In Sheep's Clothing

by Rett MacPherson

  Color crept into her cheeks. Bingo. She had read it. She felt guilty about reading it.

  “Yes,” she said. “I read it.”

  “So, what’s this got to do with the girl who died in the cellar?”

  “I dunno,” she said. “The book is about this young Swedish girl who moved to Minnesota and … she sort of has this torrid love affair. It’s quite explicit in places,” she said, and looked away. “And you can tell it’s written in the old, old days. The handwriting, the things she talks about. I dunno. It just gave me a weird feeling.”

  “Why?”

  “Because here’s this novel about this young Swedish girl—written at least prior to 1890—and it was found in the cellar. And in that very same cellar a young girl had died. Just the coincidence of it disturbed me,” she said.

  “That’s if a young girl really died in the cellar. If that part of the story is wrong, then there is no coincidence.”

  My aunt Sissy was pragmatic and practical. She was never prone to melodrama or overactive imagination, unlike her niece. For her to say that this “coincidence” gave her a weird feeling, it must truly have disturbed her.

  “You’d have to read it,” she said. Her eyes flicked nervously toward me. Alas, I had found what it was she was after.

  “I’d love to read it. You want me to read it?”

  Her whole body relaxed. “No,” she said. “What I really want is for you to find out who wrote it.”

  “What?”

  She was quiet a moment.

  “Is that what you brought me up here for?” I asked. “Is this what you needed the help with?”

  “I can’t stand it, Torie. I can’t stand not knowing who wrote that book. And I can’t … It’s not finished. The manuscript is incomplete. I’m hoping that if you can find out who wrote it, then maybe you can find out how it ends.”

  “Oh, Aunt Sissy, that’s preposterous. The chances … Okay, even if I could figure out who wrote it, the chance that I’d ever be able to find out how the book ends is just a million to one. A needle in a haystack would have a better chance of being found than an ending to that book.”

  “You can do it, Torie. You do this sort of thing all the time.”

  Okay, she had me there. Aside from the tours that I give for the historical society, I am a genealogist, a historian, and a record keeper. I mean, this was my area of expertise. But, good Lord. To try and find the missing pages of a manuscript that had been written prior to 1900 … It made my head hurt just thinking about it.

  “You do realize that if there was an end to the book, that it would be here somewhere on this property,” I said to her. “And most likely destroyed by either of the fires or damaged by water.”

  “No,” she said quickly. “I’ve thought about it. What if it actually got published? What if whoever wrote it moved and finished it somewhere else? Or just rewrote the whole thing. Or what if somebody took the end of the book when they moved, and just didn’t realize they didn’t take the whole thing. They could have it packed away somewhere.”

  She was certifiable. Years of never wearing socks and exposing her ankles had finally turned her brain to mush.

  “Aunt Sissy…”

  “You could try. The boys will be fishing. I will do whatever you want. I’ll cook for you, take you places. You name it.”

  “Aunt Sissy…”

  “You’re the only person I know who can do this.”

  How could I say no? She was my most favorite aunt and she had never, not once in all the years I had known her, asked me for a favor. Not like this. Besides, it might be fun. “All right,” I said. “I’ll find out who wrote it. But I’m not promising anything else.”

  “Good enough,” she said and smiled. “I have to know who wrote that book before I die.”

  With that she turned to walk outside into the brilliant sunshine that had begun to peek over the windbreak of conifers. It was entirely too early for this. If I were at home in Missouri, I’d just be getting the kids up for school. “Wait,” I said, and stuck my head out the door. “First thing I need to do is read the manuscript.”

  “Of course,” she said and came back in. “I get forgetful in my old age.”

  “Stop saying stuff like that,” I said.

  She just smiled and disappeared into the house. It appeared as though I would be spending most of the day reading.

  Four

  I read what I could at Aunt Sissy’s kitchen table. Uncle Joe had told Rudy and Colin what lake to go to for the day’s catch. Colin was pretty amazed that within forty miles there were three lakes to choose from. That’s Minnesota for you.

  “Is there anything I can get you?” Aunt Sissy asked me.

  I thought a moment. “Well, if I’m going to be reading most of the day, you can go get me some Dr Pepper and a box of that Cheez-It Party Mix.”

  She gave me that look. The one that older people give you when they feel sorry for you because you don’t eat right, or you don’t get enough exercise. “Didn’t your mother teach you that pop is nothing but sugar water?”

  “And caffeine. You mustn’t forget the caffeine.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Anything else?”

  “No, that should do it for now. Oh, but I do need a pen and some paper to take notes.”

  “Of course,” she said. Ten minutes later she had produced the paper and a pen that read “Will’s Feed and Seed” on the side of it. Then she was out the door and off to the store. Wherever that was. I knew there was a town, Olin, about eight miles from her house, but I wasn’t sure what direction it was in.

  I made a quick call to my mother back home in New Kassel, to make sure the kids were all right, and then got down to business. It wasn’t even ten o’clock in the morning and it felt as if half the day were gone.

