It was one of those hot autumn days in Georgetown, but the promise of a cooler evening sea breeze was very strong in the air. Allie Lexington was wandering aimlessly through the house, trying to decide where to start, she had ended up in Gram’s bedroom, where she had always gone when she needed comforting. It all seemed unreal. How could Gram be gone, and how was she going to go on without her? Gram had raised her to be a survivor and if she was going to honor her memory, she was going to have to find a way to go on. Gram’s last words had been to apologize for not hanging on long enough to see her wed, so she wouldn’t be leaving her alone.

     “I’m not alone.” She had assured her grandmother.

      Her grandmother had replied dryly, “Your dog does not count, darling.”  

      But she wasn’t alone. She could always feel her mother and father close by and she knew that Gram herself would be hanging around so much that she would never have a moment’s peace. She had her friends and co-workers. “I am going to be fine!” she said out loud. Not knowing if she spoke to TJ, her Sheltie or the various presences in the room.

      TJ assumed that she had been speaking to him and promptly jumped into her arms and began to lick her face thoroughly. “Okay, okay! Let’s find your leash and go for a walk.”  At the word ‘walk’, the dog leapt from her arms and ran full speed to the foyer and stood patiently in front of the door.

     Allie made her way down the stairs at a much slower rate of speed and grabbed TJ’s leash and her sunglasses. The dog was quivering with excitement as they stepped through the front door and onto the wide porch of her grandmother’s stately home. They walked down the steps and onto the sidewalk. “Which way, TJ?” she asked. TJ hesitated for only a few seconds and then turned right and started off down Broad Street.

     As they walked, she could feel the sea breeze on her face. She could tell that the night would have a refreshing reprieve from the heat. She stopped at The Wild Fish Grill and ordered a cup of Lobster Bisque for lunch. TJ, as usual made use of the water bowl outside, and then they headed onto the Harbor Walk. They walked the entire length of the Harborwalk and then headed back home.

     Allie had a consultant coming in a few days to help her convert the house into a bed and breakfast. The house was perfect for the venture. It had six bedrooms, five full bathrooms and a very large dining room. The front porch was as big as her whole apartment had been. When Allie had spoken to the woman on the phone, she had asked her to start removing personal items from the common rooms and the rooms that would be used for guest rooms.

     She had spent the last week, packing up her apartment on Hilton Head. She had sold or given away most the furniture and things. She had brought only ten boxes with her, mostly clothes. Her life had always been here in this house.

     The house had always been in her family. It had been built by her six times great grandfather in 1742. The story was that he was a shipping mogul. Allie suspected that he was a smuggler as well as the legitimate shipping, but Gram had always said she had too much imagination. Allie had studied the history of the area extensively; she had been fascinated by history for as long as she could remember. She had begun participating in reenactments in the area when she was twelve and had continued up until she left for college. She had even taken enough history classes in college to have a double major.

     Her favorite period of history was the Revolutionary period. Most people thought of places up north when they thought of the Revolutionary period, but many of the battles had been fought in the south and Georgetown had seen its share of action. The legendary Swamp Fox, Francis Marion, had lived in the area and had been based here for much of the war. She had drug her friend Katie to battlefields all over the Carolinas, while their friends were hanging out at the beach.

     Allie was having a contractor come next week to convert the front of the walk up attic into a sitting room. There was a large window up there with a view of Winyah Bay. But standing in her way was two hundred and forty years worth of stuff that had collected up there. She had spent many rainy days poking through the boxes and chests up there as a child. Her Gram had said more than once that there were probably enough antiques up there to see her and Allie comfortable for the rest of their lives, she was about to find out.

     Allie and TJ climbed the stairs to the attic, and Allie went to the large window and attempted to open it. It hadn’t been opened in at least ten years. After several tries it finally groaned and moved an inch or two. With several more tries the window was open an impressive ten inches and there was a nice breeze blowing through the attic.

     “Well, now I need a nap,” Allie said to TJ, who was in fact napping on the seat of an ancient arm chair. She made her way down the stairs to the kitchen for a glass of tea. The kitchen was her favorite room. All of her best memories of Gram and her mother were in that kitchen. She only had a few memories of her mother; she had been only three when she died. Her father had died before she was born during the invasion of Grenada. After he died her mother had moved in with Gram, when Allie was three, her mom had been on her way to work one morning and been hit by a drunk driver.

