by Becky Melby
“We gotta go there.”
“Jake did a report on the tunnels in high school. I think we still have it.”
Shock registered on Adam’s face. “You seriously knew about this and never told me?”
Blaze laughed. “The locals all know about it. Some people think the tunnels were used to transport runaway slaves.”
“Do you think there are ghosts?”
“My grandma thought so.” She tipped her head toward Emily. “She thought your house was occupied.”
This time the chill was real. “The little boy across the street mentioned ghosts.”
The oven timer buzzed. Blaze shrugged and walked back toward the kitchen. “Who knows?” She pursed her lips, widened her eyes, and opened the oven.
Adam stretched out on his belly. “We have to do some serious research and—ouch!” He rolled onto his back and pulled a flashlight out of a front pocket.
Emily shook her head. “Your grandma says she weighed your pants the other day.”
Adam grinned. “Thirteen point two pounds.”
“Unbelievable. No wonder you sank like a rock in the river.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who had to be rescued.”
Emily set her plate on an end table. “Touché. So is your stash all top-secret?”
“No.” He got to his feet. “I guess you need to know what resources are available since you’re going to be my research partner.”
Emily’s laugh was drowned by a rip of Velcro. “It’s my house. My ghosts.” She lowered her voice. “My secret room.”
“True.” Adam set a compass on the coffee table. “But there’s no way you can carry out this investigation without my expertise.” He unsnapped his back right pocket. “Or my duct tape.”
“Good point.”
“Or my knife.”
“That already came in handy.”
He reached into a patch pocket on his thigh. “Or my mirror.”
“Never know when you may need to send Morse code or touch up your lipstick.”
“Or start a fire or burn ants to eat.”
“So true.”
A ball of string, a wad of dental wax, and a pocket-sized rock-identification book lined up on the table.
“Did anything get wrecked in the river?”
Adam shrugged. “Nothing important. Jake bought me a new ball of string. I carry a different book every day. I had one about stars and that got soaked, but I have tons of those. The rest is waterproof.” To prove the point, he pulled out a book of waterproof matches. “Oh! Did you hear what he brought me in the hospital?”
“No. What?”
“A GPS. It’s an early birthday present. He got sick of my talking about it, I guess. So our research can take us anywhere in the world and we won’t get lost.”
“Think I’ll start calling you Tom Sawyer.”
“Nah. Just call me Sawyer. You know, from Lost.”
“Gotcha.”
From a zippered pouch hanging from his belt he withdrew a clear plastic bag, the bottom filled with crumbled dried leaves. Emily’s jaw unhinged. She knew that stuff all too well. “Adam. Where in the world did you get that?”
He stuffed it back in the pocket. “The pet store. I left some food by the bridge, but—”
“Catnip!” She laughed in the wave of relief. “It’s catnip. For the cat.”
“Of course. What did you th—. Oh. I don’t do that stuff.”
“I’m sorry. I was sure you didn’t, but when I first looked at it…”
Adam performed a reprise of her earlier eyebrow wiggle. “Evidently you know all about it, huh? Were you, like, a druggie when you were my age?”
“No!” Not at your age. This rabbit trail had to come to a quick end. “Absolutely not.” She waved her hand to include his entire collection. “Well, Sawyer, I’m convinced I need to hire you to—”
The back door burst open, banging against the microwave stand. Jake strode through the kitchen, passing his mother without a glance. “Emily!” His eyes locked on hers, shining with an excitement he seemed to be trying to hide. “Are you up to going over to your house for a bit? I need your opinion on something.” He sounded short of breath.
Emily stood. “Sure. Just need to get something on my feet.” She walked toward the jumble of shoes by the front door.
Jake’s sigh was controlled but audible.
“What is it? Can I come?” Adam closed the laptop. “Did you fi—”
Her back turned to Jake, Emily missed the look he must have given Adam to silence him. “Later.” A boot tap accompanied his answer.
By the time she’d slipped into her sandals, Jake had his hand on the kitchen doorknob.
Blaze patted her arm as she passed. “Don’t wear yourself out.”
“I won’t.” Emily slipped through the screen door Jake held open for her. “What is it?”
He ushered her around the house to the sidewalk. “I found something”—he slowed his pace to hers—“under a hidden panel in the bedroom closet.”
September 24, 1852
Hannah snapped a piece of new broom straw and opened the cookstove door. The straw pulled clean from the cake. Doubling her apron skirt, she pulled out the pan and set it on a folded flour sack towel on the table. A square of sunlight framed the gingerbread. The rounded and cracked brown top glistened.
She’d stuck faithfully to Mama’s recipe, though she’d been sorely tempted to fold in a new spice with the ginger and cinnamon.
Did poison ivy lose potency when baked?
