CHAPTER FIFTEEN

GRACIE

She has never done anything to deserve this.”

Days later, remembering Uncle Rand’s words still stung. They had sliced into Gracie’s already battered heart and left her bleeding. They had played on a loop in her mind since she’d stormed out of the secret room.

Ada had come into her room and tried to console her after Uncle Rand had gone. She kept reminding Gracie that Gran thought Gracie deserved the house. Did Gran really think that? What if the gifting of the house was out of pity? Not deserving the house nor the history it might hold would make things so much worse.

Gran might have just been grateful that Gracie came to take care of her. How many times when she was too weak to leave her bed did Gran tell Gracie how much she appreciated her coming to Philly. Or the day Gran weakly grasped Gracie’s hand and said, “No one wants to die alone.” Gracie had tried to quiet her, but Gran’s eyes had sharpened. “I’m glad you’re here.”

But that wasn’t a reason to reward Gracie with the house. She did what family was supposed to do. She couldn’t have let Gran die alone. Most of Gracie’s life had been spent alone. She’d spent years wishing there was someone, anyone, to share life with. And then Gran filled the void and made sure Gracie knew she wasn’t alone. Made sure Gracie knew that she was a strong Black woman in a long line of strong Black women. Gracie counted it an honor to do for Gran what Gran did for her. There was no need for a reward.

No matter how she thought about it, inheriting this house was pain on top of pain. She owned it because Gran had died. Gran, the only mother she really knew, died and left her this house. Would she ever feel anything other than the pain of loss when she thought about the house? Even if the house had been a station on the Underground Railroad, there would still be pain. The pain of inheriting it when it should have gone to Uncle Rand and his family.

Today was supposed to be an exciting day. Good exciting. Today was the first session for the kids’ knitting class. Yet all she wanted to do was stay in her bedroom with the door closed.

The heaviness of her heart seemed to drag her steps, tears threatening. She went straight to the classroom table and busied herself with checking each of the student kits. It wasn’t necessary, but she had to do something so she wouldn’t surrender to the temptation to cancel the class. Ada had gone out for snacks, something Gracie had overlooked.

Seeing that there was nothing left to do, Gracie sat down with the hat she had just begun knitting. She worked a row, regulating her breathing as she did.

Down the middle of the table lay the samples she’d knitted. She had selected mostly cowls and mittens, since those projects appealed to younger and new knitters alike. They would act as encouragement for the students. Most would tell her they could never knit something so complex, to which she would reply, they were all made one stitch at a time.

If there was one thing she could be proud of, it was that she was a good knitter. Her childhood knitting teacher had told her that she took to knitting like she was born with needles and yarn in her hands. The compliment stung. She had not been born with yarn and needles. She had been born with trouble.

The back door opened and Ada stumbled inside with a case of bottled water and a few more bags. “I forgot how hard it is to get up those steps.”

Gracie raced to her and took the case of water. “You should have come through the front door. It would have been easier.”

“I wasn’t sure if any of your students were here yet, and I didn’t want you to have to leave them to open the door.” Ada glanced around. “Besides, it was interesting walking past the root cellar doors and knowing what’s really down there.”

Gracie didn’t look up from arranging the bottles of water. Her thoughts drifted again to the secret room. But instead of thinking of those who fled slavery under horrific conditions, she thought of the people who owned the house. The stationmasters. During one of their increasingly frequent phone calls, Clarence had explained to her what a risk it was to be a stationmaster. Especially for a free Black. If they were caught assisting those seeking freedom, they could have been sold into slavery themselves. They, however, thought that their illegal activities were worth the risk.

Gracie should feel honor for owning such a place. But she could identify more with the newly freed slave. Only knowing hardship all her life. Then to reach freedom and have it be so fragile and fraught with danger. To be free but not, living for days in a dark room. Free but not completely.

The doorbell sounded just as Ada finished arranging the individual-sized bags of chips and pretzels at the other end of the table. When Gracie opened the door, a tall girl and a man stood on her doorstep. The girl’s hair was braided with pink tips. She wore a scowl on her dark brown face, her arms folded.

Gracie smiled. “Hello, I’m Gracie McNeil. I’m the owner and your instructor.”

The man smiled. “I’m Stanley Russell. This is my daughter, Mia.”

Mia gave Gracie a wave that was no more than a wiggling of her fingers.

Gracie bit back a laugh. “Come in.”

For all her attempts to look unimpressed, Mia’s face transformed when she stepped inside. The three cubes Gracie had assembled were full of yarn. The countertop was lined with notions and project bags. Mia scanned the room, her eyes growing wider.

“I’m so glad you’re doing this,” Stanley said. “We need something like this in our community.”

For a moment, Gracie felt a glimmer of hope. “I’m glad too. It gives me the ability to introduce the fiber arts to a new generation.”

