The Scrimshaw
A short story for a chilly night
The invitation arrived a week after they buried her grandmother.
Emma was still groping her way through a thick fog of grief; still surprised to come home from work and find no one awaiting her but Schooner, baying for a walk; still rolling out of bed each morning after restless nights and stumbling barefoot into the kitchen as if risen by the whistling kettle coming to the boil for Gran’s first pot of tea, and hearing only silence. The mail was mostly circulars or bills she knew she’d have to sort out, to put in her own name or cancel, and she couldn’t bring herself to do it because that would be admitting Gran was really gone, so it piled up on the end table by the door that Gran had always kept clear and dust-free.
There it remained for a month, wedged between utility bills, and the pile of neglected mail climbed higher until one morning in mid-November when Emma burst through the front door, breath ragged and hands raw from Schooner’s first walk of the day, and carelessly tossed her keys onto the little table, knocking the teetering tower of mail to the floor. As Schooner bounded past her on his way to the couch, Emma knelt to clear the mess.
This time the invitation caught her eye. There was no envelope, only thick parchment sealed with red wax. She’d never seen the like outside of a museum, certainly never among her own mail. There was no return address, either, only her own name. She squinted at the imprint in the wax but couldn’t make out the design of the seal—she hadn’t yet put on her glasses. Too impatient, she broke the seal on her way to the bedroom to retrieve her glasses and read its contents.
“Captain Edmund Bigelow,” read the beautiful, stylized handwriting, “requests the pleasure of Miss Emma Kelleher’s presence at a soirée celebrating the birthday of his cherished wife Rosalind at seven o’clock on the sixteenth of November.”
She recognized the address it gave on Salem Street—the old Bigelow house. She and her father had often admired its Victorian details on their summer walks around the historic district. It had been a bed-and-breakfast until a fire nearly burned down the whole block when she was in college. The names were familiar, too: Edmund and Rosalind Bigelow. She had certainly heard them but couldn’t remember any story connected with them or the house, but they had to be former owners. Was this some sort of grand reopening? Or perhaps a fundraiser for the Historical Society? Some period thing? She turned the parchment over. There was nothing about RSVPs or donations or tickets.
That it addressed her by name was odd, but they must have gotten her name from the museum, though she hadn’t heard anyone at work mention the function. She was preparing to toss it in the trash when her eyes fell again on the party’s date.
Today. An odd coincidence. But a coincidence nevertheless. With a shrug she left the invitation atop the mail pile as she went to get Schooner his breakfast.
She had forgotten all about it by the time she arrived at the museum. After a long day of work, she slid and stumbled a hurried half-mile home on frozen sidewalks, eager to walk Schooner, change into sweatpants, and settle in for an intimate evening with Dostoevsky and some pizza as quickly as possible.
She was back with Schooner and on her way to hang up his leash when she spotted the invitation lying open on the dining table.
Emma stared. Hadn’t she put it back with the rest of the mail? She would have sworn she had—but obviously not.
She picked up the parchment, staring at her name handwritten in black ink.
She wasn’t much for parties. Since she had come back to town at the beginning of the summer, ostensibly for the museum job but really to take care of her grandmother in her final months, she hadn’t made any effort at a social life. She hadn’t made any friends, had never seen a single one of her museum colleagues on a social occasion outside work. She hadn’t been on a real date in years.
Emma could hear in her imagination so clearly what Gran would say in that thick brogue that she might as well still have been in the room. “How are you ever going to get a boyfriend, Em, if you’re always with those books?”
Emma looked at the invitation. She looked at her spot on the couch. Then she looked at Schooner. “What do you think? Should I go? No, right? It would be so weird to just go by myself.” The hound laid his big black head on his paws and heaved a tremendous sigh.
It had been a mistake to come, but not entirely. There was an elaborate spread of food on a long table in the dining room and Emma had made straight for it. No plastic plates and paper napkins for this shindig: all bone china and embroidered linens. They were really going all out. A quartet of musicians seated at one end of the parlor filled the rooms with waltzes alternated with lively country dance tunes.
Equal parts hungry and eager to have a prop to hold so she wouldn’t look quite so awkward standing by herself, Emma filled a plate with finger sandwiches and lingered by the wall.
At least she had been right in her hunch on what to wear. She had donned the long, forest green, Victorian-style gown that she wore when filling in as a whaling captain’s wife in the museum’s historical village. It wasn’t quite as elegant as the finery displayed by the other guests talking and dancing and milling around, but at least it fit the period. The room was illuminated only by the flickering flames of oil-burning lamps, though Emma hoped the party planners hadn’t gone so far as to fill them with actual whale oil.
She studied the crowd, searching for a familiar face from the museum or the historical village, but she knew no one.
Swallowing her shyness, Emma drifted over to a party of two couples who looked to be in their mid-forties engaged in cheery conversation. The women returned her smile while the men made little bows to acknowledge her arrival. Emma managed not to laugh. Everyone was taking this period thing rather seriously.
After the necessary round of introductions Emma asked, “So what’s the deal with this party, anyway?”
