So I did. I cleaned up the place, which took a couple of days, and then I went to the local pub and got acquainted with a few residents. Eventually I found a fine, strong-looking young man with a booming laugh and pearly-white teeth who was willing to follow me home and keep drinking after the pub closed. I introduced him to my “grandmother,” and fed him Scotch whisky, his secret passion, until he burbled, hiccuped, and passed out in his chair.
Of course, Laura became drunk too, which I’d never seen before, and I think that did as much good as anything else. She began breaking up the place, after which she slept for two days, by which time the constabulary were nosing around us and we had to leave the vicinity.
Kellem went on to Dublin, while I, at her suggestion, returned once more to America, and so we went our separate ways, but when we parted she seemed a changed woman-her fire was back, and she had learned how to laugh once more, as if she had drawn it out of the young man.
Her train left first, and I stood with her at the station and waited for it. She squeezed my hand, and for just a moment things were again as they had been so many years before. One part of me realized that it was a facade, because by then I knew her, but I think, experienced as I was, I wanted to believe there still remained some trace of affection for me.
I guess I continued to think so until last night.
I went for nice little walk around the area, and met our neighbor across the road, although he doesn’t know we are neighbors, and I didn’t see fit to enlighten him. He was walking his dog, a little brown and white terrier. I was returning to the house and he was approaching me, and the dog suddenly went into a frenzy, barking at me, bristling, and growling, until I nearly lost patience with it.
The owner, a nice old gentleman in his early sixties, seemed quite embarrassed by the dog’s behavior and apologized profusely, all the while trying to calm the annoying beast. I bent down and held out my hand for the dog to sniff, at which time the animal suddenly backed away and started whimpering, which made the old man even more apologetic.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Animals often don’t like me.”
“He doesn’t usually behave this way-”
“As I said, not to worry.”
“Well, thanks. I’m Bill Kowalsky.”
“Jack Agyar.”
“How d’you do, Jack. Live nearby?”
“Back that way,” I said, gesturing vaguely. “I was just taking a walk.”
“You must be new around here.”
“How did you know?”
“I always take Pepper out after supper, and I haven’t seen you before.”
“Well, it’s a pleasure.” Our gloves shook hands.
“You own a house, or rent?”
“Neither one, actually; I’m just visiting.”
“Oh? For how long?”
“Hard to say. I’m doing some work at Twain.”
“Really? So am I. What field?”
“Oh, just reading some dusty old manuscripts. You?”
“Biology.”
“You’re a professor?”
“That’s right.” He laughed.“And I’ve even published.”
“Good for you,” I said. “I’m hoping to.”
“Oh? What do you want to publish?”
“Summaries of dusty old manuscripts.”
He laughed and nodded and asked a few more questions to which I told a few more lies. He ended by suggesting I drop in for coffee, and I told him I’d take him up on that sometime. That’s when he pointed out his house, which turned out to be just across the street from ours. I said, “You must be tired of staring at that fence all the time.”
“Naw, I kind of like it. The place is supposed to be haunted, you know.”
“Really? Do you believe in that kind of thing?”
“No, I’m afraid not. But it really is a wonderful place. You should look at it.”
I told him I would, said goodbye, and continued my walk. Bill, I think, didn’t give me another thought, but I could feel Pepper watching me all the way down the street.
Tonight it is unusually still outside, as if nature were holding her breath waiting for something to happen. This is not the first time in my long and checkered life that I’ve had this feeling, and I can never remember it meaning anything; yet I am always affected by the sensation. The early hours of the morning have a kind of loneliness to them that at once attract and repel me.
I am not a loner by disposition. Part of the reason Kellem got into so much trouble in Ireland was that she can be perfectly happy by herself for long periods of time. Of course, her great age and naturally cynical disposition had more to do with it, but still, if she were as I am, surrounded by people as often as possible, laughing and crying with them, drinking in the successes and failures of their lives, I don’t think it would have happened.
I suppose that is one reason I am so glad that Jim is here. It’s funny, because while this is not the first house I’ve lived in that was haunted, it is the first where the ghost has been at all communicative. When I first moved to Staten Island, six or seven years ago, I found, as was my custom, a deserted house and at once felt the presence of a very strong spirit. Yet, in all the time I lived there, which is up until last November, when I answered Laura’s summons, I never had any contact with whomever or whatever it was; I know no more about it today than I did the day I arrived.
With Jim it was different. I felt his presence right away (indeed, I think I am drawn to places with such phenomena). I made a brief inspection of the lower floors of the house looking for a place to store my luggage, and had settled on a nice corner of the basement, when a voice behind me said, as cool as you please, “There is an old vault behind that bookcase.” I think I must have jumped a foot into the air, and if I didn’t scream it was purely accidental. I must get Jim to tell me how that looked from his side.
When I turned around, there he was, staring past my shoulder and looking apologetic. “I’m sorry, I really hadn’t intended to frighten you,” he said, or something like that.
I took a moment to recover myself, then said, “Do you know, it has been so long since I’ve been frightened by anything that I almost don’t mind.”
He introduced himself, and so did I, and I asked him how he came to be haunting the place and he just looked uncomfortable, and he asked me what I was doing in Lakota and I shrugged off the question.
He told me how to get into the vault, which turned out to be an old counting room. It was extraordinarily well hidden; even the false wall was much thicker than I’d have expected. It was only just large enough for me and the crate, but it was snug and, after only a few minutes of work, quite clean.
Then I started asking about his life, and it turned out he was even older than I was, and for some reason that endeared him to me; perhaps it made me think of Kellem, who is the only other person I know who can say that.
He seemed desperately anxious to hear about the places I’d been, I suppose because he’d never done much traveling. I was equally anxious to learn what life was like for him in this part of the world, but he didn’t seem inclined to discuss it.
The other thing I remember is that, at one point, he was talking about the superstitions among black people of his time (he calls them “Negroes”), and I asked if he shared any of those beliefs, and he seemed genuinely insulted.
He’s a fascinating man. On the one hand, he never really does anything, I guess because of his nature; but on the other, ever since this business with Kellem has come up he’s been nagging at me to “do something about it.”
And, do you know, I’m beginning, more and more, to think he’s right. Perhaps there really isn’t anything I can do to stop Kellem-I must obey any order she gives-but I ought at least to try. If I were to be destroyed tomorrow, well, there are things I would miss. I do not really believe in Heaven or in Hell, for if these things were true, why do
