A Basket of Yakkety Yak

By the time spring arrived, I had settled into the old house that Aunt Anam and Uncle Nog were converting into a bed and breakfast.

They named it Companion Moon. It’s where Nog and Mom—her name was Maura—spent their summers as kids. Anam had been Mom’s best friend and Nog was her big brother. They had arranged to have me stay with them when they heard about my problems in school.

“Get her away from that crowd,” Nog had said to Dad. “Keep her too busy to get in trouble.” He sealed the deal by offering to homeschool me. “I am a teacher, you know.”

Dad agreed—maybe too quickly.

So here I was, banished to Nowheresville, which I didn’t like. I was lonely and had no friends. But I was learning more about my mother, and that I did like. She died when I was five, so she was just a collage of memories. But since Anam and Nog talked about her all the time, she was becoming a real person.

I was also learning about my ancestors, who began to show up as ghosts. I called them the Invisibles. But I dared not tell Nog and Anam about them. Given all the problems I had had in school, they might think I was on drugs. Or crazy.

Aloysius was the first to appear by spelling his name on a computer screen. He, like Nog, insisted that I know my ancestors. He, like Nog, insisted that I know them. Here are they are:

Gramp was a great-great-great-great grandfather, who liked to build fires. Kelty was his sister. The day she appeared, she stopped me from stealing a crystal vial.

Maggie, my grandmother, looked like the burgundy snake on my jewelry box. Nog said that snakes were her favorite animal. Her sister, Luna, was a wisp of a woman with moon-colored hair. She wrote her name in the sky with clouds. Her father was Baron. He liked to fish.

Cookie Aunt Mary used crumbs to spell her name. Her eyes looked like chocolate chips and she smelled like vanilla. Mamie, her sister, smelled like fresh butter. Aunt Jeannie introduced herself in the bookstore with colorful alphabet blocks. And Tess was a second cousin, once-removed, who loved to knit with crimson yarn.

Arthur, Dobbin, Seamus, Paddy, Mo, Edmund, and Jack were uncles. Arthur and Dobbin were twins who smelled like lavender. Seamus wore an orange plaid tam and ate cheddar cheese.

Paddy looked—and sounded—like a chestnut brown horse. Mo wore a teal-colored feathered hat and wrote poetry. And Jack balanced a glass on his forehead. And Edmund juggled red and blue plates until they looked like a purple tornado. He reminded everyone that change was constant.

Sitting around the fire one night with Nog, Anam, and the Invisibles, I suggested we do something for Easter.

“Well, spring means Easter,” Nog said. “And your Mom always liked to dye eggs for Easter.”

“I remember that! Let’s do it.”

It didn’t take Anam ten minutes to assemble two dozen eggs, wax crayons, and dye.

Nog wrote, “Companion Moon” on the first egg, and dyed it silver. Anam wrote “Maura” and “Anam” on the next two and colored them emerald green. I scribbled my own name on one and dunked it in dark purple, my favorite color. We colored one egg each for the dog and two cats. That left seventeen.

“We should honor the ancestors,” Nog said, and began to write their names on the remaining eggs. “What colors should we dye them?”

The Invisibles then exploded into a racket of yakety yak, with each one clamoring for attention with a favorite color.

“Stop!” I commanded without realizing I was talking aloud to them. Nog and Anam puzzled at me. I recovered nicely. “Let me think a minute.”

Luna quieted everyone down. She wanted sky blue. Baron, dark blue, like the lake. Aloysius, royal blue, like a computer screen. I repeated their preferences slowly as if I were thinking about it. Kelty, pale blue, like the vial I almost stole. Dobbin and Arthur, lavender. Maggie, burgundy. Gramp, forest green. Mamie, buttery yellow. Cookie, rich chocolate. Tess, crimson. Edmund, apple red. Seamus, orange. Paddy, chestnut brown. Mo, teal. Jack, violet. And Jeannie, multicolored, like a library shelf.

“My goodness,” Anam said. “What precise colors.”

I just smiled. I didn’t want to invite questions about my sanity.

The next morning, we went to church, where the stained-glass windows looked like colored Easter eggs. Nog pointed to a picture of St. Brendan in a boat with so many companions that it looked like it should sink. I counted them.

“Seventeen.” Same number as the Invisibles.

“Legend has it,” Nog said, “When Brendan embarked on his mystical journey, he took seventeen companions.”

“I would be happy with one.”

The Invisibles just laughed, like a basket of yakety yak.