Sheila Connolly - Relatively Dead 02 - Seeing the Dead (6 page)

“No, of course not. I work at the museum now.”

“Oh, of course! You replaced Stephanie Thomas, right? But that’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Just over six months now.”

“And you haven’t visited us since?”

“I’ve been kind of busy, what with a new job—and a lot of catching up to do, on local history. I’m not from around here.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place. Why don’t you start with the nineteenth-century histories? The guys who wrote them—and yes, they were almost exclusively men—were a lot closer to the facts back then, and very methodical about including everything they knew or learned. And I do mean everything! Which is why the books are three inches thick in tiny print.”

“I know,” Abby said, “but the details are so charming. Like, Farmer Brown’s pig farm obscured any evidence of the Indian burial ground on his property.”

“But at least you know there
was
an Indian burial ground, right?”

“Right. So, lead me to your histories!”

Abby followed Louisa to a tier of shelves in the middle of one wall. “Wow! I’ve got my work lined up for me!”

“Well, yes and no,” Louisa said. “Each one should have a section on military history from the town or county, but reading all the rest of the details is up to you. You don’t have to wrap this up in one day, do you?”

Abby shook her head. “No, that’s not going to happen. This is just the start.”

In the quiet basement room, Abby once again lost track of time. Reading the old histories was as close as she could come to traveling back in time. As Louisa had told her, there was a wealth of detail, of varying relevance, but it all contributed to the picture of a lost time and place. The world had been so much smaller a hundred and fifty years ago! Especially in small towns, where everyone seemed to know everyone else plus their history. But there was nothing mean-spirited, nothing that smacked of gossip. The authors, usually local residents themselves, had apparently believed that everything was important, large or small.

What she didn’t find was a lot of information on the military units. She’d already noticed that participation by any one individual could be patchy. He might sign up for something but serve for only three days or a couple of weeks. And of course the military divisions themselves kept changing rapidly during the very unsettled period she was interested in. She would guess that people from one town kind of stuck together and were led by people from that same town. But then she realized she needed to know the evolution of the towns around the area. Again, she had learned that boundaries kept shifting, so records for one family might show up in more than one town. And this was in Massachusetts, which had kept relatively good records! Abby shuddered to think how any researcher managed to accomplish anything in states that had been less meticulous in recording everything. They had probably never thought that later generations would be combing through them, or they’d been too busy moving westward to bother.

After a few hours Abby decided she’d done enough. Her eyes were glazing over, and worse, skipping lines on the page. She’d collected a lot of information, but now she needed to organize it and figure out how it all fit together. It was a respectable start, and if there was something else she wanted to follow up on immediately, she could come over in the evening during the week. Or look online.

As she stretched her tired muscles before standing up, it occurred to her that maybe she should be worried about attending the parade and the associated events. Not that she disliked crowds particularly, but what if more of her family members decided to show up, just as the Littleton one had? After all, a lot of militias had come together for the battle, and more had joined them as the British retreated toward Boston. Was she prepared to process that, or would it be too much to handle? But heck—on the plus side, maybe she’d see Paul Revere. She couldn’t prove she
wasn’t
related to him, could she? The thought made her smile and gave her the energy to stand up.

On her way out the door, she stopped at the desk to say good-bye to Louisa. “It’s okay if I leave the books on the table there?”

“Please!” Louisa said. “I’d rather reshelve them myself than have you misplace them. No offense intended. Did you find what you wanted?”

“Yes and no. I found more things that I wanted, so you’ll probably be seeing more of me. But I can’t say when. This reenactment stuff sounds crazy.”

“It is, but it’s as close as we’ll come to seeing history. At least in a pre-video era.”

“I’m looking forward to it—I think. Thanks for your help.”

Abby drove home in a pensive mood. She had found a lot, but she knew she needed more. She wasn’t any closer to identifying the man on the green. And tomorrow was a workday and promised to be busy. This hunt might take her a long time.

