Amber House: Neverwas (15 page)

He’d lived abroad most of his life, so he was used to being treated

with respect. He couldn’t live by the rules around here.”

“Why’d he come back?”

“He told my grandmother it was payment for a debt he owed

Ida’s mother. It was when your grandfather took ill.”

“A debt?”

“That’s all Gran knows. That’s all he ever said.”

More secrets
, I thought. “What happened to him?”

“He spoke too loud and said things people didn’t want to hear.

Gran saw him hauled off into the night by a white mob — she

couldn’t do anything to stop it. She never saw him again. Then,

with him gone, she and my mom didn’t have anyplace else to go.

Turned out Fiona had transferred the title to our piece of the

estate to my grandpa decades before, on the one condition that it

remain in my family — it couldn’t be sold. So Gran stayed, and

your grandmother gave her work.”

The pancakes sat heavy in my stomach. I’d heard about lynch-

ings, of course, but had never been able to make that kind of

brutality real in my head. And here it was. Very real. “Hard to

believe that things like that actually happened.”

66 O

“Things like that are still happening,” he said. He shook his

head a little, as if trying to understand. “Something went wrong.”

The same words Fiona had used in my dream.

He was watching me speculatively. “How — how’s the house

treating you?”

It seemed like a nonsense question, but I knew it wasn’t. It

had some meaning for him I couldn’t make out.
Too many secrets.

“It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

Maybe that was the wrong answer. He seemed disappointed.

Abruptly he said, “Your mom left a list of things I’m supposed to

take care of. Earning money for college. I’ll see you later.”

I cleaned up carefully after my pancakes, leaving the kitchen

spotless. Somewhere in the house, I thought I could hear Rose

weeping.

N

Mom and Dad got back not too long after that. Mom was full of

excitement at the prospect of trotting out so much family history

at tonight’s “pre-exhibit” and at the museum itself in ten more

days. Sam and Maggie also wandered in, their cheeks rosy from

being out in the cold air. I remembered it was in fact the first

official day of winter — the solstice — the shortest day and

longest night.

“Where’d you guys go?” I asked.

“Visiting,” Sam said. “And we played with the little girl.”

“A little girl? A neighbor?”

Maggie nodded, smiling. “She’s from around here.”

“Well, I wish you guys had let me tag along,” I said wistfully.

“Next time, wake me up and take me with you.”

Sammy said, “If the little girl says it’s all right.” He slipped his hand into our aunt’s then, and tugged her away.

o67

I trailed along after them, trying not to sound too pathetic:

“Where’re you going?”

“Wrap presents,” Sam said.

“Can I help?” I said.

The pathos must have leaked through because Sam agreed

generously, “You can help.” But first he had to get my presents

“hided,” he said. He ran ahead of us up the stairs to his room,

and I heard the sliding of a drawer before he poked his head back

out into the hall. “You can come in now!”

I sat and admired the remainder of Sam’s presents: a pillow

for Mom that bore a painted wreath made of Sam’s little hand-

prints; a framed photo of Sam and me for Dad’s office; four

handwoven pot holders for Rose. I picked up a stethoscope,

clearly from a much earlier era. “Who’s this for, Sam?”

“That’s for Jackson,” he said. “Maggie helped me find it at a

shop of old stuff.”

“Huh,” I said. “How’d you know he wants to be a doc-

tor, bud?”

“I just remember,” he said unhelpfully. “You wrap that, all

right?”

“Sure, Sam. It’s a great gift,” I said a little enviously. “And I

think I have the perfect box for it. I’ll be back in just a sec.”

I made a nice job of wrapping the old stethoscope, lining a

long box with tissue, getting all the folds of the paper crisply and exactly creased. I let Sam choose the ribbon, then set to work

making a flawless bow, in accordance with the bow-making

instructions of the intended recipient.

“It’s weird not having Gramma with us this year,” I said.

“Yes,” Maggie said with a twist of sorrow. “Weird.”

I wished I hadn’t said it. Thoughtless. Of course Maggie

missed Gramma more than I. “Did you know
your
grandmother?”

I asked her.

68 O

“Yes,” she said. “But she was old and white-haired by the time

I came along, and she’d been changed. She wasn’t the way I think

of Fiona, red-haired and full of fire.”

I recognized that I too thought of Fiona as a young woman. It

was a little strange.

“You settling in all right?” Maggie asked.

“I’d really rather be back home,” I confessed. I realized too

late this was probably rude for me to say about Maggie’s home,

so I rushed on. “I miss my friends and my school, you know?”

“I know.” She nodded. “You feel all right? Nothing — weird?”

“No,” I said, smiling, “nothing too much out of the ordinary.

Been having some intense dreams and a lot of déjà vu. Must be

the time change. Messed with my head.”

“What is ‘daisy-voo?’ ” Sam asked.

“Day-zha-voo,” Maggie corrected him. “Some people say it’s a

glitch in your brain, when you think you remember something

that hasn’t happened. But some people say that maybe you’re

remembering something that everyone else forgot.”

An odd way to put it, I thought.

We’d finished wrapping all the gifts on the table. Sam gave

me the eye. I was a little slow on the uptake. “You need to go

now,” he said patiently.
The present in the drawer
, I realized.

“Gotcha,” I said. I wandered out, still feeling at loose ends. I

wanted to sit somewhere quietly, preferably by a fire. I slipped

into the library, thinking I would curl up in one of the wing-

back chairs.

After the conservatory, the library was my favorite room in

Amber House. It was exactly what a library should be. Book-filled

shelves stretched up out of reach, with sliding ladders to take

you to the tops of the stacks. Small brass plaques on shelf edges

identified subject matters. Near an ancient globe, a heavy Oxford

unabridged dictionary lay open on a stand, with more refer-

ence books on a shelf underneath — thesaurus, atlas, directory,

o69

almanac. I sat on the floor next to the stand and pulled out a

book of quotations.

