by Becky Melby
She didn’t sound crazy at all. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but the space almost vibrated with a sensation of—Emily had nailed it—significance. He reached up and touched the cold roughness of an iron hook. “I think you’re right.”
The flashlight painted the walls in systematic strokes. Floor to ceiling, ceiling to floor. When the beam reached the northwest corner, it stopped. The halo of light spilled onto the bench. Emily leaned forward then rose and stepped closer. The light concentrated into a plate-sized disk. She knelt. “Come here,” she whispered.
Jake crouched behind her. Carved into the bench was a picture he’d seen before—four five-petal flowers with rounded petals and two concentric circles in the center of each, connected by stems with three leaves. Crude block characters curved around one side of the wreath, spelling out “MARIAH 1852.”
His long, low whistle split the shadows, eclipsing Emily’s gasp. “What do you know about the Underground Railroad, Miss Foster?”
September 2, 1852
Water lilies brushed the sides of the canoe with a soft whisper. Quiet, yet more noise than Liam would have liked. The night was still. A chill hung over the moonlit river in clouds of low fog, engulfing him in thick gray mist one moment then dropping like a sheet falling from a clothesline the next. Paddling just enough to steer clear of the bank, he combed the river’s edge with seasoned eyes. His newly rifled musket rested on his thigh. A dozen minié balls rattled in his pocket like a handful of lead acorns. But the weapon that fit his hands as if he’d been born with two fingers attached to the string nestled beside him like a trusty hound. Balancing his paddle across his knees, he reached over his shoulder and stroked the turkey fletching of an arrow pulled out, ready and waiting, from the others in his quiver. Soon. A half mile ahead, a clearing created a gathering place. As the deer nibbled on the lily pads and stems, he would find the young buck that had eluded him for three nights.
He shifted his cramped legs, inadvertently grazing the traps with his boot. Chains rattled. Liam gritted his teeth. Ten more yards and he’d pass Hannah’s porch. No one should have to travel at night in this dampness that seeped through buckskin like it was parchment.
With a deep breath for courage, he let his gaze travel the riverbank to the porch. Two rugs hung over the railing. His heart missed two beats. His stomach felt as though he’d swallowed the bullets in his breast pocket.
He would be back tomorrow night.
CHAPTER 5
Emily still sat on the low, scarred bench, rubbing her arms for warmth. Leaning back against the rock wall, she tried to separate logical thought from the fanciful musings of the man who had just left.
She regretted the “significance” remark. Though the feeling hadn’t left, it made her sound melodramatic. And it had fed Jake’s imagination. Like the ink blots framed as modern art on the walls in Vanessa’s office, this room could be whatever a person wanted it to be. She, a preschool teacher in her former life, saw a coatroom filled with giggling children and muddy boots. Jake Braden, the history buff, saw it as a secret hideaway for runaway slaves. He’d rattled on and on about abolitionists known to live in Rochester, and documented letters proving the village had been a temporary sanctuary for fugitives from the South. But they’d searched every inch of the room before he left and it gave no clues of its previous life other than the flower and a woman’s name.
Had Nana Grace known about this room? Emily pictured the woman who’d always reminded her of a giant pillow cinched in the middle. Shoulders wide for a woman, a puffy chest that could smother an unsuspecting child, and she was even wider at the bottom. Grace Ostermann’s generous hourglass figure could never have squeezed into this space.
Jake seemed to think that none of the previous owners knew anything about it, or they’d kept its stories secret. More than likely, the room’s origin and history was simply nothing worth sharing. A root cellar or storeroom dating back to the 1840s was interesting, but not something people would pay to see.
Pay to see. The thought lodged in her brain like a tree damming a river. He wouldn’t… Why hadn’t she told Jake not to tell anyone about this? Within hours, the place could be swarming with curious neighbors and little old ladies from the Historical Society. She suddenly saw Jake, megaphone in hand, pulling people in from the street like a sideshow barker. The house would never get finished. Or started.
Her phone stuck in her pocket. She stood, slid it out, and dropped it. With a groan, she bent, retrieved it, and stilled her hand enough to punch in his number.
“Find something?” He didn’t bother with hello.
“No.” Relax. Be casual. She exhaled melodrama and tried not to think of him as the sideshow barker who could ruin her plans. “I was just thinking…it probably goes without being said, but I don’t want anyone to know about this just yet. Okay?”
The quick assurance she’d hoped for didn’t come. Silence seeped from the phone and filled the darkness. “Jake?”
“Um…yeah…well, I only told two people. My niece and nephew. They’re just kids. I’ll tell them to keep it to themselves. They had an early release day, and I just picked them up at school. We’re on our way to your place. They’ve studied the Underground Railroad, and I promised I’d show them the room. They’re really excited about…”
Just kids? If he’d known her background, he wouldn’t have used that as a defense. “Mr. Braden”—the formal address gave her a smidgeon of power—“we don’t know anything for sure.”
He laughed. “I’m sure.”
