by Cat Winters
“Yes, Nelson Jessen. His family was Danish.”
“Really? Danish?” My eyes watered. I picked up the pen and righted myself in the chair, but my posture felt crooked and awkward. “Mrs. Rook . . .” I put a hand to my chest and struggled to catch my breath. “I must ask you, have you ever in your life met Mr. or Mrs. O’Daire?”
“You mean the girl’s parents sitting out there?”
“Yes. The couple—or former couple. You don’t already know them, do you?”
She swung her knees toward the room’s closed door. “No. Why?”
“I want to ensure that none of you have ever spoken with each other—exchanged information.”
“Did the little girl know about Nelson, too?”
“As a matter of fact, she spoke of a man named Nel who lived in a place she called the ‘other house.’”
Mrs. Rook froze. I observed the dilation of her pupils and a purpling of her lips, as though oxygen failed to flow properly through her blood.
“When we’re finished here,” I said, “I’ll show you those details in my notes, as well as in the O’Daires’ journal. Did Nelson ever go by Nel?”
“We called him Nels with an s, but Violet sometimes called him Nel, or, jokingly, Nelly. He was the same age as Violet, but we all knew each other since we were little children. Vernon grew up with us, too. His father was the teacher at our schoolhouse.”
“Vernon’s father, the older Mr. Rook, taught Violet, then?”
“Yes, he taught all of us.”
I shifted about in my chair, edging forward, switching which leg I crossed. “Did you and Violet have any other siblings?”
“No, it was just the two of us. We lived here with our mother and father and occasionally a dog or two, like the aforementioned Puppy.”
“Tell me more about Violet’s fondness and talent for mathematics,” I said. “When did that start?”
“Early on in school. Violet was always calculating the prices of crops for our father, always helping him out. That’s why it infuriated me when he wouldn’t allow her to attend college. The girl was a genius; there was no doubt about it. She just happened to be a genius with a woman’s body.”
“You said she jumped into her marriage instead of going to college?”
“Yes, there was nothing else for her to do. She and Nels loved each other dearly, and he promised her he would help her earn money for tuition, even though they started with absolutely nothing.” She sat back in the chair and stroked the armrests with slender fingers. “Violet and Nels married after they both graduated from school. He found himself a nice job as a clerk at a law office in Brighton.”
“And you said he was the same age as Violet?” I asked, jotting down notes as I spoke. “He wasn’t an older gentleman dangling money in front of a girl in need?”
Mrs. Rook laughed. “Oh no, it wasn’t anything like that. Violet and Nels adored each other. She worked in the daytime, cleaning houses for a family in Brighton, just down the street from where Nels worked. And at night she’d scribble away in notebooks, formulating equations, sometimes even writing on the walls to map everything out on a larger scale. Oh my goodness”—she clapped her hands together and smiled—“you should see how much calculating that girl used to do on those poor walls. Nels would just shake his head and grin and say how proud he was of her. He excelled in math, too, but not quite like that.”
“She—she wrote equations on the walls?” I asked.
“Yes. Shapes and numbers and all sorts of mathematical symbols that I never could quite understand. We left her writing up there in the other house, as a matter of fact. My parents never rented the place out to anyone else, and it seemed almost sacrilegious to erase all of her work.” Mrs. Rook settled back against her chair again. “It’s funny, I always imagined her coming back here one day, evaluating what she wrote, finding the answer staring straight at her.”
I glanced at the door, listening for the sound of Janie among the low murmurs that filled one of the other rooms. “Janie O’Daire writes on her bedroom walls, too,” I said in a voice more whispery than I’d intended.
Mrs. Rook gulped. “Does she, now?”
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “I think perhaps we ought to take her to the other house in a short while.”
Mrs. Rook rubbed her thumbs along the edges of her armrests and nodded, her face doughy white. “Yes, I think I quite agree.”
I recorded her statements about Violet’s work as a housemaid, her equations on the walls, and her marriage to Nelson. My insides squirmed and burbled. The time to address Violet’s death had at long last arrived. Time to unearth Nelson “Nel” Jessen’s involvement.
