Old Wounds (33 page)

They wandered about the deserted grounds, following Rosemary, who was moving like a sleepwalker. Elizabeth watched her daughter closely, suspecting that the rush of memory was beginning to take its toll.
She’s just about overwhelmed with all of this. I need to get her out of here.

“You know, sweetie, if we’re going to have lunch, it’s probably time to start back.”

Phillip was quick to agree. “I’ll be happy to ride shotgun with you another time, Rosemary. But I’m with Elizabeth—it’s a long climb back up, and somehow all those pancakes I ate for breakfast have worn off.”

Rosemary hesitated on the leaf-littered steps leading down to the sunken garden—then, with a last look all around her, nodded. “Okay, another time. I wish I could get into the house. And I wish I knew where Maythorn used to hide
her
spy notebooks. You know, Mum, I’d been thinking that I was right to suspect Cletus back then, but now…now I’m not so sure. What if the
spying
was the cause—something she saw that someone had to keep secret?”

When they reached the scuttle hole once again, rather than starting back down the trail, Rosemary made her way to the foot of a big locust tree and began to poke around in the grass with her hiking stick.

Elizabeth could hear her muttering, “It has to be here still—weeds have grown over it, but it couldn’t have washed away or anything.”

“What are you looking for, Rosie?” Elizabeth inched her way down the slope, with Phillip close behind.

“Our message stone was here. We used to leave messages for each other under it.” Rosemary jabbed her stick into the weeds. “For a year or so after she disappeared, I would come up here and leave notes for her—in case she was still…out there.”

At last the stick hit rock, and Rosemary dropped to her knees to sweep the debris from the flat surface of the stone. As she worked, she continued her explanation. “I had to sneak out when you and Pa weren’t watching; after Maythorn, you all didn’t like my roaming the woods. And mostly I didn’t. But this was something I had to do. After a couple of years though, I quit coming up here. It was just too…sad.”

She stood and thrust the end of her stick under the big rock. Using the stick as a lever, she slowly raised the message stone.

In the bare dirt that lay revealed were two fat red-and-black millipedes, coiled into tight circles, and a clouded plastic zipper bag. Rosemary knelt again. “I just wanted to see if my note was still here.”

She opened the bag and took out a stained and mildewed notepad. A slim pencil was stuck through its metal spiral. As Rosemary leafed through the few remaining pages, Elizabeth could see that there was no writing on any of them.

“I thought sure I’d left a note that last time. I don’t know, maybe I finally realized how futile it was.” Rosemary’s disappointment was evident. Again she paged through the little book.

“What else is in that bag, Rosie? It looks like there’s something down in the bottom.”

“Remember that green malachite heart you and Pa gave me? When Christmas came I brought it up here and left it for Maythorn. So she’d have a present.”

Rosemary upended the bag and a small black stone fell into her outstretched hand. She looked at it in disbelief, then held it out to Elizabeth and Phillip. A carved figure, no bigger than a bantam’s egg, nestled in the cup of her trembling palm—a sleeping fox, curled up, its sharp nose resting on its plumy tail. Great wings sprouted from its shoulders and lay folded along its flanks.

28.

…
AND
C
ONUNDRUMS

Sunday, October 23

Rosemary lifted her
eyes to meet Elizabeth’s gaze.

“No one knew about this hiding place—no one but Maythorn and me.”

Phillip leaned closer to examine the beautiful little carving. “Fine work. Like those little Japanese whatsits—
netsukes,
I think they’re called. But you said you left a green heart…. When was that?”

Rosemary took the carving and turned it to examine all sides. “I don’t understand.” The words were barely audible and she seemed not to have heard Phillip’s question.

“Christmas of ’86—is that when you put the heart up here, Rosie? They’d quit searching for Maythorn by then.”

“Yes…That was when I left the first note…and the heart. And the heart was still here the last time I left a note. That was two years later. I was about to turn thirteen and I had decided that it was childish to keep coming back and leaving notes that were never answered.”

She glanced around, her eyes vacant. “It had snowed hard the night before, but I was determined to make the last trip up here before my birthday…before I became a teenager. I remember that the stone was hard to lift because it was frozen to the ground. I broke my stick trying to pry it loose.”

Rosemary brushed a stray lock of hair away from her cheek. “Nothing had changed. All the notes I’d written before were still there, along with the little green heart. I wrote one last note and told Maythorn good-bye. And I never came back.”

She looked from the overturned stone to the little sleeping winged fox, nestled in her hand.

“Mum…” It was the voice of a young girl. “Mum…where did
this
come from? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand, Phillip. Who could have switched the carvings? And why?”

The three of them had debated the question during lunch, without reaching any conclusion. The little carving sat on the dining table, its sleek black shape revealing nothing. Soon after the meal, Rosemary had left for Asheville. She and Jared planned to search newspapers on file at the library for references to Maythorn’s disappearance, in hope of finding some overlooked item that might suggest new avenues to explore.

Phillip looked up from his textbook on criminal justice and the notes he was preparing for his class. Elizabeth had brought a stack of unpaid bills to the dining table and sat opposite him, quietly working her way through them. The sight of her across from him, brow furrowed in concentration, hair escaping from her long braid to curl around her face, was infinitely pleasing—a quiet domesticity that now seemed to him the way that life should be.
Elizabeth, my love.

