Yesternight (20 page)

“Oh?”

“I am going to now ask you some questions based on the in
formation she has managed to tell us, to see if the specifics of her story match what actually happened. Do you mind speaking of your sister's death?”

“No, I don't mind.” Mrs. Rook offered a tight smile. “I know from your letter that the child is aware that Violet drowned. Unless someone from Friendly told Janie about Violet, I honestly can't imagine how she would have learned that information. We didn't even list the cause of death in the obituary.”

“What was the precise date of her death?”

“January 1, 1890. New Year's Day.”

“How old was she?”

“Nineteen. Her birthday was December 2, so she was a young nineteen.”

Nineteen
years old. The
first
day of the
first
month. The
second
day of the
twelfth
month. Nowhere in any of those numbers did I hear her mention “eight.”

“Do you know if a particular number troubled Violet?” I asked.

Mrs. Rook's dusky eyebrows shot up. “A number?”

“Yes. Was there a number that got in the way of her equations?”

“I don't believe so.”

I wrote down Mrs. Rook's lack of knowledge in these matters. “Do you know where she drowned?” I asked.

She bit her lip, and I braced myself for the possibility that she might, indeed, say,
At the Hotel Yesternight, near Du Bois, Nebraska
.

“In a lake,” she said instead, “just behind the other house.”

“I see. And you're positive of that location?”

“Yes.” She swallowed. “I know for a fact that's where she died.”

“Thank you. Thank you for that information.” I released a
silent breath of relief and wrote down her response. “Now . . . let's see . . .” My eyes struggled to focus for a moment; the words on the paper blurred in my lap. “Janie often suffers from nightmares about drowning, but what she doesn't seem to understand is how she got into the lake. She talks about a person being there, and a number written on glass, which is why I brought up the subject of the number to begin with. It seems to be a key to understanding her murder.”

“Murder?” Mrs. Rook rose up tall in her chair. “Whoever said anything about a murder? Is that what the little girl is calling it?”

“Well . . .” I lowered my eyes to my notes and thought back to all that I knew about Janie's accounts of Violet's death. “She's never used the words
murder
or
killing
, but she's clearly troubled by the fact that a specific person is there, watching her drown. Was someone else with her, watching her?”

Mrs. Rook's forehead creased at those words, and, oh, how her eyes welled with plump tears. Her fingers clutched the ends of the armrests; her lips trembled, and I waited, simply waited, for all of those emotions to bubble over and transform into words.

She fetched a handkerchief from a pocket in the pale-green sweater she wore. “I was wondering if I might need this at some point.” She blotted her cheeks, tittering a little. “It's been so long since we lost Violet, but still . . .” She sniffed and dabbed at her nose. “The grief has never completely gone away. The emotions always seem to be hiding behind other, brighter ones.”

I nodded. “Difficult emotions do have a way of lingering, I'm afraid. Even when you believe they no longer hold any power over you.”

She wiped at her cheeks and smiled in embarrassment. “I'm sorry.”

“Please, there's no need to apologize, Mrs. Rook. I understand. I have sisters myself, and I—” I stopped mid-sentence, forbidding myself from shoving my own life into the situation. “Are you able to speak about the person who was with Violet when she died? Might it have been her husband?”

Mrs. Rook shoved her right elbow deep into the armchair's fabric and touched the handkerchief to her lips. “I haven't spoken about that day aloud in such a long, long time.” She closed her eyes. “He was . . . Nelson . . . he was . . .” A shiver snaked through her. “He was, indeed, there. He watched her drown, I'm sorry to say.”

I wrote those two sentences down in my notebook, my breaths ragged, my penmanship again faltering, ink smearing.

[Nelson] was, indeed, there. He watched her drown, I'm sorry to say.

My pulse drummed inside my ears. “And yet,” I said, “you state that it was not a murder, correct? Nelson was there, but the family never suspected him of foul play?”

