For over a hundred years, time had been a dependable, sedate river, flowing steadily from one day to the next, one week, one month, one year, one decade to the next. Not tethered to the physical world by anything at all more than the confines of his home, the ghost of Captain Daniel Gregg had spent that time barely noticing whether the sun was rising or setting, or whether the weather outside the sturdy walls of Gull Cottage was warm or cold. He had walked his watches and tinkered with his charts and kept himself contented and occupied.

No longer.

Four years ago, a century’s worth of peace had been shattered when a greedy descendant whom he continually disavowed as owning the Gregg name legitimately had leased Gull Cottage to a widow with two small children and a housekeeper. Carolyn Muir had not been told of the incorporeal presence that also inhabited her new home, and she’d jumped at the apparently cheap monthly rent that Claymore was asking. Claymore at least had the decency to attempt to inform his ghostly ancestor of what he’d done — and, as usual, the response had been enough to send the weasel scuttling back to his car and driving away in a cloud of dust.

Totally unprepared for what awaited them, the Muir clan had descended upon the cottage in a station wagon. As the family investigated their new home, the Captain had appeared to and voiced his displeasure to the only male present — a six-year-old boy. When the boy had dutifully passed the message along, the women had all scoffed or chuckled indulgently at him. The Captain had then decided that he needed to make his point to the apparent head of the household, and had made himself known to Carolyn. She’d been terrified at first, but had eventually defended their moving in valiantly. Despite his best efforts at discouragement and outright terrorizing, she had instead insisted that he remove himself from the house he’d built with his bare hands. Then, when he adamantly refused, she had burst into tears and told him that she’d used the last of their money to lease the cottage – that she couldn’t afford to move – but then, faced with the inevitability of having to share their new home with a ghost, tried to leave anyway.

The Captain never knew, nor did he ever really want to know, whether it was the sight of her tears at leaving the charmingly old-fashioned cottage that had convinced him to do everything in his power to bring her back, or whether it had been the fact that she’d been able to face up to his haunting without fainting and had actually had the gumption to argue with him despite her terror. All he knew for sure was that as a result of his decision, his existence was no longer sedate, tranquil — not in the least bit DULL or predictable. Now it was all he could do to try to keep up with people he now considered ‘his’ family. The Captain had come to accept that by allowing mortals to share his home, each day suddenly had an accent that was uniquely its own, something of great or small remark that made it stand out from all the rest. Time, that sedate, dependable river, had developed interesting and unexpected small eddies and rapids.

Carolyn and her family proved to be the exact opposite of all his expectations for life with noisy mortals. The younger boy, Jonathan, adored the cantankerous phantom without apology and emulated the Captain at every turn. Candy, the oldest, took longer to accept the presence of a ghost in her life, but afterwards shyly began to look to the irascible old sailor as a surrogate father — having been old enough to still have the memories of her parents’ disintegrating marriage and her real father’s neglect. She was the spitting image of her mother, and just as intelligent and strong-willed – and the Captain doted on her as their relationship deepened over time. The housekeeper, an imminently practical spinster named Martha Grant, had resisted detecting his presence the longest, but even she had, in the long run, become grudgingly accustomed to living life with the long-dead owner of the cottage in their midst.

But the greatest change in his existence was the presence of Carolyn Muir herself. After all those years of being perfectly contented with a solitary fate, he could no longer imagine his existence without her in it. She was ‘his’ – his equal, his soul mate, and the woman he’d been waiting over two lifetimes for. She stood up to him, challenged him, charmed him – oh yes, she most definitely charmed him. With hair the color of spun gold, eyes like emeralds, an infuriatingly independent nature and a smile that could light a room without assistance, she was the most fascinating creature he’d ever seen.

She had waltzed into his house, ensconced herself in his bedroom (“their” bedroom now) and proceeded to worm her way into his heart. He’d long since given up trying to be anything but madly, passionately, completely in love with her – and the fact that still could make him shake his head in wonder was that she evidently loved him back. He had nothing to offer her – he couldn’t be with her in any mortal way, couldn’t touch her creamy skin with his fingertips or his lips to hers – but that mattered not a whit to her. She was content, she said, as long as they could be together as they were now.

