Legacy (17 page)

“It might,” he said. “It’d be worth a look, anyway.”

“Where is it?”

He gestured with his chin. “I’ll show you.”

Two streets away he pointed out a huge if rickety-looking Victorian mansion with a wraparound porch and a widow’s walk surrounding the upper story. “It was built in 1802,” Peter said. “When my great-grandfather died, he left houses to all his children. My grandfather inherited this one. He died in the Vietnam War. My father never lived here, but he liked this place. He’d come for a few days now and then. Or so people tell me. Anyway, since he died, it’s been kept up by lawyers. No one’s even allowed inside, except for the maintenance people.”

I was amazed. “Are you telling me that no one’s lived here since your great-grandfather?”

“He may not have, either,” Peter said with a smile. “The Shaws own a lot of houses. This one’s pretty much a throwaway.”

“Is there anything in it?”

“Everything, I think. I mean, the furniture and things have never been catalogued or auctioned. I used to break in and hang out inside. It’s fitted with an alarm system, but I’ve got a key to turn it off.” He shrugged. “Sometimes I just like to be alone.”

I clutched his arm. “Then the deed might be there.”

“That’s what I was thinking. But Hattie said . . .”

“She doesn’t have to know.”

“She’ll know if we find it,” he reasoned.

“We can worry about that after we find it,” I said.

Peter and I met at 8 a.m. on the Saturday before Easter, telling our respective keepers that we were checking out the big Wonderland spring extravaganza. I felt disloyal telling that to Gram, but the Wonderland site was the only place where we knew Hattie and my relatives wouldn’t set foot. So they wouldn’t know that we weren’t there.

The Shaw mansion on Front Street wasn’t anything like the haunted house vision I’d conjured. Apparently a team of bonded cleaners came once a month to polish the wood and vacuum the rugs. Ditto the exterminator. Twice a year the place was gone over by a building inspector to make sure the electricity and plumbing were in order and to check the roof. So much for Hattie’s worries about the place being unsafe.

It was almost weird how clean the place was, considering the last time anyone lived there was over sixty years ago.

“It looks like it’s in better shape than it is,” Peter said. “Hattie considered selling it to a funeral home once, but they
rejected it because the plumbing was too ancient. I don’t know how much it costs just to keep it standing.”

“Why hasn’t someone torn it down, then?”

“Historical landmark,” Peter said.

Walking through the rooms of the house, it was hard to keep my mind on the task at hand. It was like visiting a museum, or some European castle. All the furniture was antique and beautiful. There were rolltop desks, hideaway tables, bookcases with secret doors that opened into other rooms, porcelain sinks with some long-departed Shaw’s initials fired into them, massive mirrored armoires, and a lot of pieces whose name or function I could not fathom.

“This is a dower chest,” Peter explained, opening a long, elaborately carved piece. “It’s to carry a bride’s dowry.”

“Guess the Shaws got their share of those,” I said. We went through the chest carefully. Inside were bolts of silk, stained by time despite the care taken to preserve them.

We likewise went through a linen press, hunting cabinet, several gaming tables, a prayer chair, a gigantic black carved display case called a Shibayanna, a smoking stand (still containing a tin of tobacco), and a bedside potty (fortunately empty), plus any number of buffets, servers, cupboards, jewelry cabinets, highboys, dressers, vanities, and bureaus.

It was nearly three in the afternoon by the time we reached the top floor of the house.

“These would have been servants’ quarters,” Peter said. “I doubt we’ll find any valuable papers here.”

“Well, we might as well look, anyway,” I insisted, even though I knew he was probably right.

I’d known it was a long shot from the beginning. Beyond a
long shot, really. But I was still disappointed because finding the deed in Peter’s house was the only thing I could think of to save Hattie’s home.

The furniture on this floor was very different from what we’d seen in the rest of the house. Here were narrow metal beds, utilitarian bathrooms, and unadorned fireplaces. There were only a few plain wooden pieces here, things designed for servants with few personal possessions.

“Look at this,” I said, pointing out a little chest of drawers. “It must have been for a children’s room originally.”

