Spirit Story Chapter 14
Chapter 14
Claire waited until they were outside. They had crossed the historical society’s parking lot and were nearly to Mara’s car when she stopped.
“Mara.”
Mara kept walking, “No.”
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“I know your tone.”
“My tone is insightful.”
“Your tone is about to make something more complicated.”
Claire followed her, “That’s because something is more complicated.”
Mara unlocked the car but didn’t open the door. Claire stood on the other side of it.
“Okay. Explain something to me.”
“I probably can’t.”
“Try.”
Mara waited. Claire pointed vaguely back toward the historical society.
“Why are we helping your spirit guides?”
Mara blinked, of all the questions she’d expected, that wasn’t one of them.
Claire continued, “They’re guides.”
“According to Evelyn.”
“Yes. Your guides.”
“Supposedly.”
“So aren’t they supposed to be helping you?”
Mara leaned against the car, “They have.”
“How?”
“They led us to Margaret.”
Claire stared at her. Mara realized what she’d said.
“Potentially.”
“Oh, no. You don’t get to potentially your way out of that one.”
“I meant the information led us—”
“Mara.”
“Fine.”
Claire folded her arms. “We’ve spent weeks identifying them, researching them, digging through records, finding their injuries, figuring out their weird little silver accessories—”
“We haven’t connected the silver case to Margaret.”
“—and now we’re trying to identify a dead eighteen-year-old girl they apparently couldn’t be bothered to name themselves.”
“That assumes they’re capable of giving Evelyn names.”
“They can give her forty-one.”
“Apparently.”
“They can show her dirt.”
“Yes.”
“Cedar.”
“Yes.”
“Scars.”
“Yes.”
“Missing fingers.”
“Part of one finger.”
Claire stared, “That’s the correction you chose?”
“Accuracy.”
Claire groaned, “My point is, this seems backward. If Margaret and Thomas are supposed to guide you, why are you solving their problem?”
Mara looked back toward the building. She didn’t have an answer, that irritated her.
“Maybe they aren’t my guides.”
Claire’s expression changed. “What?”
“Evelyn could be wrong about the relationship.”
“But she sees them around you.”
“That doesn’t establish function.”
Claire stared at her. “Only you could demand a job description from a ghost.”
“Guide.”
Claire’s mouth dropped open. Mara closed her eyes.
“Stop enjoying that.”
“I can’t.”
Mara opened the car door. Claire didn’t move.
“Mara.”
“What?”
“Seriously.”
Mara looked at her. Claire’s teasing had disappeared.
“Why you?”
Mara glanced back at the historical society. Somewhere inside, on page forty-one of a burial ledger, an eighteen-year-old girl had been reduced to Female. Unknown.
“I don’t know.”
Claire nodded.
“Okay.”
Mara got into the car. Claire walked around to the passenger side. She climbed in and closed the door.
Then: “I think we should ask Evelyn.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because if we tell Evelyn everything we’ve found, we contaminate any future information she gives us.”
Claire sighed, “So we’re still doing science.”
“We were always doing science.”
“With ghosts.”
“Historical records.”
“About ghosts.”
“Potential ghosts.”
“Spirit guides.”
Mara looked at her. Claire grinned.
“Got you.”
Mara started the car.
⸻
They did not ask Evelyn. Instead, Mara spent the next four days looking for a girl who had officially never existed. That was what it felt like. The unknown girl appeared once in June. She died in October. Everything between those dates was blank.
No school enrollment.
No parish assistance under an identifiable name.
No hospital record.
No court filing.
No newspaper report of a missing girl matching her age.
No obituary.
No death notice.
Nothing.
Mara searched nearby parishes. Claire searched too, under strict instructions.
“No ghosts.”
“I know.”
“No spirit guides.”
“I know.”
“No ‘mysterious unidentified girl 1891.’”
“That was one time.”
“And it produced six thousand useless results.”
“I was enthusiastic.”
“You were uncontrolled.”
Claire smiled, “That’s practically a pet name now.”
Mara ignored her. They searched ordinary records.
Runaways.
Domestic workers.
Boarders.
Orphans.
Missing persons.
Young women traveling alone.
Girls placed with families.
