And here’s a chilling question: These people, invisible souls leaving their prints on the beach and then in a graveyard … WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM?
Even I, who no longer have blood or feel cold, know the hairs on my head want to rise.
It’s true that lots of folks have drowned in the waters around Nantucket. It’s happened ever since people lived by the sea, learned to harvest its riches, swam for joy, and then made bigger and bigger boats that floated farther and farther out. It’s happened for centuries, and sadly it still happens, despite modern equipment, life jackets, and all the precautions. A moody wave or rogue current, a false step on deck: The sea can snuff out a human just as we crush mosquitoes, simply by reason of size.
I always thought that if that happened to one of us, the water would wash the spirit away, like a fleck of seaweed or an empty clamshell.
If these people all drowned and have come back … WHERE HAVE THEY BEEN all this time? Are there souls that live in the waters around this island?
Or have they been near us all this time, and are simply making a ruckus?
I’m worried about who’s at the helm.
Is it safe to be in the hands of ghosts?
Although I’ve been one for almost a century, even I don’t know.
Do most spirits care when a human being dies? Or is it like someone taking a swim and calling to those on the shore, “Come on in! It’s only cold at first!”
I sense mortal danger.
Should I ring and hoot, or is it best to be silent? My heart and mind are spinning.
November 23.
“Mr. Nold?” Phee’s voice is soft. “Can we ask you a few questions?”
The blinds are down in the hospital room and the sleeping man stirs, adjusting his oxygen mask. His eyes roll open and he gazes at the ceiling.
The Gang gathers around the bed, standing quietly.
“I don’t think he can answer, not with that thing on his face,” Gabe whispers.
Eddy’s hand lifts an inch or two off the sheet, as if to say, Try me.
“We could do questions, like with Ghost Gam,” Maria suggests.
A worried crease deepens between the contractor’s eyes, as if at the word ghost.
“I have a better idea,” Cyrus says. “Just talk about the old houses. Good stuff. You know, about not hurting them anymore. Then maybe he’ll get the idea that making friends with ghosts is a lifesaver.”
“Smart,” Phee agrees, and Cyrus blushes; a Phee Antoine compliment is rare.
“Maybe then the ghosts won’t kill him,” Markus adds bluntly.
The group takes turns reminding Eddy of the many ways that Nantucket’s heart and soul lives in its old homes. They also tell him about the wishes for housing that are a part of Nantucket Hands. Eddy himself is a longtime renter on the island and would surely appreciate his own place one day.
“So you see”—Paul leans close to the bed—“it’s a bad idea to get the island ghosts angry. It’s not worth making that extra money, you know? Not if you end up like you are now.”
Eddy nods and lifts a hand again, as if to say, Maybe.
“And it’s almost Thanksgiving,” Maria adds. “I know you’re not happy to be here in the hospital, but … it’s a time to be grateful about how much Nantucket gives to all who, umm, respect it.”
Eddy’s eyes are now closed.
The kids tiptoe out.
Behind them, Eddy Nold drifts into the first peaceful sleep he’s had since the accident. He has dreams he doesn’t forget.
November 25.
Gabe and Phee meet at Gabe’s house.
“Let’s put out,” Gabe says. “Can’t wait for the Town Crier. Too much happening.”
Phee nods and both reach for their sneakers. “We’ll scud along to my place. The others will be there after school.”
The Crier! That’s not a term many island kids know well, not anymore.
I smile, and then I realize like a splash of freezing water that I’ve joined the flow of old words in the kids’ heads.
Can’t wait for the Town Crier, Gabe said.
But am I mostly the Crier, or am I Mary W. Chase?
I fear the Gang may have become louder and stronger than I am, but I am already dead. These children are not.
I hope they sense the strength and anger that seems to be growing in this old town of ours.
Do they understand that we spirits who are here don’t always agree?
At noon on November 26, Mrs. Rebimbas dies.
She was cheerful and focused this morning. Although alone, she seemed to chat with a visitor seated in an empty chair by her bed. Eyebrows fluttering, she muttered the word wonders several times.
