by Ellen Block
Having a choice hadn’t occurred to Abigail. She still had an opportunity to decide.
Ruth coughed and reached for her drink. “Sheesh. This serious talk done dried my throat. Now listen, hon, I’ve got a spare bed. Why don’t you go lie down and leave a gal to her puzzles.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay up with you?”
“Positive.”
“Night, Ruth.”
“Night, Abby.”
That had become her name, and Abigail was okay with that. She had only begun to get acquainted with Abby, but she liked her so far. She was willing to take a chance and get to know her better.
zetetic “proceeding by inquiry,” 1645, from Mod.L. zeteticus, from Gk. zetetikos “searching, inquiring,” from zetetos, verbal adj. of zetein “seek for, inquire into.”
Abigail rarely remembered her dreams. However, when Ruth roused her the following morning, she was certain what she’d dreamed about had been pleasant.
“Better put on your clothes,” Ruth warned. “You have a guest.”
Nat Rhone was sitting in the living room, looking nervous. He stood when Abigail entered. He even took off his hat.
“Last night you said your car was stuck. Thought you’d need some help.”
“Um, yeah. I’d appreciate that.”
“I’ve got some of Jerome’s old tools and such if you need any of ’em.” Ruth led them to the garage, where Nat selected a shovel and some scraps of wood.
“These’ll do.” He headed out of the garage toward his truck, saying to Abigail, “You coming?”
She deferred to Ruth, who shrugged.
“Thanks a lot,” Abigail muttered.
Ruth was grinning. “No problem, hon.”
“So where’s your car?” Nat asked as she buckled in.
“That’s an excellent question. I don’t have an answer. I was lost when I got stuck in a ditch.”
“You were lost? On this speck of an island?”
“It’s not that small.”
“Stay here long enough and you’ll see how small it is.”
A tangible silence filled the truck, pushing each of them further apart while they cruised from lane to lane in search of Abigail’s abandoned Volvo. Nat was leaning into the driver’s side door. She was huddled at the far corner of the cab.
“You like your job?” he asked, seemingly trying to make conversation.
Abigail began to worry he’d inferred the part she played in his release. “You mean as caretaker at the lighthouse?”
“No, your real job. The lexicography.”
“Yes, yes, I do. Or I did.”
“Did it pay good?”
“The salary was decent.”
“Long hours?”
“Manageable. Why? Are you changing careers?”
“Just wondering why you stopped. And why you came here. Chapel Isle isn’t the lexicography capital of the world.”
“Change of pace. Change of scenery.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m not on the lam, if that’s what you’re insinuating.” Abigail regretted her choice of phrasing.
“In my experience, people usually move to get away.”
“Some move to get closer,” she contended.
Nat had been ready to take the rap for Hank’s death in order to honor him. Abigail had fallen victim to a similar pretense. Following flawed logic, she’d moved to Chapel Isle, convinced she could honor the memory of her husband and son by loving the place Paul had loved, terrified that no matter how hard she tried, she wouldn’t be able to do their lives justice. Nat Rhone proved the opposite was true.
In the distance, Abigail saw her station wagon. Leaves were plastered to the windows, and the rear tires were sunk deep in a ditch, tilting the car on a steep slope.
“There it is.”
“When you said stuck, you really meant stuck.”
Nat got out to inspect the car, mud sucking at his boots. He shoveled aside some debris, then wedged pieces of wood under each tire.
“Start the engine and press the gas real slow.”
Abigail hopped into the Volvo. When she depressed the accelerator, the wheels whirred. In the rearview mirror, she could see Nat leaning into the bumper, pushing with every ounce of his might.
“More gas. Gentle. Gentle.”
She applied steady pressure to the pedal, and the car began to creep forward.
“A little more,” he told her as he strained.
Suddenly the station wagon bucked free, spraying a stew of mud and sand all over Nat’s clothes. Abigail pulled onto firm ground and hurried to him.
“I’m so sorry.”
The expression on his mud-spattered face was priceless. She clamped her hand to her mouth, stifling a laugh.
“You think this is funny?”
He wiped the muck from his cheek. Abigail forced a straight face that crumbled as she cracked up. Nat relented, his grimace loosening into a guarded smile.