The four stared at her blankly for an uncomfortably long moment before one of the women ventured, “The…deal, my dear? I’m certain I don’t know what you mean.”
“Is it for the Historical Society? A reopening for the bed-and-breakfast? Like, a fundraiser?” The polite blankness was turning to true puzzlement. “I don’t know how my name got on the list or who’s putting this on, but joke’s on them, I guess. I haven’t got any money.”
One of the men cleared his throat and took his lady’s elbow, pointing out an acquaintance across the room, and soon Emma was alone with her plate of sandwiches.
After a cup of the punch that was blessedly well-fortified she had another go with two more clusters of people, one after another, making similar queries and a similar stab at humor and receiving similar results. One more cup of punch—it was quite good—and then she would head home to her sweatpants and Dostoevsky, mildly regretting she had no one to regale with the tale of this strange evening but Schooner.
The Bigelow place was a brisk ten-minute walk from her apartment, and she had downed all that punch quickly—she would find a restroom before she ducked out. That would give her a chance to look around a bit more, hunt for one of those weird Victorian details she had always loved, and perhaps the evening wouldn’t be a total loss.
She followed a trail of guttering lamplight down the corridor and, when she found no bathroom downstairs, crept up the staircase, feeling oddly like she was sneaking around. She had the strange sense that she should make as little noise as possible, that she didn’t want to be caught. The string music grew fainter, the shadows darker, and the air surprisingly colder as she emerged into the second-floor corridor.
She didn’t like how loudly her footsteps echoed on the hardwood, but really, she was being silly. An invited guest, even one who couldn’t figure out for the life of her what this party was about or why she had been invited, had every right to look for a bathroom.
One door on the right-hand side was open just enough to allow a sliver of light to spill into the corridor. Emma laid her hand on the door to try it at the very moment she heard a voice—male, low, urgent, even angry—from inside the room. Heart leaping in her chest, she drew her hand back, but it was too late: she had already made contact with the door so that it swung inward with an agonizingly loud, slow creak.
Immediately the bass voice halted, replaced by swift footsteps approaching the opening door. Emma took an automatic step backward as a man appeared in the doorway. With the flickering light at his back, he was little more than an enormous shadow.
“I beg your pardon,” Emma spluttered. The scene was getting to her; now she was speaking like a Victorian, too. “I mean, sorry, I was just looking for a bathroom.”
“No, it is I who must beg your pardon for not being downstairs to welcome you.” The man stepped backward into the room with a grand gesture, beckoning her in. It was not a bathroom but a study, with an elaborately carved mahogany desk by a wide bay window, all bathed in the oily light of a single lamp. Emma didn’t want to enter—in fact she wanted very strongly to turn on her heel and leave the house—but as if of their own volition her feet moved forward.
A woman stood to the side by some built-in shelving crammed with objects. She was as beautifully dressed as any woman downstairs, her dark hair elaborately coiffed, and she offered Emma a stiff smile and a dainty hand to shake. It was cold to the touch. “Rosalind Bigelow.”
“Oh, you’re the birthday girl,” Emma joked, but Rosalind’s only response was a slight frown, replaced quickly with that smile, polite but not friendly. “I’m Emma Kelleher.”
For the first time, a hint of warmth lit Rosalind’s eyes. “Oh, Emma! I didn’t recognize you!”
Emma studied the woman’s face, searching her memory and finding nothing. “Do we know each other?”
“I haven’t seen you since you were a child. You don’t remember? But of course your family worked for mine for years.”
Before Emma could pursue the topic, the man stepped forward to take her hand. He had old-fashioned mutton-chop whiskers and pale skin that practically glowed in the gloom. “Miss Kelleher. I am Captain Edmund Bigelow. We’re so pleased you could join us this evening.” His hand, like the woman’s, was cold, and Emma felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end as he drew her hand to his lips to plant a kiss on her knuckles. She kept the fake smile plastered on and, as soon as she reasonably could, pulled away her hand and shoved it deep into her coat pocket, still feeling that clammy kiss. “I do hope you’re enjoying yourself.”
“It’s, um, a lovely party. Though I still can’t figure it all out, you know?” Edmund and Rosalind stared. “I mean, what’s going on here, really?”
Edmund’s fixed smile didn’t waver. Like Rosalind’s, it didn’t reach his eyes. “We’re celebrating my beloved wife’s birthday.”
Emma gave up; no one was breaking character. But what was that about her family? Was it all made up, a part of the act, the character she was supposed to be playing without realizing it? Or was there some truth there? The warmth and recognition that had filled Rosalind’s eyes, however briefly, had seemed real.
Perhaps Emma would find a write-up about the event in the local paper in the next few days that would clarify things. Or she would ask around at work. The mystery gnawed at her curiosity, but more than anything, she wanted to go home.
She meant to make an excuse and head for the doorway, but suddenly she noticed that Rosalind’s eyes looked swollen, as if she had been crying. A telltale streak marked one of her made-up cheeks. “Hey,” Emma blurted without thinking, “are you okay?”
