by Cat Knight
“I was just givin’ a what if,” Duncan answered.
“Something that is lost inside Hellfleet?” Nora asked.
“Where else could it be?” Duncan looked from one to the other, “be no reason to haunt ya if it weren’t there.”
“I’ve cleaned the Fleet for years,” Erma said. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything there that would please a ghost.”
“How do you know what would please a ghost?”
Nora downed the rest of her ale and held out her hands.
“Wish me well. If there’s something there to find, I’ll find it.”
They shook her hand, and Nora left Erma and Duncan in the booth. That they were carping at each other didn’t seem unnatural.
Back at Hellfleet, Nora knew she had had too much ale for an intelligent search. After checking her phone and answering texts, assuring Felix that all was well, she filtered through her emails, deleting those that weren’t important and marking the ones that needed to be answered in the morning. That done, she went to bed.
If the scent of seaweed encased her or some frigid air wafted over her, she didn’t notice. She slept without waking until bright sunshine filled the room and disturbed her. Eyes barely open, she spotted the bird sitting on the comforter.
Chapter Ten
Nora recoiled, screamed and pushed herself away from the bird.
It jumped up and landed on the window sill for just a moment before taking flight. Nora breathed deeply, grateful that today was one of Erma’s days and Nora wouldn’t be alone. Maybe she would even help her search. She pushed the covers aside and climbed out of bed, hoping the kettle had just boiled.
But it hadn’t. The kitchen was empty and Erma was late. Nora was surprised, but then again, Erma had imbibed a fair number of pints last night. That probably slowed her down. It really didn’t matter, Nora would hunt for whatever the ghost wanted, on her own. Dressed and armed with a cup of tea, she set about searching Hellfleet.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Obviously, what she needed to find was hidden but hidden where? It had to be someplace not cleaned or seen on a regular basis, somewhere, not meant to be easily found. Looking around the main room her eye caught the window seat.
It had a solid base that sounded hollow when she tapped it. Wasn’t it a perfect hiding place?
On her knees, Nora felt the entire base, seeking a seam or release of some kind. And she found one. She smiled as a heretofore hidden door opened. She reached into the space and felt around. Her fingers touched cloth.
Cloth? What she pulled from the space were several old, plaid blankets, the kind people used on cold, blustery evenings.
Blankets? What are they stuffed in there for?
She didn’t know why someone would shove old blankets in a hidden cupboard. Perhaps, whoever it was, had been short on space, the lighthouse wasn’t all that big if you were a hoarder. But she didn’t see where blankets would help her. She placed the blankets on the kitchen table and went back to searching.
For the next two hours, Nora tapped every cabinet, every closet, and every place she thought might house a hidden space.
She found absolutely nothing. She went to the blankets on the table and spread them out. They were just blankets, nothing more. Could a few old blankets be the explanation? She had searched everywhere, could there be anywhere else?
Her eye caught a flock of ravens soaring and dropping and soaring again; catching the wind for fun. Then, she thought of something. She hadn’t explored the tower, had she? Was there anything there? She looked at the spiral staircase and made her way towards it.
Remembering that Ravens were usually sitting out on the platform, the climb seemed longer and harder than she remembered, she hated to admit it, but she was scared now.
Erma’s talk about cheeky ravens was one thing, but since Erma had almost grudgingly admitted there could be a ghost she didn’t trust the ravens so much anymore.
Poking her head into the lamp room and looking all around, she half expected the flock of them to land on the railing outside. But none did. What she hadn’t noticed before was that the lamp in the tower rested on a short pedestal. While the pedestal looked solid, a thought popped into her mind. Perhaps it wasn’t. She went to her knees once more and examined the pedestal.
It took less than a minute to find the door, and less than a minute more before she found the wooden box. When she pulled it out, she was amazed.
The narrow, long box with its rusted clasp looked like something from another century. She opened it and found a cover of red velvet. She pulled aside the velvet, and there it was.
A dusty bottle of Vevue Amiot champagne.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nora picked up the bottle and blew off the dust. It was a 1939 vintage, and she had no idea if it was still drinkable. Frankly, it didn’t matter. This looked like something that a spirit would wish uncovered, mostly because of its name and the fact that the same name was one that appeared on her screen.
“Is this it Woody?” She whispered, then she spotted the note in the box. Picking it up she read five names on a short list. Three names had been lined through.
One was Wesley Archer, the other was Floyd Taylor, the late owner of the lighthouse. She wondered if his name needed to be lined out also.
Erma was dusting when Nora returned from the tower. “Oh, you’re here,” Nora said. “I wanted to thank you for your patience with Duncan… and with me.”
“Patience! With Duncan!” She gave a scoff. “He’s always good for a yarn if there’s a drink in it, but I wouldn’t drive ya out and he knows it. And if somethings going on here, then I’d have to admit he might be right, wouldn’t I? I might be old, but I’m not so stubborn as to being stupid. What have you there?”
Nora showed Erma the box and the contents. “What do you think? Is this what Woody’s after?”
Erma looked at the list and gave a shake of her head with the assurance of one who knows. “That would be Floyd’s.”
“How do you know?”
