Out of the Wild Night

by Blue Balliett

As the two men walk and talk, arms grown-up-style behind their backs, Gabe and Phee wander slowly around the area with the old boards.

  “Hey, Gabe!”

  “What?”

  “Look at these big footprints! Those weren’t made by any one of us! They’re fresh, you know? The group who came later last night worked hard. Think they know about us?”

  Gabe shrugs. “Got to. All the wood we brought! Maybe they think we’re as mysterious as they are.”

  The two friends stare at each other, not exactly sure what Gabe means but sensing it’s true.

  “I’m wondering about the kids I saw when I was being the lure, on my own. Whether they know about this.” Gabe looks serious.

  Phee is quiet for a moment. “You mean, whether they’re okay. Still around. Or whether they’re gone.”

  “Yeah, it’s all been quieter with Eddy in the hospital, but …” Gabe breaks off. “I wonder how long a ghost can stay strong? I can’t help wondering about the boy with the hat in Lydia Lyon’s home, working so hard to get my attention, and his little sister with the doll. And then those three kids in the Pine Street house, dashing around like mad.”

  “I know.” Phee frowns. “Eddy Nold may feel better soon and do something even bigger and nastier.”

  Ooohhh, Mary here! I wish I were a flesh-and-blood Crier and everyone stopped to listen! They’re right, Eddy’s up to no good, it’s already happening … I ring my bell wildly, my heart sick with what I cannot share.

  When Herbie and Sal stroll over, they find the friends sitting quietly on a stack of lumber.

  Herbie is reassured by how subdued they look. “Ready, kids?” he asks cheerfully.

  He means ready to go … but I raise my horn and call out, “Yes, YES! Get ready! Ready to save us alllllll!”

  Herbie glances around, startled. “Anyone hear that?” he asks the group. When Sal, Phee, and Gabe look blankly at him, he shrugs and mutters, “Cop ears. Sounded like a woman shouting, but gotta be some kinda birdcall.”

  I am thrilled. It’s me, me, ME! Mary W. Chase!

  This is the first time since I became a ghost that anyone living has heard me.

  Hope flips the pages in my heart.

  I think now of my cozy home, with its blue teapot and twinkly copper pots, and then of the destruction in all those other homes and the children trying so hard to get someone’s attention. Some who waved, others who pinched … and then the flesh-and-blood Old North Gang, filled with big plans and perhaps in danger of falling into the hands of some of the more dangerous spirits on this island, the ones who’ve been causing accidents and injuries.

  The ones whose lives were ruthless and hard, and who may not hesitate to use these kids to stop someone like Eddy Nold.

  The ones who will defend their homes at any cost, and who can blame them?

  Criers watch and tell, but I’ll do more than that. A surge of determination and rage fills my heart.

  If needed, I will scream. I’ll scream loud enough to wake an army of the living and the dead.

  Phee goes to bed that night longing for her mother. Flossie of the jingly bracelets, sparkly stars, and hugs. Flossie Folger, who had been a little girl in this same house with Sal.

  Phee feels guilty. She has a sinking feeling that she hasn’t been good about staying in touch with her mom, not really, and doesn’t think about her enough.

  She does miss her, and hopes her mom somehow knows.

  She’ll talk to Sal in the morning. That always makes everything better.

  But then the day whirls forward and she doesn’t do it, maybe because Sal has enough on his plate these days. After breakfast, she and Sal head to the dump to check on the latest, cool air nipping at their noses. Neither has to explain their curiosity to the other.

  Once out there, Sal circles the area reserved for metals, electronics, and such. He plans to ask a few questions.

  The man on duty, however, can’t seem to make time for him. Perhaps he just doesn’t want to. Sal understands. The guy has earphones and is speaking intently in another language as he waves the trucks through to unload their goods.

  Sal, never one to press, simply watches. One shiny appliance follows another. “Boggles the mind,” he mutters to himself. So much waste. The thought of someone with a big heart and a large truck somehow sneaking a whole mess of these goods out of the dump at night and getting them to the navy base, though! Now, that was a warming thought.

  As Sal pulls his sock hat down over his ears and rubs his hands together, he calculates how many houses could be supplied with what he’s seeing.

