The Mapmaker's Children (4 page)

“I promised your husband I'd feed him,” said Cleo, “but looking through your pantry, there isn't even a macaroni.” She shot Cricket a look of dramatic pity, which put Eden on the defensive.

What was she doing going through their kitchen? Jack had paid her to take care of the dog,
not
to nose around. She huffed, but Cleo took no notice.

“We only got cat food,” she went on, “and he doesn't seem to take to it, so either you give me money to buy dog stuff at Milton's Market or you need to get some.” Cleo plucked a purple clover by her ankle. The color nearly matched her eyes.

She was a pretty kid, if sassy, thought Eden. There was a rawness about her: unspoiled produce in Mother Nature's basket. Eden couldn't remember how it felt to be that bud-young.

A bee landed on the tip of a basil bloom, and Cricket sniffed it.

“Watch out,” Eden said. “That'll sting you.” The dog opened his mouth as if to taste the stem.

In one motion, she swept the pup up. He was light as her childhood teddy bear, the bones of his rib cage thinner than her fingers beneath the fluff. He licked the salty night sweat on her wrists and let his body go limp in her arms.

“So what's it going to be?” Cleo twirled the clover blossom between her thumb and forefinger. “I have to go to the bank on Main at lunchtime. Milton's is there. I can stop.”

It wasn't a bad idea. Even if Cricket wasn't staying, Eden couldn't starve the poor animal, and she couldn't blame him for rejecting that god-awful cat food.

“Okay,” she said and carried the pup back into the house with Cleo at her heels.

She wasn't sure where her purse was but remembered a crumpled twenty-dollar bill she'd found in Jack's trouser pocket the last time she'd bothered to do the wash. She went to the catchall basket in the laundry room just off the kitchen, fishing one-handed through the loose change, sticks of metallic-wrapped gum bent to odd shapes, crumpled takeout recipes, and a half-eaten Tums peppermint roll until she found the money.

“Here you go,” she said, holding out the crinkle of green, but Cleo's attention was diverted.

“What the hay?”

At first, Eden wasn't sure what she meant; then she followed the child's gaze to the dismembered skull. Before Eden could open her mouth to explain…

“Are you and Mr. Anderson voodoo people?”

“No! It's not—” Eden began, but Cleo interrupted
again
.

“ 'Cause I don't want no hex. I got enough heaped up on my head. Gives me a neckache just thinking about.” She didn't seem afraid. Irritated, rather.

“No! We're, I don't know, Presbyterian or something, I guess. No voodoo or hexes. It's an old toy we found—in this house!” She picked it up. “Rubbish.” Maybe Jack wasn't being that insensitive.

Like a rattle, the head seemed to chatter back in response as she moved it. She set it back on the windowsill. “Just somebody's forgotten thing.”

“Where'd you find it?”

“In the pantry. Under the floor. A cellar of some sort.”

“Can I look?”

Eden didn't see why not. Not much there, in her opinion. “To the left. Against the far wall. There's a baseboard with a notch in it.”

“Yep, looks like a root cellar,” Cleo called out. “We don't got one of those next door 'cause our place was a barn before it was a house. But Ms. Silverdash has one. She keeps her treasures in it—old letters, books, and photos. Says things
preserve
better down there.”

“It would make a good place. Who knows how long that doll has been there. All things considered, it's amazing how well it's held up. I agree with this—uh, Ms. Silverdash.”

“I'll ask the Nileses.” Cleo exited the pantry, scribbling on a pocket pad with a golf pencil. “They own an antiques shop halfway up to the Bluff. It used to be a sawmill till nobody needed sawing no more. When Mrs. Niles passed, Mr. Niles bought the building and filled it up with crazy stuff: rusted kitchen gadgets looking like they could torture a tomato, broken plates, china bowls, plus everything in between, including kids' toys. They say they're pickers. My grandpa says, ‘Like boogers.' Maybe so, but if I ever have a question about old stuff, they usually know the answer.

“Once, half a teacup come up from the dirt in the backyard. You could barely make out a letter on the side. An
A
,
R
, or
H
—one of the ones with a bridge. I took it over to Vee—that's Mr. Niles's daughter. She's official,
got her antique appraiser's license and everything. Ms. Silverdash wanted her to come check out your house before it got sold in case it was a historical site or something but…” She seemed to catch herself again and shrugged it off. “The teacup ended up being, like, over a hundred years old.”