Rosalind’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “I am perfectly well.”
“It’s just…” Emma never knew what to do in these situations. This woman didn’t know her and perhaps would see her questioning as prying, but Emma couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong here. “You’ve been crying. This isn’t part of the act, is it?”
Edmund took a step toward Emma, placing a hand on the small of her back. She restrained a flinch as his touch raised goosebumps all over her skin. “I assure you there is no act,” he murmured smoothly, “and my wife is perfectly alright.”
Both to get Edmund’s hand off her and to make better eye contact with Rosalind, she took another few steps toward the woman. The feeling was stronger, like cold oatmeal stuck in her throat: something was very wrong and it wasn’t part of whatever theater all these people were putting on. “Do you need anything?” She tried to keep her tone light for Edmund’s sake while communicating with her gaze that she was serious.
Rosalind cleared her throat, fluttered her hands, and looked away. “No, no, my dear…are you an art lover? Let me show you my husband’s scrimshaw.”
Emma glanced without interest at the ivory filling the shelves. The museum had a seemingly endless supply of scrimshaw in its collection and was constantly revolving the pieces on display. “Lovely.”
“Do you think so?” Edmund sounded pleased. Emma felt him drawing up behind, shepherding her closer to Rosalind and the display of scrimshaw. “I’m only an amateur, of course, no real artist. But it does keep me out of trouble during the long months at sea.”
Since Rosalind and Edmund were both now studying the collection, Emma did, too. While most of the pieces she was used to seeing at the museum depicted typical maritime motifs, whales and sailing ships and mermaids and the like, these were unlike any scrimshaw she had ever seen. The imagery was dark and frightening: demons, snakes, goats with blood spilling from their slit throats, splashes of red standing out against the black ink. Most of the pieces were whales’ teeth, but there was one huge walrus tusk etched with an elaborate scene: humans writhing in pain and fear as the flames of Hell consumed them, an infernal nightmare. For a long moment Emma stared at it, unable to breathe. The work itself was exquisite, the expressions on the suffering faces rendered with breathtaking emotion and almost loving attention.
“Which is your favorite?”
Edmund’s voice, nearly in her ear, sent a shudder from the top of her scalp down the length of her spine. She noticed for the first time she was shivering. She gestured toward a random piece without remarking which. “That one.”
Edmund picked it up, his elbow brushing hers as he reached. Emma crossed her arms over her chest, trying to stop the uncontrollable trembling. “Take it. It’s yours.”
“Oh, no,” Emma nearly choked in her haste to refuse. “I couldn’t possibly.”
He took a firm hold of her upper arm, angling her to face him. She couldn’t have said what color his eyes were, but they drew her gaze like a cobra in an old cartoon.
Emma wanted to look away but couldn’t. She had the thought, sudden and unbidden and clear as sunlight in her frightened mind, that she was in the presence of malevolence, of evil.
Just as suddenly she pushed it away. He was just a man who was taking his role a little too seriously. A very good actor.
The corners of his mustache twitched upward in a mirthless smile that brooked no argument. “I insist.” He pressed the whale’s tooth into her hand. With a massive effort she wrenched her gaze from his and really looked at the piece of scrimshaw for the first time. It depicted a hissing snake draped around an apple. The design disappeared beneath her fingers as Edmund closed her hand around it. “A little souvenir to remember this special evening.”
Emma numbly dropped the scrimshaw into her coat pocket. She looked at Rosalind, who gave a tiny nod. “Um, thanks,” Emma managed, her voice a croak. “I should get going…”
“So soon?” Edmund’s smile widened but it still brought no warmth to his face. “Before the surprise?”
Emma’s curiosity was all gone and the prospect of a surprise did nothing to pique it. All she wanted was to go home. “Yes. Goodnight. Thank you for inviting me.”
She backed toward the door. Rosalind’s eyes never left hers, and perhaps Emma was a coward, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask one more time if she was alright. Edmund, with another polite bow and the same sinister smile, firmly closed the door as Emma backed into the corridor.
Emma stumbled in her haste to get down the stairs and out the front door. Outside she gulped the damp, frigid air, her pulse thundering so hard it felt like the beginning of a migraine.
A fog had descended on the city. Buttoning her coat around her, she hurried into the cold night, wanting nothing more than to huddle on the couch with her dog and forget she had ever set foot in the Bigelow house.
Emma’s resolve to put the evening’s events out of her mind lasted until her first break the next morning. She had slept badly and only in snatches, disturbed by vague and frightening dreams, and had risen before dawn to give Schooner a long walk by the water. By the time she arrived at work, she was exhausted and jittery.
In the staff room, once she had made herself a large and much-needed coffee, she joined her colleague Kathleen, who had lived here all her life and knew as much local history as anyone. “What do you know about Edmund and Rosalind Bigelow?”
Kathleen’s eyes widened. “The sea captain who killed his wife and then himself?”
Emma gagged on the coffee that now tasted of bile. “What?”
