Page 30 of The Attic on Queen Street
She shook her head. “The last section that we were working on before we had to stop was turning up lots of artifacts from a time period that was much later than the Revolutionary period, where everything else seemed to date from.”
“But that doesn’t make sense, does it? The more recent stuff should be on top, right?”
“Right. Which is why we had to go back and do some research on the property abutting the rear of yours.” She smiled sheepishly. “Dr.Wallen-Arasi didn’t want to mention any of this to you yet because of everything else going on in your house right now. She said it would be better to tell you when she had some answers.”
“She did, did she?” I sat back casually in my chair. “But I’m here now, and you’ve got me interested. So what did you find?”
Meghan looked at me skeptically. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Very.”
She looked relieved and not just a little excited to be sharing her discovery with anyone interested in hearing it. “Well, it looks like another structure existed behind your house next to the cistern. We went back to the original plots and saw what looks to be a kitchen house. Apparently, it was burned to the ground during the great fire of 1861 and a lot of debris from the house either fell or was put into the cistern.”
I took a bite of my crepe and had to pause for a moment while I forced myself to swallow, the food suddenly tasting like ash. “The great fire of 1861? It sounds vaguely familiar.” That was a lie, but I didn’t wantto admit that I’d read romance novels during most of my history classes at the various Army base schools wherever my father and I had lived.
“Yes. A lot of people attribute the damage visible in post–Civil War photos to the Union Army’s bombardment, but that didn’t start until 1863. The great fire was in December of 1861—the origins of it are unclear. What we do know is that fourteen houses on Queen Street were blown up to create a fire block.”
Meghan shuddered, as if the destruction of historic properties was a fate she couldn’t even imagine. “That one action did save a couple of hospitals, the medical college, and the Roman Catholic orphan house, but still.” She shuddered again. “By noon the next day the fire had cleared the peninsula and was starting to peter out. The city market and most of Meeting, the north side of Queen, most of Broad, and this side of Tradd Street were devastated. It’s really a miracle your house didn’t burn down, too.” She looked at me with excitement. “I can show you pictures.”
I feigned enthusiasm. “Maybe later.” The phantom smell of burning wood drifted past me, reminding me of the scent that had wafted up when I’d opened the Frozen Charlotte’s tiny coffin. I sipped my coffee, trying to erase the sooty taste in the back of my throat. Recalling the small footprints in the snow, I asked nervously, “When you say ‘debris,’ do you mean things like bricks?”
She nodded, but her eyes had shifted to my plate. “Um, sure. We definitely found bricks.”
“And...?” I held my breath.
She fidgeted in her chair, which wasn’t at all like the Meghan Black I knew. “Well, yes, and bits of china and old chicken bones and trash like in the rest of the cistern. But we’re also finding more... personal things.”
“ ‘Personal things,’ ” I repeated. “Like what?”
She glanced up at the sky as if reading a list, counting off things on her pink-tipped fingers. “Like an old doll with a porcelain head. A silver vanity set and a pair of nearly new boots made for a young girl. Also a training corset meant to be worn by an adolescent girl.” She frowned, her gaze meeting mine again.
I pushed my plate away, my appetite having vanished. “It almost sounds like things a person might be buried with.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” she said, her expression making it obvious that this idea wasn’t new. With forced lightness, she continued. “It could have been a family burial ground associated with a house that stood behind yours and that burned in the fire, but the good news is that we haven’t found any human bones. Although we did find a nearly intact skeleton of a small dog—but lots of people bury their dogs in the backyard, so that’s not so surprising. As to the possibility of a human grave site, when the property lines were redrawn after the Vanderhorsts acquired the property behind theirs following the fire, they might have moved the body to a cemetery but left behind any items that might have been placed in a coffin at burial.”
I regarded her with curiosity. “The body? So therewasa grave?”
“Well, assuming itisa grave site—and we don’t know for sure—it looks as if there was only the single one.”
She’d grabbed a napkin and was in the process of shredding it into tiny pieces.
“Was there anything else that Sophie didn’t want to tell me yet?”
Meghan’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Do you promise not to tell her how you know?”
“She’ll know whether I tell her or not, but let’s not forget it’s my house we’re discussing.”
“Right,” she said, nodding once. “So, we also found a headstone.”
An icy rivulet of fear traced the length of my spine, making me shiver. I pulled my sweater tighter. “A headstone?”
“Yeah. Marble. Which is the worst material, just about, for headstones in this climate. The lettering on it is so shallow that it’s unreadable except for part of the first name. We think it starts with the letter E but the second letter is unclear—might be an M, or a U, or an N. It’s really anybody’s guess.”
A memory of footprints in the snow flashed through my head. Another icy shiver ran through me. “ ‘E,’ ” I repeated. “Was there anything else?”
She scratched her chin, then lifted her finger. “Oh, and a large collection of buttons.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Like how large? Tens? One hundred?”