“It is sort of funny.”
They stood in the middle of the muddy road together, laughing like people who could be friends, if not at that very moment, then someday.
Merle’s truck was parked in front of the lighthouse when Abigail returned. He was on a ladder removing the plywood boards from the second-floor windows.
“I must be more popular than I thought. People keep surprising me today.”
“Last couple o’ days have been full of surprises, I’ll say that much.” Merle climbed down from the ladder. “I heard about Nat Rhone. Strange how Caleb Larner changed his mind,” he said knowingly.
“Stranger things have happened.”
“They always do.”
“Hey, you fixed my shutters. They look great.”
“Glad you like them, because you’re not going to like what I have to tell you. Lottie’s on her way over here.”
“She found out about the furniture and the paint?”
“No, ma’am. She called me from the mainland to say she and Franklin were okay and mentioned she’d be stopping by to give you some more of those romance novels o’ hers.”
“What am I going to do? The changes aren’t exactly subtle. Though she did lie about the condition of the property. This should make us even. In a weird, Chaple Isle-ish sense. Right?”
“Appears to me, Abby, you have a knack for getting people to do the complete opposite of what they want to do, so I feel supremely confident you’ll be able to get Lottie to overlook any…rental indiscretions. Especially if you were to, say, allude to the fact that she might not have declared the antiques to her insurance company, in order to avoid paying more for coverage,” Merle suggested with a smirk. “While you’re at it, you might propose she make some overdue repairs to this place too. That is, if you’re going to be around to enjoy it.”
Abigail had made her decision. She was going to stay.
“I will be.”
“Good.”
Merle collected the plywood boards he’d removed from the windows and volunteered to haul them to the basement.
“My, my, my.” He was admiring what she’d done with the house. The pile Sheriff Larner had gathered the night before remained in the center of the living room. “Not finished rearranging?”
“Close.”
“You did a fine job,” he said, patting one of the wingback chairs as if it were a long-lost friend.
“Now I get it. You put the antiques in the basement. You didn’t want me or anybody else to find out about them, because of the robberies.”
“That’s why I like you, Abby. You’re the logical type.”
“Chapel Isle logic is the only kinda logic I got,” she said, quoting him.
“It’s all ya need.”
Merle was right. That was all she would need.
“If you moved the antiques upstairs from the basement,” he asked, “what’d you do with the rest of that ratty furniture Lottie had?”
“It, uh, found a new home.”
He smiled. “
Sounds like somebody I know.”
Once Merle was gone, Abigail replaced the furniture that Sheriff Larner had moved, putting it back where it belonged. With the boards off the windows, the house filled with the warmth of sunlight. The hurricane had wiped the sky clear. Though the power was still out, Abigail didn’t miss it. The sunshine was enough for her.
She put the batteries she’d bought into the radio and turned it on for company while she unpacked for the second time since arriving on Chapel Isle. Dr. Walter was on the air.
“We certainly dodged a bullet with Hurricane Amelia,” he crooned. “Call it luck, fate, or divine intervention. Call it whatever you want. We’re grateful to be here to tell the tale of the hurricane that never was. And what tales we have to tell today. Our topic is elderly drivers. Should they have their licenses revoked? Should there be an age restriction? Phone in and tell us what you think. You have a say. Your opinion matters.”
“That’s right,” Abigail agreed. “I do have a say.”
After she finished unpacking, she went downstairs and tidied the dining room table, storing the army of batteries and flashlights in the kitchen with the hope she wouldn’t have to put them to further use in the near future. That done, she had one task left to do. Check on the oil pail.
The whitewashed walls of the lighthouse tower gleamed in the daylight. Abigail climbed the stairs briskly before she could change her mind.
“You can do this,” she told herself. A faint echo resonated through the lighthouse, repeating the phrase.
The view from the lamp room was stunning. The Atlantic was placid and glassy. The horizon was a plain line between the sea and the limitless sky.
Abigail closed her eyes and pivoted to face the spot where she’d put the oil pail. Fear was making her dizzy. She could feel how high up she was, how far away she was from the ground. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
The oil pail was right where she had left it, askew under the plaque.