They found dozens. None could be connected to Margaret. By Thursday evening, Mara’s dining table had disappeared beneath photocopies and handwritten notes.
Newton occupied the only clear corner.
Claire looked around. “I would like to revisit something.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what.”
“You’ve been staring at the silver case for ten minutes.”
Claire picked it up.
Mara’s head snapped around.
Claire froze. “You said I could touch it now.”
“I said the particulate sampling was concluded.”
“Which means?”
Mara held out her hand. Claire gave her the case.
“It means don’t unnecessarily handle historical objects.”
“You’re fun at museums.”
“I am excellent at museums.”
Claire leaned back.
“We still haven’t opened it.”
Mara looked down at the case. The clasp had resisted every reasonable attempt. She had refused to force it. Helen had agreed. Metal fatigue, corrosion and age made aggressive opening a bad idea.
Claire said, “What if something’s inside?”
“Then it has been inside for more than a century and can survive another week.”
“You don’t know it’s more than a century old.”
“Helen’s estimate places it in the late nineteenth century.”
“Exactly.”
“That doesn’t establish when the contents—if any—were placed inside.”
Claire stared at her.
“You know, sometimes I think you use precision as a weapon.”
“Sometimes I do.”
Mara put the case down.
Claire sighed. “Fine. Back to the nameless girl.”
“Unknown.”
“What?”
“The record says unknown. We don’t know that she was nameless.”
Claire looked at her. Mara stopped. Something about the distinction bothered her.
Unknown was not the same as unnamed. The girl had possessed a name, almost certainly. Someone had called her something for eighteen years. Margaret may have known it. Thomas may have known it. Anne may have known it.
And yet the burial record did not.
Why?
Claire said, “What?”
Mara was already reaching for Margaret’s letters, Margaret knew her.”
“We think.”
“If the girl lived in her house for four months, Margaret called her something.”
“Unless she just yelled ‘hey, you.’”
Mara looked at her.
“Sorry.”
Mara spread the photographed letters across the table. Correspondence to Anne Mercer.
1889 through 1892. They had concentrated on the accident and Margaret’s wrist. They had not read every letter from 1891 carefully because they hadn’t known there was an unidentified girl in Margaret’s house.
Now they did. Mara opened the first.
January.
Nothing.
March.
Nothing.
May.
Nothing.
Then July. She read slowly. Most of the letter concerned heat, a sick child, vegetables, church, Margaret’s husband complaining about a fence.
Then a sentence: Our little visitor improves.
Mara stopped.
“Claire.”
Claire came around the table, “What?”
Mara pointed.
Claire read, “Visitor.”
“Yes.”
“Little?”
“Margaret was thirty. Eighteen may have seemed little.”
“Or it’s somebody else.”
“Yes.”
Claire looked surprised, “What?”
“You agreed.”
“Because you’re right.”
“I’m going to write this date down.”
Mara kept reading, two paragraphs later:
She remains fearful of strangers and will not go into town.
Claire’s smile disappeared. Mara continued.
I think it best that she stay quiet awhile longer.
No name. No explanation. The next letter was August. Mara read every line.
Near the end:
Thomas says he can make what is needed.
Neither woman spoke.
Mara read it again.
Claire whispered, “The box.”
“No.”
“Mara.”
“We don’t know what was needed.”
“But Thomas—”
“Was a carpenter. People needed things made.”
Claire took a breath.
“Fine.”
Mara kept reading. The September letter was missing. The archive inventory showed it should exist. It didn’t.
“Where is it?” Claire asked.
“Not here.”
“Lost?”
“Possibly.”
“Removed?”
“Possibly.”
“Deliberately?”
“We don’t know.”
Claire muttered, “I hate when you do that.”
“Good.”
The next letter was dated October 12, 1891.
Five days before the unidentified girl’s death. Mara read.
Once.
Then again.
Claire waited, “What?”
Mara didn’t answer. She read the sentence aloud.
“‘She has asked me again to promise that no one will send her back.’”
Claire sat down. Mara continued.
“‘I told her she is safe here.’”
Silence. Newton jumped from the table to the floor. Neither noticed.
Claire finally said, “Back where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who was she afraid of?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t Margaret use her name?”