“Yeah.” Kathleen set down her novel with a grimace. “Rich whaling captain. She came from one of the oldest families in town, old Quaker stock. A jealous man, they say, and in a profession that kept him away from home for months and years at a time. Not a good combination. Anyway, on one of his home leaves, apparently it all got to be too much. He threw a birthday party for his wife, invited everyone they knew, all her friends, even her old servants. Then he killed her, then himself. Did it right there during the party for the guests to hear the gunshots and come running in to find their bodies.”
Emma regretted all the coffee she had already consumed that morning. She was nauseated and feared she would vomit right there on the break table. What kind of macabre event was a murder-suicide for historical reenactors, or cosplayers, or whoever they were, to commemorate?
Kathleen went on, “Beautiful old building or not, I wasn’t sorry when the Bigelow house closed down after the fire. I always wondered about the people who came to stay there. Do you know that people would pay extra to stay in the room where he did it? The study.” Kathleen shuddered, looking slightly sick herself, and Emma felt cold. “If you ask me, it’s no loss that they were never able to rebuild. They should tear down the ruins and-”
“But they did,” Emma interrupted. “It’s rebuilt.”
Kathleen regarded her a long moment. “No. You must be thinking of somewhere else. They rebuilt the rest of the block, but the Bigelow place has been stuck in limbo for years with the Historical Society or the city or…I don’t know, but it’s a ruin.” Emma was going to argue further when Kathleen went on, “We have Bigelow’s scrimshaw collection, you know. In storage. I don’t think we’ve ever put it on display. Grim stuff, very dark. Apparently he was into the occult. Not the sort of thing schoolchildren on field trips should be seeing, you know?”
Part of Emma wanted to change the subject, or to end the conversation and cut her break short, but she heard herself ask, “Could you show it to me?”
“You want to see it?”
Emma didn’t, but she nodded, finding she could no longer speak.
Deep in the bowels of the museum’s storage facility, Emma waited at one of the examination tables for Kathleen to emerge from the rows of shelving with a long, flat box. The environment down here was carefully controlled to protect the collections, the air dry and cool, the lighting clinical and artificial.
Emma clenched her fists to keep her hands from shaking as Kathleen removed the box’s lid, revealing at least two dozen objects individually sealed in plastic bags affixed with handwritten labels. “Well, there you are.” When Emma made no reply nor move to pick up any bag, Kathleen added dubiously, “I wouldn’t have pegged you as into this sort of thing.”
“I’m not.” Emma’s voice sounded alien even to herself, monotonous, dry, lifeless.
There they were, just as she had seen them the previous evening: the whales’ teeth etched with toads and demons and goat idols, the enormous walrus tusk with its scene of Hell so vivid that—Emma couldn’t stop the thought—it looked to be rendered not from imagination but experience.
Surely what she had seen in Bigelow’s study had been a replica collection, though the images were so exactly the same that it would have required a singular talent and an extraordinary effort to make the copies. Why go to all the trouble? But then again, why dress up in period costume to reenact the evening of a woman’s murder?
Emma bent over to peer at the scrimshaw, looking for the snake curled around the apple, but it wasn’t there. “Is this everything?”
“That’s all.”
Emma swallowed around that same feeling of cold fear that the night before had settled in her throat until nearly choking her. “Thanks for showing me.”
“That’s it?” Kathleen reached a gloved hand to pick up one of the pieces. “You don’t want to-”
“No.” Emma tripped in her haste to get away from the table, backing into a row of shelving and almost upsetting a row of storage boxes that she grasped to catch and rearrange with clumsy hands. She wanted only to get out of here, to breathe fresh air even if it was the cold, damp air of November on the Atlantic, to feel sunlight on her skin even if it lacked warmth. “I’m all set.”
After Schooner’s evening walk, Emma hauled out her grandparents’ old photo albums and papers. They had lived in the apartment for most of their marriage and her grandfather’s family had never left the port town since their arrival from Ireland in the 1800s, so there was plenty of material. After half an hour without knowing exactly what she was searching for, Emma lingered on a sepia-toned photograph of a family dressed like the costumed actors who portrayed working-class people at the museum. The daughter looked to be in her late teens, and if Emma squinted she could make out her own long nose in the girl’s face. She fished the photograph out of the album, but there was neither name nor date written on the back.
Could it be the great-great-grandmother for whom Emma had been named? She recalled her grandfather’s stories: the men of the family had worked in the textile mills while the women had been domestics. Could that Emma Kelleher or her mother have worked for Rosalind Bigelow? Is that how whoever compiled the guest list to last night’s creepy gathering had gotten her name? She had no one to ask, no one with whom she could even discuss the mystery, and as she shoved the photo albums back into the closet she tried to put it out of her mind even as her stomach churned with unease. Finding the invitation still lying on the dining table where she had left it, Emma crumpled up the parchment and shoved it deep into the trash.
She ordered the pizza she had wanted the night before and settled on the couch with Schooner and her book. But Dostoevsky could not hold her attention as he had always done, and the pizza she normally enjoyed so much that she had to restrain herself to ordering it only once a week could this night not even tempt her. That cold fear so thick that it almost had mass remained lodged in her throat, and after a few attempted bites, she wedged the entire box in the fridge.
