Spirit Lost

by Nancy Thayer

  John stared hard at the woman. She seemed to be kneeling on the roof, bending over the skylight—that much was realistic about her; a real woman could find purchase on the roof like that. And he could see her so clearly: her long hair blowing in the wind, the heavy cape buffeting against her, the contrast between her pale skin and dark eyes. She did not look like a ghost or skeleton or spirit; she looked like a real woman.

  A very beautiful woman.

  “Who are you?” John asked again, louder now. He had to speak through teeth he had clenched against the shaking that had overtaken his body. “What are you doing out there? How can you be out there?”

  She answered: “Let me in.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “The skylight doesn’t open. Come to a door.”

  But she was gone.

  In an instant she had vanished. Not moved away, not walked, or flew or fell away; she had simply, completely, disappeared. Like a flame going out on a match. He was left lying against the stairs, his hands growing cold from the chill of the glass.

  John knew that either he was going mad or he had seen a ghost. He did not believe in ghosts. But he desperately wanted not to be mad. He rested his head against the step.

  After a while an ache ran down his arms into his shoulders. He backed down the steps from the skylight, looking around him as he did. Now the windows were clattering, but only from the wind. Nothing in the attic moved. John went down the stairs to the second floor, switched off the light, and shut the door. He leaned against it and looked around.

  Here was the hall leading to the big bedroom at the back of the house that he and Willy shared, to the middle bedroom, now Willy’s sewing room, to the guest bedroom at the front of the house and the stairs to the first floor. Here was the reality of worn carpet, light switches, unpacked cartons, familiar furniture. John was still trembling all over. He needed to talk with Willy. He went down the stairs rapidly.

  Willy had fallen asleep on the living room sofa with the television turned down low. A football game was ending, and the time was clicking off with digital speed in the right-hand corner of the screen. Willy lay sprawled on the sofa, covered with a multicolored afghan. She was so colorful, even in her sleep, so sane and vivid and sensible. Her braided hair, her clean-scrubbed face, her healthy deep breathing, all signs of a peaceful inner life.

  John knelt beside his wife. “Willy,” he said. “Wake up. Willy, I need you.”

  Willy woke up almost instantly in that way she had, so that it seemed she had no dream life to push through in order to get back to reality. She sat up and leaned against the sofa arm. “John, what’s wrong?”

  John took both Willy’s hands in his. “Willy, I saw a ghost. Don’t laugh,” he demanded, because immediately she began to smile. “I’m not kidding. I wish I were kidding. I saw a fucking goddamned ghost.”

  “Where?” Willy asked. “What was it like?” She pulled her knees up so that John could sit next to her on the sofa.

  “I had just finished working. I heard noises—a window being tapped on, but louder than tapping. I climbed the steps to the skylight, and there she was.”

  “A woman?” Willy asked.

  “A young woman,” John said. “Wearing a heavy black cloak. She had long black hair. She was trying to get in. She wanted to get in. She asked me to let her in.”

  “She spoke to you?”

  “Yes,” John said. “Oh, Christ, Willy!” he exclaimed then, and pushed himself up off the sofa. He began to pace the room, his body restless now with the remains of his fear. “I know this sounds crazy. I know it sounds unbelievable. But it happened. I swear it. In fact, it happened last week, too. I had just finished working, and I looked out the harborside window, and I saw a woman there, her back to me. She was the same woman, I’m sure of it, though I didn’t see her face. She had lots of black hair and that heavy cape.”

  “She was just sort of floating in the air outside the window?” Willy asked.

  “Willy, this is not a joke!” John shouted.

  Willy rose and went to her husband. She put her hands on his chest. “I’m not saying it’s a joke. I’m not acting like this is a joke,” she said. “I was just asking a question.”

  John looked down. “No, she didn’t float. She was just there. Standing there. I know there’s nothing out there for her to stand on. Christ. That’s why I didn’t tell you last week. I thought I was hallucinating. I thought I’d been working too hard. Too fast. But tonight—Willy, she was there. I saw her. I heard her speak.”

