Soon Be Free (3 page)

One brother—I can never remember which is which, because they all seem to be the same age—called to Ahn in Vietnamese, and she came out of the kitchen with a spatula in her hand.

“Ahn, remember I told you about Ernie, the bait shop man, who invaded my yard?”

The scholarly types all glared at me, so I lowered my voice. “Well, he's sent two other spies, the Berks, in the same car, and they made sure to check in the first day we were open, before there were any other guests. I just know they're looking for something major.”

“Maybe you're too suspicious,” Ahn whispered,
wiping the spatula on her apron. She slid out the door and closed it without a sound. “Nho has his Ph.D. comprehensive exams next week. He's a little tense,” she explained. “We are all walking on egg yolks.”

“Shells. Anyway, here's a chance for you to get away. It's Friday. Come spend the night at my house and we'll keep an eye on the Berks.”

Ahn looked worried. “I must give Nho a good breakfast tomorrow. He needs fuel for his study engine.”

“Come over and I'll fix a cheese omelette as big as a pizza. You can take it back to him in the morning.

Food is always scarce at Ahn's, so she was won over. “With tomatoes? Green peppers? Onions? Nho will be in heaven.”

• • •

That night we sipped hot, spiced cider from University of Kansas Jayhawk mugs and waited in the parlor for the Berks to come back from dinner. As soon as the bell tinkled over the front door, I jumped up. “Welcome back to Firebird House,” I sang as Mr. and Mrs. Berk started for the stairs. “Why not come into the parlor? My dad's got a fire going. These old houses stay cold as a tomb until July.”

“I'm going to bed,” Mr. Berk grumbled, and he ran up the stairs as if he might not make it to the bathroom in time. Mrs. Berk came into the parlor,
rattling trinkets on the tables in her wake. She pushed up the raglan sleeves of her huge magenta sweater and settled into a brocade love seat that was all out of proportion for her. She was like a hippo on a bar stool.

Her eyes roved over every inch of the room. “Old houses like this bury their secrets,” she said. Her mean eyes settled on mine, and a shiver worked its way up my back like cold puppy paws. I remembered something Grammy Shannon used to say: “It was like a ghost walked over my grave.”

What was Mattie Berk up to?

“Miss Elizabeth dead? Oh, mercy.” Ma stood in front of the fire, drying the hem of her skirt, and for a few heavy seconds the only sound in the room was the
whoosh-whoosh
of the gray worsted fabric at her heels. James knew Ma was praying, in the silent way Quakers do.

When she turned to him, her face was twisted with grief. “Thy father?”

“A blizzard kept him away. Then he came home one day and found Miz Lizbet here.”

“He never wrote to tell me this. Curious.”

“Pa's forgiven thee for hiding the runaways and for lying to him.”

“Well, I believe he knew I had the Negroes here, anyway, but he never let on. Did he give Miss Elizabeth a proper Christian burial?”

Before James could answer, Rebecca came down the stairs, dragging linen like a dingy bridal train. “Ma, that little room we built so no one could hear James's screechy violin playing? It's gone.”

Ma turned her eyes on James. “Thee's built a wall?”

And then he poured the whole story like milk from a pitcher. “Marshal Fain was onto us, Ma, just laying a trap. He posted his men outside, round the clock. Snow was up to our windows, and they kept clearing it off so they could see in. They were set on catching us in the act of hiding those runaways.”

“Thee must have been scared to death,” Rebecca said. “I'd have been.”

“Thee's six. Pa and Solomon and I are men,” James replied gruffly.

“Solomon was here, too?” asked Ma.

“Yes, ma'am. He had the typhoid fever first, and Miz Lizbet nursed him through. This was before Marshal Fain's men took up outside our door. Miz Lizbet slept beside him right there in front of the fire.” James nodded toward Will's pallet. “Washed him night and day, like you did Rebecca when she was burning up with fever. By the time his fever broke, she was sick herself. About then's when Marshal Fain's men planted themselves out there. So we moved Miz Lizbet upstairs to the screechy violin room, and Solomon tended her night and day like she'd done him.”

“They were sweet on each other,” Ma said, then caught herself. “Still, it wasn't proper, a lady and a gentleman.”

