Going for a run each morning helps keep me focused on the here and now. I’ll never make the cover of any fitness magazines but I’m taking care of myself. I’ve always exercised, eaten right, done what I could to stay healthy. I’m doing a little more now than I used to, but after the…you know…I’ve learned that life is precious, and sometimes it ends all too soon. Now, I’m learning to live again.
I’ve even built up a business here in Seaside. ‘Maddalena’s Mystic Portraits.’ There’s a sign on the highway directing people this way, and I have a website that books appointments for potential customers.
For me, it’s not an act. It isn’t just something I do to squeeze money out of people looking for something fun to do. When I paint, I can bring out the aura surrounding a person, their spirit, if you will. It’s a lot more complicated than that but it’s real. I don’t understand it. I don’t know why I have it. This is just something that has been with me…well, ever since the accident.
Part of what I tried to run from, when I came here to Seaside, was this talent. It wouldn’t let me leave it behind.
It’s a little overwhelming, sometimes. I never dreamed that this talent of mine would become something so popular. I’m sure my nonna never imagined she would one day have a granddaughter doing ‘aura paintings’ for tourists in an Oregon coastal community. I know my mother never did. I know that for a fact, because she tells me so every time she calls.
“That’s me,” I say to my reflection. “Maddalena D’Angelo, disappointing her mother since age eight. Meno male. At least I haven’t run off to join the circus. Mom should count her blessings.”
Meno male is one of those all-purpose Italian phrases that can mean whatever you want it to. The general sense is ‘what a relief.’ It’s pronounced may-no mah-lay, and if you can say it with an Italian accent, all the better. It’s a polite way of expressing a sour mood without actually swearing. Us good Catholic girls were always taught not to swear. We were taught not to live in mobile home communities and make money as a tourist attraction, too, but here I am.
I have my reasons for uprooting my whole existence and moving here, even if I’ve never been able to explain them to my mother. Or to anyone else. My reasons are very personal, and they suit me just fine. That’s what really matters.
The lines to Billy Joel’s My Life start playing in my head, and soon enough I’m humming it to myself. Karloff is done with his breakfast when I come back out to the kitchen. He’s still licking stew off his muzzle, enjoying every last bit of the bland sauce and dry meat and mushy carrots. To each his own, I guess.
His tail starts thumping against the broom closet door when I hook his leash to his collar, wagging so hard I’m afraid he’s going to break it—again—so I slip into my sneakers quick as I can, and we’re off.
Grace Gardens Mobile Home Park is a thriving little community all its own, settled on the hillside above Tillamook Beach. There’s several permanent single- and double-wides like mine, arranged on both sides of paved rows like streets, for the twenty or so people who live here on a year-round basis. They are as much a home for us as any mansion could ever be, and I’m happy here. There’s trees and rows of flowering bushes everywhere. People take pride in their homes here, with fresh coats of paint each year to protect against the salt spray in the air, and those little yard ornaments that spin in the breeze. We say hi to our neighbors. We watch out for each other.
There’s also several concrete pads waiting for the RVs and trailers of those who come and go. Some of them are just tourists here for a season who we never see again, but a lot of those spots are used by regulars who come to live here every summer. Snowbirds, as they’re called, staying here when it’s warm and heading down to southern California in the winter, following the sun. Mrs. Howard knows all of us by name, and she watches over each and every one like a mother hen with her chicks. It’s a nice place to live. Karloff and I really like it here.
It’s also right on US Highway 101, the Oregon Coast Highway. Anyone coming north into Seaside has to drive right past us. That’s why so many of us have little businesses here that cater to the tourists and the passersby. Me, with my spirit paintings. Jack Orson with his palm reading. Arianna Folstrom with her crystal charms. Yeah. We’ve kind of become known far and wide as the ‘psychic bazaar.’ I don’t hate it. I mean, it brings in business for me. Not that I need the money so much. I’m comfortable, with the residuals from that huge insurance payment the accident brought me, and my husband’s life insurance policy…but a woman needs to do something with her life. She needs a purpose.
Thinking of the insurance money reminds me of the accident once again, and I start to hear the screams of my little girl, like I do in my bad dreams…
Okay. No more of that today. Tomorrow it will still be there for me to obsess over. For now, I’m just going to enjoy my run. Of course, looking to the future doesn’t mean the past isn’t still with me. It’s never that far away. It’s a part of me. The accident, the ones I lost…what I gave up, and what I gained. Everything that makes me who I am right now.
