Chapter 12
Twelve
“What does that mean?” Justine demanded, her eyes widening. “Jason told me the same thing a couple of nights ago.”
“He’s aware of it, then?” Sage asked, folding the trousers neatly. “How fascinating. Usually they have no idea.” She slid a significant glance to Rosemary.
“Someone explain it to me,” Justine said urgently. “Are you saying he’s a clinical sociopath or something?”
“Oh, not at all.” Sage chuckled and leaned over to pat Justine’s knee through the quilts. “I’ve met some perfectly lovely people with no souls. It’s nothing to criticize, and it certainly can’t be helped; it just is. ”
“How did you know about it? What tipped you off?”
“Hereditary witches usually have the knack of sensing when someone is soulless. Didn’t you feel it when you first met Mr. Black?”
After considering the question, Justine replied slowly. “For a second I sort of wanted to step back from him. I wasn’t sure why.”
“Exactly. You’ll experience that from time to time when you meet someone new. But of course you must never say anything about it. Most of the soulless aren’t aware of what they lack, and they would never want to know.”
Justine was unaccountably upset. “I don’t get this. Any of it.”
“Even without a soul,” Rosemary explained, “you would still have emotions, thoughts, and memories. You would still be you. But you wouldn’t have… transcendence. There would be nothing left after the body dies.”
“No heaven or hell,” Justine said slowly, “no Valhalla, Summerland, or underworld… just ‘poof’ and you’re gone for good?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ve always wondered if they don’t sense it deep down,” Sage mused aloud. “People without souls rarely seem to reach old age, and they tend to live so very intensely. As if they’re aware of how limited their time is.”
“It reminds me of that little poem you’ve always liked, Sage. The one about the candle.”
“Edna St. Vincent Millay.” Sage smiled as she recited, “‘My candle burns at both ends; / It will not last the night; / But ah, my foes, and oh my friends— / It gives a lovely light!’”
“That describes the soulless perfectly,” Rosemary told Justine. “They are driven to experience everything they can before the ultimate demise. Voracious appetites. But no matter how much success they achieve, it’s never enough… and they never understand why.”
“How does someone end up without a soul?” Justine asked in a hushed voice.
“Some people simply aren’t born with one. It’s a trait just like eye color or the size of one’s feet.”
“But that’s so unfair.”
“Yes. Life is often unfair.”
“How can this be fixed?” Justine asked. “How could a person manage to get a soul if he doesn’t have one?”
“He can’t,” Rosemary replied. “It’s not possible. Or at least I’ve never heard of such a thing happening.”
“But if they realize they are soulless,” Sage said, “that’s when things become precarious. Every living creature is compelled to preserve its own existence. Is there anything a man like Jason wouldn’t do for a chance at eternity?”
No. He would stop at nothing.
Justine’s hand crept to the center of her chest, where the little copper key was hidden beneath the bodice of the nightgown.
Rosemary glanced at her with compassion. “I see that you understand now. Associating with a man like Jason Black could turn out to be a dance with the devil.”
“Could Jason ever love someone if he has no soul?”
“Of course,” Sage said. “He still has a heart, after all. What he doesn’t have is time.”
***
After seeing to the boat, Jason made the long, slow climb back to the lighthouse. The ancient stone steps had settled badly, some of them diagonally slanted, many of them cracked. The center of each step had been worn into hammock shapes by the tread of countless shoes. Rain had made all of them perilously slick. Wind gusts struck from different directions, challenging his balance. He still didn’t know how he’d managed to carry Justine up the stairs without falling; he’d been too jacked with adrenaline to think about it at the time.
He doubted he would ever recover from the sight of Justine struggling in the ocean, her face gray with the resignation of someone who was on her way to dying. He would have done anything for her, risked anything, without question. He would have given her his life, fed his own blood directly into her veins, if that would have saved her. And to say the least, self-sacrifice was a new concept for him.
The strangest part was that he wasn’t trying to reason himself out of it; he didn’t even want to. The way he felt about Justine was something he had no choice in, just as he had no choice about whether he wanted to breathe or sleep or eat. It was too soon to be this certain. But that didn’t matter, either.
His past relationships had ended when they became inconvenient or stale. And each time Jason had gone on his way with the arrogant conviction that love would never get the better of him.
What an idiot he’d been.
Now he knew that it was only love when you knew there could be no end to it. When it was as inevitable as gravity. Falling in love, a helpless descent in which the only way to avoid being hurt was to keep going. Keep falling.
As he neared the top of the stairs, he took a good look at the lighthouse. It was a turn-of-the-century design, constructed of limestone and wood shingles, with surrounding porches braced by wood columns. The octagonal tower, integrated with the keeper’s cottage, overlooked the steeply pitched and gabled roof.
