Ancestral

Report

Her last statement made my blood run cold. I wanted to run after her. I wanted assurances that everything would be ok. I wanted to know Ben would be ok. But all I could do was sit there frozen in my own doubt and fear. Through my open door I could hear the sounds of the household below, the clatter of dishes and silverware being set on the table, happy chatter and laughter. Those sounds didn’t suit my current mood, so I closed the door and moved over to the window, leaning out to think things through. I heard a different voice there. It was Helmut muttering to himself and swearing occasionally. I couldn’t see him anywhere and figured he must be in the old stable. I wondered what he could be doing there and decided to run down and see. It was a deliberate act on my part to distract myself from the weightier matters I was focused on, but sometimes a distraction is a good thing.

As I descended the stairs, Heather arrived home, flush with excitement. She looked up, and as soon as she saw me, she brightened and said, “I found all kinds of stuff since you left. Wait till you see.” There was no escaping her enthusiasm, but I thought this was as good of a distraction as any.

We settled in the living room and she laid out her treasures, a pile of photocopies, Mariah’s diary, and some tubes containing rolled up papers. “First, I found three reports in the local paper in the police log. The first is the disappearance of Silas made by Miss Beal. Two days later Miss Foster reported the disappearance of Markus. About a week after that the front desk manager at the Foster reported the disappearance of Miss Foster. There was also this article which reported that the Hathaway had closed and the entire staff, including Miss Beal, had disappeared during the night. That was just two days before Miss Foster disappeared.”

I was impressed. “This is excellent work, Heather.”

“I found some editorials over the next week or so,” she continued. “One mourning the loss of Markus. The writer called him a ‘promising young man’ and described him as obliging and polite’. Three letters to the editor spoke of the mystery surrounding Mariah’s disappearance, one questioning if there might have been foul play, and the other two memorializing her as a good Christian woman, specifically mentioning her involvement in the league of decency. Two letters mention the closure of the Hathaway although they do not mention anyone by name. Predictably, one was sad to see it go because they enjoyed the public dances they held, and the other decried it as a den of iniquity and was glad to be rid of them. I could find nothing about Sylas. If anyone was sorry to see him go, they didn’t say so publicly.”

Her last statement showed great insight. “I fear anyone who cared about Sylas had either left with Miss Beal or was too afraid to speak about it openly. How sad.” We shared a moment of silence and I asked, “What else did you find?”

She pulled out Miss Foster’s diary and began, “Well, it seems she was not as good of a Christian lady as everyone thought. As time went on, she became more and more hateful, and she was very conscious of making sure that didn’t show. She was obsessed with how others perceived her. The league of decency’s focus on immoral behavior seemed to give her an acceptable outlet for channeling her hatred. It was clear she didn’t care about doing good, all she cared about was condemning supposed sinners.”

“Well, it’s good to know that that dynamic isn’t anything new.” I interjected.

“I know, there’s a group on campus like that. They claim to be all holy and religious, but one of my friends went to a couple of their meetings, and when they found out she wasn’t a virgin and disagreed with their idea of ‘saving yourself for marriage’, they started shoving purity crap down her throat and preaching at her all the time. It was awful.”

“I know, I’ve had to deal with that kind of stuff myself. So, Miss Foster?” I nudged her to continue.

“Oh yeah. The worst bits were near the end. It seems that a few years before her father died, she discovered his journal and began reading it. She discovered he had had a gay lover sometime in his younger days and was disgusted. She goes on about it at length. She was taking care of him by then and she talks about punishing him. At a certain point she starts anticipating his death, and then he dies. She never says anything definite, but it made me wonder if she might have, I don’t know, helped him along?”

I hadn’t expected this, but it didn’t surprise me.

“After that things seemed to go pretty smoothly for a while, until the hotel started to fail. She blamed the Hathaway for stealing her business even though they were around long before she turned the family home into an inn. She seems to have connected herself with a spiritualist movement during this time, although she still attended church and worked with the league of decency. I think they were beginning to distance themselves from her though, because she complains about them too. At the very end she starts talking about her father’s gay love affair again, and how she is going to rid the town of this… ‘unspeakable vice’.” She looked up and asked, “How could people be so hateful?”

I could see the pain behind that question and comforted her, “A lot of people are, and I don’t know why, but a lot of people aren’t, and that gives us hope, doesn’t it?”