“Come on,” I tell Karloff. “Let’s jog, dog. Time waits for no one, as the poets say.”
The sun is just high enough now to paint its light across the beach. This time of year, dawn is right around 5:30AM. Karloff didn’t wake me up all that much earlier than I would have gotten up anyway. I like to be out here early, to have the sand to myself, and see the beauty of the sun reflecting off the shifting waters of the Pacific Ocean. Golds and yellows and reds shimmer on the waves, mixing into an intense tableau of blues reflected from a clear blue sky above. Of course, out here on the West Coast, the sun rises over the land in the east, not over the water. The lighting of the waves is a gradual thing, and an intensely spiritual experience.
That’s another thing I love about living in Seaside. The town sits literally on the edge of a cliff wall, and below the cliffs is this wide ribbon of brown sandy beach that goes on for nearly fifteen miles. At different spots the cliff face has eroded to gently sloping hills, allowing easy access for surfers and swimmers and sun-worshippers. We’re known up and down the West Coast for our beaches. We even host surfing competitions every summer. It’s awesome to literally have this as my backyard.
Grace Gardens has one of those access spots so a short walk from my home has me walking along the ocean. There’s guardrails along the edge of the cliff up there, until the ground starts rolling downward, all grass and sand, like a naturally occurring ramp. I stumbled onto a little piece of Heaven on Earth when I stopped in this place six months ago, looking for directions. Turns out I didn’t need directions, because I was already right where I needed to be.
“Ready?” I ask Karloff.
He huffs a huge breath, looking out at the water, probably wishing he was going swimming instead. I’ve never seen a dog who enjoys being in the water like he does. Maybe there’s some shark in him, too. Honestly, nothing would surprise me when it comes to this dog.
For the record I don’t run the whole fifteen miles. I’m not a masochist. I’ll do about five miles up, and five miles back, at a pace that isn’t too challenging. The whole run takes me about two hours. Sometimes a little more if I slow down to enjoy the scenery or stop to talk to one of the locals who get up just as early as I do. The Sergeant Major, who’s name is actually Brandon Sirles, is one of those. He’s always out here at daybreak.
I start out at a jog, breathing slow and easy, one foot in front of the other, my pony tail swinging in time to my steps. I always start easy, warming my body up before I start pushing myself. You get a better workout that way. I think. Not like I’m anything more than an amateur at this—I do it for pleasure, not for sport.
I take deep breaths every four or five steps. The air here is so clean. So fresh. I remember that was one of the first things I noticed when I moved here. I was born and raised in Sacramento, California, which is a city of two-and-a-half million people. You can get lost in the crowd just going out for milk. Open space there is at a premium. Yes, it’s a city on the water, but not like this. There, it’s all smog and traffic and pigeons as far as the eye can see. Here it’s salt air and clean skies and the slow pace of a small town. Hard to picture anything going wrong here.
Compared to the city, this place is paradise.
Breathing in, breathing out, I put one foot in front of the other, leaving tracks in the wet sand right at the edge of where the waves break on the beach. They rush in at me, and then rush back to become part of the ocean again. In and out, up and down. Keep going. Breathe. Just keep going.
The ocean goes through four tide cycles every day. It took me a while to figure it out, but basically there’s low tide in the early morning, like now, when the water has retreated leaving more of the beach available to use. Wait a few hours, until almost ten o’clock, and the water can be five feet higher, or more. The same thing happens in the evening when the tide goes out around suppertime, and comes back in just before midnight, following the pull of the moon.
There’s also certain times of the year when the tide is much, much lower than others. This is July, so this is one of the lowest tide points of the calendar for Oregon. There are entire sections of coastline that are hidden from view until the waters get low enough to reveal them. All sorts of interesting things show up. Shipwrecks. Amazing rock formations. Parts of the past, even, like the Neskowin Ghost Forest. When the tide gets especially low up there in Neskowin these huge, dead tree trunks appear. They stick up from the sand, left behind from a spruce forest that existed two thousand years ago in an area that is now nothing more than sandy, lifeless beach. The salt water and mud are preserving the trunks like a memory of what used to be. It’s kind of creepy, but it’s awe inspiring too, to see what secrets the ocean keeps. Secrets of the past, and secrets of the deep.