“Wonders, Mrs. Rebimbas?” the nurse asked, pleased to see her so lively. “Are you hungry?”
Eliza shook her head. One bony hand lifted in an I’m busy gesture. Clearly, she was engaged in an exchange that mattered, but one nobody else could hear or see.
When the nurse returned with a lunch tray, this oldest of Nantucketers was no longer alive.
The doctor stops by to confirm her death. The closest window—a stiff, squeaky old thing—opens slowly on its own, creeeeeak, and the first-floor room fills with a pearly, empty-shell light. The curtains stir and twitch, as if pushed eagerly aside by a child climbing out. The doctor, a longtime resident, leaves the room without touching the window. Gently, he shuts the door.
He is moved when he hears of her last word, marveling that this old woman was still thinking about the children in town on her dying day.
A hospital worker immediately says, “Her doughnuts! The best anywhere. She fed so many of us after school. Always a fresh batch, sugary and warm, sitting on the table inside her door.”
When a person passes on Nantucket, the island itself often seems to know. As if there is something elusive in our air, something both cozy and somber that we sense but can’t put into words. Those still living don’t know what it is but instinctively pull closer to their loved ones.
Before news of her death is out, every doughnut on the island has been eaten. Adults found themselves longing for a treat they hadn’t had in years and headed for bakeries and the grocery store. Licking sticky fingers, they smiled about Mrs. Rebimbas and the sweetness of her plate of wonders.
I wish I could still taste.
But what am I saying? This is no time for such longings! With Eliza now gone, my worries for our house loom like a thunderstorm at sea.
After the last doughnut is swallowed, there is a moment of peace and silence before the bells in six of the churches in town begin to chime at once. It’s just after three p.m. and not time for any scheduled bell ringing.
What felt at first beautiful and strange soon becomes a cacophony. People cover their ears as the bells jangle and spar, a jarring fabric of sound that continues for a full ten minutes.
Church officials dash to their bell towers, looking for someone to blame.
Even I am shaken. I pause, horn and bell in hand.
I’ve never heard the church bells in town when they didn’t follow each other in a melodious, dignified way. This sounds more like an angry mob, an ugly shouting match pierced by an occasional shriek. When the last chime dies away, frightened voices are everywhere.
“What’s going on?” is heard over and over. The police station phones are ringing like mad, speaking of ringing.
I am scared. Should I be ringing, too?
What is the island coming to?
Phee and Gabe are halfway to the Folger house when the ringing begins. As the last peal of bells drifts over the treetops, leaving even the skeletal roof walks looking shocked, the two pause by the steps of the Pacific National Bank, the one at the head of Main Street. Oddly, the street is empty.
“What is that?” hisses Gabe.
It’s a soft shuffling sound, although there’s no one nearby.
“It’s people, people walking,” Phee whispers, pulling her friend close to the bank railings.
“Quick, hide!”
They duck out of sight behind the outward curve of the old stairwell. An empty wooden bench by the foundation offers a perfect spot and the two scramble beneath it.
“Ouch!” Gabe hits his head just as Phee places a warning hand on his arm.
Something is most definitely coming, and it’s coming from all directions.
Everyone who lives on Nantucket knows the uneven sound of walking on an old street or sidewalk. There’s a shushhh-plonk-ka-sleeee-crunk as any kind of shoe slides on the buried tree roots, slippery stones, worn bricks, and paving blocks.
I, too, hear groups of people, all moving slowly but invisibly toward the two kids—from the Unitarian Church on Orange Street, the Congregational and Methodist churches on Centre Street, the Baptist Church on Summer Street, the Catholic Church on Federal Street, and the Episcopal Church on Fair Street. Converging from the north, south, east, and west. Now the occasional tromp in a puddle, a trip followed by a scuff, the passage of sole after sole on stone.
Phee is the first to peek out. She gasps.
Main Street is empty as the footfalls get louder. People doing errands at the far end of the street are going about their business now that the bells have stopped.