6

Once she arrived back at the house, Abby started to feel depressed. Had she set herself a hopeless task? Sure, she had seen the man on the green, and it had been more than a glimpse from the corner of her eye. She had looked at him, studied him long enough to take in a lot of details. He’d moved, so he wasn’t a still image, or a single one. He was as real as a long-dead person could be, unless she was truly hallucinating. When all this business had started happening, she’d looked up various psychological disorders that might explain what was happening, but nothing had fit. She had been intrigued by one promising category:
Folie a Deux
. The definition read, “delusion develops in an individual in the context of a close relationship with another person, who has an already established delusion.” That almost worked, except that her delusion, if that’s what it was, came
before
the relationship with Ned. Or had Ned caught it from her, so he was the delusional one? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This was ridiculous.

Was she delusional? She didn’t think so. But did any crazy people believe they were crazy? What about Ned? She hadn’t known him long enough or seen enough of him to make a final judgment. He seemed sane enough, but he was also clearly smart, and smart people were often good at concealing their own peculiarities, so they could function in society. That’s how serial killers managed to go on killing—because they could pass as normal.

What was wrong with her? Why the dark thoughts? Well, if she was going to be honest, she missed Ned. She’d lost count of how many times she had come across an interesting fact as she read the old books in the library, and thought,
I have to tell Ned about this.
Well, she hadn’t shut the door completely, just asked him for a timeout. It troubled her how quickly she had come to depend on him. She had depended on Brad far too much—for her own plans, for her entertainment, for her purpose in life. He had proved to be inadequate. Ned was a better choice—at least he paid attention to her—but she didn’t want to lean on anyone that way again. Or at least, the leaning should be mutual, not one-sided.
Learn from your mistakes, Abby
.

After a quiet evening with a book that had nothing to do with history or spirits or romance, Abby went to bed. Monday promised to be challenging, as did every day between now and April 19. She needed her rest.

• • •

While she arrived at the museum at her usual time the next morning, she felt like she was dragging. She hoped focusing on her work would help. While school groups could be taxing, she usually felt revived by eager kids, including the ones who didn’t see the point of learning about history, even in their own backyard. For Abby it was always a challenge to figure out something that would spark their imaginations and make them see long-past events in a different light. She spent the morning polishing her presentations and swapping out some visual materials for different ones.

Leslie stuck her head in Abby’s door just before noon. “Lunch?”

“Do you really have time to leave the building?” Abby said, only half joking.

“No, but if I don’t get out of here and get some fresh air, I’ll lose it. Come on, you look like you could use a break too.”

“All right. You’re the boss.” Abby gathered up her jacket and bag and followed Leslie out of the building.

They walked to the nearest restaurant, since their time was short, and were lucky to find a table. After they’d ordered, Leslie looked Abby in the eye and said, “What I would have said earlier is that you look like somebody broke your dolly and stomped on it. Work getting to you?”

Abby shook her head. “No, not at all. I find I really do enjoy working with kids. Well, I knew I did, but I was happily surprised how quickly it all came back to me. I’m having a good time with them, and I’m experimenting with some changes.”

Leslie looked relieved. “Good, because the reviews have been consistently good. Translation: the kids like you, and so do the teachers. Keep it up.” The waitress delivered their sandwiches and drinks, and then Leslie said, “So if it’s not work, why do you look so down? Trouble in paradise?”

Normally Abby would have given a bland and evasive answer, but this was Leslie, and Leslie knew Ned well. Which more or less gave her the right to ask, although she probably wouldn’t press if Abby asked her to back off. “I assume you’re talking about Ned. Well, not trouble exactly … I kind of asked him to give me a little time off.”

“Okay,” Leslie said cautiously. “Is that a brush-off? As in, please go away forever?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s just that … well, you know. A lot of things happened very fast, and it’s like my brain is only now catching up with it all. I love my job. I like my house—only it’s not mine and I’m going to have to do something about that sooner rather than later. With Ned it’s … complicated.” She stopped, unsure how to go on.

