Collecting Shadows

by Gary Williams

  “Best of all,” Liam added, “it’s right there.” He pointed just ahead to a large storefront window. It had been etched in elegant bold letters: Rita’s Toy Shop. A sign underneath proclaimed, Opening Soon.

  “Oh dear God,” Aunt Rita shouted with joy. “I can’t believe this. We’ll be on St. George Street.” She leaned over and gave Liam a crushing hug. “Business will increase tremendously!”

  Still in his aunt’s grasp, Liam spoke to Ms. Burns, “Can we get some help moving the stock and setting up the store?”

  “You are indeed a tough negotiator, Liam,” Ms. Burns chuckled. “I’m sure I can convince the city to pay for moving expenses for you to relocate the business.”

  Aunt Rita pulled a tissue from her purse and wiped her eyes again. “I can barely talk. I don’t know what to say. This is like a dream. How can I ever repay you, Liam?”

  “I did lose my phone, and I could use an upgrade. Do you know how hard it is to take a selfie with a flip phone?” he smiled.

  74

  Saturday, December 17.

  Liam woke at 6:30 a.m. On his way to the kitchen, he noticed Drew’s door was open. The bed was still made as if it hadn’t been slept in.

  Liam smiled. It was about time.

  He was having breakfast with Pilot at his feet when Drew entered the kitchen.

  “Sleep well?” Liam asked with an evil grin. “Hashtag busted.”

  Drew spoke, “You noticed I wasn’t in my room. This is awkward.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Drew,” Liam said. “I’m not a child, you know. By the way, why are you up so early?”

  “New job. I was hired at a diner on the outskirts of town. It’s not a gourmet chef type of place, but it’s a job, and now that I’ve got my SUV out of impound, I’m mobile again.” Drew’s words turned sincere, “I want to thank you for being my friend. It was you and your generosity that paved the way for your aunt and I…to…um…”

  “Yeah, I know,” Liam laughed, “and you’re welcome.”

  “There’s a quote that says, ‘An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward. When life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means it’s going to launch you into something great. So just focus, and keep aiming.’ I have you to thank for getting my arrow pointed in the right direction.”

  “You saved my life and Bailey’s life. I’d say we’re even.”

  “Good. How’s the leg?”

  “Today’s the day I’m taking Pilot on a long walk. The doctor wants me to keep pushing it to help with the rehab.”

  After breakfast, Liam went downstairs and leashed Pilot. With a stamped envelope in hand, he headed out the door.

  It was a chilly morning, which only fueled Pilot’s delight once they left the new shop on St. George Street. Liam’s leg was still sore, and he limped slightly.

  It had been three weeks since they had discovered the Lily Room and had the run-in with Stewart Farlan. In that time, he, Bailey, and the others had received an incredible amount of publicity. He’d been interviewed 11 times already, with more scheduled.

  Although she seemed fine when they first met with the authorities, Bailey had become withdrawn since then, missing this entire last week of school. The therapist said that delayed trauma was a common reaction. The ordeal had finally caught up with her. At least Jason Benjamin’s soccer season had ended, and he was able to spend more time with her.

  Lucky him.

  One’s mom, Mrs. Manacia, had remained in serious condition for several days, but doctors now expected her to make a full recovery. No one was happier for One than Liam. No one should have to endure losing a parent at that age.

  Liam and Preston had spoken on the phone several times since she’d been released from the hospital. She was at home recovering, and he enjoyed talking to her; not as much as talking to Bailey, but Preston was a pretty cool girl, not to mention cute.

  Liam steered Pilot down St. George Street, then west until they reached the post office. He pulled the letter from his pocket and stared at it.

  Inside was his response to the letter his aunt had handed him back in September which he’d thrown in the wastebasket, then secretly pulled out when Aunt Rita wasn’t looking. Carly Moore had sent him a small photograph—a picture of her newborn son whom she had named Thomas, after Thomas Poston, the man who jumped in front of a madman’s bullet and saved the life of the pregnant teenager.

  In the long-overdue reply, Liam released her of any guilt over his father’s death. He explained that his dad was a good man, and he acted instinctively because of who he was. It was his father’s decision to take the bullet, and Liam felt no resentment toward her.

  It was an odd twist of fate that Thomas Poston had been shot with the last bullet in a madman’s pistol, yet when Farlan had pulled the trigger on Liam, the clip had been exhausted. In each situation, one bullet had meant the difference between life and death.