“No.” Her voice broke with emotion. “We were all there. It was January. The lake was frozen. We were ice skating—Violet, Nels, and I, along with Vernon and a few of the other local young people. We were all so young then. Even though Violet and Nels had married, we were all just children, really, having heaps of fun on a cold New Year's Day.”

My mind envisioned a serene scene of young men and women skating in the luminous whiteness of a Kansas winter. I thought of
Janie shouting through her house in the middle of the night,
It's too cold! It's too cold!

“Oh no!” I said with a sudden stab of pain in my right side. “Did—did the ice break, Mrs. Rook? Is that what happened?”

She pursed her lips, and the tears brewing in her eyes spilled over to her cheeks. “It started off as a low and troubling
crack
. I called for Violet to watch out. I saw the gash forming. She must not have heard it—she was so busy gliding across the ice so beautifully, so peacefully. But then a sound like a gunshot exploded across the lake, and she plunged down into that freezing cold water. Another boy, Elmer, had a doctor for a father. He warned the rest of us not to jump straight in because of the sudden shock of the cold—he said it could stop a heart from beating in an instant. Nels tried to dive in to help her, but Elmer grabbed him by the waist and begged him to submerge himself with care or we'd lose them both. Violet had already stopped struggling down there. Poor Nels lowered himself down into the icy depths as quickly yet cautiously as he could, and he pulled my darling sister out.”

I sat there with the tip of my pen hovering over the paper, unsure what to say; what to feel. Clearly, no version of me could have been responsible for a death like that, but the pang of Mrs. Rook's loss rendered me speechless. I suddenly missed both Bea and Margery to no end and experienced foggy memories of the two of them holding my hands in a hospital.

“We all loved her so much,” said Mrs. Rook in a whisper. She balled the handkerchief in her right hand and tightened her fingers around it. “We all wanted to save her, but Elmer was right. The shock of the cold was too much. Even if we all had jumped in . . . she was gone so quickly. And I was so angry, afterward. So angry
that a brilliant girl, a loving girl, lost her life because of something so silly as skating figures across an icy lake.”

I blinked at her, and my mind took several seconds to process what she just said. “Did—did you just say, ‘figures'?”

“Yes, she was skating figure—” Her lips formed the shape of the ensuing word, but she stopped herself and met my eyes.

Janie giggled from the other room.

“Was it a number?” I asked.

Mrs. Rook nodded. “Yes.”

“Which number?”

Another discernible swallow rippled down her throat. “It was the number most people love to skate: eight, of course.”

I jumped and involuntarily jerked my hands into the air, which sent the pages of my notebook fluttering like an eruption of flapping birds.

Mrs. Rook jumped as well. “Is that the same number the little girl mentioned?”

“Oh, God. Oh, my God.” I scrambled to pick up my pen and pushed myself to my feet.

Mrs. Rook stood up, too, her legs unsteady. “Is this a significant coincidence?”

“Yes, yes, yes—oh, yes! We've gone well past coincidences by this point. It's time for you to come speak with Janie and her family.” I beckoned to the woman with both hands. “You must read the journals her parents have kept over the years. It's all there. Aside from confusing ‘Puppy' with ‘Poppy,' she's right about everything—the red flowers on your wallpaper, your name, her name, her age, Friendly, your husband's watch, Nel from ‘the other house,' the eights. Oh, my heavens, we've gone miles and
miles beyond coincidences.” I gathered up my notebook and briefcase, the papers rippling and crinkling and perfuming the air with fresh ink.

“Do you believe in it, then?” she asked. “Do you, a trained psychologist, stand by the theory of reincarnation?”

I stood up tall and held my belongings against my hips.

“Yes,” I said without a shred of doubt in my mind.

M
rs. Rook and I joined the others in the house's front parlor, a festive room decorated in Christmas garland and photographs of the Rooks and their children from throughout the years. A candle-lit Christmas tree stood in front of a bay window framed by curtains as green as the pine needles themselves.

