The doctor was silent for awhile, apparently wondering how much he could tell her. Finally, he blurted out, "Well, the story is a long one. It seems my family has been the hereditary caretakers of this lighthouse since it was first built. In fact, my family built it - or helped, anyway." He went on to describe how the family tales described the building and the many generations of family that lived in it. "When my uncle died, the last living occupant, I was sent the family Bible as part of the will. In it was a simple note: 'My dearest Jack, Now it's all over to you. May Lady Luck grace your remaining days as she has mine. Your Uncle Joe.'"
With that, the doctor looked out to sea again, silent.
Doreen kept her peace out of respect, even though the silence deepened to near insufferability.
Finally, Jack spoke. "As you experienced, my dreams started that night. And I would wake up after incredible dreams and the only thing I could do was to read that Bible. Not the regular verses, just the family history and stories. In fact, I'd close it up and come back to find it open. Time after time. I'd even put a heavy weight on it, but shortly I hear it thump to the floor - and it would be open to the last page I had read. And once I finished reading it, it then opened back at the beginning pages of the family history again. Spooky."
"Why didn't you just sell it in a used book store or give it away?"
"Tried that. Every store I'd go to would either suddenly be closed or not authorized to purchase it, or some other very probable excuse. I even put it in one of those deposit boxes. It showed up back at my apartment on the same table, open to the last-read page. Tried deposit boxes across town or in other suburbs - same thing. It would be there waiting for me. So I started taking what I read seriously and made inquiries."
The doctor paused, then continued. "Now it gets even weirder after that. It turns out that when the Coast Guard turned the lighthouse back over to private ownership, they couldn't sell it at any price. Until they finally were told to basically give it away - back to my family. Seems the Commandant was having bad dreams which only got worse the more he tried to ignore them. To get back his sanity, he ordered it transferred back to the family under any conditions which made it legal. So my ancestors got their home back for a dollar."
Jack poured them both some coffee and took the last bun after Doreen politely refused.
"Did your Bible tell you there was an amulet buried nearby?"
"Not in so many words. It did have an odd poem on a very worn page, written in a dialectical prose. Since I get great Internet here, I've been deciphering it as I can - and the clues are sometimes elusively cryptic until I can get inspired enough to sort them out. Just finished it the other week, just before I got that hole started."
"So why don't you finish the hole and get your amulet?"
"Well, as I said, it's jinxed."
"Oh come on... Do you believe all that? It should just be able to be dug up!" Doreen exclaimed, unable to hold herself back.
"Not that simple. For instance, it breaks shovel handles and shatters pickaxe heads. Even just sitting there. I've gone to town and came back to find all my tools in pieces. Now I've replaced or repaired them all, but they sit locked in that garage until the jinx is broken."
"So did any part of that Bible say how you could break it?"
"Not exactly. It told me to ask the ghosts."
"Ghosts?!?"
"Yea, like the ones you dreamed about last night."
That stopped Doreen cold as she just stared at him. And then she remembered what he had said earlier. "Oh, that's right, you said I was in your dreams as you were in mine."
"And you met all the local ghosts last night. It was a new moon, their favorite time to be out and about. I give up sleeping then. Just nap to catch up. Good thing I'm retired."
"But in my dream you were sleeping up here in the deck chair..."
"Dozing, maybe. But when you are constantly having to listen to Julian and Hermione run up and down the stairs and through you while incessantly giggling and teasing each other, plus the endless raucous poker game downstairs, you really don't get much peace until the sun comes up."
"Dead relatives?"
"No, they all were shipwreck victims nearby. But they are also tied to the jinx, they tell me."
"You talk to them?"
"Well, mostly I just listen real carefully. Because if you can get a ghost to tell you their whole story, they just move on. So they've learned not to talk to humans, because they think they have advantages being ghosts. One of the stories in that Bible was about an ancestor who was a rather liberal-thinking pastor, and found that out. He wrote that there used to be hundreds infesting this place, but he was able to get the others to leave - except for these few, which are tight-lipped to outsiders or anyone in solid form."
"So how did you find this out?"
"Gifts. The poker players like Rum, the older the better. The newlyweds - well, Julian likes cigars and Hermione likes fresh cut flowers. That's the holder by the door - it was welded in place by some distant ancestor. Julian gets jealous and goes to smoke his stogies on the other side while she sits there where you are and just prattles on about how pretty they are."
This made Doreen slightly uncomfortable, which the doctor noticed. He reassured her, "No, they don't come out in daylight and actually don't harm anyone. In good weather, I'll go and camp out in the garden - the sound doesn't carry as well out there and I can get some sleep. But no, in answer to your question, I can't just leave and go into town. Usually the car won't start if I'm thinking of leaving. I have to clear it with them before I can go anywhere."
Doreen was dubious about this, but was willing to play along, since everything else fit.
"Then why don't you just find out how this jinx works and get it removed?"
"Because it is going to take someone else."
"Like who?"
"Like you."
"Me?!?"
Jack just sat quietly, and looked deep into her eyes until she had to turn away.