“Mrs. Rook . . .” I swallowed and laid the notebook across the length of my lap. “Janie has given us several details about the day Violet died, but some key facts are missing.”
“Oh?”
“I am going to now ask you some questions based on the information she has managed to tell us, to see if the specifics of her story match what actually happened. Do you mind speaking of your sister’s death?”
“No, I don’t mind.” Mrs. Rook offered a tight smile. “I know from your letter that the child is aware that Violet drowned. Unless someone from Friendly told Janie about Violet, I honestly can’t imagine how she would have learned that information. We didn’t even list the cause of death in the obituary.”
“What was the precise date of her death?”
“January 1, 1890. New Year’s Day.”
“How old was she?”
“Nineteen. Her birthday was December 2, so she was a young nineteen.”
Nineteen years old. The first day of the first month. The second day of the twelfth month. Nowhere in any of those numbers did I hear her mention “eight.”
“Do you know if a particular number troubled Violet?” I asked.
Mrs. Rook’s dusky eyebrows shot up. “A number?”
“Yes. Was there a number that got in the way of her equations?”
“I don’t believe so.”
I wrote down Mrs. Rook’s lack of knowledge in these matters. “Do you know where she drowned?” I asked.
She bit her lip, and I braced myself for the possibility that she might, indeed, say, At the Hotel Yesternight, near Du Bois, Nebraska.
“In a lake,” she said instead, “just behind the other house.”
“I see. And you’re positive of that location?”
“Yes.” She swallowed. “I know for a fact that’s where she died.”
“Thank you. Thank you for that information.” I released a silent breath of relief and wrote down her response. “Now . . . let’s see . . .” My eyes struggled to focus for a moment; the words on the paper blurred in my lap. “Janie often suffers from nightmares about drowning, but what she doesn’t seem to understand is how she got into the lake. She talks about a person being there, and a number written on glass, which is why I brought up the subject of the number to begin with. It seems to be a key to understanding her murder.”
“Murder?” Mrs. Rook rose up tall in her chair. “Whoever said anything about a murder? Is that what the little girl is calling it?”
“Well . . .” I lowered my eyes to my notes and thought back to all that I knew about Janie’s accounts of Violet’s death. “She’s never used the words murder or killing, but she’s clearly troubled by the fact that a specific person is there, watching her drown. Was someone else with her, watching her?”
Mrs. Rook’s forehead creased at those words, and, oh, how her eyes welled with plump tears. Her fingers clutched the ends of the armrests; her lips trembled, and I waited, simply waited, for all of those emotions to bubble over and transform into words.
She fetched a handkerchief from a pocket in the pale-green sweater she wore. “I was wondering if I might need this at some point.” She blotted her cheeks, tittering a little. “It’s been so long since we lost Violet, but still . . .” She sniffed and dabbed at her nose. “The grief has never completely
gone away. The emotions always seem to be hiding behind other, brighter ones.”
I nodded. “Difficult emotions do have a way of lingering, I’m afraid. Even when you believe they no longer hold any power over you.”
She wiped at her cheeks and smiled in embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”
“Please, there’s no need to apologize, Mrs. Rook. I understand. I have sisters myself, and I—” I stopped mid-sentence, forbidding myself from shoving my own life into the situation. “Are you able to speak about the person who was with Violet when she died? Might it have been her husband?”
Mrs. Rook shoved her right elbow deep into the armchair’s fabric and touched the handkerchief to her lips. “I haven’t spoken about that day aloud in such a long, long time.” She closed her eyes. “He was . . . Nelson . . . he was . . .” A shiver snaked through her. “He was, indeed, there. He watched her drown, I’m sorry to say.”
I wrote those two sentences down in my notebook, my breaths ragged, my penmanship again faltering, ink smearing.
[Nelson] was, indeed, there. He watched her drown, I’m sorry to say.
My pulse drummed inside my ears. “And yet,” I said, “you state that it was not a murder, correct? Nelson was there, but the family never suspected him of foul play?”