       The kitchen was a large room that had originally been the outdoor kitchen house, but over the years had been swallowed up by the main house as it grew. It had the original exposed beams in the ceiling, and a large fireplace on one wall. The fireplace had a wood box and an oven built in. It also had the hardware to hang pots and a spit to roast meat. She and Gram had fed armies from that fireplace when hurricanes had left the city without power. People brought all the food from their refrigerators and freezers and they had produced feasts with it. The room had been modernized, but in a way that kept the charm of the eighteenth century intact. It was going to be perfect for the B&B. This kitchen was the reason that she had become a chef.

     Allie had gone to Charleston for college. After graduation she had come home for the summer, but only stayed for two weeks before she got a call from a resort on  Hilton Head Island. She and her best friend Katie had both been hired at the same resort. Allie had worked hard and had moved up quickly. When she had quit two weeks ago she had been the sous chef at the best restaurant on the island.

     Katie was coming to join her in the B&B adventure in two weeks. Katie was going to live in the guest house out back. She wanted to share the guesthouse with Allie, they had been roommates in college, but it didn’t seem right to move out of the main house. She didn’t want to leave the family ghosts in the hands of strangers. There was a large room that had been added on sometime after the original construction over the kitchen and that would be her new room. It had a small staircase that went down to the kitchen and a small bathroom just outside the door that would be hers. She had often wondered why the room had been built; Gram said she thought it may have been for the house slaves. The family had also owned a small plantation outside of Georgetown that had grown indigo and they had been slave owners.

     She felt eyes on her back and slowly turned around to find TJ looking at her. “Sorry buddy, I just miss her so much.” At the sound of her voice the dog stood up and walked to her side and let out a sigh. “You miss her too, I know.” Gram had loved the little dog from the first day Allie had brought him home. She had been a freshman in high school and had saved her money for almost a year to be able to buy a puppy. A family several blocks away had two Shelties and they had puppies every now and then. Allie had been so excited when she found out that puppies were on the way. She had gone straight to their house after school every day for two weeks waiting for the puppies to be born and then everyday for six weeks after they were born to play with them and help the couple take care of them. They let her have first pick for all her help.

     She hadn’t had any trouble picking. There were four puppies, two boys and two girls. Three were tri-colored and one of the males was a sable. TJ was a tri, he had three white feet and one brown one and he had a perfectly marked face with just the right amount of white going up from his nose and ending between his eyes. She knew from the first time she saw him that he was her dog. Intelligence shone from his face and Allie had not been disappointed. He was smarter than most people she knew and much kinder as well. “Alright, enough loafing. Back to work.” And she and TJ went back to sorting out the attic.

     After three days of sorting and the help of a couple of guys who she had gone to highschool with, the front part of the attic was ready for the contractor to come in and do his thing. Allie had found some wonderful things to use in the house, and she had two dozen treasures in a local consignment shop that should feed her and TJ, and pay the taxes for the year. She felt bad about selling the things, but she could furnish the whole house twice and still have leftovers with just the things she had sorted out so far and there was so much more left to do.

     With three days to go before the consultant arrived, Allie decided to switch gears and start working on the guest rooms. She had helped Gram buy all the linens and things for the bedrooms. Gram had decided to do this after Allie had moved to Hilton Head. She had added two bathrooms and had the wiring brought up to code before she had gotten sick. It had been Gram’s way of getting Allie home. Now it was Allie’s job to make Gram’s vision a reality. Gram had wanted Allie to cook for the B&B and she would have her own restaurant as well. The dining room was big enough for the B&B guests and outside patrons, not to mention the porch that would accommodate at least ten more tables.

     First thing on her list was to clean out the mess that was to be her new room. She hated to give up her room. It was the second best room in the house with a view of the bay and a window seat. It had been her mother’s room and Gram’s room as a girl, but it was a room that the customers would fight over. Her new room had only a view of the alley and the guest house. It had a door that opened to an outside staircase that went to the backyard, so she could come and go without being seen if needed. It was also full of the stuff that never made it to the attic.