And yet…

No matter what the emotional bond between the two of them, the fact was that Carolyn and her children lived in a mortal world – with friends and family that appreciated that the little family could be lured or tempted away from their cozy cottage on the Maine coast for a short time. With a generous advance on a new collaborative effort with the Captain in hand, Carolyn had decided to give her kids a real summer vacation. Time had been set aside to take the kids to visit with both sets of grandparents, to fly Martha to Florida to soak up some sun at her sister’s, and to do a little traveling and sight-seeing on the way back. The station wagon packed, they had driven off for the first vacation they’d had AS a family — ever.

And with their collective departure, Gull Cottage had returned to its previously abandoned state – and for the past two weeks, Captain Daniel Gregg had never been quite so miserable in decades. The days of quiet monotony that he had once treasured had crept by at an infuriating snail’s pace, filled with nothing more remarkable than the slight variation of temperature between daytime and nighttime. The cottage itself echoed deafeningly with the silence of not a single creature stirring beneath its roof. Even Scruffy, the scrappy little white mutt that the Captain generally barely tolerated, would have been a welcome companion — but no, the little dog was safely boarded at a local kennel pending the Muir’s return.

“Blast!” Captain Gregg rumbled ominously as he studied the calendar and noted that while, yes, Carolyn and the kids were scheduled to come home today; no, they weren’t to be expected until later in the afternoon or evening — and it wasn’t even daylight out yet. The sky over the eastern horizon was getting lighter, but not even a sliver of sun had dared show itself over the distant waters yet. The Captain’s crystal blue eyes snapped in frustration and impatience. This day threatened to creep along at an even slower pace than the ones before it.

He wandered through the house slowly, as he’d done more times than he wanted to remember since the Muir’s departure, checking to make sure not the slightest speck of dust had been allowed to collect anywhere — and that nothing was out of place. He was determined that the house would be absolutely ship-shape in Bristol fashion when his crew returned back aboard. He paused along his self-appointed round, as he often had, at Carolyn’s desk in ‘their’ bedroom to gaze wistfully at the photograph that had been taken of the entire family that past April. The children were growing so fast! Already Candy was looking remarkably like her mother and Jonathan was almost to her shoulder.

More than anything else, the past two weeks of solitude and a return to the sedate and dependable — and inexorable — passing of time had given him cause to reaffirm his decision to rejoin the world and to appreciate more fully the people who had populated his time and his home for the past few years. It was a lesson that he wouldn’t soon forget.

~~~~~~~~

Carolyn Muir heaved a huge sigh of relief as she pulled the station wagon into the driveway and up to the small shack that served as a garage to Gull Cottage. *Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home,* she thought to herself, and the happy bouncing of the kids in the back seat and Scruffy amid the luggage told her that she wasn’t the only one glad to be back.

The visits with her parents and Richard’s parents had gone well, considering. Neither parental couple was very happy with her living so far away from them — off raising their grandchildren in virtually primitive Maine — but she hadn’t allowed their subtle and none-too-subtle hints that she should reconsider moving back to civilization get to her. The kids had enjoyed their time with their grandparents, the older generation had enjoyed getting to know children who were now older, and the little family’s sight-seeing trek into the Appalachians afterwards had been worth it. She had taken notes on story and article ideas that would keep her fed for the better part of the next year during that quiet week with just Candy and Jonathan, as well as kept a travel log that she could refer to for some free-lance columns for the Schooner Bay Beacon, perhaps.

But it was time to be getting home. Despite enjoying the change of scenery, she was beginning to miss the cozy warmth of Gull Cottage and the quiet roar of the surf against the cliffs near the cottage. Most of all, she missed the Captain — his blustering at her in response to yet another piece of modern life shocking his sense of propriety, his endless supply of vibrant and interesting tales from his life at sea, his caring and gentleness in their very private moments. It had been all well and good to get away from his powerful sense of personality and tendency to try to control every situation, but she missed it. Over the last four years, their relationship had become very much like a marriage of sorts — and as far as she was concerned, she’d been separated from him for about as long as she ever wanted to be again. When both Candy and Jonathan had started talking about him in wistful tones, she knew that she wasn’t alone in considering the ghost as an important part of the family – one that was missing — and that it was time to head home at last.

She smiled. There was a light on in the kitchen now — a sign that he was waiting for them and welcoming them back. “Look, kids, the Captain’s left the light on for us to welcome us home.” Amazing how that old-fashioned tradition did indeed warm the heart.

Martha merely harrumphed in the seat next to her. “He could make himself useful and come out to help haul luggage in…”

“Make myself useful indeed!” came a slightly incensed deep voice from the back of the car. Martha and Carolyn looked at each other in shock than turned and stared over their shoulder as Captain Gregg had already maneuvered the back end of the station wagon open and bent to reach in for the first of three fairly large and heavy suitcases.

“Never mind,” Martha told him and glanced at Carolyn in chagrin. “Sorry, Captain — I’ve been living with a lazy brother-in-law for about three days longer than I’d have wanted to otherwise. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one man work so hard to do so little in my life. I think I’ve learned to appreciate your old-fashioned gallantry the hard way.”

Evidently that was enough to mollify the Captain. “Apology accepted,” he pronounced in his sonorous accent. “It’s good to have you back too, Martha.”

Carolyn only chuckled, thankful to be hearing his voice again in her ears. The children had poured out of the back seat of the station wagon and were bouncing around the Captain, their happiness to see him bubbling over unrestrainedly. “Belay that,” he grumbled, obviously touched and pleased. “Let’s help your mother get this gear into the house, shall we, before she starts to think WE’RE the lazy ones.” Scruffy leapt from the back of the station wagon and began barking and wagging his tail a mile a minute, tongue out and grinning up into another welcome face. “Good to see you too, squab,” the Captain noted, stepping carefully around the little dog.

Candy and Jonathan continued to bubble at their favorite ghost all the way into the cottage and up the stairs, telling him all about their visits with their grandparents and what they’d seen otherwise.

Martha leaned toward Carolyn as the two women carried in the sacks of groceries that they’d stopped in town to pick up so as to have some food in the house when they got home. “I’d guess that they missed the Captain, Mrs. Muir,” she commented softly so that the sharp ears of the resident ghost might not pick that one up.

“I can tell you we all missed him,” Carolyn affirmed in an equally confidential tone. “We stayed away about as long as any of us could stand.”

“Including you, Mrs. Muir?”

“I’m just as glad to get back to my typewriter,” Carolyn replied with a twinkle in her eye. “And it sounds as if you’d had just about enough vacation too.”

The stout, older woman sniffed. “I’ve spent enough time in Florida to know that I’d just as soon NOT spend a lot more time there,” she said with real conviction. “These past two weeks have made me VERY thankful that I didn’t pull up stakes and move down there when I almost did a couple of years ago.”

The two stopped just inside the kitchen door, with Martha taking a long and contented breath. “You go on and get unpacked while I start some soup and sandwiches for supper in about an hour.” She made shooing gestures at her pretty blonde employer. “I’ll call up when it’s ready.”