“Well look at the year girl. Woody was a ghost long before that was a brew!”
“Right, of course.” Nora blushed at her lack of detective skills and agreed. “Floyd’s. Of course. As were the boots. Do you think Floyd could be the ghost?”
“Wouldn’t think so. Floyd had nothing to do with the birds. They bothered him too.”
“Perhaps this name here, this… Wesley Archer can shed some light.”
“Maybe, I hope so, because it’s a mystery to me.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
When Nora entered her office, box in hand, she found her computer screens empty. Smiling, she looked up and held the bottle high.
“Here goes,” she muttered quietly. Attacking the keyboard with newfound enthusiasm Nora searched. If Wesley Archer existed, she was going to find him.
Twenty minutes later, she called out to Erma, “I’ve found him,”
She grabbed her car keys.
“I’ll likely be gone when you come back,” Erma answered.
“Just lock the door.”
As Nora slid behind the wheel, she patted the box resting on the next seat. Taking out her phone, she put in Wesley Archer’s address into her GPS locator.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“I’ve been expecting you,” Wesley Archer rasped.
Nora smiled at the frail, old man sitting in a worn wheelchair. She pulled up a seat and cradled the wooden box in her arms.
“You’re the third Wesley Archer I’ve found,” she said.
“And the oldest I’m sure.”
His watery eyes were on her, but she wasn’t at all sure he really saw her. They didn’t seem focused. He wore a white tee and a striped robe that was meant for a larger man.
New slippers covered his feet. Well, not new, just unused. She wondered how long he had been confined to the chair.
“You deserve a story,” he said. “I need to make a claim, right?”
“If you wish,” she answered.
&
nbsp; “It’s about the only thing I still remember. Funny how that is. Don’t know if I had lunch, but I remember nineteen forty-four.”
Wesley paused, and his eyes closed. Nora wondered if he was going to sleep. Then, his eyes opened. “We went in on D-Day, the five of us looked out for one another as we broke out and chased the Jerrys across France. But we got a bit too far ahead. When they counter-attacked, we were trapped. We were pretty sure we were going to die, even after the old farmer shoved us into a dry cellar. It was only a matter of time. That was before we found the champagne. You can imagine what a bunch of soldiers looking at death did next. We opened a bottle because we weren’t going to live anyway. At least, we would go out happy.”
A tear slipped from his eye and ran unnoticed down his cheek. “I don’t know if you understand just how maudlin drunk soldiers can become. With death walking all around us, we figured we should do something special in case some of us made it. So, we grabbed the best bottle we could find and formed a pact. We would take the bottle back with us, and we would pass it around as we died. The last man would drink the bottle as a tribute to his fallen friends.”
He looked apologetically at Nora
“I know how melodramatic that sounds. Cliché, I suppose. But it seemed like the thing to do. When you’re young, you think things will never change. You’ll always be young and laughing. Doesn’t quite work out that way. I’m sure you know that even if you don’t believe it.” Nora smiled.
She understood what he was talking about. Would she remain friends with the people she knew today? Not all of them.
“Can I see it?” he asked. She opened the case and pulled aside the velvet. He stared at the bottle as another tear chased the first. His shaking hand reached out and stroked the bottle, as if it were some sort of pet. She held out the list, and he shook his head.
“I don’t read much any-more. Do you mind?”
“Not a bit.” She unfolded the note. “Russell Dobson.”
“Billy didn’t make it back. He was the first. Mortar round got him. If we had had time, we would have mourned him. Death can’t be contemplated in a war zone.”
“Flynn Clements.”
“Flynn had the best blonde hair in the regiment. Blue eyes too. In every village we liberated, the women swarmed him. Most of them wanted him to take them back to England. Even war-torn England was better than France. Flynn came home and married an heiress, an older woman. He would invite me and Floyd out to the summer house. We would drink champagne and rehash our brushes with death. After a while, we stopped going, and he stopped inviting. Life no longer accommodated drink and memory. Flynn was on a transatlantic cruise to New York when he fell overboard. They never recovered the body.”
“Giles Holloway.”
“He hated the name Giles. We used his middle name Robert. He was Bobby all the way. He was from a poor family up north, miners. That was not for Bobby, not after the war. He jumped on a boat and sailed to India. He made some money, but India was in turmoil. He would send us postcards. From there, he went to Saudi Arabia where he worked in the oil fields. I guess that mining background came in handy. He made money there too. From there to South America. Oil fields. I don’t think he ever married, although he might have been married in every country he visited. He got sick in Caracas, very sick, and came back to England. I remember the last time I saw him. We were in a pub, talking old times. He asked who had the bottle, and I told him Floyd. That made him feel better, because he knew Floyd would keep the bottle safe. A week later, he died. Liver, I think.”
“Floyd Taylor.”
Wesley’s lower lip trembled, and another tear seeped from his eye. He motioned to the table next to him, and Nora grabbed a tissue. He dabbed at his eyes with palsied fingers and took as deep a breath as he could manage.
“Floyd was the best of us. I don’t say that because he won the cross. He deserved that if ever a soldier did.
He was braver than any person I’ve ever known.”
