Girl at the Grave

by Teri Bailey Black

  4

  I hurried along the road, past my neighbors’ well-kept houses, frustration crawling inside me. My hands clenched and unclenched.

  For eleven years, I’d tried to heal the wound, and with just a few words, Mr. Oliver had ripped it back open.

  Who’d told him my mother was innocent? She wasn’t. And why dredge it up now, after all these years? Would people never forget? Could I never move past it?

  I smelled something savory cooking as I passed the O’Donnells’ tidy brick house. Inside, I heard Mrs. O’Donnell call to someone, then an answering shout from upstairs. The house wasn’t big enough for the six of them, but they didn’t seem to mind.

  The Carlisles’ goat bleated as I passed their fence.

  Part of me couldn’t help but hope Mr. Oliver was right—that my mother had somehow been innocent.

  Don’t.

  I used to think that way when I was younger. I’d been young and naive—only six, unable to accept that the loving Mama I remembered deserved to be hanged. But I was no longer six, and I’d heard enough stories since to understand what I’d seen that night.

  My mother was a murderer. She’d pointed a gun at Nigel Blackshaw and fired.

  Rowan’s father.

  Ahead, darkness appeared at the side of the road—a large house set off by itself, half-hidden behind a rusted gate and overgrown trees. Paint peeled, and shutters hung at an angle. One window was boarded up, another cracked, and all of it shrouded beneath a cloud of sorrow.

  It had been a fine house once, when my mother was my age. She’d grown up here with a wealthy father and twin brother. Maids and nannies. She’d had her own white horse in the pasture behind the house.

  Then tragedy had struck. It wasn’t visible from the road, but the back corner of the house had been damaged by fire, starting on the second floor, growing up to the attic. The flames had been put out before they destroyed more than a few rooms, but those rooms remained blackened and scarred, boarded up to keep the weather out, but never repaired. A sad reminder.

  “Valentine,” a soft voice called, and I turned to see Mrs. Henny across the road, tidying her garden, holding a basket of wet twigs and leaves. The Hennys’ house had once been our caretaker’s cottage, before my grandfather fell on hard times and sold it, along with most of his land.

  “You shouldn’t be outside in the damp,” I told her, approaching. Mrs. Henny had nearly died of influenza a few weeks ago.

  “Oh, I just had to see how my garden survived the storm. I’m feeling quite robust today.” But she didn’t look robust; she looked gaunt and pale. Her hair had once been a lovely strawberry blond, like Philly’s, but was now mousy gray. “Philomena tells me congratulations are in order.”

  I was surprised Philly had mentioned it. An awkwardness flowed between the two of us, pretending we’d never been friends. Pretending we’d never sat on each other’s beds, playing with dolls. After my mother’s hanging, Philly had been too busy to play—or napping—or away visiting relatives—until I’d finally stopped knocking.

  “A top student,” Mrs. Henny said, smiling kindly. “Quite the honor. Your father will be proud.” Her smile twitched at the lie. Living across the road, Mrs. Henny knew better than anyone how little my father would care.

  I turned toward my own house, avoiding the path that led to the front door and going around to the back, along the old carriage drive. Which I knew was foolish; it was just an innocent patch of gravel walkway, Mr. Blackshaw’s blood long since seeped into the ground. But I hadn’t gone near the front path in eleven years.

  I worked harder to keep the backyard in order, but it still looked ramshackle: the woodshed leaning, the wheelbarrow broken, the garden full of dead stalks from last summer. The chickens clustered at the coop door, hoping for release, but I ignored them and went inside to the kitchen.

  My thoughts stirred as I went about my usual evening chores. I stoked the fire into life, then filled the wood bin and fetched water from the pump behind the house. I’d left a pot of beans to soak all day and now hung it over the fire to boil. Then I chopped some salted pork and added it.

  Father had sold the stove years ago, when he’d been out of work, saying his mother had cooked over an open fire and so could I. Sam’s old log cabin didn’t have a stove either, so he’d helped me figure it out. Hooks dangled from a rod for hanging pots, and Sam had set up an iron shelf for baking over coals.