  The pages of the manuscript were yellowed, of course. I’d expected nothing else. They were also pretty brittle. The thing I have noticed about Minnesota is that it is unbelievably dry in the winter and really humid in the summer. Of course, I’ve never been in the western or northwestern part of the state where it’s more prairie, so I’m not sure what their summers are like. But here the constant back and forth of the elements played havoc with this old paper. The ink at one time probably had been blue or black, but it had faded to a sienna brown. Luckily for me, the girl’s handwriting was very legible.

  It all began when we moved from Greenup, Minnesota, down to Olin in the autumn of 1857. We lived with cousins of Papa’s from Sweden until our house was finished in January of 1858. Olin is a lush and wild place, just miles from the St. Croix River. Greenup had been a bit more harsh and I did not like it so much, except to say that it had been beautiful in the summer.

  At first I had been surprised when Papa broke the news to me that we would be moving farther south to a better farm. Mama is not good with English and I knew that where we were moving to had more of a mixture of Germans and Finns, and not so many Swedes. Who would she talk with? And my fear proved correct, for Mama became very withdrawn and stayed to herself, while I became the woman of the house and went to church and town with my father and brother.

  My little brother, Sven, was as ornery as any little brother could be. He rarely had a kind word for me and spent the majority of the days trying to find ways to make my life more difficult.

  The day he killed his first deer by himself was the day that everything changed. He was but thirteen, and anxious to prove himself a man. When Sven came home dragging his deer behind him, Papa acted as though no son in the world had ever killed a deer. He was so proud and so happy that he invited some of the neighbors and the parson to dinner that Sunday after church, to share in my brother’s kill.

  Mama made braided bread and paltbrod to go with the deer. There were twenty people at our house, at least. And that is where I met Him. The most wonderful, kind, and amazing man.

  I stopped and made some notes. Most works of fiction have some autobiographical elements in them. People tend to write what
they know, especially their first time out. And even though the events in the book may never have happened, things like the character’s birthplace might be similar. And the fact that the book took place in Olin, and this was Olin, made me think that the book might have more autobiographical information between the lines. Most likely, whoever wrote it was of Swedish descent. I made a note that read: “What the heck is paltbrod?”

  I went on to read about the first private meeting between the main character—whose name had, thus far, not been revealed—and the most amazing man on the planet, whom she simply referred to as He or Him with a capital H. The fact that the author never revealed anybody’s name in the text, except her little brother’s, was beginning to bother me. Would we have Wuthering Heights if Heathcliff had remained unnamed? I dare say, no, we would not. I personally think that Heathcliff was an idiot and Cathy was a bitch, but still … the names were so important to those nineteenth-century works of fiction. How could this author not give her characters names? I was writing “Names?” on my notepad as Aunt Sissy came back from the store.

  “Well,” Aunt Sissy said. “How’s it going?”

  “Pretty good,” I said. “I might finish it by tonight, and then I can go and look up everything tomorrow. If that’s okay with you.”

  “Of course,” she said. “What do you mean ‘look up everything’?”

  “Well, I’m making notes of things that I think might be clues to the author’s identity as well as landmarks and that sort of thing. I can go and verify these things at the local courthouse, historical society, and so forth.”

  “I’m amazed,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to have so many leads so soon.”

  “Well, they may be nothing,” I said. “It depends on how you look at the book. To me, the fact that it takes place here in Olin, and it was found in Olin, must mean that it was written by somebody who lived in Olin—just like the girl in the book. So, I think that tells us that the author probably used some of her own background when writing it.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said. But something made me think that, in fact, she had thought of it. Just the way she cast her eyes around the room as she said it. She pulled out a six-pack of Dr Pepper and my box of party mix and set them down in front of me. Before I could ask for anything else, she got a glass, put a generous amount of ice in it, and set it down next to the soda. “I remember that you hate to drink out of cans or bottles.”

  “You got that right. I always imagine my spit floating in there.”

  “Torie, I love you, but you are just too bizarre.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I couldn’t help myself, I immediately went back to reading. It was addictive and I wanted to know what happened next. I didn’t want to dally and talk with my aunt. I wanted to read.

  He touched me everywhere when he kissed me. His hands were on my face, in my hair, on my shoulders, and—

  I skipped the next paragraph or so, because I was blushing in front of my aunt. The next paragraph had more of the same. So I skipped another paragraph or two and it had more of the same. His kissing her went on for three bloody pages! And that’s all they did as far as I could tell—at that point, anyway. Her clothes remained on, and so did his, but good Lord! None of the Brontës even imagined such a thing, much less wrote about it. Maybe this manuscript would be worth a ton of money as an early example of American erotica.

  That wasn’t entirely fair of me. I kept reading.

  The next morning as the sun glistened orange on the freshly fallen snow, I saw a wolf stick its head out of the trees. Her yellow eyes watched me for a long moment without moving, without flinching. I found her the most intoxicating creature I’d ever seen. I went about feeding the chickens, minding my own business to see what the wolf would do. But she only watched with those shimmering eyes that seemed as ancient as the beginning of time.

  Later that night as I lay in my bed, I heard the wolf’s song to the moon. Low and baying at first, then it grew louder and higher in pitch. And then I heard another wolf call to her and join her. And they sang their song of love for nearly a quarter of the night. I found their presence and their music most comforting.

