The Seaside House.

     The house watched unfeeeling, as the turbulent sea crashed upon the slate-gray boulders guarding its shoreline. The sea air was redolent with brine. The rhythmic landing of the waves was elemental in its force. It was a pulse of liquid pressure that pounded the sand relentlessly.

       The squawking seagulls drifted with the westerly wind, circling around the roof peak, readying to perch on the sun-whitened shingles. They too looked seaward, as if expecting the imminent arrival of something or someone.

      It was late September and all of the off-islanders had left for their city homes. No more, the shrill cries of excited children as they ran into the roiling sea. No more the happy laughter of families enjoying the sun and surf of the shore.

       The whistling wind and the crashing surf were all that one heard here now. It was both eerie and restful, like a graveyard before a funeral. People would come again when the weather changed. Until then, grey clouds shrouded the high peak of the house.

       On most days, a solitary walker would come by and wonder who lived here. He would glance up at the shaded windows and wonder what lay beyond them. But, it was only a brief intrusion. Then, the calm and the quiet would return.

        Many years ago, the Dalton family had built this place. The couple had three boys and two girls. Every summer they drove down from New York and settled in for a few months of sun and surf. Timmy, the oldest boy was a rip. He would always be the first one into the water and swam the furthest away from shore. His brothers and sisters followed after him like pack mates to an alpha male. Paul and Ellen Dalton could only sigh in exasperation and plead with Timmy not to swim too far out and be careful of any rip tides that formed. They loved this place nestled on the Atlantic shore of New Hampshire.

      Friends and family would come during the Dalton’s stay. They would add to the happy noises that echoed through the wooden halls of the solid seaside villa. Bonfires on the beach, telling and retelling stories that made the kids squeal with fright were a nightly occurrence. Paul told them of seas spirits who rose from the briny depths and came looking for children who were out in the night. Even though the kids knew that Dad was telling a yarn, they seldom ventured out after dark. The house was an island of safety amidst the dark of the night.

     After a time, the Dalton’s came no more. The children had grown up and Paul and Ellen thought the effort of driving from New York was too much for them. The put the place out for rent for a few seasons, before they passed on. Timmy and siblings, now with families of their own, scattered the Dalton’s ashes along the shore as they had requested. Then, they put the place up for summer rentals. Newer and younger families came every summer. They laughed and carried on in the water as the Dalton family had done long before.

     Sometimes, one of the younger and more sensitive children would see a swish of the curtains on the second story of the house and imagine that they got a glimpse of a face looking out at them. Their parents of course told them not to be silly. No one was in the house but them. But once in a while they too might get that awkward feeling that someone was watching them. All houses have lives. They harbor a collection of the many spirits who spent time there. It was sort of like a collective spiritual memory, with wisps of yesteryear drifting through at the corner of one’s eye.

     Paul and Ellen Dalton, and all of the vacationers who had passed through these seaside portals, had left a trace of who they were. They became the living breathing essence of the house. Most could not see or feel them. But occasionally a sensitive child, whose mind was more open to things of a different nature in the universe around them, would get an eerie feeling that someone else was there.

     For most of the year though, the house stood stolidly against the winds from the November storms and the snows of February. It was almost alone, except for the memories and the fleeting face in the upper window.

                                    -30-

                                  (749 words)

                                Joseph Xavier Martin