I was looking at Bryson when I said this, and with this pronouncement, the storm died on my last word. I wasn’t the only one who noticed and my guests all showed varying degrees of alarm and awe—and relieved approval—at this declaration. We all felt that we were getting off light.
“I’ll make the arrangements,” Harris said, looking more comforted by the calm than anyone else. “Father Driscoll is an old friend. He … understands.”
“Thank you,” I said and meant it. “It’s time Hannah found some rest.”
Chapter 6
The party broke up soon thereafter. I dreaded the moment I was alone with Brandy and Jack, fearing they might want to rehash events or ask more questions, but they seemed exhausted and wanted to go to bed.
We used the electric lights to find our way upstairs where I lit old-fashioned fires I’d laid earlier in the small bedroom grates. We hugged and air-kissed goodnight. Well, Brandy and I did. Jack’s hug had more substance to it.
Neither of my guests was in my grandmother’s room—Hannah’s room. They weren’t even on the same side of the house so they saw nothing alarming, assuming anything was there to see. I didn’t go looking for shadows either.
Kelvin was waiting in the middle of my bed. His eyes were large but peaceful, his fur unperturbed. I lighted my own fire and he purred with approval. Kelvin loves warm things. Though exhausted, I took the time to wipe off my eye makeup. My lipstick, in spite of being “long-wear” had been chewed off hours ago.
Bed had never felt so good and it was the first time in weeks that I hadn’t heard crying with either my ears or my mind when I went to sleep. I didn’t even stop to look at my bed curtains to see if the handprint was gone. Later I would look. I would probably also pay a visit to Sands’ grave in the spring and see if Hannah’s handprint remained there.
* * *
Breakfast was almost festive. Ben, perhaps seeing lights come on in the kitchen just after dawn, arrived a few minutes later with blueberry muffins. After we had had some coffee and devoured a bit of sweet, Jack set about making his one company breakfast dish—omelets. This time stuffed with venison instead of ham.
Brandy came wafting in, fresh and perfumed from her bath, and sat down next to Ben. She looked a decade younger. Perhaps I would too after some time in the tub.
We were working on the second round of coffee when Ben finally asked how he could help me prepare for the funeral. I knew that part of him was thinking about the book he would write, but I forgave him.
I explained about needing to build a small bonfire out back to soften the ground for a bit of digging. Ben is pretty unflappable but this startled him.
“Tess, you’re not….”
“No, but I want to add a couple of mementos that she kept hidden in her room. In case she wants them.” And because I wanted them out of the house. “Do you have a copy of the Book of Common Prayer for the Church of England?”
“Yes.” He didn’t ask why I wanted it. Possibly it was obvious and Ben, being irreligious, didn’t feel the need to comment.
“You don’t think that perhaps Father Driscoll will have preferred texts to read?” Jack asked. He is just as quick on the uptake but less delicate. “I mean, the different denominations are pretty strict about sticking to the doctrine, aren’t they?”
“Maybe, though Father Driscoll is apparently willing to plan a funeral for a ghost with an unmarked grave, so he can’t be that rigid in his thinking. And I want some of the readings we had at my grandmother’s funeral.” My voice sounded a little flat. So I added a smile. “I’m winging it here, guys. I have a feeling we are only going to get one chance to do this right. Let’s go old school.”
“Well, I am going to wash dishes. The stacks are getting dangerously high,” Jack said. “Don’t worry about the cleanup, Tess. Brandy and I can handle it.”
Brandy blinked but didn’t contradict him.
“Thanks. I don’t think I’ll be very long. I just need to talk to Harris and then Father Driscoll. And look through my closet. I don’t know if I packed my black dress. It was getting awfully tired looking and I think it went to the thrift shop when I moved. Maybe my grandmother left something in her closet.”
“Oh,” Brandy said, and I knew that before a single dish got washed she would be upstairs examining her own wardrobe for funeral attire. If she was deficient I didn’t know what she would do. There are limited clothes shopping options on the islands, especially of the couture variety.
“And I’ll gather up some limbs and twigs for your fire,” Ben said. “Just tell me where you want them.”
“You know that broken statue—the one without a head? Right there would be fine. And I think we may have to use some of those pinecone fire-starters from the library. Everything out there is going to be terribly wet.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve lived here for a year now. I’ll make it go.”
I nodded. It was a day for delegating. Probably I would have to redo the bonfire and wash all the crystal again later to remove the smudges Jack missed, but it was irrelevant. My friends wanted to help, and one lesson I have learned in life is that it is important to let them.
“Tess, you’re looking thoughtful. Are you okay?” Ben asked.
“Of course. I was just wondering if Kelvin would accept a dog friend.” The words popped out of my mouth without any planning, but they sounded alright. It would be nice to have a dog.
