Chapter 33 #2
Prosper gives a cavalier shrug and affects Nash’s mocking tone. “I can’t tell all my secrets.”
“Touché.” A smile feathers his face, a face that is up for a challenge. He jumps back into the boat. “Ladies, I shall see you in an hour.”
Eva takes my arm, shaky on her pins. The pier is scuffed, with raised nails and splintering, something Doc would never tolerate. But why fix something that is no longer needed?
“Mr. Tavernish is hiding something,” I murmur to her. Why else would he lie about the site being a “dangerous” working kiln? “Do you think Mr. Sanders was in on Mr. Tavernish and Mr. Gotze’s secret word?”
“He was not friends with either of them, so I doubt it.”
Making our way to the rocky shore, I’m glad for Eva’s warmth to counteract my sudden clamminess.
My father’s remains were found here, before the kiln was built.
So what had he been doing in Mr. Tavernish’s cove?
Before the trees lost their tops and the hill was carved out, the cove would’ve been a picturesque hideaway.
The water grows shallow, full of eelgrass. As the grass wriggles, a bright red blob comes into view. I shriek, the noise loud enough to ricochet off the kiln walls. A seal head?
Eva screams too, jerking me so hard we nearly fall into the water. Slowly, we peer into the eelgrass together.
“It is just an ochre sea star,” I gasp. The thick-armed starfish was on my list of illustrations still to be done.
“Oh!” Eva exclaims, and then we are both giggling in relief. The seals grunt protests, then shuffle off.
When we step off the dock, sand and rocks squelch under our boots. “I am thankful for your company, but why did you come?” I ask.
“I’ve seen you do plenty of things you’re afraid of. Like speaking through that trumpet. Standing up to Sveyn and Boots. I figured I would try it.” I squeeze her arm, and she squeezes back, adding, “Plus, I’m not sure I trust Nash.”
“Why? Because he is a scoundrel?”
“No, because he is the would-be heir, and you displaced him. Why is he so free with his favors for you?” Eva continues. “Is he just in love with you?”
“I—I don’t know,” I stammer, feeling a surge of heat. I’d rather not think about Nash right now. “I’ve never seen a kiln up close.”
“Me neither.”
A road of packed gravel leads to the stone structure, its backside pressed against the hill. It is a man-sized oven fed from the top.
Eva points to a pair of scorched openings cut into the side of the kiln. “That must be where the wood goes.”
I work my way up the incline and peer into the blackened throat where quarried stone would be loaded.
Shriveled leaves and debris have collected at the bottom of the pit.
I shiver, thinking how easily someone could be trapped in here.
How easily a body could be incinerated without a trace.
But according to Mr. Tavernish, the kiln wasn’t built until after my father’s murder. Or was that another lie?
Eva grabs my hands as I try to lean in for a better look. “Don’t touch anything. Residue.”
“Right. Of course.” I rub my hands against my skirt in case any of the corrosive and flammable lime powder remains.
I glance farther up the hill, where a rough path must lead to a main road.
“Look.” Something has caught Eva’s eye in the opposite direction. “There’s a house there.” She points to a spot in the shady forest on the cove’s northern end.
We descend from the kiln and cross the rough sand beach to a grove of firs and cedars.
Towering vines of old-man’s beard have engulfed many of the trees, their growth so heavy, they will eventually pull even the giant firs down.
We carefully pick our way over withered leaves, as if each crackling step could trigger a booby trap.
Camouflaged amid the growth lies a deserted cabin with no door and punched-out windows.
The gabled roof sags, owing to a large tree branch that has fallen on top of it.
From the doorway it looks sparsely furnished, with a simple table and two chairs on the right side of the room, a single wood-frame bed on the left side, and a potbellied stove at the back. The floor is full of litter and dirt.
The sound of rustling lifts my head. “Did that come from under the bed?”
Eva clutches her skirts, face furrowed in disgust. “I think it’s a rat. If you don’t mind, I’ll just take a look around outside.”
“That’s a good idea,” I tell her. Eva is not a kitchen girl like me, who has seen and killed her share of vermin. “I want to check the inside.”
She hastily carries herself away.
I slowly walk the perimeter, leaves crunching underfoot.
Rotting wood and the sweet fruiting scent of ripening mold make me sneeze.
Despite the disrepair, the home has good bones: a post-and-beam construction that required more labor than a simple log cabin.
Perhaps it was once someone’s seaside cottage—a fisherman’s.
Or a rest house for the kiln workers, who had to keep the fires going all night.
A thick blanket of dust covers the table. I almost don’t notice the two thin sticks, the size of two new pencils, lying parallel atop it. Picking them up, I blow away the dust, and a memory stirs. The men at the Chinese camp were using sticks to eat their food.
Did a Chinese person live here? My father? I set the sticks down, my fingers beginning to tremble. But why would he live in such an out-of-the-way place, on land owned by Mr. Tavernish?
A breeze makes a whoo through the broken windows. Is it the sound of a hungry ghost?
The squeaking of creatures that must indeed be rats makes the leaves move at the far corner, behind the potbellied stove. I shudder, imagining a nest under there.
Avoiding the stove, I cross to the bed, which is bare of a mattress.
Next to it lies an empty woodbin. Yellow sunburst lichen has begun to grow on a rotting corner of the bin.
I lower myself, studying the container. The wood feels cool and slightly damp under my touch, and when I press it, the bin rocks.
It is a cradle.