The Language of Sand

Abigail kneaded her tailbone as she got to her feet. The noise hadn’t come from the living room or the kitchen. This sound seemed deeper.

“I bet it’s your favorite. The basement.”

She stalked across the study, summoning her valor.

“You’re going to go see what it is. There’s nothing to be afraid of. This is all in your head.”

Before she could lose her nerve, Abigail flew downstairs and threw open the basement door. Common sense intervened.

“The flashlight might help.”

Because the one Merle had given her was new, as were the batteries, it should have come as no surprise that the flashlight worked. Nonetheless, Abigail was disappointed.

“No backing out now.”

The stairs squeaked as she tried to tiptoe into the basement.

“At least nobody can sneak up on me here.”

Though the overhead light didn’t make much of a dent in the darkness, especially in the far corners, the flashlight did. Crates were stacked high around the basement’s perimeter. Among them were the silhouettes of what she guessed were chairs covered in sheets.

In a burst of bravery, Abigail yanked them off. As she suspected, underneath was a set of dining chairs, an inlaid side table, and a formal, wood-trimmed settee. Beneath another sheet awaited a dining table with scrolled legs and a handsome writing desk. The pieces were antiques, high quality at that.

“This furniture puts the hodgepodge upstairs to shame.”

Another rumble suddenly radiated through the basement. Abigail gripped the flashlight tightly.

“Who’s there?”

She was trembling, causing the beam from the flashlight to tremble too.

“If there’s somebody here, come out. Come out or else….”

Except she didn’t have an or else.

Edging toward the cistern, Abigail caught a whiff of the same scent she’d smelled before, mildew with a trace of pipe smoke. That frightened her as much as the noises.

“I said show yourself.”

Abigail shined the flashlight into the cistern’s mouth. The cavern was empty. However, a puddle of water had bubbled in from a drain, bobbling the metal grate so the sound was amplified by the cistern’s stone walls.

“It’s only the water in the drain,” she sighed. Then she turned to head upstairs and crashed into a pile of crates.

Were they there before?

She couldn’t recall.

If they were, wouldn’t you have tripped on them?

One crate’s lid had come loose. Inside were volumes of leather-bound ledgers. They piqued Abigail’s curiosity, tempting her to stay in the basement despite the darkness and her apprehension. Such journals would have been expensive, even on the modern market. The thick leather bindings were still supple to the touch, and the spines were in immaculate condition. When Abigail opened one of the ledgers to the first page, the name Wesley Jasper was printed in a steady hand at the top.

She shoved aside her anxiety and began to flip through the pages. Each entry documented the sunrise and sunset, the weather, the tides, and the hours the lighthouse was operating. She marveled at the meticulousness. There were no cross-outs or scribbled corrections. The lettering was painstakingly precise. Abigail combed through the entire box, and every ledger was equally well preserved.

“For as old as you are, you guys look great.”

The other crates held more ledgers. Abigail was fascinated by the entries, the details of everything from thunder and rainstorms to hot spells and heat lightning. She was as absorbed by Mr. Jasper’s writings as she’d been by Lottie’s romance novel.

When Abigail checked her watch, it was after seven. She was supposed to be doing Merle’s rounds. She didn’t want to stop reading, but she had to.

After gingerly repacking the crates, she went upstairs and threw some food into a grocery bag to take with her. As she walked out the door, flashlight in hand, a thought occurred to her.

What if you run into the burglars? Maybe you should bring something to defend yourself.

She scrounged through the kitchen drawers for an implement with which to fend somebody off. The sharpest item she could find was a butter knife, a sibling of the one she’d used to scrape down the wallpaper.

“This is about as menacing as a spork.”

She remembered seeing a hammer in the shed. With the flashlight as her guide, Abigail delved into the night. The shed door, which she’d left unlocked, was shimmying in the breeze. She deliberated over locking it, just to be safe.

“First things first. I need a weapon.”

A rusted claw hammer with a chunky wooden handle lay in a bucket on the floor of the shed.