The Seeker A Novel (R. B. Chesterton) (3 page)

My admiration for Mr. Emerson knows no boundaries.

I stopped to speak to him on Post Road, and he made the introduction of Mr. Thoreau. I am only a governess, but Mr. Emerson does not make such distinctions. We chatted for a moment and I was terribly distracted by Mr. Thoreau’s presence. He, too, was agitated. We never looked at each other directly, only those silly glancing looks I’d chastised my fourteen-year-old charge, Rachel McGill, for practicing. Ears burning and cheeks flushed, I bade the gentlemen farewell and we went our separate ways. But I had learned Mr. Emerson and Mr. Thoreau would be at the McGill home that very evening for a discussion group. I was invited to attend. Not as a governess, but as a member of the audience.

All day I thought of the slender gentleman with the burning eyes and bashful glances. There was something about him. That night, he did not speak to me, nor I to him, but our awareness of each other was acute. Mr. Thoreau’s presence, and the dangerous ideas put forth by Mr. Emerson regarding individual thought and responsibility, fired my desire to live a full and complete life. I recognized the truth of Mr. Emerson’s lecture. We are all bound to nature, to each other, to a moral responsibility to uphold right and good. He is considered dangerous by some, especially those who want to lull the population into complacent sleep. I have been awakened, both in spirit and in my heart.

I knew that night—my destiny was linked with Mr. Thoreau.

I put the leather-bound journal aside. That was Bonnie’s first entry. And from there, she recounted the time she spent with Thoreau on Walden Pond. Their love was no secret. Emerson knew of it and, if Bonnie’s journal entries could be trusted, approved of the liaison. The romance that blossomed between Thoreau and Bonnie was apparently championed by all of the Transcendentalists. The Alcott family invited Bonnie to their gatherings, and she documented conversations with Louisa May and her father, Bronson Alcott, another great thinker of the era. Surely I would find the evidence of these meetings I desperately needed.

My forefinger traced the gold-embossed lettering on the journal, an expensive thing in the mid-1800s. Thoreau gave it to Bonnie, and it in turn came into my possession. What I held in my hand was more than just a remarkable account of a romance and life; it was my destiny. Bonnie had found hers beside Walden Pond, and I would do the same.

Turning on my computer, I continued the work of condensing and outlining my dissertation. It would follow the natural flow of Bonnie’s journal, bringing into sharp focus Thoreau’s habits, thoughts, and writing. I had been gifted with a unique lens through which to explore Thoreau—the magnifying glass of love.

At half past nine, I put my writing away and found my coat and mittens to go back to the inn for a book on local history I’d seen in the inn’s front parlor. Dorothea had offered the use of any of the books in her specialized library. I hoped by now all of the dinner guests would be gone. I didn’t dislike the residents of the area, but they distracted me. They claimed Thoreau as if he were their own flesh and blood, even those who hadn’t a clue to his philosophy. They told their tired old stories as if they were truth.

I found it annoying and a bit tedious. Most of the anecdotes were hogwash, because none included the mysterious woman who shared his life. Bonnie had been totally excised from his biography. It was as if Thoreau’s family had accomplished exactly what they’d set out to do. Not even in memory were they allowed to be together.

My doctoral thesis, and the ensuing publicity I expected, would change that forever. Bonnie Cahill would get her due.

Before I left, I tossed more logs on the fire. Patrick had left me well supplied. He was taken with me and made no secret of it, though it would come to nothing. To the dismay of the giggling teenage girls who took tea at the inn hoping to catch his eye, he ignored them but would sit for a moment and chat with me. I admit that I liked his bravado and his brash attempts to flirt. I was pleased that he tried. I was nothing more than a challenge, but it made me feel young and desirable.

Stepping out onto my small porch, I paused. Snow blanketed everything, at least an inch thick in the short time I’d been writing. But it wasn’t the snow that stopped me, it was the set of little footprints, child-sized, that ended right at the porch. As if a child had come out of the woods and stood on the top step, watching me through the window while I worked.

