The Shape of Night

by Tess Gerritsen

  I turn to Donna. “I have another question. About the house.”

  “Is it about the mice again? Because if they really do bother you, I might be able to find you an apartment rental in another town. It’s in a new building and it doesn’t have a view, but—”

  “No, I can deal with the mice. In fact, I’ve already caught half a dozen of them in the last week. My question is about the turret.”

  “Oh.” She sighs, already assuming what my complaint is. “Billy and Ned told me the repairs will take longer than they expected. They need to open up that hidden space behind the wall. If that’s not acceptable for you, I can ask them to delay the work until October, after you’re gone.”

  “No, I’m perfectly fine having them work in the house. They’re nice to have around.”

  “I’m glad you think so. Ned’s gone through some tough times in the last few years. He was really happy when Mr. Sherbrooke gave him the job.”

  “I’d think a good carpenter would have more than enough work around here.”

  “Yes, well…” She looks down at her desk. “I’ve always found him reliable. And I’m sure that turret’s going to be gorgeous when he’s done with it.”

  “Speaking of the turret…”

  “Yes?”

  “Did the previous tenant mention anything, um, odd about it?”

  “What do you mean by ‘odd’?”

  “Funny creaks. Noises. Odors.” Like the smell of the ocean.

  “Charlotte never mentioned anything to me.”

  “What about any of the tenants before her?”

  “Charlotte’s the only other tenant I’ve rented that house to. Before her, Brodie’s Watch sat empty for years. This is the first season it’s been available to rent.” She searches my face, trying to glean what I’m really asking. “I’m sorry, Ava, but I’m not entirely clear about what problems you’re experiencing. Every old house has creaks and noises. Is there something in particular I can address?”

  I consider telling her the truth: that I believe Brodie’s Watch is haunted. But I’m afraid of what this no-nonsense businesswoman will think of me. In her place, I know what I would think of me.

  “It’s not a problem, actually,” I finally say. “You’re right, it’s just an old house, so I guess it comes with the odd creak now and then.”

  “Then you don’t want me to find an apartment for you? Somewhere in a different town?”

  “No, I’ll stay through October as I planned. That should give me time to finish a big chunk of my book.”

  “You’ll be glad you stayed. And October really is the nicest time of year.”

  I’m already at the door when I think of one more question. “The owner’s name is Arthur Sherbrooke?”

  “Yes. He inherited the house from his aunt.”

  “Do you think he’d mind if I contacted him about the history of Brodie’s Watch? It would be interesting background for my book.”

  “He comes up to Tucker Cove every so often to check on Ned’s progress. I’ll find out when he’ll be in town again, but I’m not sure how willing he is to talk about the house.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s having a hard enough time selling the place. The last thing he needs is someone writing about the mouse problem.”

  * * *

  —

  I walk out of Donna’s office, into the heat of a summer’s day. The village is bustling, every table taken in the Lobster Trap Restaurant, and a long line of tourists snakes out of Village Cone Ice Cream. But no one seems interested in the white clapboard building that houses the Tucker Cove Historical Society. When I step inside, I don’t see a single soul, and except for the ticking of a grandfather clock, it is silent. Tourists come to Maine to sail its waters and hike its forests, not to poke around inside gloomy old houses filled with dusty artifacts. I examine a glass display case containing antique dinner plates and wine goblets and silverware. It is a setting for a sit-down supper, circa 1880. Beside the place setting is an old cookbook, open to a recipe for salt mackerel baked in new milk and butter. It’s just the sort of dish that one would have been served in a coastal village like Tucker Cove. Simple fare, made with ingredients pulled from the sea.

  Hanging above the glass case is an oil painting of a familiar three-masted ship in full sail, plowing through turbulent green waves. It is identical to the painting that now hangs in Brodie’s Watch. I lean in close and am so focused on the artist’s brushstrokes that I don’t realize someone has approached me from behind until the floorboard gives a squeak. With a start, I turn and see a woman watching me, her eyes enormous through the thick lenses in her glasses. Age has bowed her spine and she is only as tall as my shoulder, but her gaze is steady and alert, and she stands without the aid of a cane, her feet squarely planted in ugly but sensible shoes. Her docent name tag reads: MRS. DICKENS, which seems to match her almost too perfectly for it to be true.

