The Final Reveille: A Living History Museum Mystery

by Amanda Flower

  I held the lantern straight out in front of me. It was heavy, and I had to lower it a few inches to stop my arm from shaking. I crossed the road at a run. At night, teenagers joyriding through the park flew down Maple Grove Lane. I didn’t want to chance meeting any of them head on.

  The barn was dark. From the outside, I could hear animals moving about as they settled in for the night. I placed the lantern on the ground next to me, so that I could use both hands to push open the heavy sliding door. It took a couple of hard shoves, but finally it opened enough so I could fit through. I picked up my lantern and slipped inside.

  Scarlet, the mare, hung her head over her stall and blinked at me. Miss Muffins buried her face under her paw as if to block the light from my lantern. The two oxen didn’t stir, but several of sheep baaed in protest of my disturbing their beauty sleep.

  I held the lantern high. “Jason? Jason, it’s Kelsey. I need to talk to you.”

  No response.

  I stepped under the ladder to the hay loft. He could be up there, but I wasn’t going to chance breaking my neck to climb the ladder in the middle of the night.

  “Okay,” I said, lowering the lantern. “You win for now, but we do need to talk. I know you’re living here. I went to the home address you listed on your job application. There was nothing there. I’m not going to kick you out onto the street, if that’s what you’re afraid of, but you can’t keep hiding here at the Farm. We have to talk about some kind of compromise or arrangement that works for both of us.”

  I waited and there was still no response. A sheep baaed, sharing her irritation with my speech.

  I sighed. “I just want to talk to you, Jason. You know where to find me.” I took my lantern and slipped out the barn door.

  I walked down the path between the barn and the brickyard. From my vantage point, I could see all the way across the green. Most of it was cloaked in darkness, but just in front of Barton House a light bobbed in the dark. It’s up and down motion made it appear like someone was running across the green.

  “Hey!” I called. “Jason!”

  The light didn’t stop and disappeared between Barton House and the next building.

  I ran down the path toward the village, stopping at the edge. “Jason?” I called.

  Still nothing.

  I saw blur of light near the far corner of the Barton House.

  “Hey!” I called again. I was shouting so loud, I was surprised a dozen reenactors didn’t cross the street to find out what all the commotion was.

  I took a step forward and stopped. Maybe I was wrong, and it wasn’t Jason. It could have been a reenactor or maybe a camper from one of the campgrounds in the park. Then again, the closest campground was over four miles away. That would be quite a long hike through dense forest in the dark. It was late, and clearly Jason or whoever it was didn’t want to talk to me. I kept my eye on the corner of the house the light had disappeared behind. Nothing stirred. Occasionally, a lightning bug lit up the gloom. A half moon hung high in the sky and provided minimal light when it peeked through the clouds.

  Whoever it was wasn’t my problem. I wasn’t going to chase them all over the village. The buildings were locked down. The artifacts were secure. It was time to go to bed and hope tomorrow was better.

  I heard a rattle behind me like a large stone being kicked and bounced off another stone.

  I turned and lifted my lantern high but saw nothing. Absolutely nothing. It may have been Jason, and he didn’t want to be seen. I’d deal with him after the reenactment. That’s how I thought of things: before and after the reenactment, before and after Maxwell was killed.

  And then something smacked me in the back of my head.

  The lantern fell from my hand and shattered on the path. I swayed, grabbing the air for something to hold onto. There was nothing there. Another blow came, and I fell to my knees. Hayden’s smile came into my mind’s eye, and then everything went dark.

  Twenty-nine

  I smelled dirt. I tasted it too. I rolled over onto my side, and my head felt like it was split in two. Tentatively, I reached behind me and touched the back of my head. There was a lump there about the size of a tangerine. I didn’t want to raise my head. I was too afraid I would throw up, so I lay in the dirt with my cheek on my hand. I would get up in a minute.

