When he went to take the vest off, she put up her hand. “Leave it on.”
He supposed he should be glad it wasn't pink with purple polka dots. Will and Fitch would have plenty to say about it.
“Thanks a lot, Aunt Linda. I hear this is what all the guys are wearing.” Grumbling under his breath, he yanked open his bottom drawer and started packing.
Linda took in his sullen expression. “Look, I'm not out to embarrass you. It would just mean so much to … to Mercedes if you would wear it. Why don't you put a sweatshirt over it, if it makes you happier? It's chilly out anyway.” And she smiled that smile that always made you want to please her.
Jack wondered how flattered Mercedes would be to know he was wearing her precious vest like underwear. He found his Ohio State sweatshirt on the floor, pulled it over his head, and zipped up the duffle. Then he remembered what he'd meant to tell her. “Oh, yeah. Will and Fitch are both coming,” he said.
He thought she'd be pleased, but she frowned and said, “Oh,” like she'd completely forgotten she'd invited them. “Maybe we should just go by ourselves,” she suggested, after a pause.
Jack stared at her in disbelief. “You can't be serious. You were the one who told me to invite them in the first place.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, shifting from one foot to the other. “I … it's just that—”
“Mom's packing enough food for an army. She even made brownies, for once, instead of those disgusting bran applesauce carrot bars.”
“All right. Never mind. I just hope they get here soon. I'd like to get out of here as soon as possible.”
She's moodier than I remember, Jack thought.
Back in the kitchen, Becka was just closing up the cooler. “This should tide you boys over if Linda won't stop to eat. She really does seem to be on a mission. I'll put your medicine in your duffel,” she added pointedly, sliding the big blue bottle in with Jack's clothes. “Don't get so involved in family history that you forget to take it.”
And then Will and Fitch arrived, seeming to fill up the kitchen. Will was wearing his varsity jacket, T-shirt, and blue jeans. Fitch wore an army issue camouflage jacket, a bright yellow sweatshirt with the logo of a country music station emblazoned on the front, and gray-green climbing pants with a red necktie threaded through for a belt.
Jack realized that no matter what he wore, he could never match Fitch's display. Fitch played by his own rules, and it never bothered him that the preps called him weird. “Weird is good, strange is bad,” Fitch always said. Jack felt a little better.
Chapter Three
Digging Up Dead Relatives
Linda had a heavy foot. She seemed determined to make up at least part of the time they had wasted at school. Whenever Jack, who was riding shotgun, stole a look at the speedometer, it hovered around eighty-five. He had been hoping she might ask him to drive, but realized they would only lose time with him at the wheel.
They passed through a series of tired little towns: a traffic light, a gas station or two. As darkness fell, they began to see the debris of strip mining: heaps of slag and mine tailings. Iron oil rigs crouched like giant mosquitoes in the dusk, sucking the black blood out of the land.
“Have either of you ever been here before?” Will asked.
“My mom brought me down here a few years ago,” Jack admitted. Dragged was more accurate. Becka had made him walk all over those hills, looking for the family homestead. They never did find it. “My great-great grandmother Susannah lived here. She was quite a character, I guess. She played banjo and fiddle and made killer black cherry wine.”
Linda took up the tale without taking her eyes from the road. “Susannah is the one we're looking for. She had the Second Sight, they say. She communed with spirits, read the cards, and had prophetic dreams.”
“She sounds like some kind of witch,” Fitch remarked.
“Mom's always been into that kind of thing,” Jack said, grinning. “It's been rumored that magic runs in our family, you know.”
“I'd prefer that to allergies,” Fitch said, sneezing.
“Susannah had quite a following around here, mostly women.” Linda swerved to miss a groundhog. “In those days, it always seemed to be men who made the future, and women who needed to protect themselves against it.”
Jack stared out the window. This home of his ancestors was on the way to nowhere; a place of graveyards, where they dug up the coal and buried the people.
It was fully dark when they reached Coal Grove, the county seat, a town without a traffic light. An ornate old courthouse anchored one end of the square. The stores were all closed, although several cars littered the parking lot next to the movie theatre; light and music spilled from a place called the Bluebird Cafe diagonally across from the courthouse. Friday night in Coal Grove, Jack thought. Even slower than Trinity.
Linda turned the Land Rover down one of the side streets off the square and parked along the curb under a huge maple tree. There were no streetlights, and it was pitch black in the shadow of the great tree.
“Where are we?” asked Will, puzzled. “Aren't we going to the motel?”
