Chapter 26
Emily sat in the lobby of the Hampton Inn, her gaze volleying between the door and the clock. Ten minutes to wait. Maybe less, but not a minute longer. Dawn Anne was a stickler for staying on schedule. After their first girl trip, Emily and Susan had started calling her “Mom” right along with Sierra. Dawn Anne set their alarms, told them when to be quiet and go to sleep, and doused them with water if they refused to crawl out of bed.
Disney World, San Antonio, Las Vegas, the Black Hills, and Apostle Islands. They’d seen the country together. When Dawn Anne’s husband got a job in Denver, Emily and Susan had flown out for a skiing trip at least once a year.
They were an eclectic foursome, but their temperaments meshed. Dawn Anne got them to the next stop on time. Susan forced them out of indecision over maps and menus. Sierra provided their excuse for Magic Kingdom, M&M World, and the San Diego Zoo.
And Emily? She clamped her forearms over her churning stomach. Emily was the tension-tamer, the practical joker, the witty commentator, the one who sang her silly preschool songs and made them laugh. What would her role be now that laughter was inappropriate?
She’d awakened at six with a stress headache. Percocet dimmed the pain, but the stress found a new target in her belly. Perspiration dampened her top lip. One minute her skin was hot, the next cold and clammy. Did any of them think this was going to be just like old times?
Pushing to her feet, she pulled out her phone and found a number she’d put in her contacts list last night. A Realtor in St. Louis. While she was looking up information on Missouri, an ad for foreclosures had popped up. She’d found one dirt cheap that claimed to be structurally sound. St. Louis. One step closer to the Pacific.
Unless her talk with Jake turned out different from any scenario she’d envisioned yet.
The automatic front doors slid open. Three women she barely recognized walked through. One, hand on a rounded belly, wiped away tears of laughter. Next to her, a tall, tanned woman practically doubled over as she laughed. Behind them strode a dark-skinned girl with sleek black curls and the long legs of a dancer.
And a guide dog.
“I love this house.” Dawn Anne ran her hand across the granite countertop. “I want to buy it.”
Still in awe of the easy banter, Emily shook her head. “You’d never leave Colorado.”
“Actually…” Dawn Anne smiled and nodded toward Sierra, kneeling on the floor beside Beacon. “It appears we will. If our rising star lets her mom and dad follow her to Julliard in the fall.”
Susan gasped. Sierra pumped the air with her fist. “I got a full scholarship and I can start a year earlier than I thought!”
Emily grabbed the edge of the counter to steady herself. Dawn Anne’s hand grasped her elbow. “You okay, Em?”
She felt the color seeping from her cheeks. “Scholarship? How? I thought…”
Sierra stood, one hand on Beacon’s head. “Crazy, isn’t it? I auditioned a month ago.” A wide grin accentuated high cheekbones. “I thought that dream was dead, but Mom found a dance instructor in Denver whose daughter is blind. She’s amazing. It’s hard, but I just needed to learn new tricks, like being really precise in my counts. It’s kind of a cool faith builder.” Joy lit unseeing eyes. “My instructor told us about a foundation that awards scholarships to handicapped dancers. Well, deaf and blind dancers. Pretty hard if you only have one leg.” She burst into giggles that spread to her mom and then Susan.
“A full…” Emily’s voice barely made it over the sound of sanding and men’s laughter from upstairs. She rubbed her hand along the granite countertop she leaned on for support. So all of this work was for—
“What say we go get some food for those hardworking hunky men upstairs? And us.” Susan patted her tummy. “This little guy demands feedings every three hours.” Her eyes darted to Emily.
Numbly, Emily nodded. “Why don’t you two go. Sierra and I can walk the dog.” Not that her legs were stable enough to cross the room at the moment.
Dawn Ann and Susan grabbed purses and left. Emily stared at Sierra. “Congratulations. I thought you were focusing on piano.” Her voice faded. “This is amazing. Dance has always been your first love.”
“Yeah. I used to think I couldn’t live without it. I found out I could, but how cool is it that I don’t have to?” She blinked several times. “God is so awesome.”
“Yeah.” Emily’s numb brain didn’t know where to take the conversation from there.
“Tell me more about your house.”
“Can you keep a secret?” The question blurted out. She hadn’t planned it.
“Better than anyone.”
“This house was a stop on the Underground Railroad.”
“Really?”
“There’s a room off the cellar and we found old letters that give proof it was used to hide slaves.”
“Why is it a secret?”
“I don’t want this place turning into a circus while we’re trying to finish the remodeling. I want this work done…soon.” Voicing it brought the truth home with breath-stopping force: none of her self-imposed deadlines mattered anymore.
“Show me the room.”
Emily hesitated. “Okay. It’s this way.” She touched Sierra’s arm.
“Tell me everything.”
“Run your fingers along the edge of the door. I’ve counted at least six different colors of paint.”
Sierra caressed the wood. “It’s like feeling history.”
Feeling history. “It is. There’s a built-in cupboard in the corner by the window. I stripped it and refinished it. It felt like going back through time, each layer of paint represented an era, or a season in someone’s life. I tried picturing women at the turn of the last century or in the forties or sixties. The cupboards are all new and I need to sand down all the trim, but I don’t want to do this door.”
“You should leave it. The lady who’s buying it might like the slice of history.”
“Maybe I will.” She opened the door. “Here, on this side of the door you can just barely make out a faded painting or stencil of a basket with a handle. The basket is full of apples and one apple is sitting beside it.”
