Tomorrow's Sun (10 page)

Jake’s eyebrow elevated. “You’ve been busy since I left.”

You have no idea
.

“Take a look at this.” Jake pointed to the flower carved on the end of the bench.

The kids scrambled closer. A tiny gasp came from Adam. “That’s like Grandma’s quilt. The one she put over Mom’s casket.”

Jake nodded and looked up at Emily, his eyes faraway and glassy. “It’s the same pattern as the quilt in the attic.”

Adam peered over Lexi, whose face had paled. “The rose wreath is a symbol.” His expression mirrored his uncle’s. “It means someone died on the journey.”

“The shovel would be faster.” Lexi banged the broom handle on one side of the opening in the porch and then the other. Dust billowed out of the square hole.

“Be careful. Go slow.” Adam chewed his thumbnail. “The wood might be rotten.”

Jake stood back from the three people crowding around the excavation site. He leaned on a post, took a picture with his phone, and tried not to appear as impatient as the kid gnawing his thumb to the bone. He studied the ceiling. Bead board, identical to the wood used for the sliding door below, painted pale blue. In the corners, dirty cobwebs dotted with shriveled egg sacks swayed in the warm breeze. He tried to imagine sitting in a rocking chair sipping lemonade on a swept-clean porch, acting natural while a runaway slave slept in the room below, waiting for cover of night.

Emily’s doubts seemed to have vanished. There was no other logical explanation for the trapdoor. No one would place the entrance to a root cellar under a porch. But it wouldn’t take much to turn an existing cistern into a secret hiding place.

“I see it.” Adam stepped into the foot-deep hole. He brushed the remaining dirt from the door. “Give me the broom.” With the care of a trained scientist, he brushed away debris then threw the broom onto the porch.

Lexi dropped to her knees. “Pull it up.”

Adam looped two fingers into an iron “U” hook. One end of the square stone lifted then tipped. “Ouch!
Man!”
He stuck his finger in his mouth and looked up at Jake. “It’s too stinkin’ heavy.” He stepped out, face pale but focused on the stone.

“Let me see that.” Emily held out her hand.

Adam pulled his finger from his mouth and held it up. A right-angle tear in the skin quickly outlined in red. “It’s nothin’. Jake, can you lift that?” A drop of blood splashed to the floorboards.

“I’ll get something.” The screen door whined as Emily opened it.

Wrapping his finger in the bottom of his shirt, Adam pressed his lips together and glared. “I’m fine!”

Jake stepped into the opening and hefted the stone. The underside was scraped and scarred. He flipped it out of the way.

Adam pulled his flashlight out of one of his numerous pockets. He’d just flicked it on when Emily returned with a washcloth and a Band-Aid. With a look of impatient resignation, Adam let her wash his wound.

Jake’s gaze lingered on her fingers, on the almost artful way she tore open the bandage. “You’re very skilled at that.”

“I ran a preschool for three years. Before that I taught art at a junior high.” She aimed a smile at Adam. “We did wood carving and stained glass.”

Adam’s frustration seemed to morph into mere impatience at her touch. The contrast of Adam’s rough, reddened skin against the ivory smoothness of hers transported Jake to a fantasy world where his life wasn’t on hold. What would it feel like to—

“What’s that?” Lexi pointed to something stuffed into one corner of the recess.

With slow, careful movements, Adam pulled it out with his left hand. A frayed strip of cloth, once blue or purple, now faded to a pinkish gray. Tiny, discolored flowers, just barely discernable, dotted the fabric. “Wow. This could have been part of a dress worn by a slave.”

Lexi nodded. “Maybe it belonged to Mariah.”

“Can I see that?” Emily slid her hand under the strip of cloth. “Wait here.” She flew down the porch stairs faster than Jake had seen her move yet. The shed door whined on its hinges. She was back in seconds, carrying a wooden box. “I found this the other day. Look at the fabric on the back of this. I think it’s the same.” She held a crudely fashioned, glass-fronted shadow box.

