The priest shuffled off, leaving Holly quite alone in the room. She imagined voices in the distance, the woman chatting on the telephone and a conversation in a lower register at the front door, but in truth, silence had insinuated itself upon the room, and all she heard were her own questions. Why had she come here this morning? What made her think the priest might offer some answers or consolation? Years ago when Jack was first diagnosed, she could hardly bear to name his condition; an ocean of prayer poured out of her, only subsiding in time as he grew worse, not better.
Outside, the flurries and bleak sky had given way to weak sunshine, and as the warmth reached the windowpanes, the glass ticked as it expanded. A sense of folly crept into her thoughts. She resolved to simply go, make some excuse to the priest in the foyer, and escape this austere place. She licked the wet crumbs from her fork and sipped her coffee, but it had grown cold. Behind the aroma of cake and coffee came the musky smell of the old man’s house covered over by furniture polish, the sharpness of unaired rooms. Across from her, the painting on the wall took on a new aspect in the changing light that made her feel woozy. She could feel the sea roll, and the doomed ship pitched ever so slightly on the swells. Those poor people soon to drown. Land in sight, but no way to reach it past the icy waters. The wooden deck groaned in the storm. Another presence had entered the room, the floorboards creaked beneath the shifting weight. The noise reminded her of that night in the house when something had landed on the roof, disturbing the stillness. Holly thought it must be Father Bolden returned from the interruption, and in that moment, she resolved to mumble her apologies and be on her way. As she rose and pivoted to leave, she cried out softly at the sight at the door, an older Japanese woman with one dark eye and the other clouded by a milky scale. Her gray hair was pulled back severely, accentuating the left side of her face, which drooped a bit, as though she had once suffered a stroke. Her lips hung open at one corner, exposing pink gums and small, white teeth. Like one of Jack’s off-kilter drawings.
“Jesus,” Holly whispered. “You shocked me.”
The woman’s good eye searched the room, and when it landed on Holly, her expression turned to mild disdain.
“Are you Miss Tiramaku? If you’re looking for Father Bolden, there was someone at the door.”
The woman nodded, as if to thank her and acknowledge that indeed she was the housekeeper and in search of the pastor, but she did not depart and, in fact, appeared to be considering some remark in the back of her mind. Impassive as a statue, she wore a black dress that hung like sackcloth and plain sensible shoes out of fashion a generation ago.
“Good cake,” Holly said at last. “You were kind to make it.”
“You shouldn’t say that.”
“About the cake?”
“No, you shouldn’t say ‘Jesus’ unless you mean it.”
She had forgotten she was in a priest’s house. “Sorry, but it was only because you startled me—my mind was elsewhere.” She hid her mouth behind her hand.
“You were frightened by the painting, the Wreck of the Porthleven? I don’t know why he insists on keeping it there. Did he tell you about the yurei, too?”
“The what?”
Stepping closer, Miss Tiramaku cast a glance toward the entrance to the room, making sure the priest was not close enough to overhear. “The yurei are spirits of the dead condemned to haunt the living until the wrong that has been done to them has been set right. Did he tell you about the people who drowned? Legend has it that the captain took a foolish risk in a storm. The yurei want to be freed from their misery.”
“I’m sorry,” Holly said, “but I don’t believe in ghosts. Or yurei.”
“Don’t be so sure of things you cannot see. The mind conjures the mystery, but the spirit provides the key.” With a nod, she gestured to the painting. “Poor souls beneath the sea.”
Coming here was a mistake, Holly thought. She searched for some polite way to excuse herself.
Like a spider scrutinizing a fly, Miss Tiramaku stepped closer, a look of sudden recognition on her face. “You are Mrs. Keenan. The mother of that boy.”
Her words sounded like an accusation. What had the priest been telling her about Jack? Or was it common knowledge around town that her son would not willingly leave the house? Was there some cabal of housekeepers gossiping about the strange child and his hapless family? That Keenan boy. Stricken by a dizzying nausea, Holly wanted to run away, but the one-eyed witch in the doorway blocked the passage.
Whistling from the hallway saved her. The tune of “O Tannenbaum” pitched loud and clear on his lips, Father Bolden trundled toward them, his face red with exertion and pine needles clinging to his cardigan and the front of his black trousers. “The Christmas tree is here. That was the man come with our big balsam, and I had to instruct him how best to set it up in the parlor. Free delivery can’t wait. It’s a beauty, Miss Tiramaku, seven feet if I’m any judge. I see you two have made introductions in my absence.”