“Uh-huh,” Leslie said. She took a large bite of her sandwich and chewed, conveniently giving herself time to think. After she’d swallowed she said, “You’d tell me if I was butting in where I wasn’t welcome, wouldn’t you?”

Abby nodded.

Leslie went on, “And I’m your boss, which makes things even more confusing. But putting that aside for now, let me talk to you as a friend. I think you’re absolutely right about getting slammed by a lot of things at once, and you should allow yourself the time to adjust. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen on anybody’s schedule but yours. So if you’re feeling smothered by Ned, you have every right to put the brakes on. Or at least take your foot off the gas. You got that?”

Abby smiled, almost in spite of herself. “Yes, and thank you. But I don’t want to hurt him, and I’m trying not to send signals that this is over, because I don’t believe it is. It’s just that I’ve got a lot of things to work through. Look, you know about Brad. I thought I knew him—heck, I even thought I loved him, somewhere in there. And look how that turned out. The thing is, I don’t trust my judgment right now. Ned is a great guy, and he really gets me. He isn’t all about himself. But that kind of works two ways. There are a lot of things about him that I don’t know, probably because I haven’t asked. I’m not sure what he does for work, other than that it involves DNA testing of some sort. I’ve never seen his house—he keeps telling me it’s barely habitable. And if you’re wondering, we haven’t even gotten close to discussing moving in together.” Although Ned had brought it up—and she had ducked. “And I’m not sure I’m ready for that anyway. You see the problem?”

“Unfortunately I do. No, don’t panic—it’s not awful. Tell me you haven’t wondered how Ned and I ever got together and stayed together for any length of time?” Leslie’s gaze challenged Abby.

“Okay, sure I have—he told me you were engaged, a while ago. You’re such different personalities.”

“Yes, we are, and luckily we realized that in time. He’s a good person, and he does pay attention and care. But toward the end, there were times when I felt like I was sucking the life out of him. I mean, he’d get all quiet, and I’d get louder to compensate. He’d try to join in, but it was pretty clear that was out of his comfort zone. It was just a bad fit—no harm, no foul. The two of you seem much better suited.”

If only you knew,
Abby thought. “I think so too, although I guess I wonder if we’d bore each other to death at some point. Is there such a thing as too much quiet between two people?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Leslie grinned. “As for the other stuff: ask him. He’s not hiding anything. It’s not like he’s got a wife and six kids stashed in that house of his—I’ve been by it, and it really is a fixer-upper, but he likes that. Only he never seems to have the time to do any of the fixing up. As for the job … well, I can’t claim to understand the science of what he does, but I gather from what he has said and what I’ve heard from other people that it’s pretty much cutting-edge. It’s a big deal, in a very specialized and competitive field. And that’s about all I know.”

“And he’s not a CIA double agent or a sleeper terrorist harboring a sleeper cell in his basement?” Abby asked, striving to look wide-eyed and innocent.

“Not hardly,” Leslie replied. “Have I helped at all?”

“I think so. He is what he appears to be, right?”

“Exactly. But if you want this to work—assuming you do—then you have to talk to him. You can’t just shut down on him.”

“I more or less figured that, and I think you’re right. Let’s just chalk it up to growing pains, with all this new stuff that’s been going on. We’ll work it out.”

“Well, I’m pulling for both of you, but I’ll keep my nose out of things. I want you to stick around—it’s a pain in the butt to recruit and interview new employees.”

“As I recall, my interview lasted about ten minutes.”

Leslie waved away the comment. “Ah, you were a done deal, since Ned recommended you. I’ve always thought he’s a good judge of character.”

Abby suppressed a sigh. It was nice that Ned had helped her get this job, but a stubborn part of her wished she had gotten it solely on her own merits. “Well, I’m glad it all worked out. Should we get back?”

“Yes, we should. We’ve got another meeting this afternoon, if the memo hasn’t gone out, which because I never got around to sending it probably didn’t, unless we’ve got elves in the building who step up and take care of things like that.”