  With the beans cooking, I had a moment to spare and went to my cloak hanging on the wall to retrieve the magazine article I’d stashed in the pocket. I always had to wait for the new edition to arrive in the school library, so no one would notice a page missing in the old edition.

  I brought the article to the table and eagerly read it again.

  Alvina Lunt had completed her investigation of all the asylums and almshouses in Pennsylvania and found the same deplorable conditions she’d discovered in other states—people of unsound mind confined in cages and stalls; chained and naked; starved and beaten into submission. She called on the legislature to provide funding for a new hospital for this “class of unfortunates.”

  She’d done the same thing in four other states, with considerable success.

  I retrieved the large keepsake box I kept on the shelf and added this latest article to the dozens I’d already collected. One of them even had a sketch of Alvina Lunt: a brunette woman of about forty years. She lived in New York City—only two days away. Someday, I hoped to meet her. Maybe even help her.

  Her story had struck a chord in me when I’d first read it, a year ago. When she was my age, her drunken father had broken both her legs, but it was during her long stay in a hospital that she’d become aware of the cruelty happening in the basement where the lunatics were kept. Since then, she’d devoted her life to helping them.

  Alvina Lunt didn’t come from money or an important family. She walked with a cane and never married. But she was doing something powerful with her life.

  I ate and cleaned up, then sat by the fire to darn socks, listening for the door, hoping Father would come home tonight. He drove a delivery wagon for a glass manufactory, which took him out of town for days at a time. I was used to being alone in the house, but tonight, I needed to talk to him about what Mr. Oliver had said about my mother being innocent. Father and I were the only people still alive who’d been there when Nigel Blackshaw died, so if anyone knew the truth about that night, it was Father.

  But the night deepened, and I finally gave up and left the warm kitchen.

  I passed dark rooms on either side of a grand foyer: my grandfather’s office with an enormous desk and empty bookshelves, everything cloaked in dust; a dining room without its table and chairs, only an elegant chandelier that was never lit; a large drawing room with furniture draped in sheets and bald spots on the walls where paintings used to hang.

  I heard a floorboard creak in the drawing room and paused in the opening, my heart beating faster. I lifted my candle and tried to see past the flickering light, into the dark corners. No one was there, like always. The air smelled damp and stale, like a tomb. Father had promised to fix the leaky window but wasn’t home enough to remember or care. The fireplace was cold and full of cobwebs; the portraits removed; the family who’d once laughed and talked and served tea in this room, all dead.

  I was the last of the Barrons.

  My mother had grown up in this house during its days of grandeur. She’d moved to New York City at my age, then returned after my grandfather’s financial ruin and death, bringing Father and me. I remembered her polishing candlesticks and beating heavy drapes, trying to restore the house to its former glory.

  But I’d given up trying to maintain the large house alone; I only cleaned the rooms I used, leaving the rest to the ghosts.

  I climbed the grand staircase, following the circle of light cast by my candle. Upstairs, we only used two rooms: one for me and one for Father. The rest of the second floor remained hidden behind a curtain that hung across
the hall, concealing the burned part of the house. My mother used to wander past the curtain, saying the charred rooms reminded her of those who’d passed on.

  And, for the same reason, I never went back there; they reminded me of her.

  I was in my room, preparing for bed, when I heard Father enter through the front door downstairs. I quickly tied my nightgown and descended the staircase, pausing halfway down to watch as he lit the hall lantern, then took off his coat and hung it on a hook by the door. The lantern distorted his shadow, making him look larger than he was. In truth, Joseph Deluca wasn’t a tall man, but he had an intimidating appearance, with dark hair and brooding good looks.

  Disappointment clung to him like a shadow.

  After my mother had died, he’d awkwardly tried to care for me, then seemed relieved when I’d learned to manage on my own. Sometimes he brought me a small gift from one of his trips or helped me fix up the house. But mostly, he was distant and moody, and we lived separate lives.

  He moved toward the kitchen, and I hurried down the last few steps. “Father.”