Her stomach growled like an angry bobcat. She’d not get away with sampling before supper this time. Tonight there would be guests. They would sit in the dining room and eat off Mama’s good dishes. They would talk of the weather and the cost of wheat. They would speak of the school for the deaf being built in Walworth County, wonder aloud at how many people now rode the train from Milwaukee to Waukesha, and talk of rumors that before long rails would connect Lake Michigan to the Mississippi.
She and Papa would bring up anything and everything to keep the conversation from steering toward politics or slavery. But their guests would do all they could to derail them.
She remembered when it was different, when a visit from Papa’s cousin was something to anticipate, and not with dread. Jonathan Shaw and his wife, Victoria, were wealthy. They had come to America two years before Papa and made their money in brick making. Jonathan had asked Papa to join his business in Racine, but Mama had what she called a “gentle nudge” from the Lord and Papa turned it down.
Hannah peeked under the lid of a cast-iron pot and prodded the stewing chicken with a fork. The meat fell from the bones. With two forks, she lifted it to a platter and dumped chopped onions and carrots into the bubbling broth. Returning the cover, she looked out the back door at the three-leafed plants sprouting along the riverbank. The male cardinal perched on a sapling beside it, bobbing toward the leaves as if to tempt her. Creamed chicken anyone? Why, that’s just a touch of parsley, Cousin Victoria.
How was it that two men who sprouted from the same branch of the family tree could see life so differently? The answer whispered over the steady tap, tap, tap of the pot cover. Faith made the difference. Papa saw things black or white, clear and simple, while Jonathan seemed to go through life blurring the boundaries of right and wrong and making his own rules. Even out here in Rochester, people spoke of Jonathan Shaw. A Shaw brick, they claimed, was as warped as the business dealings of the man behind it.
And now he had a side business, a way to bring in a little extra money. The Fugitive Slave Act was a boon to people like Jonathan Shaw, people who did not believe in the worth of a man.
Hannah ripped the flesh from the chicken carcass and repeated the verse Papa had read at breakfast: “The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.” Papa thought it would be an excellent proverb for them both to meditate on today. She’d memorized it easily enough. Putting it into practice was another matter. Lord Jesu
s, guard my thoughts and put a bridle on my tongue tonight.
Hoofbeats announced the arrival of the carriage from Racine, and she tasted the gravy. Perfect. Though it could use a dash of color.
“Lovely dinner, dear. You’re as good at making do as your dear mother was.”
Making do? Hannah hid a tight fist in the fold of her skirt as she cleared the twice-filled plate from in front of Victoria. What the woman had eaten could have fed her and Papa for the next three days. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“You’ll breakfast with us at the Union House, won’t you?” Victoria patted her mouth with a linen napkin. Hannah’s stomach twisted as a dark green S touched Victoria’s pinched lips. It seemed a desecration that the initial embroidered by Mama’s thin, beautiful hands should touch a mouth that spouted such ignorance.
“Of course,” Papa answered.
Hannah found a genuine smile easy for the first time all evening. A meal at the inn would give her something pleasant to focus on as she ignored her dinner companions.
“Very well. Shall we say eight?” Victoria fiddled with the cameo pin at her neck.
Papa nodded. “I do apologize again for not having accommodations for you here.
Jonathan Shaw stood and grasped the back of his pudgy wife’s chair. “We will be well served at the Union House. I’ve heard interesting things about the place lately, and I’m delighted to have the opportunity to check it out myself.” Beady eyes bore into Papa as if he were looking down the barrel of a gun aimed at a rabid wolf … or a man running for his life.
Papa’s face colored. He cleared his throat. “Hopefully by the next time you come, we’ll have the upstairs finished. I lost my ambition after Elizabeth died, but I’ve started working on it again lately.”
Jonathan nodded. “Do show me how far you’ve come. In fact, I’d love to see the whole house, including the cellar. We’ll be building a house for Victoria’s mother soon, and yours seems just about the right size.” He stepped into the front parlor, and Papa had no choice but to escort him.
Hannah’s other fist balled. Any other man would have been simply rude with this kind of behavior. Jonathan Shaw was not rude, he was shrewd. Please, God, veil his eyes. Had she been careless about concealing the door? Did it stand ajar? She smiled as naturally as possible at Victoria. “Would you like a seat in the parlor while the men look at the house? I’ll just get the milk put away and—”
“Put away in the cellar?”
“Yes.” Perspiration dotted Hannah’s upper lip. “It’s so much cooler down there.”
Victoria waddled to the opposite end of the table and picked up the milk pitcher. “I’ll help you carry things, dear.”
CHAPTER 15
It’s proof.”
Jake pointed at a blue velvet bag in the middle of the card table. “I just glanced at a couple, but it’s proof.”
Emily sank into the chair, legs shaking from the one-block walk. The bag was about the size of her spread hand and heavier than it appeared. Tiny tufts of blue velvet stuck to her fingertips.
