ShadowsintheMist (36 page)

The last thing I remember was Grant’s voice saying, “It’s
all right, Suzanna. I’m here now. You’ll be all right.” And my own distant
voice responding, “Call me Suzie. I like it when you call me Suzie.”

Epilogue

The knowledge that you cannot have is inexhaustible,

and what is inexhaustible is benevolent.

The knowledge that you cannot have is of the riddles
of birth and death,

of our future destiny and the purposes of God.

Here there is no knowledge,

but illusions that restrict freedom and limit hope.

Accept the mystery behind knowledge:

It is not darkness but shadow.

Northrop Frye,
1988 Address
, Metropolitan United
Church, Toronto

“I still love it up here,” I said.

I was sitting on High Dune. Grant sat beside me, his arms
wrapped around his knees, his blue eyes crinkled against the afternoon glare.
It was cold despite the brightness of the sun. There would be snow soon. Even
now, flat gray clouds lined the horizon ominously. I huddled in my warm parka,
a soft woolen cap pulled over my ears.

“I feel privileged,” Grant said.

I looked at him in surprise. “Why?”

He smiled. “I’ve never been up here. This is the first time
you’ve invited me.”

I leaned my head against his shoulder and he automatically
put his arm around me and pulled me closer. “I’m glad you’re here now,” I said.

We were quiet, enjoying the peace. I gazed down at the
burned-out ruins that were once the lighthouse. Surprisingly, most of the main
structure still stood but it was charred and blackened and parts of the upper
walls were caved in. I shuddered, thinking back to that night.

David was killed in the crash. Without a seatbelt, he didn’t
stand a chance. His neck was broken when the car flipped.

“How did you arrive so quickly?” I murmured.

Grant must have been remembering too. “The accident happened
just past Spindrift,” he said. “I saw your car go by and knew you wouldn’t be
out joyriding, so I grabbed one of the officers and we got there just as you
went off the road. By the way,” he asked, pulling his head back to get a better
look at my face, “why did you lose control?”

I smiled up at him sheepishly. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“No, I won’t.”

I hesitated. “I saw Dad. He was standing there—right in
front of the car.”

Grant considered this for some moments. “When we got there,”
he finally said, “the cat was sitting in the middle of the road—Kong. He ran
off toward your car.”

“Yes,” I said. “I saw him afterward! I saw him through the
windshield. I remember thinking he looked silly upside down.” I turned to look
up at him. “Grant,” I asked earnestly, “do you believe in the supernatural?”

He thought for a moment. “If you’d asked me that six months
ago,” he said, “I’d have said no. But given everything that’s happened…”

I smiled and snuggled more closely into his embrace. “Will
you mind being married to someone who, as Madam Valenia puts it, is ‘receptive
to messages from the other side’?”

Grant chuckled. “Certainly not. As long as that someone is
receptive to this.”

He kissed me then, with a tenderness that made me melt
inside, his lips searching, his arms warm—comforting. I kissed him back with
all the love and passion that I’d kept hidden for so long, my joy so intense it
made me giddy.

And from somewhere nearby, at the periphery of my senses, I
heard the sound of a cat purring.

Also by Maureen McMahon

Enchanted Holidays
anthology

One Touch Beyond
anthology

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