by Ellen Block
Built on a scallop of shoreline with a jagged jetty of blue-black boulders separating it from the sea, the whitewashed lighthouse exuded a humble majesty, as though the surroundings had been ground down by the weight of the world and it alone endured, holding its head high.
However, alarm began to set in as Abigail drew closer. The whitewash that looked crisp from afar was actually cracked and peeling. The outermost layer of paint hung on like a sheet of skin about to molt. Attached to the lighthouse was the caretaker’s cottage, which was even more dilapidated. The basic two-story brick box slouched up against the lighthouse, holding on for dear life. Its roof sagged and some of the shutters had come unhinged. None of it matched the photograph Lottie had faxed her. Abigail chewed her bottom lip, trying to tamp down her rising anger.
“Lottie will be able to explain this. She has to.”
The Suburban stopped at the front door to the caretaker’s house, then Lottie slid from the driver’s seat to the running board into the overgrown yard. The vehicle dwarfed her and the high grass cut her off at the knees. Abigail might have seen the humor if she wasn’t growing more furious by the second. She jumped out of her car, prepared to lay into Lottie for lying about the condition of the property. But Lottie got in the first word.
“I realize the place isn’t how I described it, dear.”
“No, not even remotely,” Abigail agreed, barely concealing her irritation.
“I swear it’s exactly what you’re looking for, though,” she trilled. “Quiet. Peaceful. You’ll have the world to yourself here.”
The sincerity in Lottie’s eyes made Abigail soften slightly. She wanted to believe her. She also wanted to believe that the long journey here wasn’t in vain and that this wasn’t an enormous mistake.
“Okay. Let’s go inside.”
Together, they mounted the drooping front steps. Lottie inserted a key into the door, though it refused to open, as if warding visitors away.
“It’ll work,” Lottie said, struggling. “Never fear.”
There was that word. Never. Annoyance bubbled in Abigail’s brain as she watched Lottie fight with the knob until the lock finally relented.
“Allow me to show you around,” Lottie panted.
As the door swung in, the stench hit Abigail like a slap. The house was permeated with the odor of rotting wood along with the musky scent of mildew.
“Lottie.”
“Bear with me, dear. We’ll open some windows and it’ll be right as rain.”
When she rolled up the shades, the waning sunlight illuminated a grim scene.
What had appealed to Abigail was that the caretaker’s house came furnished. Much to her dismay, the dcor left a lot to be desired. The front door opened into a main living and dining area. However, the terms living and dining could be only loosely applied. The couch was shabby and threadbare. The curtains were sallow with age. An assemblage of mismatched chairs, a pockmarked table, two moth-eaten rag rugs, and a soot-covered fireplace rounded out the room’s furnishings.
“Lottie,” Abigail repeated.
Pretending to be busy, the impish woman fussed with a window that wouldn’t budge. She gave up, saying, “Let’s take the tour, shall we?”
“Fine. Let’s do that.” Abigail was fuming.
Lottie motioned her over to the far side of the house and through a doorway. “Here we have a precious little kitchen.”
A stunted alcove passed for that by virtue of having a sink and some appliances. The massive stove and one-door refrigerator were relics. As the house settled, the cupboards had shifted away from one another, giving them the look of gapped teeth. Warped wainscoting covered the lower part of the walls, while outdated floral wallpaper in white and cornflower blue wilted from the top.
“Needs a woman’s touch to highlight the period details and—”
“Lottie.”
“Don’t worry, Abby. Everything works. The electricity is on. The phone’s connected. Water’s running. What more do you need?” She turned the faucet, and brown bilge splattered from the spigot before it ran clean.
Abigail glued her hands to her hips in a show of protest.
Lottie quickly skirted around her. “Let’s move on to the second floor.”
Trudging up the tight staircase behind Lottie, Abigail was eye to eye with her substantial rump. Each step squealed underfoot, and the handrail shuddered unsteadily. The staircase dead-ended onto a landing.
“To the left we have the master suite.”