He stopped for a moment in far-away memories. Nora waited a moment before speaking
“Go on, I’d like to hear more.”
“Floyd was the one that held us together that day in France. And he was the one who took control of the bottle. On our
anniversary—that’s what we called it—on that day, we -all who remained- would get a note from him. He would tell us if someone had passed, and he would remind us of our duty. He was big on duty. I doubt Floyd could rest peacefully if he failed in his duty. He was the only man I would trust with my wife and my money. I owe my life to him. And I wish, I wish it was him who was going to drink the bottle. How did he…”
“You knew he lived in a lighthouse? He fell off the platform. A stroke or seizure, something like that.”
“I suspected as much. Floyd wasn’t one to live on the backs of others.” Wesley slapped his wheelchair. “Or to be ferried around either.”
Nora folded the note, slid it into the case, and placed the case in Wesley’s lap.
“It seems you are the rightful owner.”
“Would you partake of a glass with me?”
Nora smiled. “I would be honoured.”
Nora actually had two glasses, and while it wasn’t the best tasting wine she had ever had, it was perhaps the most satisfying. When she left, Wesley was snoring softly. As she drove home, she wondered if she would ever have friends as close as those five men holed up in a dry wine cellar. She doubted it. When she walked into the lighthouse, she felt a happy glow, the kind of glow she experienced whenever she completed a project.
She sat alone at the kitchen table and looked out the window. At sea, she could see dark clouds scudding over the horizon. A storm.
While she didn’t relish storms, she wasn’t going to let it ruin this moment. She had completed Floyd’s mission, and she was pleased.
“I did it,” she said out loud. “I delivered the Veuve Amiot. You can rest now, Floyd. Your job is finished. And you know, I think I’m every bit as satisfied as you must be. Good bye, go on to where ever you’re meant to be now.”
Then, the scraping began.
Nora froze.
Chapter Eleven
“No, no, no, no, NO!” Nora shouted. “I did exactly what you wanted. You can’t start this now. I delivered the champagne. Your commitment is over! GO, you can go. Please.”
But the scraping didn’t stop. In fact, it seemed louder. She jumped to her feet, grabbed her keys, and headed for the door. She had no idea where she was going, but she was certain she was going somewhere. If it wasn’t about the champagne, then what was it about? She climbed into her car and started the engine. Before she could put the car in gear, she looked up. That’s when she saw the open window.
An open window? In the lamp room? How in the world… No one had been up there except for her.
“FLOYD” she shouted. “WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT?”
She glanced past the lighthouse to where the storm gathered. It didn’t look like a gentle rain. It looked like a downpour, and a downpour might ruin the lamp room. Was it really a ghost? Was any of this a ghost?
“Oh Felix” she cried to herself, “I’m losing it.” She longed for him to come home quickly. Thoughts hammered at her mind.
How had that window opened? I could have sworn it was closed. Shutting off the engine, she headed back to the cottage. She didn’t know what to do about anything, but she did know she was still going to leave at least for tonight — as soon as she closed that bloody window.
Inside, she remembered to lock the door behind her. Beside herself with disappointment, she marched doggedly through the breezeway and into the tower. As she climbed, the scraping increased, and a blast of cold air rushed over her.
“I’m bloody coming,” she called, not caring anymore.
Then, there it was. That fishy, seaweedy odour now surrounded her, and she breathed through her mouth. It was as if Floyd was throwing everything he had at her. Did he want her to keep searching for something else? She d
idn’t think that was it. She thought he wanted her to know that he hadn’t left. Hot tears of rage fell from her eyes. She had no idea what to do next.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The lamp room was colder than Nora thought possible. The wind poured through the open window. As she shut the window, a raven appeared out of the dark and landed on the platform, she jumped back.
“What the bloody hell,” she shouted.
If the first raven was surprising, the second was terrifying. It landed next to the first, the wind ruffling their feathers.
It was as if they were daring her to come out. Nora bit her knuckle before she screamed.
“ENOUGH! ENOUGH! NO MORE RAVENS. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? NO MORE RAVENS!”
As if Floyd had heard her, the wind paused, and the ravens flew off. She didn’t watch where they went. She didn’t want to know. She backed up against the lamp and faced the storm.
And then, she had a thought. What if more than one ghost had haunted Hellfleet? What if Floyd had gone and Woody was here. Did he want to hurt her? She hoped not.
“OK,” she said shakily, “I’m here. I’m right where you want me — I think. What now? Is that you Woody? If it is, I’ve decided to sell, I’ll leave today.
I know what I said earlier, about finding you, and all of that... but I’ve changed my mind. And, if it’s you Floyd, then I’m still leaving. OK?”
Nora stood still, for a moment, not daring to move. Not knowing what would happen. Nothing happened. She turned to leave and took a step. It only took a few more steps before the noise started up.
The scraping came from outside the tower room. Nora stifled a sob. The storm seemed to pick up energy and battered at the doors and windows.
“What do you want?” she whispered.
A window behind her popped open, and she spun. Without thinking, she ran around and latched the window closed. It popped open again.
Her body shivered, not so much from the cold but from the knowledge that whoever was here, wanted her out on the platform.
The breeze picked up again and buffeted her toward the door.