  “Well, I think this is exciting!” Willy said. “Let’s go back up. Let’s go see if we can see her.”

  “Let me fix myself a scotch first,” John said.

  They went together then, John with a giant straight scotch in his hand, back up to the attic. They pulled on the light chain above the attic steps, but no other.

  The attic was very quiet. John’s half-finished painting of feathers and shell sat against the easel. The white of empty canvases loomed out in the darkened room. Very gently the panes of the skylight and windows shook in the wind.

  “She’s not going to come now,” John said, his voice low and angry.

  “Shh,” Willy said. “Don’t be impatient. Let’s wait.”

  They waited. Willy climbed the skylight steps and looked up, but saw nothing. She waited there a long while and still saw nothing. John sat on his high stool, looking out the window, but he saw only the harbor, dark except for the passing flicker of a ship’s lights, and the sky, dark except for the random twinkling lights of a plane flying from Nantucket to Hyannis.

  They waited perhaps an hour. They heard the wind rattling the windows and the sound of each other’s breathing. Nothing else.

  Finally they agreed to go back downstairs. John fixed himself another scotch; Willy fixed dinner. John sat at the dining room table, letting his food grow cold, telling Willy over and over again every detail he could remember about the ghost.

  When he was sipping his third scotch, Willy said, “The painting in the attic, John—the one of the shell and the berry and the feathers. That’s what you’re working on now, isn’t it? It’s very good, I think. And not like your usual work.”

  John smiled. “You like it? Good. It’s painstaking work. I want to get the color and detail just right. I’m going to work on it tomorrow.” He paused, then grimaced. “Ghost or no ghost, Willy, I’m going back to the attic to work on it tomorrow.”

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, John awoke feeling hung over, exhausted, and embarrassed. A ghost. He cringed at the remembrance of the evening before. He showered and shaved and shook his head at himself in the mirror. “You lunatic,” he said.

  For his reasoning had returned. He knew there were no such things as ghosts and realized now in the bright light of day that what had happened last night had been only an illusion brought on by his nerves and whatever light and shadows the tossing trees had thrown against the skylight. Part of it came from stress, probably. He had not told even Willy how much he wanted to do something important with his art and how afraid he was that he didn’t have sufficient talent. He had read enough psychology to know about the twists and tricks anxiety could play on a person’s mind. He vowed to be more sensible, less panicked about his work. He was only beginning. He had five years.

  Willy sewed curtains for her sewing room windows. She had found a heavy chintz fabric, cream, covered with birds, flowers, and fruits in colors of peach and rose and turquoise blue. She put down one of their smaller Oriental rugs in the room, the slate blue with an ivory border, and by the end of the week her room was finished. She set out her favorite items on the built-in bookshelf: favorite books between porcelain bookends, photos of herself and John in malachite or silver frames, shells and rocks she had collected from the beach. Her stereo and records were in one corner, next to the small padded lady’s chair she sometimes sat in to relieve her aching back when she embroidered for long hours. She had a mahogany cabinet filled with threads,
fabrics, and needles and a long mahogany table covered with the different frames she used. She was ready to work on a new piece but hadn’t decided what she wanted to do yet.

  Feeling slightly guilty about devoting so much time to her own private room, she resolved to spend the next few weeks just on the house—and on Christmas. She loved Christmas. She brought boxes out of the storage room at the back of the house and took out the decorations they had used for eight years. She went into the village and bought a wreath, which she decorated herself with an enormous plaid bow and pinecones and red berries she found on the moors. She wove fresh greens into the frame that held four Advent candles and bought new purple Advent tapers at Robinson’s Five and Ten. She arranged these along the mantel in the dining room and felt melancholy; this was their first Christmas away from Boston, and they would be lonely here, knowing no one.

