SHAKESPEARE’ SECRET (13 page)

“In the boys' bathroom.”

“The boys' bathroom?
My
name? Are you sure?”

“H-E-R-O. I told you, I read it myself.”

“Oh.” Hero shuddered. This was unbelievable. “Aaron, try to remember, what else did it say?”

Aaron thought for a minute. “I don't know,” he said. “I couldn't read the rest. But it was your name, lots and lots of times. So you're famous.”

Hero sighed. “That's not famous. Famous is a good thing,” she said wearily. “When someone writes your name in the boys' bathroom, it's not a good thing.”

“It's not?” Aaron looked surprised.

“No, never,” said Hero.

The bus stopped at their corner, and they gathered their things and stepped down to the sidewalk. Hero felt overwhelmed by despair. What had the boys written about her? And how many kids had already seen it? Was that why everyone was laughing?

She thought about Anne Boleyn, about Hero from the play. She remembered what her father had said: “Done to death by slanderous tongues.” Shivering, she hoisted her backpack over her shoulder. Without thinking, she headed straight toward the dingy white fence that bordered Mrs. Roth's garden.

Mrs. Roth was sitting on the front stoop in a bright patch of sun, with the newspaper draped over her lap. Hero trudged up the path toward her, still feeling numb. She sank onto the porch steps, burying her face in her hands. Mrs. Roth said nothing, just shifted slightly to make room for her. Hero sat in silence, listening to the stillness of the garden, the breeze stirring the flowers, the faint hum of insects, the crackle of the paper. The smell of the flowers was thick and sweet and overpowering. It cleared her head of everything else. She understood suddenly why someone might love a garden.

“Six letters, beginning with
M,”
Mrs. Roth said. “The clue is 'distinctly obvious.'”

Hero thought for a minute. “Don't know.”

“Hmmm, I don't either. What about four letters, 'crowd protest'?”

“Riot?” Hero suggested.

“Oh, yes, of course. That makes it m-blank-r-blank-blank-blank for the first one.”

Hero raised her head and looked at the grid, which was covered with Mrs. Roth's neat print. “How about 'morbid'?”

“Well, it would fit, but it has nothing to do with the clue. Let's see . . . aha! 'Marked.'”

“Oh, good.” Hero scanned the remaining blanks, trying to concentrate. They traded the pen back and forth for a while, filling in what they could. Eventually Mrs. Roth folded the newspaper and set it aside.

“It's warm this afternoon,” she said idly. “I keep expecting the weather to turn cooler, but perhaps we'll have summer for a bit longer.” She stood, stretching, and pulled open the front door. “Lemonade?”

“Sure,” Hero said. “That'd be great.” She hesitated, then called through the screen, “I'm . . . sorry about the other day. I shouldn't have said those things to you. I don't know why I was so mad.”

There was no response from inside. Hero waited nervously. Then Mrs. Roth returned with her tray, balancing the frosted glasses and the china plate of
cinnamon toast. She rested it on the steps between them and sat down again, looking at Hero thoughtfully.

“I was surprised you were so angry,” she said finally. “But then I realized you were angry because you consider me your friend. You felt I had betrayed your trust.”

Hero looked away embarrassed. “I guess I just thought you would have told me about being married to Mr. Murphy. Something important like that. It changes things.”

Mrs. Roth sighed. “That's why I didn't tell you. Because it would have changed the story for you. It would have made you question my friendship with Eleanor, just as the police did.” She rubbed her forehead, closing her eyes. “It's strange, isn't it? One small bit of information—a private relationship, something that happened a long time ago—and the whole story seems different. But why should that one fact be more important than anything else? Why should it make all the rest suspect?”

Hero shrugged. “I don't know. It's just hard to believe. People don't usually become best friends with their ex-husband's new wife. How did that happen?”

Mrs. Roth sipped her lemonade. After a minute, she spoke. “Arthur and I were married for nineteen
years. There was no dramatic, terrible end to it. We didn't fight or come to hate each other. But something happened. ...” She looked away. “And we couldn't go on together. So we divorced, but we remained close friends.”

Hero didn't say anything. If they could stay friends, she didn't understand why they couldn't stay married. Being married didn't seem that hard; compared to putting up with your parents or your sister, for instance.

“When he married Eleanor,” Mrs. Roth continued, “I was very happy for him. I liked her immensely. Is it strange that he would choose someone I liked so much? I don't think so. We had similar taste. At any rate, they moved here, and when I was ready to leave the city, they encouraged me to buy this house.”

“Right next door to them?” Hero asked.

Mrs. Roth nodded. “That's odd, I suppose, on the face of it. It seems such a coincidence.” She looked over at the Netherfields' house. “But really there are no coincidences. Coincidences are just other people's choices, plans you don't know about.”

Hero watched her lift her lemonade glass in both hands, turning it so it caught the sunlight. Mrs. Roth said, “I have no family except for Arthur. He always felt responsible for me. Through the years, Eleanor
and I became close friends. When she died, both Arthur and I were devastated. We shared that. He couldn't bear to stay here. And I—well, I couldn't bear to leave.”

They sat in silence for a while, and Hero felt the story hanging in the air between them.