  I woke up a second time. I didn’t know how long I had been asleep. I raised my head an inch off of the floor. It still hurt, but I didn’t feel the nausea that plagued me the first time I had awoken. Slowly, I pushed myself up into a sitting position. I waited for the dizziness to pass before I opened my eyes.

  Across from me I saw a line of moonlight. I crawled in that direction. Something light and furry scurried across my hand. “Ahh!” I squealed and waved my hand in the air even though the creature was long gone. No longer caring about my head, I doubled my pace to the line of light. It was a hatch in the low ceiling above me. The ceiling was so close I could touch it from a kneeling position.

  I pushed up on the hatch. It didn’t budge. Panic crept into my chest. I knew where I was. I was inside the Barton House root cellar. We had used it last year as part of our Underground Railroad program. The only way out was through the hatch, which opened in the corner of the home’s living room. There was no lock on the hatch and usually we have a heavy steamer trunk over it, so that the visitors didn’t notice it. Sweat trickled down my back. I’d bet the trunk was on it now.

  I took a deep breath and pushed with all my might; the hatch rose less than an eighth of an inch. I crumbled back to the dirt floor. I allowed myself to lie there a moment, just a moment. Think, Kelsey, think. There must be a way out of here. Hastily I ran my hand over myself. I still wore the summer dress I had put on to go to my father’s play, but my radio and cell phone were both missing. I shivered. Whoever put me in the cellar wanted to make sure I wouldn’t get out any time soon.

  Think.

  Worst-case scenario, I would have to stay inside the root cellar until the next morning when my staff opened the building. I’d scream and yell, and they would let me out. That was only hours away. My mouth felt dry. Hours. How many was unknown. Could I stay in the cellar for hours and not go crazy?

  Maybe my cell phone was in the cellar with me. I could look for it and that would pass some of the time until morning. I swept my hand back and forth over the dirty floor. If I ran into the furry creature again, which I prayed was a mouse or chipmunk and not a rat, I would lose it. Maybe searching for my phone wasn’t a great idea.

  Above I heard footsteps. I froze. Was it a rescuer or the person who put me down here, coming back to finish the job?

  Maybe I wouldn’t have the chance to wait until morning to be rescued.

  Above I heard a loud scrape, like a piece of furniture was pushed away from the hatch. No longer caring about what small animals might be hiding in the corners of the root cellar, I ran my hands along the dirt floor, search for anything that I might be able to use as a weapon. My left hand bumped into a piece of wood. I ran my hand over it and squinted at it. It felt like a piece of handle to a rake or broom. It was the best I had. My fingers curled around it.

  More scraping came from above. Now I wondered if furniture was being moved away from the hatch or onto the hatch. The hatch opened.

  The sudden brightness that spilled into the cellar hurt my eyes. I shielded them with the hand not holding the stick.

  A face appeared in the opening. “Kelsey?”

  Despite my squint, I made out the features of Chase’s face.

  “Chase!” I crawled forward. He jerked his head out the hole when he saw me crawling toward him. I stopped. Was he leaving me? A second later both his hands were reaching into the cellar for me. I grabbed his forearms and let him take me out of the pit. He pulled me out and I lay there on his chest for a moment, willing my heart rate to slow down.

  He brushed a hair
out of my face, which was when I realized that I was still lying on top of him. I rolled off of him onto the hardwood floor of the Barton living room. The movement caused the world spin. I held the back of my head.

  Chase sat up and watched me. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’ll be all right,” I murmured, but I didn’t remove my hand from the back of my head.

  “What happened?” he asked as he scrambled to his feet. He wore sweats and a T-shirt. Apparently, he didn’t sleep in reenactor clothes. I shivered to think what I must look like.

  “I don’t know exactly. I noticed that someone with a flashlight or some kind of light was moving through the village. I was calling out to the person to answer me, but they didn’t. Instead someone knocked me on the back of my head. Twice. I remember clearly they hit me a second time. I guess my head is pretty hard to have to take two hits before I fell.”