  Sunday morning she rose, dressed, and went off to church by herself, partly because she loved church, especially at Christmas, but partly from a need just to see other people. It was interesting to her that John, who ordinarily lived among crowds of friends and colleagues, was showing no signs of missing others around him and in fact seemed quite content with his new solitude. He was still sleeping when she returned at noon, and so she spent the next hour setting up the crèche on one of the living room end tables. She had made the crèche when she was thirteen and had sculpted the small pieces from clay and painted them herself, in brilliant colors. Her art teacher, who had doted on her, fired the pieces for her, and her parents had set these awkward, homely pieces in a place of honor on the marble mantel in their elegant living room. Now Willy set them up every Christmas and smiled to see her long-nosed Virgin Mary, her spindly Joseph, her lopsided and bucktoothed wise men.

  Later, she and John read the Sunday papers, then took a long walk on the beach, wrapped up in wool scarves, hats, coats, and gloves. It was cold and windy; winter was coming on. They ate thick, juicy cheeseburgers at the Brotherhood and watched Masterpiece Theatre. Willy went to bed then with a book, because John, who hadn’t worked all day, decided to go up to the attic to look over the painting he had just finished. He stayed there for an hour or so. When he returned, he was in a good humor, pleased with what he had accomplished that week, and he went downstairs to get them each a Courvoisier. They sat in bed like buddies, sipping their brandy and talking. There was no more mention of ghosts. A week had passed without any sign of the ghost, and while they had not forgotten the incident, it had faded in importance; soon it would be just a good story to tell.

  Another week passed, ghost-free.

  On Saturday morning, Willy nuzzled next to John as they lay stretching in their warm bed.

  “Guess what,” she said. “You’re taking the day off. Don’t argue. I haven’t seen you all week, and I won’t let you work today. This is worse than when you worked for the Blackstone Group. I want to go Christmas shopping today. I want to walk around town with you and look at the lights and the shops. Come on, sweetie, be a sport,” she teased, running her hands over his body, touching him in persuasive places.

  John thought about it. He had finished the last feather-and-shell painting yesterday; he was at a good stopping place. “Okay,” he said. “I’m all yours today.”

  While he was shaving, he called Willy into the bathroom. “Look,” he said, pointing to his mustache. He hadn’t clipped it for a long time, and it was growing longer than he’d ever let it get before. “What would you think if I let it grow like this?” he asked, indicating with his hands how the mustache would droop down around the ends of his mouth.

  “I think it would look good.…” Willy said, cocking her head to one side, considering. “Sort of old-fashioned, perhaps. But you have an old-fashioned face.”

  John studied his face in the mirror and silently agreed with Willy. He liked his looks; he knew he was handsome enough. His dark hair was still thick and waved directly back from his forehead and temples. He sometimes thought he was the only man on the East Coast who didn’t part his hair on the left. This style suited him, showed off his broad brow, dark-lashed eyes, straight nose. He’d always had a mustache, but a well-groomed, clipped one. He thought now, eyeing himself in the mirror, that if he let it grow out longer, he’d look better, more romantic, more like an artist.

  “You’d look like Jesse James.” Willy laughed, watching him study himself. “You’re so vain. Come on, gorgeous, the world is waiting.”

  He pulled on corduroy trousers, a plaid flannel shirt, and a crew-neck sweater, one that didn’t have holes in it or paint on it like the ones he worked in. Willy was wearing gray tweed pants and a thick red pullover that showed off her bosom. She had stuck her hair into an elaborate twist.

  “We’re a fine pair!” John announced as he helped her into her fur jacket. He threw a white silk scarf over his sheepskin coat and watched Willy pull on her purple leather gloves. He whistled as they went out the door, and they were both caught up in a holiday mood.

  They spent the morning choosing their tree, bringing it in, and getting it set up in the stand. They rewarded themselves with a long lunch at the Boardinghouse, with a bottle of good red wine and a rich chocolate dessert. It was two-thirty before they set out again to shop.

  Willy wanted to buy Anne a shawl from Nantucket Looms; she wanted to look at baby blankets and baby clothes for presents for the Hunters. After an hour, John began to get restless. They agreed to part ways and to meet later for a drink. John went off intending to buy Willy something fabulous for Christmas.

