Out of the Wild Night

by Blue Balliett

  Suddenly the room fills with a fishnet of voices, and I’m reminded of how cozy life can be. People caring. Keeping one another company. I place a hand on one of the old wall joists, and the space around me vibrates with the clink of spoons and forks, boots scuffing, the rustle of chair seats, a murmur of voices.

  Families inside a home, people who weren’t alive when I was a child, souls still present in the walls and floors. Layers of relatives, of living and dying and trying, still here as long as—

  “OH!” I gasp. Thousands of people lived in all these houses over the centuries. One, two, three, four, a thousand if you count them together … and again, and AGAIN! The numbers! If I can wake even some of them, get them to join forces with the Gang …

  Hope fills whatever is left of me, and I ring my bell. Before leaving, I decide to bring the painting of my aunt back to my own home, where it won’t be alone.

  I wish I had known in life what happened to my aunt as a young woman, and that her unhappiness had nothing to do with me.

  As I step over the millstone, I blow my crow a kiss.

  Phee has been dreaming about Flossie.

  “Sometimes she rushes and gives me a hug, but sometimes she’s so sad,” Phee tells Sal the morning after the Union Street visit. “Crying, like she misses us. I’m kinda worried something has happened. What if she needs us and we don’t know?”

  “Nah,” Sal says, opening the top of the kitchen stove, tossing in a log, and closing the lid again with a rattle-clank that Phee would know anywhere. “Last letter we got, she was really ‘crazy-busy,’ in her words, doing school projects and moving at the same time. I expect she’s on her way back here, and when you’ve been away from home for a bit, the past rushes to meet you.” Sal gives his granddaughter’s shoulder a squeeze.

  “Like wind,” Phee says. “Only there’s been none for weeks.”

  “Maybe that’s it. No wind makes for strange dreams.” Sal is quiet for a moment. “Nervous about her being back?”

  “I dunno.” Phee shrugs. “A little. But I want to see her, you know?”

  Sal studies his granddaughter’s face. “Tell her that you’re fine before you go to sleep tonight,” he suggests. “Mothers have a way of knowing what’s happening even when they don’t. They also never stop caring about their kids, no matter how old those babies are. I know mine didn’t.”

  “Yeah,” Phee says. “Babies!” She pokes Sal, and he pokes her back.

  “I’ll tell her to quit fussing,” she adds.

  That night before falling asleep, Phee speaks to her mom.

  “Flossie—I mean, Mom—it’s been so long, and Sal always calls you by your name. Don’t worry, I’m doing great and we want you to come home.”

  She lies quietly, listening to the house creak and a log settling downstairs in the fire. “Mom? I’m still your big girl, and I’m right here.”

  Suddenly she can hear her mom’s voice saying, “You’re right here!” just as she used to on the boat when her daughter was little. Right here, right here … The words echo in Phee’s head, but not in a bad way. Sal had known about moms and their kids, that they can communicate sometimes when nobody else knows or hears.

  “Right here,” Phee whispers. “Right here!”

  The knob on her bedroom door turns and the door opens, just enough for a head to peek in. Phee looks up expecting to see Sal, but the hallway is empty. Besides, she’s pretty sure Sal is still downstairs reading by the fire. A lemony scent fills her room, a scent she hasn’t smelled in years.

  “Mom?” she whispers.

  There is no answer, but the door closes softly. Seconds later, the door to her mom’s old room, the one right next to hers, opens and then clicks shut.

  Through the wall, she hears the long-ago, happy sound of her mom humming.

  Somehow it all feels right and good, and Phee sleeps like a baby.

  November 22.

  Eddy Nold has had a serious car accident.

  He drove into a telephone pole on Union Street. Bones are broken and he looks pretty bad, but he isn’t dead.

  Although he doesn’t know I’m there, I visit him in the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. Here’s what I see:

  Officer Herbie Pinkham is in a chair next to his bed. “Eddy,” the policeman whispers. “What happened?”

  Eddy’s eyes roll open. Slowly, as if the lids are broken window shades or perhaps belong to a dying sea creature.