     She had given herself only one day for this project, so she began at dawn. Her friends were coming at seven to help her carry things to the attic and to the consignment shop. Allie put her long brown hair into a ponytail and went to work. At two she stopped for lunch. She and TJ went out on the porch to eat. The house next door was already a very successful B&B; they had encouraged Gram in the venture and promised to send their overflow to Gram. The guests from the B&B were also eating lunch on the neighbor’s porch and Allie watched as the hosts served the guests. She was going to enjoy having people filling up the house; it had always felt so empty with just her and Gram. It was the kind of house that needed to be filled with people.

     After lunch, Allie returned to her new room to survey the damage. She was halfway done, she would need to hurry if she was going to finish before her friends arrived. She had started dinner when she prepared her own lunch, so she would need time to finish that also.

     Allie put tags on things that were too big for her to move alone and she had a pile of things to go into the attic by the stairs and a pile for the consignment shop out in the hallway. There was a pile of things to be donated in one corner of room and trash in another corner. While she worked, TJ napped. Around five, she was very proud of her progress, there were only two boxes left in the last corner of the room. Allie opened a large box of books and began to sort through them. There was a built in bookcase in the parlor and Allie wanted to have a large selection of reading material in there for her guests. When the box was empty, Allie moved it to the donation pile and began refilling it.

     Suddenly there was an odd noise coming from the corner of the room. It was TJ frantically digging at a spot on the floor. “Stop that!” Allie scolded. TJ did not even look up at her. She walked across the room to physically stop him. This was very odd, TJ had done the usual chewing as a puppy, but he had never been a destructive dog. Allie looked closely at the floor where her dog had been digging. The board looked funny. The floors upstairs were the original pine flooring and they were beautiful. TJ had actually made several deep scratches on the board in question. TJ was sitting beside her and watching her closely. He was making little whining sounds in his throat.

     “You should be sorry.” Allie scolded the little dog. She reached down to touch the scratches and felt the board shift slightly. She now realized why the board looked funny. The other boards were three or four feet long, this one was only around ten inches long. Allie pushed down on one end and nothing happened, then she pushed on the other end and the board suddenly popped up. Underneath was a small opening.

      Allie put her hand down into the hole and found a small book and a wooden box. She turned to TJ and patted his head. “Good job, just don’t scratch the floor next time.” The dog grinned at her, thoroughly proud of himself. She opened the book and flipped through the pages. The writing appeared to be old, but still very legible. “I wish I had time to read this,” she sighed. Allie put the book and the box beside her water bottle to look at later and replaced the board. Then she tackled the very last box which also was full of books. She finished up around six. “Just in time to finish dinner,” she said to TJ who perked up at the word dinner.

     She quickly washed up, changed her t-shirt and ran down to the kitchen to tackle dinner. She served her friends on the porch and then they got to work. In two hours all the piles had been dealt with and she sat on the porch with her friends until eleven. It was the most fun she had had since Gram had gotten sick. She could feel Gram smiling at her. She had always fussed at Allie for working so hard and not taking time to relax. That was why the B&B appealed to Gram; she knew that Allie would be able to work hard and have fun at the same time.

     Allie said goodbye to her friends and quickly tidied up the porch. She was so tired, but it was the good kind of tired. She was ahead of schedule, thanks to her friends and she could maybe even sleep late in the morning.

     She went up the stairs to the doorway of her new room. It was empty, except for a very large and very heavy dresser that she had decided to use, mostly because the guys swore that it was either made of lead or had actually been built in that spot. Allie laughed to herself; the thing probably had been built right where it stood. On top of the dresser, she caught sight of the book and the wooden box. She had nearly forgotten about them. She picked up the book and found that it was diary; the date on the first page was July 18, 1780. It was in very good condition and all the pages seemed very legible. The box was very old and had been very well used. The hinges complained loudly at being asked to move, but the box did open. Inside was a silver heart-shaped locket on a long chain and a plain silver wedding band.