Mara looked at the letter, that was becoming the question. Every other person in Margaret’s correspondence had a name.
Edward.
Anne.
Thomas.
Children.
Neighbors.
The pastor.
A woman who sold eggs.
Even the cow had a name, Bessie.
But not the girl.
Our visitor.
She.
Never a name.
Mara opened the November letter. The girl was not mentioned.
December.
Nothing.
January 1892.
Nothing.
Gone, as though she had never been there.
Claire whispered, “Margaret was hiding her.” Mara didn’t correct her.
Claire noticed, “You think so too.”
“I think Margaret deliberately avoided writing her name.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Protection?”
“Possibly.”
“From whoever she thought would send her back.”
“Possibly.”
Claire stared at the October letter, “Five days later she’s dead.”
“Yes.”
“And buried on private ground.”
“Yes.”
“And Thomas made something they needed.”
“Yes.”
Claire looked toward the silver case.
“And Margaret’s digging.”
Mara followed her gaze. She allowed herself to draw one line, not in the notebook.
Only in her mind.
Margaret.
Thomas.
Girl.
Then she stopped, “We need the missing September letter.”
Claire blinked. “How?”
“Ask Helen whether it was ever cataloged individually.”
“And if it’s gone?”
“Find out when it disappeared.”
⸻
Helen answered the next morning, “It didn’t disappear.”
Mara stood in the hallway outside the laboratory.
“What do you mean?”
“It was never donated.”
“But the inventory—”
“Lists correspondence by date range, not every individual letter. Whoever prepared the original family list apparently noted a September letter, but it wasn’t included in the later donation.”
“Who prepared the original list?”
“A Mercer descendant.”
“Name?”
Helen gave it to her. Mara wrote it down.
“Living?”
“I believe so.”
Mara paused, “How old?”
“Nineties.”
“Can we contact her?”
Helen was quiet. “Why?”
Mara had reached the point where withholding everything was becoming counterproductive. She chose carefully. “We’re researching an unidentified young woman who stayed with Margaret Vale in 1891.”
Helen said nothing. “We found references to her in Margaret’s correspondence.”
Still nothing. “And there’s a burial record for an unidentified eighteen-year-old woman in October of that year.”
Helen inhaled. “I see.”
“We’re trying to determine whether the missing September letter mentioned her.”
Helen was quiet for several seconds, then: “I’ll make the call.”
“Thank you.”
“Mara?”
“Yes?”
“You know this isn’t just an old object anymore.”
Mara looked through the small hallway window into the laboratory.
“No.”
“It isn’t.”
⸻
The Mercer descendant’s name was Ruth Landry. She was ninety-four. She lived with her daughter twenty minutes from the historical society and had no interest whatsoever in Mara’s methodology.
“You’re looking for the girl.”
Mara had barely sat down. Claire’s eyes widened.
Mara leaned forward. “What girl?”
Ruth looked at her as though she were slow. “The girl Anne wasn’t supposed to talk about.”
Claire’s hand found Mara’s knee beneath the table and squeezed. Mara ignored it.
“Anne Mercer?”
“My grandmother’s mother.”
“Your great-grandmother.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know Anne?”
“No. She died before I was born.”
“Then how do you know about the girl?”
Ruth waved one hand. “Family story.”
Mara’s pulse accelerated. “What story?”
Ruth’s daughter brought tea. Ruth ignored it. “My grandmother said her mother and Mrs. Vale helped a girl once.”
Mara heard Claire inhale. “Helped her how?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know her name?”
“No.”
Mara felt an unexpected drop of disappointment.
Ruth continued. “They weren’t supposed to say it.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody was looking for her.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Family?”
“Maybe.”
“Police?”
“No idea.”
“Employer?”
Ruth frowned.
“Could’ve been.”
Mara forced herself to slow down.
“What exactly were you told?”
Ruth considered. “My grandmother said the girl came frightened and sick. Mrs. Vale kept her. Anne brought things over. Food. Clothes.”
“And Thomas?”
Ruth’s face changed, just slightly.
“He helped.”
“How?”
“He made something.”
Claire’s hand tightened on Mara’s knee. Mara remained very still.
“What did he make?”
Ruth looked toward the window. “A box.”
