SandPeople: An Across Time Mystery

by Cheryl Kerr

  "What happened to the young girl?" Lea asked.

  "I don't know." Teri squinted at the microfiche. "This record doesn't show."

  "Let's see if they found her." They searched other issues but found no more articles. A brief note said that the search was suspended.

  "So they never found her," Lea said.

  "No, it doesn't seem like it." Teri nodded. "That makes it possible that she is a ghost."

  She undid a paperclip and a file card fell to the floor. She picked it up and read it aloud. "A similar sighting was reported in 1948."

  Teri looked at the date and said, "That article is exactly one hundred years ago this year. And the 1948 note is exactly fifty years after that."

  "So?" Lea asked, not seeing what Teri was getting at.

  Teri sighed and rolled her eyes. "The dates are exactly one hundred years apart and fifty years apart. Don't you think that is kind of spooky? It's like a pattern."

  "It is?"

  "What if you went one hundred years in the other direction?"

  Lea thought. "It would be 1798, that would be too early."

  "What if you went fifty years in the other direction, back from the time that the article says the girl on the beach was seen?"

  "That would be 1848." Lea did the math in her head.

  The girls looked at each other and smiled.

  "So we'll look in the 1848 stuff?" Lea asked.

  "Yes, but first..." Teri reached out and pushed the PRINT button. She tilted her head and considered Lea. "Sometimes adults have trouble with what they can't see, can't explain." She held up a hand as Lea started to protest. "Adults like for things to be in print," Teri said. The machine hummed and a copy shot into the tray. Then, with the copy in hand, they went back downstairs and looked again at the full shelves.

  They found the 1848 boxes on a bottom shelf.

  Teri said something Lea couldn't understand. She was looking through the trunk again.

  "Look." She held up a dress for Lea to see. "It's just about my size." She held it up against herself. She giggled. "Look at the size of these skirts."

  Lea didn't answer and Teri turned to look at her.

  "Well?" Teri asked her.

  "It's almost exactly like the one that the girl on the beach was wearing," Lea said.

  Teri said, "Then maybe we can get the time figured out of the person you saw." She pointed to the neatly lettered sign above the trunk. It read: 1840s dresses.

  Lea rose stiffly from where she had been sitting and edged along the rows of shelves until she found one that read 1848.

  "What's this?" Lea reached for something in the corner of the box she had been looking through. She picked up a slim brown volume, the rough canvas cover frayed at the corners.

  "Looks like a diary," Teri said and turned back to the pile of lace she was gently untangling.

  Lea balanced it in her hand and opened the cover gingerly.

  "It's in German," she exclaimed, disappointed.

  Teri's head appeared over the trunk top. "Yes, that makes sense," she said.

  Lea said, "But I can't read German." They both sat staring at the book until someone spoke behind them.

  "I can." Aunt Meg stood there with her hands in the hip pockets of her jeans. She looked at Lea. "I came by to see what you are up to. I haven't seen much of you the last couple of days."

  "Well." Lea gestured at the open trunk. "We've been finding things out."

  Her aunt nodded. "It sounds exciting." She paused and then asked, "Want me to read that for you?"

  "Yes, sure." Lea held the book out.

  Aunt Meg took it. "It's a dialect. Let me read it over first to get the gist of it, then I'll read it out loud. Okay, you two go get a soda or something."

  The girls retreated to the first floor of the library and watched the minutes creep by on the clock above the door.

  "I never knew half an hour take so long," Teri sighed.

  At last Aunt Meg came to the top of the stairs and motioned them back down. They sat one step above her on the metal stairs and she opened the diary in the square of light that fell through the window. The first yellowed page read:

  Aboard the Colombine, Germany. August 1, 1817.

