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"YOU’D THINK SOMEBODY did this on purpose,” Ida said a few minutes later.
“Did what?”
She looked over at me. “Tangled them up like this.”
“That’s why I didn’t even try to separate them.” I pulled the silver pendant out from under my sweatshirt. “I found this in that pile the first day we were up here.”
Ida set the necklaces down on the table and took a closer look at mine. “That’s lovely, Biscuit. Wonder why it was in the attic?”
“Me, too. I couldn’t imagine anyone setting it aside like that." I pointed to the pile on the dresser top. "Especially not in such a jumbled mess.”
Pat wandered over. “Looks like you’ve got a real treasure, Biscuit.”
“I can tell you’re not going to want to give it up to the museum,” Maddy said.
Dee joined the group. “Is there anything else good in there, Ida?”
“No. Just a bunch of junky costume jewelry. Just what I needed to get my mind off Mary Frances and her troubles.” She held up a tiny bracelet. “So far I’ve only managed to separate this one little bracelet.”
“It looks like one of those name bracelets that used to be so popular for little girls.”
“Yeah, but two of the letters are missing. “M - space - R - T - space - E.”
“You don’t suppose that could have been Myrtle Snelling’s, do you?” Sadie stood and joined us. “She was sister to Perry Hoskins,” she explained to Carol, “and she lived here as a child, up until she married Frank Snelling.”
By that time everyone was crowded around the dresser. “Can’t you just see Myrtle as a little girl,” Rebecca Jo said, “up here sticking her inquisitive little nose into all the drawers?” She turned to Carol. “Myrtle has her own gossipy newspaper column called Myrtle’s Musings from Martinsville in our county’s weekly paper."
"I remember," Carol said. "She’s the one who wrote that story about the letter she found."
"That’s right. What do you want to bet she’s the one who tangled everything up like this?”
“Sounds just like Myrtle,” Ida said, handing the little bracelet to Rebecca Jo. “Why don’t you give her this once the storm is over and see if she remembers it? Meanwhile, I’m going to keep tackling this mishmash.” She held up the tangle, and a ray of afternoon sunlight, enhanced no doubt by reflections from the glittery wet ice outside, bounced off one of the small pendants.
“Wait a minute,” Carol said. “We need to take a closer look at these.” She reached for the jumble.
“That’s my tangle,” Ida said. “Don’t you go straightening it out!”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” But Carol sounded distracted as she walked closer to the windows. She edged aside a couple of the obviously cheap chains until two delicate dangles hung partially separate from the rest. “Do you have any idea what we have here?”
Ida shook her head. So did the rest of us, except for Pat. “You’re right, Carol.” Her face took on a sort of wonder as she pointed to the light green bauble on the end of one of the chains. “That’s peridot.”
“And the blue one is aquamarine,” Carol said. “I’d stake my reputation on it.”
“Semiprecious stones? And they were here,” Ida said, “with Myrtle’s broken baby bracelet?”
“Can you get them untangled,” Sadie asked, “without damaging the chains?”
“Gold chains,” Carol said.
“I plan to do just that,” Ida said. “Will you help me, Carol? If you hold these two so I can use both my hands on the chains ...”
We left them to work in peace. I lost track of time, but it was quite a while later that they managed to get all the cheap chains removed. “Look at this,” Ida said. “It’s like somebody tied these two gold chains together over and over again.”
“Almost makes me think we ought to leave them that way,” Maddy said.
Pat traced her finger down the entwined chains. “I sure do wonder what’s the story behind these.”
“Oh dear.” Ida’s words fairly dripped with exasperation. “Not another mystery."
Once the necklaces, still tied together, were enshrined in one of the museum drawers, Ida puttered around, finally ending up at the old desk where we’d found the veterinarian’s case notes. She opened the middle drawer and pulled out a pencil. “Finally,” she said, “something with no story behind it. No mystery. Nothing.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Maddy said. “There’s always a story behind everything.”
“You hush up,” Ida said. “I don’t want to hear it.”
~ ~ ~
1861
ELIZA HAD BEEN married to Gideon Hoskins for just one interminable half of one excruciating year. Already she regretted it. It was time for her to write her weekly letter to her cousin, and she could think of nothing to say. Nothing at least that Gideon would not object to when he read what she had written.
He always read her letters before she could post them.
What could she write that would give nothing away?
