by Becky Melby
“There!” Lexi pointed to one of the rock walls. “I bet those rocks aren’t real.”
Adam’s forehead wrinkled. “Noooo.” Emily had seen identical perplexity on his uncle’s face. “That’s…not…it.” With deliberate strides, he closed in on the opposite corner. “This paneling is strange.”
Leaning closer to Emily, Jake hid his mouth behind his hand. “Bingo,” he whispered.
“Smart kid.” Emily moved away from the scent of musk and fresh-cut wood. “What are you thinking, Adam?”
The boy laid his hand on the wood. It moved. Adam gasped. He looked over his shoulder, eyes wide with delight. “This is it!”
Emily nodded. “Open it.”
The wall slid to the side, and Adam stepped back and let Lexi walk in first. Emily observed the gesture with an almost physical reaction. “That’s sweet.”
“They compete, but they take care of each other.” Jake stood so close, his words ruffled her hair.
“Wow.” Lexi’s voice was tight with excitement.
“Wow,” Adam echoed. “This is like the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” Stroking an iron hook the way Jake had, Adam dropped his professor voice and gushed like an awestruck twelve-year-old.
Lexi sat on a bench and pressed both hands to her sternum. “We read about a sixteen-year-old girl that somebody hid around here.” Gaze still roaming the room, she pulled an asthma inhaler out of her back pocket.
Neither Adam nor Jake appeared to notice. Emily sat beside her. “Does the dampness in here bother you?”
“No. It’s nothing.” She took a second puff on the inhaler.
“Caroline Quarlls.” Adam’s gaze was fixed on the door in the ceiling. “She was the first passenger on the Underground Railroad in Wisconsin.”
Lexi nodded, holding her breath. “Yeah.” Her exhale rode on the word. “What if she was here, right where I’m sitting?”
“She wasn’t in Rochester.”
“We can’t jump to conclusions, guys.” Jake sat down opposite Lexi. “Miss Foster isn’t convinced we’re on the right track.”
If you only knew. The words on the yellowed pages shouted from three stories above. Jake Braden would need to take an oath—on penalty of no contract—that he wasn’t a sideshow barker in disguise before she’d tell him anything. She pointed to the door that had captured Adam’s attention. “Want to see where that leads?”
“Yeah!”
“I found a trapdoor on the porch.” Like a first-grader at show-and-tell, she couldn’t disguise the pride in her voice.
Jake’s eyebrow elevated. “You’ve been busy since I left.”
You have no idea.
“Take a look at this.” Jake pointed to the flower carved on the end of the bench.
The kids scrambled closer. A tiny gasp came from Adam. “That’s like Grandma’s quilt. The one she put over Mom’s casket.”
Jake nodded and looked up at Emily, his eyes faraway and glassy. “It’s the same pattern as the quilt in the attic.”
Adam peered over Lexi, whose face had paled. “The rose wreath is a symbol.” His expression mirrored his uncle’s. “It means someone died on the journey.”
“The shovel would be faster.” Lexi banged the broom handle on one side of the opening in the porch and then the other. Dust billowed out of the square hole.
“Be careful. Go slow.” Adam chewed his thumbnail. “The wood might be rotten.”
Jake stood back from the three people crowding around the excavation site. He leaned on a post, took a picture with his phone, and tried not to appear as impatient as the kid gnawing his thumb to the bone. He studied the ceiling. Bead board, identical to the wood used for the sliding door below, painted pale blue. In the corners, dirty cobwebs dotted with shriveled egg sacks swayed in the warm breeze. He tried to imagine sitting in a rocking chair sipping lemonade on a swept-clean porch, acting natural while a runaway slave slept in the room below, waiting for cover of night.
Emily’s doubts seemed to have vanished. There was no other logical explanation for the trapdoor. No one would place the entrance to a root cellar under a porch. But it wouldn’t take much to turn an existing cistern into a secret hiding place.
“I see it.” Adam stepped into the foot-deep hole. He brushed the remaining dirt from the door. “Give me the broom.” With the care of a trained scientist, he brushed away debris then threw the broom onto the porch.
Lexi dropped to her knees. “Pull it up.”
Adam looped two fingers into an iron “U” hook. One end of the square stone lifted then tipped. “Ouch! Man!” He stuck his finger in his mouth and looked up at Jake. “It’s too stinkin’ heavy.” He stepped out, face pale but focused on the stone.
“Let me see that.” Emily held out her hand.
Adam pulled his finger from his mouth and held it up. A right-angle tear in the skin quickly outlined in red. “It’s nothin’. Jake, can you lift that?” A drop of blood splashed to the floorboards.
“I’ll get something.” The screen door whined as Emily opened it.
Wrapping his finger in the bottom of his shirt, Adam pressed his lips together and glared. “I’m fine!”
Jake stepped into the opening and hefted the stone. The underside was scraped and scarred. He flipped it out of the way.
Adam pulled his flashlight out of one of his numerous pockets. He’d just flicked it on when Emily returned with a washcloth and a Band-Aid. With a look of impatient resignation, Adam let her wash his wound.