  Today I saw a green leaf floating on the waves. I do not know where it comes from, but it reminds me of home. I will practice my English today on remembering spring. For you, diary did not know my home. You were a gift on sailing. Let me tell you about where I come from:

  Spring comes softly to the Rhine Valley, on the Southern side of the Alps. Each year that I can remember, I would rise one morning to find that the cold had gone, taking with it the apron of snowy white from the garden plot behind our house. Our house was very crowded. We, my mother, father, sister and I, lived with my grandparents, Opa and Oma. With us also lived my Uncle Jak and his wife and their two little boys. I think I liked it outside so much because there were so many people inside.

  So, instead of the snow, on this special morning, I would find small flowers strewn through the fields of green grass. The air is cool and sweet early in the day. I like to see the dew on the grass before the cows have walked through it, or Papa has been working to bring in the crop. My favorite time of day was to carry the lunch basket to where Gustav, my brother, stood watch over the cattle. Early spring is the time of calving. Gustav's job was to let Papa know if a cow was in trouble. They couldn't afford to lose any. Papa and Uncle Jak and Grandfather all work hard. Each year Grandfather counts the coins carefully that have been kept in a linen bag. Each year the burgomaster takes most of it. Each year Papa and Uncle Jak and Grandfather talk late into the night about what they will do next year.

  To get back to our house from the cattle field I walk through a gate that is set in the stone wall that surrounds our town. I walk up to the second street and turn left. The house is in the middle of a row of houses. The street curves and the houses follow the bend of the street. They are tall and narrow, and all built from the same gray stone as the city wall. They look just alike except for the window boxes full of flowers. In each house, something different is grown.

  Inside the door is a parlor, and a big kitchen room. Above that are two bedrooms, and in the attic is where I slept behind a curtain.

  Until last night. The new baby Anna was fussing. Papa has been so quiet since she was born. And last night the burgomaster came. After he left Papa stared into the fire for a long time. The next night, after supper, Papa called a meeting at the table, after Mama and Tante Helen had cleaned and scrubbed it.

  "A man came to town today," he said. Papa has a deep voice that fills the house. It always makes me feel safe. It also makes it easy to listen to conversations, for my corner of the attic is right above the table. I do not think they know I listen.

  Papa went on, "There is no way that the farm can support all of us." He sounded weary.

  "That is true," Grandfather said.

  "The man who came to the town." Papa stopped speaking. "He spoke of a new place. They are looking for new people to go there."

  "Where?" Grandfather asked.

  "A place called Texas. It is in America."

  "I think we shall do it." Papa's voice was firm.

  The next weeks were so busy I barely remember them. We signed up and were accepted by the company that was advertising for settlers. We were given a list of what was required to be taken, and what else they suggested we take. In between those two things Mama and I packed and mended the clothes we thought we would need.

  Papa and Mama attended two meetings on what would be expected of the newcomers once Texas was reached.

  The only sad part is that baby Anna must stay here. She is far too little to make the four-week journey in good health. Mama cries a good deal. Papa frowns. I love baby Anna, but she is so small that I do not know her yet. Diary, how can I admit that? The good thing is that everyone wants to raise her. Grandfather and Grandmother will love her so much. Tante Lisl and Uncle Jak have wanted a little girl to be a
sister to Eric and Carl. So, Anna will stay here. Papa says we will come back in two years to get her. But by then Anna will best know Tante and Uncle, I feel. But I cannot say that.

  This is how I came to be here, diary, on this endless blue water.

  Lea sat, frozen. Beside her, Teri prattled on about the lacy shawl. Lea tried to speak but the muscles in her throat wouldn't seem to work.

  Finally, she got the word out. "I found it!" She laid a hand gently on the journal.

  Teri said. "You found what?"

  "I found the name of the ship in this book, this diary," Lea said. "I found the Colombine. The ship's name, Colombine, is in there," Lea pointed. "I mean, I think so. The letters on the piece of board we dug up spelled C-O-L-O-M-B, right? That has to be it, right?"

  Teri leaned over her shoulder and looked. Then she gave Lea a huge grin and hurried to the stairs. "Mom!" she bellowed. "Mom, we need you."

  Footsteps came and then a voice. "Teri, I told you I was busy this morning. What do you need?"

