The Shape of Night(15)

“Do you have anything else in your collection that belonged to Captain Brodie?” I ask.

“There are a few more items upstairs.” The doorbell tinkles and she turns as a family with young children enters. “Why don’t you wander around and take a look? All the rooms are open to visitors.”

As she greets the new arrivals, I walk through a doorway into the parlor, where chairs upholstered in red velvet are arranged around a tea table, as though for a ladies’ gathering. On the wall are twin portraits of the gray-haired man and woman who once owned this building. The man looks stiff and uncomfortable in his high-collared shirt, and his wife stares from her portrait with steely eyes, as if to demand what I am doing in her parlor.

In the other room, I hear a child scampering about and the mother pleads: “No no, sweetheart! Put that vase down!”

I escape the noisy family and head into the kitchen, where a wax cake, artificial fruit, and a giant plastic turkey represent the makings of a holiday meal. I consider what it was like to cook such a meal on the cast-iron wood-burning stove, the backbreaking labor of hauling in water, feeding wood to the flames, plucking the bird. No, thank you; a modern kitchen for me.

    “Mommeee! Let me go!” The child’s shrieks move closer.

I flee up a back staircase and ascend narrow steps that servants must once have climbed. Displayed in the second-floor hallway are portraits of distinguished residents of Tucker Cove from a century ago, and I recognize names which are now displayed on storefronts in the village. Laite. Gordon. Tucker.

I do not see the name Brodie.

The first bedroom has a four-poster bed and in the next bedroom is an antique crib and a child’s rocking horse. The last room, at the end of the hall, is dominated by a massive sleigh bed and an armoire, the door open to show a lace wedding gown hanging inside. But I pay no attention to the furniture; instead my attention is riveted on what hangs over the fireplace.

It is a painting of a striking man with wavy black hair and a prominent brow. He stands posed before a window, and over his left shoulder is a view of a ship in the harbor, its sails aloft. His dark coat is simple and unadorned but perfectly tailored to his broad shoulders, and in his right hand he holds a gleaming brass sextant. I do not need to look at the label affixed to the painting; I already know who this man is because I have seen him by moonlight. I have felt his hand caress my cheek and heard his voice whisper to me in the darkness.

Under my roof, no harm will come to you.

“Ah. I see you’ve found him,” says the docent.

As she joins me in front of the fireplace, my gaze remains fixed on the portrait. “It’s Jeremiah Brodie.”

“He was a fine-looking fellow, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“I imagine the ladies in town must have swooned whenever he came striding down the gangplank. What a shame he left no heirs.”

For a moment we stand side by side, both of us spellbound by the image of a man who has been dead for nearly a century and a half. A man whose eyes seem to gaze directly at me. Only at me.

    “It was a terrible tragedy for this village when his ship went down,” says Mrs. Dickens. “He was so young, only thirty-nine, but he knew the sea as well as anyone could. He grew up on the water. Spent more of his life at sea than he did on land.”

“Yet he built that beautiful house. Now that I’ve been living in Brodie’s Watch for a while, I’m starting to appreciate just how special it really is.”

“So you like it there.”

I hesitate. “Yes,” I finally say, and it’s true; I do like it there. Mice and ghost and all.

“Some people have quite the opposite reaction to that house.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every old house comes with a past. Sometimes people can sense if it’s a dark past.”

Her gaze makes me uncomfortable; I turn away from her and once again lock eyes with the painting. “I admit, when I first saw the house, I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay.”

“What did you feel?”

“As if—as if the house didn’t want me there.”

“Yet you moved in anyway.”

“Because that feeling changed the moment I stepped inside. Suddenly I didn’t feel unwelcome anymore. I felt as if it accepted me.”

I realize I’ve said too much, and her gaze makes me uncomfortable. To my relief, the wayward child suddenly thumps along the hallway and the docent turns just as a three-year-old boy darts into the room. He makes a beeline for the fireplace tools, of course, and in a flash he’s pulled out the poker.

“Travis? Travis, where are you?” his mother calls from another room.

The docent snatches the poker out of the boy’s hands and places it out of reach on the mantelpiece. Through gritted teeth she says: “Young man, I’m sure your mommy can find a much better place for you to play.” She grabs the boy’s hand and half-leads him, half-drags him out of the room. “Let’s go find her, shall we?”

    I take that opportunity to quietly slip out of the room and make my way back down the staircase to the exit. I don’t want to talk to her, to anyone, about what happened to me in Brodie’s Watch. Not yet. Not when I myself am not certain of what I actually saw.

Or didn’t see.