Spirit Lost by Nancy Thayer

stairs to the first floor. Here was the reality of worn carpet, light switches, unpacked cartons, familiar furniture. John was still trembling all over. He needed to talk with Willy. He went down the stairs rapidly.
    Willy had fallen asleep on the living room sofa with the television turned down low. A football game was ending, and the time was clicking off with digital speed in the right-hand corner of the screen. Willy lay sprawled on the sofa, covered with a multicolored afghan. She was so colorful, even in her sleep, so sane and vivid and sensible . Her braided hair, her clean-scrubbed face, her healthy deep breathing, all signs of a peaceful inner life.
    John knelt beside his wife. “Willy,” he said. “Wake up. Willy, I need you.”
    Willy woke up almost instantly in that way she had, so that it seemed she had no dream life to push through in order to get back to reality. She sat up and leaned against the sofa arm. “John, what’s wrong?”
    John took both Willy’s hands in his. “Willy, I saw a ghost. Don’t laugh,” he demanded, because immediately she began to smile. “I’m not kidding. I wish I were kidding. I saw a fucking goddamned ghost.”
    “Where?” Willy asked. “What was it like?” She pulled her knees up so that John could sit next to her on the sofa.
    “I had just finished working. I heard noises—a window being tapped on, but louder than tapping. I climbed the steps to the skylight, and there she was.”
    “A woman?” Willy asked.
    “A young woman,” John said. “Wearing a heavy black cloak. She had long black hair. She was trying to get in. She wanted to get in. She asked me to let her in.”
    “She spoke to you?”
    “Yes,” John said. “Oh, Christ, Willy!” he exclaimed then, and pushed himself up off the sofa. He began to pace the room, his body restless now with the remains of his fear. “I know this sounds crazy. I know it sounds unbelievable. But it happened. I swear it. In fact, it happened last week, too. I had just finished working, and I looked out the harborside window, and I saw a woman there, her back to me. She was the same woman,I’m sure of it, though I didn’t see her face. She had lots of black hair and that heavy cape.”
    “She was just sort of floating in the air outside the window?” Willy asked.
    “Willy, this is not a joke!” John shouted.
    Willy rose and went to her husband. She put her hands on his chest. “I’m not saying it’s a joke. I’m not acting like this is a joke,” she said. “I was just asking a question.”
    John looked down. “No, she didn’t float . She was just there. Standing there. I know there’s nothing out there for her to stand on. Christ. That’s why I didn’t tell you last week. I thought I was hallucinating. I thought I’d been working too hard. Too fast. But tonight—Willy, she was there. I saw her. I heard her speak.”
    “Well, I think this is exciting!” Willy said. “Let’s go back up. Let’s go see if we can see her.”
    “Let me fix myself a scotch first,” John said.
    They went together then, John with a giant straight scotch in his hand, back up to the attic. They pulled on the light chain above the attic steps, but no other.
    The attic was very quiet. John’s half-finished painting of feathers and shell sat against the easel. The white of empty canvases loomed out in the darkened room. Very gently the panes of the skylight and windows shook in the wind.
    “She’s not going to come now,” John said, his voice low and angry.
    “Shh,” Willy said. “Don’t be impatient. Let’s wait.”
    They waited. Willy climbed the skylight steps and looked up, but saw nothing. She waited there a long while and still saw nothing. John sat on his high stool, looking out the window, but he saw only the harbor, dark except for the passing flicker of a ship’s lights, and the sky, dark except for the random twinkling lights of a plane flying from Nantucket to Hyannis.
    They waited perhaps an hour. They