The Poe Estate

by Polly Shulman

  They glanced at each other. “We’re trying to figure out the origins of this house,” said Elizabeth.

  “You mean like who built it? Who the architect was?”

  “Yes, something like that,” said Elizabeth.

  “It looks to me like it’s from around the 1860s, 1870s,” I said. “Maybe the owner would know. Dad can ask his friend.”

  “Thanks, Sukie. That could be helpful.”

  When they got to the bedroom in the back, the one with the glass of dead flowers, all three of them froze. Griffin gave a low, thoughtful growl. “Oh,” breathed Elizabeth.

  “Yeah,” said Andre. “This is the real deal.”

  They went quickly down the landing to the front bedroom where Dad was kneeling by the fireplace peering up the flue. Andre had to duck again to get through the door. “We’ll take it,” said Elizabeth.

  “Great,” said Dad, getting up and brushing soot off his knees. “What do you want? Hardware, mantelpieces, bathtub? What about the appliances? There’s a nice old range in the kitchen.”

  “All of it. The whole house,” said Elizabeth.

  “Oh.” Dad sounded dubious. “I guess I wasn’t clear. The property’s not for sale, just the salvage. The new owner’s taking down the house and putting up a new one on this site.”

  “No, I get that,” said Elizabeth. “The repository I work for wants the building, not the land. We’re making a collection of historic structures with certain . . . characteristics, and this house fits our collecting mission perfectly. We can take it off the owner’s hands and save them the cost of demolition waste disposal. We’ll use our own transport team.”

  “Oh.” Dad didn’t look so happy. “Well, Bruce generally lets me handle the salvage, and I usually help with the demolition. I guess this would be a cheaper option for him, but . . .”

  Elizabeth said quickly, “Don’t worry, you won’t lose money on the deal. We’ll be happy to pay your standard rates for whatever you would normally be salvaging, along with a finder’s fee.”

  Dad brightened up. “I think we can work something out.”

  • • •

  As Dad and Elizabeth discussed business details, Andre wandered out of the room, leaning down to inspect the chair railing that ran along all the walls.

  I followed him, trailing my fingertips along the railing. It felt cold and zingy, like the banister. “Hey, Andre, what’s a page?” I asked.

  He straightened up and looked down at me. “What?”

  “Elizabeth said you were a page,” I said. “What’s that?”

  “Oh. It means I work at the library,” said Andre. “The repository. I re-shelve things and bring patrons the items they’re borrowing, stuff like that.”

  “So is Elizabeth your boss?”

  “Sort of. Not really. The head of the repository is both of our boss. But I mostly work with Libbet. I’ve known her since I was three. She’s an old friend of my big brother.”

  “Ah.” That explained their puzzling relationship, how they seemed sort of related, but not quite. It was hard to imagine him three years old, though. Surely he was way too tall to ever have been that little.

  Something else was confusing me, too. “Why is a library buying this building?” I asked. They couldn’t be planning to use it for housing books. The layout was all wrong for that, not to mention how the place was falling down. “The books would grow mold in ten seconds flat.”

  He looked puzzled for a second. Then his frown cleared up. “No, this house won’t hold a collection—it’ll be part of one. The New-York Circulating Material Repository isn’t a normal library. It has objects, not books.”

  “How can it be a library if it doesn’t have books?”

  “Well, technically it’s a repository, not a library. It’s a circulating collection of objects. Patrons can borrow all kinds of stuff, like doorknobs and teacups and bass guitars and wood lathes and—pretty much whatever you can think of.”

  “People borrow doorknobs?”

  “People borrow all kinds of crazy things.”

  “But I still don’t get why you want a whole falling-down house.”

  “We don’t want just one. We want a lot of them. It’s for our annex. We’re building a collection.”

  “A collection of houses?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Where would a library keep a collection of houses?”

  “In a special annex facility.”

  That must be one big facility. “But why do you want this house?”

  He raised an eyebrow and quirked up the left side of his mouth. “I don’t know—you tell me! You’re the one that found it.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that.

