"We were right," Casey spoke softly. Remembering. Each of them, alone and together as they lay in their beds in that back bedroom she slept in once again, both hoping their silent suspicions...nurtured close to their hearts would prove to be true. That their mothers, sisters united in a silent goal, had come together to preserve what they could out of a situation they had little control over. Now, Casey thought, they were looking at the reality of that night.
"We need a light. I want to see what's back there." Casey looked around behind her for electrical outlets. She couldn't believe there wasn't a single one down here.
"Should we pull stuff out?" Mary interrupted her cousin's thoughts.
Casey thought about it. Considered then discarded the idea. "Not now." She glanced over her shoulder again. "There's too much other stuff down here that we don't know where it came from or who it belonged to. We don't want to mix it all up and not remember what's what and what belongs to who."
Mary nodded in agreement. She studied the contents of the basement behind them much as her cousin was. There was no way of knowing where all the stuff came from.
"We can go through the stuff out here and decide what to do with it. Once we get it organized or out of here we can pull that stuff out." She motioned with a nod of her head to the dark room...walked closer now to peer through the doorway. "Good grief, Mary. It is really packed in here. They must have put everything they could fit."
"Yes." She remembered her mother's face ravaged with grief and anger. "They would." She leaned against her cousin. "You said there wasn't much down here the next morning."
"No. I honestly can't remember what was, I only stayed down here long enough to see. There wasn't hardly anything, not like what we saw the night before." She thought a moment, still feeling overwhelmed by what was before them. This was more than she could have hoped for and wondered what to do next. "I'm going to get us some light." She shook her head at Mary's questioning look. "Don't worry, I have an idea." She turned, looked at the mess in the rest of the basement. "You stay here and start moving what you can against that wall towards the back of the house." She looked at her cousin. "You might want to change clothes first. It's going to get really messy."
Mary looked down at her clothes. "They're old." She shrugged then added, "They'll wash."
Casey looked at her. The outfit her cousin was wearing probably cost more than the couch in her condo. "Whatever."
Casey was back in less than thirty minutes. She skipped back down the old steps far quicker than she had the first time when both she and Mary edged their way down in the dark each filled with their own worries and wishes. In her hands she held thick coils of outdoor extension cords, one of which was already plugged in below the kitchen sink upstairs. Swinging on her arm was what she considered men's toys. The man at the hardware store had known almost immediately what she was talking about as soon as she described the lights she'd seen her father and brothers hang anywhere they needed to give them additional light when they were working under the hood of their precious cars. She had no idea what they were actually called, just that they worked.
At the bottom of the stairs she simply stood and stared speechless. Almost everything that had cluttered the basement before she left had been pushed against the far wall along the back of the house. The few pieces that still stood in the middle of the space were obviously too large for one person to handle. A couple of the pieces, she thought with trepidation, might be too much for two or more people to deal with. But they were also far too ugly and easily distinguishable so there was no way they could be accidentally mixed up with the family treasures they wanted to pull out from where they'd been housed for so long in their secret and safe storage area. She looked at her cousin who was sitting on an old upright chair that didn't look safe enough for a child to sit on let alone an adult. She looked exhausted. But Casey also saw in her the excitement she felt coursing through her own system. "You're amazing."
Mary smiled. "We are both amazing. Besides, I really do want to move some of this out where we can see it." She watched as Casey continued to unravel the cord on her way towards the front wall where the basement’s very limited lighting didn't reach.
"Okay, we need to find a place to hang these. I don't think it will light the whole area but it should give us enough light to see what we're doing." She flipped the switch on both lights, handed one to Mary and pointed out the big hook on the top that could be used to hang it. Both women made their way through the clusters of old furniture, moving in separate directions looking for the best place to hang the lights. Even as they squeezed past pieces of furniture, the lights gradually lit the room and shed clues on their find. Quiet gasps and deep sighs filled the quiet as each recognized riches from their past.
Mary spoke first even as she stood on her toes and stretched her arm out to loop the light's hook over a huge nail jetting out sideways from the underside of the porch floor above them. "I think I'm standing on Nanno's dressing table." Her words were hesitant...cautious...because if she was right it added a completely different aspect to the situation.
Casey walked over and looked at the antique Mary spoke of. Like her cousin, she understood what it meant if she was right. Their grandmother's dressing table had still been in her room that night when they'd gone to bed.
"Okay," Casey began as she ran her fingers along the marble top. "Let's start pulling stuff out so we can get this out into some decent light." With that she turned to begin shifting and shuffling pieces of furniture out the door, grateful as she pushed an old wood clawfoot table through the opening that it was wider than most doors or the job would have been tougher having to tilt and maneuver things through it. They worked together quietly and efficiently, helping each other when needed. Finally, they cleared a path where they could alternately carry and push the heavy dressing table with its marble top and tall ornate mirrors through the door and into the brighter light of the basement.
