CHAPTER 14

It’s getting hot again, and the work on the fence and the pig has made me sweaty. I go to the house to wash up a bit. When I lift my head from the washbasin, I’m surprised to see Mother standing there behind me. I hadn’t even heard her. She doesn’t speak to me, but her eyes are wide and expressive.

“What is it, Mother?” I ask. “Are you all right?”

Her lips tighten, turn whitish pink. She’s clutching a satchel to her chest. I recognize the scent of it before I recognize the shape of it. It’s Father’s satchel, an old black leather case that he took everywhere. Sometimes, he said, he used it as a pillow. Aside from his collection, this satchel was his most prized possession. It was where he kept all of his notes, research, and important papers.

I reach for it.

Mother steps away from me, just a little bit.

“I don’t understand,” I say. Why won’t she just talk? I know she can. I remember when she did. It’s not that hard. I do it all the time.

She steps back toward me and presses the satchel into my arms. I take it. She shuffles to her rocking chair, sits down, and closes her eyes to return to her silence.

I touch the top of the satchel. I remember my father pulling papers out of it and shoving papers into it. I lift it to my nose and sniff. There he is, tobacco and dust.

“Thank you, Mother,” I say. I’m glad I didn’t shout at her.

Memory after memory floods me. After long, frustrating days in the field or with the pigs, Father would pull out his satchel, sit down at the table, and pore over his studies. He’d be happy again. Farm work did not make my father happy. You can ask anybody about that. Especially Eustace. Lots of times, when Eustace would come to see what Father was doing in the field, planting beans in rows rather than in between corn plants, for instance, Eustace would take off his hat and scratch his head and say, “Well, I’ve never seen it done like that before.”

Father would try to explain. “This is the newest method, Eustace.”

Eustace would nod, but he’d also say something like, “Don’t need to use as much soil or space the old way.”

I leave the kitchen and dash up the stairs to my room. I toss the satchel onto my bed and stare at it for a while. I’ve always wanted it. I’ve always wanted to look inside and read my father’s handwriting, his thoughts, his notes. But at this moment, I’m afraid to open it. My room feels airless and heavy with heat. The Medicine Head seems to be whispering again. I lie down on the floor and peek under the bed. It’s still there, right where I left it.

“Be quiet,” I say to it. “I’m not listening.” But I am. I’m sweating. Bad, cloudy thoughts and bad, mealy feelings mix around inside me. Sadness. And anger. And fear. My mind flip-flops like flapjacks these days.

I unbuckle the satchel and lift open the top to reveal papers set carefully on the satin lining. Father’s papers. I touch them delicately, and I select a newspaper. I tenderly unfold a New Bedford Times with the headline “Local Man’s Discoveries Discredited” and read:

Captain Charles Wonder was charged today with falsifying records and theft of United States property. Captain Wonder will face a Naval Court-Martial to strip him of his rank, return him to civilian status, and hasten the return of a priceless cache of items collected on several voyages at sea. Captain Wonder was chief scientist, naturalist, mineralogist, botanist, map-maker, and taxidermist aboard the ship Vivienne, part of the United States Exploring Expedition between the years 1835 and 1842, which resulted in the discovery of the continent of Antarctica for the United States.

According to Captain Cornelius H. Greeney, who also was a member of the United States Exploring Expedition as the captain of the ship Saint Mary, “Mr. Wonder has behaved in ways unbecoming a representative of the United States Navy, has claimed to have discovered lands I, myself, discovered a full week before his ship reached the continent of Antarctica, and has kept for himself artifacts and jewels and gold, which are rightly owned by the United States. I will not rest until this man is revealed as the charlatan he is and I have in my hands the objects, worth millions, that should rightly be in my charge.” Captain Greeney has taken over the responsibilities of Captain Wonder. He is a member of the Seaman’s Bethel Chapel and is a prominent member of the abolitionist movement to eradicate slavery from the nation.

Captain Wonder is married to the former Clare Seton, the daughter of Horace Seton and a pillar of the New Bedford community and leader in the abolitionist movement.

Have you ever read something bad about someone you love in a newspaper? Probably not. Well, I’ll tell you. It doesn’t feel too good.

I put it down, on top of another paper with the headline “Captain Wonder Dishonorably Discharged Amid Scandal.” The creases of the newspaper are almost worn through, which means Father opened and reopened these articles again and again.

To tell you the truth, I don’t know why Father kept the artifacts, why he didn’t ask someone to help him, why he allowed Captain Greeney to destroy his reputation. I do know he said that Captain Greeney intended to sell them off to the highest bidders, who would put them in private collections in dark and dirty smoking rooms in their gothic mansions. I suppose Father couldn’t stand the thought of his stuffed caracal cat, his thunder eggs, his mounted piranhas, his Egyptian pharaoh’s headdress, and, particularly, his Medicine Head sitting in places where he couldn’t study and learn from them. But I don’t know for sure. Maybe he simply wanted to keep them for himself. Though he told me and taught me a lot, he didn’t have time to teach me everything or tell me all I needed to know.