  His eyes looked tired as he turned. “Valentine. The roads are bad, so I am delay.” He’d emigrated from Italy when he was twenty-two, and an accent still blanketed every word.

  “Are you hungry? I made beans.”

  “No, I eat enough. I just warm by the fire.” He hesitated, his dark eyes shifting. “You work hard, Valentine. I wonder, sometimes, if you like a woman to help you.”

  “A woman?” I frowned. We couldn’t afford a servant. “No, I don’t mind the work. But I wanted to ask you—” I tucked my arms against my waist, unsure how to begin. In eleven years, we’d never talked about the night that had changed both our lives.

  “You need money for the food?”

  “No, there’s enough in the jar.”

  “Tomorrow—” He coughed into his elbow. He’d been sick and the cough lingered, echoing through the house at night. “Tomorrow, I leave for long delivery.”

  Which meant I wouldn’t get another chance for a while, so I summoned my courage. “Someone told the Reverend Mr. Oliver that Mama didn’t kill Mr. Blackshaw. That someone else fired the gun.”

  Father’s eyes widened in alarm. “Who tells him this thing?”

  “He wouldn’t say. But they told him they were there when it happened. So, I thought … I thought it might have been you.”

  “No. Never. I say nothing, never.” His eyes darted, then returned to me. He spoke carefully. “You remember that night?”

  My heart beat heavily. “Of course I remember. How could I forget?”

  A slow breath of regret slid through his lips. “All these years, I wonder. You are very young, so I think you forget. I hope you forget.”

  “No, I remember.” We stood in the shadowed light of the hall lantern, facing it together for the first time. The explosive roar of the gun. Mr. Blackshaw’s wide, startled eyes as he fell. Mama being led away in the dark.

  “What did you tell him, the priest?”

  “The truth. That she was guilty. That I saw her fire the gun myself.”

  Father cocked his head, his eyes sharpening on me. “And he believes you?”

  “I don’t know. But why would someone tell him she was innocent? Was someone else really there?”

  Father didn’t move, his face half-lost in shadow—and with a start, I realized he was hiding something. That there was something I’d forgotten. Or something I’d never known.

  “Who was there?” I asked. “What are you not telling me?”

  “It is not good, thinking these things.”

  “Please,” I begged, my heart hammering in my chest. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “You were there,” he said heavily.

  Questions clawed. “But I was too young. I’ve forgotten. And I never understood why she did it. No one ever talks about that—not the real story, just lies and gossip. And now someone says she was innocent.” I drew a steadying breath. “Please, just tell me what happened.”

  He shook his head. “It is not good, talking these things. It is long time ago. You go to the big school now. People forget your mama.”

  “But they don’t forget! That’s the problem! I live with it every day—see it in every face. I try to improve myself—try to prove that I’m decent and good—that I’m not like her. But I’ll never get past it. Never be anything but the daughter of a killer. And I don’t even know why! I’ve never understood—” My voice choked to a stop.

  “Ah, Valentine,” he breathed, coming toward me. For a moment, I thought he would embrace me, but his hands took my shoulders instead. “I fix this,” he said quietly. “You say nothing to the priest. You understand? You say nothing, and I fix this.”

  I stared into his brown eyes, sensing more behind the order than I understood. “Fix what?” I asked hoarsely. “Say nothing about what? Why does someone think she’s innocent?”

  He gave my shoulders a final squeeze and released them. “You forget that night. You say nothing, and I fix this.” He turned and made his way to the kitchen at the back of the grand foyer.

  I started to follow, but stopped, knowing it was pointless. Joseph Deluca was a man of few words, and he’d just given me all he intended to give. For now, at least.

  I climbed the staircase and put myself to bed, my mind turning. When he returned from his delivery trip, I would ask him more questions. I wouldn’t stop asking until he’d told me everything.

  But my heart thumped with uncertainty. There’d been something in his eyes, just now, that filled me with foreboding—something dark and secretive, lurking at the bottom of it all. Something I didn’t know. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  I blew out the candle and lay alone in the dark. Or as alone as I ever felt in this house, with its creaking floors and whispers in the shadows.