  Phee watches the flow at the Take It or Leave It shed with much the same delight. Crows and seagulls swoop and dive around the visitors.

  Watching the crows hunt for color and sparkle, Phee has an odd idea. Suddenly she imagines how much they would love her mother’s crescent of stars, the one she always wore in her hair.

  Phee shakes the thought away, reminding herself that when her mom returns home, she’ll have that crescent of stars in her hair, as she always did.

  And speaking of home, there are so many almost-new tables! Chairs with maybe one broken rung! Curtains and rugs with a stain or two! And oh, look! A whole crate of mismatched candlesticks and kerosene lamps! Enough to make any house built from old boards more than comfortable.

  Phee can’t wait to tell the Coffin kids and the Ramos twins about what’s arrived in Tom Nevers since the group left last night. That is, if Gabe hasn’t done it already.

  Exactly how, she wonders, could the Gang get together with the ghosts who are doing so much work? And then she pictures the flash of people she saw when running down the street with Gabe, on that day when the church bells all rang like mad.

  That warm-feeling arm! And the red sleeve … The face that looked so much like her mom’s. Had she imagined it?

  Sal called that kind of thing a confluence: when two streams flow together. Ghosts flowing into living hands, the two working together, or was it hands flowing into living ghosts?

  Phee doesn’t really know what she’s wondering, but the back-and-forth of it feels good in her head. When Sal pedals over, an odd shadow flits across his creased, stubbly cheeks, but he says only, “Phoebe Folger Antoine, let’s get ourselves home. It’s time.”

  On the way back to town, Phee is filled with light. It’s a no-reason happiness, maybe simply because she and Sal were helping others. Flying along on a mission, carrying a sparkly secret, weightless as dump crows in the bright November chill.

  That must be it.

  The next morning, a man almost dies beneath the Pine Street home, where the basement has been excavated.

  A senior member of Eddy’s crew got a phone call from the hospital the night before. His boss asked him to check on the abandoned sites, but early, before the rest of the town awoke. This worker understood that Eddy wanted him to get a good look at the problem areas but not be seen doing it.

  “Less said, the better,” Eddy explained to him. Sitting up in his hospital bed that morning, the contractor waited to hear back from his employee. Eddy owes his workers money, and the house owners owe him money. A job is a job, and Eddy is nothing if not responsible in that way.

  An hour later, his worker is in the emergency room.

  I’m there as well, unseen. I listen.

  Eddy, horrified at the news, limps in to see this man. The two talk.

  “I was standing at the edge of the dig, ya know?” the worker whispers. Deep under electric blankets, he’s as colorless as a fish egg. “Saw some runoff water in the foundation area, as no one’s pumped the last day or so. Suddenly the hydrant nearby goes on full blast, no one near it, and water pours into the hole. I rush to turn the thing off. No go. I grab my phone to call the fire department for help and my phone just, well, flips out of my hand. Whissh! It flies through the air as if someone threw it. Falls in the water, which is starting to look like the nastiest swimming pool you’ve ever seen.

  “I step closer to the ed
ge, hardly believing what just happened and how fast the hole is filling. I turn away to go for help when I’m pushed. Got the shock of my life. Like someone gave me a shove.

  “Suddenly I’m tumbling head over heels, eating mud and rolling toward that freezing-cold mess. Couldn’t seem to get a grip on a root or pipe to stop myself. Splash, I’m under! And here’s where things get really nuts. I bobbed to the surface but couldn’t get back up. Just wasn’t able to get on my feet. Like someone kept knocking my legs out from under me. Must’ve been a sight, big old me thrashing around and shouting down there in shallow water. No one came. I finally gave up and floated on my back, thinking, ‘What a way to go,’ knowing it might be hours before someone found my body.

  “Each time my face started to sink below the surface, I kind of jolted myself awake. I thought of my wife and kids. I prayed.

  “My arms and legs got numb pretty fast. Things stopped hurting. It was then I saw a middle-aged woman peering over the side of the foundation. She looked kinda old-timer-y, had a long skirt and all, hair back in a bun, and she was carrying a bell and a horn. Weird, huh?”

  Eddy nods, but not as though he’s really listening.

