by AJ Scudiere
The sun was lower than he’d expected it to be when he rounded the last turn. Coming from somewhere east, a slight breeze had kicked up, bringing with it the scent of ripe and slightly gone greenery. He smelled the nearby creek, even if he couldn’t hear it with the sound of the engine obliterating everything short of nuclear war. And he found himself hoping for a good rainy season ahead.
It was nearly summer, late for cotton. But it was either plant late or plant not at all. They hoped to open doors in late August and—though the bolls would not yet be busting open—have a field full of plants to display. For the first visitors there would be bought rather than home-grown cotton to hand pick and to gin.
From day one Reenie had been working at the museum calendar. They would follow the dictates set forth by the owners in the past. Once a month they would spend a day making candles—and invite people to participate and take some nearly authentic pieces of the past home with them. They would make lye and scented household soaps. Bring in experts to teach embroidery. Weave scarves with cotton fibers. They could charge for the classes and materials. Reenie hoped to be the proud owner of a sticky trap for the local and touristy historians and crafters alike.
Evan had asked if they would be killing pigs and salting bacon in December. While slaughter certainly didn’t appeal, putting up meat and making his own bacon definitely did.
Reenie had refused, but why just do women’s work? A man could dream. He figured men would like it . . . get your hands dirty, learn something and go home with bacon.
Ivy lobbied for a greenhouse. She wanted it to stand where the old one had—she’d already located the stone outline of the original foundation, the only thing left of a hundred-year-old glass and wood structure.
Reenie had immediately bumped that idea down the list and tasked Ivy with researching the oil paintings, writing up the history of color schemes, and so on. Ivy had taken it upon herself to preserve and re-do the stenciling on the walls and floors and also to look further, into the slave cabins and cemetery for original art that might be buried or dismissed there.
Evan shook his head as he finally chugged toward the barn. The four of them were an amazing mix. Ivy had been a lucky find . . . the only one to answer their oddly worded ad in several local papers and online. But Reenie had quoted from “Little Women” the night they’d interviewed then hired her. “You only need one, if it’s the right one.”
Locking the tractor into the barn meant for horses and plows, he still felt an odd sense of satisfaction, of completion, of home. Then again, maybe he’d just shaken his brain too much. Because, as amazing a team as the four of them were, they were all nucking futs to be doing this.
Checking his water bottle, he found it as empty as he’d expected to. He needed a drink, but didn’t think he was fit to stand in the kitchen before he showered. Hopefully Reenie would have woken up and driven into town to get some dinner for them all.
Though Kayla and Ivy were in sight the whole time, the plantation was big, and the breeze and still-lingering rattle in his head stole their voices until he was nearly upon them.
Spotting him, Kayla came running up, her hands cupped together. Kayla wasn’t one for catching frogs, and when he got close his curiosity was rewarded: coins. She pushed them closer to him, suggesting he pick one up, but he held his grubby hands away from her shiny treasure. Unaccepting of his refusal, she took his free hand and poured a couple into his palm. Kayla didn’t notice the dirt on him, and it took a moment to see that she too was covered in it. Hers was, of course, a rich topsoil rather than the dry dust that had kicked up in the field. But she was just as filthy as he was.
Tucking his water bottle under his arm he used a dirty fingertip to flip one coin over.
The letters CSA. Two men on horseback.
On another, a draped woman and the words “Confederate States of America.”
He almost dropped them.
His eyes first caught Kayla’s and he stared at the smile on her face. Then he swept the area where he stood. Small white boundary flags from the local home store littered the area, popping up like flowers growing randomly through the yard. His brain shut down.
Ivy then came into his narrowed view, hauling Reenie by the wrist.
As though time was in slow motion, he surveyed the three women. Kayla and Ivy were each in old jeans and t-shirts—Ivy in her usual slightly tight version and Kayla wearing something printed with a math slogan. Reenie was dressed and made up to go into town, and she now bore a bucket and bag labeled with a big red KFC. Evan felt his stomach turn at the idea of another piece of chicken. But the wonder and confusion on her face stopped all thoughts of food.
