“How did the portraits get separated from the locket?”
Marley sobered. “Rachel gave them to me to cheer me up before we left the house. I put them in my pocket. And now, I guess there’s only this one left. I truly don’t know where the other one went. I don’t think I lost it. Rachel had told me to make sure and take care of them until Mama and Daddy came, and … oh, Nan, she was so smart, such a good big sister! She was just distracting me from my grief. We really did think, back then, that they were coming back for us.”
Nan’s tears were silent, as they’d come to be over the years. Marley suspected she did it to keep from upsetting her. In a way, it worked. She had no idea how often her grandmother cried.
She closed the pillbox and moved to the other bed, comforting Nan, sharing their sorrow. “I’m sorry, I know it was hard for you, losing your own daughter.”
“And I loved Rob as my own son. He was a fine and brave man. And Marley, they loved you so. You’re just like your father, interested in things that mattered in history, trying to help people, clever and true.”
They fell silent, and Marley again opened the pillbox, withdrawing the portrait and examining it. Her older sister, as a happy young girl—the portraits completed before the birth of their younger sister. The lost miniature had been of Marley.
“I just wish—” She arrested her own speech.
“Wish what?”
“It doesn’t matter. But I do wish I knew, somehow, where they are, Rachel and Juliana.”
Nan looked at her a little too quickly. “Marley, how much do you remember of your childhood?”
“Everything.”
“And when I came to get you … just after that?”
“That’s a little fuzzier. I do remember being pretty clingy. After everything that had happened, I was terrified something might happen to you. I remember you holding Julie, but that must have been … well, before. And I remember you putting her down and then running back after you, thinking you were leaving us. That must have been a bad dream.”
Nan nodded, swallowing down emotion, patting her hand. “You have been my only joy for the past twenty years. I miss your parents and your sisters as you do, my love.”
“I’ve looked for both of them, but I can’t find them. No Rachel or Juliana Hastings anywhere in Virginia. At least, not the right ages. With social media, I’d think I’d be able to find them almost anywhere in the world.”
Nan wiped her eyes. “I will never understand why the state agencies made the decisions they made. But I am grateful for the blessing you’ve been in my life.”
She patted Marley’s shoulder on her way to the restroom. When she emerged, she left the light on and pushed the door only partway closed.
Despite her excitement over the portraits, Marley quickly fell asleep. And she dreamed, for the first time in years, of the sisters she’d loved—and still missed.
They were back in the old deserted farmhouse where they’d hidden. Marley and Rachel were playing games with Julie as their very own, real live doll. The girls waited patiently for their mother and father to come and pick them up.
And eventually someone had: police officers, tending to them with gentleness and kindness, something in their eyes as they looked at the three little girls, something that made Marley feel uncomfortable. Although she thought they meant to comfort her, it only made her feel bad. Years would pass before she understood that the emotion in the officers’ gazes was pity. And it became a look she could not bear in life—anyone’s pity.
Then came the next day, the worst day of life Marley could remember—after all, she’d mercifully blotted out that other, awful day. No, the worst day she could remember was the day she realized she was alone, that Rachel and Juliana were both gone. The only part of the day that softened the blow was when Nan took her home, broken-hearted when she wasn’t allowed to take the other girls.
She awakened early in the unfamiliar luxury of the hotel, plagued with the memories of her sisters. Nan still slept as she left for a short morning of work, and she had to shake away the lingering realism of the dream. For in her dream, she and her sisters were together—and they were playing in that same, ancient, rock house she had left the night before. Playing with their parents, just as they all had before their parents were murdered.
Chapter Three
The sun was high and bright over the Virginia tidewater. In the distance, a cannon boomed. Marley strolled down Duke of Gloucester Street, a wide-brimmed, beribboned straw sunbonnet shielding her from the heat. Charcoal-gray skirts, covered with a white apron, brushed the dusty street, and she smiled at two women as they passed.
Perhaps her age or a little older, the women strolled along the street with an older couple, talking and laughing. Both statuesque, they looked like they’d stepped out of a sophisticated women’s business magazine, dressed in elegantly casual clothing. One of the women was a stunning African-American beauty with short hair, joy beaming from her face.
The other woman met Marley’s gaze when she smiled at her, then they moved on. She was riveted to the spot, however, and captured in the moment when the woman had looked directly at her. Something about her was familiar; she knew her. It was more than the riotous dark curls bundled up into a French twist. She knew those eyes, that laughter.
Marley shook her head. The woman hadn’t given her a second glance, no recognition had sparked in her hazel eyes. And then she knew who she reminded her of.
Rachel.
She couldn’t have been Rachel, because her sister would have recognized her, wouldn’t she? Even after all these years, she would have known her face. She had been the older girl when they parted; at six, she would have remembered Marley.