She picked up her pen and reached for the ink, but then had another thought. Setting her pen to one side, she went upstairs to Young Gideon’s room and found the pencil her cousin had sent to him. She would return it to his room before he came home from school, although she knew that her stepson, already well beloved by her, would never begrudge her the use of it.
Tuesday, 22 October 1861
Beechnut House
Martinsville Georgia
Mistress Augusta Russell Tardy
Tardy House
Surreytown Georgia
My dear cousin,
As you can see, I have purloined the pencil you sent to my son
She stopped. Using the rubber tip attached to the end of the pencil, she erased that last word. Gideon would surely have objected.
... my stepson this past month. I know he wrote to thank you for it, for I must admit I insisted he do so. Once he began the chore, though, he seemed to enjoy it, for he wrote and erased with great abandon. Truly, having an eraser attached to a pencil is a real convenience. I was glad you shared Mister Lipman’s invention with us. I have already made use of it, as you can see from the mess I made several lines above this one.
I wonder that these pencils did not appear in our valley until only recently, for if, as you say, the attached eraser was patented in 1858—however did you learn that detail?—I should think they would have spread throughout this country immediately, for they are so very useful. Still, the Metoochie River Valley has, as you know, always been a place set aside from the rest of the country.
We have seen a number of our young men prepare to fight in the war, but as yet there have been few who have left. Irraiah Martin has told me that her son Morgan is determined to be a drummer boy should there be a general call to arms. Her heart is nearly broken, for her husband will do naught to discourage the boy.
Young Gideon is in school as I write this, otherwise he would be using the pencil himself, for he writes and draws prodigiously, mostly about the animals he has seen around town, and the ones he secretes in the woodshed as he tries to heal their broken legs or injured wings.
An unwelcome vision came to Eliza’s mind, of Gideon coming home, reading the letter, and storming out to the shed to search for Young Gideon’s hidden patients. He would wring their necks with no thought whatsoever, for he had no place in his heart for healing or compassion. Indeed, he seemed to delight in disrupting the plans of others.
Inwardly blessing Mr. Lipman and his wondrous invention, she erased everything past the word prodigiously. Then she went back and re-erased the entire section several times until she was sure her husband would be unable to decipher what she had first written there.
... prodigiously, and he seems to have a great ability in doing so, for his sketches of birds’ heads and the hindquarters of our neighbor’s cows are quite detailed. I am startled sometimes when I take the ironed clothes into his room to see a drawing of the tongue and teeth of a horse, for it looks so real I can almost hear the neigh. I can practically see the wiggling when he draws a caterpillar, and I am entranced when he sketches the wings of a butterfly.
The letter was far too short. She could imagine Augusta’s disappointment in receiving it, but she truly could think of nothing else to say to her cousin. I am in despair. Gideon twisted my arm so hard yesterday I feared he might have broken it. Does your offer of a refuge still stand?
But no. She could not break her wedding vow. Not that she was particularly concerned about that, for had not Gideon broken his vows when he ceased to treat her with kindness? When he had ceased to care for her? But there was nothing in the wedding vows that said he must be kind. Only the stricture that she obey her husband in all things.
No. The true reason she stayed was that she could not leave Young Gideon. He depended on her. He was precious to her. She prayed daily that he would not turn out like his father. Surely a child with so much beauty built into his very soul could never become such a man.
I look forward to hearing from you, Augusta, for I enjoy your letters so much.
Your loving cousin,
Eliza Russell Hoskins
(Mrs
She went back and erased the abbreviation in that last line and wrote Mistress instead. Gideon was unlikely to appreciate anything so newfangled.
(Mistress Gideon Hoskins)
There. She could barely see the erasure mark. This pencil was a marvel indeed.
~ ~ ~
IDA SET THE PENCIL down and turned her back on the desk. She leaned against it. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll admit it.”
“Admit what?”
“You were right, Carol. I’m addicted to this history stuff. As much as it hurts, I think I need to go back to reading the journal.”
“Hooray,” Glaze said. “Now I can put away these boring cards and never think of them again.” Her stack of rejects had gotten quite tall.
"Wait," Dee said. "I think I may have something." She left the trunk she’d been poking around in and brought yet another old-looking paper over closer to one of the eyebrow windows. No wonder. Even with all the light filing into the attic from outside, the area where she’d been working was cast in gloom, shadowed by one of the tall bookcases.
"What is it?"
"I don’t know," she told me, "but it just feels like it might be old."
