The Wishing Star (12 page)

Jenny's thoughts were interrupted by the creak of the stairs.

She sat up in bed, straining to hear. Only one familiar snore was coming from down the hall. When the creaking stopped, she slipped from her bed and knelt beside the window.

Twin shadows left the barn and moved down the road. Bright moonlight clearly revealed the progress of the two until they disappeared over the hill. Jenny continued to kneel at the window, thinking of the section in the book about moonlit nights. There was unusual power on these nights.

She fidgeted, rubbed at her tumbled hair, then jumped to her feet. Shoving aside the scary nighttime feelings and the echoes of her discussion with Mrs. Harris, she pulled on her clothes and crept down the stairs.

At the door she paused, but not long enough to heed her fears, then flew down the road after the men.

In the darkness of the woods, the road disappeared and the moonlight vanished. Groping with her hands before her, Jenny crept forward. Now excitement had her heart pounding. She moved from tree to tree, stopping to listen at each one.

When she heard the clank of metal and saw the bobbing light, she moved off the trail and slipped behind the group.

The lantern revealed Tom, Mr. Harris, and a dark man wrapped in a long black cloak. There were others, but she had eyes only for the cloaked figure.

Spellbound, she watched, certain this must be the man they called Walters the Magician. He was reading from a book. She strained to hear, but his words were an indistinct rumble of sound. As she watched his black-draped arms arching through the air, punctuating his words, she shivered, and a strange thrill moved over her.

The lantern light flashed off a sword, and Jenny crept closer. It was Hyrum. Joseph stood by holding a flapping rooster.

Carefully easing into the bushes, Jenny watched. Hyrum drew the circle, making the familiar marks. Restlessly she rubbed her hands together.
If only, just once, they'd let me be part of the group
.

After Joe spread the blood from the rooster, they all began to dig. The chill of the late night made Jenny shiver, and she hugged herself. Would the rooster turn the trick this time?

Silently, through the long night, they dug, while Jenny watched with growing frustration. Finally Martin Harris threw down his shovel in disgust.

They turned and walked back the way they had come, and only then did Jenny realize the east was brightening. She forced her numb legs to carry her down the trail. Dazed and disappointed, she didn't need to remind herself there had been no shouts of triumph to interrupt the black night. As she ran, tears of frustration welled up in her eyes. “Joe,” she whispered, “you taught me all this. Why don't you fellas let me try?”

I am certain of one thing
, she thought.
I am going to read that book and find the power
.

But Jenny's feet slowed as she remembered Mrs. Harris and the words the parson had read at church. Suddenly she was filled with a certainty that she should not read the book anymore.

As Jenny hesitated in the path, the sun burst through the trees. She lifted her chin and shrugged.
It's just a book. And if it teaches me the power, what harm can there be?

When she opened the door to the kitchen, she discovered Martin Harris shouting for his breakfast, his anger breaking through every word his wife uttered. One quick glance at the gloomy faces sealed Jenny's silence, and she crept unnoticed about the room.

In September the rumors started flying. For several days there had been whispers at school. But Jenny had heard whispers before. This time she ignored them.

At lunchtime one day, she carried her pail down to the creek to join the students under the trees. As she reached them, the conversation stopped. Jenny saw the shared looks and was ready to turn away when one of the older girls called, “Jenny, wait!”

The girl's apologetic look swept through the group and she said, “She's living at the Harrises and he's been friendly with the Smiths; maybe she can tell us about it.” Turning back to Jenny she asked, “Have you seen the gold plates?”

Jenny settled to the ground and crossed her legs. “Gold plates,” she said with a frown. She flipped her braids over her shoulders and pushed hair out of her eyes. “I don't know what you're talkin' about.”

“I guess everybody thought you were in on it because of Harris. People know he's friendly with Joe.”

Jenny recalled what Mrs. Harris had told them, and thought briefly of Lucy's response. “What about gold plates?” she asked slowly as she concentrated on prying the lid off her lunch pail.

Mary Beth, the oldest girl at school, settled down beside Jenny. “They're saying the Smiths have circulated a story about Joe finding a bunch of genuine gold plates with writing all over them.”

