The Shape of Night(68)
* * *
—
By two A.M., we’ve devoured all the ham sandwiches and boiled eggs, and I’ve refilled the thermoses with coffee four times. Ghost-hunting, I have discovered, is a thoroughly boring business. For hours we’ve been sitting in the semidarkness, waiting for something, anything, to happen. Maeve’s team, at least, manages to stay busy monitoring their instruments, jotting notes, and repeatedly changing batteries.
The ghost has yet to make an appearance.
Maeve calls out, once again, to the darkness: “Hello, we want to speak to you! Who are you? Tell us your name.”
The glowing red light on the tape recorder tells me it is continuously recording, but I can hear nothing. No ghostly voice answers Maeve’s request, no ectoplasmic mist materializes. Here we are, with thousands of dollars’ worth of electronic equipment, waiting for Captain Brodie to respond, and of course tonight is the night he does not cooperate.
Another hour passes, and I grow so sleepy I can barely keep my eyes open. As I nod off against Ben’s shoulder, he whispers: “Hey, why don’t you go to bed?”
“I don’t want to miss anything.”
“The only thing you’re going to miss is a good night’s sleep. I’ll stay up and watch.”
He helps me stand up and I’m so stiff from sitting on the floor, I can barely rise to my feet. Through bleary eyes I make out the silhouettes of Maeve and Todd and Evan huddled in the gloom. While they may be patient enough to wait up all night in the dark, I’ve had more than enough.
I feel my way down the turret staircase, to my bedroom. I don’t even bother to undress. I just pull off my shoes, flop down on the bed, and sink into a deep and dreamless sleep.
I wake up to the clack of tripod legs snapping together. Sunlight shines in the window and through squinting eyes I see Todd crouched in the corner, stuffing a camera lens into an aluminum case. Ben stands in the doorway, a cup of coffee in hand.
“What time is it?” I ask them.
“It’s after nine,” Ben says. “They’re about to leave.” He sets a steaming mug on my nightstand. “I thought I’d bring you coffee before I take off, too.”
I sit up, yawning, and watch as Todd sets the camera into his case. “I forgot there was a camera in my room.”
Todd laughs. “We probably recorded six riveting hours of you sleeping in bed.”
“What happened in the turret last night?”
“We still need to review the footage. Maeve will get back to you with a full report.” Todd snaps his case shut and stands up to leave. “Something may turn up on video. We’ll let you know.”
Ben and I don’t say a word as Todd heads downstairs. We hear the front door thump shut.
“Were you up with them all night?” I ask.
“I was. All night.”
“And what happened?”
Ben shakes his head. “Absolutely nothing.”
* * *
—
After Ben leaves, I haul myself out of bed and splash cold water on my face. What I really want to do is climb back into bed and sleep for the rest of the day, but I can hear Hannibal yowling downstairs, so I make my way down to the kitchen, where I find him glaring at me through the bars of his crate. The heaping mound of kitty chow I left for him last night is all gone, of course. It’s too soon to feed him again, so I carry him to the front door and release him outside. Off he goes, a tiger-striped tub of lard waddling away into the garden.
“Get some exercise, why don’t you?” I tell him and close the door.
Now that everyone has packed up and left, the house seems unnervingly quiet. And I feel more than a little embarrassed that I ever asked them to investigate Brodie’s Watch. Just as Ben predicted, they found no evidence of a ghost. He would tell me such evidence doesn’t exist, that believers like Maeve, with their cameras and elaborate equipment, are self-deluded people who think they hear patterns in random noise, who see dust particles floating past a camera lens and imagine supernatural orbs. He would say Brodie’s Watch is just an old house with creaky floors and a notorious reputation and a tenant who drinks too much. I wonder what he thinks of me this morning.
No, I’d rather not know.
Seen in the harsh light of day, my obsession with Jeremiah Brodie looks utterly irrational. He has been dead for a century and a half, and I should leave him to rest in peace. It’s time for me to get back to the real world. Back to work.
I brew a fresh pot of coffee, heat up the cast-iron pan, and fry diced bacon and potatoes until they’re crisp, toss in chopped onions and green peppers, and pour in two scrambled eggs. It’s my go-to one-skillet breakfast on mornings when I need to fuel up for a long day’s writing.
I pour myself a third cup of coffee and sit down with my skillet-scrambled eggs. I’m fully awake now, feeling almost human, and also utterly famished. I devour my breakfast, glad to be eating alone so that no one sees me greedily shoveling eggs and potatoes into my mouth. I will devote the rest of this day to writing The Captain’s Table. No distractions, no more ghost nonsense. The real Jeremiah Brodie is nothing more than scattered bones under the sea. I’ve been seduced by a legend, by my own desperate loneliness. If there are any demons in this house, then I myself have brought them, the same demons that have tormented me since New Year’s Eve. All it takes is a few too many glasses of wine to summon them.