“Maybe. Some items were made small as space savers, though. They were called miniatures. I think this is one. You see, it’s really two chests, side by side, connected by a clasp or something here in the back . . .” He reached behind it to manipulate a mechanism. With a loud click, something fell into place, and Peter swung the two chests apart so that they were now back to back.

I wasn’t impressed. “Cute, but what’s the point of it?” I sneered. “I mean, it doesn’t save any more space in either position.” I opened one of the drawers. It fell out into my hands.

Peter took it. “It is pretty useless, I admit,” he said. “Look at this drawer. It’s only about ten inches deep.”

I reached into the space where the drawer had been. “Maybe there’s something else here . . .” There was. Something snapped. With an embarrassing squeal, I jumped backward.

The chest separated again, this time horizontally.

Carefully Peter pushed the sides apart. By now the piece had expanded considerably. He went to the other side, removed the drawer, and popped the mechanism behind it. Again it opened, revealing other drawers, each one smaller
than the previous ones, until we were looking at tiny spaces just big enough for a pair of earrings.

“Can you believe this?” he said in astonishment.

“It’s a botte,” I whispered.

“A what?”

“A magic box.” Again, disappointment nibbled at me. “Only it’s not really magic. It’s mechanical.” Just like Dad said it would be.

“This is probably the most valuable thing in the house,” he said. “I wonder why it was put up here.”

I took out the bottom drawer. “Because of this,” I said, feeling my heart start to thud. Beneath the drawer was a hidden compartment cut into the floor. “It was used to hide things.” I reached inside, and felt the rustling of fine, thin tissue. “There’s something here,” I said, feeling as if I were going to jump out of my skin.

“Do you need help?” he asked. “Or a flashlight?”

I shook my head. Whatever was in there was bulky, but not heavy. I pulled out what looked like a wad of gorgeous handmade paper, and laid it on the floor beside me.

“Could it be documents?” Peter asked, touching the bundle gingerly.

Slowly I unwrapped it. First the paper, then the layer of fabric beneath it, exposing a long roll of something that smelled faintly of cedar. I unrolled it, holding my breath.

It was a baby blanket.

“A blanket?” Peter asked.

The treasure I’d unwrapped so painstakingly was a beautifully preserved linen quilt inscribed with embroidered words grown faint with time.

I felt as if the last train had just left town. There wasn’t anywhere else to look.

“What’s it say?” he asked, squinting at the embroidery.

I read it aloud as best I could:

The wise and Crafty know rightly where to look.
O Word! Spring forth from out thy secret nook.
Feree Ferraugh diten al blosun na tibuk.

“Kind of an odd thing to put on a baby blanket,” he said.

“No lie.” I felt in the pockets of my jeans. “Do you have a cell phone?” I asked. He handed it to me, and I took a picture of the blanket. “Who knows,” I said. “Maybe that’s what deeds looked like back then.”

Peter didn’t answer. He knew I was grasping at straws.

I rooted around in the compartment to see if there was anything else inside it. There wasn’t. I sighed. “I guess it was precious to someone,” I said, running my hands over the blanket. It made me think about Hattie and her terrible story. It had been as if a door in her memory had accidentally popped open, revealing a room that had been locked and sealed for decades, a pharaonic tomb of a memory in which a little boy named Dando blew away on the wind and never returned. “She’s already been through so much,” I said. “I wanted to help her keep her house.”

“It’ll be all right,” Peter said. “Things will be tight without the restaurant, but we’ll . . .” Frowning, he walked toward the window that overlooked the widow’s walk. “I smell something,” he said.

Now that he mentioned it, I did too. Something was burning.

“Oh, no.”

I jumped up. “What is it?”

Just then, an enormous tongue of flame shot out of the fireplace and into the middle of the room.

I screamed.

Maybe it was my imagination, because I only saw it for a split second, but the fire that came into the room seemed somehow
solid
, as if it had a skin around it like a living thing. And worse—and this is the part that’s so hard to believe that I didn’t even mention it to the police afterward—
it had a face
.

Yes.

A horrific face, a demon’s face, looking right at me.

“Peter!” I gasped.

“Stay with me,” he said, taking my hand. As we made our way down the back stairs, he opened up his cell phone. “The house we’re in is on fire,” he told the 911 operator, giving the address.