  "Come down here, just for a minute, please?"

  They laid the diary carefully on the table and waited impatiently. Pale light filtered down on the pages from the street-level window above their heads.

  Mrs. Simon came down the stairs. "Yes, what did you find?" she asked them.

  "Do you remember the story about the sand people?" Teri went on. "A long time ago there was a story told about a girl in a blue dress being seen on the beach?"

  "Yes, is that the one you were asking me about earlier?" Her mother looked at them.

  Now they stood to the side as though they had planned it. "We found a diary from the ship. It has the name in there," Lea said. Words tumbled out of both the girls as they told her about the story and the dates and how they found the diary.

  Mrs. Simon's eyes sparkled. "Indeed? You are quite a pair of detectives. Can I see?"

  She took the book and Lea carefully turned to the first page. She read the entry slowly and smiled up at the girls. "This is good work," she told them.

  "Now what?" Teri asked her.

  "I think you have taken the first step on a long road. Did you notice that there seems to be no name written in this journal?" She bent close to study the spine. "It's possible that some pages have been torn out."

  Lea and Teri stared at her.

  "Well, you know who you are, you don't always put your name in things," she reminded Teri.

  "We know that the ship had someone on it who may be who you are looking for. We still don't know what happened to it, how it came to be on that beach." She studied the girls. "I think now would be a good time to let Paul see what you have found. Let him tell you what he thinks should come next."

  "There's a lot more stuff downstairs," Teri protested.

  "Yes, but Lea wants to know who this girl was. She needs to find out what to look at next." Mrs. Simon smoothed Teri's hair.

  "A lot of historical finds are bits and pieces of things that different people know that someone finally starts to put together. When you get enough pieces, the story is whole and then we know what happened."

  Paul Taylor came into the library. He looked at the diary on the wide oak table behind the librarian's desk.

  "It looks authentic," he said. "What luck!" He smiled at the girls. "It's a neat story. And the fact that it happened over one hundred years ago is very interesting from a historical angle. But we have to go about proving this scientifically." He paused.

  "A lot of history is piecing together little bits of things from here and there to find out what happened. That was a time when not a lot of notes were kept. And there have been several storms since then which destroyed some of the records that might have been written back then."

  "Where do we look next?" Lea asked him eagerly.

  "Well, we want to find out where the ship was coming from, and where it was going," he said. "It could have been blown ashore, stuck in the mud flats, or maybe wrecked on one of the reefs further out and the wreckage didn't wash up onto the beach for some time after the wreck.

  "We can start with some of the old maps and see if we can trace the route the ship was traveling. We can also look in some of the port records and see if we can find any mention of the ship being expected with some kind of cargo." He studied the girls. "If the ship came in there might be a record of what she carried. If she didn't come in there might be a notation that she didn't arrive." He shrugged. "We'll have to see what we can find."

  The lights were all on in the library conference room, spilling light out through the windows to make shiny squares on the sidewalk outside. Outside, thunder grumbled and everyone was driving with their lights on. The water looked gray and heavy as it moved uneasily off the beach.

  Inside the warm light, Paul stood next to the table. Beside him stood Mrs. Simon and, Lea's heart sank, her Aunt Meg. As the two girls came in, the three adults turned.

  "Good, you're here, we can get started." Paul turned back toward the table. He reached forward and pulled a long tube of heavy cardboard toward him, easing a rolled sheaf of papers from it as he did so.

  He unrolled the papers and laid them flat in the middle of the table. The top one was a stained brown color. The paper was heavy and thick. Watermarks covered the surface of it and wide cracks ran through the map itself.

  Lea was excited now. She leaned over and looked at her notes. "What we found was marked 1848," she said. "Did the Colombine sail in 1848?"

  "It's not listed here." Teri shook her head.

  "But that doesn't mean that they didn't sail," Paul pointed out. "It means that there isn't a record of their coming here."

  "Where else can we look?" Lea asked.

