Chapter Twelve. Grace #2
Ugh. I feel strangely shy about seeing Rose again.
“What’s wrong?” Cooper asks.
I make a face. “I have to go up to the main house.”
!
I remind myself to knock instead of walking right in.
Rose answers the door with Lou peeking out behind her. “Grace. Hello.”
She looks fresh as a daisy. I wish I’d put some Max Factor Pan-Cake on the dark circles under my eyes. “It’s strange to knock.”
“I bet.” She peers up at me. “Is there something I can help you with?”
I hold up my left hand. “I lost Stan’s class ring.” Rose makes a face. “Don’t. I’ve already had a lecture from Coop, and I don’t need another. Just help me search?”
“All right.” Rose crouches down to Lou’s height.
The little girl is straight out of a Sears catalog with her hair in two dark braids tied with red bows; a smocked red dress with white Swiss dots; and ruffly white socks with Mary Janes.
Except her little knees are crisscrossed with Band-Aids.
“Grace lost her ring, Lulu. Do you want to help us find it?”
“Yeah!” Lou nods. “I’m a good finder.”
“Swell. I could really use the help.” She makes it hard to be a grouch.
“I hoovered the library—there were crumbs everywhere—and I didn’t see it,” Rose says. “Where did you go after that?”
“The Blue Room.” I lead them through the lobby.
There’s a cacophony of hammering and sawing from the north wing.
I make my way through the skeleton walls of the south wing to the room with bluebells-on-cream wallpaper.
Red-faced, I remember begging her for answers.
I’m glad there was no one here to see me like that, desperate and a little drunk.
I search the floor for a glint of gold. Nothing.
I drop to my hands and knees, running my palms over the old oak floorboards. Rose and Lou join me, but Lou loses interest fast and begins to crawl around on all fours, meowing.
I expect Rose to chide her, but she only pats Lou’s head. “Good kitty.”
“I’m Patches,” Lou says. “Meow.”
“Patches is her little calico kitten,” Rose explains. “He’s back in Washington, and Hannah—that’s our housekeeper—is taking very good care of him.”
“Meow,” Lou says again.
My hand smashes into an uneven board. “Ow!” That must be what I tripped over last night. It’s part of a dark rectangle of wood unbleached by the sun, unworn by footsteps. Must have been under a piece of furniture. Probably the bedframe.
The nails anchoring the floorboard in place are missing at both ends. That’s strange. The workmen haven’t run the wiring or plumbing in here yet. But if it wasn’t them …
My heart races. Did one of the wayward girls use this as a hiding spot?
I glance at Rose, my eyes wide. She’s noticed. (Of course she’s noticed.)
“Lulu, could you go upstairs and get Grace a Band-Aid, please?” she asks.
Lou peers at my hand, interested. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“I—yes, I did.” I put my finger in my mouth. “Ouch.”
“I’ll get you a Band-Aid!” She races off.
Rose nods at the floorboard. “Can you lift it?”
I tug the board from its slot. It comes up easily, revealing a hole beneath. I peer in.
There’s something down there!
I stick my arm in (please don’t let there be spiders) and pull out a bunch of newspaper.
It’s a yellowed edition of the Easton Star-Democrat.
Frowning, I unfold it, and a bracelet falls into my lap.
Brass rectangles hinge together, each link with a pale green gem—or maybe colored glass—in the center, and tiny metal beads around the edges.
It’s about three inches wide. I hold it out for Rose to see.
She kneels next to me. “Pretty. How long do you think it’s been here?”
I smooth out the yellowed newspaper so I can read the masthead.
July 11, 1930.
My hand flies to my mouth. “This bracelet—it was hidden a month before Cooper and I were born.” I slip it onto my wrist. The metal is cold against my skin.
A shiver starts at the crown of my head and works its icy fingers down my spine, all the way to my toes.
Last night, I asked, Who are you? And then I tripped over this floorboard. I thought it was the scotch, but what if this was her answer? What if the ghost wanted me to know that she was here, in this room, in the summer of 1930? What if she wanted me to know—
“Rose,” I hiss. “What if the ghost is my mother?”
“Were you and Coop adopted? That … would make a lot of sense.”