“Did you see it?” I asked, stumbling down the darkened stairs.

“Don’t talk.” He pushed me along.

The smoke was thick in the stairway. I pulled up the neck of my shirt to cover my nose and mouth, all the while remembering the fire and its vicious eyes staring at me.

“I think we’re at the second floor landing,” he said, taking me around the waist. “Watch your step.”

As he spoke, there was a burst of sudden light as the short cotton curtains over the landing window caught fire, illuminating our surroundings.

It was like a vision of Hell. The smoke lay black and thick as oil, while all around us erupted explosions of fire. Pieces of
the ceiling rained down on us; the electrical wiring beneath it sparked and sizzled.

“What’s going
on
?” I shrilled, near hysteria. Two minutes before, there was nothing. Now all of a sudden the entire place was an inferno.

“In here,” Peter coughed, propelling me through a maze of bedrooms and hallways until we reached the main stairway. It was burning as well, the banisters blazing like pillars of flame. Peter took my hand, and we raced down the stairs. “They’re still solid,” he said. “All we have to—”

At that moment a ball of fire erupted in front of us, forcing us backward with its heat.

“The library,” Peter said. I nearly cried with relief. I remembered that there was an outside door there, leading to a long set of stone steps curving between the first and second floors. We were racing toward it when our way was blocked by a series of whooshing fires that ignited like a row of giant candles—one, two, three, four, five—at unbelievable speed.

We ducked through the nearest doorway into a spacious bathroom covered in tiny blue tiles. A wall of long oval mirrors framed in oak reproduced our reflections many times over. I caught sight of my face, terrified, blackened by smoke. Then, in another instant, the glass shattered and I watched the image of myself blow apart. Flames shot out of the sink and bathtub fixtures like dragon’s breath. The tile beneath our feet cracked in crazed lines.

“The floor’s going to give,” Peter said, yanking the Battenberg lace curtains off the windows and stuffing them around the blazing faucets of the sink. Then he kicked out the glass and hoisted me up onto the wide windowsill. “There’s
thick ivy all over this outside wall,” he told me. “We can climb down, but we have to move fast.”

I took a look at the faucets. Already the fabric Peter had put around them was catching fire. Outside, I gauged the distance to the ground. At least twenty feet.

“I’ll keep you safe,” he said quietly. “I promise.” He nodded, and I took that as a signal. I climbed out, my hands shaking so badly that I could barely grasp the ivy. Moving sideways like a crab, trying to slip the toes of my sneakers beneath the strong woody vines, I watched him crawl onto the wall beside me.

“Are you all right?” he asked. I nodded uncertainly. “Good. Just keep your hands on the ivy. We’re going to climb down now. I’ll be right here beside you the whole time.”

“O—o—okay,” I stammered. I twisted my fingers around the ivy and took a step down.

“That’s it,” he said. “It won’t be far, but don’t look down.”

I didn’t. I looked up. What I saw was the ivy catching fire as if the leaves were made of paper. Down it came, almost in a perfect line, one burning inch at a time.

“Peter,” I croaked. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was as if the fire were coming after us. “The ivy . . .”

It began to move faster.

“Get on my back,” he commanded, watching the flames speed toward us. “Now, as fast as you can.”

I reached over and put my arm around his neck. Then I swung my leg over until he was carrying all my weight. Above, the fire was catching up, only four or five feet away from his hands. Peter moved swiftly, one powerful arm at a time, the muscles of his back tensing and quivering as the heat began
to burn his fingers. Once he lost his footing and we both nearly fell, but I grabbed onto some ivy while he found a purchase.

“Get back on,” he said.

“I think I can—”

“No, you can’t,” he said. “Hurry up.” I grabbed on to him again and he moved faster, keeping pace with the thing that was following us, staying one step ahead of the fire.

Then, with a
whoosh
, the flames dropped downward like a falling curtain, spilling over Peter’s hands.

A soft cry escaped his lips.

“Peter,” I whispered. His hands were blistering in the flames, and his whole body trembled with pain. I knew I was slowing him down so much that there was a chance neither of us would survive.