True Believer (27 page)

He realized he was getting ahead of himself, but that’s what he did when confronted with a problem. He looked for solutions, he made suppositions, he tried to analyze long-term scenarios, in order to carefully assess the potential outcomes. And, he supposed, that’s what he expected of her as well.

What he didn’t expect was to be treated like a pariah. Or for her to act as if nothing had happened between them at all. Or to act as if she believed that last night had been a mistake.

He glanced at the stack of diaries on the desk as he took his seat. He began separating the ones that he’d already skimmed from the ones that he hadn’t, leaving four to go. To this point, none of the other seven had been particularly helpful—two had mentioned family funerals taking place at Cedar Creek—so he reached for one that he hadn’t examined. Instead of reading from the first entry, he leaned back in his chair and skimmed passages at random, trying to determine whether the diarist typically wrote about herself or the town she lived in. It was written from 1912 to 1915 by a young teenager named Anne Dempsey, and for the most part, it was a personal account of the day-to-day events in her life over that period. Whom she liked, what she ate, her thoughts about her parents and friends, and the fact that no one seemed to understand her. If there was anything remarkable about Anne, it was that her angst and worries were the same ones characteristic of young people today. While interesting, he set it aside, along with the others he’d rejected.

The next two diaries he perused—both written during the 1920s—were largely personal accounts as well. A fisherman wrote of tides and catches in almost minute detail; the second, by a chatty schoolteacher named Glenara, described her budding relationship with a young visiting doctor over an eight-month period, as well as her thoughts about her students and people she knew in town. In addition, there were a couple of entries concerning the town’s social events, which seemed to consist largely of watching sailboats on the Pamlico River, going to church, playing bridge, and promenading along Main Street on Saturday afternoons. He saw no mention of Cedar Creek at all.

He expected the last diary to be another waste of time, but calling it quits would mean leaving, and he couldn’t imagine doing so without trying to talk to Lexie again, if only to keep the lines of communication open. Yesterday he could have strolled right in and said the first thing that came to mind, but the recent zig and zag of their relationship, combined with her clearly agitated state, made it impossible to figure out exactly what he should say or how he should act.

Should he be distant? Should he try to talk to her, even knowing that she was itching for a fight? Or should he pretend he hadn’t even noticed her attitude and just assume that she still wanted to see how the mysterious lights really came about? Should he ask her out to dinner? Or just take her in his arms?

See, that was the problem in relationships when emotion began muddying the waters. It was as if Lexie expected him to do or say exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, whatever that was. And that, he decided, wasn’t fair.

Yeah, he loved her. And yeah, he, too, was concerned about their future. But where he wanted to try to figure things out, she was acting as if she was willing to throw in the towel already. He thought again about their conversation.

If you get the chance, you might swing by before you head out . . .

Not, “if we get the chance.” If you . . .

And what about her final comment? Sure, she’d said, because we’re friends. It had been all he could do to bite his tongue at that. Friends? he should have said. After last night, all you can say is that we’re friends? Is that all I mean to you?

It wasn’t the way you talked to someone you cared about. It wasn’t the way you treated someone you hoped to see again, and the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to respond in kind. You’re pulling back? I can do that, too. You want to have an argument? Here I am. He hadn’t done anything wrong, after all. What happened the night before had as much to do with her as it had with him. He’d been trying to tell her how he felt; she hadn’t seemed to want to hear it. He’d been promising to try to make it work; she’d been dismissive of the idea all along. And in the end, she’d led him to the bedroom, not the other way around.

He stared out the window, his lips pressed together. No, he thought, he wasn’t going to play her game anymore. If she wanted to talk to him, fine. But if not . . . well, then, that was the way it was going to be, and honestly, he couldn’t really do anything about it. He wasn’t about to go crawling back to beg and plead with her, so whatever happened next was in her hands. She knew where he was. He decided that he’d leave the library as soon as he was finished and head back to Greenleaf. Maybe it would give her the chance to figure out what she really wanted while letting her know he wasn’t prepared to stick around and be mistreated.

As soon as he left, Lexie cursed herself, wishing she had handled things better. She’d thought that spending time with Doris would have clarified things, but all it had done was to postpone the inevitable. The next thing she knew, Jeremy came waltzing in, acting as if nothing had changed. As if nothing were changing tomorrow. As if he wouldn’t be gone.

Yes, she had known he would be going back, that he would leave her behind just like Mr. Renaissance, but the fairy tale he’d started the night before nonetheless continued to linger, fueling fantasies in which people lived happily ever after. If he could find her at the beach, if he had enough courage to say the things he’d said to her, couldn’t he also find a reason to stay?

Deep down, she knew he was nurturing the hope that she would come with him to New York, but she couldn’t figure out why. Didn’t he understand that she cared nothing about money or fame? Or about shopping or going to shows or being able to buy Thai food in the middle of the night? Life wasn’t about those things. Life was about spending time together, about having the time to walk together holding hands, talking quietly as they watched the sun go down. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was, in many ways, the best that life had to offer. Wasn’t that how the old saying went? Who, on their deathbed, ever said they wished they had worked harder? Or spent less time enjoying a quiet afternoon? Or spent less time with their family?

She wasn’t naive enough to deny that modern culture had its own seductions. Be famous and rich and beautiful and go to exclusive parties: only then will you be happy. It was, in her opinion, a bunch of hogwash, the song of the desperate. If it wasn’t, why were so many rich, famous, and beautiful people taking drugs? Why couldn’t they seem to hold a marriage together? Why were they always getting arrested? Why did they seem so unhappy when removed from the spotlight?