Ivy looked back and forth between them all. Then she announced, “We found enough stuff to have a display and enough more to sell to help fund the museum.”
Evan stared at Reenie. “What do you mean they lost it?”
Her eyes were wide and they were about to overflow with the tears she had held back. She shook her head. She held the phone away from her, the speaker a touch grainy as the voice on the other side of the line came through again.
“I’m sure we’ll find it. There are only so many places it can be. But I don’t have it ready for pick-up right now.”
He watched Reenie take a deep breath before she let fly. “That was your only job. Protect it and have it finished by today.”
“We did protect it.”
Reenie’s lip curled. “Well, I’m soothed knowing that someone else has my historical document well protected.”
Evan heard the clear message lurking under her sarcasm and the man from the preservation company responded in kind. “I assure you ma’am, this has never happened to us before.”
Reenie’s volley back was fast and angry. “I assure you, sir, that this is the last time I’ll use your company. That document had not been assessed, and thus I can sue you for its possible value.”
“Ma’am, you didn’t purchase the additional insurance on it. Our policy is that—if we fail to produce it within three more weeks—we will pay you our minimum $100 insurance fee.” He paused, but not long enough to let Reenie form a rebuttal. “We will continue to look for it. I’ll keep you posted of our progress.”
“Certainly.” Evan spoke through gritted teeth. He knew the little man had heard him when he first came into the room, but now he wanted to remind the shop-keeper that he wasn’t just dealing with a woman close to tears who hadn’t insured the document in question. “We’ll call and visit regularly. Good-bye.”
Her face a mask of self-irritation and outright anger, Reenie huffed. “He’s over an hour away! I called five different places and he had the best recommendations of anyone. Why is ours the first thing that he ever loses?!”
Evan was pretty sure it wasn’t a question, and even if it was, there was no answer, so he practiced his shut-up-ism and offered her a hug. He needed the hug, too. His brain was on fast forward. That diagram was nothing, but it was the first thing to leave the borders of the plantation. Reenie wanted it protected right away, since Kayla seemed hell bent on working with it.
They hadn’t even tried to sell any of the coins yet. A new seller on the market could start a frenzy; they needed to do it right, get the money and not alert anyone what was here. They didn’t need people sneaking onto their land looking for a confederate gold mine. Not that it was; probably much of it had been recovered from the preceding generations.
He had once wondered out loud why no one had gone out with a metal detector before. Reenie thought someone probably had, pointing out that Kayla had insisted on the best equipment, no hobbyist metal detector for her. So she’d likely found stuff others hadn’t. And then Reenie had asked him, “You never met Roy or Billy did you?”
It had been rhetorical and she didn’t wait for an answer, “Well, let’s just say rocks are smarter. And when it comes to Aunt Charlene those apples fell right under that tree. It’s why so much of the place is in s
uch bad shape.”
So they had kept their finds close to home, and he hated that the first thing out appeared to be gone. He was trying to comfort Reenie by saying, “I’m sure they’ll find it. They’ve never lost anything before, so why would they start now?” when both Kayla and Ivy wandered into the office with identical bowls of cereal in hand.
As tight as his chest was about the lost diagram, it did him good to see the friendship that was developing between the two women.
Kayla didn’t have a lot of tight friends. Now, as best he could tell, Ivy was becoming a real friend. The two hung out together for no reason. They’d gone to see a movie on the other side of Savannah four nights ago—dropping off the diagram on the way—and it seemed that Ivy was invested for herself, not because he’d asked her to watch out for his sister.
Reenie stiffened in his arms as she noticed the other women. Neither had said anything, taking in the scene the two of them made; Reenie in his arms fighting tears, his jaw clenched to the point of breaking.
Kayla paid no homage to the stiff silence and broke it. “What’s wrong?”
Reenie looked up at his sister. “Oh, Kayla.” She sniffed. “They lost your diagram.”
“What?” Both Ivy and Kayla asked simultaneously.
