Out of the Wild Night

by Blue Balliett

  The man with the squirrelly hair is known as Robin Hood Bob—Robby Bob, for short—possibly because he used to steal from summer people who wouldn’t notice a little “borrowing,” as he puts it. Teak lawn furniture, a rowboat or two, bikes and tools: He “redistributed” the goods. Does he still do this? He says no, but old habits die hard.

  Eddy is rude and doesn’t respond to whatever Robby Bob is saying.

  I study Mr. Nold at this quiet moment, as it’s wise to know your enemy.

  He’s a fortyish man with a triangular head. Small eyes are set close on either side of a bridgeless nose. A line of mouth extends past his eyes, which seem to swivel in place, although of course that’s impossible. His teeth are sharp, his ears flat. Mud-brown hair rises on the top of his head and runs clear down his neck and inside the back of his shirt. Short arms look more like pectoral fins than anything useful, which is odd in a person who does physical labor.

  His voice is perhaps his greatest weapon. He uses the word sure like salt on fries, and makes it sound just as good. He’s the first at the sale of every old house that’s still an antique, especially in my neighborhood, an area in town with a bunch of old buildings.

  I’ve been catching up on the rules. There are now strict ones on Nantucket about not disturbing the outside of an old structure, but nothing protects the inside. Lately, people have been buying our old houses and throwing away everything inside, just because it’s been around forever. That, and the rooms are small and ceilings low. The new owners might leave a few of the original boards buried beneath fresh shingles or hidden under drywall, in order to later claim the structure is from 1803 or perhaps even 1745. When the job is done, all appears—and is!—new, despite a plaque on the building claiming it’s old. Inside, you could be anywhere—Florida, San Francisco, Phoenix. Such interiors feel like anywhere and nowhere at the same time.

  Eddy is one of those contractors. He is proud of the name Nold Builders. All the comforts of NEW inside the OLD promises a banner on the side of his truck. Nold, not mold! is lettered neatly across the back.

  Insisting that he does what he does for the good of the people he works for or buys from, he always has a smear of dirt somewhere on his body, as if wanting to give the message that he’s too busy to stay clean. He volunteers at the Nantucket Children’s Club, and sometimes at the food pantry. Oddly, Eddy is liked at both places. An import from the mainland when the economy took a dip, he’s been on the island for only a few years but always seems to know where to be and when, especially if an old house like mine comes up for sale.

  Eliza Rebimbas still has her wits about her. Decades ago, she and her husband, Tony, were famous for their intricate lightship baskets, a tightly woven rattan basket of a purse with a smooth wooden base and scrimshaw on the lid. This type of basketmaking was exacting work, an old craft done well only by a few.

  Eliza’s husband has passed, her only daughter and then granddaughter have both died, and her grandson, his wife, and their two children—she didn’t see much of them, but was happy they were still on-island—were swept away in last year’s boating accident.

  This dreadful event left her without living family, a shocking turn of events, but she continues to bake her wonders for the schoolchildren. She is known in the community as Grandma Rebimbas.

  Eddy Nold knocked on her door months ago and returned to visit several times. After complimenting her on her generosity with kids, he suggested that were she to sell her home to him, she could then give the proceeds to the Children’s Club. He assured her that he worshipped the old and “Nantuckety,” after oohing and aahing over her house and calling it a find. He talked about how an old house deserves to be restored, like an old piece of art.

  Someone should have recorded Eddy’s words.

  “Do we destroy a Leonardo da Vinci painting simply because it needs to be repaired or the frame is beat up?” he asked Mrs. Rebimbas. “Of course not!”

  She believed him.

  A nearby neighbor, Lydia Lyon, had a similar experience. Lydia was also old and without living family; she and Eliza had shared much of their lives over the back fence that divided their properties—sicknesses, weddings, soups, and extras of all kinds. If one of them had too many fresh vegetables, she’d send some “over the fence” with one of the neighborhood kids, who might then return with a basket of berries or a pot of stew. Lydia Lyon also sold her home to Nold Builders, believing this would save it.

