by Ellen Block
“I can’t pay you, so you can have whatever supplies you want from the store.”
“Some offer. You were prepared to let the burglars take you for everything you own.”
“Okay, how about this? Make my rounds for a week while I heal up and I’ll get an electrician to recheck the wiring for you at the lighthouse. Deal?”
Merle took a map from his back pocket. Lottie’s properties were circled in red. Abigail reluctantly accepted it from him.
“Deal.”
The morning fog had cleared, revealing a bald blue sky. Somehow the total absence of clouds kept Abigail from feeling as though she had just agreed to a ludicrously bad idea.
“Nothing could be that awful on a day this beautiful.”
That’s what you think, bemoaned the voice in her head.
A cardboard box was waiting for Abigail on the front steps when she returned to the lighthouse. Enjoy, read the attached note, with Lottie’s signature in script at the bottom.
The box held dozens of paperback romance novels. Every cover was emblazoned with buxom women, cleavage heaving from their corsets, as muscled men with chiseled features embraced them lustily. Some were soldiers, some princes, some cowboys, some cops. No matter their stripe, each wore an outfit strategically torn to reveal rippling muscles.
“Can’t wait to dive into these.”
Abigail added the carton to the others in the study—the next room to be painted. Piled as it was with books, it took more time to empty the tiny space than it did to tape around the crown moldings and baseboards. Before popping open a new can of yellow paint, she plugged in the radio. Dr. Walter was on the air.
Today’s topic was a proposed two percent tax hike to fund programs for schools. A man phoned in criticizing the increase. “I pay a king’s ransom in taxes as is. School was fine for me. Should be fine for kids today. We don’t need no changes.”
Dr. Walter didn’t hold back. “Given your less-than-exemplary grammar, sir, you’ve made a concrete case for upping the school tax a full two hundred percent. Next caller.”
Abigail applauded. “Bravo, Doc.”
What she appreciated most about the show was that Dr. Walter said what was on his mind. He shot from the hip and didn’t sugarcoat his opinions. That took gumption, an attribute Abigail considered herself sorely lacking.
Paul had the same type of spirit. He spoke from his heart and was practically incapable of telling a lie. To him, lying was like bad math. It would be wrong in the end regardless. Honest to a fault, Paul lectured the telemarketers who would call during mealtimes, calmly taking them to task on how they could consider themselves upstanding citizens if they purposefully phoned at inappropriate hours. It amused Abigail to hear him harangue them, presenting his argument to the dumbfounded salespeople, who could either listen patiently or disconnect. She wanted to believe that some measure of Paul’s zeal had rubbed off on her during their years of marriage. She often doubted it had.
“Give me a break,” Dr. Walter was bellowing. “Call back when you grow a brain.”
The sound of him cutting the connection was followed by a dial tone that whined across the airwaves.
“You did stick it to Nat Rhone,” Abigail told herself. “Even if it was Dr. Walter’s line, you have to start somewhere.”
The study had been the watch room for a reason. It had the best view in the house, which Abigail realized while touching up the window trim. The position provided a broad vantage of the Atlantic, a panorama that spread for miles. A large part of the lighthouse keeper’s days would have been spent in this room, gazing through these very panes of glass. Abigail imagined him watching passing ships, the changing weather, the coming and going of the tides. She stood at the window, thinking she was seeing the very same sprawl of ocean Mr. Jasper must have looked at every single day.
When she was done painting, Abigail moved the final piece of furniture—the shelf—in from the hall, then started on her books.
“You’re really going to put them away. No reading. No dawdling.”
Each book had its own personal story—where she’d bought it, how many times she’d read it, why it held a place in her soul—but seeing her books stacked on a thrift-store shelf in the small study wasn’t where she’d envisioned them. It was like putting a sentimental family photo in a cheap plastic frame. With the bookcase filled, there was no space left to spare for Lottie’s paperbacks, except on the top ledge.
“What, have you become a book snob? Romance novels aren’t of regal-enough caliber to sit next to literature and history? They can’t be that dreadful.”
Abigail crouched on the floor, cracked one of the bodice rippers, and read the first paragraph. The writing was decent, albeit melodramatic, and she was soon turning page after page. A period romance, the tale traced the love affair between a ravishing heiress and a pirate captain. The lovers were separated by twists of fate and a conspiracy to keep them apart, orchestrated by the girl’s suitor, a villainous count. A chapter in, Abigail was hooked, so much so that she forgot she was squatting until her thighs started to burn. She was about to move onto the cot to continue reading when a rumble reverberated from below, making her flinch. Her backside hit the floor with enough force that the impact shook her shoulders.
“Fabulous. Another bruise.”
Abigail kneaded her tailbone as she got to her feet. The noise hadn’t come from the living room or the kitchen. This sound seemed deeper.
“I bet it’s your favorite. The basement.”
She stalked across the study, summoning her valor.
“You’re going to go see what it is. There’s nothing to be afraid of. This is all in your head.”
Before she could lose her nerve, Abigail flew downstairs and threw open the basement door. Common sense intervened.
“The flashlight might help.”