“They meant to marry as soon as Miz Lizbet got well, but she didn't.”

Rebecca's eyes were dark and wide as sunflower centers. “Did Miz Lizbet die, James?”

Ma reached out and took Rebecca under her wing. “Brave soul, she's gone to her reward. James, the burial?”

“I'm coming to that.” How was he to tell Ma that forever they'd be living in a house with a dead body?

Ma said, “Well, now, thee couldn't take her outside, what with the marshal's men watching thy every move. And the ground was too frozen to dig a proper grave.” Ma's voice got hard as gravel. “What did thy father do with poor Miss Elizabeth, James?”

“He said what needed to be said at her funeral service, commending her to the Lord and all.”

“And then?” Ma asked impatiently.

James bristled. “Well, what choice did we have, Ma? If the marshal had gotten Miz Lizbet alive, he'd have hauled her back to her owner in Kentucky.”

“One person does not
own
another, James.”

“It's the law, at least the way they read it. But if he'd gotten her dead, there's no telling what those Border Ruffians would have done to her body.” James felt tears pounding the backs of his eyes. He mustn't cry like a baby on his thirteenth birthday. He was sure Will hadn't cried over that leg of his.

Then Rebecca saved him having to say the words that would hurt the most. “Why, thee must have left her upstairs and walled her off!”

Ma clapped her hand to her mouth. “James, she lies upstairs?”

“Yes, ma'am,” he whispered.

Rebecca stamped her foot, and the floorboards buckled. “James, how could thee? Oh, poor Miz Lizbet, all dead and alone like that.”

Ma's lips moved in prayer, as if she were reading. After the longest time, she said, “Thee did the honorable thing, James Baylor Weaver, thee and thy father and Solomon.”

Rebecca wrinkled her nose. “Why, how she must have smelled!”

James nodded, remembering those horrid first weeks.

“Remember last summer when Jilly died having her pups, and we didn't find the poor things for a week? Remember, Ma? Thee gave me a handkerchief soaked in rosewater to put to my nose, but I can still smell Jilly.” She sniffed the air. “I believe I smell Miz Lizbet, too.”

Ma cast Rebecca a stern scowl and said, “There will be no more talk of a dead body in this house.”

“Yes, Ma,” Rebecca said with a groan.

“James? No more talk. Does thee hear me?”

“Clear as a whippoorwill, Ma.”

Ma took a deep breath. “Now, has thee anything left in the pantry that I might turn into a decent meal? Thee must be hungry, James. Thee's thin as a carrot.”

“There hasn't been one good meal since thee left,” James admitted.

“Fire the oven, son,” Ma ordered. “What's a birthday without a cake?” She pulled down the canister of flour and picked out tiny black bugs that had mercifully died with the winter freeze.

Silvery-cold air hissed through the uneven joints of the windows behind us. Firebird fluttered his yellow wings to rustle up a little warmth. I could swear he said, “Brrrr!”

Mattie Berk pulled her sweater over her hands and muttered, “You call this spring?”

“The house is nearly one hundred fifty years old,” I reminded her. We all three drifted over to the fireplace and toasted our hands.

Ahn, who knows the history of Firebird House as well as I do, began the saga.

“It was built the first time in 1855, then again in 1856, after a fire. In 1863 the kitchen was destroyed in William Quantrill's raid, but the upper floor was safe.”

“Yeah, yeah, including the room with the skeleton.”

“Not just a skeleton, Mrs. Berk,” Ahn said indignantly. “It was Miz Lizbet Charles. She died of typhoid fever in that room. Her sweetheart, Solomon, took care of her until he closed her eyes for the last time.”

“Sad tale.” Mrs. Berk ran her hand around a section of wainscoting. “Is this the original wood?”

“All of it,” I boasted. “My mom and I stripped it and refinished every inch of it.”

I watched the woman closely. She was inspecting the wall as if she might find a trapdoor or a bogus bookcase that swung open into a secret room. Maybe she knew something I didn't.

She tapped the floor with her foot, which was about the size of a Ping-Pong paddle. “Floor seems solid. Ever have to pull up the floorboards?” She wore hefty shoulder pads and had no waist. All that bulk stood on two thick piano legs. She sank back into the love seat and sent it rocking on its back legs. “Talk to me about the Weaver family.”

