“And what pictures were you planning to take?”
“I thought some close-ups from inside the fence—maybe a few from up on the porch.”
“I’m guessing this won’t be the first time you’ve crawled under that fence.”
“It will be more official now you’re here.”
“I suppose you expect me to accompany you in your trespassing.”
I didn’t, but I saw the advantages. If Charlie Coggins trespassed with me under the fence and up on the porch, he would serve both as my buffer and my cover. If the ghost-boy was watching from some new vantage point, he would know not to “count” this visit even if we had still been on good terms. He would know to remain invisible because I came in the company of the realtor who must have inspected this cottage on many occasions over the years. And the bonus was that with Charlie Coggins in tow I could brave the inside of the cottage with no fear of being surprised by more ghost than I could handle.
XXX.
I need not have feared. The ghost-boy was so not there. Charlie Coggins held my cameras while I crawled under the fence, then I held his hat and sunglasses while he shimmied under with some grunts and groans.
I went first up the rickety steps. “I always hold on to this part of the railing. And watch the porch slant, it comes as a surprise.”
“I see you’ve become a pro at this.”
On the porch I snapped the front of the cottage with its gaping windows and door. I used the flash since the east side was still in shadow. “I’ve never gone inside,” I said. “But with you here I think it would be a shame not to.”
“I haven’t been inside for a good long while … but for Pete’s sake, test every board before you put any weight on it. Lachicotte would have my … well, on a platter if you were to get hurt.”
I paused to snap some close-ups of the doorless doorway. These were for me in the future more than for anybody else. In my future, when I came across these photos, they would bring it all back: When I was eleven I saw a boy standing in that space—his hands were braced against the sides—I saw the ridges of his knuckles and his eyes like dark raisins—he looked straight at me—this really did happen.
As I wound the film forward, I asked Charlie Coggins why they hadn’t replaced the door. “Wouldn’t it help keep people out?”
“Not when everybody’s already been in and removed everything of value. The last door we put in was, let’s see, ten years ago … fifteen? I’d have to check. Time gets cagey as you proceed in life. The other day my doc asked me could I recall offhand when my last colonoscopy was and I said five years ago. When he looked it up in my file it was eleven.”
“What did they remove of value?”
“Faucet fixtures, copper pipes, all the old cypress wood paneling, the wooden latches and the original iron hardware, a toilet…”
“A toilet?”
“Not everyone can afford a new toilet. They took the sink, too. Mind you, this wasn’t all done in one trip. Just covert truckloads on moonless nights over the years.”
“Couldn’t you have locked the house?”
“We did. They stole the locks. Before we gave up on doors we must have installed at least half a dozen. Pop was still alive when we put in the last one—whoa, that makes it over twenty years ago. Like I said, time can get cagey. Pop said, ‘Might as well let in the clean ocean breeze. See what it can accomplish. The whole thing might fall down sooner, quicker, and cleaner.’ Of course the Historical Society was still making big noises about fund drives and restoration. But the money just wasn’t there. So Pop said put the high wire fence around it with threatening legal signs and let nature have its way. With beachfront values rising we were sure someone would come along and snap up those prime lots and take care of the demolition themselves. Only they didn’t and then it was the nineties and then the millennium—and here we are.”
We were actually inside. At last I had crossed the threshold. But if I had expected any thrill from Grief Cottage, it didn’t come. The room was about as unhaunted as any room could get. It was as though by entering with another person I had canceled its ghost-aura. Sand intermixed with debris had piled high into the room’s corners, and cobwebs swagged from its timbers and walls. Droppings from animals speckled the bare floor. A spotlight of sun penetrated a broken place in the roof and revealed the almost transparent skin of a snake. The only other snakeskin I had ever seen had been hooked on a bush in Wheezer’s grandmother’s backyard. “Look, you can even see where its jaw was!” he cried. “It probably rubbed against that bush to start the process and finally crawled out of its own mouth!”
I rotated in a slow circle, snapping flash exposures. In the middle of the room was a boarded-up fireplace whose mantelpiece had been ripped out. “Yeah,” said Charlie Coggins, “that was a lovely mantel, a local carpenter’s pride. Wonder where it’s living now? Oh, see the blue paint on the facing of the doorway we just came through? I’ll tell you a little story about that blue paint. Has anyone told you about Ole Plat-eye? No? Ole Plat-eye is a spirit the Gullahs are absolutely terrified of. Some of them still paint the inside of their doors with this sky-blue color to keep him out. Only it’s not always a him, it can be part dog or cow or woman with extra limbs and a big eye hanging down from the center of its forehead. It’s one of those completely malevolent and unredeemable spirits.”
“Why is it unredeemable?”
“To be honest I don’t know. Maybe it’s got some unfinished business of the kind that can never be finished. You’d have to ask a Gullah.”
“I don’t know what a Gullah is.”
“Gullahs are the descendants of the slaves who worked in the rice fields down here. They still keep up the old African traditions.”
“Did any of them ever live in this cottage?”
“No, they had their own cabins near the owners’ cottages. When Pop was selling off the last of those slave cabins in the seventies, I used to see these same blue door facings when we went inside. I painted that blue for the best Halloween party that ever got thrown on this island. Right here in this cottage. Nineteen sixty-eight. Sundown to sunup. The mantel was still here and the toilet and most of the fixtures. We had a band, I was on drums. The girls made a wicked punch. One showoff actually came as Old Plat-eye, with three legs and a disgusting eyeball on a string Scotch-taped to his forehead but we made him take off his costume before he was allowed to pass through the door. Honoring the spirit of the night, my blue paint and all. After the paint had dried, I rubbed it down with steel wool to make it look old, like in the slave cabins. A lot of people still remember that party.”