“What’s in it?” Lexi touched the glass. “A dog collar?”

Emily nodded. “Jake found a picture of a dog that used to…” Emily’s voice faded. She angled the box toward the light. Her lips parted.

The same surge of emotion reflected on Emily’s face coursed through Jake as he stared at the rounded metal—two half circles bolted together on one side, lying slightly parted on the other. Deep scratches marred the surface. Jake locked eyes with Emily.

Adam exhaled through pursed lips. “This wasn’t made for a dog, was it?”

The fragile pages trembled in Emily’s hand. She rested the one she’d already read on the cover of her T-shirt bin and read the others.

Emily walked over to the church pew and stared up at the cross, filled with a strange certainty she, too, was embarking on a new mission.

September 3, 1852

“He’ll be fine. Just fine.”

Hannah worried the waist of her fan-front dress as she scanned the room that would soon be hers. On the wall to her right, freshly painted shelves displayed her few prized possessions—a child’s cup and saucer Papa bought her in New York when he’d crossed the ocean to scout out land in America, and the little toy stove with two miniature pans her grandmother sent from England for her first Christmas in their little one-room cabin in Wisconsin Territory. Ten years had passed, yet still she could remember the softness of the striped fabric wrapped around the tiny stove. She and Mama had cried and talked of Grandmother Yardley as they tore the cloth into strips to decorate the evergreen bough draping the mantel.

She walked to the window and flattened her hand against one of the panes. Mama had been so proud of her windows that opened and closed—Adams Glass, shipped from Pennsylvania.

Thoughts of Mama distracted her from worries of Liam only for a moment.

“There shall no evil befall thee…he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”

“They’ll all be fine.” It helped to say it aloud, even if the only one listening was a doll with a papier-mâché face.

It was only half past eight, still light out. Flies buzzed in and out of the window. A mosquito landed on her hand and she slapped it, leaving a trail of someone else’s blood. The river gurgled in a lazy summer way. A perfect night for a walk along the riverbank, her hand tucked in the crook of Liam’s arm, whispering of wedding plans.

An exasperated sigh ruffled the coppery tendrils tickling her face. Make-believe brought only emptiness. God knew what He was doing. There were more important things than dreaming of white lace and daisy bouquets.

Papa had told her to rest for a few hours, said he’d call up the stairs when it was time, and there was nothing more she could do for their guests. They were all asleep.

How could they?

“Musn’t think.” She stretched out on the folded quilt she’d laid on the floor. Truth be told, she’d come up here to be farther away from the sadness in the cellar. She knew she’d hear nothing down in the back parlor where she slept for now. They’d harbored seven people since spring and never had she heard a sound, even from the little ones. A child too afraid to cry was an unbearable thought.

She forced her top lids to meet her bottom. Her fingers still worried the gray muslin of her dress. If only she could catch the thoughts that flitted through her mind and seal them tight like fireflies in a canning jar. Her arm grazed Tildy. She picked up the doll by one wooden arm. Tildy had been Mama’s doll when she was little. Hannah always fancied Tildy looked like Mama with her black hair, round face, and rosy cheeks. Her body was soft leather and her wood shaving stuffings made her huggable. She still wore the dark green calico dress Mama had stitched for Hannah’s tenth birthday.

A tear slid to her tatting-edged pillowcase. She sat up. Eighteen was far too old for hugging dolls.

But just the right age for reading love letters.

The board at the back of her closet lifted with a soft
whoosh
. She’d promised Liam she’d destroy them. Tear them to bits and toss them in the river. Only once had she followed through. Watching his words dissolve and float away was intolerable. Someday, as they sat by the fire and reminisced on the early days of their love, she would pull them out and read them and Liam would be glad she’d saved them.

No one would find them here.

And it was only a small deception.

S
unday morning dawned with a tease of summer. Emily opened the dining room window on her way to the coffeepot. Through the trees, she glimpsed a black convertible sailing across the bridge, a woman with platinum hair behind the wheel.