The O'Daires, Tillie, and Mr. Rook sipped coffee and tea and dined on cinnamon rolls, and the sight of them all together—this growing family of sorts, connected by time and memories—sent a surge of emotion rushing up the middle of my chest. Of all the people in that house, I least expected me to be the one to cry that day, but there I was, suddenly covering my mouth, fighting to keep my emotions at bay.

“What's wrong, Miss Lind?” asked Janie, which made the lump in my throat thicken all the more.

“What is it?” Michael rose to his feet. “Has—has there been a mistake?”

“No, not at all.” I blinked like mad to chase off tears. “Janie was so right about so much. Please, show the Rooks the journal. Show them everything.”

M
ICHAEL TOOK THE
journal out of his coat pocket and also helped Tillie fetch Janie's school papers from one of the suitcases strapped to the car. I collected my notes, and the Rooks unearthed photographs from a dust-laden cardboard box upstairs. Over cheese and crackers and fresh slices of roast beef, we gathered around a low table in the parlor and threaded together the tales of Mrs. Violet Sunday Jessen and Miss Janie O'Daire.

“This is a picture of my sister at the age of eighteen,” said Mrs. Rook, and she passed around a portrait of a pretty brunette in a dress with a high collar and a ruffled skirt that brushed the floor. Violet's dark eyebrows didn't knit together as much as her sister's, but I noted a strong family resemblance in the eyes themselves and in the fullness of the two women's mouths. Violet's right hand rested upon the back of an upholstered chair, and behind her hung a backdrop painted to resemble a backyard garden.

Rebecca handed the photograph to Janie, who ate her food down on a maroon and gold rug, her legs crossed beneath the low table. She glanced at the portrait of Violet for about two seconds before setting it aside and returning to her munching. Boredom dimmed her blue-green eyes. More photographs and mementoes traveled her way, and we all held our breaths, waiting for her to speak as Violet, but the food proved more important every time.

At one point I gained the courage to articulate a question I hadn't yet asked of Mrs. Rook: “Does the name ‘Yesternight' mean anything to your family?”

Mrs. Rook shook her head, but her husband straightened his neck and said without hesitation, “Do you mean the murder house?”

His wife tutted. “Vernon! There's a child in the room.”

The crackers and meat in my stomach hardened into stones. “You know about it, then?”

“Vernon has a fondness for sensational prairie tales,” said his wife with a frown. “He could tell you all about the horrible crimes committed by the Benders of Labette County and Belle Gunness of Indiana.”

“What precisely happened at the Hotel Yesternight?” I asked, and out of the corner of my eye I caught Michael lifting his head from a collection of photographs.

“Oh, the usual . . .” Mr. Rook gave a wave of his hand. “An isolated home. A touch of madness. Folks gone missing. This was all back in the mid-1890s. Nothing recent. I have a friend who travels around photographing infamous old houses.”

I pressed a hand against my middle.

I was born in the late 1890s.

“Do you know if the house still operates as a hotel?” I asked. “And precisely where it's located?”

“It's in Nebraska,” said Vernon. “Outside a tiny train stop called Du Bois.” He pronounced Du Bois as
Do-Boys
.

“And . . . you're certain no one in this family, not even Nelson Jessen, found themselves visiting Yesternight?”

“Nels didn't travel much of anywhere after he lost Violet,” said Mrs. Rook. “He suffered from frequent bouts of pneumonia.”

“Do you have a picture of Nelson to show Janie?” asked Michael.

Mrs. Rook sifted through the black and white images in the box in her lap until she found a photo that, from my angle, ap
peared to be a wedding portrait. “Here he is”—she stretched her arm forward—“with Violet, on the day they wed.”

Rebecca sat between Janie and Mrs. Rook and intercepted the photograph, as she had all of the others. She studied the picture for a moment, her forehead puckering, and then handed the image to her daughter. “Here you are, Janie,” she said. “This is Violet and her husband, Nelson.”