“I already know how to crochet,” Mia said. Her words dripped with sass.

“Mi–a,” Stanley said, drawing out the two syllables of her name.

Mia let out an exasperated sigh. “But I do. I crocheted in my braids.” She ran the long strands through her fingers.

Gracie gave her a smile, the first real one on her face in days. “They look amazing. You did them all yourself?”

Mia grinned, her posture relaxing even more. “Yup.”

“Very nice,” Gracie said. “Let me show you the classroom.”

Stanley followed them. “Do you mind if I sit out front and read? The shop is a bit of a distance from home, and I would just be coming right back.”

“Of course.”

Gracie just had time to introduce Mia to Ada before the doorbell rang. Three more of her students were standing outside. Bella, Trinity, and Rylee. Unlike Mia, the girls rushed inside like chattering birds. Clearly, they knew each other. Trinity’s mother asked if she could stay as well, and Gracie agreed. Dani was the last of her students to arrive. Gracie greeted Dani’s mother and led Dani back to the classroom.

Bella and Trinity were studying the samples. “Did you knit all this?” Trinity asked.

“Yes,” Gracie said. A ripple of pride skimmed over her tender emotions. Seeing the girls’ reactions to her work, seeing it through their eyes, made her stand a little taller. She had come a long way from the first lopsided dishcloth she’d knitted back in middle school.

“This is so a-maz-ing,” Bella said. “I want to knit myself one of those big cowls that cover your entire neck.”

“And you will. Everyone have a seat,” Gracie said.

Bella, Trinity, and Rylee sat on one side of the table, and Dani and Mia sat on the other with a seat between them. So this is how the class dynamics are going to be. The spot Mia picked didn’t have a kit, but there was one in front of the next seat. Mia slid the kit over.

“Look at Mia. Already breaking the rules,” Bella said. Rylee and Trinity giggled. Mia’s head dropped.

“She is not breaking the rules. She can sit wherever she likes,” Gracie said, her tone light.

Mia kept her gaze on her kit. Gracie’s heart ached for her, but she knew better than to try to encourage her anymore. She remembered what it was like being the outcast in a class. Besides, Mia had an ace up her sleeve. She already knew how to crochet. Sometimes it was easier for people who crocheted to learn knitting than a person with no experience with yarn.

Gracie smiled. “Shall we get started?”

All the girls nodded excitedly.

A feeling of rightness settled on Gracie’s shoulders. All her other problems faded as she began to explain the fundamentals of knitting to five eager girls. She had begun knitting on the student side of the table. Having come so far as to be sitting on the teacher side now felt surreal.

Four days had passed, and Gracie was still riding on the high of the knitting class’s success. Of course, she would have to keep the friction between Mia and the other girls under close observation, but it had gone better than she expected. The girls had left with smiles, and that’s all that mattered. When was the last time something good had happened for her so smoothly and gone so well? A long, long time ago. Which meant there was probably disaster ahead.

But now it was time to go back to dealing with the other big stressor in her life: the house. Rather, the nomination for it to be registered as a historical site. Other than the secret room, neither she nor Clarence had found anything that would confirm or deny that the room in the basement was used for hiding formerly enslaved people. At least not officially. Clarence was certain that the date on the house’s construction was wrong.

And that was the purpose of today’s field trip. Since Clarence had been on the team that discovered William Still’s house, he knew how to find the real date the house was built. She’d felt a little better when he’d told her that the records for William Still’s house listed the construction date as 1930. He was sure the same was true of her house.

She drove down to Clarence’s office. He was standing outside again, bundled up with a red knitted scarf.

Gracie smiled up at him when she reached his side. “Did Ms. Lila knit you that scarf?”

“She did, and I’m so grateful for it.” He shivered dramatically, and she laughed. “Let’s go inside.”

When they reached the elevator, instead of pressing the number thirteen for his office, he pressed GL for ground level. Gracie frowned. “We’re not going upstairs?”

Playfulness sparkled in his eyes. “We’re going down to my other office.”

When the elevator door opened, she saw a hallway much like the one on the thirteenth floor except there were fewer offices. Clarence pulled keys from his pocket and walked to the third door from the end. “We keep the archives down here.”

He unlocked the door to reveal that the office was twice as long as the ones upstairs. It was also packed with shelves of boxes and books. The thought of all the history that was in the room, crammed onto the shelves, brought on a feeling of timelessness. It also piqued her curiosity. These boxes contained stories of individuals, families, and communities.

Clarence grinned. “It’s a researcher’s dream.”

He led her past the shelves. Two rows of four large tables sat in the middle of the room. There were cube desks with desktop computers on them at the end of each row. He motioned to the tables. “Tables for pulling boxes. Computers for researching the directories and searching the internet.”

She nodded in approval. “Very nice.”

“It can get chilly down here, so let me know if it gets too cold for you.”