  Eely Eddy had promised both Mrs. Lyon and Mrs. Rebimbas that they could stay in their homes until ready to leave. The elderly women were grateful.

  Last week, Mrs. Lyon died peacefully in her sleep, and it became clear that interior demolition would begin immediately on her house. Nold trucks and backhoes rolled past the Rebimbas home, and the walls trembled.

  Shocked, saddened, and frightened, Eliza had a fall the next day. A broken hip and cracked elbow sent her to the hospital shortly after … and from there straight to the island’s nursing home.

  That, I believe, is when I was startled awake.

  The house needed me.

  Mrs. Rebimbas hears today that Eddy Nold is grumbling to people around town that her place—meaning mine, too!—is unsound.

  It isn’t.

  The only unsound thing here is Eely Eddy’s grasp of the truth. He said the same thing about Lydia Lyon’s house.

  Eliza wishes she’d never heard the news.

  Our house is worn, yes, the floors uphill and down, but the structure is solid as can be. One of a kind. Built by a shipwright—that is, a skilled carpenter who built boats—over two hundred years ago. Mended, tended, and lived in by generation after generation of working people. “A one-of-a-kind monument to the work of hands”—that’s how Eliza liked to describe her home. Our home.

  Eliza’s baskets hang from the rafters, and my old copper pots shine on the walls. Needlework samplers and a few paintings keep company with braided rugs. Plates and teacups were brought from China by some of my husband’s whaling relatives. The place was once home to Benjamin Franklin’s great-niece, who was a Folger and the first wife in the house; it’s belonged to house and ship carpenters, a mason, a blacksmith, even a Civil War veteran—my husband, Daniel. Fifteen babies have been born in the house, and at least a dozen people have died in it.

  This structure will welcome any who respect its age.

  “Like an old picnic basket or chair,” Eliza explained to Eddy Nold, who pretended to agree.

  “Nothing like an angle that’s settled,” she added, talking about everything in life.

  And now her house is quiet, with no smells of fried dough or an evening fire, and her neighbor’s old home is under attack.

  She hears the news from a nurse.

  “Much of Mrs. Lyon’s place is gone. And I know those Nold Builders. What they do to a house makes it look like new,” the woman reports. Perhaps she doesn’t realize that Eliza also sold her home to Eely Eddy. “Something from a real estate ad,” the nurse chats on, straightening sheets. “Never know that an old house was once inside those walls. Just a brand-spanking, whoop-de-do copy.

  “I drove by another one of his ‘projects’ last night—you know he always does a few at the same time. Didn’t recognize a thing. Scooped out like a fish or a melon. Shutters gone, all new windows, a chandelier in the front parlor where the owners used to have an old ship’s lantern, the brass always twinkling. Nold added those way-too-bright ceiling lights, the kind that make you squint, and shiny paint on the front clapboards. Can see your reflection, driving by. Ah, me.” She pauses, seeing Eliza’s face. “He’s making a fancy ballroom version of our world, like in a Hollywood movie.”

  Eliza’s eyes close and a tear rolls down one cheek.

  “Did I upset you, dear?” the nurse asks. “I’m sorry, how thoughtless of me.”

  “Remember,” Eliza whispers to all who stop to greet her after that, “to join hands.”

  The staff smile, looking touched but puzzled. Several give he
r hand a squeeze.

  It’s easy to forget that a very old Nantucketer is a series of layers, like an oyster shell, with a young person inside.

  A child with a pearl for a heart and a knowing mind.

  I hear her. I wish I could tell her that Mary W. Chase is here. And awake. That strange events are happening on the shore, at dusk. That she isn’t alone.

  I wish I could warn her that I don’t know how to stop the rumbling. Shaken by the nurse’s words, I leave Eliza’s bedside to check on our home. It is reassuringly dark and still. I hurry around the corner to look at Mrs. Lyon’s place.

  No! I hear a towering wave of ghostly voices—people calling out, babies crying. Chaos. Wreckage. If I wasn’t already dead, I’m sure this moment would have killed me.

  Before I share the horrors of what I’ve just witnessed, let’s pause.