3

“No, dear, no children in the inn this week.” Dorothea dusted a tiger oak sideboard as she talked to me. Never one to waste a moment, she always did two or three things at once. It was a truly annoying habit. “Footprints? No right-minded mother would let her brood out in this weather. It’s a blue nor’easter headed right at us, if you can believe what Patrick has been spouting. He watches the weather channel back in the pantry. He says that bald-headed weatherman is headed our way because they’re predicting a record snowfall and a drop in the temperatures. Black ice. That’s what the highways are going to be. Good thing you’re tucked in for the holidays.”

“The shoe prints were small.” I was concerned. “Maybe a young child. Nine or thereabouts.”

She paused and the queerest expression shifted across her face. “Really.”

It was a flat statement, not a question. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

She stood up, wadding the dust cloth into a ball. “You wouldn’t recall, but a decade back there was another bad snowstorm and a local youngster, a little girl, went missing.”

A chill climbed my spine. “Was she found?”

Dorethea gazed into the distance, and I was aware of the clatter of plates and flatware, a bit of laughter from the bar where old Cooley Butler played some 1940s love songs on the piano.

Dorothea spoke at last. “No. She was never found. The not knowing drove her mother insane. It broke Helen. Just broke her in two like a rotted stick. Can’t say it wouldn’t have done the same for me.”

I leaned closer to the desk where Dorothea’s electric heater churned at full blast. “How old was the child?”

“Third grade. A lovely child. A bonnie lass, as my dad would say.”

“You knew her well.” It was written clearly on her face, the loss and the sadness.

“Dig around at Henry David, but leave this alone. Bad memories. That child went into the woods and never came out.”

The creepy sensation crawled along my back again. I didn’t care for it. “People don’t just disappear.”

Dorothea’s lips thinned and straightened. “You’re welcome to use any of the books in the parlor. Just return them when you’re done. You might want to wait here for a bit. I’ll put in a call to the police chief. He should get over here before the snow covers everything. If there’s a child about, the authorities need to know.”

“Do you think it’s really a matter for the police?” I was a bit taken aback. I didn’t want to be involved in even the most benign investigation. I had work to do. Grinding work that required my total concentration.

“Chief McKinney will want to know. He’ll check it out. No bother to him or you.”

The color rising along her throat revealed her thoughts. “Those prints don’t belong to your missing child from ten years back. She’d be grown by now.”

“I know.” She pushed away from the desk. “Help yourself to the books.” She hurried to the office where she could talk privately on the phone.

Will McKinney was a stout man with a walrus moustache and heavy jowls reddened by the cold. He found me at the inn, arms loaded with books. He’d already been to my cabin.

“No footprints,” he said without preamble. “Snow’s coming down like a mother. Covered everything by the time I got there. Even
your
prints.”

“I saw them.” The instinct to defend myself made my voice more strident than I intended. This wasn’t a case of my overactive imagination.

“Don’t doubt it, but they’re gone now. Damned snow. Morons who shouldn’t be driving will be wrecking everywhere. This is no weather for grown-ups to be out, much less a kid. Folks today don’t mind their children.”

“I saw someone in the woods earlier, and I thought it might be a child. It was just a flash of a figure moving through the trees.”

“You seen any young’uns hanging around your cabin?”

The question felt loaded. “No, should I have?”

“Last year, when the cabin was empty, Dorothea discovered a group of middle-school kids hanging out there. They’d busted the lock. Smoking cigarettes, likely dope. They drank the liquor she’d stored there.” He pursed his lips and his moustache jumped like a caterpillar. “Might be they were hoping to use the cabin again.”

“How old were these kids?” A ten-year-old was a different matter from an eighteen-year-old. I could handle the younger ones. The nearly grown ones could be treacherous.

“Twelve and thirteen.” He sighed. “Kids today get into stuff that wasn’t around when I was growing up. Both parents work, they’re left to their own devices. Too often that means drugs or alcohol, or both.”

“Did Dorothea press charges?”

“No need. The two ringleaders went off to military or boarding school. A hard decision for the parents, but it was the right one. They were headed for trouble, and if Mom or Pop can’t watch over them, paying a school to do it is the next best option.”

In theory I agreed with him, but I knew first-hand the brutality of boarding schools. Rich kids with money and no moral compass tortured the weaker, more sensitive kids. Some grew out of it, others grew into it.