In that instant, the proof she had been seeking no longer interested her. Proof wasn’t what counted. What counted was everything except the oil pail and what it signified. Whether Mr. Jasper existed or not, he had loved the lighthouse. He belonged there. She belonged too.
Abigail had indeed been haunted. She’d been haunted by never. That was what she’d defined herself by: the husband she would never grow old with, the son who would never blossom into a man, the life she would never recapture. It was up to her how she labeled what was to come. From the top of the lighthouse, with the whole world to behold, never was suddenly besides the point. It was only a word.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTSMany hugs and much gratitude are due to my friends for all of their encouragement and support. Alphabetical order has never seemed so appropriate. Thanks to Sarah Baldassaro, Ann Biddlecom, Ruth Blader, Claudia Butler, Alice Dickens, Anne Englehardt, Beth Foster, Debra Keeler, Amy and Brad Miller, Alex Parsons, Grace Ray, Sally Smith, Heather Stober, Caroline Zouloumian, and Sue Zwick.None of this would have been possible without my amazing agent, Rebecca Oliver, and my talented editor, Danielle Perez. A thank you is also in order to the many real-life lexicographers who have come and gone because without the dictionary my job would be far harder and considerably less interesting.
AN INTERVIEW WITH ELLEN BLOCK CONDUCTED BY THE MAIN CHARACTER, ABIGAIL HARKERIt’s a rare opportunity for a character to interview her creator, so I, Abigail Harker, hope to learn something about the author of this book while letting you, the reader, get to know more about the person who brought me to life.Abigail Harker: You crafted my character to be logical to a fault, then you had me live in a supposedly haunted lighthouse, a concept that flouts reason and common sense. That begs the question: Do you believe in ghosts? Or did you just want to see me sweat?Ellen Block: Both! I’ve always been fascinated by the paranormal. Less for the fright factor and more because of the bigger issues raised in the debate—life after death, the existence of the soul sans body, and the subject of why a ghost would choose to remain in a place that was no longer its own. Your job as a lexicographer, albeit fictitious, is to pin down words and hone definitions to perfection. My job as an author is the exact opposite. A novel is intended to encourage open-ended deliberation and discussion, to get readers thinking about ideas they might not normally wonder about in their daily lives. Haunted houses are usually seen as Halloween attractions or scary movie fare. What if there was some credence to the notion? What if hauntings were commonplace? Would that make a “haunted” location more or less scary?AH: Um, hello! You stuck me in that creaky, creepy old house, and yes, it was unnerving at first…though the horrible dcor and rickety furniture was just as terrifying, quite frankly. Thanks for that too, by the way. So, would you live in a haunted house?EB: I might stay the night to see if anything weird would happen, but no, truth be told, I doubt I’d take up residence. I prefer plotting out spooky sequences to actually being spooked.AH: Speaking of weird, why on earth did you make bingo the beloved pastime of Chapel Isle’s residents?EB: Bingo is a great game! It’s not about skill, competition, or squashing your opponent. It’s about luck, a theme that’s woven into the story. Plus, I played bingo once while visiting the island I based the setting on and won a fishing trip. So how could I not put it in there?AH: While I wasn’t happy about everything you wrote in the book, including turning me into a hammer-wielding security guard and forcing me to face how my life had changed after the house fire, you did allow me to meet a number of amazing, often quirky, characters on Chapel Isle. Which of them was your favorite? Besides me, of course.EB: Of course! Well, that’s a tough one. It’s hard to choose. I love Merle Braithwaite’s sense of friendship, Lottie Gilquist’s from-the-heart laugh, Bertram Van Dorst’s humble brilliance, Ruth Kepshaw’s hilarious, off-the-cuff candor, Sheriff Larner’s desire to do right by his family, Denny Meloch’s innocent exuberance, and Nat Rhone’s loyalty. A good character is like a good friend. Sometimes you love them for their endearing qualities. Other times you want to throttle them for their flaws. But most of the time, you’re just happy to have gotten the chance to know them.AH: Since you made my character an ardent lover and champion of words, I have to ask: What’s your favorite word?EB: I’d pick “ebullient.” It’s from the Latin ebullire, “to bubble,” and as an adjective, it means having or showing liveliness and enthusiasm. It can also mean boiling or agitated. Such a stark contrast in a single word is pretty impressive, yet it always sounds upbeat to me, which is why I like it so much. To be full of life, vitality, and enthusiasm is great for a word, and it’s also a great way to be.