  "Immigration records are very helpful." They unrolled a huge yellowed map across the tabletop. Each corner was weighted down by books. Paul reached down and flipped a switch. A light inside the table glowed through the yellow skin. The ships’ routes, penned in heavy dark ink, were laid darkly against the light.

  "Here's the course the Colombine was to take." He traced a long, smooth curve with a forefinger. "Of course we don't know the actual headings of her trip."

  "This one was done on oilskin. That's what they used to make waterproof charts back then," he said. "The ink is some sort of waterproof dye. This was their way of trying to make a waterproof chart. They didn't have plastic, after all."

  He pointed to today's chart. The long, slow curve of the Gulf was there. Lea looked closer. Stretches of island names were missing from the new map.

  "Storms and normal wave action change a coast over time," Paul said in answer to her unasked question.

  Lea bent close over the chart. Paul touched a mark. "Here is the town. Out into the wide space that was the Gulf of Mexico a line extended in a wide curve that followed the coastline. Along the coastline were dotted the lines of islands and sandbars." Paul looked at the girls. "The coastline now probably doesn't look a lot like it did back then. Many of these islands are no longer there. The deeper cuts between the islands probably indicate where the ship could either get into one of the bays or up one of the rivers."

  "Why would they do that?" Lea asked.

  "Either to deliver goods or to use the islands for protection from a storm. Or possibly from pirates."

  "The Gulf was used by a lot of pirates for a long time. It was so far from everything that they could escape down there and not be followed. Also, the Indians along the Texas coast were cannibals and that kept a lot of people from wanting to settle the area." He smiled at the girls. "Jean Lafitte, one of the most famous pirates ever, had a big house built on Galveston Island about 1819."

  "That's a long time before we are looking at," Lea said disappointedly.

  Paul shook his head. "No, because when a lot of people began to come to Texas by ship, the pirates began to raid the ships and steal their goods."

  He traced a finger along the ship's route. "We know now that the Colombine probably traveled along the Gulf Coast. Now we have to try and figure out what she
was carrying and why she disappeared." He nodded. "We have a good start, I think. Let's pick up again tomorrow."

  Aunt Meg was quiet as she and Lea left the library. They put her bike in the back of the truck and Lea got into the cab beside her aunt. Her aunt started the engine and they drove slowly down the highway toward home. Two or three times she glanced at Lea and then back at the road, but she didn't speak.

  When they pulled in beside the cabin Lea started to get out.

  "Lea?" Her aunt said. "Do you want to talk about this?"

  Lea shrugged, "I don't know," she said honestly. "I didn't expect you to come to the library today. Or to want to help." She stopped for a moment, knowing she did not sound very grateful. "But I'm glad you did, or we wouldn't know what the diary said."

  Aunt Meg nodded. "I'll try and see what's important to you better." They went inside. "What do you want for supper?" Aunt Meg asked.

  "Spaghetti?" Lea asked.

  Her aunt nodded and took ground meat and tomato sauce from the refrigerator and cupboard. “I thought we’d be hungry tonight.” She smiled and reached for the loaf of bread, butter, and garlic salt. Lea’s mouth watered, she loved garlic bread.

  "Start the salad?" she asked Lea. Lea began ripping lettuce into two bowls. Soon the good smells of garlic and butter filled the kitchen as the bread warmed. Lea's stomach growled. She remembered that she hadn't eaten lunch. She and Teri had been too excited about finding the diary and the name Columbine.

  They sat down to eat. Lea kept thinking about today. About how empty Paul Taylor said it had been here back then. It seemed like being alone would be terribly frightening.

  "How did you decide that you liked spending so much time by yourself?" she asked her aunt curiously.

  Her aunt smiled sadly. "I got busy doing my work. It seemed like other people got in the way. I guess I got to where it was easier to work when there wasn't anyone around."

  "Did you ever have a job around other people?" Lea asked her. It was hard to picture her aunt in a city.

  "Sure, I lived in Boston. I worked for a company that published art books for a long time."