“No.” Her voice broke with emotion. “We were all there. It was January. The lake was frozen. We were ice skating—Violet, Nels, and I, along with Vernon and a few of the other local young people. We were all so young then. Even though Violet and Nels had married, we were all just children, really, having heaps of fun on a cold New Year’s Day.”
My mind envisioned a serene scene of young men and women skating in the luminous whiteness of a Kansas winter. I thought of Janie shouting through her house in the middle of the night, It’s too cold! It’s too cold!
“Oh no!” I said with a sudden stab of pain in my right side. “Did—did the ice break, Mrs. Rook? Is that what happened?”
She pursed her lips, and the tears brewing in her eyes spilled over to her cheeks. “It started off as a low and troubling crack. I called for Violet to watch out. I saw the gash forming. She must not have heard it—she was so busy gliding across the ice so beautifully, so peacefully. But then a sound like a gunshot exploded across the lake, and she plunged down into that freezing cold water. Another boy, Elmer, had a doctor for a father. He warned the rest of us not to jump straight in because of the sudden shock of the cold—he said it could stop a heart from beating in an instant. Nels tried to dive in to help her, but Elmer grabbed him by the waist and begged him to submerge himself with care or we’d lose them both. Violet had already stopped struggling down there. Poor Nels lowered himself down into the icy depths as quickly yet cautiously as he could, and he pulled my darling sister out.”
I sat there with the tip of my pen hovering over the paper, unsure what to say; what to feel. Clearly, no version of me could have been responsible for a death like that, but the pang of Mrs. Rook’s loss rendered me speechless. I suddenly missed both Bea and Margery to no end and experienced foggy memories of the two of them holding my hands in a hospital.
“We all loved her so much,” said Mrs. Rook in a whisper. She balled the handkerchief in her right hand and tightened her fingers around it. “We all wanted to save her, but Elmer was right. The shock of the cold was too much. Even if we all had jumped in . . . she was gone so quickly. And I was so angry, afterward. So angry that a brilliant girl, a loving girl, lost her life because of something so silly as skating figures across an icy lake.”
I blinked at her, and my mind took several seconds to process what she just said. “Did—did you just say, ‘figures’?”
“Yes, she was skating figure—” Her lips formed the shape of the ensuing word, but she stopped herself and met my eyes.
Janie giggled from the other room.
“Was it a number?” I asked.
Mrs. Rook nodded. “Yes.”
“Which number?”
Another discernible swallow rippled down her throat. “It was the number most people love to skate: eight, of course.”
I jumped and involuntarily jerked my hands into the air, which sent the pages of my notebook fluttering like an eruption of flapping birds.
Mrs. Rook jumped as well. “Is that the same number the little girl mentioned?”
“Oh, God. Oh, my God.” I scrambled to pick up my pen and pushed myself to my feet.
Mrs. Rook stood up, too, her legs unsteady. “Is this a significant coincidence?”
“Yes, yes, yes—oh, yes! We’ve gone well past coincidences by this point. It’s time for you to come speak with Janie and her family.” I beckoned to the woman with both hands. “You must read the journals her parents have kept over the years. It’s all there. Aside from confusing ‘Puppy’ with ‘Poppy,’ she’s right about everything—the red flowers on your wallpaper, your name, her name, her age, Friendly, your husband’s watch, Nel from ‘the other house,’ the eights. Oh, my heavens, we’ve gone miles and miles beyond coincidences.” I gathered up my notebook and briefcase, the papers rippling and crinkling and perfuming the air with fresh ink.
“Do you believe in it, then?” she asked. “Do you, a trained psychologist, stand by the theory of reincarnation?”
I stood up tall and held my belongings against my hips.
“Yes,” I said without a shred of doubt in my mind.
CHAPTER 24
Mrs. Rook and I joined the others in the house’s front parlor, a festive room decorated in Christmas garland and photographs of the Rooks and their children from throughout the years. A candle-lit Christmas tree stood in front of a bay window framed by curtains as green as the pine needles themselves.