Schooner normally slept in the living room, but tonight she dragged his bed into her room and plopped it on the floor by her side of the bed. Evidently pleased at the novelty, he trotted in after her and made himself comfortable. She climbed under the covers, shut off the light, and closed her eyes.
She had never lived alone until her grandmother’s death. It had always been her and her father, then college roommates, then more roommates when she was scraping a living in Washington, DC before moving back to care for Gran. After Gran’s death, it was the crushing grief of missing her that had buffeted Emma each day, not the fact of living alone, which before might have seemed even luxurious. Now she would have given all she owned to have someone there with her. Loyal Schooner was a comfort, and his bulk would have frightened off many a physical attacker, but he could do nothing to ward off psychological fears. She could tell him everything that had happened and everything that terrified her, but he could not look into her eyes and tell her, “You’re not crazy.”
Sleep, as she expected, did not come, and after a restless few hours she leapt out of bed with a sudden resolution and dressed. Schooner looked up wearily. “Let’s go for another walk, boy.” He wagged his tail and lumbered to his feet.
The streets were deserted and silent, the cold air dank on her bare face and hands. She walked fast to keep warm, trying so hard to keep from thinking about anything that she paid no attention to where she was going until an unbidden impulse made her look up, blinking as if waking from a deep sleep, and take notice of the hulking ruin in front of her.
It was a Victorian house, or once had been. Supporting beams still stood, half of the wood-shingled siding facing the street remained, but all was scorched and wrecked beyond any recognizable color. No glass was left in the warped windows. A vast hole caved in the middle of the roof, gaping like a sinister grin. Plywood sheets boarded much of the structure, and spray-painted prominently on one were the words, “DANGER—KEEP OUT!”
Emma did not have to glance at a street sign to know that she was on Salem Street. She did not need to squint at the scorched plaque registering the building as a place of historical significance to know the impossible truth that this was the Bigelow house, where the night before she had eaten finger sandwiches and listened to violins and stared into the eyes of evil.
She did not realize she had started running until she was tugging fruitlessly on a heavy oak door. Barred from the inside, it would not budge. Emma stumbled backward and gazed up at the brick building with no memory of how she had gotten to Saint Michael the Archangel, where she had attended Mass with her grandmother every summer Sunday of her childhood and still managed to drag herself every Sunday since Gran’s death.
She had not consciously chosen to come here, but it was suddenly the only place that made sense, and Emma tugged again at the door, which remained stubbornly locked. The buildup of grief and exhaustion and utter terror burst in her chest like a dam, and Emma fell to her knees, her forehead against the cold wood and her hands clasped.
“Not that,” Emma prayed desperately. All her life she had dutifully intoned the words of the Lord’s Prayer that Gran had taught her as a child, and they echoed in her head now. “I know, I know, ‘Thy will be done.’ Thy will, not mine. But please. Let Thy will be something else. Give me another cross, but not this one. Not madness.”
She remained there, eyes closed and mind racing, until a voice behind her made her jump. “Are you okay, miss?”
Emma staggered to her feet, whipping around as Schooner strained at his leash in excitement. A man stood on the sidewalk at a polite distance, his moonlit face a mask of concern. She realized with a jolt that she knew him, or at least, she had seen him before. Of course she had noticed one of the few young, single men who attended Mass there at Saint Michael’s. Hastily she wiped the tears that had streamed down her cheeks. “I’m fine.”
The man hesitated before taking another step forward. “Are you sure? I…oh, it’s you! I know you. I’ve seen you at Mass.”
Emma bit her lip to keep from saying something embarrassing like, “You have?” It was not totally outlandish that just as she had noticed him, he had noticed her in church. Maybe it didn’t happen as frequently as she might have liked, but she would take it. She cleared her throat. “Yes, I…really, I’m fine. I…Schooner!” Schooner pulled out of her grasp with a sudden lunge toward the man. Emma rushed after him. “Get back here!” But the man was already kneeling to rub Schooner’s chest, laughing as the big dog relaxed into a pant that oddly resembled a grin. “I’m sorry,” Emma murmured, mortified. “He’s very rude.”
“Nah. He’s a very good boy.” His accent was pure working-class New England: a local. He stood to smile at Emma. “I’m Sam Alves.”
“Emma. Kelleher.”
“Emma,” he echoed. He kept his eyes on her while his hands went on patting Schooner, who was sniffing every inch of Sam’s coat within reach. “Look, Emma, can I walk you home?”
She opened her mouth to say no but stopped herself. Schooner was, if nothing else, a good judge of character, and this guy wasn’t a total stranger; he was even a churchgoer. She had been lamenting the months spent back in town without the slightest effort to make a friend, had been desperate for human contact, and here was a human. It didn’t hurt that he was a cute one.
“Yeah, okay. Thanks.” As they fell into step side by side on the brick sidewalk, the church at their backs tolled midnight. “What are you doing walking around at midnight, anyway?”