~~~~~~~~~*

“Did you miss us, Captain?” Jonathan asked around a mouthful of sandwich.

All the mortal eyes at the table immediately flew to the face of the phantom that sat at the end of the table carefully sipping at the hot tea Martha had made for him and enjoying it immensely. Captain Gregg put the teacup down carefully. Four years ago, he would have blustered mightily about not needing anybody – but the past two weeks had proven that he’d grown all too attached to ‘his’ family. “It was very quiet while you were away – too quiet,” he admitted to the boy. “I’ve grown used to having you all bumping and laughing and chattering…”

“You missed us,” Candy nodded and popped her spoonful of soup in her mouth. “We missed you too.”

“Indeed.” Captain Gregg’s blue eyes moved to the blonde sitting at the head of the table. “Is that so, madam?”

“When you’ve lived with someone everyday for four years, not having their voice around is a big change,” she admitted, blushing very slightly beneath his studious gaze. “A change of scenery will only keep a person distracted from that missing piece for so long.” She took a deep breath. It WAS good to have the Captain around again. “Come on, kids – finish up and then up you go to bed. It’s been a big day, and you could use a nice long sleep in your own beds. I’ll be up to tuck you in after a little bit.”

Both children quickly finished what was left of their meals and dutifully carried their plates and bowls to the sink before each giving Martha a big hug. “We’re glad you’re back too, Martha,” Candy told the older woman fondly. “We missed you too.”

“I missed you kids more than I thought I would,” Martha found herself admitting softly, hugging each child tightly to her before letting them go. “It’s good to be home again.”

“Go on now, scoot.” Carolyn watched her children scamper toward the front of the cottage and the staircase. “You go on up and unpack too,” she urged her housekeeper. “I’ve done a little unpacking of my own already – and there really aren’t all that many dishes. Frankly, doing dishes will help me realize that I really AM home.”

“If you’re sure,” Martha hesitated for a little while, but then saw her employer’s nod and determined look. “I’ll see you in the morning then,” she told her and rose to wipe her hands on her apron before untying it and hanging it from its customary hook near the back door.