  “I’m not surprised at all.” He stepped forward. “Let me see.”

  “Oh no, I’ll be fine.” I kept my hand on the back of my head.

  He smiled. “I’m a paramedic, remember?” He helped me to my feet.

  “Right. Sorry,” I murmured.

  Still holding me as if he thought I might topple over without his steady grip, he grabbed a ladder-back chair leaning against the wall. He moved it in front me. “Sit and I will check your head.”

  I stared at the chair. It was an original to the house. The Bartons brought it with them from their suburban middle class home in Connecticut when they came to the Western Reserve in 1808.

  “I can’t sit on that. It’s an artifact.”

  “Sit,” he said leaving no room for argument. “An old chair is not more important than your skull.”

  “I’m not so sure of that,” I said, but I sat because dizziness overpowered my concern for the chair.

  Delicately, I felt his fingers tickle through my hair and probe the bump. The room was dim. There was just a large battery-powered lantern sitting on an end table. I was thankful for that. Any light seemed to irritate my pounding head.

  “What’s your name?”

  I scowled. “Kelsey Desdemona Renard Cambridge.”

  “Desdemona?”

  “My dad has always had a thing for Shakespeare. He wanted that to be my first name. My mother wouldn’t let him.”

  “Smart woman. I don’t remember Desdemona having a happy ending.”

  I shivered, telling myself it was from the pain but fearing it was from something else.

  “Why did you keep your ex-husband’s last name?”

  I swatted at his hands. “If you are asking me questions to make sure that I don’t keel over, you should pick a better one. That is none of your business.”

  Chase stepped around to face me. “You have a pretty large contusion back here, but the skin isn’t broken so that’s a great sign. In any case, you might have a concussion.” He held the lantern in my face.

  I winced and held up my hand to block the light.

  “Your pupils aren’t dilated, that’s a good sign, but you’re sensitive to light.”

  “I’ve just been in a root cellar with no light for who knows how long—of course I’m sensitive to light.”

  “You had better go to the ER and get checked out. A concussion is nothing to mess around with.”

  “I can’t go to the hospital. I need to be here for the reenactment.”

  “You were almost not here for the reenactment permanently,” he said. “Don’t you understand that whoever did this to you could have killed you? This was a warning, and we both know what the warning is about.”

  “If Wesley is the killer like you and Chief Duffy believe, then this has nothing to do with Maxwell’s death.”

  “Don’t lump me in with the chief. I never thought Wesley killed Maxwell, and this just confirms it for me.” He lifted the hair from the back of my neck and I shivered.

  “Then why did you act like you agreed with your uncle when I told you both about the bees?”

  “I didn’t act like I agreed with my uncle. You stormed off and didn’t give me enough time to explain.” He sighed. “Whoever did this doesn’t want you involved in Maxwell Cherry’s case. He must think you’re close to solving it.”

  I leaned forward to escape his touch. “Well, he’s going to be disappointed. I’m nowhere near solving the case.”

  “You’re close enough to make this person nervous.”

  A shiver ran down my back when he said this, and despite the terrible headache, I popped out of the chair. I ran to the far wall and place my hand on it for support.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” His eyes were wide.

  “How do I know it wasn’t you? Maybe you knocked me on the head and pretended to come to my rescue.”

  He sighed. “It wasn’t me, I promise.”

  “You promise?” I snapped, holding my head with my right hand. “I’m just supposed to take you word for it. As far as I know, you killed Maxwell and are trying to stop me from finding the truth.” If Chase was the killer, I needed to get out of there. But how? My head hurt so much, I didn’t know if I could open the door.

  “I didn’t kill Maxwell,” he said slowly, giving each word extra emphasis.

  “Prove it,” I said.

  “I have an alibi, an airtight one.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “I was sleeping at the firehouse the night of the murder. Six other guys can and have vouched for me. The police know this. I finally had to tell them. Candy wouldn’t get off my case.”