“Can’t sleep. Not much, anyway. I like to take long walks to clear my head before I even try to sleep.” He waited a long beat before asking, “How about you?” Feeling her chest tighten again with the fear that Sam’s presence had briefly made her forget, Emma gestured lamely at the dog. Sam nodded as if understanding that there was a lot more going on than a late-night dog walk. “Ah, right.”
They walked in a surprisingly comfortable silence to her building. As they stood on the stoop and she debated how to take her leave, Sam said, “Look, Emma, I don’t mean to pry, but do you live alone?” Her eyes widened and even in the dim moonlight she could see the flush in his cheeks. “Sorry, I only meant, do you have someone to talk to in there? I know it’s none of my business, but you were really upset over there at the church, and I’m pretty sure you still are, and maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to be alone. That’s all.”
Emma stared at him, her desire to recover some of the dignity she had lost when he found her sobbing at the church door fighting with her typical preference for telling the truth. She wanted to tell him that she was fine, or that she would be fine, but either would be a lie. “Yeah,” she said at last, simply. “I am alone.”
He nodded. “You want to go somewhere and talk, maybe?”
Emma looked around the empty street. The tourists had fled town with the onset of the cold, and there wasn’t much of a nightlife to speak of, anyway. She did crave human contact, but not in some dingy bar. “At this time of night? Where would we go?”
Sam grinned. “How about a milkshake?”
Emma laughed, surprising herself. “At midnight in November?”
“Anytime, anyplace. When I joined the service, I thought the thing I’d miss most would be my ma’s cooking, and I did, but it’s funny the things you miss when you’re over there that you wouldn’t even think about otherwise. The one thing I wanted, the thing I would’ve traded a month of rations for? A chocolate malt.” He grinned again. He really was handsome, with neatly cut dark hair and kind brown eyes. “How about it? We can go to Walt’s.”
“Walt’s?”
“You don’t know Walt’s?” She shook her head. “Oh, then you’ve got to let me take you. It’s open all night. The only place that is. They make a mean chocolate malt. How about it?”
Emma paused. What else was she going to do? Crawl back under the covers for another sleepless night, wracked by fear and counting the minutes until dawn? “Yeah, sure. Let me put Schooner inside.”
Walt’s Diner, tucked into a side street by the commercial end of the harbor, was exactly the kind of place she had always loved going with her dad: sticky black-and-white tile floors, vinyl booths, an old-school jukebox in the corner, the air thick with the smells of deliciously unhealthy things frying. “This is pretty cool,” she said as they slid into a booth. “I can’t believe I didn’t know about this place.”
Sam grinned again. The fluorescent lighting made his olive skin sallow, but it couldn’t hide how cute he was. Emma didn’t want to imagine how she must have looked. “I’m glad I could introduce you.”
When their milkshakes arrived, Emma took a dutiful sip, expecting it to lodge in her throat just as the pizza had done, but instead she nearly choked on her own surprise. “This is delicious.”
“Told you! A chocolate malt is never the wrong decision.”
When she had downed half the milkshake and made no further attempt at conversation, Sam asked gently, “So you want to talk about it? Whatever it is?”
Emma played with her straw. Truthfully she did want to talk about it, but she also wanted this cute, nice guy to keep looking at her like she was a normal girl and not a total lunatic. “I don’t know you.”
Sam opened his arms. “I grew up over on Canal Street, a couple blocks from here. Fourth of five boys. My folks came over from the Azores. Dad was a fisherman, same as my uncles. I could tell you my whole life story, and I will if you want, but I think the only thing that matters right now is that I’m a pretty good listener. And you seem like you need to talk. So if you want, here I am.”
Emma stirred the remains of her milkshake, still not quite ready. “Your dad was a fisherman. Was?”
“Yeah. He died when I was a kid.”
“My mom, too.”
Sam held her gaze. “He was lost at sea, so that was why I went for the army rather than the navy when I enlisted. I grew up around boats, my buddies were pretty much all going in the navy, but I couldn’t do that to my mom. How about you? You from around here?”
“Sort of. Growing up I spent summers here, with my grandparents. I came back to take care of my grandmother. She died about a month ago.”
Sam’s eyes softened with sadness. “I’m sorry.”
The sheer terror of this night had temporarily shoved aside the grief, but she still missed Gran with a fierce ache. “Thanks. I miss her a lot.” A sudden memory spurred the corners of her lips into the barest hint of a smile. “Actually, she had a thing for Portuguese guys. She used to bring me to the Festival of the Holy Spirit and flirt with all the old Portuguese men.”
“Your grandmother had good taste!”
“Yeah. When she came over from Ireland as a teenager, she and a Portuguese guy fell for each other. But almost right away he had to go off to war. Never came home.” Sam’s grin disappeared. Emma recalled watching D-Day commemorations with Gran and hearing her sigh, almost to herself, “Poor Tommy,” for the sweetheart she had lost decades before Emma was born. “Fortunately for me, I guess, because she met my grandfather a few years later, but she never forgot him.”
“First love.” Sam smiled sadly. “So…you want to talk about what’s going on with you?”