But quiet domesticity could not last in the face of so many unanswered questions. Elizabeth had picked up the carved fox and was frowning at it. “Rosie was so definite that no one else knew about that secret stone. So how did
this
get there? And what happened to the notes Rosie left?”

He put down his pen. “I was thinking about that. Who else would have known about that rock? Who else spent a lot of time in the woods and might have seen the girls hiding things?”

He watched her face as she considered the implications. Several unwelcome ideas seemed to be suggesting themselves to her. “Jared might have seen them. Or Mike. Patricia and Moon weren’t much on being in the woods. And anyway, by the time Rosie left the last note, they’d all moved away. This was put there after the Mullins were gone.”

“And who was still around…and was out in the woods a lot?”

“Cletus. You think it was Cletus.” Her eyes were deep pools of sadness. “Do you think that means Cletus was the one responsible for what happened to Maythorn?”

“No, not necessarily.” He reached out for the little carving. “I don’t know…in a way it seems to me that whoever left this might have been trying to make Rosemary feel better somehow—like all her notes to Maythorn had finally been answered.” He studied the enigmatic black fox. “It’s really fine work; where would Cletus have gotten something like this?”

“Cletus carved things…animals…I remember he gave Laurel a little wooden pig years ago. It was beautifully done.”

“Maythorn’s real name was Blackfox—right? And this black fox has wings—is it saying she’s in heaven, maybe? I don’t know—seems like a fairly sophisticated way to express something. Everyone keeps referring to Cletus as simple—could he have come up with this concept? This is more like something Sam might have thought of. Like those—”

“Like those boxes he made for us that last Christmas, all with carving that referred to our names. And Sam might have seen Rosie going up that way after Maythorn was gone….” Elizabeth’s voice took on a defensive tone. “She wasn’t supposed to roam around alone anymore; I didn’t think she was. But obviously there were lots of things I didn’t know.”

She turned to stare out the window at the distant mountains. Her pen tapped absently on the tabletop and her lips were half-parted. Phillip waited.

“Maybe Sam made it and put it there for her to find…but she never went back.” Elizabeth’s words were slow and halting. “But I would have thought he’d have told me if he knew about the message place and that Rosie was leaving notes for Maythorn. I would have thought…” She seemed unable to go on.

The sorrow in her voice stabbed at him and he set the little carving down. “Elizabeth—” he began and, as he spoke, the cell phone Gabby had given him vibrated against his hip. “Oh, hell, it’s a call I’ve got to take,” he apologized, and stood and moved toward the kitchen.

Elizabeth’s gaze wandered over the warm shades of the mountains’ autumn foliage, vivid in the afternoon sun. From the kitchen she could hear the confidential murmur of Phillip’s voice.

She reached for the carved stone fox.
Could Sam have made this? I don’t think he ever worked in stone. It was always wood. This is more like some of the carvings we saw over in Cherokee—soapstone, I think. Is this something Driver made? All of his carvings were life-sized, but this…the scale is so different.

The little figure slumbered on, its secret safe within the sheltering wings that wrapped it round.

Phillip emerged from the kitchen, returning the cell phone to his waistband. “That was one of Del’s people—they’ve been looking at your ring and the box Sam made and they don’t think there’s any hidden message in either one. They’re sending them back.” The chair scraped noisily on the red-brown tile floor as he resumed his seat. “We’re running out of time here—word is Landrum’s appointment will be announced November 1—a week from tomorrow. If we find the deposition before then, Del is certain that Landrum will withdraw his name, just on the threat of it becoming public.”

Elizabeth dragged her thoughts away from the enigma of the little fox. “But even if Landrum did get named Secretary of Defense—if we found the deposition eventually, couldn’t your friend still use it to discredit Landrum, force him to resign?”

Phillip looked uncomfortable. “Thing is, it would get tricky for Del—possibly ruin his career if it all went public. Too many questions—why did we wait so long to bring this up?…what are Del’s personal interests here? It could get very ugly. And once Landrum was in the Cabinet, there’d be the whole loyalty question. They’d be asking Del why he hated America.” He pushed aside the textbook. “No, our best bet is to find the deposition and find it soon.” His brown eyes were steady on her. “Let’s go over this again, Elizabeth. Try to remember what gifts Sam gave you, beginning in ’98.”

Four gifts: a small table, an outdoor bench, an early copy of
Girl of the Limberlost,
and a simple box for stationery, free of any cryptic carving or false bottom, were all that Elizabeth could remember.

“That’s it, Phillip. Sometimes he gave me a plant or flowers on our anniversary, but I just don’t think there’s anything else.”

Phillip was riffling through the pages of the book, examining them closely. Finally he closed it with a disappointed sigh. “Not a mark. An old book like that, you might expect to see something. It’s a not uncommon way of sending a message—low tech but—”

“An old—wait a second!” Elizabeth jumped up and darted away, returning almost immediately with a small book.

“I’d forgotten; he gave me this at some point during that last year, not for any special occasion but to replace one he’d lost—and there
are
some marks in it.”

She held out the copy of
Walden
that he had seen on her bedside table. With a rising feeling of excitement, he took it from her. On the title page were the words “For Liz—Here are things that mustn’t be forgotten. With love, from Sam.”

The inscription was dated February 12, 1999. Phillip began slowly to turn the creamy pages. The table of contents caught his eye with the faint check mark by the words “What I Lived For.”

Turning to the indicated chapter, he began to grin. “Miz Goodweather, this could be it!”