“Be careful.”
The drawstring was already loosened. She slid her thumb and forefinger inside and pulled out a stack of letters. Yellowed, brittle, the same handwriting she’d seen on the others.
Jake pulled a chair next to hers and sat down. She unfolded the top one slowly, as if she were opening butterfly wings. She read the words out loud.
“Dearest, Autumn has always filled me with such joy. How God must delight in showering His canvas with color. But this autumn is bittersweet, for with every leaf that falls, I worry more about you. Papa says we will see few parcels when the threat of snow increases, but if there are deliveries, the danger will be so much greater. It is harder to hide without the cover of leaves. Oh, my love, I should not share my fears with you, should I? Though you never talk of it, you must be haunted by the possibility of danger lurking behind every tree as you hunt. Forgive me. What little faith I have tonight. If I had the time, I would write you only in the morning when sunlight makes everything seem safe and familiar.”
As she read, Jake leaned closer until his arm slid around the back of her chair. The words and his warmth did strange things to her voice. Setting the letter down, she simply stared at the feathery script. Love letters, hidden in the wall for a hundred and sixty years, probably never seen by the one for whom they were penned. “So beautiful.”
Jake leaned yet closer. “His replies are not quite so flowery.”
“His?” Her head jerked toward Jake’s. She found herself staring at his full lips. She blinked and turned away. With the care of a surgeon, she lifted the second folded paper. The one beneath it bore a strikingly different handwriting. Heavy, bold lines without the rounded, feminine curls.
Emily gasped. “Did he come back?” she whispered.
“What?”
“I found three letters. All from her.”
“When? Where?”
“Under the porch. The day we found the room.”
Grooves appeared between his eyebrows. Thick black lashes narrowed around crystal blue eyes.
Those eyes. Why had she never noticed them quite like this before? Why was she noticing now? Again, she turned away. “I should have told you. I just don’t want this place turning into a circus, you know? Before the work is done, I—”
“It’s your house. You didn’t have to tell me about it.”
Clearly he was striving for indifference, but the disappointment edging his voice stabbed between two ribs like a miniature dagger. “No. I should have.” She forced her eyes back to his. “You had a right to know. I’m sorry.”
His smile was slow in appearing, but when it showed, it deepened a divot on his right cheek she was sure hadn’t been there before and brought the luster back to his eyes.
“All’s forgiven.”
The table seemed to tip beneath her arms. Get a grip. She yanked her gaze back to the letter. “In the letters I found, he’d gone somewhere. She didn’t know if he was coming back for her, and she blamed herself. So were these written before or after? The others were written in November of 1852. Was it the same autumn?” She took a steadying breath. “My love …” Something more off-key than a frog distorted her voice.
“Allow me.” Jake’s fingers grazed hers as he took it from her. “My love.” He cleared his throat. “I have begun reading in the Book of Psalms every evening before I go out, as you suggested. This is the treasure I gleaned last night: ‘The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.’ Even when a full moon and barren trees allow few hiding places, I will be reminded that God alone is my refuge—and that you are my North Star.”
Emily laughed, instantly lowering the temperature in the room. “Not as flowery? And ‘you are my North Star’? Come on. Is that how you talk to women?”
“Of course. I’m shocked you’d even question it. I am a Renaissance man—the biceps of a contractor but the heart of a poet.” He set the letter down. His hand slid over hers. “Your eyes are the stars of the midnight sky. You are the fair princess Andromeda, chained to a rock. You should not be wearing such chains as these. Tell me your name, fair princess, and I—”
She jerked her hand from his. Her cheeks burned, her pulse thundered in her ears. She knew this story. The beautiful virgin, sacrificed to appease the god Neptune, saved by dashing young Perseus, the monster-slayer. Emily’s eyes burned. She was none of those things—beautiful, virgin, or able to be saved.
And now, by ruining what Jake had intended as a funny moment, she’d exposed too much. “You should be on stage.” She attempted a laugh. It fell flat.
Instead of the irritation she expected, his eyes softened. The hand that had covered hers lifted her chin. “What are your chains, Emily?”
Her tears had nowhere to go but down her face and into his hand. She slid her chair away from the table and stood. “There’s a box upstairs … with the other letters.” She stared at him, waiting for an answer to a que
stion she hadn’t asked, not bothering to wipe away the tears. He’d seen them before.
Jake, the would-be monster slayer, nodded. “I’ll put them away.”
Adam leaned on the counter, eating his ninth cookie and watching the second hand sweep the black face of his Iron Man watch. Jake wasn’t back yet.
“Give yourself plenty of time.” Grandma Blaze sealed two bags of cookies and stuck them in his backpack. Chocolate chip for him, snickerdoodles for Lexi.
“I will. And I have to have a few minutes to hang out by the bridge before Blimpo gets home.”