The Beach at Herculaneum
by
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I looked up the staircase. She was there, I knew it.
I started up the steps, just as another tremor rumbled through. Lying face-down on the broken staircase, I shielded my face from the falling debris and waited for the dust to settle. My head ached, and something warm and sticky ran down my temple. I knew what it was, but it didn’t matter. I was all right. I could go on. Slowly, painfully, I hauled myself to a kneeling position on the staircase and began to crawl. Help me, I murmured as I climbed. Help me…. Step by step, I dragged my body up, clutching with my jagged fingernails, pushing with my feet, keeping my focus on the second floor landing just above me. Just a few more steps.
When I finally reached the top of the stairs, I lay for a moment, trying to catch my breath, then I braced myself on what was left of the wall and struggled to my feet. Looking to the right, I could see the door to Daphne’s apartment. It was ajar. Inside I could see her dressing table and silver mirror against the wall, her old wooden loom over by the balcony. They weren’t charred or destroyed. Neither were the fabrics that lay on the floor nearby. It was all just as it had been.
Some part of my brain knew this was a forbidden threshold I was about to cross, but even as my mind formed the thought, my feet were moving forward. I paused only momentarily in the doorway, then I stepped inside and turned to scan the room. And there she was!
Daphne was on her knees over by the corner, running her hands across the floor, franticly searching for something. Suddenly her fingers clutched at a dark metal object. Carefully she drew it out by its chain…a small, metallic pendant in bronze filigree. I saw her shoulders shake as she pressed the talisman to her lips.
Daphne…!
She stopped and froze. Then she turned slowly and looked up, straight at me. In that instant I know she saw me. Her dark, tear-stained eyes fixed on my face. Her body trembled as she rose to her knees. She held up the talisman and whispered something, so soft I couldn’t make it out. I opened my mouth to tell her…to warn her… but the words wouldn’t come out. Run! my mind screamed at her. Get out of Herculaneum!
Then I felt myself reeling, losing consciousness, sinking to the floor beside her…
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About the Book
Daphne is vividly alive, fiery, passionate, hungry for life—and yet she has been gone for nearly two thousand years. Daphne died in AD 79, when Mount Vesuvius destroyed her seaside town of Herculaneum. Now, she is lost in time.
Anne McCarthy has no one. Angry with God, she exists in the present day, but she feels dead inside. Trapped in her unresolved grief over the loss of her husband and five-year-old son in a car accident, she tries to insulate herself from all emotion. But she is haunted by disturbing dreams and visions from another language, time, and place. A priest recommends she take a retreat at a convent, where she hopes she can finally find the peace she needs to move forward. When the dreams become more sinister, Anne decides to travel to Rome for answers, soon realizing that her path to healing has only just begun.
In this moving story, two women separated by centuries but joined in spirit must make a perilous journey together to the edge of death and beyond, as one attempts to right an ancient wrong and the other finds a way to live and love again.
About the Author
Susan G. Muth is a stage director and drama coach. She is also an actress, a portrait painter, a horse trainer, a singer, a dog agility enthusiast, and a lover of all things beautiful and mysterious. She holds an MFA from the University of New Orleans and has published journal articles, short fiction, and poetry. The Beach at Herculaneum is her first novel.