An appraiser? Eden's mind alighted on the idea. What if the house wasn't just an old house? If it was a historical site, with the repairs they'd done, it could bring in triple or more if sold to a museum or local historical society. The wheels of her mind churned. Jack and she could split it fifty-fifty. Enough to get her going on her own.

Cleo slid her pad and pencil back into her pocket. “I'm good at figuring out whodunits. Don't you worry, we'll get to the bottom of this doll's head case.”

Eden didn't think this was exactly a “whodunit” kind of thing, but she wasn't about to snuff the girl's drive. She studied the porcelain skull once more.

Beyond the right eye was a halo of green, as if it had been painted over in black. Artfully drawn and lightly downcast, the eyes gave the doll's face a melancholy expression. The sadness was part of her beauty. But where was the rest? Even pictographs from ancient civilizations had
bodies
attached to faces. No little girl, now or a thousand years ago, would be comforted by a floating head. From what Eden could tell, it appeared to have been purposely removed. There were holes at the base of the ceramic neck for attachment but no torn fabric or clinging threads, no damage or wear to the lower half. Only the forehead crack. Why would someone remove a doll's head? And, moreover, why would they leave it in a root cellar?

Cleo took the money. “What kind of kibble and…” She nodded toward the bare pantry. “Do you want me to get anything else?”

Inside was a bottle of barbecue sauce, a tube of raisins, a couple cans of beans, and an empty Kashi box. In May, when they'd moved in, Eden had held the idealistic belief that the garden would supply much of their needs.

From the time she was a child, she'd had an affinity for gardening. Though her mother had complained of having to scrub grass stains from
her clothes and dirt from under her fingernails, she'd let Eden till and weed a little two-foot patch of earth in their yard. When friends asked what might possess a child to invest such time and energy in dirt and seedlings, her mother had shrugged, saying, “It's my own fault. I named her Eden.”

Their New Charlestown real estate agent, Mrs. Mitchell, had sent photographs of the Queen Anne's preplanted, seasonally thriving garden along with the listing.

“A majority of the garden is on your side of the official property line,” she'd said when they met, pointing to the plot map and the corresponding photo. “But there's also a lemon tree and heaps of blueberry bushes on the neighboring property. That's Mr. Bronner's—he's president of Bronner Bank and one of New Charlestown's founding families,” she'd boasted.

It had been the one aspect of the move that trumped city living. They'd have a garden bursting with produce. The prospect renewed a childhood longing. The week they moved in, Eden had harvested asparagus and radishes, cut them up, and drenched them in rich olive oil, red wine vinegar, sea salt, and cracked pepper.

Jack had been thrilled. His father had been on the forefront of organic farming before the car crash that left Jack an orphan and sent him off to his only living relation, an uncle in Cornwall, England. So it came as a swift kick to Eden's ego when after eating and applauding her homegrown salad, Jack said he was ready for the main course. “A protein?”

Truthfully, she hadn't thought that far, too preoccupied with her vines of veggies; her mind was seemingly always one step behind because of the IVF hormones. She wasn't about to admit to Jack that she was still hungry, too.

Instead, she'd bristled. “If what I have to offer isn't enough, maybe you should grab takeout on your way home from now on.”

And from that day forward, he'd done just that. Bombay Bistro boxes piled high in the garbage, reeking of yogurt raita gone tangy.

“Hmm,” she said now, running her hand over the empty pantry shelves. “Thanks, but I need to go buy a bunch anyhow. This”—she gestured to the twenty in Cleo's hand—“is for the dog.” Cricket rolled his
head into the crook of her arm, pressing his clammy puppy nose to her skin. “Get Casey's Organics.”

Casey's Organic Dog Chow Company had been one of her best clients, and its familiar label was the only dog food she could think of on the spur of the moment.

“I'll bring back the change,” said Cleo.

“Keep it,” said Eden. She was suddenly in a magnanimous mood.

“Oh no, Mrs. Anderson, I couldn't do that. I'm not looking for a handout.”

That wasn't what Eden had meant, but she appreciated Cleo's entrepreneurial spirit.