  “It’s a very fine painting, isn’t it?” she says.

  Still surprised by her unexpected arrival, I merely nod.

  “That’s the Mercy Annabelle. She used to sail out of Wiscasset.” She smiles, laugh lines creasing a face like worn leather. “Welcome to our little museum. Is this your first time in Tucker Cove?”

  “Yes.”

  “Staying for a while?”

  “Through the summer.”

  “Ah, good for you. Too many tourists just zoom up the coast, rushing through town after town, and everything blends together for them. It takes time to feel the pulse of a place and get to know its character.” Her heavy glasses slide down her nose. Pushing them back up, she gives me a closer look. “Is there something in particular I can help you find? Some aspect of our history you’d like to know?”

  “I’m staying up at Brodie’s Watch. I’m curious about its history.”

  “Ah. You’re the food writer.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I ran into Billy Conway at the post office. He says he’s never been so happy to go to work every morning. Your blueberry muffins are getting quite the reputation in town. Ned and Billy are hoping you’ll settle down here and open up a bake shop.”

  I laugh. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Do you like living up on the hill?”

  “It’s beautiful up there. Exactly the place you’d expect a sea captain to build his house.”

  “You’ll be interested in this.” She points to a different display case. “These items belonged to Captain Brodie. He brought them back from his voyages.”

  I lean in to examine the two dozen seashells which gleam under glass like colorful jewels. “He collected seashells? I never would have guessed that.”

  “We had a biologist from Boston look at these specimens. She told us these shells come from all around the world. The Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea. Rather a sweet hobby for a big burly sea captain, don’t you think?”

  I notice the journal lying open in the case, its yellowed pages covered with meticulous handwriting.

  “That’s his logbook from the earlier ship he was master of, The Raven. He seemed to be a man of few words. Most of his entries are strictly about the weather and sailing conditions, so it’s hard to tell much about the man himself. Clearly, the sea was his first love.”

  And it was ultimately his doom, I think, as I study the handwriting of a man long dead. Fair winds, following seas he had written that day of the voyage. But the weather is always changing and the sea is a treacherous mistress. I wonder about his final words in The Minotaur logbook, just before his ship went down. Did he catch the scent of death in the wind, hear its scream in the rigging? Did he realize that he would never again set foot in the house where I now sleep?

  “Do you have anything else in your collection that belonged to Captain Brodie?” I ask.

  “The
re are a few more items upstairs.” The doorbell tinkles and she turns as a family with young children enters. “Why don’t you wander around and take a look? All the rooms are open to visitors.”

  As she greets the new arrivals, I walk through a doorway into the parlor, where chairs upholstered in red velvet are arranged around a tea table, as though for a ladies’ gathering. On the wall are twin portraits of the gray-haired man and woman who once owned this building. The man looks stiff and uncomfortable in his high-collared shirt, and his wife stares from her portrait with steely eyes, as if to demand what I am doing in her parlor.

  In the other room, I hear a child scampering about and the mother pleads: “No no, sweetheart! Put that vase down!”

  I escape the noisy family and head into the kitchen, where a wax cake, artificial fruit, and a giant plastic turkey represent the makings of a holiday meal. I consider what it was like to cook such a meal on the cast-iron wood-burning stove, the backbreaking labor of hauling in water, feeding wood to the flames, plucking the bird. No, thank you; a modern kitchen for me.

  “Mommeee! Let me go!” The child’s shrieks move closer.

  I flee up a back staircase and ascend narrow steps that servants must once have climbed. Displayed in the second-floor hallway are portraits of distinguished residents of Tucker Cove from a century ago, and I recognize names which are now displayed on storefronts in the village. Laite. Gordon. Tucker.

