are eight steps.”
“Must be a low ceiling.”
“It is. The walls are stone. Huge, square stones. The floor is rough cement, looks like it was spread with a hand trowel, not very level. There’s one tiny window with a ledge under it. When we go back upstairs I’ll show you what I found there. Three more steps.”
“It stinks down here. No offense, but it’s kind of reeky.”
Emily laughed. “It’s damp. I’m sure being so close to the river doesn’t help. Straight ahead are shelves. When Cara’s great-grandmother lived here, they were packed full of canning jars. Tomatoes, beans, beets, corn, you name it.”
“Bet that was pretty.”
“It was.” Emily swallowed hard. “Very colorful. That had to be such a good feeling, to know your family would have food for the winter because of the work of your hands.”
“‘I sing for joy at the work of Your hands.’” Sierra’s clear, sweet voice filled the cellar, ending in a giggle. “Sorry. Couldn’t help it.”
“Don’t ever apologize for singing. You have a beautiful voice.”
“Thank you. Dillon likes it.” The giggle returned.
“That boy is head over heels for you, isn’t he?”
“Yes. And the feeling is very, very mutual. Now back to the tour.”
“The shelves are full of my stuff now. Plastic bins of winter clothes, things like that. The whole shelving unit was sagging to the left when I first got here. Jake fixed it and—”
“That boy’s head over heels for you, isn’t he?”
Emily coughed. “As I was saying, while he was fixing them, we discovered that the wall behind the shelves is attached to the ceiling by wheels in a track, like a barn door.”
“And it’s hiding the room?”
“Yes. Here, you can open it.” She guided Sierra’s hands to the edge of the wall.
“There’s just enough room for my fingertips. So you really can’t tell it’s a door when you look at it?”
“It just looks like a wall. There’s one step down into the room.”
As the door slid away, Emily felt for the flashlight she’d left on the shelf. It wasn’t there. She looked up at the single bulb hanging over the stairs and the weak afternoon light struggling through the mud-spackled window, and helped Sierra down the step.
“There are wide benches on your right and left and straight ahead. The one on the right has a hinged lid with room for storage underneath. Sit down on the bench to your right and feel around with your right hand.”
Sierra released a quiet gasp when she found the carving. “M…A…R…is this an I or a T?”
“I.”
“Mariah.” She traced the date. “Do you know how many people they hid here?”
“No idea. The letters refer to parcels. Everything had to be in code. This area wasn’t as well-traveled as routes through Ohio. From here, people were taken to Lake Michigan, and steamboats took them either directly to Canada or to Michigan and then Canada.”
Sierra’s silhouette was barely visible. The girl felt the wall behind her then slid her hand along the bench. She swung her legs up and lay down. “Did you know my dad can trace our family back to a runaway slave?”
Emily’s head jerked up. “No.”
“Yeah. Like six generations back. Jeremiah Humphries. He and his wife and a bunch of kids were owned by a tobacco farmer. Jeremiah escaped and promised to come back for his family, but the Civil War started and he couldn’t get back for years. By the time he did, his wife and two of the kids had died in some kind of epidemic. But he brought the rest back up here to Michigan where some people had hidden him and helped him get to Canada.”
“That’s how your family ended up in Michigan.”
“Yep. Jeremiah’s daughter was my great-great-something-grandmother. It’s weird to think that someone I’m connected to by DNA hid in places like this. Can you imagine it? Being all alone and not knowing who you could trust, and missing your family and facing wolves and snakes and who-knows-what just to get free?”
“I can’t imagine it.”
“Would you do that? Would you go through all that just so you could be free to make your own choices and stuff?”
Emily paused. “I hope I would. What a heritage you have. Sad, but amazing at the same time. You come from strong stock, girl. Maybe that’s why you’re so tough.”
Sierra laughed. “I’m not tough.”
“Look at you,” Emily whispered. “Dancing—” Her voice thickened and she couldn’t go on.
Sierra sat up. “And look at you, going through all those surgeries and now you’re flipping a house.”
“I don’t