Spirit Lost by Nancy Thayer Page A

heard the wind rattling the windows and the sound of each other’s breathing. Nothing else.
    Finally they agreed to go back downstairs. John fixed himself another scotch; Willy fixed dinner. John sat at the dining room table, letting his food grow cold, telling Willy over and over again every detail he could remember about the ghost.
    When he was sipping his third scotch, Willy said, “The painting in the attic, John—the one of the shell and the berry and the feathers. That’s what you’re working onnow, isn’t it? It’s very good, I think. And not like your usual work.”
    John smiled. “You like it? Good. It’s painstaking work. I want to get the color and detail just right. I’m going to work on it tomorrow.” He paused, then grimaced. “Ghost or no ghost, Willy, I’m going back to the attic to work on it tomorrow.”

Chapter Four
    The next morning, John awoke feeling hung over, exhausted, and embarrassed. A ghost . He cringed at the remembrance of the evening before. He showered and shaved and shook his head at himself in the mirror. “You lunatic,” he said.
    For his reasoning had returned. He knew there were no such things as ghosts and realized now in the bright light of day that what had happened last night had been only an illusion brought on by his nerves and whatever light and shadows the tossing trees had thrown against the skylight. Part of it came from stress, probably. He had not told even Willy how much he wanted to do something important with his art and how afraid he was that he didn’t have sufficient talent. He had read enough psychology to know about the twists and tricks anxiety could play on a person’s mind. He vowed to be more sensible, less panicked about his work. He was only beginning. He had five years.
    Willy sewed curtains for her sewing room windows. She had found a heavy chintz fabric, cream, covered with birds, flowers, and fruits in colors of peach and rose and turquoise blue. She put down one of their smaller Oriental rugs in the room, the slate blue with an ivory border, and by the end of the week her room was finished. She set out her favorite items on the built-in bookshelf: favorite books between porcelain bookends, photos of herself and John in malachite or silver frames, shells and rocks she had collected from the beach. Her stereo and records were in one corner, next to the small padded lady’s chair she sometimes sat in to relieve her aching back when she embroidered for long hours. She had a mahogany cabinet filled with threads, fabrics, and needles and a long mahogany table covered with the different frames she used. She was ready to work on a new piece but hadn’t decided what she wanted to do yet.
    Feeling slightly guilty about devoting so much time to her own private room, she resolved to spend the next few weeks just on the house—and on Christmas. She loved Christmas. She brought boxes out of the storage room at the back of the house and took out the decorations they had used for eight years. She went into the village and bought a wreath, which she decorated herself with an enormous plaid bow and pinecones and red berries she found on the moors. She wove fresh greens into the frame that held four Advent candles and bought new purple Advent tapers at Robinson’s Five and Ten. Shearranged these along the mantel in the dining room and felt melancholy; this was their first Christmas away from Boston, and they would be lonely here, knowing no one.
    Sunday morning she rose, dressed, and went off to church by herself, partly because she loved church, especially at Christmas, but partly from a need just to see other people. It was interesting to her that John, who ordinarily lived among crowds of friends and colleagues, was showing no signs of missing others around him and in fact seemed quite content with his new solitude. He was still sleeping when she returned at noon, and so she spent the next hour setting up the crèche on one of the living room end tables.