Beloved (35 page)

"
Because he wasn
'
t looking where he was going.
"
Irritation was beginning to seep into Mac
'
s voice.

"
That
'
s true; but what made him so inattentive?
"

"
For God
'
s sake, the thought of a Snickers bar, what else?
"
He turned his head sharply to study her.
"
What
'
re you getting at?
"

Jane took a deep breath and plunged.
"
Okay, well, here
'
s the thing: A lot of weird, unexplainable
...
happenings
...  have been, well,
happening. You already know about my shoulder
—
"

"
Which you said yourself is fine
—
"

"
But I haven
'
t told you about all the other things.
"
She related in spare detail the events of the fallen bookcase, the missing spoon, the open bulkhead doors, and the muddy laundry. She expected Mac to laugh, but he didn
'
t, and it frightened her. All in all, she would
'
ve preferred hilarity.

"
Have you changed the locks on your doors? Put locks on all your windows?
"
he asked her sharply.

"
Well, no. Bing said
Nantucket
was safe as gold bullion,
"
she said, with a sinking, sickening feeling.

"
Do you believe everything Bing tells you? For Chrissake, you
'
ve got a handyman right there! He can install the locks. What
'
re you waiting for?
"

"
I don
't know; for ..
. nothing, I suppose,
"
she said stupidly.
"
But what good are locks?
"
she blurted.
"
L
ocks are for people, not for ..
.
"

"
Not for
what
?
"

"
Spirits?
"
she whispered.
"
I know; I know how you feel about this, but I
'
m not kidding. When I got back from your house on the day of the accident, Buster refused to go into the bedroom. He hunkered down into some kind of groaning how
l; it was ..
. hideous,
"
she said, closing her eyes at the remembrance.

"So
you think
—
"

"
I think there
'
s some kind of curse on Lilac Cottage. That
'
s what I think. I don
'
t know how it all sorts out,
"
she said quickly before he could interrupt,
"
but too many things have happened for them to be coincidence. And that includes Jerry
'
s fall over the shovel,
"
she said defiantly.
"
This all ties in to Judith Brightman. I
know
it.
"

They
'
d driven back through town and were heading out on
North Water Street
toward Lilac Cottage. Mac slammed on the brakes so forcefully that Jane
'
s seat belt locked. He swung hard onto a short, muddy lane that connected to
South Beach Street
and began heading back to the center of town.

"
What
is
it with you and this curse?
"
he said angrily as they went bumping over the cobblestones.
"
Every time I see you, you
're prowling some graveyard ..
. and now you
'
re looking for ghosts behind every missing teaspoon. You
'
re like my Aunt Lucille, for Chrissake! What
'
s next? Cutting open a chicken and reading the entrails?
"

Mac made a right turn so sharp that Jane ended up with a rib full of door handle; he was hopping mad.
"
Don
'
t you
get
it? Someone must be stalking you
—
someone you
'
ve brought with you from off-island, I
have no doubt."

He shot her a glance of pure fury.
"
No,
"
he said through a clenched jaw,
"
you
don't
get it, do you? You came to
Nantucket
fully prepared to find ghosts, and by God, it
'
s ghosts you
'
re finding. Well, congratulations. I
'
ll put your name in for hostess
on the Haunted House Tour
. Jesus! What
did
they teach you in finishing school?
"

Jane stared at him, agape, as he pulled up in front of the brick
Town
Building
on
Broad Street
, leaned over in front of her, and threw open the door for her to leave. One part of her was saying, yes, it
'
s definitely Old Spice, and another was quaking before the full brunt of his fury. She had expected cynicism and feared his sarcasm, but
nothing
had prepared her for
this.

"
Why are you throwing me out
here
?"
she
asked
, anger starting to displace her astonishment.

"
You want to know about Judith Brightman? You start with the death record. Have fun!
"

He slammed the door on her and roared off. Jane was left to dust herself off, so to speak, and continue on her way. Muttering under her breath, she walked into the Town Clerk
'
s Office and asked for the death record of Judith Brightman, died 1852. In two and a half seconds she was handed a large, black, leather-bound book that said,
"
Deaths, 1850—1889, Town of
Nantucket
.
"
Among the hundred and sixty-five deaths recorded in the year 1852 she found a simple, handwr
itten summary of Judith Bright
man
'
s life.

