“I wonder if you remember the Duncans,” I said. “They built this house in 1882 and lived here for many years.”
“Duncan?” Mrs. Birkett frowned, thinking. “I noticed the plaque beside your door, but the name isn’t familiar. I do remember the old woman who lived here when I was a girl, though.” She looked around. “Actually, she told me once that her husband built this house for her. If I remember right, this room was her front parlor. Her workroom, too, she said. Her name was Hunt. Mrs. Hunt.”
“Oh, really?” I felt a little thrill of excitement. Was it possible that Mrs. Birkett had actually met my ghost, back before she became a ghost? My lawyerly self got to her feet and said, with an air of bored and long-suffering tolerance, Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence, Your Honor.
“Hunt?” I rephrased. “But I thought her name was Duncan.” I frowned. Had Jessica and the Historical Society made a mistake?
Mrs. Birkett shook her head firmly. “No, no, I was just a girl then, but I remember Mrs. Hunt very well. I knew her about the time FDR was first elected, you see. Her husband had been dead for five or six years, but she had several grown daughters, as I recall, and any number of grandchildren. She loved having children around.” She smiled, showing a gold-capped tooth. “She taught me to crochet before I was old enough to go to school. Her hands were old and all gnarly with arthritis and she couldn’t see very well. But she was still able to make beautiful things with her crochet hook and knitting needles. And bobbin lace, too. I was always fascinated by those bobbins.”
I was instantly sorry that I hadn’t held on to the photo I had taken from the bulletin board instead of letting Jessica have it. It had been taken long before Mrs. Birkett was born, but she might have been able to recognize the people and tell me who they were.
“I may have a photo of your Mrs. Hunt,” I said, “but I’ve loaned it to someone. When she gives it back, I’ll bring it over. You might be able to help me identify the people in the picture.”
“Oh, do that,” Mrs. Birkett said, picking up the book she’d bought. “And I’ll show you my grandmother’s old stillroom equipment.” She smiled. “I love to talk about the old days—whenever I can find somebody who wants to listen. Not many do, you know. Most people seem to prefer the present to the past. Which is regrettable, I feel.”
The bell rang twice, softly. Mrs. Birkett looked up, noticing that the door was still closed.
“Odd,” she remarked. “Does it do that often?”
“Occasionally,” I said. “I must have my husband take a look at it.” Chatting, we walked together to the door, where we said good-bye.
I was turning back to the counter, still thinking about what Mrs. Birkett had said, when the bell began to ring impatiently, as if it were trying to tell me something. Then, as I turned, I caught sight of the bulletin board at the end of the counter, beside the door. I froze, staring, the gooseflesh rising on my arms.
In the empty space where the family photograph had been, there was a different photograph, stuck to the board with a smiley-face magnet, a fresh sprig of lavender tucked behind it. It was a sepia-toned studio photograph of a baby just a few months old, formally posed against a pillow on an old-fashioned parlor chair beside a table with a vase of white roses and an open book. The baby—I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl—was wearing a lacy white cap and a long white dress. The dress was carefully arranged to show the embroidered lace panel down the front. It was hard to tell from a photograph, but the dress looked a lot like the one Lori’s aunt had given her.
I shook myself. Well, I had asked for it, hadn’t I? I had felt some sympathy for a spirit who had to live through eternity with nobody to talk to. I had deliberately left the photographs under the counter, with the idea that the ghost—my ghost—might use them to communicate with me. And she had accepted my invitation.
So what was I supposed to make of the photograph she’d put up there? Was it the baby I was supposed to notice, or the baby’s dress? What could a baby’s dress have to do with anything, then or now? Who was the baby? Did that matter?
The more questions I thought of, the more impatient I felt. Finally, I muttered, “What do you want from me, anyway? I’m getting a little tired of being the one who keeps asking the questions. Maybe it’s time you came with a few answers.”
If you’re thinking that I must have felt a little silly, talking to a ghost who doesn’t exist, you’re exactly right. But for once, my lawyerly self didn’t jump up with an objection. And the words were barely out of my mouth when I heard, or thought I heard, the faintest sigh. A rueful sigh, as if my long-suffering resident ghost had decided, finally, that I was so utterly dense that it was impossible to communicate with me. She was giving up.
The bell over the door gave a halfhearted tinkle and fell silent.
Chapter Ten
Pecan Springs, Texas
September–October 1888
Annie might be able to comfort herself with the thought of the rightness of her love for Adam, but he could not so easily ignore the consciousness of his guilt. He might excuse himself by saying that if he hadn’t been drunk that first time, he wouldn’t have lost control, and he knew that was true. It was bottled bravery that had given