Emma slumped back against the vinyl, shoving her hands in her pockets. Her fingers closed around a cold whale’s tooth. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to look at the scrimshaw again. “You sure you want to hear my problems?”
“I’m sure.”
So she told him everything, from the invitation’s strange arrival that passed unnoticed until the day of the party, to the finger sandwiches and the strong rum punch, the string quartet playing Strauss and English country dances, the chilling minutes in Edmund Bigelow’s study, her conversation with Kathleen, the walk with Schooner to discover the house a scorched ruin: everything that had led to her sobbing on Saint Michael’s steps.
When she finished, he didn’t say anything, and she couldn’t read his expression.
“I know it sounds crazy. Completely crazy. But that’s exactly what scares me. The thought that I could be going crazy.” Her voice broke as the emotion she had been suppressing throughout her retelling bubbled up. “It’s…well, to be honest, it’s my worst fear. For practically my whole life.”
“Your whole life? Really?”
Emma nodded, sniffing back the tears that threatened to fall. “Weird fear for a kid, huh? But I came by it honestly. My mom died when I was little and after that I spent summers with my dad’s parents. I always wondered why we never saw my mom’s family. I’d ask my dad, but it hurt him too much to talk about her, so I moved on to asking my grandmother. She was a tough old Irishwoman, but I knew that I’d wear her down eventually, so I kept asking. Until I snooped on her and my aunts talking one night, and I finally learned about my mom. When she was just a toddler, her own mother strapped her into the car and drove off a bridge into a river.” Sam, who had been watching Emma with silent, sympathetic understanding, gasped. “Yeah. Killed herself and tried to kill her kid. Thank God they got my mom out. But that’s why she had no family, anyway.” Emma grabbed a handful of napkins to wipe her cheeks. “I was pretty young when I found out. Too young to understand, but I never forgot it, and I thought about it more and more as I got older. I thought I’d understand more, but I never did. What could drive a person to do that? To her own child? All I could figure was that it was madness, a very deep, very dark madness. Maybe the kind of thing that runs in families. So why couldn’t it happen to me?”
Sam’s hand twitched forward on the table, as if he were going to reach for hers, but then he cleared his throat and crossed his arms. “I’m really, really sorry that happened to your mom, Emma. It’s an awful story. And I’m sorry you grew up knowing that. I can’t tell you what your future’s going to be. All I can tell you is that I don’t think you’re crazy.”
Emma choked on a grim, surprised laugh. “You don’t?”
“Not one bit.”
“I told you I ate cucumber sandwiches and talked to a murderer who died over a hundred years ago in a building that turns out to have burned down, and you don’t think I’m crazy?”
Sam shook his head. “Nope. So what’s the alternative? If it’s not in your head?”
She couldn’t help looking around the diner for eavesdroppers. There were no other customers and the waitress had disappeared into the back. She practically whispered, “Ghosts?”
“Ghosts.”
“And you don’t think it’s crazy?”
He shrugged. “Here’s what I know. In my experience, at least, usually late at night in a bar or sitting around a campfire, every once in a long while, the conversation gets around to the supernatural. Ghosts, spirits, whatever you want to call it. Things beyond what we can see. And everyone has a story. After a few drinks, or after a day of getting shot at, guys will talk about something they’ve seen or a buddy or relative has seen that can’t be explained away rationally. So yeah, I think the most likely explanation is…a ghostly one.”
Emma put her head in her hands. It was preferable to madness but it was still terrifying. “You think so? I can’t believe we’re sitting here talking about ghosts.” She laughed self-consciously. “I’m not used to this. I was in grad school before I dropped out to come take care of Gran. With a lot of very modern people who would have heard my story and sent me straight to a shrink. People who think there’s nothing more than what we see and touch, good and evil are a construct, and-”
“Wait, wait,” he interrupted. “A construct? What do you mean?”
“That good and evil don’t exist objectively.”
Sam grimaced. “They sound like idiots.” Emma laughed again, and this time it made her feel warm inside, like light was piercing the gloom and fear that had cloaked her. He smiled to see her cheered, but quickly he sobered again, looking slightly over her shoulder as if lost in a memory. “I may not have a fancy education, but I know good and evil are real. I’ve seen them both with my own eyes.”
“I think I have, too.”
The rest of the night passed in conversation under the fluorescent lights, and the gray hint of dawn peeking through the greasy windows surprised them both. The dark, tired smudges beneath Sam’s eyes didn’t detract from his good looks. “Can I walk you home? Again?”
“I’d like that.”
The morning air as they emerged outside was crisp and cold on her face. Emma thrust her hands in her pockets and, in a moment of sudden decision, drew out the whale’s tooth. The scrimshaw was exactly as she remembered it: the snake in the Garden, coiled around the forbidden fruit. She held it out to show Sam.
His eyes widened as he leaned in to get a good look. “That’s what he gave you?”
“Yeah.” She offered to hand it to him but he shook his head vehemently. “What do you think I should do with it? Sneak it into the museum’s collection?”