The very idea made no sense, and with a bit of embarrassment, she swallowed down the old grief as it came to her. They’d kept telling her—her grandmother, her doctor—that eventually she’d get used to it.
They lied. She never adjusted to losing her family. Her sisters hadn’t died—they’d just been taken away, without warning, by people who determined Nan wasn’t capable of raising three young girls. Just Marley, it seemed.
As a small child, too young for such things, she’d begun observing her sisters’ birthdays. Even though she was no longer exactly sure of the date. Even though both her sisters had new families now, she never gave up hoping to see them again. Rachel was twenty-eight by now. Juliana, twenty-two.
So, in fact, it did make sense, in an unsatisfying logic, that she’d imagined seeing her own dear sister in the streets they’d once run along as small children with their parents.
She shook off the memories and made her way to the tour group waiting for her in front of Raleigh Tavern.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you stand before a simple colonial tavern, and an important historic landmark. It’s the first building that was reconstructed as a part of John David Rockefeller’s philanthropic effort to save Williamsburg. It also happens to be the location where members of the House of Burgesses met after they were dissolved by the royal governor. And it was also a place where Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and other patriots just liked to hang—mostly to discuss how to avoid being hanged.”
Polite chuckles came from the crowd.
“Construction in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries damaged many of the archaeological footprints that would have aided our research. However, there are still many underlying treasures that tell us how life was lived in the eighteenth century.
“Let me tell you a little about myself. Growing up, I always loved Williamsburg. In fact, it was here that I first discovered archaeology and its ability to help us time travel, if you will, into the past, where we can learn more about ourselves. And it was archaeologists who enabled us all to enjoy Williamsburg as it was nearly three centuries ago.”
A young boy of perhaps five years old was intent on her, a sheen of sweat on his pink cheeks from the morning’s humidity. Poor little guy, trying his best to understand her gibberish.
“If the children in the group would like to come forward.” She smiled, gesturing them toward her.
Their parents hastily shepherded them into a small group. There were three young boys and two young girls ranging up to perhaps twelve years old. A boy of about 10 fiddled with a video game, and his mother took it away from him. Marley expected a scene, but he merely glowered at his mother.
She cast a glance toward the edge of the historic street where they stood and noticed an old, smashed bottle cap, embedded in the dirt. Thank God for litterers.
“You there, young man.”
Gameboy glanced up, startled. “Me?”
“Pick that up for me, will you? There, in the dirt.”
He found her target. “It’s stuck.”
From her pocket she produced gloves and a small trowel. “Here. Wear these to protect your hands.”
The other children gathered around him.
“Dig at the dirt. Avoid the spoil.”
“Spoil?”
“As in prize, or loot. Have you never heard of pirates?”
“Yes! I have a video game!”
“Ah, I thought you might. What you’re doing now is what archaeologists do at a dig. What have you removed there?”
“Just a bottle cap.”
“I see. Might someone use it to cap a drink now?”
“No, it’s old and used and dirty.”
“Now, pass it around to the others, then pass it back to me. Who can tell me something about the person who tossed that bottle cap there?”
After a moment of expectant silence, the boy who’d dug it out said, “They liked root beer.”
“How do you know that?”
“It says ‘root beer’ on it. So either they liked it, or the store was out of everything else.”
“So you examined the artifact. Then you correctly deduced that they drank what they enjoyed, or what they were able to find. People can’t survive long without liquids.”
She accepted the cap from the last child who examined it, and she held it up vertically for the children to examine. The outer ridges had been pressed completely flat.
“What else? Do you think someone dropped this bottle cap this morning?”
One by one, the children shook their heads. “Why?”
Silence, filled in finally by an older girl. “It’s flat and worn. A lot of people have walked on it.”
“Does anyone know what this is?”
“Rust,” said the same girl.
“Do we know what causes rust?”
“Water!” sang another girl, perhaps eight years old. The man behind her, likely her father, smiled.
“Very good!” Marley said, impressed.
“My daddy’s a mechanical engineer,” she gushed. The older girl looked down at her, nudging her to shut up, clearly her older sister.
The youngest boy who Marley had first noticed cried out over her, “He’s my daddy, too!”
Marley was one of those guides who loved the moments when children overran the conversation in excitement. It meant they were engaged. Likely, the precocious younger girl rarely got a word in edgewise in a family of smart children.
“Does steel rust overnight?” she asked.
The brainiacs went silent. The older sister shook her head.
“That’s right, it takes longer for something to rust. So we know that this has been here a while. Is there anything else we know about the person who left this behind?”
“They don’t care about the earth.” That middle child chimed in again, walking right up to Marley. “One time my cousin got a drink that had rust on the bottle. Where your mouth goes. My aunt yelled at the store guy.”
Several people laughed, and the father picked up his little girl.