  “Leaving late. All alone. Swerved away from a bunch of people,” he mutters. “Shadowy, but ran right in front of my truck like they saw it. Couldn’t just hit ’em … Turned the wheel …” His eyes slide shut again, and the monitor by his head begins beeping.

  The officer leaves, wondering who set a trap for Eddy.

  The island is in an uproar. Herbie has gotten into the habit of chewing on the inside of one cheek these days. He then grinds his teeth at night. His mouth is a mess.

  Although Eddy has more business than any other contractor, there are a few others with “renovation” jobs who plan to gut, not just restore. The crews at these sites are spooked, understandably so.

  While Herbie is visiting Eddy at the hospital, a hammer hurtles through the air in one of these houses, whacking a new owner who’s paying a visit. He spins around and grabs the worker closest to him, accusing him of an attack.

  After he has this innocent man arrested, every other member of that crew walks off the job. Just down the street, buckets of black paint for window trim, neatly lined up on second-story scaffolding, suddenly sprout leaks and pour down the white clapboard front of a newly gutted nineteenth-century home. Paint for the interior, rose and sage and cinnamon, splashes across the walls while the house is empty. A nail gun jumps up and punches holes in several new windows, shooting showers of glass and splintered wood into the street.

  Soon every single “renovation” site in town is abandoned.

  The police chief calls all of his officers in for a meeting.

  The property owners phone their off-island attorneys, although by law these guys will have to work with local police and lawyers to get anything done. The first city attorney arrives at the station in a trench coat and shiny shoes. He has a cashmere scarf knotted around his neck the way they do on Madison Avenue in New York City. He demands to know why the police haven’t picked up every worker on his employer’s site, which happens to be the one covered in runaway paint.

  Just as Herbie approaches the police station, the attorney’s scarf is jerked tight as can be around his neck and he’s pulled at top speed out the front door.

  “Like a disobedient dog,” one of the officers on duty remarks later. “One who got into the family garbage can.” The attorney collapses in a heap on the sidewalk in front of the station.

  Rushing over to him, Herbie crouches by his head. “You okay, mister?” he gasps. He looks around helplessly, but of course can’t see a perpetrator anywhere.

  The attorney doesn’t acknowledge Herbie but now sits up, having loosened the scarf that is strangling him.

  “What’m I going to say?” he gasps.

  Herbie shrugs sympathetically. There’s a moment when the two men seem to share a quiet, respective panic, for it’s clear neither can do much.

  “Tell ’em it’s the ghosts,” the officer says.

  An off-island insurance agent arrives later that same afternoon. This second visitor rents a car at the airport and decides to go directly to the site she’s been hired to investigate.

  This eighteenth-century house has a STOP WORK sign tacked to the front door.

  The property is deserted and looks as though the workers left in a hurry. A table saw has been overturned. Rolls of pink and silver insulation are scattered in the yard. The original windows have been popped out and thrown unkindly against the side of the dumpster. Their watery glass—or what remains of it—twinkles gently in the sun. A pile of old-fashioned ruffly curtains has been used to clean power tools, some of which are still sitting around.


  The agent walks slowly up the front steps, careful to keep her suit clean. She has L.L. Bean boots on, which she felt was the only gesture appropriate to this visit; after all, she wants to look like the powerful city businessperson that she is.

  The front door is open. She steps inside.

  Puddles of water dot the entryway, as well as a scattering of sand and seaweed, as if someone had just stepped off the beach. The woman finds this strange.

  There are no witnesses—at least none of the usual kind—so no living person is quite sure what happens next, but I can tell you that I see the woman fly backward out that door as if shoved, rolling and bumping down the steps. She scrambles onto all fours on the sidewalk, crawls a few feet, destroying her suit, and is then pushed back down onto her face. By now, her carefully combed hair is a mess and her face is as pasty as uncooked dough.

  “Okay! I’m out of here!” she croaks. This time when she gets up, she stays up, and I follow as she limps at top speed back to her car. When she opens the driver’s-side door, she is suddenly lifted by the back of her jacket and stuffed into the interior.

  She zooms downtown, staggers into the nearest bar, and cleans up in the bathroom. The bartender notices that she has a raw scrape on her chin and is missing a boot.