  I knew it! Now I’ve been heard AND seen! What next?

  I grin with delight! I could dance around the hospital room! Silly men! Watch out! I’m right next to you!

  The worker pauses and looks around, as if he’d heard my thoughts.

  “Go on,” Eddy prompts him.

  The man does. “‘Hey!’ I called, shakin’ like all get-out. ‘Please help me! I’m goin’ down here!’

  “This next part is crazy. I then felt something or someone pulling me, but not with adult hands, more like lots of little ones, helping me slowly up the bank. Musta been dozens, because my wet clothing weighed a ton and I don’t remember climbing. Guess it was just mind over matter, you know?

  “The ambulance found me passed out in my truck.”

  Huh, I think to myself. Let me tell you what really happened.

  When that man looked up at me, right into my eyes, his face brightened with hope and I spun around toward the empty house, filled with energy. I didn’t know if I’d imagined being visible, but I rang my bell and blew on the horn like mad. “Hey, kids! You three in here! Call your friends! Help this fellow—he hasn’t done anything wrong and he shouldn’t die. He’s a worker! NOW!”

  Seconds later, the man found himself standing.

  I didn’t see anyone helping him and he no longer seemed to see me. But, even though I’d disappeared in his eyes, we both knew the truth.

  Once he got back in his truck, he wept. “Thank you, thank you,” he muttered. I wanted to weep, too, knowing he’d die despite my help if he couldn’t warm up. I tried to rub his back, but my hands went right through his body. He was too cold to drive and soon passed out. The ghost kids seemed to be gone, but a neighbor walking a dog came around the corner and found the man slumped, his clothing coated with ice, in his truck.

  An ambulance raced him to the hospital.

  “Hypothermia,” the admitting nurse told him, patting his hand. “You were almost a goner. Lucky someone walked by.”

  Not only that, I think proudly to myself.

  Have I crossed some kind of dividing line? I was heard by Herbie, then seen by someone who needed me, and then worked with a bunch of young ghosts to help save this man’s life! An innocent man under attack was rescued! What next?

  How much stronger can I get?

  Does this mean we ghosts are gaining power?

  I pause for a moment in the corner of the emergency room, chilled by the questions that remain.

  Who turned on the water hydrant and who pushed this man, almost to his death?

  Who else is back?

  “Can I help it?” roars Officer Pinkham when he hears the news about Eddy’s worker. Veins stand out on his neck.

  “Who can control a bunch of ghosts?” he shouts, thunking his coffee mug on the kitchen counter. “This is Nantucket, holy magneesus! You know the stories as well as I do! And you know I can’t speak freely.” He grabs his forehead with both hands, as if to keep his head from exploding.

  Gabe’s mom had suggested that he ask for extra police protection at the sites.

  The boy glances at the picture of his great-grandma Hepsa and wonders if she could control what’s going on. Maybe she’ll jump in and help him, his dad, and the others, seen and unseen. Gabe thinks about suggesting it, but then realizes his parents might get suspicious if he does.

  Right then, the picture of Gabe’s great-grandparents swings gently from side to side, making a quiet scraping sound against the wall. The three Pinkhams freeze. Gabe smiles and Herbie gulps. Gabe’s mom sees her son’s expression and frowns.

  Meanwhile in the hospital, the worker dozes after his chat with the boss. Eddy is back in his room. He looks angry.

  “Unfair,” he mutters to himself. “Outrageous. If the cops can’t stop this nonsense, then I will!”

  Sal and Phee stand before a blackened frying pan that sizzles on the stove. A delicious smell fills the kitchen as the police officer bursts in the door.

  “Why, hello, Herbie,” Sal says pleasantly. “Nice to see so much of you.”

  The younger man blurts, “I need you, Sal. Need you bad. You’re the only one who might figure out something to do here. The old homes in town, I mean, maybe it’s not the houses, but something in the houses …”

  Sal squints at Phee. “Okay by you?” he asks.

  “Go!” Phee waves him off.

  The door closes behind them. On its own.

  Phee hardly notices. Their Folger home has always done things its own way.