Finally losing it, now that she had to put it into words, Reenie began to cry great sobs and punctuated her sentences with gulps for air. “The company that was protecting it! They can’t find it. It’s gone!”
Taking the half-full cereal bowls, Ivy set them on the desk. But once Kayla’s hands were empty she turned to Reenie and—Evan could only guess she was mimicking him—took Reenie into an awkward but genuine hug. “It’s okay. I know what was on it.”
“But—”
Kayla didn’t let her finish, “There are lots of historical documents in this house. It was just one. And one that didn’t make a lot of sense. I’ve been building the machine in my spare time, and I honestly don’t think it works. Ivy’s been helping.”
Ivy shrugged. “‘Helping’ is a generous term. I hand her things she needs. Ask me about the oils used in the paintings or the stencil patterns chosen for the walls, I’m all over it. But gears are not my thing.”
Plus Kayla was working from memory, Evan knew. He’d been there. When Kayla worked out of her head, there was no list of steps for the other person to follow, no diagram to know what would be needed next, how to proceed.
But Reenie shook her head. “We need to sit down.” She looked around; there weren’t enough seats in here for all four of them and she headed to the dining room. That she’d left the cereal bowls unattended on the desk indicated that things were worse than he thought. He didn’t grab them either, just shut the office door behind him and followed.
She pointed to seats and took one herself, wringing her hands as she did. His chest tightened again.
“I didn’t know when we turned it in, or I would have insured it.” Her voice was small.
“Didn’t know what?” He loved his sister, but she could never wait for a reveal. He did. Reenie would get there.
“I know y’all did the partial tear down on the last wall by yourselves. And I didn’t feel well that day, but it was because I’d been up all night reading and doing research.” After a breathy pause that barely masked tightly held tears, Reenie continued. “I read Carlee’s diary. All of it. The boy she had a crush on was an apprentice or assistant to the man who visited. There’s eventually some information about him. I think that’s why the diary was in the wall with the letters and the clothing.”
Kayla and Ivy frowned, but as usual, Kayla didn’t wait. “What does this have to do with my diagram?”
Reenie shook her head, breaking free. “I’m so sorry.”
Kayla shrugged. “The attic is full of papers and things to put on display, most of it just as useless as the diagram. The bloody clothes will be much more intriguing to the visitors, as will the diary.”
Evan knew she was just repeating what he’d said. Kayla actually found the idea of displaying what was probably associated with a crime as abhorrent. But she was trying to soothe Reenie, and trying to do it in a way that would actually soothe Reenie. When she’d been younger, Kayla would have simply stood up and walked out, figuring that since she wanted to be alone when she was upset, so would someone else. Now she knew better, and though her motions were awkward, she tried.
Reenie sniffed and started talking again. “The young man was named Edward, and I thought at first maybe he was the ‘E’ in the letters. But seventeen seemed young for an affair with the house mistress. Edward was the apprentice to an unmarried man who visited frequently. Apparently that man had an affair with Lena, Carlee’s mother. Carlee was suspicious of this, but didn’t put into so many words. So it was hard to figure out for a bit.
“Both women mentioned that the men, one listed as ‘E’ and the other referred to as ‘Edward,’ visited from a nearby plantation but didn’t live there. That plantation was Mulberry Grove.” Reenie looked heavenward as though asking for forgiveness. As of yet, she was the only one who seemed to think she needed it. But since it seemed cathartic for her to talk it out—as it always did with Reenie—Evan motioned for Kayla to wait and see what happened.
“Edward was Edward Temple. According to the house Bible, he married Carlee Hazelton in 1810. His is the name that my mother pulled for my middle name.” For a moment Reenie smiled. “Anyway, as best I can tell, Edward traveled extensively with E, landing often at Mulberry Grove. . .”
She waited.
No one moved.
“You don’t know who owned Mulberry Grove?” She asked them all, clearly surprised that no one did.
Evan wanted to point out that none of them came from a family with a plantation and that her shock was misplaced. But he just shrugged.