“I’ll keep an eye out. Chief, Dorothea mentioned a young girl who went missing years back.”

The smile faded from his face. “Doesn’t take much to bring back that bad memory.”

“Dorothea said she disappeared.”

He rolled his shoulders and stood straighter. “That little girl vanished. We searched high and low for weeks. Dogs, helicopters, volunteer searchers. It didn’t make sense then and it doesn’t now. She was just gone.” His bleak expression told me how much the past troubled him.

“Do you think a predator picked her up?”

“I don’t want to think that, but she sure didn’t hitch-hike out of town. Someone had to take her.”

“That must have been horrible for her parents.”

“For all of us,” he said. “For every single person in town.” He inhaled. “Give me a call if you see or hear anything that troubles you.” He gave me a card. “Winters here are usually calm. The weather causes problems, but none we haven’t handled for years. Dorothea tells me you’re a writer.”

I shook my head. “I’m a doctoral student at Brandeis. I’m writing my dissertation.”

The first genuine grin crossed his face. “And here I was hoping you’d be the next Stephen King. I like a good ghost yarn on a cold winter night.”

“I could recommend a few. ‘The Turn of the Screw’ is one of the scariest stories I’ve ever read.”

His eyebrows shifted up. “I read a bit of Henry James when I was younger. I once thought I might be a scribbler myself. Have to say I like the new breed of writer. They get to the point and don’t use a lot of ten-dollar words.”

Everyone was a critic, but I was pleasantly surprised. McKinney’s honesty was refreshing.

“If I see any children, I’ll let you know.” It was late, but I had more writing to do.

“I’d appreciate it. Young’uns don’t always understand the capricious nature of the weather and how deadly it can be.”

“I hear you.”

“Joe told me you’re hiking the pond trails. You take care, too. When the snow covers the ground, it’s easy to step in a hole or trip over a vine or limb. Grownups freeze just as readily as a child. You want me to drive you back to the cabin?”

“No, thanks. I need the exercise. I grew up in the mountains. I’ll take care.”

He put his smoky hat back on and left. I followed him, ready to get back to work.

I entered a warm, comfortable cabin and set immediately to work. By midnight, my neck was cramped and stiff and my shoulders aching. Putting aside my writing, I turned off the computer, swallowed a mild sleeping pill, and took Bonnie’s journal and a glass of wine to bed.

Sipping the wine, I read from the middle of the journal. I’d perused it front to back numerous times, and now I liked to let the pages open on their own. The section dealt with Bonnie’s abilities—and Thoreau’s interest in the supernatural.

Strange dreams have always attended me. Some forecast the future, others seem untethered to any time or place. My most recent dreams involve the child, Louisa May. She is a precocious young lady with an active mind, and a will of her own. She is not a spirit who will be forced into the constraints of a corset and a marriage.

In my dreams, I see her surrounded by numerous children. Vivacious girls. There is laughter and tears, as there would be in any household. And Louisa is writing at a desk beside an open window that gives a view of the orchard.

These are not her children. Perhaps she is a teacher, like her father, and these are her future pupils. She loves them greatly, each for their individuality. They will bring her happiness.

With the clarity of hindsight, I knew Bonnie was describing the March family, the literary children who would sustain the entire Alcott family. Jo, Meg, Beth, Amy, Laurie—I recognized them. Bonnie would never have, though, because Louisa May Alcott was still a child. She hadn’t written the first word of
Little Women
.

But there was another passage I sought. The police chief’s visit brought to mind a mention my aunt had made of finding tracks near the cabin at Walden. It had been only a brief mention, more of a curiosity than anything else. I had come to believe that my aunt longed for a child.

As I found the place and began to read, dread caught me. This was not the way I remembered it. I had read the journal repeatedly, and though I knew of Bonnie’s and Thoreau’s attempts to speak with departed spirits, I didn’t remember this dark account. I held my breath and read, more and more concerned that I had no recollection of my aunt’s words.

I’m reluctant to put these words on the page. This morning, before he went to attend his surveying chores, Henry asked that we attempt a communication. He sorely misses his brother, John. Though I was reluctant to do this, I yielded to Henry’s impassioned pleas.