“But you won’t tell anyone else, will you?”
A protracted pause followed. “You are going to check this out, right? Do some research? We have to find out who Mariah is. Maybe you’re right, maybe she’s just a kid who used to live there, but we have to look at records and…”
We? “Of course.” If she didn’t debunk the idea, sooner or later it would bubble out of him.
“So it’s okay to bring the kids over?”
Emily sighed and closed her eyes. “Sure. Bring them over.”
“We’re having lunch at McDonald’s. Can I bring you something?”
“No. Thank you.”
“Okay. Be there in about an hour.”
She closed her phone and rested her hand on the bench. On top of the flower.
Mariah, who are you? Eyes still closed, she traced the name with her fingertip and tried to envision the person who’d carved it. A young girl, sent to dig carrots and potatoes from a barrel of sand, or to leave leftovers here to stay cold? Bored with her chores, she pulls a paring knife from her apron pocket. Or a runaway slave, exhausted, scared, running for her life. Huddled under a ragged blanket, waiting out the night with a shivering child in her arms. Carving a circle of flowers and her name—or her little girl’s—busying her hands to stay awake on her watch, a precious piece of candle disappearing as she worked.
A dog barked, muffled and distant, but jarring in the silence. Emily’s eyes opened.
The old house was getting crowded. The fluffy white dog, the boy in the striped shirt, and now the shivering woman dressed in tatters. Like an illustration in one of her favorite children’s books, would she lead a parade of imaginary friends wherever she went?
With a soft groan that reverberated off the stone walls, she stood and rubbed her back. When her legs were ready to move, she slipped through the opening, nodded toward the woman in the corner, and banged the door closed.
Stopping at the top of the cellar stairs, Emily surveyed the kitchen. Her watch said lunchtime. A loaf of bread and two apples sat on the counter. The fridge held a bottle of iced tea and a package of cheese. Her hand rested just above the waist of her jeans. She felt the rumble, but the pangs didn’t translate into a desire for food. Grabbing her cane from the door handle, she walked over to the sink and stared out the window as she washed an apple.
Cardinal Bob landed on the roof of the shed and called to his mate. Emily shook her head. “Give it a rest. Maybe if you act lik
e you’re not interested, she’ll follow you.”
Like that works. That was the tactic she’d been employing when she went to Colorado seventeen months ago. Show him you don’t care, you can do this alone. After a week of her silence, he’d called. To tell her she could do it alone.
Her cardinal’s song floated through the screen. She kicked off her sandals and joined him outside, leaning against the railing and listening to the river. Peeling paint bit into her forearms. The whole porch needed to be sanded and repainted. Had she bought a money pit? How much could she do herself? And would she know when to say when? She padded across the boards, willing them smooth and glistening white without the effort it would take.
The inside of her forearm prickled. A thick chunk of paint pressed into her flesh. Hunter green, her least favorite color in all the world. She pried it off. It left an imprint. A pink island—Cuba or Jamaica—in a sea of white. Scraping her fingernail across the green, she found burgundy and wondered if the porch was as old as the rest of the house.
It couldn’t be. The trapdoor would have been useless. Inaccessible. Unless… With an agility she didn’t usually possess, she scrambled down the steps. White-painted lattice covered the space between the ground and the floor of the porch. In rough condition, it would have to be removed eventually. Easing to her knees, she stuck her fingers through the holes and yanked on the crisscrossed wood strips. A yard-long panel gave way and she tossed it aside. Flattening onto the grass, she pulled Jake’s flashlight out of her pocket. Contorted leaves and hickory nuts littered the dirt. There was no sign of the trapdoor, and the space wasn’t deep enough for her to squeeze into.
Flicking off the light, she sat on the grass and stared at the square spindles just above her eye level. Functional, not decorative, they carried on the practical theme of the house. Unknowingly constructed over the entrance to a secret, forgotten room. Or…
Grasping spindles with both hands, she pulled herself up and walked back up the steps. A large black mat, about six feet long, covered the middle of the porch in front of the back door. Emily kicked up the corner, rolled it back with the end of her cane, and sucked in a sudden breath. A paint-filled line ran across a dozen boards. Whirling around, she spotted an identical cut. Ignoring pain, she dropped to her knees. Slipping her fingers under the board at the end of the cut, she lifted. The outlined square wiggled. Years of paint wrinkled in the cracks. With every ounce of strength, she pulled again. A popping, tearing sound accompanied two small rips. She worked her way to a stand and nearly ran into the kitchen for the knife that had sliced lemons just hours ago.
The blade cut through the stretchy, dried paint like butter. Her palms grew damp against the handle. An irrational thought seemed to ascend from the space beneath the newly freed door. Did you see the ghost yet? She thought of the imaginary woman, cradling her child in the room below. With a shake of her head, Emily dropped the knife and slid her fingers through a crack. Gripping the end board and holding her breath, she pulled. Hidden hinges resisted, wailing against her effort. Inch by inch, the unwilling mouth opened until, at last, the hinge loosened and the door banged against the house.
