Aftershock & Others

by F. Paul Wilson

  “Ow!”

  William Morley grabbed his right heel as pain spiked through it. His knee creaked and protested as he leaned back in the chair and pulled his foot up to where he could see it.

  “I’ll be damned!” he said as he spotted the two-inch splinter jutting from the heel of his sock.

  Blood seeped through the white cotton, forming a crimson bull’s-eye around the base of the splinter. Morley grabbed the end and yanked it free. The tip was stiletto sharp and red with his blood.

  “Where the hell…?”

  He’d been sitting here in his study, in his favorite rocker, reading the Sunday Times, his feet resting on the new maple footstool he’d bought just yesterday. How on earth had he picked up a splinter?

  Keeping his bloody heel off the carpet, he limped into the bathroom, dabbed a little peroxide on the wound, then covered it with a Band-Aid.

  When he returned to the footstool he checked the cushioned top and saw a small hole in the fabric where his heel had been resting. The splinter must have been lying in the stuffing. He didn’t remember moving his foot before it pierced him, but he must have.

  Morley had picked up the footstool at Danzer’s overpriced furniture boutique on Lower Broadway. He’d gone in looking for something antiquey and come out with this brand-new piece. He’d spotted it from the front of the showroom; tucked in a far rear corner, it seemed to call to him. And once he’d seen the intricate grain—he couldn’t remember seeing maple grained like this—and the elaborate carving along the edge of the seat and up and down the legs, he couldn’t pass it up.

  But careless as all hell for someone to leave a sharp piece of wood like that in the padding. If he were a different sort, he might sue. But what for? He had more than enough money, and he wouldn’t want to break whoever did this exquisite carving.

  He grabbed two of the stool’s three legs and lifted it for a closer look. Marvelous grain, and—

  “Shit!” he cried, and dropped it as pain lanced his hand.

  He gaped in wonder at the splinter—little more than an inch long this time—jutting from his palm. He plucked the slim little dagger and held it up.

  How the hell…?

  Morley knelt next to the overturned stool and inspected the leg he’d been holding. He spotted the source of the splinter—a slim, pale crevice in the darker surface of the lightly stained wood.

  How on earth had that wound up in his skin? He could understand if he’d been sliding his hand along, but he’d simply been holding it. And next to the crevice—was that another splinter angled outward?

  As he adjusted his reading glasses and leaned closer, the tiny piece of wood popped out of the leg and flew at his right eye.

  Morley jerked back as it bounced harmlessly off the eyeglass lens. He lost his balance and fell onto his back, but he didn’t stay down. He’d gained weight in his middle years and was carrying an extra thirty pounds on his medium frame, yet he managed to roll over and do a rapid if ungainly scramble away from the footstool on his hands and knees. At sixty-two he cherished his dignity, but panic had taken over.

  My God! If I hadn’t been wearing glasses—!

  Thankfully, he was alone. He rose, brushed himself off, and regarded the footstool from a safe distance.

  Really—a “safe distance” from a little piece of furniture? Ridiculous. But his stomach roiled at the thought of how close he’d come to having a pierced cornea. Something very, very wrong here.

  Rubbing his hands over his arms to counter a creeping chill, Morley surveyed his domain, a turn-of-the-century townhouse on East Thirty-first Street in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan. He and Elaine had spent just shy of a million for it in the late eighties, and it was worth multiples of that now. Its four levels of hardwood floors, cherry wainscoting, intricately carved walnut moldings and cornices were all original. They’d spent a small fortune refurbishing the interior to its original Victorian splendor and furnishing it with period antiques. After the tumor in her breast finally took Elaine in 1995, he’d stayed on here, alone but not lonely. Over the years he’d gradually removed Elaine’s touches, easing her influence from the decor until the place was all him. He’d become quite content as lord of the manor.

  Until now. The footstool had attracted him because of its grain, and because the style of its carving fit so seamlessly with the rest of the furniture, but he wouldn’t care now if it was a genuine one-of-a-kind Victorian. That thing had to go.

