Shadow of a Life Read Online Free PDF

was eighteen. Didn’t I mention that
already?”
    “ I don’t understand. The way
I always heard the story was that something happened on the ship so
everyone piled into a lifeboat, but you were all washed away in a
storm. The Mary Celeste was found abandoned by another boat days later and
hauled to someplace in Europe without any of the original crew on
board.”
    “ Remember how I said that
behind every myth or legend there’s some truth?” Sophia
asked.
    “ I guess so.”
    “ Well, that’s the case in my
situation. When someone becomes a ghost they can distinctly picture
every memory of their entire life, even the moments when they were
just babies. No two-year-old is going to remember anything for very
long in real life, so it wasn’t until after I’d died that I knew
who I was and that there was a mystery surrounding my
life.”
    “ Maybe you should just tell
me the story from the beginning. I’ll try not to
interrupt.”
    Sophia sat on the couch next to me and
pulled some of my blanket over to her. Her face took on a somber
look as she spoke.
    “ My dad was a seaman all his
life. It was something that was in his blood. When he was in his
mid-twenties he married my mother, Sarah Cobb. They were
cousins.”
    “ Ewww,” I grimaced,
forgetting my promise not to interrupt.
    “ Don’t worry; it was
completely normal back then. Anyway, my mother’s father—my
grandfather—was a preacher, so my parents were religious. They were
good people, Jamie.”
    I nodded.
    “ I have an older brother.
His name was Arthur, and he was born here in Marion a few years
before me. I graced the world with my presence on October 31, 1870.
Arthur adored me. He was always willing to entertain me when Mother
needed a break. My only memories of him are truly happy
ones.”
    “ Why didn’t Arthur go with
your family on the Mary
Celeste ?”
    “ Because Mother insisted he
stay home so that he wouldn’t miss school.” Sophia’s countenance
suddenly brightened. “Speaking of my mother, she was absolutely
enchanting. I wish you could have met her, Jamie. I wish I could have spent more
time with her for that matter. She had such a sweet personality
that everyone who met her loved her instantly. She loved music.
Father said she could sing like a bird.” Sophia laughed.
    There was so much sadness behind the
sparkle in Sophia’s eyes that I felt myself feeling even more drawn
to her than I had the day before. It felt as if we’d already known
each other for a lifetime.
    “ Anyway, about the time of
my second birthday, we set sail for Staten Island where Father was
to receive a load of alcohol and sail with it to Italy. The night
before we left, my parents met with Captain Morehouse for dinner.
He was the captain of a ship by the name of Dei Gratia and a friend of my father.
Captain Morehouse was sailing to somewhere in Europe, too. I don’t
recall where exactly and it’s not important. They all expected to
see each other in Italy in the weeks ahead.”
    “ Isn’t Captain Morehouse the
one who found the Mary Celeste sailing by itself?”
    Sophia nodded. “Yep. Good memory. I
take it you’ve heard the story before?”
    “ Many times. It’s
fascinating.”
    “ We spent the first two and
a half weeks of the crossing trying to keep ourselves entertained.
Mother emptied out our large sea chest and I would sit inside it
and play. She would pretend she didn’t know where I was and I would
sit in the bottom of the case giggling. It was a very peaceful
time. Unfortunately, the morning of November
25 th brought choppier seas and a little bit of rain.”
    “ So there was a big storm? Is that
what happened to your family?” I had a hard time waiting for Sophia
to get to the part of her story where they all
“disappeared.”
    “ Well, as you seem to know,
one theory about the mystery of the Mary
Celeste was that we were caught in a big
storm. Yes it was stormy, but it wasn’t anything that concerned my
father much. He’d