Twenty-Three —
The Girl with
the Black Jewels

Amos promised Blanche he’d be back soon with an estimate—and some tools to secure the windows and doors. She was an adept handy woman, and she could do a bit of fixing up herself, but she needed help with the heavy lifting.

Fortunately, Gran had left Blanche in a position to pay for repairs. Even so, the flood insurance skyrocketed every year. If Gran hadn’t taken care of covering that cost, the bill to fix the cabin would have been out of control. It appeared that Amos would need nearly $20,000 in materials alone to put the porch and the second floor back in order. He’d save Blanche a considerable amount on the labor.

The place definitely was not habitable. She had to move out until the work was finished, and that was clear after a peek at the top floor. After Amos left, she ventured up the stairs to have a look. She stopped when the old cedar boards creaked a warning. The sky opened up through a hole in the roof. She mentally cranked in another $5,000 for roof repairs.

She gazed longingly at the bookcase and bureau from where she perched at the top step. She dared not enter her own bedroom. It looked damp in there, books curling, the pages flipping in the breeze. Clothes were strewn around. Her bed was neatly made, and soaked. She wanted her things, but she would just have to do with what she scrounged downstairs.

Her displacement wouldn’t be forever. But, in the back of her mind, was the nagging thought that maybe this was it. Wilma had done her worst, and Langstrom, or that Sal, would come in behind her and clean up.

Blanche called Cappy. He didn’t answer, so she left a message. He would be happy to have her back at his place, and she’d be happy, too. She loved hanging out with him, listening to stories about island history. They drank tea at his kitchen table and sat at the bar eating the catch of the day. Cappy always had potatoes hot and ready—in soup, simmering, fried or baked—a bite of his Irish ancestry, he’d say.

Blanche picked up the empty bowls before the ants got the last of the chocolate sauce. She turned toward the kitchen, and stopped. A spoon clattered to the porch floor. Someone, or something, was crying. She heard it coming from somewhere out in front of the cabin. Whatever it was, it started to wail. Higher and higher until it was almost singing. It wasn’t a bird, or any animal. The sound was human.

She dropped the bowls on the table and walked off the porch toward the beach. The high-pitched cries were coming from a hollow in the dunes.

The cry changed into a song and reached a crescendo, like a rainbow picking up colors after a rain. Someone was out there in the sea grass singing a tune with the birds and the waves.

Bertie had been right. There was a presence on the beach. She’d heard it, too.

Blanche crept over the sand, trying not to make a sound. She was barefoot but withstood the pine berries and broken shell. Sand had blown up during the storm, creating small hillocks of soft powder, and she stepped from one to the next.

Now she could see through the low brush: A woman was sitting in a dip between two small dunes. Her hands were in the air as in an offering, the singsong mesmerizing. She had her back to Blanche, and all she could see was the woman’s black gleaming hair, plaited in a long braid. Her t-shirt was ripped and thin as tissue. The bones of her shoulder blades were small golden wings. She sat cross-legged, wearing short faded red pants, and her knees were polished brown knobs.

The girl turned. Maybe it was a girl. She had an ageless glow, her skin smooth as stone. The eyes, like black jewels, had the quality of someone who had seen more than her years.

“I hear you,” she said.

“Well, I see you.”

The girl put her hands on the ground and leapt up. Blanche stepped back. She was about the same height as Blanche. Her eyes were almond-shaped, lifted at the corners under perfectly arched brows. She had the aura of a blackbird, and she moved as quickly. She took hold of Blanche’s hand. “Strength,” she said.

Blanche didn’t know what she was talking about. Was this advice or warning? Whatever it was, she didn’t feel any stronger than five minutes ago, or five days ago, for that matter, and lately she’d had a spell or two of feeling, quite frankly, pretty weak. Was the girl also going to tell her to be careful? That piece of advice was getting to be a drag. Blanche withdrew her hand from the girl’s grasp.

“What are you doing here?” Blanche’s voice was accusatory. She hadn’t meant that tone, but this odd appearance—added to the rest of the week—was pushing her to the edge. She was inclined to help the girl, if necessary, but she didn’t welcome the added confusion.

“I live here,” the girl said.

“No, you don’t. I live here.”

The girl laughed. “No, no, I don’t mean the house. It looks like a fine house, and now you practically have the pines in it with the porch gone. The trees are home.”

Blanche didn’t know whether to feel relieved, or tell her to leave. It was getting late, and she’d left a message with Cappy that she would be back soon, plus, she wanted to check in with Liza. Now this strange girl.

Blanche had to leave, and all the while she was curious. She softened her tone. “Look, can I help you? Do you need to call someone? Where are you staying?”

“That’s many questions, and none of them are important. You do not need to help me. I’d like to help you.” With that, the girl sat down on the sand. She pointed to a spot next to her. Blanche couldn’t see any harm in that, and now her curiosity had doubled. She sat down.

“Stop thinking,” the girl said. “Listen to the pines, the waves, and the gulls. You are forgetting to listen. You will close your eyes.” The girl had closed her eyes and put her hands in her lap. She was sitting cross-legged again.

Blanche knelt next to the girl. She should have been annoyed at the odd, staccato commands, but she wasn’t. The girl had made a fine suggestion. Blanche loved her trees and birds and beach. This girl was not telling her to do something she didn’t want to do. Blanche closed her eyes to view it all with her ears. She heard the sounds like she hadn’t heard them in a long time. The girl started singing in an even high tone. All Blanche could think of was wind in the dune grass, touching the waves, bending the beach flowers to the sand. The images went through her head like in a kaleidoscope.

She kept her eyes closed. Ever since Gran died, she’d become more and more withdrawn, like a curtain was closing. Now it was opening, and she felt a burst of reasons why she loved being right here and nowhere else. Gran—and Cap—had always lived in the present, and it was something Blanche had great difficulty doing.

She didn’t want the moment to end, but it would. It always did.

Blanche opened her eyes, and the girl was gone. She had not heard anything, not a sound of movement or footsteps. She definitely needed practice listening. The girl had simply vanished. And in her absence, Blanche felt a strange calm, now tied to resolve she’d always had and lately lost. She closed her eyes again, and the waves broke, then receded, rolling toward the beach and then back, pulling and pushing. Strong and never stopping.

Blanche could smell something like lemons and flowers that was sweet and tart at once. Had she been dreaming? No, she had not. There was an indentation in the sand where the girl had sat. Small pyramids of sand that the girl had scooped into piles were left where she’d been sitting.

She crept around the scrub palm and snake grass looking for the girl. But there was no other sign of her. No camp or hideout, dug in or contrived from palm fronds. No clothing, no food. She had simply vanished.

The girl was strange, indeed. Where had she come from, and what did she mean about listening?

Blanche looked out at the clear line of turquoise that blended into a blue sky. It was her beach but not the same. Someone else had been there who seemed to know it as well as she did and in ways that Blanche rarely considered.

Blanche didn’t even know the girl’s name, but she felt she knew her. “Girl,” she yelled. She stood on the sand under the pines and looked up and down the shoreline. “Girl!” But she was gone.

She’d be back. Blanche was sure of it.

Jack had been so right about those ghosts. How could she know they were real? Until now.