Prologue

I’d been having the dreams for months but I didn’t understand them until I found Catherine’s curl.

Looking back, I don’t even remember when they began. I remember only how they lingered in my mind long after I awoke. They were like memories of a distant past brought to mind and, once recalled, impossible to forget.

After a while, I began to dread the dreams, even as I longed for them. They became more real to me than my mundane waking life. I had a job in a department store—it wasn’t exciting, or challenging, but it paid the bills. And I had a man in my life—he wasn’t exciting, or challenging…

No, that’s not fair. Evan Masters was a good man and I think he really loved me. But he wasn’t the one. Trouble was, the one was a man who existed only in those maddening, enticing dreams.

And Evan knew it. Night after night, he’d heard me murmuring in my sleep, listened to me whisper a name not his own, heard me sigh as I languished in the arms of my dream lover. It frustrated him, angered him, even though he knew the man in my dreams didn’t exist. He was confused.

But then, so was I…

Because these were no ordinary dreams. I had seen those articles that pop up every now and then in magazines—the ones that ask, “Do you dream in color?” Well, these dreams were not only in color, they were complete sensual experiences. The woman I became in my dreams was named Catherine and when Catherine touched something, I felt it. When Catherine tasted something, the flavor lingered in my mouth when I awoke. And when Catherine’s lover took her into his arms…

The emotions, the sensations the dreams aroused in me were far beyond anything I’d ever known. They colored my every waking hour. I felt homesick for the house where Catherine lived—a tall, white, Victorian cottage frothed with gingerbread and perched high on a bluff overlooking a picturesque harbor. In the dreams, I (or was it Catherine?) could hear the waves rolling in and the cries of the gulls swooping overhead, could feel the swirling weight of sweeping skirts as I walked along a rocky shore. I felt love and desire, loneliness and despair, anticipation and fear, all with an intensity I had never known in my waking life. I learned what it was like to be truly alive in those dark, dream-filled hours.

But how long could I continue pining for a place I had never been? How long could I go on longing for a home I had never had? And how long could I go on loving a man I had never met?

For I was in love with Andrew—the tall, chestnut-haired man who figured so prominently in my dreams. I knew how it felt to be held in his arms, to cling to him in the warm, sweetly-scented darkness of a summer night, to feel safe and protected in his embrace.

Oh, yes, I was in love with him and that love was poisoning my relationship with Evan. Too many nights he had lain sleepless beside me, listening to me sigh for my dream lover. Too many times I had awakened suddenly and stared at him in the half-light of dawn as if he were a stranger, an intruder, unwanted and unwelcome, tearing me away from the nocturnal world where I wanted to linger.

I knew it couldn’t go on that way forever. I knew something had to happen which would finally bring matters to some sort of conclusion. And then I found Catherine’s Curl…

Chapter 1

This is madness, I told myself as I drove north through the verdant beauty that was Michigan in the early summer. I was chasing an obsession and I was powerless to stop myself. But I had known I would take this trip. I had known it from the moment I’d found the curl.

I had been at my computer one evening when I heard footsteps on the stairs outside my apartment door. It was Evan coming home from work. There had been a time when the sound of his approach would make my pulse leap, and I would run to the door and stand there, poised to open it at his knock. But that night, I sat in front of my computer in the darkened room, still as a doe in a hunter’s sights, hoping he would go to his own apartment next door.

We lived on the second floor of a massive, towered Victorian house—the midwestern version of a San Francisco painted lady. It had once been the home of a shipbuilder but had long ago been divided into half a dozen apartments. My rooms ran along the east side of the upstairs corridor. Evan’s stretched out across the front of the house. With its stained glass, ornate woodwork, and elegant, though for safety reasons, unusable, fireplaces, the house retained much of its old-fashioned charm. I had rented the apartment on sight. And it hadn’t hurt that my new next door neighbor was a handsome, unattached man whose dark eyes lit up with flattering admiration every time he looked at me.

Our romance had blossomed too quickly. I was in the middle of it before I realized that Evan’s feelings for me were far deeper than my own for him. When he began to hint about marriage and children, I backed away but he wasn’t deterred. He was certain that with time and patience, it would all work out.

But what I felt for Evan wasn’t love, or passion; it was a deep, abiding affection, a quiet sense of compatibility that could, if nurtured, have ended in years of dull contentment.

And I knew that many people had built perfectly satisfactory lives together on less. But not me. No, I wanted the fire. Though Evan was aware of it; he hadn’t lost hope. But once the dreams started; once he felt himself losing me to a man who existed only in my unconscious; a man with whom he couldn’t hope to compete; he began to lose heart. He was hurt. I knew it. But I couldn’t help myself.

