Spirit Lost (10 page)

“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.

It frightened him that she was there. But she was not in herself a frightening sight. She was so small and so pretty, and the look on her face indicated that he was the one with the power.

John forced himself to look at the woman, not to look away. He was shaking so hard with fear that his whole body reverberated against the wooden steps, making small hitting noises, and his heart thudded loudly in his chest and ears. She was there. She was there. He was not mad. She was really there.

“Fuck,” John whispered. “Jesus.”

Now that the woman saw that John was looking at her steadily, she stopped battering the panes with her hands and leaned down close to the glass of the skylight. Some of her dark hair fell over the side of her face; he could see the wavy sheen of it, the lustrous texture of it, as clearly as he could see the grain in the wooden steps.

Her mouth was half open, as if she meant to speak. Her eyes were the eyes of a real woman: dark and wide and luminous, filled with a message.

“Let me in,” she called. “Please. Let me in.”

He heard her clearly. Her voice was like music.

He thought, Well, this will prove something one way or the other, before he said aloud, “All right. Stand back.”

John backed down the steps, grabbed up some rags he used to wipe his brushes, and wrapped them around his hand. Then he climbed back up the steps. The ghost was still there. She had moved back, just slightly, so that he could still see her.

He raised his arm and drove his fist upward through the skylight, smashing it so that the glass shattered and fell in fragments and shards all around him. Much of it stayed anchored in the frame, so that the center, where he had struck the blow, was now a jagged hole and the chilly winter night air whooshed in through this hole, passing over his body so suddenly that it was as if he had plunged headfirst into a swimming pool; he had the sensation of falling, of being surrounded by cold, and he lost his breath with the shock.

The woman was no longer there. He heard a tinkle as one last splinter of glass hit the wooden floor. He felt the cold air blowing evenly now through the broken glass, hitting him in the face. He stared, he waited, but the woman did not return.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath.

He backed down the leaning steps, unwrapping the rag. In spite of that precaution, one knuckle was bleeding, and his whole hand ached from the impact. He stood at the bottom of the steps and carefully picked pieces of glass from his hair. The temperature was falling rapidly now in the attic, and the floor around the steps was a dangerous mess of glittering broken glass.

“Intelligent, John,” he said to himself. “Fucking brilliant.”

It wouldn’t do to let the wind and damp get into the attic. Even if what he had done was worthless, there were still all the new canvases. He ripped a heavy moving box so that he had a section of cardboard suitable to cover the hole and found a roll of masking tape with his other supplies. He climbed back up the ladder and covered the skylight with the cardboard, taping it tightly to the wooden frame. It pulsed slightly from the beat of the wind but did not give. He would have to get a carpenter here as soon as possible.

And tell him what? And tell Willy what? Christ, he was a fool. If only that—if only he weren’t losing his mind.

He backed down the steps again and stood looking at the sparkling glass that glinted from the floor. That could wait until tomorrow to be cleaned up. He’d have to bring the vacuum up to get every tiny bit of it.

A movement, a shadow passing, startled him, and he looked up. The young woman in the black cape was standing at the top of the stairs leading down to the second floor. She had loosened her cape slightly so that he could see the gray worsted stuff of her dress, which fell in folds to her feet. Now that she was inside, there was color to her: Her lips and cheeks were a tender pink. But her eyes and hair were still black, and her skin very white.

Again John’s heart started up its drumming against his chest. His mouth went dry. He was too alarmed to speak, even though he opened his mouth. He felt frozen in his terror, as if he were in one of his most awful nightmares, where he could not move.

“Thank you,” the woman said sweetly, simply. She smiled. “For letting me in.”

She turned and went down the steps to the second floor. He heard the latch being lifted on the door between the attic steps and the second floor, but he could tell from the way the light did not change that the door had not opened. Yet when he managed to move forward a few feet to stare down the stairway, he saw that the woman had gone.

“Dammit!” he yelled. “Where did you go?”

He thundered down the wooden steps and opened the door himself—the handle was not a new round one but rather a wrought-iron latch contraption that had to be lifted up and out of a little iron notch.

On the second floor the hall was empty. John ran from room to room, looking, finding nothing. He opened the closets.

Nothing.

He ran back up to scan the attic.

No one. Nothing.

He ran down the stairs to the first floor and looked through all the rooms and all the closets and cupboards in all the rooms.

He heard footsteps and turned, gasping.

“What on earth is the matter, John?” Willy asked, coming up to him as he stood nearly panting in the front hall. “My God, look at you.”

For his hair was wild, hanging in his eyes, and one hand was bruised and clotted with blood.

“She’s here,” John said. “She’s inside. I let her in.”

Willy looked at her husband, and the worry on her face only enraged him. “Who’s here, John?” she asked gently.

“The ghost, dammit!” John yelled. “Willy, you’ve got to believe me. I bashed open the skylight. I let her in. I saw her on the attic staircase. I heard her speak. And then she went down to the second floor and went through the door—and disappeared. She’s somewhere in the house, and I can’t find her. Dammit, Willy, I’m telling you the truth.” He was nearly sobbing with fear and frustration.

“I believe you, John,” Willy said quietly. “I believe you. Do you want me to look for her with you?”

“Yes,” he said.

So they went through the house together, slowly, but found nothing. They found no one and no sign of anyone, no sign that anyone else had been in the house. In the attic, the cardboard John had taped to the skylight pulsed gently with the wind.

“Christ, Willy,” John said, leaning against the wall. “I’m scared. I’m really scared.” He managed a grin. “I’m more scared now that she
isn’t
here than I was when she was. I don’t want you to think I’m … going mad or something. Jesus.”

“I don’t think that,” Willy said. “I promise you, John. I don’t think that. Let’s go
to bed now. Come on.”

“Bed?” John said, as if the thought were foreign. “Willy, I won’t be able to sleep.”

“No, probably not,” Willy said. “But it’s so late now. We can just sit in bed and talk. Relax. I’ll get us some brandies.”

Willy and John sat together in their bed, leaning against the pillows they had propped against the headboard, and the air of the room was gently steady and brightened by their bedside lamps. John felt safe inside the light’s protection, in the way a child feels safe.

He described the scene again to Willy, carefully providing every detail he could remember. He had heard her voice. Several times. Had seen the material of her dress so clearly that he could tell it was scratchy, heavy, weighted. Had seen her face so clearly that he could tell her skin was creamy and that her cheeks were flushed rosy with fear or excitement or—or something.