The Captain waited until Martha was out of the kitchen before rising from his chair and helping Carolyn carry the rest of the dishes to the sink. “Would you like some help?” he offered.

“Thank you,” she answered with a gentle smile as she pulled enough hot water to wash four plates and four bowls. “It’s good to be home.”

“I meant what I told Jonathan,” the Captain commented in a restrained voice. “This place does better when there are sounds of life in it. I’m very glad you enjoyed your vacation, madam, but I’m infinitely more glad that you’re home again.”

“Here and I would have thought that getting back to the peace and quiet you have always bemoaned losing…” she teased him mercilessly.

He drew himself up to his full height and was about to launch into a full-scale bluster when he caught sight of her mischievous grin. “Yes, well,” he hedge, his mind working overtime to try to come up with a suitable defense, “you have to admit that there are times when the place seems about ready to bounce from its foundations…”

“Have you learned the lesson of ‘be careful what you wish for’ now, Captain?” Emerald eyes twinkled at him merrily.

“Indeed, madam. A return to endless days of nothing but peace and quiet is no longer on my list of things to wish for.” Crystal blue eyes twinkled right back at her as he grabbed for the dishtowel hanging from a hook and began drying the first plate out of the rinse water. “Well, and what about you?”

“What about me?” she inquired, another plate into the rinse water.

“Did you enjoy your vacation — your visits with your parents and your late husband’s parents?”

“It was OK,” Carolyn stated with a shrug.

“Only ‘OK?’”

She sighed as she dropped the fourth plate into the rinse water. “In both places, I got all kinds of pressure to come back to ‘civilization’, as they called it. They want me back — in Philadelphia or Bryn Mawr, they really don’t care…”

The Captain dried and put away plates for a moment. “And?” he asked finally.

“And nothing,” she sighed again. “Part of the reason I decided to move away was because I was tired of being in a tug-of-war between my own parents and Richard’s in regards to the kids. There’s no way in the world I’d move back into that.” She put the second bowl into the rinse.

“So you aren’t going to move back there…” he began to smile.

She looked up at him in surprise. “We’ve been over this before, Captain, every time one or the other of them comes to visit here. No, I’m not moving away. No, I’m not unhappy, unfulfilled, frustrated or otherwise hampered by living in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere.”

“Just making sure,” he soothed, drying the second bowl. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She shook her head. “It’s not you,” she told him. “It’s that I have to make the same point over and over again. You’d think they’d listen to me after a while.”

“Perhaps it’s because you’re important to them, and they don’t want to lose you,” the Captain said softly, suddenly and uncomfortably finding reason to appreciate the arguments of those distant relatives of hers. “Were I in a similar strait, I might plead my case repeatedly as well.”

Carolyn turned and gazed deeply into the blue eyes of the phantom that was the real reason she no longer could think of living anywhere else. “Would you?” she asked softly, her hands ceasing their motion of washing that final bowl.

The Captain found himself falling into the bottomless emerald pools that held him spellbound. “I think I might be moved to plead my case as passionately as I was allowed,” he answered, his melodious baritone filled with subtext. Without looking, he reached toward the rinse water for the final bowl just as she was placing it there.

For a fraction of a moment, their fingertips touched on the surface of the glass. There was a tingling and a warmth that each knew was different — both eyes dropped to the sink and took in what had taken place. Carolyn removed her hand from the water first, pulling her hand to her chest and cradling it with the other briefly.

“I’m sorry,” the Captain mumbled as he pulled the bowl from the water and dried it without looking at her. “I didn’t mean to…”

“No, it’s OK,” she reassured him, wishing she dared reach out a hand and see whether she could feel the same response touching him elsewhere. Instead, she dumped the dishwater and rinsed the pan before emptying that as well. “There,” she exclaimed firmly, finally looking up at him again, “all done. Thanks for your help.”

The Captain turned from hanging the dishtowel up again to find himself once more falling into her emerald gaze. “It was my pleasure, madam,” he said in a soft and husky voice. “And now, if I might suggest, it has been a long day for you too. It’s time for you to head to our cabin and get your rest.”