  Tugging at his neat salt-and-pepper beard, Morley eyed the footstool from across the room. Question was…how was he going to get it out of here without touching it?

  The owner of Mostly Maple was at the counter when Morley walked in. Though close to Morley in age, Hal Danzer was a polar opposite. Where Morley was thick, Danzer was thin, where Morley was bearded, Danzer was clean shaven, where Morley’s thin hair was neatly trimmed, Danzer’s was long and thick and tied into a short ponytail.

  A gallimaufry of maple pieces of varying ages, ranging from ancient to brand new, surrounded them—claw-footed tables, wardrobes, breakfronts, secretaries, desks, dressers, even old kitchen phones. Morley liked maple too, but not to the exclusion of all other woods. Danzer had once told him that he had no firm guidelines regarding his stock other than it be of maple and strike his fancy.

  Morley deposited the heavy-duty canvas duffel on the counter.

  “I want to return this.”

  Danzer stared at him. “A canvas bag?”

  “No.” With difficulty he refrained from adding, you idiot. “What’s inside.”

  Danzer opened the bag and peeked in. He frowned. “The footstool you bought Saturday? Something wrong with it?”

  Hell, yes, something was wrong with it. Very wrong.

  “Take it out and you’ll see.”

  Morley certainly wasn’t going to stick his hand in there. Last night he’d pulled the old bag out of the attic and very carefully slipped it over the stool. Then, using a broom handle, he’d upended the bag and pushed the stool the rest of the way in. He was not going to touch it again. Let Danzer find out firsthand, as it were, what was wrong with it.

  Danzer reached in and pulled out the footstool by one of its three carved legs. Morley backed up a step, waiting for his yelp of pain.

  Nothing.

  Danzer held up the footstool and rotated it back and forth in the light.

  Nothing.

  “Looks okay to me.”

  Morley shifted his weight off his right foot—the heel was still tender. He glanced at his bandaged left hand. He hadn’t imagined those splinters.

  “There, on the other leg. See those gaps in the finish? That’s where slivers popped out of the wood.”

  Danzer twisted the stool and squinted at the wood. “I’ll be damned. You’re right. Popped out, you say?”

  Morley held up his bandaged hand. “Right into my palm. My foot too.” He left off mention of the near miss on his eye.

  But why isn’t anything happening to you? he wondered.

  “Sorry about that. I’ll replace it.”

  “Replace it?”

  “Sure. I picked up three of them. They’re identical.”

  Before Morley could protest, Danzer had ducked through the curtained doorway behind the counter. But come to think of it, how could he refuse a replacement? He couldn’t say that this footstool, sitting inert on the counter, had assaulted him. And it was a beautiful little thing…

  Danzer popped back through the curtain with another, a clone of the first. He set it on the counter.

  “There you go. I checked this one over carefully and it’s perfect.”

  Morley reached out, slowly, tentatively, and touched the wood with the fingertips of his left hand, ready to snatch them back at the first sharp sensation. But nothing happened. Gently he wrapped his hand around the leg. For an awful instant he thought he felt the carving writhe beneath his palm, but the feeling was gone before he could confirm it.

  He sighed. Just wood. Heavily grain
ed maple and nothing more.

  “While I was inspecting it,” Danzer said, “I noticed something interesting. Look here.” He turned the stool on its side and pointed to a heavily grained area. “Check this out.”

  Remembering the near miss on his eye, Morley leaned closer, but not too.

  “What am I looking for?”

  “There, in the grain—isn’t the grain just fabulous? You can see a name. Looks like ‘Anna,’ doesn’t it?”

  Simply hearing the name sent a whisper of unease through Morley. And damned if Danzer wasn’t right. The word “ANNA” was indeed woven into the grain. Seeing the letters hidden like that only increased his discomfiture.

  Why this unease? He didn’t know anyone named Anna, could not remember ever knowing an Anna.

  “And look,” Danzer was saying. “It’s here on the other one. Isn’t that clever.”

  Again Morley looked where Danzer was pointing, and again made out the name “ANNA” worked into the grain.