“Phineas Miller did.”
That clue still left him nothing and the thick silence reinforced that Kayla and Ivy were with him.
“He was business partners with Eli Whitney. That’s why there are ten cotton gins in the carriage house. No one plantation needed that many. . . . I’m pretty certain that Eli Whitney is the ‘E’ in the diary.”
Kayla raised her eyebrows, but it was Ivy who spoke for them all. “Then the diagram was possibly of an unpatented later invention of Whitney’s?”
Reenie nodded.
“Oh shit.” Ivy slapped back into the chair as though blasted with buck shot.
And that was when Reenie lost her composure. “I didn’t know! I didn’t think—ever!—that the initials E.W. would mean Eli Whitney. Or I never would have sent it out.” Her face plunged into her hands and she began to cry again in earnest.
It took them three full minutes to gather themselves enough for someone to figure out to get Reenie a tissue. Then they had to go get her another one. And another. By the third trip Kayla brought the whole box from the other room, absently slapping it on the table. Reenie must have interpreted the sound as anger and she began crying harder.
“I’m so sorry, Kayla.”
His sister shook her head. “It’s okay.” She frowned and even Evan had no idea what she was thinking. He didn’t try, just sat there with his arm around Reenie, trying to comfort her over the loss of something priceless and a piece of her own history.
Finally, she looked up at him. “It gets worse.”
Three pairs of eyes turned to look at her. Her own were red-rimmed and getting puffy. They were wet with tears still overflowing and making dirty tracks down her cheeks. No one moved while they all waited for Reenie to get it together.
At last, she did. “There was a cufflink in the pocket of the pants . . . the bloody pants from the wall. If all the things were put there for one reason, then the shirt possibly belongs to Martin Hazelton. The cufflink said ‘MH’. I was confused by it, but it fits.”
Ivy shook her head, not following.
“If Martin found out about the affair then . . . Anyway, Whitney died in 1825 and there are no real rec
ords about how or where that happened. And the bloodstain on the shirt looked spattered. If the shirt is Martin’s, then the blood could be Whitney’s.”
5
Dining Room, Overseer’s House
“Don’t you think you’re jumping to conclusions?” Kayla immediately regretted not adding a “maybe.” She had long ago learned that a “maybe” or “often” softened the blows she didn’t mean to deal.
Luckily, Reenie was so distraught that she didn’t seem to take offense, something Kayla measured only partly by Reenie’s actions. The rest she measured by the fact that Evan hadn’t frowned at her. She was reassured again by the speed with which Ivy jumped in to say much the same thing.
“Yeah, Reenie. That blood could be anybody’s. You may be right, but just because we have a bloody shirt, a page signed ‘E.W.’ and a diary in the wall doesn’t mean it all goes together that way.” She tipped her head. “I can think of lots of options, and about eighty-five percent aren’t hinky at all. Also, Kayla and I found so much today.”
Reenie found a smile for Ivy, but only a small one. Evan had said that Reenie just tended to keep to herself, but Kayla was pretty certain that she was so fond of propriety and her Southern ways that she didn’t have many truly friendly bones in her body. Still Kayla figured there had to be more than what she could see. Her brother wouldn’t love someone as closed up as Reenie always seemed to be—that attitude must be reserved just for Kayla. Of course, what could be worse to a belle than a woman with an engineering degree and Aspergers? Except maybe Ivy. Regardless, it was nothing that could be fixed. She was who she was.
Still, Reenie was willing to be led off the path of self-recrimination, “Do you know what you found? Like what era it’s from and how much it’s worth? Does your degree cover that?”
Ivy’s eyebrow went up, but Kayla had missed something.
“No. My Ph.D. is in antebellum art and artistic endeavors. So I know some things about the teapots and some of the hand painting on the china and not much about the rest.” Then her voice took on a certain tilt that Kayla couldn’t quite identify, “But I do have this really great cell phone that gets the Internet. It’s pretty fast. Oh, and there’s eBay.”