She showed Abigail into an ample room painted a chalky, medicinal green. Raising the blinds exposed a lumpy bed with a frayed quilt, which was backed by a pine headboard. A brass lamp sat on a dusty nightstand beside a modest dresser. A rocking chair cowered in the corner. The bedroom was as spartan as a monk’s cell.
“I bet you could make this real cozy. Some throw pillows would do the trick.”
“I think it’s going to take more than throw pillows.”
“Have a gander at the other bedroom,” Lottie suggested, scooting away before Abigail could say more.
The next space wasn’t much larger than a walk-in closet, and because the ceiling was low due to the pitch of the roof, Abigail had to duck as she went through the door. A diminutive writing desk, a stumpy bookshelf, and a twin-sized cot on a metal frame were what passed for furnishings.
“This was the watch room, where the lighthouse keeper would sit lookout for ships during storms. It was always a stag light, but I put a bed in here so the house would sleep more people.”
“A stag light?”
“Means a lighthouse with no family living in it.”
Although Lottie could not have known, her comment made Abigail’s heart ache. The implication was wrenching.
“It’d make a perfect study for you, Abby. Or a guest room. You can count on having a million visitors soon as your family and friends hear you live in a lighthouse.”
“I doubt it,” Abigail said faintly. There would be no visitors, no need for a guest room.
“Then a study for sure. See, there’s a desk. Ready and waiting.”
The writing desk was elementary-school-sized. Abigail wasn’t convinced she could get her knees in it. “It’s sort of…small.”
“That’s because folks were much shorter in the olden days. We’re giants compared to past generations.”
It was an ironic comment, considering the size of the source. Abigail might have expressed as much if she wasn’t on the verge of strangling the petite woman before her.
“It’s true,” Lottie exclaimed. “I saw a story about it on the news. They predicted that at the current growth rate we’ll be gargantuan in fifty years. Tall as basketball players.” Lottie was wide-eyed in amazement, and again she had managed to divert Abigail’s ire.
“Last but not least, we can’t forget the pièce de résistance,” Lottie said, her lolling drawl flattening the French. “Wait ’til you get a load of this.”
Displaying her best game show hostess wrist flick, Lottie presented the bathroom. By comparison, the study was spacious. The antiquated toilet was missing its lid, the fixtures on the porcelain basin were encased in rust, and paint was sloughing off the underbelly of the claw-foot tub in scabby sheets.
“Isn’t the bathtub marvelous? How’s this for authentic character?”
The only authentic aspect of the bathroom was that it was authentically awful. The mirror above the sink hung crookedly from a nail. The grout between the floor tiles was dark with dirt.
“The whole house really oozes charm, doesn’t it?”
Abigail tried the faucet. The pipes moaned, then more brown sludge dribbled from the spout.
“It oozes something, all right.”
Ignoring the remark, Lottie clapped her hands ceremoniously. “Now that you’ve had a gander at the place, let’s get to business.”
“Business?”
“The lighthouse, my dear. The lighthouse.”
conatus (kō nā´təs), n., pl. –tus. 1
. an effort or striving. 2. a force or tendency simulating a human effort. 3. (in the philosophy of Spinoza) the force in every animate creature toward the preservation of its existence. [1655–65; < L: exertion, equiv. to cōnā(rī) to attempt + –tus suffix of v. action]
Abigail had assumed the door next to the staircase was a closet. It wasn’t.
“This is the entry into the lighthouse,” Lottie explained. She opened the door, letting the last rays of afternoon sunlight pour into the living room from above. “Neat, huh?”
“Neat, indeed.”
Abigail’s batting average on assumptions was low and getting lower. In general, she tried to steer clear of them, as well as similar nouns. Presumptions, conjecture, speculations—they were sophisticated terms tantamount to guessing. To hypothesize had a scholarly air, to postulate, a scientific slant. They all meant the same. The subtleties of connotation were what differentiated them. Guessing sounded broad, risky, unreliable. Even an educated guess could be a shot in the dark. Abigail preferred to deduce or infer. Neither of which she’d been doing with any skill of late. So far she’d made scores of suppositions about the island and the lighthouse, most of which were wrong.