But the moment was anticlimactic. Moldy leaves, a plastic straw, and a bottle cap were the archaeological treasures stirred up by the tip of her cane. No handle to a trapdoor, no footprints turned to stone. She needed the shovel from the shed.
Preparing to hoist unladylike to her feet, she drew one knee to her chest. The fingers of her right hand slid over a plank bordering the square hole. Instead of wrapping around the board, her fingers arched around something cylindrical. Lowering her knee, she leaned into the opening.
A short pipe, about a foot long, hung by two hooks. Both ends were sealed. Her hand closed around the pipe. It was rusted to the hooks. She tried dislodging it then stopped, considering for a moment that, whatever it was, she shouldn’t be disturbing it without gloves or without permission. As if she were trespassing. As if the house and its contents belonged to someone else. But the very fact that the pipe seemed to serve no purpose made taking a closer look seem vital.
Shaking off the eeriness, she twisted the pipe. Rust flakes crumbled onto her wrist and the hooks released their hold. She sat back and raised the pipe in both hands. Black and rust-pocked and heavier than it appeared. On one end, a tab of metal about half an inch long protruded from the end. She tried to turn it, tapped it against the porch floor, and then tried again. The disk sealing the pipe rotated then pulled free. She scrambled to her feet and took two long strides to the railing. Sunlight landed on yellowed paper.
Breath held, she withdrew the scrolled papers. Two words, barely legible in faded brown script, caught her eye.
Perhaps tomorrow.
CHAPTER 6
Emily stood in her attic hideaway, the three letters she’d found in the pipe nesting together on her open hand like a brittle leaf. She read the top one.
November 3, 1852
If you are reading this, you have come back for me. I do not deserve it, for it is my fault you had to run. If only I could do things over again, I would never have lied. I would have done just as you said. If you were here, I would be on my knees begging for forgiveness. Please wait here for me. You will be safe. They must believe Papa acted without my knowledge for even those I know to be unsympathetic show concern that I have been left alone. I cannot leave until I know what will become of him. No one tells me anything. I am leaving before dawn to talk to Jonathan. I am terrified of making the trip to Racine alone but fear is becoming my daily companion. Fear for you consumes me day and night though I try to commit it to the Lord. The first verse of the 46th Psalm is my constant prayer for you. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear. “May God shelter you beneath His wings until you are in my arms. Soon, I pray. Perhaps tomorrow.
Jake was right about the room.
As the knowledge took root and coursed along nerve pathways with tingling speed, a door opened below her. Muted voices traversed the stairs. Handling the letters as if they would dissolve at her touch, she wrapped them in tissue paper and laid them in a plastic box on top of her T-shirts, eased the cover on, and latched it.
“Emily?”
Her name, echoing through the house in a man’s voice, did nothing to steady her legs as she closed the door behind her like a woman with nothing to hide.
“I’ll be down in a minute!” He’d assume her breathlessness came from exertion. Not telling him felt deceptive. But she needed to read all three letters before deciding whether or not to divulge her secret.
By the time she reached the bottom step, she’d slowed the adrenaline from a zinging rush to a steady drip. “Hi.”
“Are you okay?” Jake’s eyebrows converged. “You look all flushed.”
“Just…the stairs.” Sometimes playing the handicap card came in handy. “Hi, Lexi. Nice to see you again.”
Jake nodded unconvincingly and introduced her to his nephew. “Adam’s the genius in the family.”
“Hey!” Lexi’s lip curled. “Our IQs are identical.”
“But your grades aren’t.” Jake’s smirk didn’t falter with the jab to his arm. He grinned at Emily. “They’ve been in a twins study since birth. Makes for interesting competition.”
Emily extended her hand to the boy with wavy hair that apparently had never made friends with a brush. A greenish shadow below one eye made her wonder if he was active in sports, or a troublemaker. She glanced down at feet that seemed out of proportion to the rest of him. The bruise could have come from the junior high curse of a gangly, uncooperative body. “Glad to meet you, Adam. I haven’t met too many geniuses.” She winked at Lexi. “But now I know two.”
“Can we see the room?” Large hazel eyes inspected the parlor, as if searching for the hidden door. Adam-the-genius clearly wasn’t much for small talk.
Jake shrugged an apology, and Emily answered with a nod. “Right this way.” She pointed toward the kitchen.
Adam scrambled down the steps with his sister at his heels. Emily followed. The twins stood in the middle of the cellar, vibrating like two idling engines. “Where’s the secret door?” Adam shuffled from one oversized foot to the other.
“Is that the way a trained archaeologist would enter a site?” Jake tortured his nephew with a patronizing smile then turned to Emily. “I didn’t give them a lot of details.”
“Okay. Survey the scene.” Adam turned in a slow circle. “Look for indications of something out of the ordinary.” Bending over, he retrieved a flashlight from a cargo pocket above his knee and outlined the ceiling with the beam.