Doesn’t anyone else hear this other sound?
Closer … slee-cherp, sleeee … sluff-shuffle-nurgle-shuffle.
“What if they’re coming to get us?” Gabe whispers, grabbing Phee’s jacket and pulling her toward him.
“Aup!” Phee squawks, not knowing what to think of Gabe so close, the approaching sounds and flash-dash of the moment.
“Maybe it’s zombies!” he whispers, and that does it, they’re off and running. As they round the corner of the bank, heading full-gallop past the intersection of Fair and Main Streets, Phee’s arm smacks something in midair. Something warm and soft.
A body part?
She stumbles backward and, in that instant, sees the fastest of glimpses, an image caught in a blink. In that fraction of a second, the surprised face of a woman whirls by, followed by a nip of cranberry-colored sleeve, a wrist, and a hand. An arm raised to protect a face. For a shocked moment, Phee thinks this face belongs to her mother.
To Flossie! Flossie Folger! But Phee knows that’s nonsense. Her mom is alive and far away. Behind the startled face, Phee glimpses—or does she?—a group of men and women in old-fashioned clothing, a group moving slowly toward the kids. A knee ruffling a skirt, a boot swinging forward in midstride.
And as fast as she sees and knows all of this, she doesn’t.
Gone, pfft! Fair Street is empty.
“Gabe,” she pants, “I saw them. And dang if they aren’t some kind of ghosts!”
Gabe and Phee burst into the Folger kitchen.
Paul, Cyrus, Maria, and Markus are already gathered around Sal and his array of maps. As Gabe and Phee take turns spilling a quick version of what just happened, the room becomes dead quiet.
“Like it! Gotta say.” Sal places his palms together, then rests them against his mouth. “Did you kids hear about Mrs. Rebimbas’s passing today? Maybe it’s a welcome parade.”
“You’re not scared by what I saw, Sal?” Phee asks.
Her grandfather laughs. “Me frightened? This island has always had a population of ghosts! They’re as common as the fuzz of moss on our shingles or harmless powder beetles in our house beams. Or turtles that cross the road by Maxey Pond to lay eggs, or fog billowing through the streets on a June evening!”
Phee glances shyly at her friends, hoping they won’t be startled by her grandfather.
“Mmm,” Gabe mutters, pleased but not quite sure. He thinks of his dad’s worried face.
Sal now slaps his hands palm-down on the kitchen table, looking from one kid to the other. “Normal it is—at least around here. Phee’s heard my stories.” He pauses. “I think there are times when our ghost population needs something done, and they show up”—Sal squints at the ceiling for a moment—“to remind anyone who’s around to do it.”
“What do they want?” Phee prompts him.
Sal leans back. “The way I see this, it’s a natural thing. We’re all connected. An empty teacup sits in clear sight and so someone fills it. Like water finding its own level.”
“In clear sight. That sounds creepy, as if ghosts everywhere are watching us,” Paul says. He pulls his sweatshirt up over his chin.
Sal’s eyes twinkle. “Want to hear about something bad I tried to do when I was about your age?”
He looks around at the group, who nod nervously. “Come to think of it, this is a perfect story for the day. Eliza Rebimbas would be pleased.
“Well, I wanted a basket to give to a girl, but had no way to buy or barter. I snuck to the back of Mrs. Rebimbas’s house and into the workroom. Thought I’d help myself to just one piece of perfection out of the many hanging from the beams overhead. All of us kids knew her house, as we’d all ducked in for an after-school wonder, even then. Eliza was out working in the garden, and her husband had gone to check on his lobster pots. I didn’t think she’d notice and felt sure that impressing this girl would change my life for the better.
“Now, Eliza’s house was old even then, and I’d heard she believed that she and her husband shared it with ghosts. At the time, I didn’t think of that. Looking around real quick, I spotted a beauty, reached up, and unhooked it. The basket jumped from my hand, and a flood of salty islander language filled my head. I know I heard someone threatening to ‘hang me from the yardarm.’ You know, the way a captain killed a mutineer by putting a noose around his neck and dangling him from one of the spars of a ship. I rushed out of there faster than a snake near a rake, and when I looked back, Eliza was smiling. She must’ve seen the whole thing from the garden, but I’ll never know.”