  Liam dropped the letter in the mailbox. In doing so, he felt a tremendous weight slip from his shoulders.

  They left the post office and cut through the Flagler Model Land Company neighborhood, passing Bailey’s apartment. He wondered if she was there, and if Jason Benjamin was there with her.

  At the next intersection, Liam took a deep breath, staring at the myriad of old homes. He wouldn’t say he’d come full circle, but he did have a newfound appreciation for older architecture, admiring the houses for their beauty and style. After everything he had learned about Henry Flagler and the history of the Gilded Age, his father would have been amazed at his transformation to tolerating all things “cobwebby,” to quote Bailey.

  Liam walked leisurely back home, following Pilot. He thought about Aunt Rita and Drew, about his mother and father. He considered the cruel fate of Mr. Mast and the others who died. He thought of Stewart Farlan, who had survived Drew’s gunshot but would be locked away for the rest of his life.

  St. Augustine felt different now. It was no longer just a town soaked in history with old buildings and tourists. It was a place where he had friends and a family; a place he could call home. As long as there were mysteries to be uncovered, even historical ones, it might not be such a bad place to live after all.

  AUTHOR NOTES

  Many of the historic elements of this story are true. All of the structures and buildings mentioned exist, or previously existed, as depicted. The descriptions of the decorations and fixtures are accurate. Henry Flagler’s life is also accurately portrayed, with the exception of the planting of the clues, the secret tunnel, and the hidden room residing under the Memorial Presbyterian Church mausoleum. The Koysters—or Koisters—is an imaginary group created by the authors.

  In December 1950, and early in 1951, as Kirkside was being dismantled, parts of the mansion were taken and incorporated into the homes of local residents of St. Augustine, Florida. The known items are as follows: fanlight window at 311 St. George Street, staircase and black-and-white tile floor at 77 Dolphin Drive, wood at 42 Spanish Street, pergola at 12 East Park Avenue, and the greenhouse was taken to 8154 San Jose Boulevard in the neighboring town of Jacksonville. Various pieces of furniture from the mansion also found their way into homes around the area.

  Kirkside Apartments at 55 Riberia Street displays the four massive white Corinthian columns that once adorned the front of Kirkside. In addition, the structure contains the railing, lead glass windows, doors, and moldings from Flagler’s St. Augustine residence. In 2014, owners Wolfgang & Miki Schau added a gable to the front of the apartment building to mirror the look of Flagler’s original mansion.

  Interestingly, no one has a complete list of the items that were removed from Kirkside or where they ended up. Local realtors seem to have some knowledge, but it’s based on information passed down from generations, and the accuracy is sometimes questionable. The armillary sundial from Kirkside was placed in the garden at Memorial Presbyterian Church, but it was stolen at some point in the past and was never recovered. Another armillary sundial was ordered via a ca
talogue as a replacement, but it was not a replica of the original. Oddly, in 2011, the arrow from the replacement was taken. A short time later, the rest was pried from the stand and stolen. Thieves obviously thought it was the original sundial from Kirkside. Today, a second replacement sits atop the stone stand in the church garden, but it, too, is generic, and not a replica of the original.

  Flagler’s marriage to his second wife, Ida Alice Shourds, in 1883, two years after the death of his first wife, remains puzzling to this day. Unlike his first wife, she did not come from money. Indeed, her family was poor. Henry married Ida Alice in a small ceremony. The event went almost unnoticed by the public, with only a small mention in the New York newspapers. One of the wealthiest people of his time married, and it was barely news. Some historians argue Henry married Ida Alice in search of his youth, since he was 53 and she was 35, although she was considered a plain-looking woman. Why Ida Alice? Did she know a secret about Henry that he didn’t want exposed, or was it a matter of true love? The history books don’t say, and no one seems to know the answer.

  After 11 years of marriage, in 1893, Ida Alice began to exhibit bizarre behavior. Fond of her Ouija board and performing séances, she believed she was in love with Alexander III, the Czar of Russia. She was in the process of having an expensive jeweled figurine made for the czar when Henry intervened and had her confined to a sanatorium. She suffered from mental illness as described in this story. In 1901, the Florida legislature passed a law that made incurable insanity grounds for divorce. Henry ended his marriage with Ida Alice, and that same year married his third wife, Mary Lily Kenan. Ida Alice spent the rest of her life institutionalized, albeit in a comfortable residence in New York. Henry Flagler never saw her again, and she died in 1930.

