

  Floret smiled her vague smile. “Because there aren’t any.”

  Zoe nodded solemnly. “Did there used to be? The house is called Wind Chime, too, isn’t it?” Surely, this couldn’t be the special place where her mother wanted to be laid to eternal rest. A tourist town, a dilapidated house, with a nutty old lady in charge of a beach that had no wind chimes? Zoe forced another smile. It was weird how Floret looked at a place before pointing it out, as if she were checking to make sure everything was really there.

  “It’s because of the wind chimes.”

  “But . . .” Zoe had come on a fool’s errand. She couldn’t leave her mother here.

  “The wind chimes are in the woods.”

  “The woods,” Zoe repeated mechanically. This was maddening. She quickly looked around, saw a cluster of trees on the far side of the old house. Actually, except for the yard and the beach, they were surrounded by woods.

  “You can hear them sometimes . . . when the wind blows . . . in winter when the trees are bare.”

  “On the beach?”

  “Oh, not on the beach.”

  Zoe clenched her hands behind her back to keep from pulling her hair out. This poor woman couldn’t be living here alone. Surely there was someone who was more “in touch” who could give Zoe some straight answers. A man. Mel had said Floret and . . . Henry. That was his name. She looked back toward the house. “Is Hen—?”

  “Only on Wind Chime Beach.”

  Zoe stopped, her question cut off. “There’s a different beach called Wind Chime?” she asked gently.

  “Oh, yes.” Floret broke into a happy, reminiscent smile. “Only now we call it Old Beach. It’s lovely, magical.” She frowned, another mercurial change in her demeanor. “But no one goes there anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “The stairs.”

  Stairs? Stares? This vague creature could mean either.

  “They rotted out after Gloria, I think her name was.”

  “Gloria?”

  “The hurricane. I believe it was Gloria.”

  “I see.”

  “Is that why you came? To remember? It was always your favorite place. Yours and—”

  Dulcie bleated, a grating sound that hurt Zoe’s ears.

  Floret merely turned her smile on the goat. “You’re absolutely right, my dear.”

  Definitely two tokes short of a doobie.

  “Well . . . yes,” Zoe agreed. “To remember . . . in a way. Would you mind terribly if I just took a look? At the beach. I’ll be very careful. No lawsuits or anything.”

  Her little assurances fell flat. Floret’s eyes widened . . . with fright? Insult? Anger?

  “I promise. I’ll just look and come right back. I won’t touch anything. Just look.”

  Floret looked toward the trees on the far side of the house. Her gloved handed lifted slowly. “Over there.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so much.” Zoe hurried toward the woods before Floret could change her mind or Dulcie decided to follow her.

  The path was easy enough to find, overgrown with weeds but trampled down by foot traffic. Odd, considering Floret had said no one ever went there anymore, though Zoe imagined the path might lead anywhere.

  She didn’t stop until she was out of sight of the house. Beneath the trees, the sun was almost totally blocked except for dapples of light that slipped through the heavy foliage.

  She was enveloped in total stillness. No breeze ruffled the trees and Zoe became overly aware of her own footfalls, a rhythmic stuttering on the underbrush. They were answered by the underlying hush of unseen waves and the counterpoint of a bird call, the scurry of animals in the brush.

  It was magical. And a little frightening.

  And then she heard something different, like a knife against a champagne glass before a toast. She stopped. But there was nothing. She waited, then started walking again; she’d seen a wedge of blue ahead and a thrill of anticipation hurried her steps. Anticipation and dread. Worse than before her failed Juilliard audition.

  Was this the place? Was she really going to send her mother, what was left of her, into the wide-open space of sand and surf? One storm and she would be cast into the open sea.

  No, she couldn’t. All sounds and thoughts vanished except the pounding of her own heart. Zoe stood still, clenched and unclenched her fingers, slowed her breath and her heartbeat, giving herself time to bolster her resolve—trying to master the sheer terror of the final good-bye.

  She took the final steps into the sunlight. Only she wasn’t at the beach but standing on a ledge at a set of rotted wooden steps that led downward and out of sight.

  She gingerly eased forward and looked over. A secluded crescent of sand, as white as any she’d seen, lay below. Probably once a charming assignation place, it was now cluttered by large pieces of driftwood, seaweed, and other detritus—a plastic bag, several cans and bottles left by man or by waves.

  She shook herself, trying to dispel the melancholy and sense of disappointment that suddenly overcame her.

  None of this made sense. Why here? If here was where she was supposed to be. It was lonely enough for privacy. She could even say a few words, to float away like her mother on the wind. But this was not how she’d envisioned her mother’s last resting place.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked, forgetting that she was quite alone.

  She reached for the splintered handrail of the stairs. They didn’t look stable, but it wasn’t very far down. If they wouldn’t hold her, she could probably jump down to the beach without major injury.

  Then how would you get back up?