Because the one Merle had given her was new, as were the batteries, it should have come as no surprise that the flashlight worked. Nonetheless, Abigail was disappointed.
“No backing out now.”
The stairs squeaked as she tried to tiptoe into the basement.
“At least nobody can sneak up on me here.”
Though the overhead light didn’t make much of a dent in the darkness, especially in the far corners, the flashlight did. Crates were stacked high around the basement’s perimeter. Among them were the silhouettes of what she guessed were chairs covered in sheets.
In a burst of bravery, Abigail yanked them off. As she suspected, underneath was a set of dining chairs, an inlaid side table, and a formal, wood-trimmed settee. Beneath another sheet awaited a dining table with scrolled legs and a handsome writing desk. The pieces were antiques, high quality at that.
“This furniture puts the hodgepodge upstairs to shame.”
Another rumble suddenly radiated through the basement. Abigail gripped the flashlight tightly.
“Who’s there?”
She was trembling, causing the beam from the flashlight to tremble too.
“If there’s somebody here, come out. Come out or else….”
Except she didn’t have an or else.
Edging toward the cistern, Abigail caught a whiff of the same scent she’d smelled before, mildew with a trace of pipe smoke. That frightened her as much as the noises.
“I said show yourself.”
Abigail shined the flashlight into the cistern’s mouth. The cavern was empty. However, a puddle of water had bubbled in from a drain, bobbling the metal grate so the sound was amplified by the cistern’s stone walls.
“It’s only the water in the drain,” she sighed. Then she turned to head upstairs and crashed into a pile of crates.
Were they there before?
She couldn’t recall.
If they were, wouldn’t you have tripped on them?
One crate’s lid had come loose. Inside were volumes of leather-bound ledgers. They piqued Abigail’s curiosity, tempting her to stay in the basement despite the darkness and he
r apprehension. Such journals would have been expensive, even on the modern market. The thick leather bindings were still supple to the touch, and the spines were in immaculate condition. When Abigail opened one of the ledgers to the first page, the name Wesley Jasper was printed in a steady hand at the top.
She shoved aside her anxiety and began to flip through the pages. Each entry documented the sunrise and sunset, the weather, the tides, and the hours the lighthouse was operating. She marveled at the meticulousness. There were no cross-outs or scribbled corrections. The lettering was painstakingly precise. Abigail combed through the entire box, and every ledger was equally well preserved.
“For as old as you are, you guys look great.”
The other crates held more ledgers. Abigail was fascinated by the entries, the details of everything from thunder and rainstorms to hot spells and heat lightning. She was as absorbed by Mr. Jasper’s writings as she’d been by Lottie’s romance novel.
When Abigail checked her watch, it was after seven. She was supposed to be doing Merle’s rounds. She didn’t want to stop reading, but she had to.
After gingerly repacking the crates, she went upstairs and threw some food into a grocery bag to take with her. As she walked out the door, flashlight in hand, a thought occurred to her.
What if you run into the burglars? Maybe you should bring something to defend yourself.
She scrounged through the kitchen drawers for an implement with which to fend somebody off. The sharpest item she could find was a butter knife, a sibling of the one she’d used to scrape down the wallpaper.
“This is about as menacing as a spork.”
She remembered seeing a hammer in the shed. With the flashlight as her guide, Abigail delved into the night. The shed door, which she’d left unlocked, was shimmying in the breeze. She deliberated over locking it, just to be safe.
“First things first. I need a weapon.”
A rusted claw hammer with a chunky wooden handle lay in a bucket on the floor of the shed.
“Now, this has a little more presence. Hopefully, you won’t have to make your presence known.”
Finding the houses marked on Merle’s map was easier said than done. The interior of the island was oppressively dark, blacker than the night sky, because of the overhanging trees. Again and again, Abigail drove past road signs and had to double back.
“I could do with a streetlight or two.”
The first stop along her route was on the southwest end of the island, where she was stunned to discover a slew of modern homes built on stilts.
“Must be a flood plain.”
Contemporary in style, the houses were accented with sweeping decks, angular rooflines, and spurts of block glass. Their mammoth size was meant to convey wealth and grandeur. The result was a parade of gaudy monsters that looked out of scale and out of place in their surroundings.
“A flood might actually be an improvement.”
Abigail squinted at the house numbers until she found the one that matched her map, a white stucco whale with a carport beneath the house.
“This is it.” She steadied herself, breathing slowly and deliberately. “Don’t forget your hammer.”
Due to the stilts, the first floor was more than a story off the ground. There was no access to the back door on the deck from the exterior. The front door would be a thief’s safest point of entry.
“Less for me to do.”
Weapon in one hand, flashlight in the other, Abigail had no hands left to check and see if the door was locked, her primary responsibility. She had to wedge the flashlight under her armpit so she could still wield the hammer.
“Now I look like the burglar.”
When she tried the knob, it held tight.
“One down, thirteen to go.”
The next few rental units were also on stilts, making her job a cinch.
“This isn’t so bad,” Abigail said, munching on a banana as she drove to a different section of the island. Then she pulled up to a rambling cottage surrounded by heavy brush and low-slung trees that shrouded the house on every side. The place was the epitome of spooky.
