Shades of Simon Gray (28 page)

He wondered if Devin would visit him as often as she had over the past few days, now that her grandmother was no longer in the hospital. He doubted it. But then, the very next afternoon, after school, there she was, standing in his doorway, holding one of the school’s laptops. She had talked Dr. Schroder into letting Simon use it while he was recovering. Simon chose to take Devin’s unexpected visit as a good sign.

In a few days the tutor his father had hired would begin coming each morning. Simon would have assignments to complete, work to keep him busy. He looked forward to it. He had too much time on his hands right now. Too much time to think about the past.

And there was something else, something that hovered on the edge of his consciousness, a dream he’d had while in the coma. The image of Jessup Wildemere continued to haunt him. It was so vivid and alive that at times Simon found it difficult to convince himself the time he’d spent with Jessup wasn’t real.

The next day, when Liz showed up after school, she said, “You know that stupid paper I had to do for Mrs. Rosen?” She parked herself at the foot of Simon’s bed.

“The one on Jessup Wildemere?” Simon wondered if maybe the whole Jessup experience had been nothing more than an illusion triggered by Liz. She’d spent half the marking period talking to him about her paper. It seemed like a reasonable enough explanation. So why was his heart pounding so loudly the sound almost blocked his ears?

Liz nodded and pulled a book from her backpack. The cover was leather, worn and cracked in places. “Well, I blew it big-time. She gave me a D plus. She said it read as if I’d written it in my sleep. Which isn’t all that far from the truth. But I redeemed myself with my oral report. A plus. You would have enjoyed it. I had them spellbound. Nobody could believe what I’d found out.”

Simon didn’t say a word; he just listened as Liz told him how she’d all but given up on her paper, when a week before it was due, she’d found a journal.

Lucinda Alderman’s journal. Joseph Alderman’s wife. The man whose fence Jessup had helped to build. Simon was stunned. Joseph Alderman had actually existed.

“I can’t believe I lucked out like this,” Liz said. She turned the pages of the journal to a place she had marked with a slip of paper. “You know how everybody thinks Jessup killed Cornelius Dobbler and after he was tried in the tavern, the residents of this fine town took him out and hanged him?”

Simon barely nodded.

“Well, all those tales are just that: tales. Actually, tall tales is more like it.” Liz bent over the book and began to read the passage about Jessup’s coming to work for Joseph. She read Lucinda’s account of Jessup’s appearance—a comely and well-educated young man—and how she suspected that Jessup was falling in love with Hannah Dobbler. She read how Joseph had buried him beneath the Liberty Tree on the outskirts of their land, and about the funeral for Cornelius Dobbler.

The real account was even worse than Simon could have imagined. Hannah hadn’t just told the men where to find Jessup, she had accused him of murdering her father. If Liz hadn’t been there, Simon might have let himself cry. No one else, except perhaps Lucinda Alderman, as far as he knew, had shed tears for Jessup Wildemere.

When Liz had read all the marked passages, she closed the journal. “Incredible, huh? They hanged him without a trial, like some wild-ass bunch of vigilantes.”

“They murdered an innocent man,” Simon told her.

“Well, not exactly,” Liz said, shifting her weight and
slipping the journal into her backpack. “That’s only Lucinda’s take on it.”

Simon wanted to tell Liz that Lucinda’s take was probably as close to the truth as anyone had gotten. He wanted to tell her about Jessup, about the time he had spent with him while he was in the coma. But in the end, all he said was “You need to let people know what really happened.”

“I did, in my oral report. And it’s all in the paper I handed in to Rosen.”

“No. I mean, write a story for the local paper or something. You have the evidence.” He pointed toward her backpack.

Liz shrugged. “I guess I could make copies of the pages before I sneak the journal back where I found it.”

“Show them.”

“Who?”

“The people at the historical society. Show them what you found.”

“Oh, right, like anybody in this town is going to want to hear how the only hanging that ever took place in the entire county might have been a murder. That’s not the kind of dirty laundry people like to see airing on their clotheslines.”

Simon knew all about keeping secrets, about hiding the truth. He had his own dirty laundry stashed away in a mental hamper.

Liz stared down at her backpack. She let out a deep sigh. “Well … there was this reporter from
The Star-Ledger
here last week, covering the West Nile virus story. He mentioned the Wildemere legend in his article. He
might be interested. I could send him the information I have.”

“Do it, okay? Tell him what you discovered.”

“Why? What’s the big deal?”

“Just do it to make things right.”

That night, Simon began to write a poem about Jessup Wildemere. When he thought about the night of the accident, the image of a shadowy figure standing in front of the Liberty Tree crept into his memory. He remembered how the form had taken the shape of a man in his headlights. Even before Simon’s foot had hit the gas, the dark shape had been there. Maybe the shadowy form had been Jessup’s spirit. Or maybe it was nothing more than a shadow created by the glare of the headlights. Only in this poem would Simon allow himself to give voice to what he could not quite bring himself to believe, that Jessup’s soul had been waiting there, beneath the oak tree, all along, waiting more than two hundred years to tell someone his story, waiting for someone to set the record straight.

Then, one day at the end of May, just when the people of Bellehaven had begun to breathe a little easier, a story about Jessup Wildemere appeared in
The Star-Ledger
. The story had been written by a staff reporter and quoted pages from Lucinda Alderman’s journal.

The residents of Bellehaven flew into an uproar all over again, insisting that Lucinda Alderman’s account was subjective and therefore flawed. They showed the brief account in the court records to prove their point. They
claimed Jessup Wildemere was a murderer who was brought to justice. After all, they said, people did things differently in those days.

No one knew whom to believe.

As if that weren’t bad enough, a mysterious bronze plaque had appeared next to the Liberty Tree, a few feet from the original plaque. The inscription sent the town into a frenzy of denial.

No one knew who had put it there. But the people of Bellehaven were bound and determined it wouldn’t stay. Special meetings of the town council were held. Petitions were signed. Letters to the editor flooded the offices of the
Bellehaven Press
. The outrage continued for months. But for some reason, no one ever touched the sign. Perhaps they feared retribution from the ghost of Jessup Wildemere. Perhaps they thought some distant relative had placed the plaque there, and they did not want to cause bad feelings by removing it. Or maybe, just maybe, in their hearts, they suspected there might be a grain of truth to the inscription after all.

I am indebted to a number of people who gave generously of their time and experience to help me with the medical and technical details of this book. Any errors, however, are my own. My thanks to Catherine Belfiore; Mary Piso, RN; Barbara Reed, RN; and Lura Burrell, RN, whose son, at age seventeen, spent four days in a coma. Thank you, Lura, for sharing his experience with me. My thanks also to Arlene Olcheski of the New Jersey State Police, and to my teen advisors: Matt Schanbacher, Jaime Schanbacher, and Aaron Weiner
.

Special thanks to Laurie Halse Anderson for our daily e-mail exchange during those tense weeks before our deadlines and for being so supportive
.

I also wish to thank my agent, Tracey Adams, for reading and commenting on an earlier draft; Pearl Young; and especially my editor, Karen Wojtyla, who skillfully kept me on course without ever taking over the rudder
.

My deepest gratitude goes to my personal in-house computer consultant, my husband, Mac, whose support, as always, goes way beyond the technical
.

Joyce McDonald earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from the University of Iowa. After working in publishing for fourteen years, she returned to the academic life and earned a Ph.D. in English from Drew University; she taught at both Drew and East Stroudsburg University for several years. She is the author of five other books for children and young adults, including
Shadow People
and
Swallowing Stones
, an ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults. Joyce McDonald lives in northwestern New Jersey with her husband and their cats.