Good, I thought, rolling over and stretching. Now that the hiding place had been found, Lauren must have abandoned her annoying hobby. We could finally have some peace and quiet around here again. And with daily doubles over with, I could finally sleep in. I burrowed into my pillow again, preparing to do just that.
Before I could, though, there was a knock on my door.
“Lauren!” I groaned in protest. But it wasn’t my sister—it was my mother.
“Girls?” she said. “We’re getting ready to call Namibia!”
Mackenzie and I dressed in frosty silence. We hadn’t spoken since last night. Downstairs, we found my parents and Hatcher and Danny already up, seated at the kitchen table with Pippa. There was no sign of Lauren.
Maybe Nancy Drew finally wore herself out, I thought.
“We’re just waiting for Rusty and True,” my father told us. “I sent your grandparents an e-mail last night telling them when to expect our call.”
When my aunt and Professor Rusty arrived a few minutes later, it turned out they’d brought Professor Rusty’s research assistant along with them again.
“Oh, hello, Felicia,” said my mother. “Coffee?”
“Tea, please,” she replied primly. “Earl Grey, preferably.”
Hatcher kicked me under the table. I flared my nostrils at him.
My father sat by his laptop, keeping one eye on the kitchen clock as everyone got settled. “Oh-eight hundred,” he said finally, and dialed my grandparents’ number. A few moments later, Gramps and Lola’s faces popped up onscreen.
“That’s quite a crowd you have there, J. T.!” said my grandfather.
“The more the merrier.”
“Your e-mail was awfully mysterious,” said Lola. “Apparently you have something to show us?”
“Wait until you see,” my father said, picking up his laptop and carrying it out of the kitchen. We all trooped after him. In the front hall, he passed the laptop to Hatcher, who held it with the camera pointing toward the staircase as my father lifted the squeaky tread.
My brother Danny shined a flashlight inside, and my father motioned to Hatcher to angle the camera toward the concealed room.
“What on earth?” I heard Lola exclaim.
“It’s a hiding spot, Mom!” Aunt True’s voice rose in excitement. “It’s where our ancestors put the runaway slaves.”
“Well, I’ll be darned,” said Gramps. “First a secret compartment and a long-lost diary, and now this. That’s what we get for skipping town—we miss out on all the fun!”
My father showed my grandparents the telephone closet and explained about the false wall, and then we all went back into the kitchen and settled in for a chat.
“This is just remarkable,” said Gramps, who sounded nearly as thrilled as Professor Rusty. “To think that I never suspected it was there!”
“So you really didn’t have any inkling?” Aunt True asked.
My grandfather shook his head. “Not a one. No one ever breathed a word. I’m sure my father and mother would have told me, if they had known.”
“Your father was Booth’s son, right?” said Professor Rusty.
Gramps shook his head again. “Grandson. He was my great-grandfather. I knew him when I was a boy. Booth lived with us for the last few years of his life, and he used to tell me stories about his boyhood in Germany after the Civil War. But he never mentioned a secret room, or the Underground Railroad.”
“What about his mother?” Aunt True asked. “Did he ever speak of her?”
Gramps’s face clouded. “Such a tragic tale.”
Beside me, I felt Mackenzie stiffen. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know the ending to this story.
“We know some of the details from the diary,” my father said. “Ruth—the one Truly calls ‘Mother Lovejoy’—died in the winter of 1862, apparently.”
“That’s right,” said my grandfather. He glanced over at me. “Truly, why don’t you go get the old family Bible? It’s on the bottom shelf in the bookcase next to the piano.”
I scurried off, returning a few moments later with a big, leather-bound book.
“If you open it to the front flyleaf, you’ll see a record of births and deaths,” Gramps said, and everyone crowded around, peering over my shoulder as I did as he instructed. “Do you see Ruth’s name there?”
I ran my finger down the page and nodded. “Yes. It’s the same date as in the diary. In fact, I think the original Truly made this entry in the Bible. It looks like her handwriting.”
