Tears ran down Gretchen’s face as she looked at the picture. “Someone was meticulously documenting this.”
“Like the Nazis did,” Simon said, “keeping a record of all the things they did because they thought it was right, they were proud of it.”
“Mmhm,” Hope said. “And millions killed too. The death toll from the Atlantic slave trade was ten million.”
Gretchen had settled herself in a corner with a pile of papers from the house and was frantically going over them, looking for anything about lynchings on the land.
Hope handed Simon a box. “Any letters, put in this pile,” she said. “Looks like these are all journals; anything from 1862 to 1865 set aside. You find anything at all from George and James, hand it over quick. We know what Fidelia was doing, but apart from Axton Cotton correspondence we got very little from the men.”
Simon set to work, taking letters out of envelopes, leafing through journals for dates.
“Getting this information doesn’t change anything,” Gretchen said again. “Our mothers were trying to fix it by archiving—by making sure there were photographs of every person who died, no matter how gruesome.”
“But they’d been collecting these for a long time,” Hawk said. “And honestly the spirits have only gotten stronger. It’s almost like the more pictures, the more accidents in the town.”
“It sure seems like it,” Gretchen said, “given the pictures I took in the house over the last two days. I have rolls of them—plus shots on the Leica.”
She handed the digital camera to Hawk, who was compiling all the photographs. “Scroll through and see if it picked anything up that’s paranormal.”
“I found something,” Hope shouted. She was holding up a letter addressed to George Axton from a man named Graham E. Rice, dated the year of the fire.
She unfolded the brittle and yellowed paper and they stood beside her to read.
Esteemed Brother in struggle,
Your progress has been as impressive as your stealth.
Axton parish has drawn them all out, but a question remains: Why take them one by one when we could fix the problem with one happy accident?
Surely there is an upcoming cause for celebration where they might be gathered and at ease.
In answer to your query, I have looked into the matter of the Moore family for you. And it is as you suspect. They are cousins to the Greens. No one could blame you for unwittingly darkening the race, but if discovered it will indeed prevent you from ever becoming an officer, despite your ample contributions to protecting and purifying the white race. You’ve made a mistake in need of correction.
Yours,
Graham E. Rice
“Happy accident,” Gretchen whispered, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of her.
“Lynching was too slow for them,” Hawk said bitterly.
“This is the man who started the fire?” Simon asked. “Who is George?”
“My great-great-great-great-grandfather,” Gretchen said. “Who was a cotton trader, and apparently a white supremacist.”
She had gone over to the pile of Esther’s fire photographs and was sifting through them, looking for any familiar image, the church, a photograph taken on the anniversary that might have a spirit image of the fire . . . but found nothing.
Hawk and Simon were hurriedly sorting photographs by era—setting aside all the ones from within a year of the fire.
Gretchen was growing more frantic and frustrated and wanted a drink. They barely had any more information than they’d had hours ago and time was running out. When she looked up to see the clock, the lights flickered. Then something on the first floor banged, shattered, and crashed with a thundering reverberation above their heads.
1863
Valerie and I took the girls swimming at the lake. A whole day outing, just the four of us without the baby.
It was incredible to see them running and jumping. Swinging from low tree branches into the water. We waded in with them, happy that they are both becoming powerful swimmers, scolding them for splashing us, but secretly admiring their joy and confidence.
The two are so close I feel sometimes they have their own language. They finish each other’s sentences.
If there is one thing that has given this life of domestic servitude meaning, it is seeing the girls play together and knowing that they will have better lives than Valerie and I have lived.
Knowing that one day they will be women that can make their own decisions; can go to school; can leave this place, maybe even this country; can become women who stand up for one another.
The thing I am most proud of is their strength of will. I will die before I ever see someone take it from them.
TWENTY-FIVE
HOPE WAS THE FIRST ONE UP THE STAIRS. WHEN THE rest reached the top they could see that a heavy tree branch had smashed through the living room window and was now lying amid shattered glass on the couch and floor. Outside the air was cooling off and the sky was dark.