I feel sad when I think about him sitting and reading all these nasty half-truths and lies about himself, but then my stomach clenches and a gush of bitter bile comes up my throat. I swallow it back down, leaving a sour taste in my mouth. I think of the man responsible for this misery, for Father’s death, and I clench my fists and promise Father that I will get revenge.

I know that in most families, a son is responsible for upholding the family name and for carrying on the knowledge and trade and work and wealth or property or herds or acres of the father. But since Father had no sons who lived through childhood, it’s my responsibility instead. It’s usually the daughter’s duty to find a suitable husband and make a suitable home and have clever children for her parents to be fond of, and then take care of her aging parents in their waning years, but I’m certain those things can wait until after I’ve avenged Father. And in any case, I haven’t seen a single boy or man around these parts whose attention I’d like more than I like my scientific pursuits. All the boys around here look too much like Kansas: stringy, dusty, and boring.

I touch the newspapers one more time, and I’m about to close the satchel when I notice the corner of a folded piece of paper sticking out between all the old newspapers. It seems strangely clean, when all the others are yellowed and brittle. I pull on it carefully. I unfold it and am surprised to see my own name at the top.

It’s a letter, addressed to me.

I catch my breath and read:

Dearest Hallelujah,

One of these days, I fear, Captain Greeney will come for the treasures and come for me. I hope I am prepared, but this letter is for you in case I am caught unaware.

I have spent my life traveling the world. It is a marvelous world to behold. From the smallest insects of the plains to the behemoths of the oceans, from the frigid floating ice islands to the volcanic sandy beaches even now being born in the seas, the world is ripe for discovery and appreciation. Every element of nature, the moon’s phases, the sun, the winds, the clouds, the seas, the animals, and the mountains and valleys, functions in concert. It has been a great blessing to be able to see and study so many wondrous things. I think, child, that you, too, are destined for this kind of life, one of curiosity and toil and learning.

I write now to warn you of one mystery I have yet to understand, and, I must admit, one that I fear. It is the artifact that truly interests Captain Greeney and is the one he must not find. I am afraid he could, frankly, exploit its tremendous power and destroy our family. What else the artifact is capable of, I am not sure. For it prevents careful study. I am too weak to handle it much. It calls to me in wicked ways. It conjures enormous anger and thoughts of revenge in me. It begs me to hold it. I don’t know what I might do if I entertained it for long. But I fear the worst.

For now, I know it magnifies negative feelings, evokes difficult memories and terrible prophecies, and that it is best kept in a cool place. Heat seems to galvanize its power. And it is magic. Or, rather, the source of its power is unknown, undiscovered by me. For all my years of learning and logic, I must admit that some phenomena cannot be explained. I also know, based on anecdotes I have heard but can hardly believe, that the artifact must not be destroyed. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DESTROY IT. If the stories are true, the consequences of its destruction are as terrible as anything I can imagine. The item I write of is the Medicine Head. It calls to me. It calls to others. Not everyone. I do not know how it selects, but it does. I have seen you attracted to it, too, Hallelujah. I have seen you stand near it with your ears alert. Be careful, but be courageous.

Kansas, with its heat, is not a safe place for the artifact. If it is ever safe for me to return to New Bedford, there is a good man there who will help me take it to the coldest place on earth, the place that bears my name. His name is Captain Abbot, and as the world’s best whaling captain, he is familiar with the iciest and most treacherous seas. He is a frightening man, full of wild tales and bad spirits. But he is the only one, I believe, who could make the journey. No one else on earth is as familiar with that deadly region of the sea. No one else on earth has as little to lose as Captain Abbot.

I write this now as though my time is short. Perhaps I will be able to dispose of the Medicine Head myself, and I will rip this letter to shreds. If not, I will sign off now, entrusting you with this great responsibility. I love you, your sister, and your mother very much. You are the brightest stars in my universe. And you, Hallelujah Wonder, have enormous intellect and heart. Where I have failed, I trust you will succeed. Your greatest gift is your everlasting curiosity about the world. Keep it, my darling daughter.

Your devoted father,

Charles Wonder

My eyes grow bleary and hot. And then I cry like a baby all over the letter. I hold it to my chest. I sob. I’m loud and shaky. I miss Father so much.

He’d be so disappointed in me if he could see me now, bawling and frightened and not at all like the girl with the enormous intellect and heart he hoped for. I let it all out, and after a while, a long while in which I try to cry out every bad thing that’s ever happened to my family—my brothers dying, my mother fading into herself, my father’s trial, my father’s murder, Captain Greeney hunting us, the fire—I finally calm down and fold the letter.

I was correct about what to do with the Medicine Head. I figured it out on my own. I discovered its sensitivity to heat and cold all by myself. I didn’t need anyone to tell me or guide me. I was smart enough to use my own observation and mind. I think maybe Father would be proud about that. Maybe he would be proud that I thought of Antarctica, too, before I read the letter.

I think maybe I do have a good knot in my skull.

Maybe I can do this.