“Any particular breed?” Ben asked.
“Friendly,” I said decidedly.
“I have a friend whose bitch just whelped. The puppies are mixed though. And I could always dog-sit for you, if you needed me to.”
“Thanks. And mixed is okay. But first I need to run this by Kelvin. It’s his house too.”
They all nodded, believing I meant that I needed to think it over. Little did they know that I was serious about checking with Kelvin. The cat couldn’t talk in the human manner, but he had ways of making his wishes known.
Chapter 7
I took it as a good sign that on the day of the funeral we had sun and only light wind. Clouds were gathered to the east, but they stayed a respectful distance from the shore. I think every fisherman in the islands was out that day, even those who fished only for recreation. The white boats on the gray water looked very festive. Such propitious days were rare in January and I wondered how much credit I was getting for the sun. Not that I deserved any. If the weather was fine, I think it was Hannah’s doing.
There had been no time to order a tombstone even if I had wanted one, which I did not. Placing such an order with the stonemason would cause all kinds of furor that I wanted to avoid, and it didn’t seem right to order one of those resin pet memorials from a catalogue. Short of building a snowman with the slush Ben had scraped away from her grave, there was nothing to do until spring. Even with building a small bonfire for three successive days, the ground remained frozen twelve inches down, so my plans to plant a Siberian lilac would have to wait for spring. Fortunately, twelve inches was sufficient to inter my grandmother’s jewelry box and the relics it contained. I did that very early in the morning before Jack and Brandy were up. It was something I needed to do alone, or with just Hannah, Kelvin, and me.
I did not worry about finding bones when I dug. There had been time to think it over and it was unlikely that anything physical had survived with her being buried directly in the ground with nothing between her flesh and the earth but a cloth shroud. The battle with the worms and microbes was over long ago and the mortal markers were most likely all gone. This gesture was symbolic.
We were a small party of mourners, just us eight and the cat, but everyone had managed to scare up properly funereal clothing that we hid beneath our winter coats. The weather was not so warm that we could forego outerwear.
Father Driscoll spoke his piece and then Harris stepped forward. Instead of saying the expected prayer he quoted from Shakespeare:
Fear no more the heat o' the sun;
Nor the furio
us winter's rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney sweepers come to dust.
Bryson spoke next, again eschewing scripture in favor of a poem by Auden. The one that goes: Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
That Harris knew Shakespeare did not surprise me, but that Bryson could recite poetry came as a pleasant revelation.
That Everett remained silent amazed no one since he was a man of few words and no sentiment. Mary had nothing to say either, but I appreciated her coming when this had nothing to do with her.
Jack cleared his throat and began to sing “In the Sweet By and By.” It was a hymn we all knew from church and I was pleased at how beautiful it sounded with the harmonies being sung. I wondered if the sound was carried out to the boats and if so what they made of it. Would they think it nice, or would it spur more rumors and legends of mermaids and sea monsters? Mostly I hoped that Hannah heard us and was moved.
Father Driscoll, at my request, read then from Job, chapter 11. Job hadn’t known much wellbeing in life what with being chosen to be God’s punching bag, but this passage had been read at my grandmother’s funeral and I found it comforting in the way that Ecclesiastes had not been. Also, I wanted something Hannah would understand, language she would know, but not any prayers from the religion of those who had killed her. They had said those prayers when they took her life. I would not force her to hear them again.
Father Driscoll moved on to Ben’s borrowed copy of the Book of Common Prayer. These words had seen both paupers and kings into their graves. I thought they were the best choice and Harris had agreed when we discussed it. Thankfully Father Driscoll was protean enough to agree to the change.
“Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower; he flieth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. In the midst of life we be in death: of whom may we seek for succor but of thee, O Lord, which for our sins justly art displeased. Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful savior, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death. Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts, shut not up thy merciful eyes to our prayers: but spare us Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful savior, thou most worthy judge eternal, suffer us not at our last hour for any pains of death to fall from thee.
“Today we put to rest our sister, Hannah Wendover. We know that we brought nothing into this world, neither may we carry anything out of this world. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Even as it hath pleased the Lord, so cometh things to pass: blessed be the name of the Lord.”
I wondered how Hannah would have felt about this sentiment when she died, for it seemed to me that it wasn’t the Lord that had taken her life. However, the time for bitterness had surely passed and who can say but what it was part of some Divine plan. Certainly I wasn’t qualified. I couldn’t even explain to myself how such things as ghosts came to be. And why only sometimes. The closest I can come to an explanation is that when something bad happens it distorts the usual natural laws and that in some cases it alters the patterns of reality. The energy that should have gone somewhere else remains behind.
Or maybe it’s God’s will moving mysteriously, as it is so often inclined to do. Maybe on the last day we will all finally know.