“If it were me, I’d get on a boat, go out into blue water, and throw it as far as I could into the depths. As soon as possible.”
“I don’t have a boat.”
Sam thought a moment. “We’ve got a bridge.”
They picked their way past the docks and deserted streets to a bridge that Emma had only ever crossed in a car. Halfway out, they stood and gazed at the dark water where the river met the sea. Then they looked at each other and Sam nodded. “Do it.”
The scrimshaw, still cold in her hand, felt heavier than it had, almost magnetized, like if she tried to throw it, it wouldn’t go. It almost tugged at her. Surely that, if nothing else in the past two days, was in her head.
She drew her arm back and heaved the scrimshaw with all her might over the safety fence. They watched it disappear into the black.
Emma felt lighter on the walk home. Though two sleepless nights had left her more exhausted than she had ever been in her life, she felt hopeful. She had read that living through intense experiences, like war or natural disasters, bonded people more quickly than normal life. Was that what this was? She felt close to Sam, certainly closer than anyone else in this town.
Perhaps it was her imagination or wishful thinking, but from the way he kept stealing glances at her and grinning as they walked side by side, hands shoved in their pockets, she dared to hope that he felt the same way.
When she had opened her front door and Schooner bounded out to greet them, she felt shy again. “Well. Thanks, Sam. For everything.” With an effort she met his eye. “It really meant a lot.”
His smile made her chest feel tight in a good way. “My pleasure. Seriously. You’re quite a girl, Emma.”
She flushed. “A girl who hangs out with ghosts.”
“A girl who’s brave enough to face her fears. And I girl that I happen to like.”
Her stomach flipped. For a long moment she couldn’t think of anything to say. At last she blurted, “Hey, you’re not a ghost, are you?”
Sam quirked an eyebrow and took a step closer. “Could a ghost do this?”
She could only feel his kiss for a moment, his lips cool from the November air. Then she felt nothing, far too soon. She opened her eyes. Sam was staring at her, his handsome face a caricature of shock. “Emma?”
He flickered like a guttering candle.
Then he was gone, and Schooner was barking and pawing at the spot where Sam had stood.
Emma did not need to walk by Walt’s to know that she would find no diner there, but she did to make sure. In the spot where she and Sam had nursed milkshakes all night there was now a pawn shop.
Within twenty minutes of arriving at the library she found the information she had come for. They had digitized the town’s local newspapers going back more than a century, and it took little effort to find the article from November of 1945 that she read with a pounding heart.
Gold Star Mother Loses Another as Boys Head Home
Local mother Beatriz Alves was proud to tell anyone who would listen that she had five boys in uniform. Her third son, Tomas, died a hero on the beaches of Normandy…
“Poor Tommy,” sighed Gran’s brogue, practically in her ear, so that Emma jumped back from the screen and looked around. She was alone. When she had regained her breath, she continued reading.
…and Mrs. Alves celebrated with every other mother in America on Victory Day when she knew the rest of her boys would be coming home, safe and sound. Her joy turned to despair with the arrival of a telegram she no longer believed she had to fear. Her fourth son, Samuel, a sergeant who helped liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp with the Third Army, was tragically killed in a traffic accident in France one week before his troop ship’s scheduled departure for home.
Emma stopped reading, no longer even able to cry.
In the library’s collection of old yearbooks, she dug through some volumes from the 1930s until her bleary eyes fell upon the younger but already handsome face of Samuel Alves, who didn’t yet know that he would join the US Army so as not to drown but would get killed anyway after he already helped win a war, and who would somehow go on to kiss Emma Kelleher decades after he died.
She collected Schooner from home and took him for a long walk through the cold sunshine, half-expecting Gran or Sam around every corner, but finding no one she knew, ghost or otherwise.
Back at home again, Schooner trotted off to the couch and Emma gazed around the foyer, at a loss. What should she do now? What would Gran do? That was easy—make a pot of tea. She headed for the kitchen.
There on the dining table lay the handwritten invitation she had crumpled up and thrown out the night before, the parchment once again pristine. And next to it was the scrimshaw that she had hurled into the river and she and Sam had watched disappear beneath the surface.
This time, Saint Michael the Archangel was open when she tried the door. It was Saturday, too early for the vigil Mass, but a good time to light a candle. A good time to pray.
Author’s Note: This story was borne out of a writing prompt that took me out of my comfort zone, both in terms of genre and length. What do you think? Should I write more short stories? Should I abandon my typical genres for the realm of the supernatural? (I can already tell you that’s not going to happen, but I’d still like to know what you think!)
The first evening I sat down to start working on this, alone in my dining room on a literally dark and stormy night, my dog sat down about fifteen feet away and just…stared at me. For an alarmingly long time. Almost like he could feel the ghostly atmosphere I was trying to create. Could he sense some sort of…ghostly presence? I was starting to get genuinely creeped out.
It turned out he just needed to pee. This story is dedicated to Jasper anyway!
Great story, love your books so these will be cool in betweeners. Keep writing
Really enjoyed this story, draw me in immediately and kept me curious the whole way through.