had to be something there.
I renewed my grip on the knife handle and leaned across the coffee bar to see if there was anything behind it. There wasn’t anyone or anything large back there, but my view was limited by my angle. I slowly moved forward, prepared to dart away if I saw anything threatening. Nothing. As I stood there, perplexed, glancing at Oscar Marie, a blanket of coldness washed over me, a coldness like I’d never felt before. It wasn’t like weather, like a draft, but rather something that clung to my skin like rubber and instantly chilled me to the core.
I gasped at the sudden onslaught. The knife tumbled from my abruptly numb fingers. Immediately, the coldness disappeared and I took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Mary,” I whispered, seeing an image of her in my mind. Clearing my throat, I spoke louder. “Mary, is that you?”
My Swedish mother had always sworn her belief in ghosts, in the restless spirits that walk our realm, but until that moment I had never experienced anything that even smacked of the supernatural. I doubted the experience, but knew there would be no cold breeze naturally. The South Texas nights were balmy.
I let my gaze roam the room. Had Mary left me some sort of sign? What did the stacks of books mean? Was she trying to get them back? Enjoy them from the other side just as she had while alive?
Seeing nothing, I hung my head in frustration. “Mary,” I whispered once more, sadness rebounding within me.
After some time, I turned helplessly to return to my apartment. Lifting my gaze again, I noticed a book spread open on the bookshelf behind the coffee bar. I hurried over to see if there was some possible message from Mary.
Goddess Annalise
The gift of you
Clenches
Draws the soul of me into you.
Light dawns in your smile and night
With you makes each day fresh;
lust chases itself
As need for you simmers
And cooks me into
A new stew
Eat of me and
we grow as one
I studied the poem until my brow grew tired from being curved into a bow. It made no sense. I understood the passion of it, but the name Annalise meant absolutely nothing to me.
I closed the book and had a moment of déjà vu. This was the same book that had been moved my first day at the Bookmark. Titled Abandoned , it was by an author, a poet, named Eleanor Copeland. I thumbed through the small hardbound volume, trying to jog my memory.
I’d never heard of this author nor recognized any of her work. I was not surprised. The copyright date was 1952, way before my time. Why would Mary choose to talk to me with this volume out of the many thousands here? Why not a poet we both enjoyed, like Emily Dickinson or Elizabeth Browning?
Oscar Marie purred below me and rubbed my bare legs with her silky fur. She seemed to have returned to normal, no longer afraid.
“I don’t know, baby girl.” I sighed. I looked around the room again, suddenly feeling very alone. Obviously, my Mary had gone somewhere else.
“Back to bed for us.” I noted the page the poem was on, closed the book, and replaced it on the shelf. I shepherded Oscar Marie back into the apartment and switched off the Bookmark lights. It was a long time before I fell back asleep.
Mary’s haunting seemed like a strange, meandering dream the next morning as I dressed and made my way into Brownsville to run errands. I tried to push the night’s strangeness from my mind while I focused on furniture needs and coffeemakers.
Brownsville, the southernmost city in the state of Texas, is only about twenty miles from the Gulf waters. Big and sprawling, it has a definite easygoing, Hispanic influence, even though it offers a large, busy, international port. According to the brochure I cribbed off the counter at one of the furniture stores I visited, the city was actually carved from Matamoros, a city in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. All I noted while driving around the business district was that even the modernized area had a prominent
I renewed my grip on the knife handle and leaned across the coffee bar to see if there was anything behind it. There wasn’t anyone or anything large back there, but my view was limited by my angle. I slowly moved forward, prepared to dart away if I saw anything threatening. Nothing. As I stood there, perplexed, glancing at Oscar Marie, a blanket of coldness washed over me, a coldness like I’d never felt before. It wasn’t like weather, like a draft, but rather something that clung to my skin like rubber and instantly chilled me to the core.
I gasped at the sudden onslaught. The knife tumbled from my abruptly numb fingers. Immediately, the coldness disappeared and I took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Mary,” I whispered, seeing an image of her in my mind. Clearing my throat, I spoke louder. “Mary, is that you?”
My Swedish mother had always sworn her belief in ghosts, in the restless spirits that walk our realm, but until that moment I had never experienced anything that even smacked of the supernatural. I doubted the experience, but knew there would be no cold breeze naturally. The South Texas nights were balmy.
I let my gaze roam the room. Had Mary left me some sort of sign? What did the stacks of books mean? Was she trying to get them back? Enjoy them from the other side just as she had while alive?
Seeing nothing, I hung my head in frustration. “Mary,” I whispered once more, sadness rebounding within me.
After some time, I turned helplessly to return to my apartment. Lifting my gaze again, I noticed a book spread open on the bookshelf behind the coffee bar. I hurried over to see if there was some possible message from Mary.
Goddess Annalise
The gift of you
Clenches
Draws the soul of me into you.
Light dawns in your smile and night
With you makes each day fresh;
lust chases itself
As need for you simmers
And cooks me into
A new stew
Eat of me and
we grow as one
I studied the poem until my brow grew tired from being curved into a bow. It made no sense. I understood the passion of it, but the name Annalise meant absolutely nothing to me.
I closed the book and had a moment of déjà vu. This was the same book that had been moved my first day at the Bookmark. Titled Abandoned , it was by an author, a poet, named Eleanor Copeland. I thumbed through the small hardbound volume, trying to jog my memory.
I’d never heard of this author nor recognized any of her work. I was not surprised. The copyright date was 1952, way before my time. Why would Mary choose to talk to me with this volume out of the many thousands here? Why not a poet we both enjoyed, like Emily Dickinson or Elizabeth Browning?
Oscar Marie purred below me and rubbed my bare legs with her silky fur. She seemed to have returned to normal, no longer afraid.
“I don’t know, baby girl.” I sighed. I looked around the room again, suddenly feeling very alone. Obviously, my Mary had gone somewhere else.
“Back to bed for us.” I noted the page the poem was on, closed the book, and replaced it on the shelf. I shepherded Oscar Marie back into the apartment and switched off the Bookmark lights. It was a long time before I fell back asleep.
Mary’s haunting seemed like a strange, meandering dream the next morning as I dressed and made my way into Brownsville to run errands. I tried to push the night’s strangeness from my mind while I focused on furniture needs and coffeemakers.
Brownsville, the southernmost city in the state of Texas, is only about twenty miles from the Gulf waters. Big and sprawling, it has a definite easygoing, Hispanic influence, even though it offers a large, busy, international port. According to the brochure I cribbed off the counter at one of the furniture stores I visited, the city was actually carved from Matamoros, a city in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. All I noted while driving around the business district was that even the modernized area had a prominent
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