  Morley’s tongue felt as dry as the wood that filled this store. “What’s so clever?”

  Danzer was grinning. “It’s got to be the woodworker. She’s doing a Hirschfeld.”

  Morley’s brain seemed to be stuck in low gear. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Hirschfeld—Al Hirschfeld, the illustrator. You’ve seen him a million times in the Times and Playbill. He does those line caricatures. And in every one of them for the last umpteen years he’s hidden his daughter Nina’s name in the drawing. This Anna is doing the same thing. The shop probably doesn’t allow its woodworkers to sign their pieces, so she’s sneaked her name into the grain. Probably no one else but her knows it’s there.”

  “Except for us now.”

  “Yeah. Isn’t that great? I just love stuff like this.”

  Morley said nothing as he watched the ebullient Danzer stuff the replacement footstool into the canvas duffel and hand it back.

  “It’s all yours.”

  Morley felt a little queasy, almost seasick. Part of him wanted to turn and run, but he knew he had to take that footstool home. Because it was signed, so cleverly inscribed, by Anna, whoever that was, and he must have it.

  “Yes,” he mumbled through the sawdust taste in his mouth. “All mine.”

  At home, Morley couldn’t quite bring himself to put the footstool to immediate use. He removed it from the canvas bag without incurring another wound—a good sign in itself—and set it in a corner of his study. He felt a growing confidence that what had happened yesterday was an aberration, but he could not yet warm to the piece. Perhaps in time…when he’d figured out why the name Anna stirred up such unsettling echoes.

  He heard the clank of the mail slot and went down to the first floor to collect the day’s letters: a good-sized stack of the usual variety of junk circulars, come-ons, confirmation slips from his broker, and pitches from various charities. Very little of a personal nature.

  Still shuffling through the envelopes, he had just reentered the study when his foot caught on something. Suddenly he was falling forward. The mail went flying as he flung out his arms to prevent himself from landing on his face. He hit the floor with a brain-jarring, rib-cracking thud that knocked the wind out of him.

  It took a good half minute before he could breathe again. When he finally rolled over, he looked around to see what had tripped him—and froze.

  The footstool sat dead center in the entry to the study.

  A tremor rattled through Morley. He’d left the stool in the corner—he was certain of it. Or at least, pretty certain. He was more certain that furniture didn’t move around on its own, so perhaps he hadn’t put it in the corner, merely intended to, and hadn’t got around to it yet.

  Right now he wasn’t certain of what he could be certain of.

  Morley found himself wide awake at three a.m. He’d felt ridiculous stowing the footstool in a closet, but had to admit he felt safer with it tucked away behind a closed door two floors below. That name—Anna—was keeping him awake. He’d sifted through his memories, from boyhood to the present, and could not come up with a single Anna. The word was a palindrome, so reversing the order was futile; the only workable anagram was also worthless—he’d never known a “Nana” either.

  So why had the sight of those letters set alarm bells ringing?

  Not only was it driving him crazy, it was making him thirsty.

  Morley reached for the bottle of Evian he kept on the night table—empty. Damn. He got out of bed in the dark and headed for the first floor. Enough light filtered through the windows from the city outside to allow him a faint view of where he was going, but as he neared the top of the stairs, he felt a growing unease in his gut. He slowed, then stopped. He didn’t understand. He hadn’t heard a noise, but he could feel the wiry hairs at the back of his neck rise in warning. Something not right here. He reached out, found the wall switch, and flicked it.

  The footstool sat at the top of the stairway.

  Morley’s knees threatened to give way and he had to lean against the wall to keep them from crumbling. If he hadn’t turned on the light he surely would have tripped over it and tumbled down the steps, very likely to his death.

  “That footstool! Where did you get it?”

  After a couple of seconds’ pause, Danzer’s voice came back over the line. “What? Who is this?”

  Morley rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept all night. After kicking the footstool down the hallway and locking it in a spare bedroom, he’d sat up the rest of the night with the room key clutched in his fist. As soon as ten a.m. rolled around—the time when Danzer opened his damn store—he’d started dialing.

