“At least I'm not dead,” she said.
“You’re not wet either.”
It was true. She still wore the tan slacks and blue cotton shirt from that morning. Except for her wet feet, there was no sign of her time in the water. Her hair was damp from perspiration, not seawater.
“You’re telling me I’m dead? Is this heaven?”
Martin looked down at the sand. “There are many places to go, Valerie, when your sojourn on Earth is complete. This is one.”
“What is it called again?”
“The Coast House of Larreta. It’s a Waystation for newcomers. People come here to find what they’re missing. You have been here before, although not for a long time. We’re very pleased to welcome you home.”
They considered each other. Valerie looked at the house gleaming in the morning light, and for a moment, she remembered it. The little man was telling the truth. The next moment, her mind snapped shut.
She thought about Peter and the rented car and the desert. However she had gotten from New Mexico to the ocean, more time had elapsed than she realized. Amnesia. It had to be. Something had happened while she waited in the car for Peter to get help. Maybe someone had come along and attacked her. She could have been in a hospital and escaped. That thought cheered her.
“Will you come to the house now? I’ve prepared a room for you.”
She looked around at the white sand beach that stretched for at least a mile to the north where it ended at a high jetty of black rocks that blocked her view of what lay beyond. A short distance from the house another jetty bounded the beach to the south.
From the beach, the mountain rose abruptly. It was dotted with juniper and low scrub, too steep to climb and too high to offer an easy escape.
She nodded, expecting him to turn and lead her, but with his left hand, he pointed to the house and waited for her to start. It was several hundred yards through soft sand. Valerie saw a wide wooden stair from the beach to the redwood deck and headed for it.
When she reached the deck, Valerie took advantage of being twenty feet above the beach to look around. There was no other stairway. No driveway. Any road that led to the house must be in the back.
A wooden door to the left led to what looked like a private portion of the deck, but rattan screens covered it so she could tell nothing. The deck was wide and well kept. It accommodated several sets of tables and matching redwood chairs with thick cushions, but all were empty, with no sign of recent use.
The little man was on the stairs now. The only alternative to entering the house was to spend the day on the beach, so she stepped through a glass door into a large sunny room. A stone fireplace reached the ceiling. Groupings of sofas and chairs of different sizes sat on the wood floor that shone a warm, golden brown. Scattered on it were rugs she knew were antiques—Persian and Chinese and one large black and red oblong that had to be an old Navajo weaving.
The white walls were bare except for a portrait of a woman gathering shells on a beach, a large oil of two whales breaching, and a pastel of the Coast House as it would look from a boat. She recognized none of the artists. If this were her hallucination, wouldn’t the art be by someone she knew?
She walked through an archway into a smaller room furnished in the same manner. Another fireplace. Two loveseats, both upholstered in thick dark-red cotton. Valerie pushed open a door and found herself in a hallway. A wide curved staircase led to the second floor. She looked up but saw only a landing. To her left were two identical doors. She walked through one of them into a kitchen.
A young sandy-haired man stood chopping vegetables on a freestanding cutting board. He looked up and smiled. “Hello, Valerie. I'm Brian.”
“How do I get out of here? Is there a back door?”
Brian rested the knife on a pile of carrot sticks. “Didn't you just arrive?”
“And I intend to leave as soon as I find a way out. I need to get away from the little man in the black coat.”
“That’s Martin.”
Valerie ignored his admiring glance. “Will you help me?”
“Martin's the Keeper.”
“That's right.” She jumped. Martin was right behind her.
“I see you've met Brian,” Martin said. “My assistant enjoys cooking.”
Brian winked at her. “It passes the time.”
Martin circled around Valerie and stood beside Brian. He inclined his head toward the younger man. “Valerie is on the schedule for next year, but she has come early. Why don't you show her to her room?”
“I don't want to see my room,” Valerie said. “I want to know what's going on. And where my husband is.”
Martin leaned toward Brian. “Get her records from my office. On the desk. Check for a husband.”
To Valerie, he said, “I have authorization only for you, but if your husband decided to accompany you, we’ll find him.”
“Is this an institution?”
“No. Brian will double-check our records.”
Valerie remembered the moon rising above jagged mountains and the black boulders that felt like glass. She thought she had an appointment but not for this. Her heart began to pound.
Brian returned carrying a dark oblong object the size of a large paperback book. He met Martin's eyes and shook his head.
Martin moved closer to Valerie and patted her shoulder. “It's natural for a newcomer to be disoriented. Especially after that ordeal in the water. Why don't you go upstairs and we’ll talk later. Brian will take you.”
She looked from one to the other and decided arguing was hopeless. Maybe if she were alone, she could figure out what was going on.
She followed Brian up the stairs to a long hallway with doors on both sides. He stopped at the first door on the left and opened it. She walked into the room, then turned and faced him.
“What are you doing here? Are there others?”
“This is the Coast House,” Brian said. “We orient newcomers, and some instructors choose to train here. Others use the house for short vacations. Like a hotel, you could say. There’s no one else here now, but that will change. You won’t be alone long.”
Valerie sat on the large bed and tried again. “Brian, this is a mistake. Can't you help me?”