  “Need help, ma’am?” he asks. She shakes her head, busy checking her smashed cell phone for the next flight out.

  While driving to the airport, she veers off the road and into a boulder. When Officer Pinkham arrives, it’s dusk. The woman is sitting on the rock next to her crumpled rental car. Her teeth chatter.

  “People, people w-w-walking.” Muttering as if alone, she gestures at the side of the road. “Didn’t want to hit them. Came out of the woods, a crowd. L-Long skirts and f-f-funny jackets, old-fashioned, and then …” The insurance agent rubs her eyes. “Gotta quit this job. Losing my mind.”

  The officer frowns. “Me, too” is all he says.

  Later that day, Herbie asks his son a few questions.

  “So, Gabe. I hear lots of the kids are thinking about old-timey island names. Writin’ ’em down, lookin’ ’em up. What’s going on here? Huh? You guys suddenly turning into historians? Gettin’ studious?”

  The officer knows his son is always more interested in taking a bike ride than in doing his homework. He is just that kind of kid. Loves being out and about the island—as Herbie had, too, as a boy.

  Gabe looks at his dad, head on one side. “Nope. Not interested in old facts, not so much. It’s more like—” He pauses, fiddling with the cord on his sweatshirt hood. “—well, like they’re using us to do something cool.”

  The officer swallows. Using us, his son said.

  Using us.

  Herbie is used to thinking his son is a peculiar boy. Not outgoing, a high-pitched voice that could drive you mad, drawn toward spooky stuff and too fearless for his own good. Who in their family—aside from his grandma Hepsa, whom he doesn’t remember well—has ever had that dark streak? When they allowed him to pick a dog from the pound to keep him company, he named it Ghost. And truth to tell, the creature looked frightening: gunmetal gray with a fin of hair on his back. He hasn’t seen the dog in ages, come to think of it. Oh, yeah—Gabe said the mutt had disappeared one day.

  “Who is using you?” Herbie Pinkham asks, trying to keep his voice casual. He doesn’t like this idea, not one bit.

  “The names.” Gabe shrugs. “Jonathan Chase. How should I know?” He reaches for his math book and opens it up in the middle, stroking his chin and frowning as if busy, in an adult way. It’s a dead giveaway, Herbie thinks to himself. He looks like he’s trying not to tell me any more.

  “Gabe.”

  “Yeah, Dad?” The officer’s son still hasn’t looked up.

  “Gabe.” Herbie Pinkham’s voice is now loud. “Look at me. Who’s Jonathan Chase? What’s going on here?”

  Gabe glances at his dad and yawns, covering his mouth to hide the fake gesture. “Holy critters, Dad! It’s nothing. Some guy. Just something fun.” Gabe shrugs again. “We middle-school kids like to make up stuff to do, you know? You’re always telling me to stay off the computer. Well, that’s what I’m doing.”

  “True,” mutters his dad. “Sorry—guess I’ve had a long day,” he says, frowning.

  Gabe’s heart skips a beat. Sorry! Had he ever heard his dad say that word? “That’s okay.” Gabe pats his dad’s shoulder as he slips behind his chair. “Well, I’m off to Phee’s house. A bunch of us kids are planning something. Back in time for dinner.”

  “Huh,” the officer says. “Okay.”

  As his son slams the math book shut and bounces out the front door, Herbie Pinkham can’t get those words out of his head.

  They’re using us to do something cool.

  Herbie doesn’t like the idea of anyone manipulating his son or any other kids. Who was Jonathan Chase, anyway? Looking at the cover of Gabe’s math book, the officer sees that his son has written the name three times under his own name, and in tidy block letters. It looks as though Gabe has gone over and over the lines with his pencil, making them dark and even.

  They’re using us.

  Grabbing for the phone directory, Herbie looks up the C’s, running a big finger down the column. Chase, Chase … just as he thought, no Jonathan.

  No, the officer decides, thinking of all the violent incidents happening at old houses and the spirits or whatever they’ve been that traipsed out in front of a truck or appeared from the woods, causing another crack-up … No. He doesn’t like it one bit.