It took a few minutes to figure out how to use it, but then I got

the hang of it. I searched through the index, hunting down key

words from my paper scraps upstairs. But I didn’t find a single

one of the phrases. If they were familiar to me, it was not because

they were famous.

I spotted Mom across the entry in the dining room, setting

out silver punch cups on the sideboard. I wandered over. The

table was already laid with silverware and serving dishes and

plates for the party, awaiting only the food that would be brought

out just before.

“Mom, where’s Jackson?”

“Jackson,” she said, making a puzzled face. “How would

I know?”

“Wasn’t he doing some jobs for you?”

She shook her head.

Huh. Another lie.
I didn’t think I could take much more of this.

Maybe
, I thought,
I’ll track him down, find out why all the mystery.

When Jackson and I were little, hide-and-seek had been our

go-to game. When everything else had gotten boring, we’d go

outside or into the conservatory and take turns hunting each

other down. I never knew how Jackson had always been able to

find me. Whenever I’d asked, he’d just shrug and say, “I know

where you’ll be.”

But I’d always found him with my secret trick. I called it

“Hotter, Colder.” It only worked for people I knew really well,

like Mom or Dad, or Jackson, or Sammy. First, I’d fix an image

of the person in my mind, and then I’d fill it with the right

thoughts and feelings, until the image built up into a whole per-

son, until it had
heat
. Then all I had to do was follow that heat.

Warmer, warmer, warmer
— I always found them.

It had been years since I’d tried it with Jackson.

70 O

I imagined him. Gingerly. It was an oddly uncomfortable

thing imagining him so completely as a young man, full-grown

and muscled. I imagined what he was thinking and feeling —

his earnestness, his determination. I saw his face, listening,

concentrating, with the smallest frown between his brows.

Ah. There.
The heat.

I went to the front hall, pulled on Mom’s galoshes, grabbed

her gloves, and shoved into her coat. “Going somewhere?” my

mother called.

“Just a walk. Be back soon.”

“Well, be careful,” she said, evidently unable to produce more

specific advice on short notice. “And make sure you leave your-

self enough time to get ready for tonight.”

It was cold out, the air tattooing my face with a flush. The sun

was already sinking toward the western hills — nightfall would

come by five. I pulled on Mom’s leather gloves and flipped up the

coat’s hood as I considered my route.

Like the day before, Jackson had not turned left toward the

river but right toward town. I could see his long footprints in

the slushy snow. I followed them past the stables and across the

field to the small side gate at Amber House’s northeast corner.

There the prints disappeared in general mush along the road. But

the feeling of warmth drew me on.

On the outskirts of Severna, I was pulled toward the west

side of town, not where I expected. I found some more of

Jackson’s long footsteps crossing an empty field to a narrow

street without sidewalks. I had wandered into a black neighbor-

hood. Residents were staring, as if I must be lost. But I kept

going, pretending that I knew exactly where I was headed.

I zeroed in on a small white clapboard church. Its frosted,

close-cropped lawn was planted with a neat sign: good shep-

herd baptist church.

o71

I climbed its front steps eagerly. I was going to get some

answers.

But whatever it was I had come to see was over. As I swung

the front door open, I saw a door in the rear of the church swing-

ing closed. The handful of people left in the pews were buttoning

up coats, slipping on gloves, exchanging good-nights.

I spotted Jackson. Getting a hug from a pretty Asian girl who

then hurried out, looking me up and down when she most of the

way past and thought I wouldn’t notice.

Oh
, I thought, with a queer uncomfortable feeling in my

chest.
His secret.

He walked up to me, his face mild, but his voice lightly accu-

satory. “What are you doing here, Sarah?”

I think I turned a little red. An older man in a clerical collar

joined us. He smiled and held out a hand. “I’m Pastor Howe.”

“This is Sarah Parsons, pastor,” Jackson said as I shook the

offered hand.

“You looking to join a Bible study, Sarah? We meet once a

week, and all are welcome.”

“No, um, I was only looking for Jackson.”

The pastor looked at me intently — still smiling — but his

eyes were sizing me up. “And how did you know to look here?”

I just stared at him a moment, no proper answer in my head.

I saw Jackson hiding the hint of a smile, waiting for me to find

words. Not helping.

“I — followed his boot prints. Then asked a couple people.

They pointed me here.”

“That’s fine, then,” the pastor said. He invited me again to

join the Bible study, and said good-bye.

Outside, Jackson gave me the eye. “Hotter, Colder still

works?” he guessed.

“Yeah.”

72 O

“Did you think maybe you shouldn’t be prying into my

business?”

I realized then just how rude and invasive I’d been. “Um,” I

said. “No. Not really.”

He laughed at that, but shook his head. “Maybe, Sare, you

ought to give that one some thought. Promise me you won’t do

this again.”

I nodded, and he didn’t scold me any further for it. We started

back toward Amber House. I wanted to ask him about the

girl — the hugger — but I held it in. I resolved to try to be less curious and more respectful of Jackson’s privacy — after all, he

didn’t belong to me just because we used to be friends. The

thought, I noticed, was painful.

When he pulled his gloves from his pocket, I saw him tuck a

flash of yellow back in. Then I remembered that the pastor had

had a yellow kerchief folded in his shirt pocket. Which was kind

of an odd note of color for a pastor dressed all in black. Yellow

handkerchiefs at the protest in Severna. Yellow handkerchiefs in

the crowd in Baltimore.

Instantly, I forgot my resolution. And wondered.

CH A P T ER EIGHT

K

My gramma had always operated on the premise that any holiday

and every family occasion — engagements, weddings, births,