She smiled wanly and nodded her head, “I guess.” She returned to her notes and continued, “anyways, the last entry is really perplexing. I’ll read it to you. ‘The time is set, the pact is made, and the shelves are loaded. Tonight, I purge the evil from this house and then this town.’” She looked up in bewilderment.

“I think you need to share all this with Andi as soon as possible,” I said. “Before supper if you can catch her.”

“Ok,” she agreed, still puzzled. She got up to look for Andi but caught herself. Turning back to me she said, “I almost forgot. I found the original blueprints for this house. I haven’t had a chance to look at them yet, but I knew you wanted to see them, so I brought them along.” Handing me the cardboard tube she snapped up the diary and headed in search of Andi.

I opened it and spread the papers out on the coffee table. They weren’t true blueprints, rather they were architectural drawings that gave detailed measurements and various instructions for moldings and woodwork. They were still very interesting. As I was pouring over them, Ben walked in and sat down beside me. “Are these…?”

“Yup, original plans.”

We looked at them together, leafing through the various pages until Ben noticed something odd. “Wait, go back.” He began flipping between two drawings, obviously comparing some inconsistency he had noticed. “There. And there.” He pointed to two sets of figures in the measurements. “Do you see it?”

I shook my head. I didn’t see anything odd, but I hadn’t really been looking closely at the numbers.

“They don’t add up. The house is about ten feet wider than the foundation. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe it’s just a mistake, a historic typo or something,” I suggested.

He just shook his head. “No. these are precision drawings. These guys don’t make silly little math mistakes like that. If you look at the building the foundation is the same width as the house, there’s nothing unusual about it.” He looked up and met my eyes. “I think they deliberately left something out.”

“Something like a secret room to hide runaway slaves in?” I asked with a smile.

“Exactly.” He returned to the drawings. “We know this wall is where it’s supposed to be under the kitchen, but what’s to say they didn’t build a false wall on the other side of the house? If the room is behind that the secret door you found under the stables would lead directly into it. And look, that door isn’t in the plans either, even though it would have had to be built when they built the foundation.”

“So now we have proof of the secret room and where we should find it.” I looked closer at the drawing for the foundation and noticed a little rectangle set against the wall in question. “What’s that?” I asked.

Ben looked at it quickly and offered, “It’s a shelf unit.”

But the arches along that wall are full of shelves, and none of the others are on this drawing. Why would they include this one?”

He thought for a moment and conceded, “That’s a good question. I don’t know. Once it’s safe to go into the basement again we’ll have to explore that.” He paused for a moment and took my hand. Then looking into my eyes, he said. “Before we go down to the basement tonight, we have something we need to do, don’t we?”

I looked up in shock. “Umm…”

“Andi can be blunt, especially if she thinks it’s important.” He grinned at me with a spark of mischief in his eye. “And she thinks this is important.”

He leaned forward to kiss me, and as our lips met, I heard a voice say, “Nice. I wouldn’t mind a bit of that myself.” Helmut stood in the doorway, shirtless and drenched in sweat. His pants and hands were covered in dirt, and he ran his hand along his inner thigh as he spoke. Striding into the room, he plopped himself into a chair opposite us and said, “Don’t let me stop you. If I’m not participating, I like to watch.”

“Then go buy some porn,” Ben exclaimed agitatedly.

I jumped in, “What have you been doing?”

“Digging out that door of yours, what do you think?” He stretched out his legs, raising one hand to place it behind his head, and rubbing his chest with the other. “Got me all hot and sweaty. Anyone want a sniff?” he tilted his head toward his exposed arm pit and inhaled deeply. “Nice and ripe.”

I ignored this and asked. “Why were you digging out the rest of the door?”

“No idea,” he replied. “Just doing what I’m told. I guess Andi wanted access to it for something tonight. Good luck to her, though, the door’s bolted from the inside. Can’t get it open.”

I wondered just what she had in mind, but since it was almost time for supper, I decided to focus on the more mundane. “You know, if Miss McFiercesen catches you sitting in that chair all dirty and sweaty, we’ll be digging your grave next. Right?”

“Don’t I ever! But she’s busy right now. Nothing distracts her once the meal is underway. Believe me, I’ve tried.” Nonetheless, he got up and brushed down the chair. Then stripping off his pants in front of us, he headed for the downstairs bathroom. “Guess I’d better take a shower before dinner. If anyone wants to join me, I’ll be right in here.” After a moment, his voice sounded from the bathroom door, “Something to remember me by,” and his warm moist jock strap landed on the couch between us.