  “It’s Bill Morley. Where did you buy that footstool?”

  “At a regional woodworker’s expo on Cape Cod.”

  “From whom? I need a name!”

  “Why?”

  “I just do! Are you going to tell me or not?”

  “Hold your horses, will you? Let me look it up.” Papers shuffled, then: “Here it is…Charles Ansbach. ‘Custom and Original Woodwork.’”

  “Charles? I thought it was supposed to be ‘Anna.’”

  Danzer laughed. “Oh, you mean because of the name in the grain. Who knows? Maybe this Anna works for him. Maybe she bought his business. Maybe—”

  “Never mind! Where can I find this Charles Ansbach?”

  “His address is Twelve Spinnaker Lane, Nantucket.”

  “Nantucket?” Morley felt his palm begin to sweat where it clutched the receiver in a sudden death grip. “Did you say Nantucket?”

  “That’s what’s written here on his invoice.”

  Morley hung up the phone without saying good-bye and sat there trembling.

  Nantucket…of all places, why did it have to be Nantucket? He’d buried his first wife, Julie, there. And he’d sworn he’d never set foot on that damn island again.

  But now he must break that vow. He had to go back. How else could he find out who Anna was? And he must learn that. He doubted he would sleep a wink until he did.

  At least he hadn’t had to take the ferry. No matter how badly he wanted to track down this Anna person, nothing in the world could make him ride that ferry again.

  After jetting in from LaGuardia, Morley stepped into one of the beat-up station wagons that passed for taxis on Nantucket and gave the overweight woman behind the wheel the address.

  “Goin’ to Charlie Ansbach’s place, ay? You know him?”

  “We’ve never met. Actually, I’m more interested in someone named Anna who works for him.”

  “Anna?” the woman said as they pulled away from the tiny airport. “Don’t know of any Anna workin’ for Charlie. Tell the truth, don’t know of any Anna connected to Charlie at all.”

  That didn’t bode well. Nantucket was less than fifteen miles long and barely four across at its widest point. The islanders were an insular group who weathered long, isolated off-seasons together; as a result they tended to know each other like kin, and were
always into each other’s business.

  As the taxi took him toward town along Old South Road, Morley marveled at the changes since his last look in the seventies. Decades and an extended bull market had transformed the island. New construction was everywhere. Even now, in post-season October, with the oaks and maples turning gold and orange, new houses were going up. Nantucket ordinances allow little variation in architecture—clapboard or cedar shakes or else—but the newer buildings were identifiable by their unweathered siding.

  Nantucket had always been an old-money island, a summer hideaway for the very wealthy from New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts—Old Money attached to names that never made the papers. The Kennedys, the Carly Simons and James Taylors, the Spike Lees and other spotlight-hungry sorts preferred Martha’s Vineyard. Morley remembered walking through town here in the summer when the island’s population explodes, when the streets would be thick with tourists fresh off the ferry for the day. They’d stroll Main Street or the docks in their pristine, designer leisure wear, ogling all the yachts. Salted among them would be these middle-aged men in faded jerseys and torn shorts stained with fish blood, who drove around in rusty Wagoneers and rumbling Country Squires. Deck hands? No, these were the owners of the yachts, who lived in the big houses up on Cliff Road and on the bluffs overlooking Brant Point. The more Old Money they had, the closer to homeless they looked.

  “Seems to be houses everywhere,” Morley said. “Whatever happened to the conservancy?”

  “Alive and well,” the driver replied. “It’s got forty-eight percent of the land now, and more coming in. If nothing else, it’ll guarantee that at least half of the island will remain in its natural state, God bless ’em.”

  Morley didn’t offer an amen. The conservancy had been part of all his troubles here.

  The cab skirted the north end of town and hooked up with Madaket Road. More new houses. If only he’d held on to the land longer after Julie’s death, think what it might be worth now.

  He shook his head. No looking back. He’d sold off the land piece by piece over the years, and made a handsome profit. Prudent investing had qua drupled the original yield. He had no complaints on that score.