“Yes. It tells us this person littered. Perhaps they were thoughtless, or they tripped and lost it. We can’t always judge what’s in people’s hearts by the evidence they leave behind. But we can tell how they lived. We can tell what they ate, how they cooked it, the pots they cooked it in, and the dishes they ate it on. In just a few minutes we’ll be up at the Prentis Store. Those of you who are interested in digging at an actual archaeological site may do so there. In fact, although the dig exhibit was created with children in mind, we’re surprised at the number of adults who enjoy participating.”
The tour continued until they arrived at the Prentis Store, where they stopped to allow those who wanted to join the next dig session. And something happened that she’d never seen before.
Her entire group left for the dig. Marley concealed her disappointment as the family with the four children passed.
The mother, a woman perhaps in her late thirties, paused, resting her hand over Marley’s upper arm. “Anyone who can engage my Noah with a simple bottle cap is nothing short of a miracle-worker.”
With that reassurance, Marley headed back to her office, eager for some lab time.
Just that month, in an area not far from an old battle site in the Great Dismal Swamp, an ancient ship had been discovered square in the middle of a construction site. The project was beyond the scope of her employer, but she had been drafted to quickly capture the site by scans. The fresh history dropped into her lap was too much to pass up on.
In the office, she removed her sunbonnet and placed it on the hat rack, then opened her laptop, logging on.
She loaded the latest scan, one a co-worker had taken early that morning, and began scrolling through the images.
She slowly panned through the ship as best she could. Much of it had collapsed one level on the next, however, like a house of cards flattening. One image, just below the top deck, captured her attention, and she zoomed in on the area.
Enlarging it even greater still, she peered at what she thought she saw. Indeed, it appeared to be human remains, near the stern. She could see a cracked skull and a ribcage.
After looking up the number, she reached for the phone and dialed. “Coroner’s office, Seth speaking.”
When she finally got the medical examiner on the phone, she introduced herself. “I’m working on a scan for the Norfolk dig. An eighteenth century ship was found there.”
“Yes, I’ve read about that.”
“Well, it appears there may be human remains in the ship.”
“Really?” He received this news much as Marley had received the news about the discovery of the ship.
“Yes. Of course, the owner of the land is on a contractor’s timeline, so they’re anxious to have this resolved.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m always ready to get my hands down in the muck. Does it look to be recent remains?”
“I can’t tell. I’m looking at the 3D model. But I doubt it.”
“Fine. I’ll head over there in just a few.”
She hung up the phone and decided to go, too. This might be the last time she was allowed in the dig—if indeed she were. Medical examiners had a way of shutting things down, turning a dig into a crime scene—as if the seaman had died last week.
But she had one last bit of research to do before she left the office. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t thought of it before. She’d certainly used the database for research while attending school at William & Mary, but the relevance of the eighteenth-century Virginia Gazette archived there to the story of the Trelawneys who’d once lived in Williamsburg had simply never occurred to her. What must have happened during the period of that missing journal had distracted her for years. It had covered possibly the most exciting period in American history.
She tried a few searches with no relevant results. Rosalie Plantation (and every imaginable variant), Ruth Trelawney, Trelawneys, Rosalie 1776, Trelawny, Trelawnie …
She leaned back, staring at the database screen
in frustration.
With a sigh, she began searching random words. Rachel, Julie, Marley, Hastings. Rosalie.
Trio vanish.
Her heart skipped a beat, and she clicked on the article. None of the girls’ names were there—apparently Hastings and Rosalie had brought it up.
Three people disappeared from a tobacco plantation in the area according to a man said to be visiting the manager of the plantation.
The man’s story could only be backed up by a Negro woman who works for Mr. Hastings, a woman named Ruth. Although she corroborated his story, she provided few details beyond what the gentleman said:
“I was at a distance, approaching the house where my associate lives and conducts business. The Negro woman was shouting after them—I couldn’t understand her, but one of them turned and pushed her quite forcefully. Entirely without provocation! She lost her balance and stumbled several yards away. Then they commenced to cross over the threshold and into the ruins of the old Rosalie mansion and disappeared. The Negro woman scrambled up, screaming, and ran away in affright. I have no explanation for what I saw.”
Those at Rosalie rebuffed our overtures to learn more.
Marley shut down her laptop, bewildered. What was she to make of that? People disappearing into thin air?
She headed to Norfolk quickly and arrived at the dig, finding it cluttered with police cruisers and a county van that likely belonged to the coroner. She parked beside the van just in time for a pair of men to emerge carrying a covered stretcher. She eyed it eagerly.
“Ma’am, you can’t be here,” an officer said, approaching.
“I’m with the archaeology team working on the site.”
“Until the M.E. is finished, you’ll need to leave.”
“Yes, sir.” At that moment a young man walked along toward the van, gazing into a plastic bin he carried.
“Seth?”
Immortal (The Trelawneys of Williamsburg Book 2) Page 3