Not all those who wander are lost.
—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
THE NEXT DAY, Seymour picked me up at seven sharp—and promptly drove to Cooper’s Family Bakery, where Brainert was already ordering us fresh doughnuts and hot coffee for the road.
Sufficiently fortified with carbs and caffeine, we hit the highway.
Seymour had worked out the route in advance. Watching his speedometer closely, he made a turn onto an unmarked side road. We drove a few more miles, and he turned again, this time onto a two-lane blacktop that I hadn’t even known existed.
“What do we know about Marsh House?” I asked. “I tried a search online but came up with nothing.”
“I texted Violet Brooks last night, but she said there was no mention of the house in her Newport research on Harriet. I have an idea. Let me check a source . . .”
Brainert tried using his computer tablet, but a weak Wi-Fi signal foiled the attempt.
Soon Seymour pulled off the road at a clearing ringed by trees. When he cut the engine, the only sounds we heard were wind and the chatter of birds.
“I can’t believe this is Rhode Island. It looks like a national forest.”
“You shouldn’t be surprised,” Seymour replied in his Jeopardy! contestant voice. “The Rhode Island Homestead Bureau says two-thirds of the state is completely forested.”
Brainert nodded. “The homestead bureau is exactly the source I was going to check for Marsh House. They list dozens of abandoned farms and their histories. Let me try again . . .” But once again, he failed to get a signal. Meanwhile Seymour checked his Boy Scout compass.
“We head due north for half a mile.”
Hiking was easy. We found a narrow path and discovered we weren’t its only travelers.
“Gad, what a stench,” Brainert groused. “Is it skunk?”
“Deer,” Seymour replied.
“And how do you know, Chingachgook?”
“Because you’re standing in a pile of droppings.”
I’ll bet that isn’t the first time the egghead stepped in it, either.
I’m relieved you’re here, Jack.
The great outdoors is hardly the pavement I pounded. But considering these two, I’m all you got.
The path ended at a grassy clearing. As we crossed the space, I stumbled—and of course both men were too preoccupied to catch me.
I spit dirt as Seymour helped me up. “What did I trip over?”
Seymour pointed to a gray chunk of granite nestled in the brown grass. “It’s a gravestone, Pen.”
“I see more graves.” Brainert pulled a pad and charcoal out of his knapsack. “I’m going to grab some rubbings. I’ll catch up with you.”
Seymour and I pushed forward through another thicket of trees. When the branches parted, we found another clearing.
“Look!” Seymour cried. “It’s Marsh House!”
Ruins was a more fitting description, though the stone chimney still stood tall above the trees. The outlines of the structure were visible, but the floors inside those four crumbled walls were covered by ivy that climbed over the remaining stonework to engulf the old house.
“The only thing standing is the hearth,” Seymour noted. “Let’s check it out.”
We circled the ruined walls until we reached the chimney, where tendrils of ivy crawled across the weathered stone.
“The fireplace is intact,” I marveled. “There’s even a rusty hook to hang a cooking pot.”
Seymour spied something under the ivy. “There’s a carving, Pen.”
He hacked at the vines with his Swiss Army knife until a single flat stone was exposed. The letter M and a bird symbol had been carved into its surface. Seymour retrieved his phone and showed me a detail from Harriet’s portrait—a bird hovering above her house.
The outline of the bird in stone and on canvas were identical.
“I thought the bird was a seagull,” Seymour said. “Brainert insisted it was an albatross and the M meant Rime of the Ancient Mariner. We were both wrong. The M stands for Marsh.”
Seymour frantically dug at the seams around the stone until he could pry it loose. Behind it was a dark hole. “There’s something in there!”
Seymour reached into the depression and dragged the object into the light of day—an iron box the size of a brick, its hinges welded shut. A scarlet glass heart about the size of a quarter was embedded in a blob of hardened metal on top of the box.
He frowned. “Geez, how are we going to open it?”
Brainert showed up a moment later. His pride over his “fantastic rubbings” evaporated when Seymour showed him the box. Even the prickly professor was impressed.