The Dead Love Longer by Scott Nicholson

where I was, then glanced back at the three-story house where I was staying. A dim light shone there, perhaps the candle I had used for reading. When I looked back, she was gone, and though I ran some distance through the sand, I couldn't find her.
    Just then the wind gained speed, the clouds divided, and the quarter-moon's glare bathed the beach. The bay was barren and calm. There was no sign of the lady in white, not even a footprint in the wet sand.
    Somewhat disconcerted, I finally made my way back to the house. I went upstairs to the room where I had spread my sleeping bag and laid out my books and laptop. The candle had burned down to half its length. I must have been out on the beach for hours. Numb, I crawled into the bag and sought refuge in sleep, images of her beautiful face dominating my restless thoughts.
    In the morning, I laughed at my strange dreams and laid out a few more of my supplies. I opened a tin of fish and ate an apple, then spent an hour at the keyboard, typing my impressions of yesterday's debarkment . Satisfied that I had given my editor a good start for her money, I changed into shorts and a light shirt and headed into the heart of the ghost town.
    As I walked past the vacant homes and blank windows, I felt as if eyes were upon me. I even shouted once, a great questioning "Hello," still not convinced that the island was completely uninhabited. Nothing answered me but a keening gull's cry.
    I found the ranger station, but it was securely locked, the doors and windows barred with steel. Next to it was a building that must have been a general store, for it had benches and a watering trough out front, and assorted rusty hooks and hangers covered its front wall. The interior was desolate, though. I walked past the long, collapsed counter to where the rear of the building opened onto a pier.
    I pushed the door aside from where it dangled on warped hinges, then went to the end of the pier. The Atlantic was laid out before me, bejeweled and glorious, a million diamonds on its surface. I looked out across the bay to the protective cup of dunes four hundred yards away. Then I recalled the previous night, and for the briefest of moments, I saw a clipper, its bulkheads shattered, the prow tilted toward the sun, the sails like tattered ghosts. I blinked and the illusion passed. I laughed to myself, though sweat pooled under my arms.
    The day grew rapidly warm, and since the tide was calm, I removed my shirt and shoes and jumped into the water. After a swim, I returned to my makeshift studio, regretting the lack of a shower. I ate a ready-made lunch, then gathered my camera to make the four-mile journey to the island's southern tip.
    As I walked that narrow barrier island, I discovered why all the settlement was on the upper end. The land was little more than a grim cluster of dunes, with swampy pockets of trapped water scattered here and there along the interior. They weren't the vibrant, teeming swamps such as those in Florida . These were bleak, lifeless pools where only mosquitoes seemed to thrive. The parasitic insects set upon me in clouds, and I spent more time beating them away than I did finding suitable photography subjects.
    I gave up barely halfway to my destination because the scenery was so hopelessly unvarying. I decided I'd capture some sunsets and sunrises instead, to focus more on the grandly archaic buildings and the Portsmouth beaches. I slogged back to the abandoned town, hoping to write a little more before dark. But I couldn't concentrate on my work. Instead, I stared out the window as the fingers of night reached across the town, thinking of my dream woman and comparing her beauty to that of all the other women I'd known.
    Restless, I walked the beach at gray dusk. I kept to the Atlantic side, along the bay. I was nearing the old store when she came from the darkness beneath the pier. She wore the same dress that had graced her gentle curves on the previous night. Her fine hair fluttered