  Ghosts being angry at adults is one thing, but using kids …

  The officer spills his drink in a fit of nerves, only to realize it must already have run down his front. But no—all is dry. Dabbing at his clean shirt with a sleeve, he looks puzzled.

  “Blast the ghosts,” he finds himself muttering, then wonders what on earth he’s saying. He’s taken a vow to protect all people, and on this island that means the haves, have-nots, in-betweens, and all the wash-ashores who come to visit.

  Plus everyone else, his grandma Hepsa would remind him.

  He fires his can at the garbage and feels better when it hits home.

  The Gang gathers at Phee’s house and tempers flare.

  “Gabe, I hate to gally you, but if you’re getting wadgetty about being the lure, maybe someone else should do it next time,” Phee snaps.

  “Don’t muckle me.” Gabe sounds insulted. “You know we can’t stand in the yard watching a house surrounded by police! Or trespass in front of them.”

  Meanwhile, Paul and Maria argue about who gets which chair by the fire, and Cyrus and Markus fight about whether the ghosts picked in Ghost Gam might be willing to help out.

  Everyone’s language is odd, and Phee suddenly laughs and calls out, “Stop, you guys! Listen to us!”

  “Yeah,” Gabe says, sounding surprised. “What’s up with gally and wadgetty and muckle? And how come we kind of understand these weird words? Maybe the ghosts have taken us over and that’s why we’re so grouty.”

  “Nah, we’ve just got a fair wind and everything drawing,” Phee says, looking startled at her own words.

  Gabe’s face lights up. “I have an idea! Let’s go visit Eddy Nold in the hospital. Bow on. He must be in the mollygrumps. You know, ask if he’s doing okay and find out what he saw on the road.”

  “You’re a wily one, Gabe.” Phee grins. “We’ll see if he’s ready to come about.”

  Flames lick happily in the fireplace, but Maria shivers. “My parents are worried,” she says. “Their friends here are talking. In the Dominican Republic, Haiti, or Jamaica, ghosts don’t whick-whack around in an innocent way. They say spirits can be meeching in bad ways. My mom thinks they can steal kids. Like payback.”

  Paul shrugs. “But Nantucket is different,” he says. “I’ll bet the ghosts are friendly, at least to kids like us. They must know we belong to Nantucket Hands. They probably like to spend time going up scuttle and watching the pass, especially if
they’re running before the wind.”

  “Yeah,” Maria murmurs. “Like folks anywhere.”

  “We’ve made a good start.” Phee stretches and yawns.

  “All in the course of the voyage,” Markus adds. “Greasy luck to us all.”

  Just then, an empty rocker sitting by the fireplace begins to move. Creeak, crack! Creeeak!

  Phee reaches out a foot and plops it on the chair rung. “No time for shooling,” she says loudly, looking at the chair. “The sails are raised and we’re all on board. This may be a slatch in the storm, but tomorrow we’ll heave ho.”

  As if satisfied, the rocker quiets.

  Something is now worrying me, as the one who announces and warns. Here’s what I’m wondering: Are Phee, Gabe, and the other kids falling under the spell of ghosts I don’t see?

  How is that seafaring language easy for them to understand?

  And if there are different kinds of ghosts on this island, just as there are different kinds of people in the world, are some of them good and some truly awful?

  I was being dramatic when I warned you about the bloody history of this island. It has been bloody, but so are most stories about the past.

  Humans, after all, are complicated animals. The same behaviors pop up over and over through time: Some beings are kind and sweet, others nasty, and most are a combination. A few are saints, and a handful are killers. The creepiest are the murderers who also smile.

  Could there be as many kinds of ghosts around here as there are people? Now, that is a scary thought.

  Who were the ones coming out of the water, in early November? Or the ones with flickering lights in the graveyard, or the group the Coffin kids saw standing in the snow? And then the shadows that Eddy and later the city people said they could see, causing them to have terrible car accidents …

  Did these ghosts target the kids, the contractor, the attorney, and the insurance agent? Or did they simply cross paths?

  Was there a connection, like hooking a fish? Or were the ghosts just drifting, like jellyfish in a tide?