Her
"
condition
"
at the time of her death was: widow. Her place of birth: unknown. Her age: just as the gravestone said. The name of her parents: unknown as well, dammit. The place of internment:
Nantucket
, big help. And the informant: an undertaker by the name of William Calder. Judith died not
of dropsy or croup or pot ash
(whatever th
at was) or bilious fever, nor did she die by
burning or drowning or in
childbirth as some others had.
No, Judith Brightman died of fits.

Fits.
What in heaven
'
s name were fits? Was she an epileptic? Was she insane, or hysterical? Or was
she —
could
she have been
—
possessed in some way? If Judith had died, say, of consumption or influenza, then that would be that. A not abnormal end to a not abnormal life span. But
fits.
"
Fits
"
had more than a touch of the supernatural about it.

There was one other intriguing bit of information in the record: Judith Brightman
'
s occupation was listed as
"
merchant.
"
Jane had read that the nineteenth-century
Nantucket
woman was unusually career-oriented, and that merchandising was one of the socially acceptable ways for her to earn money while her husband was off whaling. Nonetheless, among the mariners, fishermen, coopers, sailmakers, laborers, farmers, and lawyers who
'
d died in 1852, Judith Brightman, female businessman, stood almost alone. She had to have been a woman of great determination.

Jane
'
s next stop was at the Atheneum,
Nantucket
'
s library. The Greek Revival structure, with its lofty columned facade, soared above her as she read with disappointment that winter hours were in effect. She
'
d have to come back later. So she trekked on home, fired with curiosity over this Judith Brightman, this merchant woman who died of fits. Su
ddenly Judith had become so ..
. legitimate. Up until a few minutes ago she
'
d been officially no more than half a gravestone. But now Jane knew she was real. She lived, she died. And she had some unfinished business on
Nantucket
.

It was up
to Jane to finish it for her.

****

As she was walking up to Lilac Cottage, Jane saw Billy B. charging out of the driveway.

"
Where
're
you off to?
"
she asked when he stopped the truck.

"
Hardy
'
s. For some window locks and a barrel bolt,
"
he said, pleased that Jane saw he was on top of things.

"
Says who?
"

"
Says Mac. He stopped by a little while ago. I have to say, his mood was blacker
'
n hell.
"

Her fists came up and since Mac wasn
'
t around, they landed on her hips.
"
What did he say?
"

"Uh ..
. let me think.
  Exactly?
'
If I can get so much as a flea
'
s butt through this door tonight, I
'
ll cut you in two and feed you to the wolves.
'
He didn
'
t really mean it. We don
'
t have any wolves on
Nantucket
.
"

"
Turn around, Billy. Locks are
not
on today
'
s worklist,
"
she said, turning on her heel for the cottage.

Incredible.
She
'
d opened herself completely to Mac, risked being treated like a fool, a
nd he was treating her like ..
. a fool! As if she were some child, afraid of the bogeyman!

She
marched
inside, looked up Mac
'
s telephone number, began punching it in, stopped, slammed the receiver down, picked it up, got halfway through the number again, slammed the receiver down again.

No.
He wasn
'
t worth it. He was too earthbound to see the possibility of another dimension, too cynical to believe in it if someone else pointed it out to him.
Haunted house tour hostess.
That jerk!

She was pacing through the house, trying to regroup, when she came upon the single strip of wallpaper she
'
d hung in the front parlor. It was a sudden and charming surprise to her, like stumbling on the little clump of blue scilla along the road, and it had an instant effect on her overheated temper. She made herself a soothing cup of tea, avoided Billy B.
—
who was avoiding
her
like crazy
— and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging wallpaper. It was wonderful, watching the room come vibrantly alive strip by strip.

When she heard the brass door knocker later in the evening, she was reluctant to answer it; she wanted nothing to break her mood of enchantment. But it couldn
'
t be Mac
—
the door wasn
'
t rattling from the force of his banging
—
so she risked opening it.

Bing. She hadn
'
t expected him until the next day, Saturday, and to see him standing there with that irresistible grin on his face was like being handed four dozen yellow roses wrapped in a tissue of sunshine.