Obviously she already knew a lot about the Weavers, but I volunteered, “They were Quakers, agents on the Underground Railroad.”

“Mrs. Weaver was, not Mr.,” Ahn explained. “He didn't approve of hiding slaves, but he was an abolitionist, too—”

Mrs. Berk interrupted her. “Talk to me about James.”

Ahn picked up a photo of Wolcott Castle, taken at its rededication the previous summer. “James Weaver designed this beautiful house where forty people could live and never run out of hot water.”

Mrs. Berk glanced at the picture. I could tell it wasn't the first time she'd seen it. “He was some famous architect, I've heard.”

“Oh, yes,” Ahn agreed, “but he was only twelve when we knew him.”

“What are you talking about? The guy lived in the last century.”

“Of course,” Ahn said gently. “But we knew him well.”

“Whatever.” Mrs. Berk wasn't big on romance. But she sure was nosy. “I heard something about a diary you found upstairs. Anything good in it?”

“Of course!” Ahn said, insulted. “It was all about Mrs. Weaver and Miz Lizbet and the people running away, the slaves.
Very
good.”

“Yeah, yeah, but anything about Weaver's buildings?”

“No,” I answered. “Mrs. Weaver's diary was written way before James started designing buildings.” I thought of his redheaded self at my age, spending long evenings without TV or video games, sketching houses and barns and churches by candlelight. Imagine what he could have done with a Macintosh!

Mrs. Berk lit up a cigarette, striking the match on the rough wood sign with Smokey Bear saying,
THANKS FOR NOT SMOKING, FOLKS!
She tossed the lit match into the fireplace. Ahn rushed forward with her cider mug as an ashtray.

Mrs. Berk said, “Find any of Weaver's architectural drawings stashed away in this house?”

I shook my head. “I guess they'd be valuable if we had.”

“Valuable?” Mrs. Berk shrugged her mighty shoulders and exhaled a cloud of stinky smoke. “No, not especially.”

Ahn and I glanced at each other while Mrs. Berk picked lint off her broad-beam navy blue slacks. “Well, I'm turning in. The fire's making me groggy. Too much history, I guess. You're not light sleepers, are you? Raymond and I keep the radio on low all night.”

“No problem,” Ahn said. “Dana's family sleeps like a brick.”

“A
log
, Ahn.”

Mrs. Berk faked a wide yawn. She pulled her thick knees together and stood up. Whatnots rattled again. “Catch you in the morning.”

When her wide rear end was halfway up the stairs, I whispered, “Not if we catch you first.”
And we will catch her,
I thought. Somehow I'd find out what the Berks knew about James Weaver, who'd scratched out awful violin tunes and sketched his first buildings within these walls—and buried Miz Lizbet behind one of them.

I'd read a description of James Weaver in his mother's diary. He and I shared the same copper-wire hair and blue green eyes, the same paper-pale skin, as if we were twins who, through a weird accident of birth, were separated by fifteen decades. If anyone was going to learn something new about James, it was going to be me, not Mattie Berk.

Pa and James washed up out back. Pa had layers of travel dirt to scrub away before Ma would let him offer the blessing for supper. After supper, James would tend to Buttermilk, who'd carried Pa all those miles. Buttermilk's chestnut coat was matted with sweat, and the white mottled zigzag that gave her her name looked gray as wash water.

“Long trip,” James said. He was always shy for words when he was alone with Pa. With Ma around, conversation flowed more easily, and of course, Rebecca never stopped yammering for a second.

“I'd have run Buttermilk like a racehorse if I'd known thy ma would be waiting home.”

“Lucky for Buttermilk thee didn't know.” The horse flicked the first of the season's flies off with her tail.

Pa's eyes darted up toward the point just under the roof of their house. “Thee got it all settled, the business over Miss Elizabeth?” His voice was tight. Why, he was afraid of Ma!

“Yes, sir, she knows, and she knows thee knows, and she says there'll be no more talk of dead bodies in the house.”

Pa nodded, relieved.

“I suspect she'll have a few more thoughts on the subject when she gets thee alone,” James said, snickering.

“Now that thee's thirteen, thee's an authority on women?”