  Dad and Elizabeth came out of the front room together, with Griffin looming behind them. The dog was so big that when he stood next to Andre he made Andre look average-height.

  “I’ll get our legal team working on the papers,” Elizabeth said.

  “Great,” said Dad. “I’ll talk to Bruce.”

  We all trooped downstairs, avoiding the fifth step.

  “Can we drop you off somewhere?” asked Dad.

  “No, thanks. We have transport. I’d like to stay a little longer, if you don’t mind—take a look around down here,” said Elizabeth.

  “Sure,” said Dad dubiously. There was no car or truck or anything in sight, just the two of them with the dog and their walking stick and hiking boots. Still, what were they going to do, steal the place? It’s not like we didn’t know where to find them. “Stay as long as you like,” said Dad. “Just prop that log against the door when you leave, okay? The latch doesn’t catch, and I don’t want it blowing open.”

  “Will do.” They waved from the porch as our truck crunched down the gravel road into the shadow of the trees.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A Ghost’s Request

  We started a new unit in science class the next day: physiology. Before the class ended, Ms. Picciotto told us the first lab assignment would be dissecting sheep hearts.

  Whoops from the bloodthirsty and protests from the animal lovers.

  “Yes, it’s required,” said Ms. Picciotto. “No, you can’t dissect a vegetable instead. Okay, partner time. I want you in eight groups of two or three students each.”

  “How many twos and how many threes, Ms. Pitch?” asked Tabitha Day.

  “That’s a good question.” Ms. Picciotto walked to the corner of the whiteboard where she put the extra-credit assignments. “There are twenty-one students in the class. How many ways can the class be divided into eight groups of twos and threes? And for even extra-er credit, how many ways would there be if I said you could work in groups of four, too?”

  “Can we work in groups of four?” asked Deshaun Franklin. He and his three best friends liked to stick together.

  “No,” said Ms. Picciotto. “Just twos and threes. Go!” She clapped her hands.

  The class started scurrying around like a video of atoms forming molecules in a chemical reaction. Naturally, nobody headed my way. I looked around for Tabitha—she wasn’t exactly my friend, but she wasn’t unfriendly, either. Maybe she would let me join her group. But she already had two other kids with her.

  The scurrying stopped. Nine groups had formed: Four groups of three, four of two, and one of just me.

  “Pretty close, but we have one person left over,” said Ms. Picciotto. “Who has room for a third?”

  “That’s okay, Ms. Pitch,” I said. “I don’t mind working alone.”

  “Good science is collaborative,” she said. “And there aren’t enough hearts.” She scanned the nearby groups, looking for somewhere to put me. “Becky and Jen?”

  She could hardly have chosen worse. Becky Crandon aspired to a high place in the court of Hannah Lee, the reigning queen of middle school; the last thing
she wanted was to be associated with someone like me. She looked as if she’d been told to wipe up her little sister’s vomit with her favorite sweater.

  “We can work with Sukie, me and Lola,” said a guy’s voice behind me. I turned to look. It was Cole Farley, standing with Dolores Pereira.

  Becky flashed Cole a brilliant white smile. “Thanks, Cole! I owe you one,” she said.

  He smiled back, showing just as much dazzling teeth. “Not a problem,” he said. Becky looked as if Prince Charming had just given her the perfect shoe fitting.

  “Okay, people,” said Ms. Picciotto. “Don’t forget your lab notebooks. You’ll be picking up your hearts at the beginning of the next lab period, so be prompt.”

  Cole turned his toothy smile on me. “Hey, Spooky, ready to cut up a heart?” he asked.

  I smiled wanly back. “Too bad it’s just a sheep’s.”

  • • •

  Dad was out when I got home, and I didn’t see Mom or Cousin Hepzibah. I heard water running in the ground-floor bathroom, though. Mom must have been helping Cousin Hepzibah take a shower.