“I’d take you up,” Lottie said, “but this darn sciatica won’t let me.” She rubbed her leg for effect.
Curious, Abigail poked her head through the doorway. A wrought-iron spiral staircase wound around the interior of the lighthouse tower, making for a dizzying view from the bottom, to say nothing of what the view must be from the top. The whitewashed walls were checkered in a dazzling pattern of shadows cast by the stairs, creating a black-and-white kaleidoscope. Abigail was spellbound. While the rest of the house was an incontestable dump, the lighthouse was extraordinary.
“I can go later,” she said casually. Still irked at Lottie for lying about the state of the property, she didn’t want to let her renewed enthusiasm slip. Abigail had negotiated a discount on the rental rate after Lottie informed her there would be maintenance duties accompanying occupancy of the caretaker’s cottage. Even with the reduction, Abigail thought Lottie should be paying her to live here.
“As I mentioned when we first spoke on the phone, the lighthouse is no longer operational,” Lottie began. “Nonetheless, that doesn’t diminish its beauty or significance.” This was a pat introduction to the rehearsed speech that followed.
“The Chapel Isle Lighthouse was built in 1893. It took more than nineteen months to complete. Our magnificent spiral staircase has one hundred and two steps to the turret. We’ve got original Fresnel glass. Top of the line. Made specifically for lighthouses to ensure they’d have the clearest, longest beams. We’re the twenty-third-oldest standing lighthouse in the country, and the number of vessels guided in safely while the beacon was in service is estimated in the thousands. The Chapel Isle Lighthouse is a bona fide piece of Americana.”
Lottie folded her arms to signal she was finished with her spiel. Whether she was impressed with the lighthouse’s history or with herself for remembering it was difficult to discern.
“Since you’ll be acting as caretaker, you’re going to be responsible for the working features of the lighthouse.”
“A moment ago you said there were no working features.”
“There aren’t, exactly. But we have to keep up appearances, don’t we?”
Abigail threw a glance at the living room’s battered furniture.
“Some appearances. This lighthouse is a source of pride for locals; therefore, it’s important to continue the traditions.”
Lottie had her there. Abigail certainly didn’t want to offend anybody. “What sorts of traditions?”
“I’m happy you asked.” She unlocked a second door, which was situated under the staircase, but didn’t open it. “You’ll have to keep your eye on the water heater. It can be a touch finicky. ’Specially come winter.”
If the water heater was a principal part of these alleged traditions, Abigail couldn’t fathom what the others might be.
“What about the furnace?”
“What furnace?”
“There’s no furnace? How do you heat the house?”
“The old-fashioned way.” Lottie nodded at the fireplace, with its smoke-stained surround. Ash was heaped under the log rack.
The possibility that fire might be her sole means of heat hadn’t occurred to Abigail when she agreed to rent the cottage. Fear began to roil beneath her ribs.
“I should also mention there’s an old cistern in the basement built for underground water storage, what with the flooding we get. Oh, and you’ll have to remember to check the generator, make sure it’s running right. If the power goes out on the island, yours will be first to get cut.”
Lottie prattled on about odds and ends related to the light house and cottage, everything from how to open the chimney flue to how to prevent the pipes from freezing. The measures were as woeful as the events they intended to preclude. As the catalog of responsibilities mounted, Abigail was convoluting the do’s with the don’t’s.
“Let me stop you, Lottie. Can we start with the basics? For example, where’s the breaker box?”
“In the basement, dear.”
“Then we should probably have a look around. Finish the tour.”
“I…I…I can’t go down there.” Lottie was unconsciously backing away from the basement door. “I mean, my sciatica, it won’t let me.”
“I’ll go. Just tell me where to find the breaker box.”
“Now?”
“Why not?”