The night I found the curl, I heard him come home. When there was no indication he intended to come to my door, I turned back to my computer. I was addicted to online auctions and spent hours of my free time scrolling through endless lists of items. Evan called them “cyber rummage sales” with his usual disdain for anything that didn’t interest him. But I adored them. Since the dreams had begun, I had concentrated mostly on late Victorian and Edwardian antiques. I immersed myself in all the minutiae of Catherine’s time, trying to find something, anything, that looked familiar—that looked like something which might lead me to her.

It was a ridiculous quest, I told myself again and again. After all, what did I know about her?

Her name was Catherine, her lover was Andrew. That narrowed it down from hopeless to ludicrous. She lived in a large, Victorian-style cottage overlooking a harbor with a rocky shoreline ringed with tall pines. It suggested New England or, perhaps, the Northern West Coast: both immense areas. Still, a little flicker of carefully-nurtured hope drove me on and I persisted.

On that night, as I sat in my living room with only the glow of the computer screen to dispel the darkness, I poured over the long lists of categories and subcategories. One I’d never happened to notice before leaped out at me. Mourning.

I shuddered, imagining daguerreotypes of corpses in their coffins and those unimaginably intricate wreaths made of the hair of the dearly departed I’d seen in museums and antique shops and which had always made me vaguely queasy.

Morbid curiosity made me take a look. I scrolled through page after page of gutta percha brooches and jet necklaces, past samplers depicting mourning widows and orphans, and bracelets made of braided human hair (worse, even, than the wreaths, I thought, passing them quickly). I was about to give up, when one title caught my eye. It said simply, Catherine’s Curl.

I hesitated, heart pounding. It was impossible. The sheer odds against it made the smallest flicker of hope seem foolish. But still, I had to look.

When the item came up, I looked at the location. Michigan. Well, I told myself, there’s a lot of shoreline in Michigan and much of it is rocky and bordered by tall pines. But still…

I scrolled down to the picture. A tight curl of dark red hair lay beside a tiny yellowed cardboard box. A simple, handwritten label said, Catherine’s Curl—25 May, 1919.

The item description said that the box had been found in a concealed compartment in an antique dressing table. Nothing more. There were no bids on the item and the seller was asking six dollars as an opening bid or ten dollars if someone wished to end the auction and purchase the item outright. I had no desire to wait five days in the hope of saving four dollars. I clicked on the button that said, Buy it now.

After filling in the requisite personal information, I emailed the seller, asking for an address to which I could send payment. I also asked for more information about the curl and its history.

As I undressed and climbed into bed, I felt numb, overwhelmed. Something inside me told me that the curl was my Catherine’s and that the handwriting on the yellowed slip of paper was that of her lover, Andrew. Somewhere in Michigan stood a dressing table where she’d sat, whose mirror had reflected her image, whose hidden compartment had held a tangible token of the passion that had tormented me night after night for months. It was beyond belief.

As I sank back into my pillows, I knew it was only the beginning. I would have the curl, yes, but I wanted to see the table, see where the curl had been concealed all these years, sit where she had sat, walk where she had walked. I would find her, find Andrew, learn the answers to all the questions that plagued me save, perhaps, for one… Why? Why did those memories haunt me so? What purpose could they serve except to turn my life upside down and show me a love, a passion, the likes of which I despaired of ever finding for myself?

* * * *

The dream came near dawn. Through Catherine’s eyes, I saw myself sitting at a pretty, painted dressing table whose oblong, ormolu-framed mirror was flanked by ornate sconces holding flickering candles. In the glow of the candlelight, I saw a brass double bed sitting in the corner of a pretty bedroom with heavy draperies drawn closed over the tall windows. A low fire glowed in a small fireplace. I was wearing a lacy chemise and a creamy cotton petticoat trimmed with satin ribbons. A shiver ran through me as I felt the fingers that brushed my neck and lifted a heavy curl from my shoulder.

I saw Andrew’s shadowy reflection in the mirror as he bent over. A small pair of silver scissors was dwarfed in his large hand. His eyes—those incredible aqua eyes that obsessed me—met mine in the mirror as he snipped off a few inches of a curl and twined it tightly about his finger. Raising it to his lips, he kissed it and slid it carefully into a small cardboard box. He tore the edge from a sheet of paper and, with a pencil, wrote, Catherine’s curl—25 May, 1919. Gently placing the slip into the box, he fitted the lid into place. He opened the dressing table’s top right-hand drawer and, with a flick of a hidden lever, dropped the box inside.