  Flagler did have a time capsule buried underneath the cornerstone of the building of the local newspaper, the St. Augustine Record, on Cordova Street on March 1, 1906. The placement, originally scheduled for February 28th, was postponed by a day, supposedly because the cornerstone delivery was delayed. The burial of the metal container was done without any ceremony. It is unknown who was in attendance.

  From there, the history of the time capsule is murky. In researching, we were told the following, yet we’ve been unable to confirm this information: It was unearthed in 2001 when a new Record Building was constructed across town at One News Place in St. Augustine. The contents were viewed, placed back into a container along with additional modern-day contents, and buried in the vicinity of the front door of the new building. It was the first time we have ever heard of a time capsule’s contents being reinterred. Although the items inside were 95 years old and possibly placed there by Henry Flagler himself, the opening was done without ceremony. Also, there was no news story reported in the St. Augustine Record nor were any photographs of the contents ever made public. The authors contacted numerous people in St. Augustine, including a number of college professors, for details, but no one could or would provide any further information.

  The same year the time capsule was interred, 1906, Flagler commissioned a mausoleum to be built as an attachment to Memorial Presbyterian Church for $100,000. Flagler had the remains of his first wife, Mary Harkness Flagler, his daughter, Jennie Louise, and her child, Margery (who were buried together), exhumed from Woodlawn Cemetery in New York and brought to the mausoleum of Memorial Presbyterian Church in December. The move was done quietly. When Flagler passed away in 1913, in Palm Beach, his body was taken by railroad car north to St. Augustine where he, too, was entombed in a casket beneath a marble sarcophagus. A fourth sarcophagus had been prepared in 1906 for Flagler’s third wife, Mary Lily Kenan, but at her passing in 1917, she left instructions to be buried in her family’s plot in North Carolina. To this day, that sarcophagus sits unmarked in the mausoleum. It has not been moved since it was placed there in 1906, which led the authors to wonder if there could possibly be something of interest hidden underneath.

  The information regarding Thomas Moran’s 1877 painting, Ponce de León in Florida, is accurately described in this story. It was painted with the intent of being sold to the House of Representatives, but after it was turned down, it spent 14 years on display in the Grand Parlor of the Hotel Ponce de León. From there, it took a 95-year journey with various private and public collectors until it was eventually purchased by the Cummer Art Museum in Jacksonville, Florida in 1996, where it’s still on display today.

  The legacy of Henry Flagler runs deep in St. Augustine, Florida, where his creations of the Hotel Ponce de León (now Flagler College) and Hotel Alcazar (now the O.C. Lightner Museum) remain prominent fixtures to the landscape; proof of his vision. To this day, if you close your eyes, you can almost hear the streets clacking with the hooves of horse-drawn carriages, smell the fragrance of orange blossoms, and hear the chatter of town folks as they marvel at the opulent hotels and gawk at the rich and famous who venture down from the north to enjoy Flagler’s lavish and prestigious accommodations.

  There is no denying the enduring love that flowed between Henry Flagler and the people of St. Augustine during his tenure from the mid-1880s to the early twentieth century. Indeed, it is a devotion that can still be felt today in the very fabric of the historic streets, coursing through the veins of its populous. This, more than anything else, is his legacy to the town known as the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the United States.

  REFERENCES

  Graham, T. (2014). Mr. Flagler’s St. Augustine (A Florida Quincentennial Book). Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

  Graham, T., & Keys, L.F. (2013). Hotel Ponce de Leon: The Architecture & Decoration. St. Augustine, FL: Flagler College.

  Nolan, D. (1995). The Houses of St. Augustine. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, Inc.

  Graham, T. (2004). Flagler's St. Augustine Hotels: The Ponce de Leon, the Alcazar, and the Casa Monica. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, Inc.

  Standiford, L. (2002). Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press.

  Wright, E.L. (2003). It Happened in Florida. Guilford, CT: The Globe Pequot Press.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Gary Williams lives in St. Augustine, Florida, with his wife. When he’s not walking his yellow Labrador Retriever through the historic streets, he’s writing full time. His passions include history, sports, and fishing.

  Vicky Knerly is a native of Syracuse, New York, and currently resides in Palm Bay, Florida. She has two grown sons. Vicky earned a bachelor’s degree in English, two masters’ degrees, and is currently pursuing her doctorate degree. She has won awards for her research-based writing. She currently works for a private university based in Melbourne, Florida, where she also teaches as an adjunct professor.

  Gary and Vicky partnered in 2008 and have been a writing team ever since.