“The Murphys didn't have any children? They had no one but you?” she asked.

Mrs. Roth looked away. Her face seemed different, full of shadows. “No. They didn't have children,” she said slowly. “But Arthur and I had a child.”

This was so unexpected that Hero almost dropped her glass of lemonade. “What?” she asked.

Mrs. Roth laced her fingers together, gazing steadily into the garden. “A daughter. My daughter, Anna.”

Hero stared at her. “You never mentioned her before. Where is she?”

Mrs. Roth kept looking at the flowers. Her voice was barely louder than a whisper. “When we were married, Arthur and I found out we couldn't have children. It was something I desperately wanted. So we took a foster child, a little girl. She was so beautiful. Lovely blue eyes, the sweetest smile. She was four years old when she came to live with us. We adored her.” Mrs. Roth sighed, folding and unfolding her hands. “But she was . . . troubled.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, now there would be a diagnosis for it. Depression probably. I'm not sure. As she got older, she had these startling mood swings. We didn't know anything. We thought it must be typical adolescence. But it was more than that. She ran away a week after her seventeenth birthday.”

“She ran away? And you never found her?”

Mrs. Roth shook her head slightly. “She didn't want to be found. I know that now. But at the time, I couldn't stop looking. It was the only thing I cared about. And Arthur and I couldn't get past it. It was the end of our marriage.”

Hero didn't know what to say. She touched Mrs. Roth's arm. “That's terrible.”

Mrs. Roth turned to her then, and her face seemed creased with history and secrets. “Oh, my dear. There are no words for it.”

“Did you ever find out where she went? Did she ever call you?”

“Years later, she sent me a postcard. It was from California, from Disneyland, actually. She was there on vacation. She said she'd gotten married, had a baby.” Mrs. Roth sighed. “Isn't that remarkable? I might have been a grandmother to some little girl or boy.”

“But couldn't you find her after that?” Hero asked.

“Well, I did think about hiring another private investigator. But, as I said, it was so clear that Anna didn't want to be found. I finally realized I had to respect that.”

“Wow.” Hero stared out at the garden, at its colorful, unkempt beauty. She'd never met anyone like Mrs. Roth, anyone who was as good at letting things be, accepting them in all their messiness and imperfection. But this was so sad. Hero wanted to help her somehow, to make her feel better. Suddenly she remembered the book in her backpack.

“Oh!” Hero said. “I have something to show you— about the necklace.” She pulled out the book and paged through it, finding the image of the falcon. “Look at this,” she said.

“Why, it's the bird from the pendant!” Mrs. Roth exclaimed. “How did you find it?”

“I was copying it from that pencil rubbing I made, and my dad saw the sketch, and he said it was Anne Boleyn's crest—”

“The wife of Henry VIII?” Mrs. Roth interrupted, staring at Hero. “The queen?”

“Yes!” Hero leaned forward, smiling. “The initials, remember? Not
AE; AB.”

Mrs. Roth gasped. “But that means—”

“I know,” Hero said happily. “The necklace must have belonged to her!”

“Well, this is amazing.” Mrs. Roth grabbed Hero's hand. “Oh, how I wish Eleanor could hear this! Her ancestors inherited a necklace from the queen of England.” She paused. “But I wonder how that happened. Eleanor said the necklace came from her Vere family ancestors. How would Edward de Vere have gotten Anne Boleyn's necklace?”

Hero thumbed through the book. “I don't know. Were they related?”

“No, I'm sure not,” Mrs. Roth said. “If there were a family relation to royalty—Anne Boleyn of all people—Eleanor would have known.”

“Maybe they were friends? He was a nobleman, right?”

“It's possible. But it seems unlikely that she would give such a valuable necklace to a mere friend. I wonder what the connection was between them.”

Hero thought for a minute. “I can ask my dad about it. He recognized the falcon. Maybe he'd have some idea.” She continued turning the pages of the book. “Look,” she said, sliding it across her lap so Mrs. Roth could see. “It says that a skilled swordsman
came over from France for the execution. Anne Boleyn said, 'I have heard that the executioner is very good. And I have a little neck.'”

“That's right,” Mrs. Roth said. “I remember that. A little neck. And it is a little necklace.”

Hero thought of the small circle of pearls and rubies. Her eyes darted over the page. “Oh! Listen,” she cried. “Here are Anne Boleyn's last words, right before she was beheaded on Tower Green:

“Good Christian people, I am come hither to die, for according to the law, and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that, whereof I am accused and condemned to die, but I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor more merciful prince was there never: and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord. And if any person will meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best. And thus I take my leave of this world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me. O Lord have mercy on me, to God I commend my soul.”

Hero looked up. “It says here that she was only twenty-nine years old.” She read the words again, to herself. “She was very brave, wasn't she?”

Mrs. Roth nodded. “Oh, yes. And honorable.”

Hero bit her lip. “I mean, at the end it seems like she forgave all those people who lied about her. Even her husband, the king. And it was all his fault that she had to die.” Hero frowned. “I wonder how she could forgive that.”

“Well,” Mrs. Roth said slowly, “I suppose we never know what we have the capacity to forgive until we're truly tested.”

They were considering this in silence when they heard the familiar skid of a skateboard out on the street.