“That’s what I get for speaking too soon.”
Scraggly tree limbs cloaked the front door, and the windows were barely visible behind the bushes. Someone could easily sneak up to the house and be hidden in the foliage.
“If I had to rob a house, I’d rob this one.”
Abigail needed a plan.
Make noise. That will scare them off. Presuming there is a them.
“Cross your fingers there’s not a them,” she told herself.
Abigail exited the car, humming theatrically. “Gosh, what a long day,” she shouted. “Man, oh, man, am I glad to be home.”
Hammer at the ready, she tried the front door. It was locked. There was still the back door to attend to as well as the windows. She cut around to the rear of the cottage along an overgrown stone path. Briars caught on her clothes, scratching her forearms.
“How delightful. More scrapes and bruises.”
Fortunately for her, the back door to the cottage was locked too. The windows were closed tight.
“Done,” Abigail declared, just as a rustling rose from the bushes to her left. She raised the hammer and raked the yard with the flashlight. The din of the crickets was deafening.
“Who’s there?” Her attempt at a demand came out as a murmur.
She trained the flashlight on the bushes, bathing them in its intense beam. The leaves shone a glossy black, frightening because of what they might conceal. Abigail took a step forward. Suddenly, a bird burst from the foliage and flew into the night, wings flapping in tandem with her pounding heart.
“Thanks a lot, bird.”
Stressed yet unscathed, Abigail finished the rest of Merle’s rounds that evening without event. As she navigated back to the lighthouse, reality hit her square in the conscience.
“You’re a Ph.D., an educated woman, and you’ve basically become a night watchman.”
Her former life no longer applied. It had gone up in flames with her home. On Chapel Isle, she wasn’t Abigail the lexicographer, the mother, the wife. She was the lighthouse caretaker, the security guard, the lady who talked to herself and started fights and was covered with injuries from head to foot. Abigail would have to redefine herself with a new vocabulary while mastering the language of Chapel Isle.
mundify (mun′də fī′), v.t., –fied, –fying. 1. to cleanse; deterge: to mundify a wound. 2. to purge or purify: to mundify a person of past sins. [1375–1425; late ME < LL mundificāre, equiv. to L mundi–, s. of mund(us) clean + –ficare –FY]
October was half over, though the leaves had yet to fall or hint at changing color. The island refused to conform to the season, stubbornly clinging to the departed summer. Mornings were cool, but with every hour that passed, the sun beat away the chill. Abigail hadn’t used the fireplace in days. Not that she minded.
She hauled her last can of paint into the bathroom, more of the same buttery shade that was in the kitchen, living room, and study. The minuscule space would be a snap to paint. Or so she believed.
From the middle of the wall up, rolling on the cool blue paint was easy. From there down, it was a total inconvenience. Abigail had to lie on the floor and contort herself to reach around the toilet, then squirm into a corner to get at the walls behind the tub. Eroded enamel flaked off the underbelly of the bathtub as she painted.
“What this needs is some sealer to stop the corrosion. The floor could stand to be regrouted too. A medicine cabinet wouldn’t hurt either.”
Over the symphony coming from the CD player, Abigail heard a muffled bump, timed as a reply to her comment.
“Seriously? This mirror’s nothing special, and the grout is, to be blunt, gross. Anyway, I don’t have anyplace to put my toothpaste.”
Logic began to nag at her.
Who are you talking to? This is preposterous. These are random noises, not communications from the beyond.
> A worrisome notion slipped into Abigail’s brain like a note being slid through a mail slot. What if she truly was going crazy?
“People who are going crazy don’t have the presence to ask themselves if they’re going crazy.”
Or do they?
Abigail put her paintbrush aside. “That’s enough of that. I’m going to town.”
The parking place she’d come to think of as hers was ready and waiting. Abigail headed over to the hardware store and went around to the rear, as had become her custom. When she reached the door, she had a flush of misgiving. She wouldn’t normally walk into a store and leave with merchandise she hadn’t paid for.
“Merle did tell you to take whatever you wanted. He gave you permission,” Abigail said, talking herself into opening the back door.
Inside, the shades were drawn, the rooms dark. She patted the kitchen walls for a light switch but couldn’t find it. While plodding blindly into the main part of the store, she bumped into the counter, which guided her to the shelves where she’d seen containers of grout the day she came for the paint.
“Hello, Abby.”
Startled, she bounded backward, knocking into a display of wrench sets.
“Who’s there?” It was a phrase Abigail had been saying more often than she cared to admit.
Bertram Van Dorst peeked around the aisle. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I heard you at the back door and I called to you. Thought ya heard me.”
“Why are you in here with the lights off, Bert?”
“Don’t need ’em. I memorized what’s on every shelf. Why waste the electricity?”
“Okay. Can I ask what you’re doing here?”
“Washer number seven’s been acting touchy. Rotator belt’s about to go. I came to see what Merle might have to fix it so I wouldn’t have to order a new part.”
“Bert, are you the manager of the laundromat?”
“Me? No.”
“And you said you weren’t the owner. Then…?” Abigail couldn’t think of a courteous way to ask him why he spent so much time there.