  Walk by me for a moment.

  For over a week now, not a breath of air has lifted a leaf, offering no way to explain the unseen visitors from the water. The wind, after all, can make a person feel strange things. A shirt huffing on a clothesline or a branch tossing and bobbing can fill the imagination. But no movement at all …

  It’s said that the anniversary of a tragedy can deepen its effect. One year after the fishing boat went down, it took the wind with it, as if to leave us all listening.

  But listening for what? Or whom?

  Surely not Eddy and his earthmoving machines.

  Folks here are still whispering to one another about the timing of the boat accident. Halloween, or All Hallows’ Eve, is an ancient celebration day, one that reaches back before Christianity to the Romans and the Celts. To the people who lived across Europe—especially England and Ireland—on islands similar to Nantucket in size and climate, it was a day to mark the end of summer and the beginning of the darker part of the year.

  The Celtic word for this day of transition is Samhain, pronounced sah-win. Across Northern Europe, it was often about ringing bells to wake and welcome the dead, then inviting them back home for a visit and offering them food such as apples, nuts, and soul cakes. A treat and some tenderness. Lighting candles so they could see their way.

  Hallowing and hollowing: funny how close the words are. They mean such different things, one filling and one emptying. I’d like it if the island’s old homes were all hallowed and not hollowed.

  I wouldn’t have to worry.

  When I was a girl, many brought a lantern and a home-baked sweet to the graves of their loved ones. It wasn’t unusual to see lights twinkling between the stones on October 31. In the Quaker cemetery, the rolling field without many markers, you could always see a lantern here and there, glimmering through the grasses.

  I’m thinking of everyday islanders like me, not the famous or rich ones. I’m talking about those who chopped their own wood, mended fishing nets, tended their vegetables, saved the rainwater that ran off the roof, scrubbed until their knuckles were raw, sewed everything they wore, salted and pickled food, kept an eye on one another’s kids, and went out on handcrafted boats. Perhaps this is a part of what’s gotten us off balance.

  Caused us to tip.

  Life on the island revolves around the wind and the ocean. After all, everyone here both works and relaxes on or near the water, and the boats won’t run if the weather gets bad.

  We call that a “no-boat day.” Those who belong to the island refer to the ferry as the boat. Say anything else and people will know you don’t belong. Even the big ferries, the ones that carry giant trucks and all the passenger cars, are simply boats.

  The island has been buffeted for centuries by hurricanes and countless nor’easters. It’s not much bigger than a giant’s sand castle, and some would say not much more solid. Spray can land on windows two miles from the beach.

  The south side bravely faces the Atlantic Ocean and South America, and there is no other land between the easternmost sand dunes and Portugal. Every winter the beaches change shape as the sand whirls, and often a house on the edge slides in, its window curtains flapping sadly at the march of waves. Have you ever seen a home consumed by the ocean, roof shingles and chimney vanishing under the breakers, spice jars and bright pillows floating out through broken panes? It’s a violent sight, and during such a storm it’s hard to remember calm.

  Which brings us back to this November. Has there ever been a month, in any season, when the wind around Nantucket Island stopped blowing?

  The eleventh month of the year on this tiny piece of land is often a time of settling. Sit-ting, set-ting, set-tling—I like that, don’t you? Sounds like a generous skirt being lowered onto a cane chair seat. A crunch and a crackle, followed by a sigh.

  November is our thinking month—a time of crisp, bright moons and of liquid mockingbirds in the tallest trees. The tourists are now gone and the hurricanes have passed. Skies can be cool and gentle as the inside of a clamshell, a powdery wash of cream drifting toward lavender. There is the mournful whooo-hooo of the old ferry whistle, the many church bells speaking in turn, seagulls coasting overhead, and then the wind whisking and sifting through the falling leaves. Mostly, though, there are deep pools of silence, a silence that isn’t silent to us all.

  It’s the ohhh-sound of a bedroom door opening in a sleeping house.

  The catlike purr of an underwater current pulling over sand.