Jake’s gaze lingered on her fingers, on the almost artful way she tore open the bandage. “You’re very skilled at that.”
“I ran a preschool for three years. Before that I taught art at a junior high.” She aimed a smile at Adam. “We did wood carving and stained glass.”
Adam’s frustration seemed to morph into mere impatience at her touch. The contrast of Adam’s rough, reddened skin against the ivory smoothness of hers transported Jake to a fantasy world where his life wasn’t on hold. What would it feel like to—
“What’s that?” Lexi pointed to something stuffed into one corner of the recess.
With slow, careful movements, Adam pulled it out with his left hand. A frayed strip of cloth, once blue or purple, now faded to a pinkish gray. Tiny, discolored flowers, just barely discernable, dotted the fabric. “Wow. This could have been part of a dress worn by a slave.”
Lexi nodded. “Maybe it belonged to Mariah.”
“Can I see that?” Emily slid her hand under the strip of cloth. “Wait here.” She flew down the porch stairs faster than Jake had seen her move yet. The shed door whined on its hinges. She was back in seconds, carrying a wooden box. “I found this the other day. Look at the fabric on the back of this. I think it’s the same.” She held a crudely fashioned, glass-fronted shadow box.
“What’s in it?” Lexi touched the glass. “A dog collar?”
Emily nodded. “Jake found a picture of a dog that used to…” Emily’s voice faded. She angled the box toward the light. Her lips parted.
The same surge of emotion reflected on Emily’s face coursed through Jake as he stared at the rounded metal—two half circles bolted together on one side, lying slightly parted on the other. Deep scratches marred the surface. Jake locked eyes with Emily.
Adam exhaled through pursed lips. “This wasn’t made for a dog, was it?”
The fragile pages trembled in Emily’s hand. She rested the one she’d already read on the cover of her T-shirt bin and read the others.
November 17, 1852
Papa is free. Cousin Jonathan says he only intended to put the fear of the Lord in him. If he understood the fear of the Lord, he would know that is why we do this. If he truly knew his cousin, he would know Papa will not stop. That is why I am taking it upon myself to redirect our mission.
I know now you aren’t coming back for me. I tell myself that you left alone because you love me. It does not feel like love, but as I sit by the window each night hoping against hope, I se
nse God’s hand in even this. If you were here Papa and I would not embark on what we are about to do.
God alone knows what the future holds. Even if you read this years from now, know that I will never stop loving you.
November 21, 1852
Tomorrow we leave. We must before it snows. I harbor a secret hope that I have not shared with Papa. Is it possible God is leading me to you instead of away from you? Has God embarked us both on the same mission? My skin prickles with anticipation at the thought. So, my love, I will open the door one last time to search for word from you and to leave this final message. Once we arrive, I will write weekly to the one person I can trust. May God hold you in His everlasting arms until the day you are safe in mine.
Emily walked over to the church pew and stared up at the cross, filled with a strange certainty she, too, was embarking on a new mission.
September 3, 1852
“He’ll be fine. Just fine.”
Hannah worried the waist of her fan-front dress as she scanned the room that would soon be hers. On the wall to her right, freshly painted shelves displayed her few prized possessions—a child’s cup and saucer Papa bought her in New York when he’d crossed the ocean to scout out land in America, and the little toy stove with two miniature pans her grandmother sent from England for her first Christmas in their little one-room cabin in Wisconsin Territory. Ten years had passed, yet still she could remember the softness of the striped fabric wrapped around the tiny stove. She and Mama had cried and talked of Grandmother Yardley as they tore the cloth into strips to decorate the evergreen bough draping the mantel.
She walked to the window and flattened her hand against one of the panes. Mama had been so proud of her windows that opened and closed—Adams Glass, shipped from Pennsylvania.
Thoughts of Mama distracted her from worries of Liam only for a moment.
“There shall no evil befall thee…he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”
“They’ll all be fine.” It helped to say it aloud, even if the only one listening was a doll with a papier-mâché face.
It was only half past eight, still light out. Flies buzzed in and out of the window. A mosquito landed on her hand and she slapped it, leaving a trail of someone else’s blood. The river gurgled in a lazy summer way. A perfect night for a walk along the riverbank, her hand tucked in the crook of Liam’s arm, whispering of wedding plans.
An exasperated sigh ruffled the coppery tendrils tickling her face. Make-believe brought only emptiness. God knew what He was doing. There were more important things than dreaming of white lace and daisy bouquets.
Papa had told her to rest for a few hours, said he’d call up the stairs when it was time, and there was nothing more she could do for their guests. They were all asleep.
How could they?
“Musn’t think.” She stretched out on the folded quilt she’d laid on the floor. Truth be told, she’d come up here to be farther away from the sadness in the cellar. She knew she’d hear nothing down in the back parlor where she slept for now. They’d harbored seven people since spring and never had she heard a sound, even from the little ones. A child too afraid to cry was an unbearable thought.