  She put her foot on the first wooden step. Tested her weight. It held. Tried the second step. For a perilous moment it sagged; she grasped the handrail tighter, getting a splinter for her effort.

  Another step, then another. She’d almost reached the bottom when the wood gave way. She grabbed the rail with both hands. adding several more splinters. Here she stayed, half standing, half crouching, and clinging on for dear life. What had she been thinking?

  Slowly, she released one foot, stretched it toward the sand. She could almost reach, but not without losing her precarious balance on the wood.

  What the hell? She pulled her foot back, then swung her body forward and jumped. She landed on the sand with a thud, sinking down several inches, huffed out a relieved breath, then looked at her palms in dismay.

  She spent the next few seconds picking out the biggest slivers of wood. The rest would have to be extricated when she was back at the hotel with her tweezers and travel sewing kit.

  She looked back at the steps and the trees that formed a curtain in a semicircle behind the beach, closing off the outer world. Very private. And to her relief she saw that the woods actually sloped off to each side until they met the sand. The undergrowth was thick, but she’d surely be able to find a way back to the path without having to risk the stairs again.

  She turned toward the water, lifted her face to the sun. A breeze ruffled the air.

  And she heard it, a tinkling of glass. A sof
t solo, joined by another and another until the sound disappeared into the woods.

  She waited, but the breeze had died as quickly as it had begun, and so had the sound. But she found its origin. A nearby tree branch bent in an arc over the sand. And from it, little rectangles of glass, orange and blue and purple, hung by thin threads from a medallion of tin.

  Wind chimes.

  They were still now, quiet, but almost alive, as if waiting, waiting, waiting for the next breeze.

  Zoe wanted to capture that image in words, in notes, but she couldn’t seem to move. She was waiting, too. And she was ready when she felt the first murmur of breeze in her hair, heard the first clear ring, and she laughed silently as the woods filled with the sound of the chimes.

  Good one, Mom. I don’t know how you found out about this place or why, but I get it.

  Her throat burned and she didn’t fight back the tears that filled her eyes. This was the place where she would have to finally let go.

  “Hey! You shouldn’t be down there!”

  Zoe shrieked. She looked frantically around and came to a stop when she saw a man standing at the top of the stairs, feet squared, body poised aggressively forward.

  “Jeez, you scared me.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  Zoe’s eyes narrowed. Was that a hint of sarcasm? “Floret said it was okay.”

  “Floret made a mistake. It’s very dangerous, and if you used these stairs going down, don’t use them trying to get back up.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  She thought he growled. Then he moved away.

  “Hey, wait a minute. You can’t leave me down here. Hey!”

  But the man had disappeared.

  To hell with it. She’d made it down; she could get back up again. She was nothing if not resilient. Besides, now that she was finally here, she wasn’t quite ready to leave.

  One thing she knew, she’d have to sneak back when no one was about or they’d have her arrested for sure, either for trespassing or for going against whatever private burial code she was about to violate.

  Finally, she knew what she had to do. Her mother would lie in rest here among the wind chimes.

  But not on a beach strewn with garbage. She walked over to the largest piece of driftwood, which someone had obviously used as a bench. A battered plastic bag was caught beneath it, a soda can lay on its side in the sand.

  Zoe started to pick it up but a piece of glass, half hidden by the sand, arrested her attention. She dug it out and held it up to the light. It was flat and colored yellow, smooth on three edges and jagged on the fourth. A nylon string was still attached through a little hole at its top.

  She knew where it had come from. Broken off in a storm perhaps, it had come to rest in the sand. She leaned over and placed it on the log. She wouldn’t throw it away. Maybe its other half was waiting to be found.

  “Now what are you doing?”

  The voice was so close that she whirled around, tripped over the log, and fell on her butt in the sand.

  Chapter 5

  “Jeez, what is it with you?” Zoe looked back at the man standing on the other side of the fallen limb. He looked very tall, though that could just be a trick of perspective. Darkish hair, faded jeans, faded T-shirt. Holey sneakers. Kind of good-looking.

  Possibly dangerous. In a stalking psychopath way. And she was sprawled on her butt in the sand.

  He leaned over and stuck out his hand.

  She scooted back.

  “What?” he asked. “You want help getting up the hill or not?”

  She looked at his hand, took it, and he pulled her to her feet.

  “Ow.” She pulled her hand away.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I picked up a few splinters on the way down.”

  “It could be worse. You could have fallen, really hurt yourself. You might not have been found for weeks.”

  “Oh, give me a break. You would have heard me yelling.”

  “I might, but I might just leave you down here for being stupid.” His lip twitched and Zoe wondered if it was the beginning of a smile or a sneer of disdain.

  She saw movement in the trees above them. There was someone else up there. “How did you know I was down here?”

  “Floret told Henry and Henry told me.”

  “Is that him?” she asked, motioning back toward the trees.

  The man turned to look. “Where? I don’t see anyone.”

