In an attempt to calm down he took several deep breaths, letting them out slowly. As his mind began to process what he had just experienced, he started to realize that in his own way, he had been just as shocked as she.

Despite the confusion, one thing was becoming clear. It wasn’t his words that had terrified her; rather, it was being seen by him that had rattled her so badly. But why would that be? If she had been in the house for any length of time at all, she would have most assuredly heard him and Jay talking. And if she had been afraid of them, she had had plenty of opportunity to flee without being seen.

But even these realizations were not what shocked Garrett the most. Rather, it was that the woman who had just run away from Seaside was without question the same person he had dreamed of only last night. And then, his mind still flooded with impossible questions, he came to another stark realization.

The crying that I heard last night, just before falling sleep in the dining room . . . that crying was also hers! I cannot say why I’m so sure of it, only that I am. She is also the same woman who I saw in my dream! And now that I have seen her in the flesh, a new sort of pain and yearning is growing in my heart that is far stronger than any I have experienced before . . .

As Seaside’s gray shadows and eerie stillness seemed to engulf him, for several moments Garrett began to doubt his sanity. Then he abruptly scrubbed his face with his hands, stood up, and looked back at the kitchen door.

This had really just happened, he realized. The glass had actually been broken, and it now lay everywhere upon the kitchen floor. This had been no dream; nor had been the real, flesh-and-blood woman who caused it. But now that same woman had just vanished, perhaps never to be seen by him again. As he stood there thinking, another unfathomable riddle floated to the surface.

How in God’s name could I have dreamed of her, before actually seeing her in the flesh?

Chapter 4

The following morning found Constance sitting like a terrified child on the floor, her arms wrapped around her legs and her forehead resting down atop her knees. A sense of panic had tormented her all night for fear that he might come searching for her, but so far she had seen nothing of him.

After running out of the house she had taken refuge in Seaside’s barn, in one of the far corners of the second-floor loft. For more than 170 years this had been her secret place; the place where she always came to seek privacy not only from the succession of interlopers who claimed to own her home, but also from an ever-evolving world for which she cared so little. After some more time had passed, the sense of panic finally stopped bedeviling her. At last she lifted her head and looked around.

Perhaps he has gone, she thought, and I could go back into the house. But what difference would it make? He is Seaside’s new master, and because of that he is sure to return.

Although the barn was old, it remained sounder than it appeared. This corner of hers on the second floor was comforting, and she would come here to be alone with her thoughts and memories. Because of the cold, she did not visit here often in the wintertime. But during the summer she spent many hours here.

Some time ago, when one of Seaside’s previous owners had been away, she had used the opportunity to steal a chair from the house and bring it here, to her secret hideaway. Over time she had also absconded with clothing, which she kept locked up in an old chest, along with some perfume she had also taken. When another of the owners had thrown away his old mattress, in the dead of night she had dragged it to the barn and agonizingly hauled it up the stairs.

Finally rising from the floor, she dusted herself off and went to lie down upon the tattered mattress. But she could not sleep just now, for her mind was still too shocked and confused about what had happened. The mere idea of it caused such terror in her heart! That encounter had been no dream. It had been quite real, and totally unlike anything she had ever experienced.

She reached alongside the mattress and looked into a hand mirror that she had also stolen from the house many years ago. Although it was old, its glass remained clear. Seventeen decades had come and gone, yet she hadn’t aged a day. She had neither become ill, nor had she ever required food or water.