  I do not see the name Brodie.

  The first bedroom has a four-poster bed and in the next bedroom is an antique crib and a child’s rocking horse. The last room, at the end of the hall, is dominated by a massive sleigh bed and an armoire, the door open to show a lace wedding gown hanging inside. But I pay no attention to the furniture; instead my attention is riveted on what hangs over the fireplace.

  It is a painting of a striking man with wavy black hair and a prominent brow. He stands posed before a window, and over his left shoulder is a view of a ship in the harbor, its sails aloft. His dark coat is simple and unadorned but perfectly tailored to his broad shoulders, and in his right hand he holds a gleaming brass sextant. I do not need to look at the label affixed to the painting; I already know who this man is because I have seen him by moonlight. I have felt his hand caress my cheek and heard his voice whisper to me in the darkness.

  Under my roof, no harm will come to you.

  “Ah. I see you’ve found him,” says the docent.

  As she joins me in front of the fireplace, my gaze remains fixed on the portrait. “It’s Jeremiah Brodie.”

  “He was a fine-looking fellow, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  “I imagine the ladies in town must have swooned whenever he came striding down the gangplank. What a shame he left no heirs.”

  For a moment we stand side by side, both of us spellbound by the image of a man who has been dead for nearly a century and a half. A man whose eyes seem to gaze directly at me. Only at me.

  “It was a terrible tragedy for this village when his ship went down,” says Mrs. Dickens. “He was so young, only thirty-nine, but he knew the sea as well as anyone could. He grew up on the water. Spent more of his life at sea than he did on land.”

  “Yet he built that beautiful house. Now that I’ve been living in Brodie’s Watch for a while, I’m starting to appreciate just how special it really is.”

  “So you like it there.”

  I hesitate. “Yes,” I finally say, and it’s true; I do like it there. Mice and ghost and all.

  “Some people have quite the opposite reaction to that house.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Every old house comes with a past. Sometimes people can sense if it’s a dark past.”

  Her gaze makes me uncomfortable; I turn away from her and once again lock eyes with the painting. “I admit, when I first saw the house, I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay.”

  “What did you feel?”

  “As if—as if the house didn’t want me there.”

  “Yet you moved in anyway.”

  “Because that feeling changed the moment I stepped inside. Suddenly I didn’t feel unwelcome anymore. I felt as if it accepted me.”

  I realize I’ve said too much, and her gaze makes me uncomfortable. To my relief, the wayward child suddenly thumps along the hallway and the docent turns just as a three-year-old boy darts into the room. He makes a beeline for the fireplace tools, of course, and in a flash he’s pulled out the poker.

  “Travis? Travis, where are you?” his mother calls from another room.

  The docent snatches the poker out of the boy’s hands and places it out of reach on the mantelpiece. Through gritted teeth she says: “Young man, I’m sure your mommy can find a much better place for you to play.” She grabs the boy’s hand and half-leads him, half-drags him out of the room. “Let’s go find her, shall we?”

  I take that opportunity to quietly slip out of the room and make my way back down the staircase to the exit. I don’t want to talk to her, to anyone, about what happened to me in Brodie’s Watch. Not yet. Not when I myself am not certain of what I actually saw.

  Or didn’t see.

  I walk toward my car, joining the throngs of tourists on the street. The world of living, breathing people who do not drift through walls, who do not appear and disappear like wisps of shadow. Does there exist a parallel world that I cannot see, a world inhabited by those who came before us, who even now are walking this same path I walk? Squinting against the glare of sunlight, I can almost see Tucker Cove as it once was, horses clopping across cobblestones, ladies swishing by in long skirts. Then I blink and that world is gone. I am back in my own time.

  And Jeremiah Brodie has been dead for a hundred and fifty years.