Janie took the photo and regarded it as though she were viewing the picture of a great-aunt she'd never met or even heard of. “Pretty,” she said, and she laid the photo on top of the others. She again devoted her attention to her crackers.

“Janie . . .” Michael leaned forward in the rocking chair. “Does the man in the photograph look familiar to you?”

Janie peeked at Nelson and shook her head. “Nope.”

“Are you sure?” asked her father. “You don't remember him from your dreams, or from anything else?”

Janie brushed at the cracker crumbs dusting the skirt of her dress. “How much longer are we going to stay here?”

“Janie!” snapped her mother. “We've come all these miles to be here because you've been asking to visit for years. For heaven's sake, why aren't you taking any interest in Violet Sunday's house?”

“It might simply be too much for her,” I offered. “Best not to pressure her and—”

“You don't know that!” Rebecca spun my way in her chair. “You don't know anything about what she's going through right now because this is all new to you, too, isn't it? Don't pretend to be an expert on reincarnation just because you're an expert on everything else.”

Her sister choked on her coffee. “Rebecca! Why are you attacking Miss Lind? She's merely trying to help.”

“Because I know she's sitting there, formulating all of the things she's going to say about Janie in some hoity-toity psychological journal. She's scrutinizing my daughter as though the child were a monkey in a laboratory. Look at all of those notes she's taking.” Rebecca pointed at the notebook in my lap, in which I was, indeed, scribbling at the moment. “She isn't going to let this go. Simply visiting isn't going to be enough for her.”

“
Are
you planning to publish these findings, Miss Lind?” asked Mrs. Rook. “I personally wouldn't blame you if you did.”

“That friend of mine I was telling you about,” added Mr. Rook, “the one who photographs all of the old murder houses, he knows a doctor who moved to New York City to compile strange stories for the American Society for Psychical Research. I'm sure they'd take quite an interest in this case.”

“No!” Rebecca put down her plate and rose to her feet. “I've agreed to come to this house solely to allow Janie to find peace of mind—nothing more.” She balled her hands into fists. “I think we ought to go.”

“Wait!” said Michael, rising as well. “Alice has already sworn she's not going to write up any articles about Janie.”

“Why are you calling her Alice now, Michael?”

“Good Lord!” Michael stepped forward on one foot. “Don't start accusing me of things just because you're scared.”

“What happened to Nel?” asked Janie from her seat down on the floor.

“My daughter will not become some laboratory toy for psychics,
or teams of psychologists, or whoever else might be itching to get their hands on her. And, above all, you had better not contact any more newspaper men about this, Michael.” Rebecca grabbed the child's hand and yanked her to her feet. “Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. and Mrs. Rook, but—”

“What happened to Nel?” asked Janie again, a little louder, and this time the room fell silent. Rebecca stilled, and the anger ceased blazing in her eyes.

Janie turned her freckled face toward Mrs. Rook. “Did he die, too?”

Mrs. Rook closed her mouth and swallowed. “Y-y-yes, dear. I'm afraid so.”

“Why?”

Mrs. Rook gulped again. “He became deathly ill in January 1892, just two years after he became a young widower. As I told Miss Lind, my sister fell through a sheet of ice while skating figure eights on a lake in the back of our property.”

Tillie and Mr. and Mrs. O'Daire all lifted their heads and exhaled the word
“Ohh.”

Janie blinked as though working to digest that information.

“No one killed her?” asked Michael with a glance at me.

“No, it was simply an accident.” Mrs. Rook returned her gaze to Janie. “I'm sorry to say it, dear, but Nels's body and soul simply were never the same after he dove into that cold lake to fetch . . .” Her lips formed the word
you
, but she drew a short breath and instead said, “Violet.”

Janie traced her left index finger along the bottom left corner of the photograph.

“Do you remember him, sweetie?” asked Mrs. Rook, cupping her hands around her cheeks. “I know it's been a long—”

“He was such a nice boy,” said Janie.

