The Language of Sand (5 page)

There was that word.
Never.
Annoyance bubbled in Abigail’s
brain as she watched Lottie fight with the knob until the lock finally relented.

“Allow me to show you around,” Lottie panted.

As the door swung in, the stench hit Abigail like a slap. The house was permeated with the odor of rotting wood along with the musky scent of mildew.

“Lottie.”

“Bear with me, dear. We’ll open some windows and it’ll be right as rain.”

When she rolled up the shades, the waning sunlight illuminated a grim scene.

What had appealed to Abigail was that the caretaker’s house came furnished. Much to her dismay, the dcor left a lot to be desired. The front door opened into a main living and dining area. However, the terms
living
and
dining
could be only loosely applied. The couch was shabby and threadbare. The curtains were sallow with age. An assemblage of mismatched chairs, a pockmarked table, two moth-eaten rag rugs, and a soot-covered fireplace rounded out the room’s furnishings.

“Lottie,” Abigail repeated.

Pretending to be busy, the impish woman fussed with a window that wouldn’t budge. She gave up, saying, “Let’s take the tour, shall we?”

“Fine. Let’s do that.” Abigail was fuming.

Lottie motioned her over to the far side of the house and through a doorway. “Here we have a precious little kitchen.”

A stunted alcove passed for that by virtue of having a sink and some appliances. The massive stove and one-door refrigerator were relics. As the house settled, the cupboards had shifted away from one another, giving them the look of gapped teeth. Warped wainscoting covered the lower part of the walls, while outdated floral wallpaper in white and cornflower blue wilted from the top.

“Needs a woman’s touch to highlight the period details and—”

“Lottie.”

“Don’t worry, Abby. Everything works. The electricity is on. The phone’s connected. Water’s running. What more do you need?” She turned the faucet, and brown bilge splattered from the spigot before it ran clean.

Abigail glued her hands to her hips in a show of protest.

Lottie quickly skirted around her. “Let’s move on to the second floor.”

Trudging up the tight staircase behind Lottie, Abigail was eye to eye with her substantial rump. Each step squealed underfoot, and the handrail shuddered unsteadily. The staircase dead-ended onto a landing.

“To the left we have the master suite.”

She showed Abigail into an ample room painted a chalky, medicinal green. Raising the blinds exposed a lumpy bed with a frayed quilt, which was backed by a pine headboard. A brass lamp sat on a dusty nightstand beside a modest dresser. A rocking chair cowered in the corner. The bedroom was as spartan as a monk’s cell.

“I bet you could make this real cozy. Some throw pillows would do the trick.”

“I think it’s going to take more than throw pillows.”

“Have a gander at the other bedroom,” Lottie suggested, scooting away before Abigail could say more.

The next space wasn’t much larger than a walk-in closet, and because the ceiling was low due to the pitch of the roof, Abigail had to duck as she went through the door. A diminutive writing desk, a stumpy bookshelf, and a twin-sized cot on a metal frame were what passed for furnishings.

“This was the watch room, where the lighthouse keeper would sit lookout for ships during storms. It was always a stag light, but I put a bed in here so the house would sleep more people.”

“A stag light?”

“Means a lighthouse with no family living in it.”

Although Lottie could not have known, her comment made Abigail’s heart ache. The implication was wrenching.

“It’d make a perfect study for you, Abby. Or a guest room. You can count on having a million visitors soon as your family and friends hear you live in a lighthouse.”

“I doubt it,” Abigail said faintly. There would be no visitors, no need for a guest room.

“Then a study for sure. See, there’s a desk. Ready and waiting.”

The writing desk was elementary-school-sized. Abigail wasn’t convinced she could get her knees in it. “It’s sort of…small.”

“That’s because folks were much shorter in the olden days. We’re giants compared to past generations.”

It was an ironic comment, considering the size of the source. Abigail might have expressed as much if she wasn’t on the verge of strangling the petite woman before her.

“It’s true,” Lottie exclaimed. “I saw a story about it on the news. They predicted that at the current growth rate we’ll be gargantuan in fifty years. Tall as basketball players.” Lottie was wide-eyed in amazement, and again she had managed to divert Abigail’s ire.

“Last but not least, we can’t forget the
pièce de résistance
,” Lottie said, her lolling drawl flattening the French. “Wait ’til you get a load of this.”