  A change of heart is hard to admit, but Herbie Pinkham is changing. First, he can’t seem to stop talking. “You understand the island, Sal. A lot of these newcomers just don’t. And here’s how I see it: When it was just the matter of a new appliance or two, plumbing and electric, the spirits of the island weren’t disturbed. They never minded us replacing rotted wood or adding something to cook on or take a bath in. But lately, this business of buying an old house and then trashing the inside of it—well, I overheard one old-timer stop and ask a contractor if he’d ever thought about what he was doing.

  “‘Destroying a treasure, that’s what you’re doing!’ the islander said. ‘It’s wrong, I tell you—like buying a lovely old desk or table for a lot of money, and then instead of using and enjoying it, making the wood glow, you chip-chop it up for firewood. Insanity, that’s what’s going on around here!’ I had to smile.”

  “Ignorance of our island ways,” Sal agrees quietly. “That and a lack of feeling for Nantucket’s homemade self. Maybe those owners never stopped to think about the one-of-a-kind nature of the house they’d bought. Or to defend it against an off-island engineer who said, ‘Nah, rip it all out! It’s junk!’ Maybe they never stopped to wonder whether our old wood could actually be valuable as is.”

  Sal scratches his head through his sock hat. “Let’s say this lumber is steeped in layers of living, meaning people’s lives. As if we humans are like tea leaves soaking in water, and the teapot is the house. All these old buildings have flavors and stains because of what’s gone on inside them. And maybe the island has finally reached a level beyond which this rip-and-toss behavior can’t be tolerated. Not for any kind of money. The balance is off.”

  The officer looks momentarily confused. “Tea,” he repeats. “Balance. You mean we’ve reached—what’s that thing people say? A spilling point?”

  “A tipping point,” Sal says. “A point at which things can’t go on. Not without a whole blim-blam of trouble.”

  “And by helping to do something good with all that wasted stuff, and including our kids, you were trying to make things better.”

  “You got it,” Sal says. “So you know about our lunar last night?”

  “Yeah.” Herbie thumps a fist into the palm of his other hand and sighs. “I mean, that kind of jaunt is against everyone�
��s family rules, but I put two and two together and then didn’t know what to do with four, if you follow my drift. I just didn’t know how to admit it to the kids. Or you! I’m glad you did that with them. Guess I’ve been a fool for law and order at a time when our whole way of life is under attack.

  “What’m I gonna do, Sal? What on earth am I gonna do? There’s no way I can stop this, and—”

  “—you don’t really want to,” Sal finishes for the younger man.

  “Don’t really want to,” the police officer repeats slowly. “It’s all over, Sal,” he mutters. “I’m cooked. Done.”

  The two men pause at one of the “renovation” sites that had been abandoned a few days before. The front door is boarded up, and half the old shingles are gone. The kitchen wall has been removed and a tarpaulin covers what remains of the old corner posts. It hangs bone-still—a sad, blue flag.

  Suddenly, the edge of this plastic sheet lifts on its own. Up, up, up. Soon a lovely old beam lying outside, a massive piece of lumber from some long-ago tree, floats from the ground, wobbles in place as if trying to decide which way to go, and slips inside beneath the tarp. With no workers visible, the plastic drops back and all is still again.

  Herbie snorts, a sound that isn’t a laugh. It’s more a sob. Sal gives his shoulder a squeeze.

  Officer Pinkham heads home, ready to tell his wife and Gabe that he’s going to resign.

  Shuffling in the front door, he hears Brrrt! Brrrt! A call is coming over the kitchen transmitter from the station.

  A note on the table tells him that Becky is doing errands and Gabe is with the Gang, at Sal’s.

  He listens to the call.

  “Whaaaaat?” he shouts, fury turning his face red. Slamming back out the door, Herbie rushes downtown.

  Nantucket has had a Whaling Museum housed in an old candle factory for many years. It’s packed with handmade items: scrimshaw, baskets, chairs, silver, every kind of whaling equipment, souvenirs brought home by the whalemen, portraits, and seascapes galore. In November the museum closes early, and it had been locked for the better part of an hour. As Herbie Pinkham arrives, he sees the front door of this venerable institution swing wide open on its own and then bang closed. A small group of neighbors stand out in front.