The Shape of Night(29)

“Things don’t just fly off shelves on their own,” says Dr. Gordon.

“No.” Maeve looks at me with a strange expression and says quietly: “They don’t.”

“It must have been right on the edge,” he offers, an explanation that sounds perfectly logical. “Some vibration finally tipped it over.”

I can’t help glancing around the room, searching for an invisible culprit. I know that Maeve is thinking the same thing I am: The ghost did it. But I would never say that to Dr. Gordon, man of science. Already he’s resumed examining me. He palpates my neck, listens to my heart, and probes my belly.

“Your spleen feels perfectly normal.” He covers me with the blanket and sits up straight. “I think I know what the problem is. This is a classic case of Bartonellosis. A bacterial infection.”

    “Oh my god, that sounds serious,” says Maeve. “Can we catch it, too?”

“Only if you own a cat.” He looks at me. “It’s also called cat scratch disease. It’s usually not serious, but it can lead to fevers and swollen lymph nodes. And in rare cases, encephalopathy.”

“It can affect the brain?” I ask.

“Yes, but you seem alert and oriented. And certainly not delusional.” He smiles. “I’ll go out on a limb here and pronounce you sane.”

Something he might not say if he knew what I experienced last night. I feel Maeve studying me. Does she wonder, as I’m wondering now, if my visions of Captain Brodie were nothing more than the product of a fevered mind?

Dr. Gordon reaches into his black bag. “The drug companies always leave me plenty of free samples and I think I have some azithromycin in here.” He digs out a blister pack of pills. “You’re not allergic to any medicines are you?”

“No.”

“Then this antibiotic should do the trick. Follow the instructions on the packet until all the pills are gone. Come into my office next week, so I can recheck those lymph nodes. I’ll have my receptionist call you and book the appointment.” He snaps his black bag shut and looks me up and down. “Eat something, Ava. I think that’s also why you’re feeling weak. Plus, you could use a few extra pounds.”

As he walks out of the house, Maeve and I are silent. We hear the front door close and then Hannibal struts into the room, looking completely innocent as he sits by the fireplace, calmly licking his paw. The cat who started all this trouble.

“Wish my doctor looked like him,” says Maeve.

“How did you happen to call Dr. Gordon?”

“His name was on the list by the kitchen phone. Numbers for the plumber, doctor, and electrician. I just assumed he was your doctor.”

    “Oh, that list. It was left by the previous tenant.” Dr. Gordon, it seems, is a popular choice in town.

Maeve settles into the armchair across from me and the firelight glows like a halo in her hair, highlighting the silver streaks. “It’s lucky I happened to come by your house tonight. I hate to think of you falling down the stairs, with no one around to find you.”

“I feel much better now, thank you. But I don’t think I’m up to showing you around the house tonight. If you’d like to come back another time, I can walk you through the place then. Show you where I’ve seen the ghost.”

Maeve looks up at the ceiling, at the play of firelight and shadow. “I really just wanted to get a sense of this house.”

“And do you? Sense something?”

“I thought I did, just a while ago. When I came back into this room, with your juice. And that vase suddenly hit the floor.” She glances at the spot where the broken vase had landed and she shivers. “I did feel something.”

“Good? Bad?”

She looks at me. “Not entirely friendly.”

Hannibal leaps onto the sofa and curls up at my feet. My twenty-six-pound furball, whom I have not seen all day. He does not look hungry, but seems perfectly content. What has he been eating lately? Suddenly I remember what Maeve had said earlier: Your front door was wide open. Hannibal must have gone outside and hunted down his own dinner.

“This is the second time my front door’s been left open,” I tell her. “Last night, when I got home after visiting you, I also found it hanging open. And I called the police.”

“Don’t you usually lock your door?”

“I know I locked it last night, before I went to bed. I don’t understand how it ended up open again.”

“And it was wide open, Ava. As if the house was asking me inside to check on you.” She mulls over the evening’s strange events. “But when that vase shattered, everything felt different. That was definitely not a welcome. It was hostile.” She looks at me. “Have you ever felt that in this house?”

    “Hostility? No. Never.”

“Then perhaps this entity has accepted you. Maybe it’s even protecting you.” She looks toward the front hall. “And it invited me into the house because it knew you needed my help. Thank god I didn’t just leave the papers on your doorstep and drive away.”

“What papers?” I ask.

“I told you I was going to check the newspaper archives about your house. Right after you left yesterday, I called my friend at the Maine State Library. She was able to dig up several documents this morning relating to a Captain Jeremiah Brodie of Tucker Cove. Let me get those papers for you. I left them in my car.”