  Downstairs, I heard the front door open and close, and Father’s footsteps on the gravel walkway below my window. I sat up, surprised. Father never went out again after coming home.

  I pushed back the quilt, tempted to follow him. But I was in my nightgown, and he would be gone before I could change and pull on shoes, so I lay back down and listened and waited, rehearsing what I would say when he returned.

  But I fell asleep.

  And dreamed of the night Mr. Blackshaw died.

  5

  I am asleep within sleep, lying on the same mattress within the same room, small and curled …

  When Mama’s voice startles me awake, distant and angry. I sit up, confused. She’d been happy when she put me to bed. “Tomorrow, that man will be gone,” she’d promised, her eyes sparkling in the dance of candlelight.

  But now her voice is full of distress. I push back my quilt and step down to cool floorboards. Then I creep down the staircase, shivering in my nightdress.

  As I descend, her voice fades and is replaced by a man’s voice—but not Father’s. Father’s voice halts and skips, thick with accent, while this voice rolls smoothly, vaguely familiar. I follow it out the door and see three shadowy figures in front of the house, illuminated by silver moonlight. Mama stands on one side of the walkway, with Father behind her. And a man in a dark cloak stands before them.

  Mr. Blackshaw.

  I don’t like Mr. Blackshaw, with his thin smiles and watchful eyes, but he is Mama’s friend. She spoke to him in the woods yesterday, hushed and anxious, then grabbed my hand and pulled me up the trail, back to our house.

  “Tomorrow, Isabella!” Mr. Blackshaw had called after her. “That is my promise!” Which made Mama smile.

  But she isn’t smiling now. Tears glisten on her pale cheeks, and she holds a black pistol with both hands, pointing it at Mr. Blackshaw’s chest. But not Father’s pistol. This gun is bigger and has a golden bird on the side.

  “You deceived me!” Mr. Blackshaw growls.

  “Yes. And now I will kill you and not shed a tear of remorse.” Mama’s voice sounds hard and sure, but the gun trembles.

  Mr. Blacks
haw stands still, breathing hard, then reaches a cautious hand toward her. “Give me the gun, Isabella, and we’ll forget this ever happened. You’ll think more clearly in the morning.”

  “Clearly? I have never thought more clearly! Never seen more clearly!”

  Father steps forward and whispers in her ear, placing his hand over hers on the gun. Gently, he tries to take it, but she resists.

  The dream darkens, my attention stolen by a polecat shuffling along the edge of the yard, its stripe glowing silver. Is the polecat really there, or has my mind placed it there to bury a less welcome memory? Even in my dream, I wonder. Mrs. Henny says polecats portend bad luck, in which case, this one must be real.

  Their voices draw me back, no longer shouting, but low with despair. “Isabella, please,” Mr. Blackshaw begs, his cheeks damp in the moonlight. He steps toward her.

  “Stay back!” she shrieks.

  Frightened or angry? I want her to be frightened, but I am never sure. I am sure of only one thing.

  He takes another step.

  The explosive roar comes from nowhere, and yet from everywhere, jolting my bones and filling my nostrils with the burning stench of gunpowder. I cough and blink—and see Mr. Blackshaw sway on his feet, looking startled, then topple slowly backward, landing hard on the walkway, his arms sprawled. I watch, fascinated, as one of his legs twitches.

  Then lies still.

  Father notices me, then, and lifts me into his arms, into the house and up the staircase. The strength of his arms feels unfamiliar and I want to resist but feel frozen by the deafening ring of gunfire in my ears.

  And Mama’s shrieking wail.

  Father sets me on my bed, hastily pulls up the quilt, and leaves me alone. But I immediately leave the bed and climb up to the deep windowsill—and see Mr. Blackshaw far below, illuminated by shifting moonlight, his cloak spread like the wings of a great black bird.

  Father’s voice rises like acrid smoke, thick and angry. And then Mama’s voice, broken and full of tears. Their shadowy figures pace and argue and finally wander away, leaving Mr. Blackshaw to lie alone, staring up at the dark sky.