Marmalade jumped onto a small wicker stand nearby.
It is very old.
"Better put on the gloves," Carol warned her. "Marmalade says it’s very old."
I felt that familiar frisson of anticipation ripple across my shoulders. Ida handed Dee a pair of gloves.
The paper had been folded into quarters. It looked like it was written in a cramped hand, filling both sides of the sheet. As she held it up to the light, I could see what a mess the paper was, more like scribbles than writing.
"More Mary Frances?" Maddy sounded like she really wanted it to be from her favorite.
"No." Dee sounded discouraged somehow. "Is this what you meant when you talked about cross-writing, Carol?"
It didn’t take Carol even two seconds to respond. "You’re right. Whoever wrote it obviously wanted to conserve paper."
Dee pored over it for a moment before she gave up. "Anybody willing to try deciphering this?"
Surprisingly, it was Easton who stepped forward. "I’ll try."
"Gloves," Carol said.
It took Easton a few minutes to get the hang of it, but eventually what came out was well worth the effort.
My husband Charles sleeps like the very dead, but tonight I feel restless, so I have lit one candle and taken up this sheet of paper, the only one I have. I am not elderly by any means, but I found as I lay trying to sleep that I was beginning to forget details of what my father told Thomas so many years ago.
She stopped reading. "Who’s your father?"
"As if she’ll tell you," Charlie muttered from off to the side.
Easton disregarded her. "Let’s get back into our circle," she said, "while I try to figure this out." By the time we were seated, she’d found her answer. "It’s here at the bottom—or rather the edge, since she was cross-writing—of the back side. Edna Russell Hastings, 3 August 1764." She looked at Carol.
"Edna Russell was in her mid teens when they left Brandtburg in 1741. I’d have to look it up to be sure, but I don’t remember any other Edna in the group. Her father was Anders Russell, the minister."
Easton looked back at the first line. "And Charles? Who was he?"
"The only Charles in the group was Charles Hastings. He was the oldest son of Robert—the innkeeper—and Jane Elizabeth Benton Hastings. He was almost twenty when they left."
"And Robert’s the one who built Beechnut House," I reminded everyone.
"And Charles probably became the innkeeper after his father," Maddy suggested.
"So, Edna would have been living here when she wrote this." Easton’s mouth curved into a brilliant smile as she looked around the attic. I felt the same way. Magic.
"Don’t keep us waiting," Glaze said. "What did her father tell her?"
"He didn’t tell her." Easton looked back at the paper. "He told Thomas." Again, she looked at Carol.
"Thomas was Edna’s brother, a few years older than she was."
"Right!" Maddy sounded excited. "He’s the one who married MaryAnne after she spanked Barnard. Remember? Barnard made fun of how Thomas stuttered?"
It all came back, but before I could peel off into reminding the group that MaryAnne was also the one who’d thrown herself over her little brother to protect him from the mountain lion, Easton brought a halt to all the speculation.
It was important for Thomas to remember, Father said, as it was the true history of the Martins. He was not aware that I listened from the next room. Just yesterday I mentioned our father’s revelations of long ago to Thomas, but he did not recall them. Mayhap our Father’s words seemed not so important to him as they did to me. This is all the more reason for me to record these facts lest they be forgotten by everyone. I know that many of the women of the town do not know any of this, for those generations of long ago seem lost in the haze of years, and the orders of Homer Martin still bind the tongues of all our original company so that we speak not of Brandtburg.
"This oughta be good," Easton breathed, and kept reading.
The first Martin to move into the valley in the north—the valley we left in 1741—came into a place that had long been settled by the Brandts. The Martins now, my father told Thomas, do not believe that. They believe the Martins were there first, but does it not make sense that a town named Brandtburg would have been founded by the Brandt family? Thomas could not argue with his reasoning, nor can I.
Albion Martin, the grandson of the first Martin, married Lucelia Sabriss who had escaped in 1692—I do believe that was the year Father mentioned, but I am not certain. She escaped with her father before the witch trials began in the Massachusetts colony.
Easton’s eyes widened and she raised her voice above our mutters. "The Salem witch trials?"
Many of the Brandts said she was a witch herself, but Father told Thomas instead that she was a healer, a woman knowledgeable about herbs and poultices. Their six children were all born with cauls, though.
"What are cauls?"
Maddy, of course, was the one who answered Easton. "Something you don’t hear about very often. It’s when the birth sac is sort of stuck completely around the newborn."
