The Night Mark(37)

Faye continued her explorations of the downstairs. Off the living room was another bedroom much smaller than the one upstairs. The bed was a twin, and the headboard and footboard were iron. It looked a little like a monk’s cell with nothing but the bed and washbasin and the prie-dieu. The prie-dieu? Faye examined it and found it identical to the one in her room back at the Church Street house. Sitting on top of the prie-dieu was a little red prayer book also identical to the one in her room back in Beaufort. Wrapped around the prayer book was a set of rosary beads, solid silver. The medal above the cross read S. Brendanus, Ora Pro Nobis. Faye eased the book out of the wrapping of rosary beads. Sure enough, on the inside cover was written a name—Carrick Morgan. And a handwritten prayer for God’s forgiveness. A prayer she’d read a few hours ago. A prayer she’d read ninety-four years in the future.

Faye shut the book in an instant, wrapped the beads around it and returned it to its place.

Then Faye opened the closet door and saw clothes hanging inside—sturdy canvas work pants, sturdy cotton shirts, a long heavy coat, an oilskin slicker. Not a baseball T-shirt in sight. Yet there on the wall of the closet hung a black-and-white photograph—a photograph of a sailor in uniform. Brass buttons, chevron on the sleeve, US on a badge on the high stiff collar. It was Will in the photograph. It was Will in a US Navy uniform. Except it wasn’t, because Will had never served in the navy. The only uniform he’d ever worn was his baseball uniform.

Faye couldn’t take her eyes from the photograph. It was Will. Her Will. Younger than the Will she’d seen tonight by a few years, this was the Will she knew, the Will who only wore a beard during the play-offs—even if he wasn’t playing in them.

“Will...” she whispered, touching the face in the frame. She knew she shouldn’t do it but she couldn’t stop herself. Carefully, she eased the back of the frame off and read the words written on the back of the picture in pencil.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Carrick Morgan, 1918.

The year 1918 was when World War I had ended. Carrick Morgan had served in World War I. The wound on his side...a war wound? She put the framed photograph back on the wall and closed the closet door. But only for a second before she opened it again. What she was doing was wrong, horribly wrong, but she had to do it. She’d spied a box on the top shelf and had to know what was inside. She set the lamp on the prie-dieu and held the box into the halo of light. It was a small wooden box, hand carved, the kind one kept secrets inside. Maybe there was one about her in there. Not her, but Faith, whoever Faith was.

“Oh, my God...” Faye breathed when she opened the box. It was full of medals and letters congratulating Carrick on earning them. A Navy Cross. A Distinguished Service Medal. A Good Conduct Medal. Even a Medal of Honor.

“You’re a Boy Scout, Carrick,” she said, shifting through the various medals, the letters of commendation from superior officers full of words like noble and courageous, dauntless and indefatigable.

“Forget the Boy Scouts,” Faye said. “You’re Captain Freaking America.”

Faye knew there were seemingly good people who hid dark sides behind their masks of innocence or decency. But it was impossible for her to believe a man who could earn such honors, yet was humble enough to hide them in a box at the top of his closet, was the sort of man who would do anything as sick as kissing his own daughter. And since she couldn’t believe it, she didn’t. She wasn’t any closer to finding out who Faith Morgan was, but she knew who Faith Morgan wasn’t. She was not, in any way, shape or form, Carrick Morgan’s daughter.

So who the hell was she?

Faye quickly packed up the medals and put them away before Carrick found her.

She left the little bedroom and pressed her hand to her forehead as a wave of panic and nausea rushed through her. It was happening again—the fear, the foreboding, the sense that she was losing all touch with reality. She had to get out of here, out of this house, out of this time and this world. How had she gotten here? The water had brought her. Maybe if the water had brought her, the water could take her back again. Fleeing the house, Faye ran to the ocean’s edge and waded into the water up to her thighs. Nothing happened. She waited for a wave to hit her, but no wave came. The water behaved, merely licking and lapping at her legs. She waded deeper. She put her hands in the water; she put her arms in the water. She even knelt in the water, soaking herself through her shirt to the skin again. Nothing happened. The water was calm—no riptides, no hidden currents. And no denying it—Faye was trapped in 1921. The water had brought her here. The water seemingly had no intention of taking her back.

After a while, Faye grew cold. The cold helped in a way, calming her like a compress on a fevered forehead. She trudged out of the ocean and sat on the beach, almost bright as morning in the moonlight, her arms around her legs, shivering. She forced herself to breathe the way both Will and Carrick had made her. In and out, in and out. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t the end of the world. Faye opened her eyes and looked around.

The water’s edge was farther out than she remembered. At least forty feet farther out. And where before there’d been nothing but pilings, now she saw the long wooden pier. And where before there’d been only a line of rocks worn away by the elements, now there stood a two-story white house with dark trim on the windowsills and eaves. Green trim, maybe? Black? Hard to tell at night. The house was a perfectly symmetrical rectangle with a wide wooden front door in the center of the house and two casement windows on each side. Two brick chimneys jutted up on either side of the steeply pitched roof, and a painted porch ran the full length of the front. And where before the lighthouse had been dark and abandoned, now there was light. A bright beacon shining out from the top of the lighthouse and blinking on and off every seven seconds.