  Grief suddenly overwhelms me, a sense of loss so profound that my steps falter. I come to a stop right there on the crowded sidewalk as people stream past me. I don’t understand why I’m crying. I don’t understand why the passing of Captain Brodie should fill me with such sorrow. I drop down onto a bench and rock forward, my body shaking with sobs. I know that I am not really weeping for Jeremiah Brodie. I weep for myself, for the mistake I’ve made and for what I have lost because of it. Just as I cannot bring back Captain Brodie, I cannot bring back Nick. They are gone, both of them ghosts, and my only escape from the pain is the blessed bottle that waits in my kitchen cabinet. How easily one drink becomes two, then three, then four.

  That is how it all went wrong in the first place. A few too many glasses of champagne on a snowy New Year’s Eve. I can still hear the happy clink of glassware, feel bubbles fizz on my tongue. If only I could go back to that night and warn New Year’s Ava: Stop. Stop now while you still can.

  A hand touches my shoulder. I snap straight up on the bench and turn to see a familiar face frowning at me. It’s that doctor I met in the hardware store. I don’t remember his name. I certainly don’t want to talk to him, but he sits down beside me and asks quietly:

  “Are you all right, Ava?”

  I wipe away tears. “I’m fine. I just got a little dizzy. It must be the heat.”

  “Is that all it is?”

  “I’m perfectly okay, thank you.”

  “I don’t mean to be nosy. I was just on my way to get coffee and you looked like you needed help.”

  “What, are you the town psychiatrist?”

  Unruffled by my retort, he asks gently, “Do you think you need one?”

  I’m afraid to admit the truth, even to myself: Maybe I do. Maybe what I’ve experienced in Brodie’s Watch are the first signs of my sanity unraveling, the threads spooling away.

  “May I ask, have you eaten anything today?” he says.

  “No. Um, yes.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “A cup of coffee.”

  “Well then, maybe that’s the pro
blem. I prescribe food.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “How about just a cookie? The coffee shop’s right around the corner. I won’t force-feed you or anything. I just don’t want to have to stitch you up when you faint and hit your head.” He holds out his hand, an act of kindness that takes me by surprise and it seems rude to turn him down.

  I take his hand.

  He leads me around the corner and down a narrow side street to the No Frills Café, which turns out to be a disappointingly accurate description. Under fluorescent lights, I see a linoleum floor and a glass case with an unappetizing array of baked goods. It’s not a café I’d ever choose to step into, but it’s clearly a gathering place for locals. I spot the butcher from the grocery store biting into a cheese Danish and a mailman standing in line to pay for his cup of to-go coffee.

  “Have a seat,” the doctor says. I still can’t remember his name and I’m too embarrassed to admit it. I sit down at a nearby table, hoping someone will call him by name, but the girl behind the counter greets him with only a cheery “Hey, Doc, what’ll it be?”

  The door swings open and yet another person I recognize steps into the café. Donna Branca has shed her blazer and the humidity has fluffed up her usually tidy helmet of blond hair. It makes her look younger, and I can see the girl she once must have been, sun-kissed and pretty, before adulthood forced her to don a businesswoman’s uniform. Spotting the doctor, she lights up and says, “Ben, I was hoping to run into you. Jen Oswald’s son is applying to medical school and you’d be the perfect man to give him advice.”

  Ben. Now I remember. His name is Ben Gordon.

  “I’d be happy to give him a call,” he says. “Thanks for letting me know.” As he heads toward my table, Donna stares after him. Then she stares at me, as if something is not right with this picture. As if I have no business sharing a table with Dr. Gordon.

  “Here you go. That should get your blood sugar up,” he says and places a cookie in front of me. It’s the size of a saucer, thickly studded with chocolate chips.

  I have absolutely no interest in eating this cookie, but to be polite I take a bite. It is irredeemably sweet, as boringly one-note as spun sugar. Even as a child, I knew that in every good recipe, sweet must be balanced with sour, salt with bitter. I think of the first batch of oatmeal raisin cookies I ever made by myself, and how eagerly Lucy and I had sampled the results after they came out of the oven. Lucy, always generous with praise, pronounced them the best ever but I knew better. Like life itself, cooking is about balance, and I knew that next time I must add more salt to the batter.