“Shipping and handling fee. And please, call me Eden. Mrs. Anderson isn't me.” She'd never changed her maiden name on the Social Security documents and had continued to work as Eden Norton. Changing her business cards and e-mail seemed a cumbersome process. When she was out with Jack's investors, she was simply
Eden, Jack's wife
. Nobody called her Mrs. Anderson.

Cleo glared warily, pocketed the bill, then started toward the door, which reminded Eden.

“Hey, by any chance, do you know who lived here before us?”

Cleo shrugged. “Old Man Potts.”

“Did he have children?”

Cleo shook her head. “He had one leg. Lost the other in an automobile wheel when he was my age. He lived with his sister until she married off, and then he was alone. Ms. Silverdash says the word for him is a
reclusive
. A mind-your-own-bees neighbor, if you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“Hey.” Cleo gestured to Cricket, in Eden's arms. “You aren't going to break out in hives or swell up, are you?”

Eden rolled her eyes. “I'm not allergic to dogs.”

She wondered what on earth had possessed Jack to make up such a lie.

Cleo nodded. “I figured.” She started toward the back door, chattering as she went. “Potts didn't have but a nickel left when he died and owed a heap to the bank, so the house and everything in it went to pay
back the debt. Mack Milton bought the place at auction. Him and his dad were going to do one of them house-flip deals, but then they got in a big fight just before construction started. This house sat boarded up for, like, forever! Kids said it was haunted, but Ms. Silverdash said the only things haunting New Charlestown are old secrets and new grudges.” She cleared her throat. “I gotta go. I'll bring your dog food later.”

It dawned on Eden that she ought to introduce herself to Cleo's mother. She didn't want to have an awkward scene:
Why is my daughter running your errands? Shouldn't you have checked with us first?
Again, she blamed Jack for giving her one more thing she had to attend to properly.

“Is your mother home now?” asked Eden. “I should let her know about hiring you.”

Cleo stopped, hand on the doorknob, and turned her cheek to her shoulder without fully facing Eden.

“My parents are gone,” she said. “I live with my grandpa.”

Eden's breath caught. She'd assumed Mr. Bronner of Bronner Bank was Cleo's father and that her mother, like Eden's own, was some former debutante turned homemaker. The pretty picture the real estate agent had painted cracked, and she stood for a long minute attempting to mosaic together a new one.

Mr. Bronner was her grandpa. Was Cleo's mother or father his child? Being married to Jack, she understood the difficulty of a parentless childhood. He'd been thirteen when his parents died in the accident. He'd grown up with a bachelor uncle, and she often wondered if Jack's seeming apathy regarding their infertility was a product of that parental role model or lack thereof. But then, she and Denny had had the conventional two parents, two kids and a white-picket-fenced home, and they hadn't fared much better.

She ought to have had a thoughtful response ready. At her PR agency, she could persuade a blade of grass to buy a green dress, but when it came to the emotions that pierced deepest, she was often at a loss.

“Oh,” she said and blinked once, twice. “Oh.”

FROM THE
NEW CHARLESTOWN SPECTATOR: A JOURNAL OF CIVILIZATION
VISITORS TO THE EXECUTION OF JOHN BROWN

December 1, 1859—The execution of Capt. John Brown is to take place tomorrow, Friday, before the hour of 12 o'clock, for crimes committed during the raid on the United States Armory at Harpers Ferry. Having been judiciously tried, Brown was convicted of the capital offenses of treason, murder, and conspiracy with no cause. We hope for a prompt execution, exemplifying to the nation that we, in the State of Virginia, acted calmly without influence of passion or alarm.

In Capt. Brown's final address to the Court, he remarked: “I feel entirely satisfied with the treatment I have received on my trial. Considering all the circumstances, it has been more generous than I expected.”

The prisoner claims to have intended to peacefully run off slaves; and if men were sacrificed, it was the fault of those who interfered with him.

Such an apology is absurd. Northern newspapers may champion the concerns of abolitionism, but here in the South, these sixteen white men and five Negroes have merely proven the foolish gains of fanaticism: death and utter ruin. It is to be hoped that the good civilians of Virginia will stay away from the execution proceedings and, instead, attend to their happy homesteads of family and slaves. As propriety deems fit.