Ellen Block - The Language of Sand

“Turkey tetrazzini will not beat me.”

Heat ticking, the stove slowly came to life. Abigail stood watch as it preheated, then put the entre in to cook. She tried turning her back on the oven but kept stealing glances over her shoulder. She finally made herself leave but got only as far as the door between the kitchen and living room.

Adjectives clicked through her head: timid, pusillanimous, spineless, lily-livered. She settled on the most juvenile.

“Chicken.”

The house was miserably icy. Abigail needed to start a fire. Using the stove and the fireplace simultaneously would be a tall order.

“I’m going to get some firewood, and you’re going to stay here and not do anything out of the ordinary, right?” she asked, addressing the oven.

You’ve gone from trying to reason with a ghost to negotiating with an inanimate object. Talk about a downward spiral.

Outside, the ocean was crashing against the seawall. The sky was striated with orange clouds. Abigail felt lucky that she could open her front door and see a sight this sublime. She also felt categorically unlucky. She wouldn’t have been looking at this sunset if it weren’t for the fire. With the oven on, Abigail didn’t have a moment to waste, either on the view of the landscape or the view of what her life had become. There would be plenty of time for both later.

She lugged in some wood from the shed and prepared the fireplace, ripping apart the container from her frozen dinner and sticking the cardboard pieces between the logs. Once the fire took, she had to decide whether to stay or go guard the stove. An ember popped in the fireplace, sending her back a pace.

“What we need is a screen.”

We was a term she hadn’t uttered in a while. For Abigail, there was no more we . To her, we meant her family, her husband and son. Her main frame of reference was as we: We bought a new house. We’re having a baby. We’re going out to eat. Now all that remained was I . It was the second of only two one-letter words in the entire dictionary, the first being A . Each was defiantly singular. The language would be nothing without them. Abigail felt she was nothing without we . She missed we .

“At least now you can make a list,” she said, careful to say you instead. She got a pen from her purse and wrote fireplace screen on what was left of the box the frozen dinner came in.

“What about kerosene for the lamps in the shed? Maybe a second flashlight. Some more batteries. Jugs of water. Canned food.”

She continued until she smelled something. The aroma of food. The scent drew her into the kitchen. Through the oven window, she could see the entre bubbling. Hungry as she was, the aluminum tray of food looked scrumptious. Abigail set herself a place at the dining-room table, spooned the contents of her frozen dinner onto a plate, and poured herself a glass of milk. The meal was miles from gourmet, but with it and the new paint and furnishings, she was as near content as she could be.

After dinner, Abigail’s plate was clean, her glass empty, and her stomach full—too full, truth be told. Her stomach ached, not because of the quality of the meal but because of the speed at which she ate it. Bushed, she could have fallen asleep where she sat. She had to force herself to wash the dishes and wipe the crumbs from the table, which reminded her that she wanted to buy wood soap. Abigail had dusted each piece of furniture after she and Nat hauled it up from the basement, but she intended to give the antiques a thorough cleaning.

“Wood soap. Another thing to put on the list.”

As she spoke, a rattling whap reverberated from the side of the house. Her heart began to pound. The noise wasn’t coming from the basement or the lighthouse. It was outdoors. Abigail glanced at the phone.

What are you going to do? Call the sheriff and tell him you think the ghost is mad at you for moving his furniture?

Beside the phone were her keys. She readied herself to make a break for the car. The rattling sounded again, reminiscent of a door bashing into a frame.

The shed.

“Either you go see if you left the door open or it’ll bang away all night long and you won’t get a minute’s peace.”

The flashlight cut a wide arc into the night. Abigail wished it were wider. The vista she’d been admiring hours earlier was obliterated by darkness. She quickened her pace as she rounded the lighthouse, as if running off a diving board instead of walking. There in the glare of the flashlight was the shed. The door hung open, wavering in the wind. The shadowy figure she’d seen on Timber Lane traipsed into her mind. If there was someone inside the shed, her best chance was to lock him in there.

With one big breath, Abigail sprinted across the lawn, slammed the shed door, and snapped the padlock.

“I’m calling the police. Do you hear me? I’m calling the police.”

There was no reply. There was no one inside. Relief hit her as the first raindrop landed on her arm. Then came a deluge. Abigail dashed into the house, laying the flashlight and keys beside the telephone.

Who could you have called if there had been someone in the shed?

Abigail would have been too embarrassed to call Nat or Denny or Bert, even if she did have their numbers. She couldn’t count on Lottie and wouldn’t have wanted to bother Ruth. The only person left was Merle. He’d give her a hard time about it, but she was confident he would come. Having one person she could rely on was better than none. That was enough to see Abigail through the night.

sed u lous(sej′ə ləs), adj. 1.diligent in application or attention; persevering; assiduous. 2.persistently or carefully maintained: sedulous flattery. [1530–40; < L sēdulus , adj. deriv. of the phrase sē dolō diligently, lit., without guile; r. sedulious (see SEDULITY, –OUS)] —sed′ u lous ly, adv.

—sedu lous ness, n.

—Syn. 1.constant, untiring, tireless.

The list Abigail began the day before had grown. The scrap of card- board was overrun with additions squeezed in wherever there was room, items ranging from crucial necessities to nonessential indulgences. Be it candles or hand lotion, canned food or wood soap, Abigail needed far more than she originally thought and wanted more than she’d been willing to give herself.

She took a different road into town, assuming it would lead to the square. Instead, the lane let out into a cul-de-sac dominated by Chapel Isle’s grade school, a boxy brick structure flanked by a playground. Abigail had been on the island for more than a week and still hadn’t gotten the lay of the land.