The Language of Sand (22 page)

“The flashlight might help.”

Because the one Merle had given her was new, as were the batteries, it should have come as no surprise that the flashlight worked. Nonetheless, Abigail was disappointed.

“No backing out now.”

The stairs squeaked as she tried to tiptoe into the basement.

“At least nobody can sneak up on me here.”

Though the overhead light didn’t make much of a dent in the darkness, especially in the far corners, the flashlight did. Crates were stacked high around the basement’s perimeter. Among them were the silhouettes of what she guessed were chairs covered in sheets.

In a burst of bravery, Abigail yanked them off. As she suspected, underneath was a set of dining chairs, an inlaid side table, and a formal, wood-trimmed settee. Beneath another sheet awaited a dining table with scrolled legs and a handsome writing desk. The pieces were antiques, high quality at that.

“This furniture puts the hodgepodge upstairs to shame.”

Another rumble suddenly radiated through the basement. Abigail gripped the flashlight tightly.

“Who’s there?”

She was trembling, causing the beam from the flashlight to tremble too.

“If there’s somebody here, come out. Come out or else….”

Except she didn’t have an
or else
.

Edging toward the cistern, Abigail caught a whiff of the same scent she’d smelled before, mildew with a trace of pipe smoke. That frightened her as much as the noises.

“I said show yourself.”

Abigail shined the flashlight into the cistern’s mouth. The cavern was empty. However, a puddle of water had bubbled in from a drain, bobbling the metal grate so the sound was amplified by the cistern’s stone walls.

“It’s only the water in the drain,” she sighed. Then she turned to head upstairs and crashed into a pile of crates.

Were they there before?

She couldn’t recall.

If they were, wouldn’t you have tripped on them?

One crate’s lid had come loose. Inside were volumes of leather-bound ledgers. They piqued Abigail’s curiosity, tempting her to stay in the basement despite the darkness and her apprehension. Such journals would have been expensive, even on the modern market. The thick leather bindings were still supple to the touch, and the spines were in immaculate condition. When Abigail opened one of the ledgers to the first page, the name
Wesley Jasper
was printed in a steady hand at the top.

She shoved aside her anxiety and began to flip through the pages. Each entry documented the sunrise and sunset, the weather, the tides, and the hours the lighthouse was operating. She marveled at the meticulousness. There were no cross-outs or scribbled corrections. The lettering was painstakingly precise. Abigail combed through the entire box, and every ledger was equally well preserved.

“For as old as you are, you guys look great.”

The other crates held more ledgers. Abigail was fascinated by the entries, the details of everything from thunder and rainstorms to hot spells and heat lightning. She was as absorbed by Mr. Jasper’s writings as she’d been by Lottie’s romance novel.

When Abigail checked her watch, it was after seven. She was supposed to be doing Merle’s rounds. She didn’t want to stop reading, but she had to.

After gingerly repacking the crates, she went upstairs and threw some food into a grocery bag to take with her. As she walked out the door, flashlight in hand, a thought occurred to her.

What if you run into the burglars? Maybe you should bring something to defend yourself.

She scrounged through the kitchen drawers for an implement with which to fend somebody off. The sharpest item she could find was a butter knife, a sibling of the one she’d used to scrape down the wallpaper.

“This is about as menacing as a spork.”

She remembered seeing a hammer in the shed. With the flashlight as her guide, Abigail delved into the night. The shed door, which she’d left unlocked, was shimmying in the breeze. She deliberated over locking it, just to be safe.

“First things first. I need a weapon.”

A rusted claw hammer with a chunky wooden handle lay in a bucket on the floor of the shed.

“Now, this has a little more presence. Hopefully, you won’t have to make your
presence
known.”

Finding the houses marked on Merle’s map was easier said than done. The interior of the island was oppressively dark, blacker than the night sky, because of the overhanging trees. Again and again, Abigail drove past road signs and had to double back.

“I could do with a streetlight or two.”

The first stop along her route was on the southwest end of the
island, where she was stunned to discover a slew of modern homes built on stilts.

“Must be a flood plain.”

Contemporary in style, the houses were accented with sweeping decks, angular rooflines, and spurts of block glass. Their mammoth size was meant to convey wealth and grandeur. The result was a parade of gaudy monsters that looked out of scale and out of place in their surroundings.

“A flood might actually be an improvement.”

Abigail squinted at the house numbers until she found the one that matched her map, a white stucco whale with a carport beneath the house.

“This is it.” She steadied herself, breathing slowly and deliberately. “Don’t forget your hammer.”

Due to the stilts, the first floor was more than a story off the ground. There was no access to the back door on the deck from the exterior. The front door would be a thief’s safest point of entry.

“Less for me to do.”

Weapon in one hand, flashlight in the other, Abigail had no hands left to check and see if the door was locked, her primary responsibility. She had to wedge the flashlight under her armpit so she could still wield the hammer.

“Now
I
look like the burglar.”

When she tried the knob, it held tight.

“One down, thirteen to go.”

The next few rental units were also on stilts, making her job a cinch.

“This isn’t so bad,” Abigail said, munching on a banana as she drove to a different section of the island. Then she pulled up to a rambling cottage surrounded by heavy brush and low-slung trees that shrouded the house on every side. The place was the epitome of spooky.

“That’s what I get for speaking too soon.”

Scraggly tree limbs cloaked the front door, and the windows were barely visible behind the bushes. Someone could easily sneak up to the house and be hidden in the foliage.

“If I had to rob a house, I’d rob this one.”

Abigail needed a plan.

Make noise.
That will scare them off.
Presuming there is a
them.

“Cross your fingers there’s not a
them
,” she told herself.

Abigail exited the car, humming theatrically. “Gosh, what a long day,” she shouted. “Man, oh, man, am I glad to be home.”

Hammer at the ready, she tried the front door. It was locked. There was still the back door to attend to as well as the windows. She cut around to the rear of the cottage along an overgrown stone path. Briars caught on her clothes, scratching her forearms.

“How delightful. More scrapes and bruises.”

Fortunately for her, the back door to the cottage was locked too. The windows were closed tight.

“Done,” Abigail declared, just as a rustling rose from the bushes to her left. She raised the hammer and raked the yard with the flashlight. The din of the crickets was deafening.

“Who’s there?” Her attempt at a demand came out as a murmur.

She trained the flashlight on the bushes, bathing them in its intense beam. The leaves shone a glossy black, frightening because of what they might conceal. Abigail took a step forward. Suddenly, a bird burst from the foliage and flew into the night, wings flapping in tandem with her pounding heart.

“Thanks a lot, bird.”

Stressed yet unscathed, Abigail finished the rest of Merle’s rounds that evening without event. As she navigated back to the lighthouse, reality hit her square in the conscience.

“You’re a Ph.D., an educated woman, and you’ve basically become a night watchman.”

Her former life no longer applied. It had gone up in flames with her home. On Chapel Isle, she wasn’t Abigail the lexicographer, the
mother, the wife. She was the lighthouse caretaker, the security guard, the lady who talked to herself and started fights and was covered with injuries from head to foot. Abigail would have to redefine herself with a new vocabulary while mastering the language of Chapel Isle.

 
mun
di
fy
(mun′də fī′),
v.t.
,
–fied, –fy
ing. 1.
to cleanse; deterge:
to mundify a wound.
2.
to purge or purify:
to mundify a person of past sins.
[1375–1425; late ME < LL
mundificāre
, equiv. to L
mundi–
, s. of
mund(us)
clean +
–ficare
–
FY
]