“Well, why don't you ask one of Joe's sisters instead of me?” Jenny questioned with a frown.

“There hasn't been a one of the Smith bunch in school since the story started making the rounds.”

Now Cindy, Mary Beth's best friend, scooted close to Jenny and added, “Joe is saying he found them in a stone box along with a sword and a breastplate and some spectacles to translate the writing on the plates. He's calling the spectacles the magic ‘Urim and Thummim.' I guess like in the Bible. Least the parson talked about such.”

“They say Joe's getting set to translate the plates. There's trouble brewing 'cause he won't let a soul see them. He's claiming folks'll die if they do,” Elizabeth said.

“Some of the fellas are mad because he promised to share the money with them, and now they're saying he won't even let them see what he has. But he's sure got something,” Cindy continued. “Even his family owns they've seen something all done up tight in a piece of cloth.”

After school that afternoon, Jenny walked slowly home. There were chores waiting, but she was thinking hard. Not since she had heard about Joe getting married had she returned to the Smiths. A sore spot still twinged in her heart whenever she thought of him. Now she clenched her fists and muttered, “Joe, I hate you for marryin' that gal. Didn't you guess you were mine? And I hate you, prissy missy, for daring to run off with him.”

Jenny's hands relaxed. Her curiosity was bigger than her hate. Quickly she turned and ran down the trail that ended at the Smith farm.

Despite her bravery, she was relieved to discover only Lucy Smith at home that afternoon. Once settled in the gloomy cabin, across the table from Lucy Smith, she studied the woman. From her knot of graying hair to her button-bright eyes and curving shoulders, excitement possessed her. Jenny said, “I hear Joe's found a gold book.”

Lucy leaned close to Jenny. “Oh my, he has! We've known for a time that it was to be. Joe's been workin' the stone and the charms, tryin' to get past the spirits a-guardin' the whole lot. It's been hard work and he's suffered much in order to get them.”

“Did you see them?”

“Oh, no. Joe said he was instructed that no man could see the plates with his naked eyes and live. That's part of the reason he was given these funny spectacles. They're diamonds set in glass held together with bows, like regular ones. They're to be used to translate words on the plates.”

“Is it a story written on them?”

“No. Joe says it's a history of the ancient people who lived here many years ago.” Now she chuckled and patted Jenny's knee. “Just be patient and wait. Sooner or later you'll all be seein' them. I aim to exhibit them when Joe's all through translatin'. I'll be chargin' a price to see them, but after all the work, that's only fair.”

One afternoon in late autumn, Jenny came in from school to find Martin Harris pacing the kitchen floor. She stood just inside the door, looking from his excited face to Mrs. Harris at the table. Her hands lay idle in the apple peelings, as she studied the knife she held.

Jenny glanced at Mr. Harris as he said, “Here I was just a-walkin' down the street when he came up to me. Proud, kinglike he was. He says, ‘Martin, the Lord told me to ask the first honest man I met for money to get me to Harmony to get along with the translatin' of the gold plates.'”

Lucy Harris looked up at him in dismay, and he circled back to her in his pacing. “Quit thinkin' about the fifty dollars! Wife, I fear for your soul if you can't trust when a man says the Lord's directin' him. You know I've been searchin' for the truth all my life.”

Jenny watched Mrs. Harris open her mouth as if to speak. Then she got to her feet, slowly, as if she had been hoeing in the garden all day.

When Martin turned to Jenny, she found the courage to say, “At school they're talkin'. Said Joe Smith found a book.”

“The gold plates,” Mr. Harris said reverently. “All that diggin' paid off. Yonder up the hill he found 'em.”

On Sunday at church, Lucy Smith was the center of attention. Jenny elbowed her way through the crowd and listened as someone asked, “Mrs. Smith, what do the plates look like?”

“Well, Joe's not showin' them yet, but he did let me see the things that came with 'em. There's magic spectacles like diamonds. They are just like three-cornered diamonds set in glass and the glass set in silver bows. They're for readin' the plates. With them was a breastplate, big enough to fit a good-sized man. The whole thing was worth at least five hundred dollars.”

