Keeper of Enchanted Rooms(46)

Beth’s eyes widened slightly. Baptiste shrugged one shoulder.

“Miss Taylor to the east”—that was the smallest section of land, relevant to the house—“Baptiste south. Mrs. Larkin, do you have a preference for north or west?”

“I will take the west, Mr. Fernsby. The north has been thoroughly trotted from all the traipsing back and forth to and from the boat.”

“Only one part of it,” he countered.

The four of them split up. Beth walked slowly, running her hands over the top of the grasses, and Baptiste headed for a short hill for a better vantage point. Hulda marched straight ahead, perhaps thinking to start on the beach and work her way back.

Merritt began at the house and walked back and forth through the grass, moving north by a pace every time he turned. Reeds bowed under his feet; weeds crunched. He startled a cottontail on his fifth pass. “Sorry,” he offered, though the thing was so quick it likely hadn’t heard him.

He squelched around a small pond—more of a large puddle, really—surrounded by common reed. Probably not a good place for a grave. But was anywhere in a marsh a good place to bury a body?

What would they do if they came up empty-handed?

How long would it take him to simply cut down eighteen acres?

He was on his twenty-seventh pass when a breeze blew from the Atlantic, rustling the tall grass around his knees. The way it flowed over the meadow made it look like an ocean itself, green and gold. He searched the ripples for a cross, a stone, a break in the plants, but saw nothing. Where are you, wizard?

Something pulled his mind northwest. He ignored it, continuing on his back-and-forth path, but it tugged again, as if someone were groggily saying, Over there.

He glanced back at the house. He’d wandered some ways from it, but it was still there, perhaps watching all of them. Did it know what they were doing?

Licking his lips, Merritt changed direction and moved northwest, scanning the grass, running his fingers along its tallest tips as Beth had done. A hare watched him warily from behind an elm, ears twitching. A spindly weed as tall as his shoulder swayed with the breeze.

He stubbed the toe of his shoe on a rock.

“Surely not,” he said, and parted the grass.

Not was right. It was just a rock.

Sighing, Merritt released the plants, only to spy a sliver of slate through them just as they closed.

Moving over a few feet, he parted the grass again.

There, as high as his shin, was a weathered rock embedded in the ground upright. Years had crumbled away its edges and face, but there was a distinct 7 on it.

He grinned. “I found something!”

Grabbing handfuls of grass, he began yanking it from the ground, clearing space around the stone. By the time Hulda and Beth came running over, he’d found a second similar stone, a little smaller, a few feet away.

Baptiste might not have heard him.

“Brilliant,” Hulda said, helping him tug away grass. Beth announced she’d found a third, and bent the surrounding plants at their bases, stepping on their stalks to encourage them to lie flat.

Four stones in all, one clustered near the initial two, one of them fallen over.

Hulda ran her hand over one of them. “Hardly legible. Beth, would you search the area and see if there are any more?”

Nodding, Beth set off walking toe to heel, prowling like a puma.

Merritt had brought out a notebook and pencil from the library; he tore out a page and placed it against the first gravestone, then dragged the edge of the pencil lead back and forth to make a rubbing. The 7 came through clearly, as well as a birthday that said 162, the last digit of the year consumed by time.

He held up the rubbing to Hulda. “O . . . A-C-E. That’s the first name. And M-A . . . E-L.”

After tearing out a second paper, Merritt handed it and the pencil over, and Hulda took a rubbing of the second stone. The family name on the fourth stone had been preserved well enough for them to read it in full: Mansel. It seemed they were all Mansels.

Merritt snapped his fingers. “Horace.” He pointed at the gaps between the letters in the first rubbing. “H-O-R-A-C-E. I bet his name was Horace.”

Hulda nodded. “It certainly fits.”

The wife’s name was indiscernible. But with some sleuthing and guessing, they determined the other two graves belonged to Dorcas and Helen.

“All daughters,” Merritt commented. “How terrible for dear Horace. No wonder he chose to stay behind. Needed a break from all the femininity.”

Hulda scoffed. “I’m sure.” She wrote down the names and what they’d been able to glean of the dates. “This is good. This is a start. The Genealogical Society might have this on record. They’re very thorough. Even if these persons weren’t magically inclined, they might still have records for them.”

Miss Taylor returned, holding up empty hands. “No others around here, Mrs. Larkin.”

“Good. That narrows it down more.” Standing, Hulda brushed off her skirt. “I think we should still check the rest of the island, but there’s seldom reason to scatter the dead, and given the house’s history, I doubt we’ll find any other grave markers here. Still, best to be thorough.”

Merritt stood as well, ignoring his muddy knees. “And what if the Gen Society doesn’t know anything?” He blanched. “We won’t have to exhume them, will we?”