There was no point in identifying fault. What was done was done.
What had Ellen wanted to burn? I’d never know, and I’d never ask. I wouldn’t risk planting the suggestion that she might be responsible for our loss. Moving to Mineral had been for the best. Sometimes our choices influenced our destiny. Sometimes fate stepped in and made those choices moot.
Back in the present, I watched the workmen move debris to allow access to the chimney. Among them was another expert—someone familiar with salvaging stone chimneys for later restoration. The expert numbered the stones as the chimney was dismantled and stacked out of harm’s way. He wouldn’t be able to access the hearth until more debris was cleared.
At first, the movement of the big yellow front-end loader’s scoop, maneuvering to pick up the larger pieces on top, physically pained me. I pressed my hands to my chest over my heart. I couldn’t help myself. The noise of it surprised me. The twanging and pulling, the sounds of forcible dismantling, rang in my head and tore at my heart. It forced me to my feet. Roger turned to look at me, grimaced, and then came over.
He put his arm around my back. “Are you upset?”
I nodded but bit my lip, holding back words.
He smiled reassuringly. “Lots of people feel this way. It will pass, I promise.”
I must’ve looked unconvinced because Roger tightened his arm around me.
“Hannah, my experience has been that people cling too hard to the past, or they ignore it, or they try to obliterate it for their own reasons. This was a real thing here in Cooper’s Hollow. Centuries of lives and living. For you, it also represents decades of memories. Yet, despite the fire, you managed to go on with your life and raise your daughter. You have earned this opportunity to blend the past and bring it into the future—not to leave it as ruins. You are taking something fire destroyed and turning it into a home with both a past and a future.”
I leaned into his arm and chest and impulsively kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”
The last large piece of tin twanged and vibrated like thunder as the front-end loader wrenched it from the pile and then carried it, along with the lumber that refused to detach—it looked like part of a wall—and dumped it into the truck. Roger was distracted by another worker and left me standing there.
When the area had been cleared around the fireplace hearth, the stone expert moved in to disassemble it, much like undoing puzzle pieces, and he marked them as he’d done with the chimney stones.
One of the men called out to Roger, and I saw them standing around, curious. I left my chair and joined them. Their attention was focused on the hearth, but I couldn’t see what attracted their interest.
Roger motioned the front-end loader forward to push more debris out of the way, which cleared my viewing angle. They’d found a cavity beneath the stone blocks. One of the workmen reached into the debris as if to pull a board farther away and caused something to shift and send out a spray of ash.
“Move back,” Roger called out, and the workers stepped away, except for the stone expert, who didn’t blink. He leaned forward to stare into the dark space, then reached back to grab a small but high-powered flashlight from his tool belt. He shined it into the cavity.
“Hannah?” he called out. “Did you know there was a hiding place here?”
I shook my head. “No.” But as I said it, another memory was stirring. I let it come to the fore while we waited to see what the hole would yield.
The stone expert, his hands still in the cavity beneath the hearth, grunted. He received the instant attention of every man there. He moved something in there, shifting it closer, so he could grasp it.
It was a small case. I was surprised it looked solid and intact. My heart thrummed. Suddenly my face felt warm. I supposed it was the thrill of adventure, of discovery, but it wasn’t all happy. There was no one I would rather have shared this with than my grandfather. There was no one else to whom it would have held such meaning. I imagined him saying, “I remember my daddy talking about the lost box, or the hidden box,” or some such thing. In a world where my Grand and Gran were still with us, one or the other would’ve known everything to be known about whatever was inside.
Roger carried the box over to my chair and then nodded toward the cabin. “Would you prefer to open it privately?”
Everyone was focused on that box and us. My initial response was to go ahead and open it, but now I hesitated.
The stone expert said, “Consider waiting and have an antique or archival expert open it. It’s in pretty good shape—excellent shape, considering.” He nodded at the box. “Could’ve been there for a century or more. You can see it’s wrapped in an oilcloth to protect it, but the folds don’t quite match up, so it could’ve been hidden but accessed at some time or other.”
“My grandfather might’ve disturbed it in recent years. He died about twenty years ago.”
“I don’t think it’s been disturbed for many, many years. Much longer than that.”
“Maybe it was moved from the old cabin when this house was built. Maybe it was originally there.”
“Old,” he said.
He was right. This was a task best entrusted to the hands of professional archivists. The box might turn out to be empty, but I preferred to be cautious. This was about my family’s history, the Coopers and Cooper’s Hollow.
“That’s a good idea. Could we put it in my car? It’s probably safest there.”
“I agree.”
I tugged at Roger’s sleeve. “There was another place. It was near the foot of Gran’s bed. Probably about fifteen feet from the hearth. Gran talked about it being a safe spot, a hiding place under the floorboards. I have no idea whether anything was actually stored there. I’d forgotten about it, but seeing what was under the hearth reminded me.”
Roger spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear. “There may be another hiding place here.” He waved his hands, indicating a large area. “Be careful in case there’s other personal property hidden under the floor that survived the fire.”
He turned to me. “Keys?” He took them and secured the box in my car.
Soon after the hearthstones were marked and moved, the front-end loader was back at work. The driver had started in the front porch area and was working his way back. I think the earlier find made everyone more aware of the age of the house and of the possibility of finding other family treasure. Sure enough, about thirty minutes later, one of the guys called out. The driver kept the shovel up and unmoving while the young man who’d yelled picked up objects from the ground.