Someone in the room sniffled as though he or she cried, but I could not pry my gaze away from Janie, who continued to study the photograph of Violet and Nelson Jessen.

“Yes, he was,” said Mrs. Rook with a nod. “A very nice boy who loved you dearly.”

Janie removed her fingers from the picture. I expected her to return to her lunch; to return to being Janie.

Instead, she slipped her hand inside Mrs. Rook's.

T
HE ENTIRE GROUP
of us roamed through a field of green winter wheat that poked through the snow like patches of whiskers. The ground crunched beneath the heels of my boots, and the silent white sky stretched over the earth for endless miles.

Janie walked along in front with her mother, none of us thinking twice about the fact that this seven-year-old girl, this little stranger to the farm, led the way. Michael chatted with Mr. and Mrs. Rook about Violet's predilection for math, which left Tillie and me bringing up the rear.

Tillie slowed her pace so that we dragged at least twenty feet behind the others. She pulled a cigarette and lighter out of a coat pocket. “May I ask you a question?”

“I'm truly not going to publish an article about Janie,” I said before she could even get the words out.

“That's not what I was going to ask.”

“Oh?”

She stopped and lit her cigarette, and I waited for her to continue, my hands buried inside the folds of my pockets, a vicious chill chomping at my cheeks.

Tillie tucked her lighter away and exhaled a cloud of smoke that ghosted past my eyes. Her entire body relaxed, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head. “Boy, did I need that.”

I snickered.

“You want one?”

“Oh, I don't smoke.”

“Here.” She handed the lipstick-stained end of the cigarette my way. “Try mine.”

“I've tried them before and just ended up coughing and embarrassing myself. I'd hate to do that here.” I trekked onward to keep from falling too far behind the rest of the group, even though they didn't seem to detect our absence.

Tillie caught up to me. “Here's what I was actually going to say.” She sucked two more puffs into her lungs before asking, “Do you think you would be where you are today if you had been educated in a little one-room schoolhouse in a nothing town?”

“Where I am today?” I asked with a laugh. “Do you mean traipsing through a snow-dusted field in a remote corner of Kansas, trailing after two families I hardly even know—right before Christmas?”

“I mean, do you think you would have had the means to obtain a master's degree with an education like Janie's? And don't be too polite to give a blunt answer simply because I'm Janie's teacher.”

I plodded forward three more steps and watched the snow break into chunks of ice beneath my feet. “It would have been much
harder, I admit. My sisters and I attended city schools, and both of my parents were teachers. They've always been strong proponents of higher education for both men and women.”

Tillie hugged her arms around herself. “Do you think Janie would benefit from an education in a city?”

“Is Rebecca considering moving?”

“You can't say a word to Michael, but yes. Despite fearing you, my sister has been inspired by you. She wants Janie to experience the same opportunities you've had.”

I stopped in my tracks. “She absolutely must speak to Michael before making a decision such as that.”

“What good will talking to him do? He'll only say no.”

“You don't know that.”

“Aren't you two coming?” asked Michael from up ahead.

My shoulders flinched at the sound of his voice. The little party now approached a cabin the shape of a shoe box with log walls and a shingled roof. The “other house,” if I had to guess.

“We'll catch up in a minute,” I called back.

Tillie, still hugging herself, dangled the cigarette from between two of her right fingers. I stole the thing out of her hands, shoved it between my lips, and breathed in the anesthetizing smoke until my chest expanded and my eyelids fluttered closed.

“You're not coughing, Alice,” said Tillie in a throaty voice that told me she cracked a wry grin.

I opened one eye. “I might have smoked a little more than I let on.”

“I have a feeling you've done a lot more things than what you've let on.”

I smiled and passed the cigarette back to her. She promptly slid it between her lips and nudged me with an elbow.

“Please tell your sister to be careful,” I warned, our heads bent close. “I admire her desire to advance Janie's educational opportunities, but she must also be cautious of the girl's mental health, especially after all of the emotions from this trip come crashing down back at home.”