The drawer closed and, without a word, he took my hand. His sea-blue eyes glittered as he drew me from the little gilded stool and led me toward the bed.

* * * *

I was at my computer before sunrise, eager to see if my email had been answered. It had. The seller, I discovered, was one Thomas Fulton who was opening a bed and breakfast on Beaver Island at the northern end of Lake Michigan. The dressing table, he told me, had not been part of the furnishings of the 19th century home he had purchased for his business. Rather, it had been one of several pieces he had bought out of an even older home on the island that had been torn down to make way for new construction.

I felt sick. Could it really be that I had come so close, only to find that the home where Catherine and Andrew had lived no longer existed? Had, in fact, been torn down only a matter of months, if not weeks, before? Surely fate couldn’t be so cruel. I had to know.

I sent him payment and, in short order, he sent me the curl. My hands trembled as I unwrapped the little package. The tiny box, now yellowed and fragile with age, sat in my palm, filling me once more with that overwhelming sense of familiarity and strangeness, of nostalgia and regret, of longing and loss for a time, place and a past not my own.
Thomas Fulton, budding businessman that he was, had included a brochure to his newly-opened business. I opened it and was astounded.

It was there. All of it. The house and the beautiful blue harbor surrounded by tall pines. To be sure, the house was a different color and the landscape had changed. That was only to be expected given the number of years that had passed. But I recognized the wide veranda affording a breathtaking view of the bluff and the harbor with its rocky shore. Beyond that, the blue expanse of water melded at the far horizon with a sky that was blue beyond belief.

At that moment, I knew without question that I had to go. There was no help for it. The odds against my ever finding Catherine and her world had been astronomical but now that I had, I wouldn’t rest until I had crossed that threshold, trod those floors, slept inside those walls, and done everything humanly possible to discover why I was being haunted by a woman long dead.

I had two weeks of vacation coming and spring was a slow time of year in the deli department of a department store. I felt sure my department manager would allow me the time off, even on such short notice. Evan was certain to be angry—we had planned to go away together later in the summer. I knew it would be impossible for him to get away now. But I didn’t want him to go. Oh no, this was something I had to do on my own.

Impulsively, I dialed the number on the back of Tom Fulton’s brochure. A soft masculine voice answered almost immediately.

“Fulton House.”

“Is this Mr. Fulton?”

“Speaking.”

“Hi. This is Kate Travis. I—”

“You bought the curl.”

“That’s right. I was looking at your brochure and I was thinking of coming up. It’s short notice, I know, but I was wondering if you’d have an opening for two weeks starting the tenth.”

“Just a minute. The tenth, you say?” He said nothing for several moments and I could hear the pages of a book being turned. “Two weeks from now,” he said finally. “Let’s see…”

“I know it’s short notice,” I repeated apologetically.

“Oh, it’s not that. It’s just that I’ve been contacted by some ladies who are coming to the island for…that is, a friend of mine… There are four of them. I wish I hadn’t…”

“I see.” My hopes were sinking. “That’s all right.” It was foolish of me to feel so bitterly disappointed. After all, the island wasn’t going anywhere and it shouldn’t have made any difference if I went there in two weeks or two months. But it did, for some reason that defied explanation. I felt an almost unbearable sense of urgency, as though something precious that was nearly in my grasp would be lost to me if I didn’t get there as soon as possible.

“I’ll tell you what,” Tom Fulton said at last after an interminable silence. “I sent them the information a month ago and they still haven’t gotten back to me. Why don’t I reserve a room for you? If they call to make their reservations, I’ll just tell them I have only three rooms left for those weeks. They can take them or leave them.”

“That would be great!” An unaccountable sense of relief flooded through me.

If he thought my enthusiasm strange, he gave no sign of it. “Fine, then, we’ll book you for the tenth through the twenty-fourth. And since you bought the curl, I’ll reserve Catherine’s room for you, shall I?”

That took me aback. “Catherine’s room?” I repeated. “I don’t understand. If the curl was Catherine’s but the dressing table was in a house that’s been torn down…”

He laughed. “The dressing table was purchased by a neighbor after Catherine…” He hesitated and I sensed there was something he didn’t want to tell me. “Well, after Catherine’s time. Before they tore down the neighbor’s house, I bought some of the antique furnishings and brought Catherine’s dressing table back to her room. So, it’s back where it belongs. Would you like that room?”

My heart skipped a beat at the thought of staying in the room I had seen so many times in my dreams. “Yes, please!”

We made arrangements for me to send a deposit and hung up but all I could hear was Tom Fulton’s voice saying, “I’ll reserve Catherine’s room for you.”