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORYThe idea for this novel came from a collection of happy memories as well as a single, heartrendingly sad one.Grief defies description. The colossal awe experienced in the wake of the attacks on September 11 simply cannot be compacted into words. In the aftermath of such a monumental catastrophe, language seemed painfully insufficient. For a writer like myself, that was a difficult and confounding feeling. A week after the attacks, I saw a woman from my hometown of Summit, New Jersey, being profiled on 60 Minutes as she went from hospital to hospital, searching in vain for her husband, who had been killed in the Twin Towers. She was a woman I’d passed by in the grocery store countless times, and there she was on national television, crying, scared, bereaved, a victim.Like so many, I was deeply affected by that day’s events. I couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of one survivor’s grief, let alone that of thousands. Since the attacks, I’d wanted to create a character whose life was dedicated to language and definitions, but who must deal with that which cannot be defined. The character who evolved was a lexicographer named Abigail Harker, a widow who has lost her entire family in an accidental house fire. Haunted by the death of her husband and child, she volunteers for a position as caretaker at a lighthouse on a remote island called Chapel Isle. There she discovers that the lighthouse may be haunted by the ghost of its former keeper.This fictional isle is loosely based on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina’s Outerbanks, where I spent s
ummers during my childhood. I remember my trips there fondly and always wondered what the island would be like once tourists like me went home. The sense of separation and intense isolation coupled with the close-knit camaraderie of a small community made it an ideal destination for a character at a crossroads and an apt setting for a woman at odds with her own nature, a connoisseur of words grappling with indescribable sorrow.People often wonder what an author has in common with her characters. In this case, my protagonist, Abigail Harker, and I share one main preoccupation. As a lexicographer, language is the foundation of her career. As an author, it’s the lifeblood of mine.In order to cope with her grief and with the possibility of a resident ghost at the lighthouse where she lives, Abigail must challenge the sanctity of language, thereby challenging herself. Her dogged pursuit of definitions has almost eliminated the necessity to feel. However, moving to Chapel Isle forces her to face her emotions, posing the questions: What’s real? What isn’t? and is it words that make the difference?I believe Abigail would agree that words are both limiting and limitless all at once. In the process of writing The Language of Sand, I attempted to display language at its most capable and lush while trying to show its many infuriating inadequacies, a contrast that breeds conflict as well as insight. What are books—and words—for if not that?
READING GROUP QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION1. How did the setting affect the plot and why?2. Would you want to visit Chapel Isle?3. Are there situations and/or characters you can identify with? If so, how?4. Do you feel as if your views on a subject, such as ghosts or grief, have changed after reading this novel?5. If you could change something about the book, what would it be and why?6. What motivates a given character’s actions, such as Abigail’s, Sheriff Larner’s, or Merle’s? Do you think those actions are justified or ethical?7. Which characters grow or change during the course of the novel? In what ways?8. Who in this book would you most like to meet? What would you ask or say?9. Which character do you like the most and why? The least, and why?10. What passage from the book stood out for you?11. Is the novel plotor character-driven? In other words, does the plot unfold quickly or focus more on the characters’ inner lives?12. Did you expect the book to end the way it did or were you surprised?13. If you could rewrite the ending, would you? What would you change?14. Can you pick out a passage that sums up the central theme of the book?15. If you were to talk to the author, what would you want to know?16. Were the characters’ struggles addressed in a believable way?17. Why do you think the author chose to tell the story in this manner?18. What is your favorite scene and why?19. Does Abigail learn something about herself or view the world differently during the course of the book? If so, what does she learn?20. What is the central conflict of the plot? Is it internal to a particular character (a psychological conflict), or is it external, having to do with character vs. character?21. If one or more of the characters made a choice that had moral implications, would you have made the same decision? Why or why not?22. How would the book have been different if it had taken place in a different time or place?23. What are some of the themes in the novel? How important are they?