  But everywhere he went, he was ambushed by art galleries. He had known there were a lot in Nantucket; that was one of the attractions for him. But he had never spent any time in them, and now, in spite of his best intentions, he found himself lured inside. He ended up spending the afternoon studying the artwork in every gallery he could find.

  So much of it was good. So much of it was very good. There was a great variety, from superrealism to abstract, from modern impressionist pieces that danced with light to modern primitivism. He paid little attention to the photography or sculptures or woven pieces or to the “sailor’s valentines,” the intricate designs made from hundreds of tiny shells glued together in elaborate arrangements. Only the watercolors, sketches, and oils interested him, and by the end of the afternoon he realized that he had been looking at all the artwork from the viewpoint of a competitor.

  And he had to admit to himself that compared to what he saw here, he was not very good. In his mind’s eye he compared his paintings of feathers and shell and knew they were lacking. They were heavy-handed, rigid, stark—soulless. They were merely tours de force.

  The main street of Nantucket was elaborately decorated for Christmas. Not only did each small shop have a charming scene or arrangement of lights in its windows, but real Christmas trees had been placed on the sidewalks in front of each shop. At least thirty trees adorned Main Street, each decorated by various grades at the local elementary school or by the Girl or Boy Scouts or by church groups, so that some trees were hung with the bright flags of different countries or with handmade dioramas of Christmas scenes or with gold bows or seashells or dolls. Now, at dusk, colored lights were switched on all these small trees as well as on the long strand that looped and swirled all around a towering tree at the bottom of Main Street.

  John walked down the gaily lighted brick sidewalks, crossed the cobblestone streets, oblivious to the charm of the town. Hands stuffed into his coat pockets, he responded with a gruff grunt when excited Christmas shoppers accidentally brushed against his shoulder in passing. The world didn’t need another artist, he told himself; it certainly didn’t need a half-assed one. He was a fool.

  Over hot-buttered rum at the Tap Room, Willy tried to console him.

  “Patience, John,” she said. “You’ve only just begun. And how do you know you’re not good? No one else has seen the work yet.”

  She continued this way for a while. But John had grown sullen on this crisp winter day, and after an
hour of trying to cheer him up, Willy gave up. They walked down darkened Orange Street to their house side by side but not speaking. Back in the house, Willy didn’t even begin to suggest that they try to decorate their tree. She informed John that she wasn’t very hungry and would spend the evening with a mystery and a giant bowl of popcorn.

  John told Willy that was fine with him; he wasn’t hungry, either. He was going to go back up to the attic. He knew he was bad company, but he couldn’t shake his mood. So Willy curled up on the sofa with an afghan over her knees, a great bowl of salted popcorn in her lap, and her paperback mystery in her hand. She left him for another world.

  John turned on only the stairwell light in the attic. He didn’t want to see too clearly. He stood in the gloom by the broken humidifier, picking up the feathers and watching them fall back to the surface. Even separated from the bird they adorned, they kept the spirit of the bird intact; they did not simply plummet but rather wafted with a gentle lilting movement, gracefully downward, landing without the slightest sound. Such easy, obvious beauty; why couldn’t he capture it? What kind of man was he to drag his wife here, to live off her money, in order to turn out mediocrity? He picked up the small, shriveled rose hip, wanting to crush it in his hand, but it was so small it only settled in the hollow of his palm.

  A gentle knocking came at the skylight.

  “Great,” John said sardonically. “Now I get the ghost again.”

  He had had four drinks at the Tap Room, and while he was not drunk, he was in a bad enough and stewed enough mood to feel for one bitter moment that this ghost business was just another personal gibe from fate. He felt belligerent and tromped over to the steps to the skylight without any kind of fear at all.

  But fear struck through him, sobering him completely, when he climbed partway up the steps and saw the woman there, just outside the skylight, just as she had been before. Young, troubled, beautiful, beseeching—a pale woman with streaming dark hair and a heavy dark cape leaned over the skylight, beating against the glass with her small hands.