“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, yea, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall not die forever. I know that my redeemer liveth, and that I shall rise out of the earth in the last day, and shall be covered again with my skin, and shall see God in my flesh: yea, and I myself shall behold him, not with other, but with these same eyes.
“For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear sister here departed: we therefore commit her body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be like to his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.”
Since we had no coffin to lower, Father Driscoll passed right on to the next part.
“Let us pray. O merciful God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life, in whom whosoever believeth, shall live though he die, and whosoever liveth and believeth in him, shall not die eternally; who also taught us by his holy Apostle Paul not to be sorry, as men without hope, for them that sleep in him: We meekly beseech thee, O Father, to raise us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness, that when we shall depart this life, we may rest in him, as our hope is this our brother doth; and that at the general resurrection in the last day, we may be found acceptable in thy sight, and receive that blessing which thy well-beloved Son shall then pronounce to all that love and fear thee, saying, Come ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world. Grant this we beseech thee, O merciful Father, through Jesus Christ our mediator and redeemer. Amen.”
We all murmured our Amens, some more heartfelt than others.
Of course we had no body to throw earth upon, but I had gathered some of the odd, triangular flat-stones which we set one by one over her grave. And then I laid on it the one early narcissus that had pushed its way out of the pot on the back porch.
Harris passed around a flask of whisky.
Kelvin was the first to leave the graveside.
Back inside the house we had coffee and sandwiches, fancy ones without crusts that Brandy had insisted on making because that was what was supposed to be served at funerals. I didn’t point out that customs were different here. One shouldn’t criticize people for being thoughtful, though I could see that the morsels of cucumber and watercress were being met with some surprise when the little triangles were bitten into.
Mary and Everett did not linger after Father Driscoll headed back to Goose Haven. But Harris, Bryson, and Ben were prepared to settle in for some kind of wake and went so far as to build up a fire. Jack broke out a bottle of what had to be good scotch, based on the admiring whistles, and which they poured reverentially into the tumblers that Harris fetched from the pantry.
No one said anything, but I think they were keeping a vigil, waiting for nightfall when we would know if we had succeeded in putting Hannah out of her misery.
Correctly interpreting this gesture, and being from Minnesota, I headed for the kitchen to see about putting together some kind of hot dish for supper. Kelvin kept me company from his perch in the sunny window where he stretched luxuriously.
Brandy joined me after she traded her pumps for ballet flats. Tying a flour-sack towel around her waist, she began chopping an onion for the soup. She looked wonderfully domestic. She had been very much more at ease since the night she shared her ghost story. It had apparently been a terrible burden to her. That she had been here at the right time to share her tale with people who believed made me think again about Divine plans and synchronicity.
Suddenly she chuckled. When she spoke it was plain that she had shared at least one of my thoughts.
“You look like a nineteen-fifties hausfrau with your frilly apron and those pearls.”
“I don’t know, to be really nineteen-fifties don’t we need curlers and face cream?”
“Not this late in the day. A proper wife would have herself and her house sparkling by noon.” She sniffed. “Another onion or is this enough?”
My eyes were watering. The onion had been gaining strength through the winter.
“That should be enough for the soup.”
I handed her the celery and went back to dicing potatoes.
Chapter 8
I found a secret compartment in the library desk the next morning when looking for more of Great-gran
dpa’s lovely parchment. Again it was Kelvin who showed me though I thought he was just playing with paperclips at the back of the drawer. Inside the thin niche was a locket with a small painting. I can’t prove that the miniature is of Hannah, but I am quite sure that it is.
Just as it was for my ancestors, I couldn’t bring myself to wear the thing and I couldn’t throw it away. So back into the desk it went and it waits there for someone else to find and deal with it.
Jack and Brandy were upstairs packing when there was a knock at the door. I figured it was Bryson, who had offered to shuttle my guests back to the mainland so they could catch their respective flights west and south. The day was gray and drizzle fell steadily, but the water around the island was wonderfully tranquil. The weathermen were predicting snow that afternoon, but as yet we had no sign that a storm was actually going to bother us. Hannah’s calm continued.
To my surprise and pleasure it wasn’t Bryson on the doorstep but rather Harris Ladd huddled in his rain slicker.
“Come in,” I said. “Come to the library. I have a fire going.”
“Thank you. I am afraid that Bryson has been called away. There was a bad accident on the mainland, two trucks collided and then there was a pileup. It’s all hands on deck for this one. I’ve been deputized to play ferryman in his place.” Harris slipped off his coat and I hung it on a peg. There was a kind of decorative trough underneath where it could drain onto the assorted rain boots and umbrellas I keep by the door.
“Thank you for coming instead. But will Jack and Brandy be able to make it to the airport if the highway is shut down?”
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