assortment of Crayolas, and the pale sky hung heavily overhead. Only the whitecaps in the distance suggested that this calm before the storm would kick up and show its stuff within a few hours.
I drove to the Chilmark Store for coffee and the
'I'm running low on candles and flashlight batteries,' Primo said. The owner was restocking his shelves with storm supplies. 'Better take plenty while you're here, Alex. I'm closing early.'
I picked up a fistful of C batteries, extra matches, boxes of candles, and rolls of masking tape and took them to the checkout counter. 'Can you put this on my tab?'
'Sure. Need a hand with anything out your way?' Primo asked.
'I'm all set, thanks. This should do it. Would you save me a newspaper in the morning?'
'If they get to the island, Alex. Steamship Authority's gonna stop the ferries if the swells get real big.'
'Of course,' I said, embarrassed about forgetting how these self-sufficient islanders were cut off from all normal services whenever Mother Nature got angry.
I was back in the house at eight-thirty, and tried to find Jake, to apologize. Voice mail answered at his home, his cell phone, and the office. Maybe he was mimicking my habit of screening calls, or maybe he was paying me back for last night. Could he have really thought I was keeping him away because I was settled in here with someone else?
'Hey, it's me. Horatio Hornblower,' I told his recorded message. Jake loved to make fun of my bright yellow foul-weather gear, and here I was pulling the rubberized hood back up over my head to go out and haul the deck furniture into the barn. 'Call me when you get a chance, okay? I'm trying to hunker down for the storm. Miss you.'
I went through the old summer kitchen, refitted as an office, and out the side entrance that led to the sheep barn, built more than a century ago. I pulled open the door and surveyed the space. The Gravely and mower took up a third of it, while the workbench and Adam's antique tool collection stretched along two complete walls. I shuffled around some of the gardening equipment to make room for everything that needed to come inside.
I spent the next two hours ferrying recliners, chairs, and tables from the rear decks around the building into the barn. I had been here for too many storms to risk chancing the results of Hurricane Gretchen's fury-chairs lifted and blown hundreds of yards away, and tables hurled against the side of the house, shattering windows and spreading glass all over the interior floors.
At eleven o'clock, I paused to make a cup of hot chocolate and sit at the kitchen table to dry out and listen to the radio. The marine forecast issued alerts for gale-force winds, and news bulletins tracked the eye of the storm as it buffeted the Connecticut coastline. Flooding and downed electrical lines had already caused five deaths in the New York area.
I put my slicker on again and circled the property for a last check. The wind was picking up, and I walked down to the edge of the wildflower field to recover the bird feeders. The last cosmos that stood amid the elephant grass were losing their heads to the elements, and the rain swept away small flecks of white and fuchsia petals.
My caretaker's cottage, beyond the rise at the foot of the hill, looked snug and tight. It was two small rooms, an old Menemsha fisherman's shack that once stood on the dock and had been moved up here in the sixties, before Adam and I bought the place. Now charmingly redecorated, it was home to an islander who maintained the property for me in exchange for a year-round residence.
Back inside, I hung up the rain jacket on a hook, stepped out of my boots, and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. I tried again to find Jake, with no better luck, and decided against leaving more messages.
A fresh cord of dry firewood was stacked in the bin beside the rear door, and another neat pile was in the fireplace, ready to be lighted. I knelt on the granite hearth and placed a match against the thin pine starters beneath the sturdy logs, watching the flames take and spread. I was ready to give up rock and roll in favor of some Beethoven piano concerti, music that I hoped would soothe and calm me.
Now the wind howled at the top of the chimney, drawing up the smoke and carrying it away. I stood and looked outside, watching the tall evergreens bend and sway with the pounding gusts that swept the hilltop.
The rolls of tape were in the kitchen, and I made the rounds of the rooms, standing on a chair to place
As I balanced myself on my tiptoes in the bedroom, I heard a loud banging noise coming from the opposite side of the house. The tape dropped from my hand and rolled across the floor. I climbed down from the chair and followed after it. Retracing my steps through the kitchen and hallway, I found the front door open and swinging wildly as huge drafts of air pressed against it.
When I was at home, I rarely locked the doors. But the booming noise was so jarring that I pushed the door shut and turned the bolt. I circled the house, making sure the side entrance and the other two doors leading out onto the expansive rear deck were fastened as well, before going back to taping the glass.
Fierce weather spooked the animals. I was used to seeing that here in the country. Cottontail rabbits that usually didn't appear until dusk were skittering across the lawn. A family of skunks huddled against each other under the leeward side of a beach plum tree. Flocks of birds were fighting the wind in an effort to steer themselves south.
I was just as unsettled as the wild creatures. Somehow this old farmhouse had weathered scores and scores of storms, but now a cedar shingle ripped loose from the barn roof and flung itself against the window, reminding me that the glass was all that stood between me and the approaching squall.
Again, I paced around the house, checking windowsills for places that had leaked before, and laying old beach towels beneath them. When I returned to the living room, I fixed myself a spicy Bloody Mary, switched on the radio to track the storm, reached for an old copy of Sterne's
I must have fallen asleep, aided by the warm combination of the alcohol and fire. A loud thud right behind my head startled me awake. A large bird, some sort of grackle, had become disoriented and crashed against the pane. Dazed for a few seconds, it picked itself up and flew off with a few taunting squawks.
The day had changed. It was after three o'clock, and the sky had turned from a pastel gray to a deep black. Everything in the landscape was atilt, yielding to the power of the wind that was gusting at almost seventy miles an hour, according to the local newscaster.
For the next half hour, I felt as though I were on an amusement park ride that wouldn't stop to let me off. Objects swirled around outside and thumped against the roof and sides of the house. Tree branches snapped in half with a terrible cracking sound and slapped at my taped windows. I moved to sit on the floor in the middle of the room, fully expecting a limb or bough to hurtle itself through the glass and impale me against the sofa's cushion.
It was exactly 4:05 in the afternoon when the flickering lights went out and the electricity went dead. No radio, no music, no quiet hum of kitchen appliances. The interior darkness mirrored the weather, and I inched closer to the fireplace to add more logs to my only source of warmth and light.
I had flashlights at the ready in every room. I turned one on and tried to continue to read, but the drama outside the window made reading impossible.
The storm raged for more than an hour. The strange noises of nature's destructive forces had unnerved me. Old wooden floor-boards creaked and groaned, damp drizzle seeped in through cracks in doors and window sashes, squalls pounded against every surface of the house.
And something moved up above me. Footsteps in the empty second-floor bedrooms? I took the flashlight and followed the beam up the staircase. Squirrels, probably, or field mice. Had to be some frisky critter that had found its way inside or burrowed under the attic eaves.
I checked from room to room, but all seemed fine. I shined the ray into the bathroom, and highlighted a spider on the outer window screen, clinging to an iridescent web as the wind tried to tear it from its hold. Standing at the top of the stairs, I could hear the pitter-patter of small-clawed feet echoing over my head. Whatever was in the attic could spend the night. I wasn't going up to investigate.
Now there seemed to be a distinct tapping coming from below me. I took three steps down and listened again. It was pitch-black, save for the narrow path of light leading from my hand. Lilac bushes stood outside the door.
