Read Online Beyond the Misty Shore by Vicki Hinze - Free Book Online Page B

Maggie leaned back, away from the glass. But it wasn’t her window Miss Hattie stared at as if she were highly peeved. It was the attic bedroom window—or maybe the room below it. But why would Miss Hattie be glowering at her own rooms?
    When they walked under the porch roof below her own windows, Maggie could no longer see them. She darted her gaze back to MacGregor. Where had he gone?
    He hadn’t moved.
    His shoulders slumped, knees bent, feet flat on the brown grass, he sat on the rocks, looking out through the sheer haze to the open sea.
    Waves of despair washed through Maggie. Despair she somehow knew was his. He had been in physical pain during the course of whatever had been happening out there, but now that it was over, his pain hadn’t subsided. It had strengthened and deepened, invaded his spirit and soul, and she felt it as if it were her own pain.
    Stunned, weakened by its powerful force, she rested her forehead against the glass and fought letting the sympathetic tears blurring her eyes fall to her face. Maggie Wright never cried.
    An unbidden thought spilled through her mind on a whisper. Help him.
    On Saturday, Maggie witnessed the same scene again, minus Bill and Miss Hattie, who for reasons unknown to Maggie were absent.
    On Sunday, shortly after Miss Hattie had left for church, Maggie watched MacGregor’s third attempt. Watched him fail. Watched him then sit on the rocks and stare out to sea for over two hours. And again she suffered those same waves of despair. Heard that same muffled but calm and insistent voice whisper: Help him.
    Maggie wanted to help him. It was frightening to watch him fall, and it sickened her that she had watched and hadn’t lifted a finger much less rushed out to see if he was all right. She would have. She’d tried. But for some mystical reason, when he had fallen, she hadn’t been able to move.
    It was as if some unseen hand held her there on the cushions at the window, reducing her to doing no more than watching, waiting, holding her breath and gripping the window sash so tightly her arms ached to her elbows, until MacGregor sat up and she saw with her own two eyes that he was okay.
    She denied it at first. But each time she witnessed his attempt and failure, the waves of despair in her grew stronger, hurt her deeper. Each time, the calm, steady whisper grew a little louder and clearer, a little more insistent—and a lot more frightening.
    T.J. grabbed the bannister, started up the stairs, and saw Maggie, standing looking at Cecelia’s portrait. He walked on, then stopped three steps below her.
    “Who are they, MacGregor?”
    Her question surprised him. She hadn’t shown a sign of knowing him there. “The Freeports bought the land from the Stanfords and built this house in 1918. Collin carved all those boats and fowl in the case in the living room. Talented man.”
    “I’ll have to go look at them. Haven’t made it down there yet.” Maggie leaned back against the bannister. “What about her?”
    MacGregor leaned back, too. His arm brushed against Maggie’s shoulder. That she didn’t move away pleased him. After yet another failure, the warmth of another person, even impersonal and seemingly innocent warmth, felt good. “Cecelia assisted the village doctor until he died. For years, she and Collin tried to find another doctor to come to the village, but they never did. The locals kept coming to Cecelia to treat them.”
    “Did she?”
    “As much as possible, yes, she did.”
    “A healer.” Maggie looked up at him and smiled. “I sensed she was special.”
    “She must have been.” The urge to paint Maggie seeped through T.J.’s chest, into his arms, and set his fingers to itching to pick up a brush. Knowing the futility and frustration that attempt would bring, he buried the urge deep inside him, then folded his arms across his chest to hold it there. “They say the night Cecelia died, hundreds of villagers and people she’d helped came out into the