  I went upstairs to my tower room, half expecting Kitty to show up and make a fuss about Cole again. In the time since she’d died, Kitty had taken a dimmer and dimmer view of the kids around me. She expected them to be mean, which made sense—they often were. But she didn’t realize she was often the reason. They couldn’t see her, but the sensitive ones felt uncomfortable around her, which meant they felt uncomfortable around me, so they kept their distance. The milk spilling and so on kept the less sensitive ones away too. But Cole didn’t seem to mind her. I hoped she wouldn’t take stronger steps to chase him away. Not that I wanted him around, exactly, but I really didn’t want Kitty making a fuss.

  I dropped my book bag on the floor next to the little desk, which held a lamp, a blotter, a windup clock, and an old-fashioned telephone—the kind with a dial. I’d seen a lot of telephones like that at estate sales and flea markets, but I’d never actually used one. I lifted the receiver, but it seemed to be dead, and nothing happened when I dialed.

  Shrugging, I bent to take out my homework. My scalp prickled, and I felt a cold draft on the back of my neck. Kitty, here to administer her scolding.

  But when I turned to look, it wasn’t Kitty. It was the ghost that looked like me.

  In the daylight she appeared both clearer and less vivid than she had at night. I could see that she was older than me, maybe eighteen or twenty. She was standing in front of the east-facing window so that the light from the west fell full on her face—at least, it would have if her face had been solid. Instead, it streamed through her, making her glow like a girl made of light. Her sunlight-colored dress flowed to the floor from a narrow waist. Her hair, also the color of sunlight, flowed over full sleeves and bare, sunlight-colored shoulders.

  The only thing about her that wasn’t the color of sunlight was the box in her hands: a chest about the size of a turkey-roasting pan. It was made of dark wood bound with strips of iron and studded with iron nails. Or rather, maybe it had once been made of wood and iron. Like the ghost herself, it was insubstantial now, the ghost of a chest. It looked heavy, though—she held it as if it made her arms ache. I could see through it, but I couldn’t see inside it. A smell of spicy roses filled the room.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “What do you want?”

  She let out a sigh almost too soft to hear and lifted the casket. “Find my treasure,” she whispered.

  “What is it? Where is it? Who are you?”

  “Find my treasure,” she whispered again.

  Then the room seemed to darken, as if someone or something else had entered, something hard and oppressive. The ghost looked around, as if in alarm. The shapes and edges that defined her dissolved, and the second, oppressive presence vanished, too, washed away as she melted into sunlight, chest and all. It’s funny. Kitty never spoke, but I always understood her. This ghost spoke clearly enough, but I had no idea what she wanted. What treasure? Did she mean the box?

  It did look like a movie version of a pirate’s treasure chest. I imagined the lid rising to reveal a yellow glow of gold. Pieces of eight, ducats, rings, jeweled brooches, tangles of chains. They would be heavy and cold. They would chink and clatter when I ran my fingers through them.

  Was there a golden treasure hidden somewhere—buried, maybe? How would I find it? Could I keep it if I did? Could we buy our house back?

  Kitty would like that.

  “Where is it—where’s your treasure?” I asked the air, but the ghost didn’t come back.

  • • •

  I abandoned my homework and went downstairs. I found Cousin Hepzibah in the drawing room, sitting in her straight chair by the window, her cheeks still pink from the shower. A little table by her elbow held a cup of tea and her needlework. She was reading a book, but she looked up when I came in. “What’s the matter, child?” she asked.

  “Nothing, it’s . . .” I hesitated, then went for it. “Cousin Hepzibah, who is the ghost?”

  She took it calmly. “Which ghost?”

  I looked around for somewhere to sit. At the other end of the room, two sofas and a couple of armchairs clustered together like a clique of kids from drama club, but the only chair at this end was the one Cousin Hepzibah was already sitting in. She wasn’t using her little footstool, though, so I sat on that. “The woman who shows up in my room wearing the old-fashioned dress,” I said.

  “Young or old?”

  “Young. She looks like me. She’s carrying a box, like a small trunk.”

  “Ah. I expect that’s your great-great-great-great— No, wait.” She paused to count on her fingers. “Your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-aunt Hepzibah Toogood. Windy, they called her. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen her. How is she looking?”

