“Really.”
“I’ll admit something to you, Miss Grosvenor, although it does no credit to my reputation.” That smile again. “Currently I am in need of my own services. I have a pair of business partners, a Mr. Myerson and a Mr. Doyle. Do you know them, by any chance?”
“I can’t say I’m acquainted with either gentleman, no.”
Rose frowned. “It’s strange. They left a letter for me in a coffeehouse in Norwalk indicating I could find them here in Saltonstall. Unfortunately, no one in the area seems to have met or seen them.”
“Being somewhat removed, we don’t make it into town very often, so I can’t speak to their whereabouts. I must say, however,” Minerva said, “I believe we have very much in common. I’d like to help you in any way I can.”
“I’m much obliged to you for that, Miss Grosvenor.”
Minerva shook her head. “You mentioned you were from Georgia. It’s funny, but just now I remember a gentleman here at Bonaventure once commented that he had a southern friend who corresponded with him. You wouldn’t know Tom Lyman, would you?”
“Now it’s my turn to say I’m unacquainted with someone. Looks like we both need to broaden our horizons and meet more people.”
“Perhaps I could introduce you to him before you go?”
At that moment, the front door opened and Minerva’s father walked in, fresh from his morning ramble.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Rose,” said Grosvenor after introductions were made. “I’d shake your hand but I’m afraid I need to wash them.” Minerva noticed her father’s hands were chalky with stone dust, as if he had been digging or breaking rocks.
“Mr. Grosvenor,” said Rose, his palm extended and his tone very sincere, “no man should ever be ashamed for the soil of our blessed country that covers his hands. Both my grandpappies were farmers, as is my pappy to this day. To have hands dirtied in pursuit of a man’s honest profession is an honor, never something to apologize for.”
Grosvenor beamed ear to ear. “Well said! Bonaventure would be privileged if we had more men like you.” And they clasped hands firmly.
When they finally disengaged, Grosvenor waved toward his office. “Why don’t we sit down and discuss how I can assist you, Mr. Rose.”
“Thank you,” said the young man. He nodded toward Minerva. “It was the greatest pleasure meeting you, Miss Grosvenor.”
“Oh, by all means please call me Minerva.”
“You flatter me. I’ll be sure to ask after your Mr. Lyman before I depart. Maybe we do have friends in common after all.”
Then with another nod, the pair stepped into the office and her father shut the door behind them.
•••
Being an inveterate walker, Minerva often took strolls regardless of Lyman’s schedule, or anyone else’s for that matter. Sometimes Judith the young daughter of the Albys joined her on these woodland rambles. Each found they could confide in the other because their circles rarely intersected: one lived in the Consulate, the other in the cabins; one was the daughter of the founder, the other the daughter of subscribers; one worked in the kitchen and the other in the fields, when not learning her Rs. It’s easier to speak freely with someone you don’t know too well.
Such is the bottomless energy of youth that Judith rarely walked a straight line; instead she would often parallel Minerva on the trail, weaving around trees and stumps or hopping from rock to rock. That day their conversation wandered as much as they did, jumping subject to subject from the farm’s chickens to Judith’s schoolwork to her pregnant mother to a suspected romance between Nancy and Abraham, two of the farm’s members. Finally, the dialogue alighted on the topic of John Tyler the hog, and whatever had become of him. Judith was an unshakable proponent of the thin-air hypothesis.
“Do they ever bother you, the stories about the farm?” Judith asked.
“Which stories? You mean the ones about people vanishing?”
“Yes. Bitty Breadsticks told me about them once. But not too much because I think she didn’t want to frighten me.”
“I doubt anything can frighten you. No,” said Minerva, “I can’t say they particularly do. They’re just ghost stories handed down over the generations, becoming more dramatic over time. I suspect the Garrick family wasn’t popular around here and the stories were intended to disparage them. Like the witch trials of Salem. Someone didn’t like the Garricks, so they spun lies about them being witches to hurt them.”
“I think people really did vanish. They probably fell into sinkholes like the one that swallowed Mr. Hollin’s body.”
Minerva frowned. The final resting place of Mr. Hollin, somewhere so deep below the ground as to be unseen, had never rested easy with her. More should’ve been done even if she didn’t know what that more was. “If sinkholes were the case, then people would just say so. They would say, ‘Watch out! The old Garrick farm is full of holes!’ The stories would maintain the rational explanation. Instead they veer into the irrational, which is a good clue they’re not trustworthy.”
Judith’s expression grew thoughtful. “So you’re saying people prefer the fiction. You like reading fictions.”
It was impossible without a looking glass to see if she blushed, yet Minerva certainly felt her cheeks grow hot. As Mrs. Alby often sent Judith to the Consulate to collect their mail, the girl knew about Minerva’s habit of ordering novelettes through the post. Minerva tried hard to keep this secret from the rest of Bonaventure: fiction, being a falsehood of sorts, was therefore antipodal to truth. Her tastes, of course, did not run to the pornographic, which was the common perception of such slim volumes; but the infamy of the lowest often clings to the reputation of the highest, even when respected names like Poe decorated their covers.
“I’m saying there’s no non-fiction to prefer. I doubt anyone ever disappeared here in the first place. The case of Mr. Hollin aside, there’s no holes into which anyone could fall.”
“What