Displaying her best game show hostess wrist flick, Lottie presented the bathroom. By comparison, the study was spacious. The antiquated toilet was missing its lid, the fixtures on the porcelain basin were encased in rust, and paint was sloughing off the underbelly of the claw-foot tub in scabby sheets.

“Isn’t the bathtub marvelous? How’s this for authentic character?”

The only authentic aspect of the bathroom was that it was authentically awful. The mirror above the sink hung crookedly from a nail. The grout between the floor tiles was dark with dirt.

“The whole house really oozes charm, doesn’t it?”

Abigail tried the faucet. The pipes moaned, then more brown sludge dribbled from the spout.

“It oozes something, all right.”

Ignoring the remark, Lottie clapped her hands ceremoniously. “Now that you’ve had a gander at the place, let’s get to business.”

“Business?”

“The lighthouse, my dear. The lighthouse.”

 
co
na
tus
(kō nā´təs),
n., pl.
–tus.
1.
an effort or striving.
2.
a force or tendency simulating a human effort.
3.
(in the philosophy of Spinoza) the force in every animate creature toward the preservation of its existence. [1655–65; < L: exertion, equiv. to
cōnā(rī)
to attempt + –
tus
suffix of v. action]

Abigail had assumed the door next to the staircase was a closet. It
wasn’t.

“This is the entry into the lighthouse,” Lottie explained. She opened the door, letting the last rays of afternoon sunlight pour into the living room from above. “Neat, huh?”

“Neat, indeed.”

Abigail’s batting average on assumptions was low and getting lower. In general, she tried to steer clear of them, as well as similar nouns.
Presumptions, conjecture, speculations
—they were sophisticated terms tantamount to guessing. To
hypothesize
had a scholarly air, to
postulate
, a scientific slant. They all meant the same. The subtleties of connotation were what differentiated them.
Guessing
sounded broad, risky, unreliable. Even an educated guess could be a shot in the dark. Abigail preferred to
deduce
or
infer
. Neither of which she’d been doing with any skill of late. So far she’d made scores of suppositions about the island and the lighthouse, most of which were wrong.

“I’d take you up,” Lottie said, “but this darn sciatica won’t let me.” She rubbed her leg for effect.

Curious, Abigail poked her head through the doorway. A wrought-iron spiral staircase wound around the interior of the lighthouse tower, making for a dizzying view from the bottom, to say nothing of what the view must be from the top. The whitewashed walls were checkered in a dazzling pattern of shadows cast by the stairs, creating a black-and-white kaleidoscope. Abigail was spellbound. While the rest of the house was an incontestable dump, the lighthouse was extraordinary.

“I can go later,” she said casually. Still irked at Lottie for lying about the state of the property, she didn’t want to let her renewed enthusiasm slip. Abigail had negotiated a discount on the rental rate after Lottie informed her there would be maintenance duties accompanying occupancy of the caretaker’s cottage. Even with the reduction, Abigail thought Lottie should be paying
her
to live here.

“As I mentioned when we first spoke on the phone, the lighthouse is no longer operational,” Lottie began. “Nonetheless, that doesn’t diminish its beauty or significance.” This was a pat introduction to the rehearsed speech that followed.

“The Chapel Isle Lighthouse was built in 1893. It took more than nineteen months to complete. Our magnificent spiral staircase has one hundred and two steps to the turret. We’ve got original Fresnel glass. Top of the line. Made specifically for lighthouses to ensure they’d have the clearest, longest beams. We’re the twenty-third-oldest standing lighthouse in the country, and the number of vessels guided in safely while the beacon was in service is estimated in the thousands. The Chapel Isle Lighthouse is a bona fide piece of Americana.”

Lottie folded her arms to signal she was finished with her spiel. Whether she was impressed with the lighthouse’s history or with herself for remembering it was difficult to discern.

“Since you’ll be acting as caretaker, you’re going to be responsible for the working features of the lighthouse.”

“A moment ago you said there were no working features.”

“There aren’t, exactly. But we have to keep up appearances, don’t we?”

Abigail threw a glance at the living room’s battered furniture.

“
Some
appearances. This lighthouse is a source of pride for locals; therefore, it’s important to continue the traditions.”

Lottie had her there. Abigail certainly didn’t want to offend anybody. “What sorts of traditions?”

“I’m happy you asked.” She unlocked a second door, which was situated under the staircase, but didn’t open it. “You’ll have to keep your eye on the water heater. It can be a touch finicky. ’Specially come winter.”

If the water heater was a principal part of these alleged traditions, Abigail couldn’t fathom what the others might be.