“Does it look really old?”
“Yes. And the cool thing is, there’s an almost identical picture carved into the tombstone of the wife of the man who built this house.”
“Wow.” Sierra rubbed bare arms. “Goose-bumpy.”
“I know. Grab the railing. It’s rough. Be careful you don’t get splinters. I’ll go first and you can put your hand on my shoulder. There 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 have your spirit. You lost so much more than I did. You should be angry and bitter and—”
“Don’t you believe God is totally in control of everything?”
“I can’t believe that.” I was in control. If you only knew. I determined your fate.
“Haven’t you seen good stuff come out of what you went through?”
“No.” Emily pressed both hands to her face.
“I think you’re wrong.” Sierra’s soft words filled the darkness. “I don’t think I lost more than you, Em. I think you lost the most precious thing a woman can lose.”
Emily’s tears ran silently until Sierra got up and sat beside her and put her arms around her. This was wrong. So wrong. She pulled away. “I deserved…” The words slipped out unbidden.
“No! Emily, that’s not true. Is that what you think? God doesn’t work like that.”
The dank air left the room. She couldn’t make her lungs expand. Breaths came in shallow pants. Her heart raced.
“Emily.” Sierra reached out, felt for her arm, and grabbed on to it. “You know I forgave you, right? I mean, we never talked about it, but you know I don’t hold it against you, don’t you? We all make mis—”
“What—” Her head felt light, her skin clammy. “What do you know?”
“That you were partying with some people and you took drugs before we—”
A tight, strained gasp escaped. “When did you… ?”
“Em, we’ve known all along. The people you partied with talked to Mom at the resort and—”
“She didn’t report it.”
“No. Of course not. She didn’t know if you were even going to live and you lost the baby and—”
“You knew? And you still…”
“Still what? Still love you?” Sierra’s grip tightened. “I was angry at first. Depressed and hopeless, screaming at God, asking ‘Why?’ And then He showed me that ‘Why?’ is a stupid question we have no business asking. If anyone should have screamed ‘Why?’ it was Jesus. But He didn’t. He trusted His Father and look what happened.”
“But you’re not Jesus. You were a child with a beautiful future stretching ahead and—”
“Stop.” Sierra’s command was tinged with irritation. “I’m still going to have a beautiful future. Sure, there’s a lot I’ll miss. Life is hard this way, but what I’m not going to do is”—she slammed her hand on the bench—“I’m not going to be a slave to this! I’m not going to go through life like I’ve got chains around me. God could have stopped you from taking Ecstasy. He could have stopped me from putting on my skis. I don’t know why He didn’t. I’ll never know why. What I have to do is let Him guide me, just the way I took your arm going down the stairs. And He’s doing it. I can still dance, Em! I have a wonderful family and friends and now I have a boyfriend. I’m blind, but I’m not locked in a little room like this with no way out.” She pulled her hand away. “And you shouldn’t be either.”
The words stung. Emily closed her arms over her chest.
“Can I pray for you, Em?”
She wanted to say no, wanted to run from the black room. But she said nothing. And Sierra prayed.
“Lord, we know it is never Your will to keep us in darkness. You are the One who leads us into the light of Your love and mercy and forgiveness. Emily knows You have forgiven her. Help her to embrace that truth with every cell of her being. Grant her the courage to step out of the dark and walk in the freedom of Your light.”
October 23, 1852
“Can you swim, Isaiah?”
“No, sir.”
Liam stared at the tightly curled black hair of the man who sat on the bench with his head bowed. “Are you well enough to run if you need to?”
Isaiah nodded, lifting his face to the lantern Hannah held above him. “Do you know what a gazelle is, Mr. Liam?” His voice undulated in a way not common to the runaways they’d met thus far.
“I have read of them.”
“There were many where I grew up. When I was a boy, my father called me Gazelle. He said I bounded through the woods like an animal with winged feet.” His smile failed to touch sad eyes. “I am older and sorrow has taken strength from me, but in here”—he thumped his chest with a large, open hand—“I am still a young gazelle.”
Liam nodded and returned his smile. “I hope you will not need to run tonight, but it is a comfort to know you have wings on your feet.”
Hannah’s father put a hand on Isaiah’s shoulder. “You need to be off now. My daughter and I will pray for you throughout the night and in the days to come. Godspeed.”
A single tear slid down Isaiah’s cheek, reflecting the flickering lantern flame. “I’d be grateful if you would lift a prayer for my wife.”
“Of course.”
Hannah raised the lamp. The halo of light widened. She looked up at Liam, eyes shimmering. “Isaiah’s wife is still on the plantation, expecting their first child.”
Lord God. Liam shook his head. He couldn’t imagine leaving Hannah in that condition. “That must be so hard.” His words were weak, inadequate.
“She is blessed to be a cook. She works in the house, not in the fields. But if she bears a son…” Isaiah stared between Liam and Hannah, his eyes on some point far beyond the cellar walls. He didn’t need to say more. Liam had learned enough to know a man-child would be sent to work in the fields when he was barely old enough to walk.
Liam picked up the bag of food Hannah had prepared. His elbow touched hers. His arms burned with the desire to hold her, to kiss away the fear that chiseled grooves between her eyes. Instead he put one hand on the ladder and nodded toward the lantern. Reluctance tightening her face, she blew it out.
Blanketed by darkness, he climbed the ladder and slid the stone aside. Leaning down, he offered his hand to Isaiah, ushering him into a starless night.