For a moment, Sal looks embarrassed. “Didn’t get the girl, either.”
Phee pokes his knee. “You bad boy, Sal!”
“Bad,” he agrees. “But when you need it, I mean when you’re trying to come about in a gale or keep your course steady, it does seem like there’s help here. It’s around us. Sometimes it’s a give, sometimes a take. Not like a genie in a bottle, nothing like that; more like the ghosts are around and they want the right things to happen.”
“Right for whom?” Gabe asks.
“Ahhh.” Sal frowns. “I’ve never had to be responsible for what an angry spirit can do, like your dad. Never had to explain them to anyone.”
Gabe looks uncomfortable. He reties his sneaker, as if that might help.
“It’s a tough job. Explaining can get goldarn awkward,” Sal says kindly. “And wouldn’t you know it, Eliza Rebimbas went out of her way to be generous with me after that basket incident, no doubt knowing that my family didn’t have a whole lot to live on. We never said much to each other, Mrs. Rebimbas and I, but she gave me odd jobs around their shop after that, and even sent me home with a basket or two. When her husband died, I made a habit of stopping by to fix anything that needed fixing. That, and keeping her in firewood. Then when my wife, Polly, passed”—and here he glances at Phee—“Eliza took care of Flossie so that I could keep my carpentry jobs. Always had a soft spot for the kids. Your mom called her Mrs. Bim. I should’ve taken you to visit her. Don’t know where the time has gone.” Sal looks at the backs of his hands as if they were to blame.
Phee bounces up, hating to see Sal look mournful. She decides at that moment not ever to tell her grandfather that she’d just seen a glimpse of someone who looked like Flossie. He would only worry that something truly had happened to his daughter and they’d be unable to check. Sal had already lost too many people he loved.
For some reason, Phee isn’t worried. The right here exchange from the other night is still with her. She’d know if Flossie wasn’t fine.
Phee shakes back her hair, now positive that the woman’s face might only coincidentally have been like her mom’s. After all, so many Nantucketers are related. Distant cousins. And although she remembers her mom wear
ing a red shirt that was just that color, isn’t it logical that in a crowd, one islander might look like another?
“Humph,” Phee announces. “Mrs. Bim. Anyone like one of my oatmeal cookies?” she asks, dumping a number of burned disks from a clay jar onto a plate, shapes that look as if they’d emerged from the woodstove months earlier.
No one eats, but all are relieved to change the subject.
As the late-November light peeks through a window, the Gang, plus Sal, come up with a plan.
It will take place at night, with no illumination needed but that of tomorrow’s full moon.
Sal sends the kids home then, before their parents notice they’ve been gone too long.
“No sense in rocking the boat,” he says comfortably.
Walking along at twilight, Gabe feels older. Having a run-in with ghosts and then hearing what Sal had to say has made the everyday world look different. The November sky has never felt deeper, the twisty trees have never been more confident, the bumpy streets with their mix of bricks and cobbles never looked truer.
It’s as if the pluses fit with the minuses and each footstep matters.
As if there is room for bending the rules of life and death.
A woman sits at dusk on the edge of a bed and knits her fingers together, opening and closing her hands.
“Hey,” she whispers. “I’m sorry I left you! So sorry. What is it you want me to do that I’m not doing? I’m here! I’m trying my best.”
The room is silent, and the house around the room even quieter.
“Good things … moving ahead …” Her voice trails off. “Where are you? Show me you’re here again!”
The words sink into the still November air and the woman sits on, alone.
Soon she sighs and lies down in a ball, curled on her side. Crack-creeeeak! A latch clicks and her bedroom door swings slowly open. Hardly daring to breathe, she watches, eyes wide in the gloomy light.
What is that? A flash of pitch-black hair and the edge of a cheek that she’d recognize anywhere!
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