“Because we have other things to do. Tons of things. Tons. We have to go see the…the…” She scrabbled for an answer. “The shed.”
“The shed?”
“Garden hoses. Rakes. Pruning shears. These are pertinent details.”
Whatever had come over Lottie caused her face to turn crimson red. Abigail was willing to follow her anywhere if it would calm her. She gestured for Lottie to lead on, saying, “Let’s see this shed.”
“Excellent. This way, please.” Lottie patted her heart, feigning she was fixing her pendant. Abigail noticed because it was similar to what she herself had done when Denny accidentally frightened her on the ferry.
“Are you all right, Lottie? You seem spooked.”
“I’m fine, dear,” she insisted, rushing for the door. “Really, I’m fine.”
Outside, birds heralded the setting sun while the crickets broadcast the temperature, quieting as the air cooled. Though Chapel Isle was on the same seaboard as Boston, the same continent, the same hemisphere, what made the island feel a world apart was the weather or, more specifically, Abigail’s awareness of it. The wind currents were evident in how the seagulls wheeled in the sky and in the changing tides of the high grass she and Lottie were slogging through as they wended around the lighthouse.
“You must have noticed there’s no TV. The house has an antenna, though. You can call the cable company on the mainland to hook everything up. You brought a television set, right?” Lottie asked, the grass shushing her with each step.
“No, I didn’t.”
Abigail’s life had been on mute for months, the picture and resolution grainy. The volume was finally returning, and whatever she tuned in to was, at last, coming in loud and clear, so she didn’t want a television.
Aghast, Lottie halted. “My word, Abby. Are you crazy?”
“That might be debatable.”
“I’d absolutely perish without my soaps. I thank the Lord every day for giving us TV. What about a computer? You bring one of those?”
“Nope.”
Her laptop had fallen victim to the fire too. Abigail appreciated her computer as a tool, but she could live without the Internet, email, even a cell phone, as long as she had a land line. There was a lot she could live without. There was much more she would have to learn to live without.
“I don’t care for computers much myself,” Lottie remarked. “I can play solitaire on the one my husband bought. That’s about it. To me, it’s a
big paperweight. By the by, that’s the fuel house over there.” She pointed to a lean-to structure hunched at the base of the lighthouse. “That was where they stored the kerosene to run the lamp for the light. It’s empty, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
One less thing on a growing list of hundreds, Abigail mused.
“My, my, my, Abby. What are you gonna do here by yourself without a TV or a computer?”
“I have my books.”
“Hope you brought a lot, because you’re going to need a whole mess of ’em. Me, I could read a romance novel a day. I go through them like Kleenex. You ever read those kinds? The racy stories about damsels in distress, hunky men with bulging biceps. Mercy me, they get my blood to swimming. I’ll have to lend you some.”
Abigail had no interest in Lottie’s romance novels whatsoever. She kept her reply polite. “I wouldn’t want to trouble you.”
“It’s not a bother. Not the slightest.” Lottie had gone from a shaky wreck to her spunky self in a minute flat. “Here we are. This is the shed.”
Hand-built with wood planks and large rocks from the shoreline for the foundation, it had the feel of an oversize safe. Lottie unlatched the padlock. “There’s the firewood. And those are the kerosene lanterns. They’re a must. We have shovels, buckets, a lawn mower…”
While Lottie itemized the shed’s contents, the enormity of Abigail’s decision hit her squarely in the chest. She was officially the caretaker of a lighthouse. Whatever needed doing, she would have to do. She’d romanticized the lifestyle, coloring it up with minor chores such as cleaning the glass on the top of the tower and pulling the occasional weed. The dingy little shed filled with dirt-crusted tools and aged containers of ant spray was a hint of how much Abigail had underestimated what the job of caring for a lighthouse—make that a run-down lighthouse—would entail.
“Are you getting this, Abby?”
“Every word.”
She hadn’t heard a syllable Lottie said.
“Merle Braithwaite over at the hardware store can help you with any other questions you might have.”