  “He was there, in the trees.” But the lurker had stepped out of sight. Was he on his way down to the beach? Should she be afraid?

  “Probably just a hiker. Now come on, you’re trespassing. Don’t make me call the cops.”

  “I thought Floret owned Wind Chime?”

  “She does, but she doesn’t always know what’s best.”

  “That is so condescending.”

  “Nope, it’s the truth. And you need to go.”

  The breeze made a preemptive strike, setting off the chime behind her head. It was joined by another and another until they echoed through the woods.

  They both stopped, listening as the sound ebbed and flowed and died away.

  “That’s beautiful,” Zoe said, half to herself.

  “It is.” He gestured to a bank of shrubs. “This way, please.” It was said in a ludicrous tone, as if he were seating her at a restaurant or the theater.

  She couldn’t tell whether he was messing with her or was just naturally a pompous ass. She decided not to argue. She let him hold on to her elbow as they traversed the sand. She didn’t comment on how it reminded her of a felon being taken into custody. She supposed, in a way, she was trespassing. She’d told Floret she had just come to look.

  He guided her to the far edge of the beach where a scree of large rocks led to a crevice between the trees and a gnarled mass of bared roots. The man, who still hadn’t bothered to introduce himself, slipped ahead, stepped onto one of the roots and then another until he’d climbed to solid ground.

  He reached back to help her, but Zoe defiantly and stupidly refused to take his hand. She stepped onto the same root and saw immediately why he’d offered—albeit silently—to help; her legs were shorter than his. She looked quickly around for a handhold. Reached for another root and, in spite of the pain in her palms, pulled herself up until the root was holding her weight.

  That’s what being stubborn got you if you were Zoe Bascombe. The splinters were probably driven like stakes into her palms.

  He waited for her on the path where it forked in several directions.

  He gestured toward the center fork and Zoe took it. She knew immediately it wasn’t the way she had come. She slowed. Her heart was beginning to stutter with wariness.

  “Shortcut.” Then he smiled. “You could probably outrun me, if I get fresh. Which I won’t.” He finished with that outstretched “after you” hand gesture again.

  He was definitely messing with her. He was rather charming in a sarcastic way. But . . . serial killers were always said to be charming.

  She was acutely aware of him walking several steps behind her. Then she became aware of something else. A tiny refraction of light, a pinpoint of color appearing in the branches ahead of her.

  And another off to the left. Barely visible. They were everywhere she looked. These little bits of discovery. Hanging from branches high and low, one made of coral shells was close enough to touch. A little farther away, bronze tubes hung like a waterfall from a leafless branch. Some were only silhouettes in the play of light and dark; some were broken and hanging by a single thread.

  And she thought of the broken glass she’d discovered on the sand and felt an overwhelming urge to find its home. She stopped, turning slowly, just taking it all in, waiting for the next breeze to set the chimes off again.

  He prodded her forward. She staggered a bit, then took a couple of steps. Stopped again as she heard a distant note, a faint ting of sound behind her. Felt the first ruffle of a breeze.

  “It’s
starting,” she whispered.

  “Will you please—”

  “Shhh.” It was coming closer, carried on the breeze. And suddenly she was surrounded by . . . fairy sound. It whirled around her ears, talking to her, then moved on as it made its way through the woods, gradually retreating as softly as it had come.

  The man had stopped. He was listening, too. It made her like him better.

  They stood not two feet apart until the breeze had gone, the leaves were still, and the sound a mere memory. A memory she was trying intently to keep in her head.

  “Can we go now?”

  It was gone. Even the memory.

  “Sorry,” she said, and started up the path, faster this time. For a second she’d been swept up in something magical; now she felt somehow vulnerable and unprotected. Like a newborn, or Spider-Man without his web.

  But safe. She had come to the right place. She didn’t know how or why her mother knew of this place, but it would be the perfect place to spend eternity.

  She followed without protest behind him. And was both relieved and disappointed when they reached the sunlight and the untended outer yard of Wind Chime House.

  She started to open the gate to the house, but the man stopped her.

  “Main Street is that way, down the drive.”

  “I wanted to thank Floret.”

  “Floret’s busy right now.”

  “Okay, that’s it.” He’d wrecked her mood and was acting like a jerk. “What’s the deal here? I thought hippies were all embracing, mi casa, su casa kind of people, put your feet in the circle and chant ‘ohm’ kind of people. At least Floret was friendly. You’re downright”—she searched for a word that wasn’t four letters—“off-putting.”

  He laughed. “And you’ve got an attitude.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  He didn’t answer right away.

  “Well?”

  “Well, I’m thinking.”

  “Don’t strain anything.”

  He raised both eyebrows. “Really, you can’t do better than that?”

  She blushed. It had been the most childish thing to say. Something she would never have lowered herself to say to her own brothers.

  She’d discovered a door into her mother and to music that she hadn’t expected. And he was throwing her out.