He shook his head. “Martin said you were early, but no one comes here unless they’ve decided to come. There wouldn’t be any point.” His brown eyes were kind, but she sensed he would not yield.
“This is one of the best rooms,” he said. “It’s on the corner, so it has a view of the water and the mountain. You can sit out here.” He drew the drapes and opened French doors that led to a balcony containing two wooden chairs, a round table and a box of red petunias in bloom.
“There's nothing like this in New Mexico. What state are we in?”
“Larreta has no states. Here's the closet. Martin chose clothes for you, but if they don't suit, we’ll send for a tailor.”
“What ocean is that?”
“The Sea of Larreta.”
“It looks like the Pacific.”
“This is the Coast House.”
“I heard that the first time.”
“The Keeper can answer your questions.”
“So could you.”
“No, ma'am, I can't.”
“Are you the cook?”
He laughed. “No. I cook for fun. Most people stop eating within a few months of arriving. It’s not necessary on Larreta, but during orientation, we keep things as much like Earth as possible, so newcomers can acclimate. To answer your question, I’m a dreamwalker. Or, was. Now I’m an assistant Keeper.”
Valerie turned away so she wouldn’t laugh in his face. Everyone here was crazy. How could humans survive without eating? When she was sure she could control her facial expression, she turned back to Brian. “That makes no sense. How do you survive without food?”
Brian did not look surprised. “That’s a hard one for a lot of newcomers. Have you noticed that your body is different?”
“Not really.”
“The portal changed you so you resonate with the vibration of Larreta. Now, you’re eternal. You have all the organs you had before and you will until you complete your time here and move on, but you can sustain yourself on water and sunlight. We have plenty of that.” His smile was disarming. He didn’t behave like an insane person, except that his words were nonsense.
“I see,” Valerie said.
“You’ll find out. For now, feel free to ask me for anything you want. We have fruit, vegetables, nuts, bread. No meat, no food with chemicals, but we have some very ingenious cooks and bakers in the city. There’s quite a variety available, and I can do a lot here.”
“So assistant Keepers cook for people who don’t eat.”
“Well, newcomers do, for a while. I like to help them feel comfortable and food is one way to do it.”
“Tell your Keeper I want to speak to someone in authority and I don't mean him. Send in the person he reports to. I want to know who is responsible for me being here. Do you understand?”
“I understand your words, but …”
“But what?”
“You’re the only one responsible for your presence here.”
“You're all crazy,” Valerie said. “Get out.”
“Yes, Ma'am.” Brian turned and left. The door clicked shut.
Valerie moved around the room, inspecting the furniture—a bed with a peach colored comforter, a pale blue sofa in an alcove, a table with two comfortable chairs, and an oak dresser. She opened the drawers—all empty—and poked through the closet that held clothes similar to what she usually wore.
She found the bathroom and slid open the glass door of the medicine cabinet. It was empty except for a bottle of nail polish in her color and a pair of cuticle scissors. She looked at herself in the mirror. No difference. Brian was insane, no question. Then she noticed that her skin was different. Paler. Younger looking. The fine lines around her eyes had disappeared.
She went back to the closet and opened the door to inspect herself in the full-length mirror. She looked thinner. Then it hit her. She looked as she had ten years ago, when she was thirty and not so tired. A wave of heat passed through her. Then she shivered with cold. She must be dead, which meant this was the afterlife, but why did it look like the central California coast?
She closed the closet and went onto the balcony that hung directly above the large deck. The deck was still empty. She scanned the sea, hoping for a boat or a surfer or, at least, a whale, but there was nothing to see and nothing to hear except the rhythmic sound of waves hitting rocks.
Okay, Valerie thought. This is a quiet place. If I'm dead, something will happen eventually. If I'm insane, then I'll see a doctor or nurse. Maybe I need to be silent.
She went inside and sat at the table facing the window. Pens and paper filled a drawer, but no stamps or maps or phone book. No phone. She had lost her cell in the water, and her purse she had left in the rented car.
She doodled her name across a piece of cream-colored stationery. Under it, she wrote the words, “I can wait as long as you can.”
Valerie had decided to speak to no one until someone told her the truth.
###
Valerie's silence caused the first crisis with a newcomer at the Coast House since a newcomer named Leo confounded the Keeper by climbing onto the roof of the house and flinging himself onto the beach, a distance of over forty feet. When he landed and discovered he was uninjured, Leo dashed into the house to confront the Keeper, a young man named Julian, with the mysterious fact that he was still alive.
“You jumped off the roof?” Julian's pale eyebrows raised into his hairline. “Whatever for?”
“I was trying to kill myself!” Leo hissed, so angry he didn't realize he had grabbed the neck of Julian's turtleneck sweater and was twisting it in his enormous fist.
“You can't do that,” Julian whispered, grasping at Leo's fingers.
“Why the hell not?”
“Let me go and I'll tell you.”
“What? Oh. Sorry.” Leo relaxed his grip. Julian smoothed his shirt and gave Leo a push with both hands. Leo stepped back. “Tell me why I wasn't hurt just now.”