  Wish, whishhhh …

  Perhaps it’s the whisper of what’s possible. Shhh, listen! Is that an echo inside my horn, or is it the sound of conversation between the living and the dead?

  This Crier quakes for herself and for others. When our homes are hollowed out, it’s not just the work of many hands over many years that will vanish.

  We who now surround the living, unseen but not unfelt, will not be able to chime in. Once that happens, there is no bringing us back.

  Around here, the new is a shadow of the old.

  All remains eerily still today. Every movement seems bigger than it is and each sound louder.

  What I just saw happen to Lydia Lyon’s house is hard to share. Gathering courage, I hug my horn and bell to my heart.

  The house, nestled into a street laid out in the early 1700s, was lived in for centuries, like mine. Repairs had kept it happy. Leaks and rot were fixed when found and cracks sealed. The structure boasted some of the most beautiful pine floorboards in town, honey-colored planks more than two feet wide.

  This house was far from dead.

  What happened next still feels like now: I hear screams as joists are ripped apart. Rafters and corner posts shiver in their sudden nudity. Thick wood trembles and sobs. No avoiding the truth: After centuries of comfort behind plastered walls, whoosh! The innards of this old house are dying in the cool, bright air.

  I am a witness. And while I can’t see the faces of all who’d been at rest inside that old structure, I can hear their voices and feel their startled breathing on my cheek, can sense them circling and know their hands are groping for help.

  I reach back, hoping to connect, but touch only air. Devastated, I imagine the death of my own home. Whose cries will go unanswered then?

  At that darkest of moments, I hear children. A boy and a girl! It’s the same two I saw through my window when I was first awakened by the roaring: Gabe, from the beach, and that girl with the tangled hair. Their eyes are bright with horror.

  Hearing that Mrs. Lyon had died and that Grandma Rebimbas might want cheering up, they had stopped at her house after school. Her front door was locked, and scary noises came from the property nearby. They’d hurried into her backyard, school backpacks bouncing, to look.

  And here we are. They do not see me, but I am grateful for their company.

  The boy, biting his lip, turns pale as a clam. He stares at the area around the fireplace, in the heart of Lydia Lyon’s old house. Eyes darting, he studies the second floor, then the first. A board crashes, popping nails, and the boy takes a quick step toward the house as if to interfere. He can’t, of course. The rear wall of the b
uilding falls, and a backhoe rips through an inside room. The tinkle of breaking glass, the dust of centuries-old plaster, the crack and groan of wood: It’s an ugly scene. The girl’s fists are clenched and she speaks fast, spinning away to brush off tears she doesn’t want him to see.

  I am startled by the girl, feeling we are somehow connected. Her name is Phee, like the start of the word fierce. I reach out to comfort her, but she moves suddenly, stamping her foot. We do not touch.

  The boy and the girl are now waving their arms and shouting at the workers on the property. They step bravely toward the demolition fencing, but no one seems to care.

  “Heyyyy!” I hear Phee’s voice warbling over the noise.

  “Hey, you in there!” Gabe shouts. “Please, mister!” The man in the backhoe looks right at the kids but doesn’t react.

  I hate it when adults treat the young as if they aren’t even there.

  I look back toward the house and gaze up at a giant but healthy elm in the yard, one filled with birds each morning and witness to more than two centuries of living. A monstrous machine has arrived, and now the three of us watch it saw, grind, and chip the life out of that proud tree. Branches still humming with green are tossed in a pile. A buzz saw hacks yards of roots from the soil.

  Shocking, I tell you! Destroying one of these elms is like killing a living piece of the island, one that offers dignity and grace to us all. The owners wanted more sun on their porch. More sun! And here they are, out in the middle of the ocean on a sandbar.

  There are consequences, of that I am sure. Such crimes, the brutal gutting of a house or the needless taking of an ancient tree, surely awaken all who are gone but still here.

  For longer than the girl, the boy studies the wreckage of the house and yard. Now she touches his arm and they turn away. I follow the children’s gloom as they head for Phee’s home. I feel their mood in the slump of young shoulders and the determined shuffle of sneakers through leaves.