She looked at the boxes. “I’m sure I’ll be warm moving the boxes.” He led her to a computer. “I’ll move the boxes. You search the digital records. First, we need to access some pictures and plot maps.”

“Why those?”

“Because they’ll tell us if there was a house on that lot in the 1800s. So will the pictures. I think we’ll find one or the other. Bella Vista was one of the larger free Black communities here in Philly.” He powered up the computer and entered his password. “Search your street in the system. That might yield us some results.”

“What if there’s nothing there?”

“There’ll be something. It’s just a matter of what. Sometimes when you’re researching, you don’t find the exact thing you’re looking for, but you find a clue to lead you to the next place.” He smiled down at her. “You know how we found William Still’s house?”

“How?”

Clarence broke into a grin. “A newspaper advertisement. Mrs. Still was a seamstress, and she advertised her services in the local papers. The ad listed her address. It was a two-by-two-inch square with fewer than thirty words in it, and it unlocked one of the greatest mysteries in Black history.”

“That’s pretty cool. Something so small …”

Clarence held up his index finger with confidence in his eyes. “It only takes one little clue.”

Buoyed by his hopefulness, Gracie turned to the computer and typed in her address. The computer listed only five images. “This doesn’t look promising.”

“Have hope,” Clarence said as he pulled the chair up next to her.

She clicked on the first image and zoomed in. Once again, she found Clarence leaning close to her. “What am I looking for?”

“Everything for now. Anything memorable.”

She leaned forward and squinted. “Hmm. Maybe someone with better eyesight should look. I’m afraid I’ll need glasses soon.”

He squinted too. “You would look even cuter in glasses.” His voice had a faraway tone to it. Like he was thinking of something else and not aware of what he had said.

Heat bloomed at the nape of her neck and seared up to her ears. Clarence kept studying the image, seemingly unaware of the effect his words had on her. “If you say so,” she said quietly.

He leaned back. “Let’s look at the next one.”

They looked at all five pictures, and although it was fascinating to see how some of the places she recognized had changed completely or hardly at all, none of them held any clues.

Clarence leaned back. “Let’s try a different tack. There are some old land maps in the boxes. I’ll pull them. Since the Institute for Colored Youth was a block away from your house, search for images of the school.”

A memory flashed in her mind. When she was in elementary school, on one of her weekend visits to Philadelphia, she and Gran were walking to the grocery store and passed an apartment building. It sat one block from the house. Gracie had thought it looked like a school and said so to Gran. Gran told her that the building used to be the Institute for Colored Youth. By Gracie’s next visit, Gran had put together a folder of information about the school and its importance. “My gran told me about this school. That it was started by a man born on a plantation in the British Virgin Islands who wanted to help give Black children an education so they could earn a living as adults.” Gran had stressed that his help had changed the children’s lives. Gran had done the same, changing Gracie’s life.

He gave her an approving smile. “That’s it. You’re going to be a proper historian in no time.”

She laughed. “Gran tried to make me one.” But then a wave of sadness washed over her. Gran had tried to make her a historian. Wouldn’t it be ironic that researching Gran’s house would make her one?

Thankfully, Clarence had disappeared in the rows of boxes. She took a deep breath and typed the school’s name into the search bar. By the time he returned, she had studied two pages of ten images. Some of the pictures didn’t include the school at all. Some were pictures of the early students.

Clarence opened a box and coughed from the little cloud of dust that rose. “Did you find anything?”

“Not yet.”

He spread a map out on the table then shook his head. “Too new.” He took another out and placed it on top of the first one.

Gracie clicked on the next image. It was a picture of the institute taken from the park across the street and at a side angle. She leaned closer, studying the houses around the school. It took her a moment to orient the picture in her mind, but when she did, she gasped.

Clarence looked up. “You found something.”

“I think,” she said, coming up out of the chair and touching the screen. “I think this is the back corner of my house.”

Clarence studied the angle and then grinned wide. “I think you’re right.” He reached across her and slid the mouse down to the image’s description. “Now, when was the picture taken?”

He scrolled, and Gracie nearly whooped when she saw the date.

1830.

“We found it,” she said, bouncing excitedly on her toes.

“You found it.” Clarence beamed. “I’m willing to bet that someone accidentally typed 1930 on the city’s records site instead of 1830. It won’t be hard to find your house on the ward maps now that we found this picture.”

All the worry about the taxes and Uncle Rand fell away. She was one step closer to getting Gran’s house registered as a historic site.

“Oh, Clarence. Thank you.” Before she thought about it, she threw her arms around his neck.

He stiffened at first, then wrapped his arms around her. As soon as he closed the embrace, she realized how improper it was. But she didn’t move. He was so warm, his shoulders solid under her arms.

“You’re welcome,” he murmured.

This is a nice prize.