She forced her top lids to meet her bottom. Her fingers still worried the gray muslin of her dress. If only she could catch the thoughts that flitted through her mind and seal them tight like fireflies in a canning jar. Her arm grazed Tildy. She picked up the doll by one wooden arm. Tildy had been Mama’s doll when she was little. Hannah always fancied Tildy looked like Mama with her black hair, round face, and rosy cheeks. Her body was soft leather and her wood shaving stuffings made her huggable. She still wore the dark green calico dress Mama had stitched for Hannah’s tenth birthday.
A tear slid to her tatting-edged pillowcase. She sat up. Eighteen was far too old for hugging dolls.
But just the right age for reading love letters.
The board at the back of her closet lifted with a soft whoosh. She’d promised Liam she’d destroy them. Tear them to bits and toss them in the river. Only once had she followed through. Watching his words dissolve and float away was intolerable. Someday, as they sat by the fire and reminisced on the early days of their love, she would pull them out and read them and Liam would be glad she’d saved them.
No one would find them here.
And it was only a small deception.
CHAPTER 7
Sunday morning dawned with a tease of summer. Emily opened the dining room window on her way to the coffeepot. Through the trees, she glimpsed a black convertible sailing across the bridge, a woman with platinum hair behind the wheel.
A different time, a different place, and that could have been her. Two years ago this week she’d driven her VW Eos to Sault Ste. Marie, top down the whole way, to meet up with college roomies for a spa day. She looked down at short, bare nails and ran them through tangled morning hair. Eight inches of dishwater-blond roots kept record of her apathy—half an inch for each month of not caring what she looked like.
The girl with the standing appointment at Studio 1 hadn’t survived the accident.
Maneuvering around boxed cupboards in the naked kitchen, she made her way to the coffeepot on the tarp-shrouded stove and filled one of the two mugs she’d brought. As she set the pot back, the side of her hand bumped a rectangular bulge beneath the tarp. The treasure can. She’d dumped the contents into a bag so Michael could use the container for Squiggles then stuck the bag back into the can when Squiggles had gained his freedom. She hadn’t found time to look through it all.
Folding her air mattress like a chair, she shoved it against the dining room wall below the open window next to her coffee, the Sunday Racine Journal Times, and the treasure can. Settling onto the bouncing contraption took more than one try, but she finally accomplished it. She took a sip of coffee and lifted the can.
She set the giant marble in an indentation in the mattress and parked the truck on the newspaper next to the Indian on horseback. Her imaginary friend in the striped shirt tiptoed in, sitting cross-legged on the floor, chin resting on his knuckles.
“What’s next?” A crumbling red rubber ball, a miniature iron frying pan, a water-damaged lapel button with a picture that looked like it might be Harry Truman. In the middle of the treasures stood an ivory-handled knife in a leather sheath. More marbles, a handful of jacks, and the tiny frog. She fingered the rustic angles of the frog and turned it over. An M was carved into the belly. Maybe it was a sign she should give it to Michael.
She pulled out what appeared to be a carved wooden baseball bat about four inches long. “Eww.” Not a bat, a doll’s arm. She laid it on her knee and lifted a matchbox half-filled with wooden matches. “Not for little boys,” she whispered.
The treasures, like pieces in a game of Clue, spread out beside her, all of them raising more questions, creating more imaginary characters to fill the empty house. Did the woman who wrote the letters play with the doll when she was a little girl? Or had the wooden arm been carved by the same person who etched the name in the bench? Did the knife belong to “Papa”? Or the man who never read the letters?
As she took another sip of coffee, her phone rang. Cara. Her timing was eerie. “Morning.”
“Hey. Just cruisin’ up the Big Sur on my way to work. Thought I’d see how you’re settling in.”
The vision sparked an authentic smile. Change the car to white and the hair to a mahogany red only available in bottles, and Cara was the convertible girl she’d seen earlier. “We’re getting a lot done. I refinished the corner cupboard in the kitchen, and the guy I hired tore out the kitchen cabinets and he’s starting on the walls. It’s a mess, but each day there’s a little more progress.”
“Can’t wait to see pictures.”
“You’re sure this doesn’t bother you?”
“Absolutely sure. Luke and I were just talking about it yesterday. We have great memories, but that’s what scrapbooks are for. If we’d wanted a m
useum, we would have kept the house. You do whatever will get you the big bucks. The sooner you do, the sooner you’re here.” A siren wailed. Cara waited it out. “But you know you don’t have to have a suitcase of money before you show up. That room’s just sitting there empty. Well, not exactly empty—I’ve been working on decorating it. It’s totally you. Totally Toji.”
A silent groan deflated Emily’s lungs. Their trip to Japan three years ago had transformed the way she dressed, wore her hair, and decorated her apartment. The Japanese symbol for “Live Strong” emblazoned the front of the shirt she’d worn under her jacket the day of the accident. But cherry blossoms, warm sake, and the Toji Temple belonged in the scrapbooks Cara had mentioned. “Sounds”—a reflexive swallow threatened to betray her—“beautiful. It won’t be anytime soon, you know.”