Passing a fog bell mounted on the front porch, Jason shouldered his way past the door and closed it against the storm. He removed his jacket and hung it on a hook, and took off his sodden boat shoes. His T-shirt, which he’d put back on before going down to the dock, was cold and clammy. His board shorts had dried, but he felt sticky and sea-brined. The smell of baking bread filled the house, making his mouth water. He was starving.
“Mr. Black.” Sage hurried to him with an armload of white towels, her silver curls dancing like butterfly antennae. “Here you are,” she said brightly.
“Thank you. Please call me Jason.” He scrubbed the towel roughly over his hair and the back of his neck. “How is Justine?”
“She is sleeping comfortably in our bedroom. Rosemary is watching over her.”
“Maybe I should check on her,” Jason said, trying to contend with a tight feeling in his chest, iron bands around his heart. Worry. Another new feature on his emotional landscape.
“Justine is a healthy young woman,” Sage said gently. “A little rest, and she’ll bounce back to her usual self.” She gave him an arrested glance, as if something in his face had surprised her. “You were very brave to do what you did today. I understand what it means for a man in your position to take such a risk.”
A man in his position? Jason held her gaze, wondering exactly what she had meant.
“Let me show you to the guest bathroom,” Sage said. “You can take a nice hot shower, and put on some dry clothes.”
He grimaced. “Unfortunately I don’t have a spare shirt or—”
“Not to worry, dear boy, I have set out some things that belonged to my late husband. He would be delighted for someone to get some use out of them.”
“I wouldn’t want to…” Jason began, uncomfortable at the prospect of wearing old clothes that had belonged to a dead man, but his attention was seized by the phrase “late husband.” “You were married?”
“Yes, Neil was the lightkeeper here. After he passed, I assumed his post. Follow me to the guest room—we’ll take a roundabout path so you can see the house along the way.”
“The lighthouse isn’t active now, is it?”
“No, after it was decommissioned in the early seventies, the Coast Guard sold it to me for practically nothing. And in return for maintaining the house, I’ve been awarded a life pension from a private historic preservation foundation. Later you’ll have to go up to the top of the tower—the original Fresnel lens is still there. It’s made of French crystal. Very beautiful, like an Art Deco sculpture.”
The rooms were painted in delicate shades of robin’s-egg blue and sea green, and filled with cozy upholstered furniture and polished woodwork. The main room opened into a large kitchen, and a smaller room that served as a multipurpose area. “This is called the keeping room,” Sage said. “Most of the time we use it for craft projects, but when we have guests, such as tonight, we put an extra leaf in the table and make it into a dining room.”
Jason went to the corner of the room, where an antique bronze diving helmet had been set on a built-in shelf. The helmet had a glass front door, a dumbbell lock with a chain and pin, and a leather gasket. “This is like something out of a Jules Verne novel. How old is it?”
“It was made in nineteen-eighteen, or thereabouts.” Sage gave a wondering laugh. “Neil said the same thing when he bought it—it reminded him of Jules Verne. Have you read any of his novels?”
“Most of them.” Jason smiled. “Jules Verne managed to predict a lot of inventions that eventually came true. Submarines, videoconferencing, spaceships… I’ve never been able to decide if it was genius or magic.”
She seemed to like that. “Perhaps a little of both.”
Sage showed him to the guest room at the lower level of the tower. It was a fairy-tale room, octagonal with bay windows and upholstered benches set in nearly every wall. The only furnishings were a spacious iron-framed bed placed in the center of the room and a tiny painted wooden table next to it. Although the room would be cold at night, the bed was layered with ivory quilts and pillows piled three deep. A simple button-down shirt and a pair of trousers had been laid out. “I’m afraid we have no socks that will fit you,” Sage said regretfully. “Until your shoes dry out, you’ll have to go barefoot.”
“I went barefoot all the time in my grandmother’s home in Japan,” Jason said.
“You’re part Japanese?… Ah, that explains those cheekbones and lovely dark eyes.”
He laughed quietly. “You’re a flirt, Sage.”
“At my age, I can flirt all I please and it causes no trouble.”
“I think you could cause plenty of trouble if you wanted to.”
Sage chuckled. “Now who’s the flirt?” She gestured to a small bathroom with an old-fashioned shower. “The guest toiletries are in the basket under the sink. There’s more than enough time for a nap—you may rest up here, and no one will bother you.”
“Thanks, but I don’t usually take naps.”
“You should try. You must be tired after your heroics today.”
“I wasn’t heroic,” Jason said, uncomfortable with the praise. “I just did what was necessary.”
She smiled at him. “Isn’t that the definition of a hero?”