what it’s about. Actually, I was hoping you could tell me. My grandmother has been experiencing some health problems. I’m trying to make sense of the notes on her schedule.”
“What day was the appointment for?”
“I’m not sure if she had one. I thought she might’ve called you about selling a property. The Myers cottage.” It’s not uncommon around here for properties to be known by the names of people who owned them decades ago. My grandmother’s parents built the Edisto house as a place to escape the hot, sticky summers inland. “Stafford. Judy Stafford.” I prepare myself for the change in tone that almost invariably comes with the name. Anywhere in the state, people either love us or hate us, but they usually know who we are.
“Staff…for…Stafford…” he mutters. Maybe he’s not from around here? Come to think of it, his accent doesn’t even hint of Charleston. It’s not Lowcountry, but there is some sort of drawl there. Texas maybe? Having spent so much of my childhood mingling with kids from other places, I’m good with accents, both foreign and domestic.
There’s a strange pause. His tone is more guarded afterward. “I’ve only been here about nine months, but I can promise you that no one’s ever called here about selling or renting the Myers cottage. Sorry I can’t be of more help.” Suddenly, he’s trying to shuffle me off the phone. Why? “If it was before the first of the year, my grandfather, Trent Senior, was probably the one she was talking to. But he passed away over six months ago.”
“Oh. My condolences.” I instantly feel a kinship that goes beyond his presence in a place I have always dearly loved. “Any idea what my grandmother was in touch with him about?”
There’s another uncomfortable pause, as if he’s carefully weighing his words. “Yes, actually. He had some papers for her. That’s really all I can say.”
The lawyer in me surfaces. I catch the scent of a reluctant witness who’s harboring information. “What kind of papers?”
“I’m sorry. I promised my grandfather.”
“Promised what?”
“If she’ll come down here herself, I can give her the envelope he left for her.”
Alarm bells ring in my head. What in the world is going on? “She isn’t able to travel.”
“Then I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”
Just like that, he hangs up.
CHAPTER 10
Rill
The room is quiet and wet-smelling. I open my eyes, shut them real tight, let them come open again slow. Sleep haze hangs over me so that I can’t see too clear. It’s like the river fog came crawling through the shanty windows overnight.
Nothing’s where it’s supposed to be. Instead of the Arcadia’s doors and windows, there’re thick stacked-stone walls. The air smells like the closed compartments where we keep crates of stores and fuel. The stink of mold and wet dirt crawls up my nose and stays there.
I hear Lark whine in her sleep. There’s the squeak of hinges instead of the soft rustle of the pull-down pallets where Lark and Fern sleep.
Blinking, I look up and make out one tiny, high-up window near the ceiling. Morning light pushes through, but it’s dull and shadowy.
A bush scrapes over the glass. Its branches raise a soft squeal. A scrappy pink rose hangs down, half-broke.
Everything comes back in a rush. I remember going to bed on the musty-smelling cot, staring out the window at the rose as the day faded and my brother and sisters breathed longer and slower around me.
I remember the worker in the white dress bringing us down the basement stairs and walking us by the furnace and the coal piles to this tiny room.
You’ll sleep here until we find out whether you’re staying for good. No noise and no carrying on. You’re to be quiet. You are not to leave your beds. She pointed us to five folding cots, the kind that soldiers use in their practice camps along the river sometimes.
Then she left and closed the door behind her.
We huddled quiet on our beds, even Camellia. Mostly I was just glad we were by ourselves again, just the five of us. No workers, no other kids watching with curious eyes, worried eyes, sad eyes, mean eyes, hollow eyes that’re dead and hard.
All of what happened yesterday plays in my head like a picture show. I see the Arcadia, the police, Silas, Miss Tann’s car, the bath line upstairs. A sickness runs over me from head to toe. It swallows me like a backwash of stagnant water, hot from the summer sun, poisoned