The O’Daires, Tillie, and Mr. Rook sipped coffee and tea and dined on cinnamon rolls, and the sight of them all together—this growing family of sorts, connected by time and memories—sent a surge of emotion rushing up the middle of my chest. Of all the people in that house, I least expected me to be the one to cry that day, but there I was, suddenly covering my mouth, fighting to keep my emotions at bay.
“What’s wrong, Miss Lind?” asked Janie, which made the lump in my throat thicken all the more.
“What is it?” Michael rose to his feet. “Has—has there been a mistake?”
“No, not at all.” I blinked like mad to chase off tears. “Janie was so right about so much. Please, show the Rooks the journal. Show them everything.”
MICHAEL TOOK THE journal out of his coat pocket and also helped Tillie fetch Janie’s school papers from one of the suitcases strapped to the car. I collected my notes, and the Rooks unearthed photographs from a dust-laden cardboard box upstairs. Over cheese and crackers and fresh slices of roast beef, we gathered around a low table in the parlor and threaded together the tales of Mrs. Violet Sunday Jessen and Miss Janie O’Daire.
“This is a picture of my sister at the age of eighteen,” said Mrs. Rook, and she passed around a portrait of a pretty brunette in a dress with a high collar and a ruffled skirt that brushed the floor. Violet’s dark eyebrows didn’t knit together as much as her sister’s, but I noted a strong family resemblance in the eyes themselves and in the fullness of the two women’s mouths. Violet’s right hand rested upon the back of an upholstered chair, and behind her hung a backdrop painted to resemble a backyard garden.
Rebecca handed the photograph to Janie, who ate her food down on a maroon and gold rug, her legs crossed beneath the low table. She glanced at the portrait of Violet for about two seconds before setting it aside and returning to her munching. Boredom dimmed her blue-green eyes. More photographs and mementoes traveled her way, and we all held our breaths, waiting for her to speak as Violet, but the food proved more important every time.
At one point I gained the courage to articulate a question I hadn’t yet asked of Mrs. Rook: “Does the name ‘Yesternight’ mean anything to your family?”
Mrs. Rook shook her head, but her husband straightened his neck and said without hesi
tation, “Do you mean the murder house?”
His wife tutted. “Vernon! There’s a child in the room.”
The crackers and meat in my stomach hardened into stones. “You know about it, then?”
“Vernon has a fondness for sensational prairie tales,” said his wife with a frown. “He could tell you all about the horrible crimes committed by the Benders of Labette County and Belle Gunness of Indiana.”
“What precisely happened at the Hotel Yesternight?” I asked, and out of the corner of my eye I caught Michael lifting his head from a collection of photographs.
“Oh, the usual . . .” Mr. Rook gave a wave of his hand. “An isolated home. A touch of madness. Folks gone missing. This was all back in the mid-1890s. Nothing recent. I have a friend who travels around photographing infamous old houses.”
I pressed a hand against my middle.
I was born in the late 1890s.
“Do you know if the house still operates as a hotel?” I asked. “And precisely where it’s located?”
“It’s in Nebraska,” said Vernon. “Outside a tiny train stop called Du Bois.” He pronounced Du Bois as Do-Boys.
“And . . . you’re certain no one in this family, not even Nelson Jessen, found themselves visiting Yesternight?”
“Nels didn’t travel much of anywhere after he lost Violet,” said Mrs. Rook. “He suffered from frequent bouts of pneumonia.”
“Do you have a picture of Nelson to show Janie?” asked Michael.
Mrs. Rook sifted through the black and white images in the box in her lap until she found a photo that, from my angle, appeared to be a wedding portrait. “Here he is”—she stretched her arm forward—“with Violet, on the day they wed.”
Rebecca sat between Janie and Mrs. Rook and intercepted the photograph, as she had all of the others. She studied the picture for a moment, her forehead puckering, and then handed the image to her daughter. “Here you are, Janie,” she said. “This is Violet and her husband, Nelson.”
Janie took the photo and regarded it as though she were viewing the picture of a great-aunt she’d never met or even heard of. “Pretty,” she said, and she laid the photo on top of the others. She again devoted her attention to her crackers.