“That would make sense,” said Lola. “Truly was the only Lovejoy in the house when Ruth died. Aside from Booth, that is, but he was a just a baby.”
“What else do you see?” asked Gramps.
My finger moved to the line below, and stopped. My eyes suddenly welled up with tears.
How is it possible that I can feel such sadness about someone who lived—and died—over a hundred and fifty years ago? I thought. The diary had made them all so real!
“When Truly got word that Matthew had been captured, she took the baby and went to Washington to try and secure his release,” said Gramps. “The house stood empty for a while, Booth told me. His aunt—Matthew’s sister Charity—would come up from Boston and look in on it from time to time, and she and her family often used it as a summer retreat.”
I nodded. Truly had said as much in one of her final diary entries.
“Sadly, Truly’s mission was not successful, and Matthew passed away in Andersonville that summer.”
Professor Rusty went pale.
“Andersonville!” he breathed. “The worst of the Confederate prisons!”
My grandfather nodded somberly. “Truly was devastated. She returned to Germany to be with her mother.”
“Did she ever get married again?” Mackenzie wanted to know.
“No,” Gramps told her. “She died fairly young, too—of a broken heart, my great-grandfather told me. After her death, he finally came back to Pumpkin Falls to claim his inheritance—our home on Maple Street.”
We were all quiet for a bit.
“He would have been too young to remember the runaways,” said Aunt True slowly. I could tell that she was feeling sad too. We all were.
We all have to drink from the cup of sorrow, the original Truly had written. I glanced over at my father’s arm. Our family had, that was for sure.
“Wouldn’t his mother have told him about her involvement with the Underground Railroad?” asked my father. “It’s not as if it were something to be ashamed of.”
“No, but it was part of a tragic chapter in her life,” Gramps replied. “She may simply have wished it to remain closed.”
“What about the mysterious F, and the secret that Truly promised to keep?” I asked.
“What secret?” asked Lola.
“In the diary,” I said. “Hang on, I’ll read it to you.” I retrieved the diary, then riffled carefully through the pages until I found the entry I was looking for.
“Here it is,” I said. “May 15, 1862.” I read aloud the passage about the bracelets.
“How odd,” said Gramps. “A love token. Our hearts are forever entwined . . . It almost makes it sound as if Truly had fallen—”
“Wait, a bracelet made of hair?” Lola interrupted. She grabbed my grandfather’s arm. “Oh my, Walt.”
“Oh my what, Mom?” asked Aunt True.
Onscreen, my grandparents exchanged a glance.
“Truly,” Lola said slowly, “I want you to go upstairs to the attic. I’m pretty sure it’s in the second small bedroom on the left—”
“—one of the servant’s bedrooms?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Somewhere in there amongst our things, you’ll find a box marked ‘Family Keepsakes,’ ” she told me. “There are a lot of boxes, and I don’t remember exactly where I put it, but you’ll find it. Bring it downstairs, would you?”
“I’ll go with you,” said Hatcher.
It took us a while, but
we found the box. Back downstairs, my brother held it up to the laptop camera. “Is this it?”
Lola nodded. “That’s the one. Open it up, would you?”
My mother helped me, and we carefully removed the contents—old photographs, mostly, and mementos from when my father and Aunt True were little. There was a crib-size quilt and some baby shoes and a Cub Scout sash filled with sewn-on badges, and some toys and a silver rattle.
“You’re looking for a small, square, black velvet box,” said my grandmother.
“Got it,” I said, spotting it buried beneath Aunt True’s debate team trophy. I plucked it out and handed it to my mother. “You open it.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. My heart was racing, and I could hardly breathe. I was pretty sure I knew what it contained.
My mother lifted the lid. “Oh my,” she said, echoing my grandmother. “Would you look at this, J. T.?”
“This has certainly been a week full of surprises,” said my father, peering into the box.
There was a bracelet inside. Black hair and brown braided together, just as the original Truly had said, so close in hue I almost cannot tell them apart. I almost couldn’t either.