"I think you're right." Casey finally broke the silence. She moved away from the dressing table and over to the green tile topped table she had pulled out to make room to move the dressing table out. "And I think this was the table from the kitchen. Fact is, I would almost swear to it."
"But we ate at that table that very same day, that night, and every day after until we left that last time." Mary joined her and ran her hand slightly over one of the colorful fruit tiles that were scattered among the solid apple green tiles.
"Yeah." Casey's mind was working quickly as she walked over next to a small fancy wooden end table. "I don't really remember this, but I do remember some little table of sorts, something right about this size, sitting in the hallway. Nanno had her hall phone book on it."
Mary followed her. Stared hard at the small table, thinking. "I don't know. I just don't remember for certain. Not like I do the kitchen table and the dressing table. Those stood out for me. I remember them because they were too much a part of our everyday lives here not to."
"How did they get down here?" Casey wondered out loud. Lots of possibilities were there to choose from, but she wasn't certain which worked.
"When did they get down here?" Mary wondered. "It had to have been after we left."
"Maybe Aunt Charlie. She still lived here and was just down the street."
"I don't see Aunt Charlie getting this stuff down those steps even with Uncle Jason helping. Look at what it took us just to move that dressing table less than twenty feet. It would take more than that to get it down here." Mary looked at the stairs thinking about what it would have taken to manipulate it down the entire stairway. She shook her head weary just at the thought of what it must have taken for whoever had been involved. "Even then it would have been a major effort."
"You're thinking our fathers did this."
"I think it had to have been men, strong men." Mary thought about it. "They may have had other help but yes, I think it's very likely our fathers were involved somehow along the way."
"It's not like any of them were heartless. Just stupid." Casey let the possibility shift around in her mind. Like with any puzzle there was always an answer. Eventually. "Remember, we all stayed at Aunt Charlie's for a couple of nights after we left here. I don't remember exactly how long."
"Long enough," Mary said. "It was a huge risk though, putting it all back there and never knowing for certain what might happen to it." But her mother knew. She had been so intent on coming back here, so certain there was something here to return to. For the life of her she wished she had asked, that they had talked about it. How could her mother believe...know so firmly, and Mary knew in her heart she did, that what she had left behind was still there waiting for her. And it had. More than that, if they were right about how some of her grandmother's belongings got down here it gave her a completely different view of her father from what her memories had been of that time.
"Aunt Charlie would know," Casey said into the quiet that had descended as both absorbed all that they were learning. "Maybe not everything but a whole lot more than we do."
Mary looked over at her. She was right. They might not have all the answers now but they knew where to go to get them.
"Can't sleep?" Casey leaned against the doorway of her grandmother's old bedroom.
Mary looked up from the book she'd been reading. "No." She patted the bed, sat up against the headboard as her cousin sat down and got comfortable. "I gave up on trying and dug this out." She held out the small book on the county's history. "I found this in a used book store when I was still staying at the hotel."
Casey took the book and slowly thumbed through it.
"They were taking a long shot putting it all back there on the chance that anyone who mattered would find it someday." Mary spoke softly the thoughts that had troubled her since their venture into the basement.
"I know." And this Casey thought was the crux of her cousin's sleepless night. "I've thought about it." Had thought about it long before now which was why she'd been so shocked to find everything pretty much where their parents had left it all. "The only thing I can come up with is that they had a plan," she set the book on her lap. "They had a plan and for some reason it never panned out the way they hoped.”
"Maybe." Mary closed her eyes wearily. Was it that important she wondered or was she making something out of nothing especially now that they knew where it was and it wasn't lost to them. But she wondered if something had drawn her mother as it drew her. If her mother had known beyond a shadow of a doubt that it remained where it had been left. And if so...how?
"We need to talk to Aunt Charlie."
Mary agreed but wasn't certain she could...or would answer all their questions. She sighed and reminded herself to focus on something else. Reaching out she took the book from Casey's lap. "I pulled this out to look through because of something I remembered reading when I first bought it." She flipped through the book looking for the section she had just finished reading through again when Casey came in. "Here, look at this." She handed the book back opened to the pages she wanted her to see.
Casey quickly skimmed over the pages Mary had specified. Looked up in surprise. "The Underground Railroad." She looked back to the short piece in the book on such a huge part of history. "I had no idea. But this house isn't nearly that old if that's what you're thinking."
"No," Mary agreed. "And I'm not certain that it has anything to do with it anyway. But it did get me thinking about something else."
Casey looked up from the book to her cousin and waited for whatever it was she was working around to. Mary had always been able to see things differently...more clearly than the rest of them. She was also thinking about what she'd just read, the Underground Railroad. She'd never had a clue it had gone through Burlington. The house wasn't that old, there was no doubt in her mind it didn't date back to the early or even mid 1800s but she made a mental note to check out the library on local history. And to find the papers on this house and the land it sat on. She looked up as Mary spoke.