“You really jumped?”
“Watch it, Julian.” He stepped forward again.
“I thought you knew. I thought everyone knew. I mean, it's the point of all this.”
“What is the point?”
“You can't hurt yourself. You’re eternal. It's only in the dense realities like your Earth where the illusion of mortality is acted out.”
“The illusion of mortality? The illusion. You’re saying I can't die? Is that what you mean?”
“Yes,” Julian said, relieved that he had gotten this basic message across to the stubborn newcomer. “You can't die. No one can. You can only change.”
“Into what?”
“Anything you like. You can change your body, have a different shape or color. It's up to you.”
Leo stared into Julian's pale blue eyes. “I don't want to live forever. When that woman who glowed like light came to me in the mountain cave and said to follow her, I was freezing. I thought I was dying and she was some kind of angel. That’s why I did what she said.”
“What would an angel be doing on Earth?” Julian asked.
Leo stared at him.
“Were you near China when this happened?”
“Yes, I was near China. I was on a trek in the mountains. We started from Katmandu with a party of tourists. I stopped to investigate a cave and got lost.”
“Leo, you met the mountain Guardian of that continent who is in charge of transportation to Larreta. The meeting was planned. That’s why no one missed you.”
“I got lost,” Leo said through gritted teeth. “I didn’t want to come here.”
“No one comes unless they’ve agreed.”
“I would rather die and be reborn on Earth, if it’s all the same to you.”
“It isn't up to me,” Julian mumbled. “Once you go through the portal, your body is changed so you can’t go back. Even if I wanted to help you, I can’t. I'm only the Keeper. Living and dying isn't my field.”
Leo blinked. “It's out of your area.”
“That's right.”
“Well, since it's not your concern, you don't mind if I try again, do you?” He turned and marched toward the stairway that led to the roof.
“No. Don't.” Julian followed, half-running. “Leo, please. Can't you trust me?”
“Trust a man who tells me I can’t die? Are you crazy?”
Leo took the stairs two at a time, shoved open the roof door and strode to the edge. He looked down, saw a large rock protruding from the sand and decided to aim for it. Then he stepped back far enough for a good start, ran to the edge and dove off headfirst. Air rushed past him, the black rock swelled. There was a slight thud as he floated onto it and then fell sideways. He landed on his back on the sand. When he opened his eyes, Julian stood on the deck, staring down at him.
Not one to be easily convinced, Leo continued his experiments in mortality by climbing once a day at noon to the roof and hurling himself onto the beach. Each time he landed safely, and each day the Keeper became more distraught at the insane behavior of his newest charge. He had never encountered a newcomer who refused to believe that the portal to Larreta had transformed his body.
Visitors noticed Leo's noontime ritual, and they carried away the story of the strange newcomer who jumped off the roof every day at noon. It wasn’t long before Nara heard rumors that things were out of control at the Coast House. She paid a visit to Julian and stayed with him for more than an hour.
When she came out, she glowed yellow-green. She went to Leo's room to speak with him, but he was not there to greet her, although she had announced her arrival in the proscribed manner.
For years afterward, they told how Nara tracked Leo to the farthest corner of the beach where he was sunbathing behind a pile of rocks near the northern jetty. N
o one knows what transpired in that meeting, for Leo never uttered a word about it, but after that day he never again jumped off the roof.
It was, however, too late for Julian. The poor man had become so unsure of himself he could no longer function as Keeper. He left the Coast House, and a few days later Martin appeared to replace him. Under Martin's supervision, there have been no unseemly incidents at the Waystation, with newcomers or travelers, until Valerie's silence stretched into the second week, and then the third.
###
Valerie had not uttered a word for what seemed like forever—not to Brian or Martin or any of the overnight guests who attempted conversation with her. She listened to their questions and responded only with a polite smile and a shrug. When they persisted, she retreated to her balcony and sat listening to the sounds of the sea.
The funny part, she thought, was that she was beginning to enjoy the game—the looks on their faces, especially Martin, with his earnest eyes and the silly questions meant to trick her. You like cream in your coffee, don't you, Valerie?
They were getting desperate. That odd-sounding ceremony downstairs this morning had sounded like a call for reinforcements, which could mean someone in authority would respond. Meanwhile she was enjoying the solitude. Never before had she had no responsibilities, no appointments, and no one to take care of but herself.
It startled her to notice that she did not miss Peter. She missed having someone around who cared about her, who inquired how she was doing and tried to please her, but not Peter himself. That gave her pause and the solitude provided time to think. The more she thought, the more she realized that the crazy people who ran this house were right. She had wanted to leave her life.
In the beginning, she had loved Peter or thought she did, but that had been years ago. He was attractive, appropriate, with the means to give her the life she expected, but over time, their marriage devolved into predictable patterns. She had never cheated, and didn’t think he had either, but when she asked herself if it would have mattered, she had to answer no.
Emptiness had invaded her life, as if she made a wrong turn and missed something important. A person. An opportunity. Valerie never mentioned this to anyone. In her world, what mattered was a decent education and a good marriage, a beautiful home and successful children. She had accomplished all of it except the children.