Jeremy, she suspected, was seduced by this particular world, as much as he didn’t want to admit it. She had guessed this about him from the moment they’d met and had warned herself not to get emotionally involved. Nonetheless, she regretted the way she’d behaved just now. She hadn’t been ready to deal with him when he showed up at her office, but she supposed she should have simply said as much, instead of keeping the desk between them and denying that anything was wrong.

Yes, she should have handled it better. Whatever their differences, Jeremy deserved at least that much.

Friends, he thought again. Because we’re friends.

The way she said it still galled him, and absently tapping his pen against his notebook, Jeremy shook his head. He had to finish up here. Rolling his shoulders to ease the tension, he reached for the final diary and scooted his seat forward. After opening it, it took only a few seconds for him to realize that this one was different from all of the others.

Instead of short, personal passages, the diary was a collection of dated and titled essays written from 1955 to 1962. The first had to do with the building of St. Richard’s Episcopal Church in 1859 and—while the site was being excavated—the discovery of what appeared to be an ancient Lumbee Indian settlement. The essay covered three pages and was followed by an essay on the fate of Mc-Tauten’s Tannery, built on the shores of Boone Creek in 1794. The third essay, prompting Jeremy to raise his eyebrows, presented the writer’s opinion as to what had really happened to the settlers on Roanoke Island in 1587.

Jeremy, vaguely recalling that one of the diaries belonged to an amateur historian, began flipping through the pages more quickly . . . scanning the headings, looking through the articles for anything obvious . . . turning the pages fast . . . skimming . . . stopping suddenly when he realized he had seen something and flipping the pages back, only to freeze when he realized that what he’d seen . . .

He leaned back in his chair, blinking as he moved his fingers down the page.

Solving the Mystery of the Lights in Cedar Creek Cemetery

Over the years, some residents of our town have made the claim that ghosts are present in Cedar Creek Cemetery, and three years ago, an article was published regarding the phenomenon in Journal of the South. Though no solution was offered, after conducting my own investigation, I believe I have solved the riddle of why the lights seem to appear at certain times while not at others.

I will say definitively that ghosts are not present. Instead, the lights are actually those of the Henrickson Paper Mill and are influenced by the train as it crosses the trestle, the location of Riker’s Hill, and the phases of the moon.

As Jeremy continued reading, he found himself holding his breath. Though the writer hadn’t attempted an explanation as to why the cemetery was sinking—without which the lights would probably not be visible at all—his conclusion was otherwise essentially the same as Jeremy’s.

The writer, whoever it was, had nailed it almost forty years ago.

Forty years . . .

He marked the page with a piece of scratch paper and flipped the book to the front cover, looking for the name of the author, his mind flashing to the first conversation he’d had with the mayor. And with that, he felt his suspicions come together like pieces in a puzzle.

Owen Gherkin.

The journal had been written by the mayor’s father. Who, according to Mayor Gherkin, “knew everything there was to know about this place.” Who understood what was causing the lights. Who had undoubtedly told his son. Who then knew there had never been anything supernatural at all about the lights, but had nonetheless pretended otherwise. Which meant that Mayor Gherkin had been lying all along, in the hope of using Jeremy to help make a buck from unsuspecting visitors.

And Lexie . . .

The librarian. The woman who’d hinted that he might find the answers he was looking for in the diaries. Which meant that she’d read Owen Gherkin’s account. Which meant that she, too, had been lying, preferring to play along with the mayor.

He wondered how many others in town had known the answer. Doris? Maybe, he thought. No, change that, he quickly decided. She had to have known. In their first conversation, she’d come right and out and said what the lights weren’t. But like the mayor and Lexie, she hadn’t said what they really were, even though she probably knew, too.

And that meant . . . this whole thing had been a joke all along. The letter. The investigation. The party. The joke, however, was on him.

And now Lexie was pulling away, but not until after she’d told him that story about Doris bringing her to the cemetery to see the spirit of her parents. And that sweet story about how her parents had wanted her to meet him.

Coincidence? Or planned all along? And now the way she was acting . . .

As if she wanted him to leave. As if she didn’t feel anything for him. As if she had known what would happen . . .

Had everything been planned? And if so, why?

Jeremy grabbed the diary and headed to Lexie’s office, determined to get some answers. He barely noticed that he slammed the door on the way out; nor did he notice the faces of the volunteers who turned to watch him. Lexie’s door was cracked open, and he pushed it wider as he stepped into her office.

With the piles of clutter now hidden, Lexie was holding a can of furniture polish and wiping the top of the desk with a cloth, bringing the wood to a shine. She looked up as Jeremy raised the diary.

“Oh, hey,” she said, looking up. She forced a smile. “I’m just about finished up here.”

Jeremy stared at her. “You can quit the act,” he announced.

Even from across the room, she sensed his anger, and she instinctively tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“What are you talking about?”

“This,” he said, holding up the diary. “You have read this, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” she said simply, recognizing it as Owen Gherkin’s. “I’ve read it.”

“Did you know there’s a passage that talks about the lights at Cedar Creek?”

“Yes,” she said again.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“I did,” she said. “I told you about the diaries when you first came to the library. And if I remember right, I said you might find the answers you were looking for, remember?”

“Don’t play games,” Jeremy said, his eyes narrowing. “You knew what I was looking for.”