Amid appreciative murmurs, Lucy continued, “The plates, they're gold. Like leaves of a regular Bible they are, only gold. I 'spect we'll be a-makin' a pile of money off this find. Joe's goin' to translate the plates and then I'll be a-showin' them. Figure I can charge twenty-five cents for a peek.”

Later when Jenny started home, she passed a group talking on the street corner. Peter Ingersoll was speaking, and she waited to hear him.

“Well, judge for yourself,” he was saying. “I met Joe walkin' toward home one day, carryin' something all wrapped up in his jacket. Didn't think too much about it all until a couple of days later; then he told me he had carried home some pretty white sand. His folks were all a-sittin' round the dinner table, he said, and they were a-wantin' to know what he had. Said he happened to think about a story he'd heard of a fella in Canada who claimed he found a book containing the history of the original settlers. He called it a gold Bible. So Joe says when they asked him, the words jest popped out, ‘gold Bible.' He was just funnin', but they took him serious.

“So when they wanted to see the thing, he said they could go ahead and look, but he'd had a commandment sayin' that no man could look at it with the naked eye and live. Not a one of them would look at it. Then Joe slapped his knee and told me he had them all fixed and he intended to be havin' some fun with them.”

Peter paused and Jenny stared up into his face. He frowned and slowly said, “This whole affair might be going too far. Chase here had dealin's with him, too.”

“Right,” the man beside Peter spoke up. “Joe come to me and asked me to make a carryin' case for his plates. I told him I didn't have time. I heard later that he told one of the neighbors he didn't have any book of gold plates and that he never did have, but he was just tryin' to trick me into makin' him a chest.”

When Jenny was back in the Harris's kitchen, Mr. Harris was saying, “I've never seen such jealousy. Every man in the place is wishin' he'd been the one to find the plates. Now they're all a-tryin' to make off with them. Seems some fellas are claimin' Joe made promises and that he owes them shares in the plates. He's been sweatin' it out tryin' to keep a step ahead of them.”

“What do you mean?” Jenny stepped up to the table.

“Well, Willard Chase's sister used her little green stone to divine up where Joe had hid the plates. 'Twas across the street from the Smiths' in the cobbler's shop. During the night a bunch got in the place and tore it up lookin' for the plates. They found the chest and split it open, but there weren't nothin' in it. That Joe's a cool one. While the others were all hot about the plates being stole, he admitted he got up durin' the night and moved the plates. You'd better believe no one will outwit that fella!”

A week later Jenny came home from school to find Mrs. Harris sitting at the table, her eyes red from weeping.

Jenny hesitated just inside the door. As she studied the face of the one who had befriended her, she wanted to throw her arms around the woman and comfort her. But shadowy things lurked in Jenny's mind. She was not quite fourteen and just a hireling—that alone was a difficult position to be in.

And how could she admit she knew about those sounds in the night? The angry voices, the bumping, and the smack of flesh against flesh. Could she admit hearing those cries from Mrs. Harris and at the same time admit that she had crouched, fearful and trembling, not daring to go to the rescue? Just thinking about those sounds plunged her back into the memory of last year—the picture of her father's face looming over her, twisted with anger.

A fly filled the silence with its buzzing. Jenny's gaze, riveted on the flushed face of the woman, was caught by the noise. She dashed for a newspaper, attacked the offender, and then walked to the pail of water beside the door. Still mute, she filled the dipper and carried it to Mrs. Harris.

With a nod, Lucy Harris drained the dipper, wiped her mouth and spoke. “He's gone. Flew in here, grabbed up a few things and left. I'm certain he's followed that Joe Smith and his wife to Pennsylvania. Seems there was too much persecution goin' on around here for Joe to settle down and get his translatin' done.” Bitterly she added, “Martin's got more money than anyone else in this town, and is more gullible. Give him a flight of fancy, and he's off. God only knows what will happen. The Smiths all have glib tongues. If it's like in the past, it wouldn't surprise me a bit to see Martin separated from his money. He's lookin' for truth, and truth for Martin is always what tickles his fancy at the time.”