What the Dead Want(50)

“All we know is how horrifying this history is,” Hawk said. “We don’t know what to do about it.”

“We haven’t developed all the pictures yet,” said Gretchen, feeling the now-unmistakable presence of Esther, her drive to solve this—to finish it once and for all. But she felt her own mind and feelings just as strongly. She didn’t care about the house. She cared about freedom. Hers and Hawk’s and Hope’s. It was too late for the dead. Nothing would change the lives they’d lived. Nothing would erase the awful things her ancestors had done. But people needed to know who had committed these crimes and stop calling it the work of a barbaric history, or the WCP or the Klan, or an accident. The Klan is not one single entity, it is made up of individuals. Individuals hanged those men and women, captured them and killed them. Individuals struck those matches. They had names and faces and they never paid for their crimes. Gretchen was glad there was no more romance around the idea of the mansion. It was built with cotton money, by racists. Who murdered her great-great-great-great-grandmother, and the Greens’ relatives too. She didn’t want her family having one more moment in that house. Any illusion she’d had about her family or its place in history was shattered. All she wanted now was to get the mirror, and she could feel just as strongly that all Esther wanted her to do was use the darkroom. The combined force of their wills was almost too much.

“I’m going over to the house,” she said, standing, crunching over the glass, a dark stain of blood spreading beneath her shirt where the lamp had hit her. “I’ve got to see the mirror again. I’ve got to use the darkroom. And quite frankly I could use a shot or two of gin.”

“You are crazy!” Simon said, looking genuinely terrified. “Do you know that?”

“Runs in the family, kid,” she said. “I didn’t get outta Saigon when it all came down by being sane.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Simon said.

Hope gave his hand a squeeze. “I’ll explain later.”

“I’m coming with you,” Hawk said. “Simon and Hope, you stay here—stay away from the windows and keep going through that archive. We need more names and faces. If Gretchen is right we need to know exactly who did this.”

As he was talking, Gretchen had walked into the kitchen and found the whetstone used to sharpen knives. She took out Fidelia’s ivory hair clip and ran it back and forth over the surface, filing the tines of the clip until they were razor-sharp.

Hope stood behind her in the kitchen doorway. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Giving myself a fighting chance,” Gretchen said. And for the first time she felt truly, deeply afraid that she might not get out of Axton mansion alive. She put her hair back up and slid the clip in, being careful not to graze her scalp.

Hope came over and gave her a hug. “I’m doing this for our mothers,” Gretchen said, tears in her eyes. “Doing what they didn’t have time to finish.”

Hope shook her head. “You’re doing it for our daughters,” she said.

When they came out from the kitchen, Simon handed Gretchen the Nikon. It had never felt more like a weapon in her hands.

Outside the crickets were chirping. The wind was blowing hard as they walked along the road instead of cutting through the field. After seeing the lynching photographs, reading Fidelia’s journal, and the enormous branch crashing through the window, neither of them wanted to walk past the tree.

Hawk slipped his hand into hers. They walked in unison, her Doc Martens and his sneakers crunching along the dirt road.

Gretchen tried to make small talk as they walked, to keep her mind off what would be waiting for them at the house.

“Hope says you’re going to music school in the fall,” she said.

“I am,” he said. “I’m going to Tisch.”

“Tisch?! In the city? Why didn’t you say something before?”

“Uh . . . well, we were, you know, figuring out you weren’t a ghost and then getting your aunt’s body out of the house and then solving the accident epidemic and, well, I’m not entirely sure whether you are really you or Esther right now. . . .”

“Ha!” Gretchen said, slapping him on the back.

“See what I mean?” he said.

Gretchen certainly did.

“But yeah,” Hawk said. “I’m going to be in the city. We’ll be neighbors.”

“Like Valerie and Fidelia,” Gretchen said.

“I hope luckier than them,” he said.

From where they stood on the road they could see the house. The attic windows were brightly lit, but everything else was dark. In the moonlight they could make out the dark swarm of insects hovering above the weather vane.

“When we go in there,” he said, “no matter what happens, we stick together this time.”





TWENTY-SEVEN


“I SERIOUSLY WISH WE’D BROUGHT A FLASHLIGHT,” Gretchen said as they stepped onto the porch. The only light downstairs was provided by the bright three-quarter moon. She tried not to think about the images of ghostly men lurking outside the place. She didn’t see them, and if Hawk saw anyone, he didn’t tell her.

“Don’t worry,” Hawk said, reaching the door first. “The electricity is still on.” He flicked a switch next to the door frame and the porch and the front hallway were flooded with light.