The shadows of my own past retreat behind me with each footstep that slowly disappears to the endless motion of the water. I move, and I breathe, and the world moves around me. Yeah. Life is finally good again.
I always unhook Karloff’s leash when we’re running, wrapping it around my wrist in case I need it later. My dog is faster on his four feet than I am on my two, and he’ll run circles around me for fun. He likes to splash through the water, and snap at the waves, run up the beach a ways and then charge at the water again. He’ll sniff at the seashells or the crabs, curious to investigate whatever he finds. I also think he likes to run through the water to cool himself down. That shaggy coat of fur of his gets hot in the summer. In fact, I’ve been taking him to the Nail and Tail salon in town every week. My dog gets more haircuts than I do.
Breathe in, breathe out. One foot in front of the other. Footprints in the sand, washing away, leaving everything behind.
I can hear the distant traffic up on US Highway 101, a long distance away on my right, twenty or thirty feet up on the hilltop. It’s just a distant rushing sound, and if I try it isn’t all that hard to imagine there are no cars, just the wind. There is nothing else in the world right now, except me and the sand, and the surf, and my dog.
Just us, and that dark splotch up there on the edge of the water, with the waves breaking around it.
My pounding steps slow, from a speedy jog to a slow trot. Karloff gets ahead of me for a moment and then stops and stares down the shoreline at whatever the thing is. It’s been there this whole time but I only just noticed it because the sunlight shining off the water blinded me to it. There’s definitely something there. Something that shouldn’t be.
Karloff whuffs, and takes a few steps closer. His ears are laid back. His tail is down and it isn’t wagging now. Whatever it is, he doesn’t like it.
Always trust a dog’s instincts. That’s my motto. Or it would be, if I had one.
I never go anywhere without having my cellphone with me, even my morning jogs. We live in a world where there’s dangers around every corner, and where at any moment something can go horribly wrong. I learned that the hard way. It just doesn’t make sense not to have a phone with you for emergencies.
Coming to a complete stop now, I take my phone out of the pocket of my sweats and I’m just about to dial 911 when I realize…I don’t know what I would tell anyone. Help, there’s a dark blob on the water? I know some of the local police officers, and I doubt any of them would take me seriously if I don’t have something more than that to tell them. I have to at least figure out what that thing is first.
So, phone out and ready in my hand, I walk just a little bit closer.
There’s something very familiar about this thing I’m seeing, but I still can’t quite make out what it is…
Suddenly Karloff puts himself in front of me, standing firm and shoving his shoulder against my hip, trying to steer me away. He’s got the weight to do it, but I’m not interested in heading back home. Not until I know what’s going on here.
Something so oddly familiar about it. Like I should know what it is…
“Whuff.”
“Karloff, knock it off.” I shove back, which doesn’t push him aside so much as just get him to stand still, while I walk around the furry roadblock. “Seriously, I don’t know what you think you’re saving me from. I’m a big girl, remember?”
With an immense huff of air through his nostrils, he lets me know what he thinks of that.
“Very funny. Just remember who gave you stew this morning.”
Bringing my hand up to my forehead, I use my phone like a visor over my eyes to block the sun. That’s better. The thing in the water is still several dozen feet ahead of me but at least now I can make out the outline, and the colors. Pink, mostly. That’s weird. Why pink…? Oh! It’s one of those giant flamingo innertube floatie things. The head is comically large, with round, cartoonish eyes, bending up into the air to end at a hooked black beak. That’s why it seemed so familiar. Sure. It’s weird, but not scary. A giant, plastic, inflatable flamingo.
With a woman laying on it.
Around her, on the water, shadows dance on the tops of waves.
Okay. It’s a little odd to see someone out on a floatie at the crack of dawn, but sometimes tourists do weird things. People who have never been to the ocean before will come down to the water at all hours of the day—and night—to experience the feel of the waves and sand between their toes. So, I mean, it’s possible that’s all this is. After all, I’m out for a run at this hour, aren’t I? So some tourist from out of town wanted to come out and float on the water at dawn.
What’s the big deal? Why do I feel so uneasy looking at her?
Maybe it’s because she isn’t moving.
Which means…
Oh, no.
Low Tide Murder: A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Mystery (The Seaside Psychic Book 1) is available for pre-order at all retailers now. If you would like to reserve your copy or read more about it please click the link below.