“I’ve been thinking about what Ella told us, about how eye color works. Remember? She said it’s impossible for Cooper and me to have brown eyes.”
Rose frowns. “Wait, this has to do with Ella’s biology lesson? Your parents never said—”
“Dad would never admit it,” I explain. “But he and Ma were married for eleven years before we came along. What if they couldn’t have children, so they adopted twins?
I did a little digging. Dad fired all the Harrow Home staff except the midwife that summer.
Isn’t that odd? What if—” I take a breath.
My thoughts are coming so fast. “What if the ghost is our birth mother, and Dad took us from her, and she died of heartbreak … or even childbirth? Then the construction disturbed her spirit, and she’s angry at Dad, and that’s why she’s haunting me? Us?
“I know it sounds far-fetched.” I’m flushed with a mix of excitement and embarrassment. “But we can see a ghost, Rose. Is what I’m saying any more far-fetched than that?”
In the ensuing silence, I hear voices coming from the central wing, getting louder. Rose and I exchange panicked glances. I slide the floorboard back into place. Rose grabs the crumpled newspaper and shoves it into the deep pocket of her skirt.
I recognize Dad’s voice. My stomach curdles with dread.
Rose scrambles to her feet. “Give me the bracelet!”
I pull it off my wrist and toss it to her as the hall door bangs open. Dad strides toward us, his steps echoing in the empty wing, sawdust rising in his wake. I watch Rose out of the corner of my eye. She slides the bracelet into her pocket.
Somehow, we both feel that Dad mustn’t see it.
“What are you two doing? You have no business being back here,” he says sharply.
“I misplaced Stanley’s ring,” I confess. “Rose is helping me look for it.”
“‘Misplaced’ is just a fancy word for lost.” Dad’s lips thin. “Didn’t your mother and I teach you to take better care of your things?” He glowers at the empty room. “Why would it be back here? Have you been fraternizing with the workmen?”
“What? No!” I’ve never shown interest in any man besides Stanley. And the construction workers are old. Dad frowns at my tone, and I backpedal. “I mean, no, sir.”
“Grace was keeping Ella and me company last night,” Rose says. It’s not exactly a lie. “She was telling us what the Harrow Home used to be like.”
Dad huffs. He can’t rebuke the boss’s daughter, so he casts about for something else to find fault with.
“I know there are a bunch of silly rumors about this house … Do you know I found a spirit board hidden in Magnolia’s things?
A family heirloom, she said. That’s the only reason I didn’t break the blasted thing in half.
She can have it back when she leaves, and not a minute sooner.
I won’t have nonsense like that in my house! ”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
Rose gets a sly look. “I heard the hotel is haunted.”
“Nonsense.” Dad draws himself up to his full five feet ten.
“I told Rose it was complete foolishness. Who would haunt the Harrow Home, anyhow?” I ask. “You never lost any girls.”
“Well.” Dad clears his throat. “Childbirth is a dangerous business. We lost a few, here and there.”
Is that why the bracelet is here, unclaimed, seventeen years later? Did she hide it before she gave birth to her baby (or babies) and never get a chance to retrieve it?
Did this bracelet belong to our birth mother?
“Most of our girls had no trouble. They were young—too young, if you ask me—and healthy. Physically healthy, anyhow. Spiritually, morally … that’s another story.” He eyes Rose, as though he has some doubts about her spiritual and moral health, too.
“Well.” Rose edges toward the door. “We didn’t find the ring back here.”
Dad reaches into his jacket pocket. “One of the workmen found it in the library.”
“Oh, thank goodness!” It must have fallen off after Rose and I came down from the widow’s walk, wet and shivering. I slide it back onto my finger.
“You should be more careful. You’re lucky to have Stanley, you know,” Dad says.
Rose looks incredulous. But if I told Dad how poorly Stan treated me last night, he would find a way to blame me.
Imagine having a father who cared whether I was happy or not. Whether I was being treated well. Who thought Stanley was lucky to have me!
Maybe I do.
Maybe, somewhere out there, I have a birth father who’s kind and generous and good.
Maybe Cooper takes after him.
Maybe we both could.