Claire made a tiny sound. Mara didn’t.
“What kind?”
“Wood.”
“Do you know what kind of wood?”
Ruth shook her head.
“What was it for?”
Ruth looked back at Mara.
“That part always changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Depending on who told it.”
Mara almost smiled. Finally. Someone who understood source reliability.
“What versions did you hear?”
“One said Thomas made the girl a box for her things.”
Mara waited.
“Another said it was for papers.”
“And another?”
Ruth hesitated. “My grandmother said it was for when she died.”
The room became still. Claire’s hand left Mara’s knee.
Mara said, “A coffin?”
“No.”
“A burial box?”
“I don’t know.”
Ruth frowned. “Small. That’s what I remember. Small.”
Mara thought of Thomas’s invoice.
Small cedar box. Brass hinges. Interior fitted. No charge.
Not a coffin. Something intended to hold something else. “Did your family know where the girl was buried?”
Ruth shook her head.
“No.”
“Did they know how she died?”
“No.”
“Did they know why her name wasn’t recorded?”
Ruth’s expression softened. “They were protecting her.”
“After she died?”
Ruth looked at Mara. “Yes.”
That answer landed differently. Mara leaned forward.
“From what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would a dead woman still need protecting?”
Ruth’s eyes moved toward Claire.
Then back.
“Maybe it wasn’t her they were protecting.”
Mara went still.
“Who, then?”
Ruth shrugged.
“That’s where the story ends.”
Mara sat back. Claire was unusually quiet. Ruth reached for her tea.
Then she said, “There was a number.”
Mara’s entire body became alert.
“What number?”
Ruth frowned.
“Something about where they put it.”
Claire looked at Mara. Mara did not look back.
“What number?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Was it an address?”
“No.”
“A grave?”
“I don’t think so.”
“A road?”
“No.”
“Forty-one?”
Ruth’s cup stopped halfway to her mouth. Mara heard her own heartbeat. Ruth lowered the cup.
“Maybe.”
Mara immediately regretted supplying the number. Bad procedure. She had contaminated the answer herself.
She wrote: 41 prompted. Cannot count as independent corroboration.
Claire read it upside down. For once, she didn’t complain.
“Do you have anything written?” Mara asked.
“About the girl?”
“Yes.”
Ruth thought.
“Maybe.”
Mara waited.
Ruth looked toward her daughter.
“Where’s Anne’s Bible?”
Her daughter frowned.
“The old one?”
“Yes.”
“In your room, I think.”
“Bring it.”
Mara’s pulse accelerated again. The Bible arrived wrapped in a pillowcase. Mara approved of the pillowcase less than she approved of the object inside it. The cover was cracked. Pages yellowed. Loose papers protruded from several places.
Ruth opened it carefully. Births. Deaths. Marriages. Family names. Then a folded piece of paper. Not the September letter.
A list.
Household items, perhaps.
Mara read.
Blankets.
Two dresses.
Shoes.
Soap.
Comb.
Medicine.
Then:
T.M. — box
Below that:
M.V. — keep silver
Mara stopped.
Claire whispered, “Silver.”
Mara didn’t answer. The next line had been crossed out so heavily that the paper had nearly torn. Mara leaned closer. Letters remained beneath the ink. Not enough to read.
Ruth said, “I always wondered what that was.”
Mara looked at her.
“You’ve seen this before?”
“Years ago.”
“Do you know who wrote it?”
“Anne, I think.”
Mara photographed the page with permission. Then the entire sheet. Then its location in the Bible. She did not touch the crossed-out line, not yet. But her mind had already begun working. Different inks could sometimes be distinguished photographically. Indentations might remain. Oblique lighting. Infrared imaging. Multispectral imaging. She did not have access to any of that personally. And she was absolutely not bringing Anne Mercer’s Bible into the state laboratory.
Claire looked at her. “Oh, no.”
“What?”
“You have instrument face.”
“I do not have instrument face.”
“You do.”
Ruth smiled.
“What does that mean?”
Claire said, “She knows there’s a machine somewhere that can read that.”
Mara looked at the crossed-out line.
“Possibly.”
“Can you?”
“Not ethically with the equipment available to me.”