  Because then I did not think of Him, or the fact that I could not be with Him at that moment.

  And here I thought that being a teenager and boy crazy was a twentieth-century invention. I don’t know why, but I wrote the word “wolves” on my notepad, too. Her description of the wolves singing to each other moved me, for some reason. It made me want to know more about them and if they would play a part in her novel later on.

  Lunchtime came and went. I kept reading.

  Uncle Joe came in, warmed up his food, changed his socks, and ate in silence at the end of the table. He glanced curiously at the manuscript and over at the door that led to the hallway into the main part of the house. But he said nothing. He went back to eating and gave me only a brief nod as he put his shoes on and went back outside.

  I noticed his interest, but I did not act as though I wanted to have a conversation, because then I would have had to stop reading.

  Months have passed and I have seen Him only on the briefest occasions. Oh! I think I will die of heartbreak if I do not feel his hands on me again, listen to the beat of his heart, and drink his words of love.

  Yuck. I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t help but think that this girl needed a hobby. And it struck me then that the author had done such a wonderful job at making her unnamed heroine so believable that I was thinking of her as a real person. So much so that I was trying to think of a hobby for her. That was the best compliment you could give a writer. I kept reading.

  Today there was a festival after church, welcoming the warmth of spring and the fact that long summer days would soon be upon us. Most of the parishioners brought a dish, while the parson supplied the pig.

  I stole a moment with Him, in the cemetery, behind the large oak tree. “On many occasions my heart has nearly stopped beating by the merest thought of you,” He said to me.

  I wept in His hands and He pulled me close to kiss me, but He stopped. He was worried that somebody from the festival would see us. But before He left, He took my hands and cupped them with His own. “As I stand on sacred ground, I vow to thee that we will be together. Soon. And if you love me as you have professed all these long winter months, then say that you will be my wife.”

  I was so overcome with joy that I sobbed the answer in His ear. “Yes, my love. Yes.”

  And then He was gone. And it was another week before I would see Him again.

  And on that meeting we joined. We lay together on a bed of hay, under the stars. Such joy I have never known. Such oneness with another …

  I skipped a few paragraphs because she went into some pretty explicit detail of what all had happened, and I felt like a Peeping Tom.

  When it was over, He lay still and quiet on top of me, as if He had died. And as I looked up at the sky, I felt as if we were being watched. My eyes fell to the line of trees. Those golden eyes of the wolf shimmered off of the moonlight and I saw her, crouched there by the pine tree that grows crooked on the edge of the woods.

  The wolf did not move, and neither did I, but an understanding had passed between us. We are not so different, she and I. Making music under the moonlight with the love of my life. After a moment, she ran across the field and behind the house.

  And I said farewell to my lover for the night.

  When He was gone and I was alone in my bed, listening to the silence of the night and the creaks of the house, I thought of Him and found it difficult to breathe.

  Somewhere in the night, the wolf found her mate, and they sang their song of love. How jealous I was of her. That she could be with hers, and I could not.

  Aunt Sissy came in to cook dinner, and I looked up from my manuscript, glassy-eyed and nursing a screaming headache. “Do I look as bad as I feel?”

  “You’ve been reading for about six hours straight,” she said. “You’re entitled to look
like hell.”

  “Thanks.”

  She shrugged. “Why don’t you stop until after dinner?” she said.

  “To be honest, I don’t know if I can finish this today,” I said, flipping through the remaining stack of papers. “I’m about halfway.”

  She shrugged.

  “I’ve got quite a bit to go on. I can start researching it tomorrow just the same,” I said.

  “Good,” she said.

  “I have the feeling that this doesn’t end well. Does it?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said. “It has no ending.”

  “Okay, whatever. But I think you know what I mean,” I said.

  “You like chicken?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good, I’m going to have Joe barbecue some chicken, and I’m going to make all the trimmings. You like corn on the cob?”

  “Oh, do I,” I said and stretched. “When are the guys due back?”

  “Well, I told the big one that dinner would be at six, so I expect they’ll be back in about an hour,” she said.

  I chuckled at that. “All right. I’m going to take a walk,” I said. “I’ve been sitting in one position for hours. I need to stretch.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Just wear a jacket. It’s getting chilly out there. Think we might get rain tomorrow.”

  I grabbed my jacket and headed out to the front porch. The lilacs smelled so good that I just stood on the concrete steps breathing as deeply as I could for about five minutes. I ran my hand across the bushes as I headed around the side of the house and out to the stables. I stopped and petted the horses for a few minutes and waved at Uncle Joe, who looked like he was building some sort of shelter out in the field for the animals.

  I walked aimlessly for the longest time and then began walking west, away from Aunt Sissy’s house. I only know this because that was the direction that the sun was headed. I looked back at the house, and it was maybe two hundred feet away. I stretched again and shook my head trying to clear the cobwebs. But it didn’t work very well. The Swedish girl’s words kept ringing through my head. I found that the thoughts in my mind were forming in the rhythm of her sentences.