Would you like that room? Was he kidding? He had no idea how much I’d like that room. Catherine’s room. I scarcely dared believe it. In two weeks, I would be walking into her house, climbing her stairs, sleeping in the room that had been the scene of so many of those tantalizing, tormenting, passionate dreams. It was incomprehensible. But it was true.

* * * *

And that was how, two weeks later, I came to be driving north to Charlevoix, a pretty resort town on Michigan’s northwest shore. I focused on my driving and tried not to think about the scene with Evan when I told him about my trip.

“This is very nice,” he said coldly when I told him about my conversation with Tom Fulton. “Just like that, eh? You make all the arrangements without even talking to me about it. You’ve even talked to Dawn about scheduling your vacation.”

Dawn was the manager of my department. “I had to. I had to talk to her before she made up the work schedules for those weeks. It’s very difficult for her to rearrange them once they’ve been done.”

“How considerate of you. Too bad you weren’t as considerate of me.” He ran his fingers through his dark hair. “What is the attraction, Kate? This place is the end of the earth. An isolated island in the middle of Lake Michigan. What do you expect to find there beside deer and mosquitoes?”

I couldn’t tell him the truth. My dreams were already driving a wedge between us. How could I expect him to understand that I was going off to chase a phantom from my subconscious?

“I need some peace and quiet,” I said softly. It was a lame excuse but it was the best I could come up with at the moment.

His lip curled. “I imagine so. Your job is so stressful.”

I gritted my teeth. It was a sore spot for me, Evan’s disdain for my job. Yes, I was a clerk in a department store but I worked for my money and the hours often sucked and the customers were frequently rude and impossible to please. But the benefits were good and I liked the people I worked with. Surely that counted for something.

“Don’t go there, Evan,” I warned. We’d had this conversation before and I’d told him that if my being a lowly store clerk made me unworthy to be his girlfriend, he should feel free to find someone else. That usually stopped the argument—until the next time I did something to annoy him.

Still, I could hardly tell him the truth. And I definitely couldn’t tell him about the curl. I couldn’t make him understand that I had to go off chasing what he would consider figments of my imagination. But nothing, not even the very real possibility of losing him, could have made me change my mind at that moment.

When I reached Charlevoix, I followed the signs to the boat dock. The ferry, gleaming white and big enough to carry more than a dozen cars and several hundred passengers, waited. All I needed to do was buy a ticket and step aboard and I would be on my way to… To where? Home? Well, Catherine’s home, at least. The best I was hoping for was that I would be several steps nearer to finding the answers I needed to set my mind at rest and end the plague of dreams that both tormented and tantalized me.

The ferry dock was alive with activity. Fork lifts darted here and there carrying freight onto the boat. Racks of luggage, pallets of groceries, appliances, mail, and lumber disappeared into the gaping maw that was the lower level of the huge white boat. After the freight had been stowed, the trucks and cars were backed aboard and secured. Then, half an hour before departure time, the passengers were motioned aboard.

I followed the crowd across the grillwork ramp toward the stairs that led up to the two passenger decks. But my shoes were hard and the soles smooth and the steel grill was slick. I stumbled as I crossed. From out of nowhere, an arm snaked around my waist and drew me up, giving me time to steady myself. For a few moments, I was pressed against a warm, hard body as I regained my footing.

A low, rumbling voice sounded in my ear. “Careful. Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” I answered, feeling more than a little foolish. “Thank…”

I glanced up at my rescuer and found myself staring into a pair of sea-blue eyes which, until that moment had existed only in my dreams.

He was tall—the top of my head barely reached his shoulder. He grinned down at me, no doubt amused by the dumb look on my face as I gaped up at him. I felt my knees threaten to give way.

“Good,” he said softly. “Take care now.”

And then he was gone, bounding up the stairs two at a time, leaving me to stare after him.

“Ma’am…ma’am?” A young crewman stationed at the foot of the stairs prompted when I’d held up the line long enough. “Ticket?”

“Oh! Yes. Sorry.” I handed him my ticket. “Tell me, who was that man?”

“Drew Keller,” he answered, already reaching for the ticket of the man behind me.

“Drew, short for Andrew?”

He shrugged. “Guess so.”

Bemused, I climbed the stairs leading to the first of the two passenger decks. Against all odds, I had found Catherine’s curl. Then I had found Catherine’s home. And now, I had found Catherine’s lover—the man whose lips had kissed me, whose hands had caressed me, in whose arms I had languished in my dreams.

But he was real. He existed. What else would I find on this isolated island? And what had I let myself in for?