  “Why didn’t you mention your alibi from the start?” I folded my arms and leaned on the wall.

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Because I didn’t want my uncle to find out that I didn’t sleep here. You don’t know how important these reenactments are to him. If he had it his way, he and I would do this every weekend. I give him two weekends a year for this, and by leaving just because I wanted to sleep in a comfortable bed, I was letting him down.”

  I frowned. “So he didn’t know that you left.”

  He shook his head. “After he went to his tent for the night, I snuck off to the firehouse.”

  “When was that?” I asked. I still wasn’t sure I believed him.

  “Ten. Hours before Maxwell was attacked.”

  I licked my lips. “How did you know I was here? Did you know about the root cellar?”

  He walked around the chair and perched on the antique steamer trunk. I bit my tongue to keep from telling him that the trunk was a Barton family artifact too and shouldn’t be sat on.

  “Will you at least sit down before I answer that question? You look like you are about to fall over.”

  I did feel a tad wobbly. Against my better judgment, I shuffled back to the chair and sat.

  “I saw you come back and tour the Confederate camp,” he said. It looked like he blushed when he said this, but I couldn’t know for sure in the dim lighting. “After you left the camps, I walked to your cottage because I wanted to talk to you about Wesley and explain that I didn’t agree with my uncle that he was the killer. I got to your cottage, and Tiffin barked and barked, but no one answered the door, so then I headed to the Rebel camp to see if anyone had seen where you had gone.” He placed his elbows onto his knees. “A Confederate private told me he thought he saw you take one of their lanterns and cross the road into the village. When I got to the village, I found the shattered lantern near the brickyard and knew something terrible must have happened. I was running back to the road when Jason stopped me and told me he knew where you were. He brought me here.”

  I shivered and wiped cobwebs off of my arms. “Jason?” Jason would be the last person I’d expect to save the day. “Please thank him for me.”

  “You can thank him yourself,” Chase said. “He’s right there.”

  I slowly turned my head, so that I couldn’t
jar my neck. Jason stood in the corner behind the door like Boo Radley. Seeing him there made me jump, which just made my head hurt more.

  Chase frowned. “You do realize you behaved exactly like the person with the flashlight wanted you to.”

  “You think I was lured out here to be thrown into the Bartons’ cellar?”

  “I can’t think of any other reason that you were knocked on the backside of your head.” Chase raked his hand through his hair. “It’s pretty stupid to follow someone in the middle of the night. What were you thinking?”

  I winced. He was right. I had been really stupid, and I could have paid dearly for it. Hayden could have paid dearly for it. I felt tears in my eyes. I was tired, that was all. I was really tired.

  Chase squatted down in front of me, taking both of my hands in his. “Don’t cry, okay? We’ll get to you the ER. They’ll check you out. I don’t think they’ll keep you overnight as long as you have someone to sit with you to make sure you don’t fall back asleep for a few hours.”

  “I’m not going to the ER,” I said. The tears evaporated.

  He squeezed my hands harder. “You have to. Between the two of us, I’m the professional when it comes to head injuries, and I say that you have to go.”

  I scowled at him. I wasn’t going. “My dad will sit with me. Poor Dad! He must be terrified over where I’ve been. What time is it?”

  “It’s just before midnight.”

  “Oh, good,” I said. I hadn’t been in the cellar as long as I feared. “Dad might not be home yet. I don’t want him to worry.”

  Jason pushed off of the wall as if he was set on leaving.

  “Jason, wait,” I said. “Thank you for what you did.”

  “You’re welcome. I’m glad you’re okay.” His voice was scratchy from underuse.

  Then, because I didn’t know if I would get another chance, I said, “Jason, we have to talk about you living in the barn.”

  He wrapped his arms around his own waist. “I’m sorry. I know it’s wrong. I don’t have anywhere else to go. You’re going to make me leave, aren’t you?”