“Look at that braidwork!” Aunt True reached out a finger and gently stroked the bracelet. “It’s exquisite.”
“Sentimental hairwork was a common handicraft in the Victorian era,” Felicia Grunewald suddenly spouted, setting her teacup down with a rattle. “Bouquets, wreaths, artwork, and jewelry made of human hair were viewed as a way of showing affection—you were literally wearing part of a loved one—and honoring them, or of memorializing the dead.”
We stared at her, stunned into silence. How was anyone supposed to respond to that?
“Eew,” said Mackenzie finally.
“Your father’s mother gave the bracelet to me when we married,” Lola told Dad and Aunt True. “All she knew was that it had belonged to Booth’s mother.”
“But what does it mean, our hearts are forever entwined by our ordeal?” I asked.
“That, it would seem, is destined to remain a mystery,” Gramps replied. He glanced at his watch. “I hate to have to leave you all, but we have an appointment with the builders over at the new library.”
We said our good-byes and promised to call with any new developments.
Annie Freeman, rubbing her eyes and yawning, wandered in as Mackenzie and I were starting to clear the table. She spotted the bracelet and frowned. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, my mother asked, “Where’s Lauren? You girls must be starving.”
“She probably has her nose in a book,” said Hatcher.
Annie’s brow furrowed. “She’s not down here with you?”
My mother shook her head. “Nope.”
“Maybe she went over to the Mitchells’ to feed Bilbo,” said Danny. “Isn’t she ferret-sitting this week?”
Something about the expression on Annie’s face caught my mother’s attention, and she set the cereal box she was holding down on the counter. “What is it, Annie?”
Annie looked at her, wide-eyed. “Last night,” she said, “after everybody went to bed. We stayed up for a while, and Lauren was reading—”
“See? I told you,” said Hatcher.
“—and all of a sudden she got really excited. She said something about figuring out what happened to the packages. She wanted me to come with her, but . . .” Annie’s voice trailed off.
“Go on,” urged my mother. “But what?”
Annie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “But she said it might be a little S-C-A-R-Y.”
My mother’s face went ashen. “And she didn’t come back?”
Annie shook her head.
My mother grabbed her cell phone and punched in Lauren’s number. We all stood there, waiting, as it rang and rang and rang. “Nothing,” she said, pressing her lips together and giving my dad an anxious look. “It went to voicemail. Either she doesn’t have her phone with her, or the battery ran out.”
My father turned to Hatcher and Danny. “Upstairs on the double, boys,” he ordered them crisply. “Check the bedrooms, the bathrooms, and the closets. Make a sweep of the attic while you’re at it too—she’s been spending a lot of time up there.” He grabbed his jacket. “I’ll go next door and check the Mitchells’,” he told my mother. “I’m sure it’s nothing. She’s probably feeding Bilbo, like Danny said.”
He returned to the kitchen at the same time my brothers did. They all shook their heads.
“No sign of her upstairs,” said Hatcher.
“And she’s not next door,” my father reported grimly.
As my mother sank into one of the chairs at the kitchen table, my father turned to my brothers. “She’s not in the attic? Are you sure?”
“I checked all over,” Danny assured him.
“Check again,” my father ordered, and my brothers immediately vanished.
My mother turned to Annie. “When did you see her last?”
Annie’s face crumpled, and my mother put her arms around her. “It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay.”
“I fell asleep!” Annie wailed. “I tried to stay awake, waiting for her, but I fell asleep! She told me not to tell anyone. She said—”
Annie paused, gulping back tears.
“She said what?” my mother asked gently.
Annie wiped her nose on her pajama sleeve and flicked a glance at me. “She said she was going to show those stupid Pumpkin Falls Private Eyes,” she finished miserably.
Across the table, Mackenzie’s eyes met mine.
My sister was missing.
And it was all my fault.
CHAPTER 28
Owl eyes, I thought. I need owl eyes and ears.