Ruth stared at her.
“You really do talk like that.”
Claire nodded.
“All day.”
Mara ignored them.
“Would you allow the historical society to have this examined by a document conservator?”
Ruth shrugged.
“If they don’t hurt it.”
“They won’t.”
Claire smiled.
“Mara found a legal laboratory.”
“A conservator is not—”
Claire raised a hand.
“Don’t ruin this.”
⸻
They were halfway back to Mara’s car when Claire stopped again.
Mara looked at her. “What now?”
Claire was staring at the photograph of Anne’s list on her phone. “T.M. box.”
“Yes.”
“M.V. keep silver.”
“Yes.”
“Thomas made the box. Margaret kept something silver.”
“Possibly.”
Claire looked at her.
“Mara.”
“Yes?”
“The silver case was in your house.”
“I know.”
“In your family’s things.”
“Yes.”
“Margaret kept it.”
“We do not know that keep silver refers to my case.”
“But if it does—”
“It may not.”
Claire exhaled. Then she looked back at the list.
“Okay.”
They walked several more steps. Then Claire said, “I keep thinking about the guide thing.”
Mara unlocked the car. “What about it?”
“You still haven’t answered me.”
“I told you I don’t know.”
“I know.”
Claire leaned against the passenger door.
“But what if we’re looking at it wrong?”
Mara waited.
“What if guides aren’t supposed to just… give you advice?”
“I don’t know what they’re supposed to do.”
“Neither do I.”
“A remarkable foundation for your theory.”
Claire ignored her.
“What if they’re guiding you here?”
“To an unidentified burial record?”
“To this.”
Claire gestured broadly.
“The whole thing.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then we’re back where we started.”
“No.”
Claire shook her head.
“Because look at what you’re doing.”
“Research.”
“You went to a palm reader because I dragged you there.”
“Yes.”
“You thought it was nonsense.”
“I remain unconvinced.”
“You found a silver thing and tried to prove your cat moved it.”
“He remains the most plausible suspect for the box.”
“You ran a home experiment.”
“Observation period.”
“Whatever. You tracked down Margaret. Thomas. The girl. You found records nobody has cared about in over a hundred years.”
“The historical society cared about them.”
“You know what I mean.”
Mara did.
Claire continued.
“Maybe Margaret and Thomas aren’t supposed to tell you what stocks to buy or warn you not to cross the street.”
“I would hope not.”
“Maybe this is the guidance.”
Mara looked at her.
“What is?”
Claire thought.
“Taking you somewhere you wouldn’t go by yourself.”
Mara didn’t answer.
That was annoyingly reasonable. Claire tapped the phone.
“And maybe helping them is part of it.”
“That makes them beneficiaries, not guides.”
“Why can’t they be both?”
Mara opened her mouth. Nothing came out.
Claire smiled slightly. “Relationships can go two directions, Scientist.”
“That isn’t evidence.”
“No.”
Claire opened the passenger door. “But it doesn’t have to be evidence yet.”
She got into the car. Mara remained standing outside.
She thought of Margaret.
Thomas.
An eighteen-year-old girl whose name had been deliberately removed from a record.
Then herself.
The woman who had spent her entire adult life insisting that labels mattered.
Names mattered.
Documentation mattered.
If a result could not be traced, verified and connected to its source, it could not simply be treated as fact.
And now somewhere in 1891 was a girl whose source had been severed.
No provenance.
No identity.
No name.
Mara got into the car. Claire buckled her seat belt. Mara started the engine.
“You’re thinking.”
“Yes.”
“About what I said?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
Mara pulled out of the parking lot. After a moment, she said, “If they’re guiding me toward her, that still doesn’t explain why.”
Claire looked out the window. “No.”
Mara waited. Claire turned back.
“Maybe finding out why is your part.”
Mara drove. She did not answer. But that night, when she opened the black notebook, she added a new heading beneath the others.
Not Evidence.
Not Hypothesis.
Not even Interpretation.
She wrote:
Why me?
Then beneath it:
What do they need from me?
Mara stared at the second question.
After a moment, she added a third.
What am I supposed to learn from them?
She almost crossed it out. Instead she closed the notebook. She allowed the question to remain without trying to answer it.
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