She heaved a big sigh and finally broke their gazes apart. “You’re right. I am tired.”

~~~~~~~~

The ghost of Captain Gregg stood with legs braced apart as if to steady himself on a rolling deck as he gazed out over the midnight seas from the widow’s walk of Gull Cottage. Below him, ‘his’ family was resting peacefully, safely returned to him, and all was still for the moment. Already time, that sedate river, had resumed its unpredictable path with eddies and small side currents that he’d grown accustomed to encountering. This was the stillness in which unpredictability took a breath and gathered its energies to begin anew in the morning.

As he felt the lateness of the hour, he dematerialized from his lonely watch and rematerialized in the hallway outside of the closed bedroom door to make his rounds — seeing to the peaceful and secure rest of his crew. He lingered outside Martha’s door only long enough to hear the older woman’s soft snoring within, too much a gentleman to trespass. He walked straight through the solid oak door into Candy’s room and stood for a moment over the girl’s bed, grateful that she was back. He straightened the covers and tucked her in just a little more securely before walking through the wall into Jonathan’s room. The boy was, as always, lying diagonally across his bed, his blankets twisted and nearly on the floor. Once more he bent and straightened covers, a gentle nudge urging the boy a little more squarely onto his bed.

At last it was time to check in on his most treasured crewmember, and he dematerialized and then reconstituted himself next to his telescope. Carolyn, however, wasn’t asleep. She’d pulled on her robe and was sitting in front of the small hearth, comfortable in an easy chair with her chin in her hand, preoccupied.

“Avast, madam, the hour is late and you should be a-bed,” he announced his presence.

She raised her head and looked at him. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said by way of excuse and gestured for him to join her in the other chair.

“Is there something troubling you?” he asked quietly, settling into the chair and leaning just a little in her direction.

“No, not really,” she replied, sinking her chin in her hand again. “It’s just… I’ve been sitting here trying to imagine NOT living here…”

The Captain sat up just a little straighter. “I thought you’d given that whole idea the heave-ho — that this was a matter we’d been over before and was already decided.”

“No, no, not that,” she shook her head, “I’m not thinking of moving away. I’m trying to imagine never having come here in the first place.” Her emerald eyes found him and rested on his face gratefully. “After all, this wasn’t the only place I was going to look at when we decided to move away from both my folks and Richard’s.”

“I thought the price Claymore was asking…”

“It was too good to be true, to be honest,” Carolyn told him. “I was certain that whatever he was talking about must have been a wreck, or a hovel. We drove out here preparing to drive away in disgust.”

“Madam, Gull Cottage…”

“I didn’t know you OR your home then,” she interrupted him before he could get a nice head of steam under his bluster. “And while it was sound, you have to admit that Gull Cottage was in need of some work.”

She had him there. “Still…” He sat back in his chair and watched as her face reflected her thoughts. “Why this line of contemplation?”

“Because…” she began, and then faltered and looked down at her hands. “Because of the way my folks were talking to me, trying to find ways in which living here has been inconvenient or lonely. I know they mean well, but they were looking for anything — any leverage at all — that they could use to convince me that I’d made a mistake to come all the way out here. But the more I’ve thought about it since then, the less I’m able to imagine my life anywhere else — and the more I know that I made the right decision to see whether Claymore’s offer WAS too good to be true.” She looked up at him. “And coming home this evening convinced me I was right — because you were here, waiting for us.”

“I have been waiting for you for a long time, my dear,” the Captain said in a low and gentle voice. “And your vacation has shown me that I too made the right decision in allowing you and your crew to come aboard my ship. This house has never seemed quite so abandoned as when you were gone. If you had come home determined to weigh anchor and head for more familiar — more civilized — ports…”

Carolyn shook her head. “Never, Captain. I’ve found my home port — I know that now.” She blushed a little and then yawned.

“Perhaps now you can settle down and rest,” he suggested. “Methinks a sweet dream or two about happy homecomings will chase away those niggling considerations.”

“I think I’d like that,” she told him honestly, rising and stretching like a cat in a way that, were he alive, would have made the Captain’s heart beat faster.

He rose as well and followed her as she shed the robe and slipped back between the crisp sheets. “Goodnight, madam,” he intoned as he slowly faded from sight.

Carolyn pulled the covers up over her shoulder and rolled into her pillow, her eyes closed. It was good to be home, to be in her own bed. To dream…

And in her dream, she walked up the flagstone walk to the front steps of Gull Cottage, where Captain Daniel Gregg stood watching her approach. “I’ve been waiting for you, madam,” he told her with a joyful smile lighting his bearded face. “Welcome home.”

And then he took her in his arms and proceeded to show her just how welcome she was.

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