     As curious as she was, she was way too tired to tackle reading 18th century handwriting. She picked up the book and the box and took them to her room; she placed them on the nightstand beside her bed. She quickly dressed for bed and, with a longing look at the items on the night stand, turned off the light and fell deeply asleep. She dreamt that night of a woman named Sarah who wept as if her heart were breaking and begged Allie for her help. She dreamed of ships lost at sea and of two men that were each tugging on one of her arms. One was dark in coloring and Allie felt that he loved her, the other was fair and while not evil, seemed wrong to her.

     She awoke sobbing. The dreams had been so real, almost like the ones that she had of her mother. She felt as if the dream was hanging in the air, like a cloud around her. Needing air, she quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and pulled her hair into a ponytail. TJ followed her expectantly to the door and Allie obligingly attached his leash and opened the front door. They started off at a rapid pace that had them at the bay in no time. Allie found an empty bench and took a seat. She could still feel the desperation and the sorrow of the woman named Sarah. TJ jumped into her lap and began to lick her face with worry. “It’s okay boy. It was just a dream.”

     They walked to a coffee shop nearby that had outdoor tables and Allie ordered coffee and a veggie omelet. The waitress brought TJ a bowl of water and a piece of toast when she brought Allie’s food. The food was very good and the coffee wasn’t bad. She could still ‘feel’ the dream but not as strongly. She and TJ walked home much more slowly and by the time they arrived, Allie was feeling much more like herself. She went to work on the remaining items on her list of things to do before the consultant arrived, and managed to accomplish quite a bit, but even hard work could not make her forget her dream.

     The last thing on the list was to move into her new room. The furniture in her old room had been there for at least 80 years, probably longer and it seemed to belong there. While cleaning the attic Allie had found a beautiful cherry canopy bed and a dresser with a marble top that she wanted to use in her new room. The guys had moved them downstairs for her and made new slats for the bed. Her new mattress had arrived a few days ago. Now Allie was putting the finishing touches on the room, in the last box she found the diary and box that TJ had ‘dug’ up. She had almost forgotten about them. She carefully placed both items onto the marble top of the dresser and vowed to take time to examine them more carefully when the room was finished.

     Allie stood in the doorway of her new room and took a critical look at her work. The bed had cleaned up beautifully and the lace curtains that she had hung from it were carefully drawn and tied. The furniture glowed in the late afternoon sun and the braided rug that Allie had taken from Gram’s room was perfectly placed with a big overstuffed armchair and ottoman. Allie had found a stand lamp in the attic with what she believed to be a Tiffany shade and put it and a little side table by the chair. Her bookcase was the only piece of furniture that she had taken from her old room. It had been Gram’s and she had given it to Allie when she was twelve and had a voracious appetite for books. As a matter of fact, the shelf still contained her set of Nancy Drew Mysteries that she couldn’t bear to part with.

     Cleaning out her room had been hard, but it was done and she was almost excited about spending her first night in the new room. She had not been sleeping well. Almost every night she dreamed of the woman named Sarah and most nights she awoke sobbing. Sarah was very beautiful, she had long dark hair and her eyes were a deep green and contained more sadness than Allie had ever seen in one human being before. She didn’t speak to Allie other than to ask for help, and her eyes always seemed full of desperation.   

     That night she sat down in her chair and with the wooden box. She looked at the carving on the outside of the box. It was covered in wisteria vines all around the sides; the top had a very detailed carving of a seagull eating a fish. The gull had the most mischievous look in his eye and the eye seemed to follow you. The background was of the sea and a small ship on the horizon. Allie turned the box over and looked at the bottom. There carved in a heart was the name Sarah and in a corner was the name Thomas.  

     She took out the locket and examined it closely. It was very heavy, and the chain was much thicker than a modern necklace. She carefully opened the clasp and found a lock of dark hair and a miniature portrait of a man with dark hair. Allie almost dropped the locket, the face was familiar, he was one of the men from her first dream of Sarah. Her arms were covered in goosebumps and her heart was racing. “How could I have dreamed about him before I saw the picture?”  TJ whined softly. Allie quickly decided that this was not the right time to examine TJ’s find, especially if she wanted to get any sleep. She grabbed the novel she had been reading and tried to get her mind off of the face in the locket.