"Remember the stories we heard about how great-grandma was smuggled out of Sweden before she came to the US?"
Casey stared at her cousin intently. "Vaguely." She wondered where the huge shift from local to personal history was coming from.
"She had upset the gentry, so to speak, with her view of religious freedom."
"I remember. My mother loved the story and told it often but in all honesty I don't remember all the details. I'm not even certain my mother knew them." Casey wondered where this was going.
"She very well may not have known many of the details, I'm not certain I do." Mary paused, reflected that maybe she'd written too many novels and was seeing the possibility of something that wasn't even there. "But I think we should try to find out some of those details if we can."
"Why?" Casey's journalistic curiosity was aroused but that was normal for her. According to her brothers it was ingrained into her DNA but she couldn't figure out why Mary would want to dig into something way over a hundred years old.
"I'm not certain." At her cousin's arched stare Mary laughed. "Really. I'm more than likely grasping at straws," she sighed, this was Casey. She'd shared everything with her over the years, why not this.? "Think about it, Casey. She was barely seventeen, if that. She's hidden under a pile of blankets in the back of a wagon and smuggled across the border to Norway and somehow on her own gets on a boat to America, leaving the only place she's ever known, her family who she will never see again and knows it. For that matter her family lets her go. More than that, they help her to go. How much danger must she have been in for all that to happen not to mention what it must have been like for her once she finally got here, alone and Lord only knows she had to be terrified of what was to come...it was a huge unknown to her." Mary paused, how did she know all that, her mother...she wondered. "We know she bought and sold houses here in Burlington. I think I remember Mom telling me she'd once owned this house though I won't swear to it."
"Flipping houses before it was in vogue." Casey wondered out loud, thinking about her ancestor from a perspective she hadn't before.
Mary nodded, "She was a businesswoman when women simply didn't do that." She took a breath. "She had to have been a strong woman but did some of those lessons learned at seventeen stay with her throughout her life. I can't help but think they must have. If she did own this house was she a person who needed a safe place in it? Who, if not her, knew better how things could turn against you in the blink of an eye."
"You think she's responsible for the separate room in the basement." Casey wasn't shocked at the thought. It was possible, anything was possible. Almost twenty years in journalism had taught her that at the very minimum. But she was surprised her cousin thought along those same lines.
"I think," Mary continued, choosing her words carefully. "That it's something we should look into. If for no other reason out of respect for her."
"You thinking about writing another book?"
"I'm thinking about how I paid far too little attention to my mother when she told me the stories about family."
"Join the club." And Casey regretted it more than she would let on to Mary or anyone else. "How about this? I'll hit the library in the next day or so, see what I can find out about Great-Grandma and do some research on the Underground Railroad and how it may have been connected to Burlington." She nodded her head subconsciously as she mapped out in her mind the resources she would need to locate to find the information she was after. "And then we'll see what's what."
CHAPTER NINE
Mary sat with her head leaning against the back of the hanging swing on the small front porch. After spending hours yesterday hauling more of the basement's treasure trove from its dark and musty storage place she was having a hard time getting past the exhaustion. Despite that the effort had been more than worth it. There was little left to be moved out, mostly pieces that were so large there was no way even the two of them together could possibly
move them. She had no idea how her mother and aunts had done so which strengthened their belief that their fathers had been involved. Some of the old pieces of furniture they'd uncovered were generations old. There were many that neither she nor Casey remembered which meant they must have been moved directly from the Marshall Street house into the basement of the Cedar Street house when Nanno had made the move. She needed to call Aunt Charlie. One of them had to. There was so much she might be able to tell them. So many questions she could answer. But Mary worried whether or not her aunt could handle all this. As emotional as it was for them how much more so would it be for their aunt?
With her eyes closed she allowed herself to float back to another porch swing, one that had green and white gingham checkered cushions to prevent scratches easily caused by the weathered wood slats. How many times had she snuggled up against her mother or grandmother on that swing. How many stories had she been told as she felt the swing sway back and forth, the breeze as gentle and comforting on her face as the arms that held her.
She had no idea how long she lingered there ...minutes could have flowed into hours as she simply let time and memories flow through her as she hadn't allowed herself in years. Only when she heard a car stop instead of continuing by, the sounds of a door opening and closing, that she pressed herself to open her eyes.
The man that walked the length of her very short sidewalk was neither tall nor short, and closer to her husband's age than her own. A man who looked very certain of where he was going and one who wasn't bothered much about the reception he'd receive. But it was his smile and something in his eyes that invoked a memory that had her standing and stepping forward to take the hand he offered.
"Mrs. Lane." It was somewhere between a question and a statement of fact, telling her that while he might be secure in who he was, he never took for granted those around him. At her slight nod that only someone looking for it would have seen, the smile widened. "Jackson Henry. I'm the pastor at Seven Hills Baptist Church."
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