Easton made a face.
"It’s extremely rare," Carol said. "I’m not surprised that people thought she—what did you say her name was?"
"Lucelia."
"That they thought she was a witch."
"How rare?"
I was glad Pat asked. I’d been wondering the same thing.
"About one caul birth out of every hundred thousand or so."
"Good grief," I said. "And they had six of them, all in that one family?"
"Like I said"—Carol was nodding sagely—"no wonder they thought she was a witch."
As the witch rumors began to spread through the town, Albion moved his whole family—wife, parents, children—east onto the side of the mountain. That was where all the families of the Martin clan lived until the exodus. All except for my family—the Russells—in the parsonage near the edge of Brandtburg, the Robert Hastings family, who lived above the public house, and Willem Breeton, who defied custom and built his house in the center of the town, but I am jumping ahead in time, for those houses came later in the story.
It is important that you know, Father said, that the Brandts murdered Albion and Lucelia and left their bodies lying beside the road.
"Oh no." Easton sounded as shocked as I felt. It wasn’t fair.
Of course, murder never was.
Their six children, the ones who had been born with cauls, were thereafter raised by their grandparents. Eventually, men newly come to the valley—a Breeton, a Garner, a Hastings, a Surratt, a Russell—married the five grown daughters of Albion and Lucelia, which truly began the Martin clan, and it was led by William, the only son of Albion and Lucelia. William had only two sons, Homer and Silas, the ones who eventually led us here to Martin’s Village. The first Breetons moved into Brandtburg, as I have already mentioned, the Hastings began their public house at the crossroads in town, and my grandfather and father built our church and parsonage on the eastern end of Brandtburg, but other than those three families, the rest all clustered their dwellings on the side of the mountain.
The women of the Brandt and Martin families could have lived peacefully together, but the men were ever ready to find fault with each other, which is what led finally to our journey away from the north.
"I never heard any of this." Easton looked at Sadie. "What about you?"
"Never. Rebecca Jo? Did you know this?"
"Not me. It’s like the whole story of where all these names came from has been lost all these years."
"Kind of like the story of Hubbard being the father of John so-called Martin," Maddy said. She spread her arms to encompass the attic. "You don’t suppose somebody, somewhere, drew a picture of Albion and Lucelia?"
"Not too likely," Carol said, "with all the hush-hush this history seems to have been subjected to."
"There’s always hope," Maddy said.
"Looks like you’ll have to invent a description," Dee teased.
"Don’t tempt me."
"The bewitching witch woman comes floating into town on her broom," Pat said, "and all the men of the town are drawn to her exotic beauty."
"No," Ida said, as if she knew what she was talking about. "She probably had warts."
"Not if what’s-his-name, Albion, fell in love with her," Dee objected.
Maddy ignored them all and turned to Easton. "What else does she say?"
"That’s all of it. She just signed her name and dated it." Easton lowered her voice almost to a whisper.
Edna Russell Hastings 3 August 1764
"What I don’t get," Pat said, "is how people could have forgotten the real history so quickly. It wasn’t that long—if Edna has her dates right—between the Salem witch trials and 1741, when the Martins left Brandtburg."
"If people are determined to forget," Carol said, "or have their own version of history they’d rather put forward—like that idea that the Martins were the first in the valley—all they have to do is start telling the altered story often enough, and people come to believe it."
"I need a potty break," Charlie said.
We dispersed for a while, but I have to admit I felt rather unsettled by that whole idea of changing history by lying about it.
Marmalade and I found Bob in the bedroom. We’d timed it just right so we didn’t have to compete for the bathroom. "You won’t believe what we found up there."
"Already?" He looked at the pocket watch. "You haven’t been at it for very long."
"That’s just it. We never know when we’re going to unearth a prize."
"So, what did you find?"
I described the cross-written letter and was gratified—but not surprised—to see he was as interested in it as I’d been.
"Had you ever heard any of that? Those names—Lucelia and Albion?"
"Never. I’m pretty sure I would have remembered them if I’d ever run across them."
"It’s like that whole chapter got erased."
He straightened my fleece vest and touched my cheek. "And now your Attic Society is bringing it back to life. I can’t wait to see that cross-writing."
"Maddy stuck it in the museum drawer. I think we need to make a trip up there so you can see everything. Once all these people are out of our hair," I added.
Nobody is in your hair.