  “Transparent.”

  Cousin Hepzibah smiled halfway. “Yes, well, that does happen. Otherwise?”

  “I don’t know. Sad, I guess.”

  “Did she give you a message?”

  I nodded. “She said to find her treasure.”

  Cousin Hepzibah looked sad too then. “Poor Aunt Windy. She’s been searching for a long time. I never could find it myself, and now, well . . . too late for me.” She shut her book and swept it in a semicircle, indicating her legs and the cane beside her chair. “You’re young. Maybe you can help her.”

  “I can try. What is her treasure?”

  “Nobody knows—at least, nobody I ever asked knew. Her story is unfinished, you know.”

  “Unfinished?”

  She nodded.

  “Is that why she’s a ghost?”

  Cousin Hepzibah nodded again doubtfully. “It could be. It’s a long, sad story. She lost her husband. He was a sailor, and he got shipwrecked and took up with pirates. She lost her baby, too. She lost everything.”

  “Pirates!” I said. “Is it pirate treasure, then?”

  “It could be.”

  “But where is it? Is it in the house? On the grounds?”

  She shrugged. “Nobody knows that, either.”

  “I could ask Dad to keep an eye out when he’s doing repairs,” I said. “That would be a start, anyway.”

  Cousin Hepzibah pursed her lips. “Do you think that’s wise? Your parents may be too young to understand.”

  “Too young!” They were in their forties! “But I’m even younger!”

  “Ah, but you’re young enough.”

  That made no sense.

  Still, when I thought about it, I saw she was right. Young or old, I had always known my parents wouldn’t understand about ghosts—that’s why I’d never told them about Kitty. I imagined their hurt, angry, worried faces. No, I couldn’t tell them about this.

  The doorbell rang, a long melancholy chime, startling me. “Sukie, dear, would you min
d?” said Cousin Hepzibah.

  “Of course!” I jumped up and ran to the door.

  I could feel Kitty skimming along beside me, radiating angry anxiety, as if she knew something bad was out there.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A Dead Phone Rings

  A man in an expensive-looking coat with a leather briefcase was standing on the doorstep. He looked surprised to see me, then quickly hid his surprise in a fake-looking smile. “I’m here to see Miss Thorne,” he said. “Hepzibah Thorne,” he added—just in case I was Miss Thorne too, I guess.

  “Is she expecting you?” I asked. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t like him. Neither, I could sense, did Kitty.

  “Yes. I’m here on business.” He said it politely enough, but I could hear undertones of “none of your business.”

  I wanted to shut the door in his face. This was Cousin Hepzibah’s house, though, not mine, so I couldn’t be rude. “This way,” I said and led him down the creaking corridor to the drawing room.

  “Miss Thorne, I’m Craig Jaffrey from Dimension Partners,” said the man, crossing the room to Cousin Hepzibah’s chair.

  “Yes, I remember you perfectly well,” she said drily. She indicated her cane and added, “You’ll forgive me if I don’t rise.”

  I noticed that she didn’t ask him to sit down—not that there would have been anywhere for him to sit if she had. Well, he could have sat on the footstool. I forestalled him by plopping back down on it myself.

  Mr. Jaffrey shifted his weight from one foot to the other and said, “Have you had a chance to think about our offer to buy the property here, Miss Thorne?”

  Buy the property! My heart fell. Where would we go?

  “Why, yes,” Cousin Hepzibah said. “I had all the time I needed the day you first made your offer. My answer is still no.”

  My hands, I found, had been clenched so tight my fingernails were digging into my palms. I took a deep breath and unclenched them.

  “Well, we certainly appreciate your consideration,” Mr. Jaffrey said. “I was hoping I could explain the advantages a little better. I’ve brought some materials that I’m sure you’ll find . . .” Here he looked around for somewhere to put down his briefcase. I saw him consider the little table at Cousin Hepzibah’s elbow—the only table at this end of the room—but it was covered with Cousin Hepzibah’s complicated-looking needlework.