“I need to go to the courthouse first,” Linda replied, climbing down out of the front seat. She slung a backpack over her shoulder and slammed the car door. It seemed unnaturally loud on the quiet street.
Jack unfolded himself out of the car, feeling a little unsteady on his legs after the long ride. The night air was cool and fragrant, and there was a soft sound of spring peepers from somewhere in the distance. A small dog began barking madly behind a screen door in a nearby house. The porch light went on, and they could see a figure silhouetted behind the screen.
Linda led them across the street and into the parking lot behind the courthouse. A modern brick building crouched on the other side of the parking lot, away from the square. Two police cars were parked next to the building. A mercury vapor light cast a sallow light over the scene.
“But isn't the courthouse closed?” Will persisted.
“Oh, I'm sure it's open late on Friday nights,” Linda said. She led the trio along the back of the building, between army green trash Dumpsters and into the shadows of an alley on the far side. She followed the side of the building back until she found what she was looking for: a concrete stairwell with an ancient iron railing that descended below ground level. There was a door at the bottom.
Linda looked up and down the alleyway, then descended the stairs, motioning for Jack and his friends to follow her. She fumbled with the door—for a moment before it swung open on loudly protesting hinges. She looked back over her shoulder at them. “I told you it was open!” she said, then disappeared inside.
“I have a bad feeling about this!” Jack whispered to Fitch. Fitch shrugged. With Linda in charge, there was nothing to do but follow.
The doorway led into an ancient cellar. The smell of old paper and mildew and damp earth was overwhelming. Aunt Linda produced three powerful flashlights from her backpack. Only, just a little late. “Ouch!” Will had already banged his head on a low ceiling joist.
Jack let the beam of his flashlight play over the walls. They were lined with shelves filled with huge ledgers stamped with gold lettering. Everything seemed to be the same matte gray color, because it was all covered with a thick layer of dust. Fitch was already beginning to sneeze. High on the walls, above the ledger books, were rows and rows of numbered metal boxes.
An ancient wooden staircase provided access to the main floor of the building. Boxes of records were stacked on nearly every step, leaving only a narrow path to the top. Linda found a light switch on the wall by the steps, and the room was suddenly flooded with light.
“What are we looking for?” Jack asked his aunt. “And why can't we come back tomorrow?”
Linda was already lifting a ledger from the wall. She was surprisingly strong, considering her size, and manhandled the huge book onto the sloping reading table in the center of the room. She had a smudge of dirt across the bridge of her nose.
“We're looking for death records,” she explained. “We need to find one for your great-great grandmother Downey. I estimate she died between 1900 and 1920. The courthouse won't be open tomorrow, so we'd better do this tonight.”
The book on the table was labeled Death Book A. Jack looked over Linda's shoulder. The pages were covered with long columns of spidery writing. Name. Date of Death. Place of Death. Where Born. The dates at the front of the book were all in the late 1860s. Linda quickly turned over the yellowing pages, scanning them from top to bottom until she reached the back of the book. It ended about 1875.Too early.
“Couldn't you just write to Columbus to get this information?” Fitch asked, sneezing again. “Or look it up online?”
“They don't have electronic records back this far,” Linda replied, lifting the book with Jack's help and replacing it in its slot. “Besides, I'm in a hurry. Now we need to look for Death Book B or C.”
The ledgers on the shelves seemed to be in no particular order. The volume next to Book A was labeled BB and was dated 1950s. They split up to scan the spines of the books on all sides of the room. It was a real mixture. Common Pleas Court proceedings. Will books. Land records.
Jack's eyes kept straying to the staircase that led to the main floor. That was the police station he'd seen across the parking lot; he was sure of it. Would a passion for genealogy be considered justification for breaking and entering? Aunt Linda had always seemed to make up rules as she went along, but he'd never known her to break the law.
Then again, perhaps he didn't know her very well.
Will was methodically working his way through a stack of ledgers, no doubt motivated by the fading prospect of a late dinner. “Hey!” he said suddenly. “What dates were you looking for?”
“Early 1900s,” Linda replied, moving to look over the book he was examining. “This might be it.” She ran her finger down the page, then flipped several pages back. “This is the right time frame.” These later entries included information about cause of death, mostly ailments Jack had never heard of: scrofula, dropsy, brain fever. Some he had seen only in history books: consumption, typhoid fever, smallpox. Some deaths were accidental, the descriptions flat: Drowned. Fell from roof. Kicked by a horse.