Every Night At Midnight
You know the story.
The shingled house stood and weathered against the cloudless blue clearing of the crisp spring sky. It might have been the first house here, or the hundredth, but a curl of chimney smoke and warm laughter seeping out of the house like the yellow light inside heralded a successful dinner with friends coming to its natural end.
Inside, remnants of societal comforts stood happily depleted: the crackling fire folding in on itself, the salvaged wood table covered in mostly wine glasses, the kitchen counter stacked with smeared plates, the worn leather couches recovering in their centers.
Alvin moved in the kitchen, a dish towel draped over his shoulder, happy to recharge his social battery alone with a sponge.
Sarah, confident Alvin would notice her absence and find his way to the exit soon, walked slowly toward the door, adjusting her sweater with one hand, smoothing short chignon flyaways in a haircase to nowhere with the other. She stretched her mouth into a smiling, performative yawn as she looked quickly over her shoulder for Alvin to confirm her narrative of polite exhaustion.
The Grandfather clock in the hallway stood at the ready… 11:48...
David, nursing the same glass of Scotch he’d poured seven hours before, read none of Sarah’s gentler cues as he walked her to the door. Sarah took a flier on collective departure ritual and stopped David as he started ramping up about a piece he’d read in Harper’s with another yawn.
“Well, that was fun, we better get going. It’s almost midnight!”
David’s face lit up. Oh no.
“Ooh! Don’t want to get caught on Maple Point after midnight! Know why??”
No, no. Sarah terminated this new subject with a verbal shrug.
“Oh, Maple Point’s like fifteen minutes the other way, so we –“
“EVERY NIGHT AT MIDNIGHT the ghost of a woman in white appears and walks from Maple Point to Rankin Road, vanishing at sunrise.”
Sarah blinked.
“We’ll probably just jump on Route Nine anyway. Goodnight, the stuffed peppers were —" “EVERY NIGHT AT MIDNIGHT ...”
Oh, dear. Sarah knew she should’ve asked about the Harper’s. She put her purse on the ground, an invisible negotiation, and said,
“Okay, I’ve got ten minutes, then Lauren’s gonna –”
David was quivering. Everything preceding this moment of ecstatic wonkiness suddenly felt like an unrehearsed opening act.
“EVERY NIGHT AT MIDNIGHT the Ghost of Adeline Eleanor Conway appears at the crest of Maple Point! She walks through the dark till daybreak, in the wedding dress she wore the night she died, drowned when her horse lost its footing and rolled two football fields down the hill pulling them both into the river and under the current never to be seen again.”
“Oop, babysitter’s texting. Goodnight, stuffed peppers were--"
“EVERY NIGHT AT MIDNIGHT Adeline appears in the fog, seeking the lover she left behind! Orphaned heiress to the Conway Railroad Company, her uncle, Claflin Burnsbeard Conway, swore to her father, Cleveland Millman Conway, that he would take care that Adeline married well and be provided for when he passed.”
“When who passed, Claflin?” Sarah! No, why! She knew this was how sleep-inhibiting conversational fires were spread.
David 's gesticular incredulity landed his remaining Scotch on the coat rack behind him. Fine, fine, they were mostly raincoats anyway.
“Cleveland, Cleveland Millman Conway, he was on his deathbed, crushed by a brass and walnut Fairgrounds Organ. Adeline’s mother Ethel Elizabeth Pendergibbs had died years prior, when Adeline was still an infant. Ethel was electrocuted by the town’s first telephone when she tried to call a restaurant in Boston in a thunderstorm to see if they were open--”
David sipped at his empty glass like a cat that had dropped a spider, then jogged to the bar in the living room, for a refill. He returned, holding the full glass in both hands, sipping and walking and talking and concentrating.
“Adeline grew up headstrong and loosely corseted, and fell in love with McGraw Powell, a ne’er do well and disinherited foreman of the Crystal Coastal Woods Improvement Company. He took her to a dance and said “Meet me at midnight in your whitest woolen bridal dress, and bring all your money in a matrimonial satchel. As you can imagine, he was up to no good!”
Sarah heard the water in the kitchen turn off. She searched over David’s shoulder for Alvin.
“Our babysitter’s thirteen, she hasn’t experienced adults defaulting on their estimated times of return yet and I don’t want to be the one who –“
Alvin had left the kitchen and moved to the living room bookshelves, where he was busy examining book titles with his pointer finger. Goddammit, Alvin.
“So EVERY NIGHT AT MIDNIGHT Adeline appears in a nightgown and wanders the road looking for McGraw, never knowing that he’s the one who spooked her horse and fled for Oregon.”
Don’t ask, Sarah, don’t --
“You said it was a woolen bridal gown –“
“EVERY NIGHT AT MIDNIGHT can you imagine! Vengeance in her eyes! Mourning! Confusion! Sexual longing! Fog allergies!”
“Fog allergies??”