Owls could find their prey without even seeing it, my new birthday book had informed me. Their round faces were shaped like a satellite dish, specifically designed to detect sound. The ring of stiff feathers surrounding their face channeled sound toward the ears, which were hidden at the side of the face. At certain frequencies, an owl’s hearing was ten times more sensitive than that of humans.
If I were an owl, I might be able to hear my sister, or somehow sense where she had gone.
I hated the idea of Lauren out there somewhere, alone all night and probably scared out of her wits. She was a pest and she drove me nuts sometimes—okay, a lot of the time—but she was my sister.
What on earth had possessed her to run off?
My mother called Belinda Winchester to see if Lauren had gone to visit the kittens. My father called Mr. Henry to see if she was at the library. They tried the General Store and the Starlite Dance Studio and Lou’s. Nothing. Professor Rusty and Felicia went back to the college to scour the campus; Aunt True headed down to the bookstore and checked there and her apartment. But Lauren was nowhere to be found.
“She can’t have gone far,” my mother kept saying. “It’s just not like her to wander off!”
In all the confusion, no one had remembered to feed Bilbo.
“Truly, would you mind?” my mother asked.
“No problem.” It was the least I could do. I grabbed my barn jacket and slipped out the back door.
The Mitchells’ house was quiet. The clock above the mantel in the living room ticked loudly. Lau-ren. Lau-ren. Lau-ren, it seemed to say.
“You haven’t seen her, have you, buddy?” I asked Bilbo, passing him a ferret treat.
But if he had, he wasn’t telling.
Back in our kitchen, I heard Aunt True on her cell phone enlisting Ella Bellow to activate the town grapevine. Professor Rusty was in the telephone closet talking to campus security. My father had called the police—well, our town’s lone policeman—and my mother was talking with the Pumpkin Falls Patriot-Bugle.
“The boys are checking the barn and the backyard,” my father told me after he hung up. “Your mother and I will probably need to go out, so I want you and Mackenzie to stay here at the house just in case anyone comes to the
door or calls on the landline.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
My cousin, who was on her cell phone with her parents, nodded too.
Belinda was enlisted to babysit, and she and Augustus Wilde—still sporting his purple socks—came over to get Pippa and take her back to Belinda’s house.
“The kittens will keep her calm,” Belinda whispered to my mother.
Professor Rusty slipped his arms around my aunt. “We’ll find her,” he assured her.
Definitely boyfriend, I thought, watching them.
In the space of an hour, the entire town had mobilized to search for Lauren.
Mr. Henry closed the library. Ella closed A Stitch in Time, and Bud Jefferson closed the coin and stamp shop. The Freemans shut down their maple syrup operation, and Maynard’s Maple Barn, and the General Store, Mahoney’s Antiques, and Suds ’n Duds all closed as well. Only Lou’s Diner stayed open, so it could serve as downtown headquarters for the search.
I texted the Pumpkin Falls Private Eyes to tell them what had happened, and they immediately offered to join in the hunt. Scooter Sanchez texted back to tell me that his father had offered us his colleague’s video surveillance equipment, if we needed it.
All across Pumpkin Falls, friends and neighbors and complete strangers fanned out to look for my sister. But as the hours dragged on, there was still no sign of her.
“Lou’s is handing out sandwiches to the volunteers,” Hatcher reported as he and Danny swung by at noon with a plate for my cousin and me. “Mrs. Winthrop sends her love.”
“Mackenzie! Lunch!” I called up the front stairs. She’d been staying out of sight up there somewhere all morning.
“Not hungry!” the answer floated back down.
I was, though. Grabbing a chicken salad sandwich, I paced back and forth in the kitchen. Think, Truly, think! I told myself. Think like an owl hunting her prey. Single-minded. Focused. Alert. Where could Lauren be?
Annie had said something about her reading a book last night. Which one, I wondered? Could it offer a clue? Leaving my half-eaten sandwich on the counter, I ran upstairs to check.
I found Mackenzie in Lauren’s room, making the rounds of the cages.
“Her pets were hungry,” she whispered, swiping at her eyes. “Nobody remembered to feed them.”