Defending the Dead (Relatively Dead Mysteries Book 3) (18 page)

Abby started by trying to figure out why Eliza seemed to have been born in Vermont. Why did these people keep moving around so much? Abby had always believed that in earlier centuries people lived and worked on the land they owned, or at least leased, and stayed there. She apparently had been wrong, because she was finding that various members of her own family had moved not just from one town to another nearby, but across state lines, or even into uncharted wilderness. What was going on back then?”

Focus, Abby. Bartons in Vermont. Why?

By lunchtime she had made a little progress. Eliza had been born in Vermont, but she had married Silas Flagg in Massachusetts. Samuel Barton had come from Massachusetts. Ergo, maybe Vermont was a detour and Eliza’s people had come from Massachusetts, so why not look there? Well, there were probably good reasons not to make that leap of logic, but Abby was impatient, and she could only hope that all those Bartons were watching over her and would give her a nudge if she got off track. Her hunch was proved right when she found one Daniel Barton who had married a Vila Towne in Hampshire County. Towne . . . why did that name sound familiar? Something from Salem? But that was well over a hundred years earlier—and more than half a state away. She still had a lot of dots to connect.

Encouraged, Abby went back to wading through Bartons in western Massachusetts. There were a lot of them. They all had a lot of children. They all used the same names for all those children. Why did she think she would find anything at all before Christmas?

Over sandwiches in the kitchen at noon, Ned asked, “How’s it going?”

“Don’t ask. Too many people with the same name, and they keep moving around. It’s like Whac-A-Mole, or maybe in reverse. Every time you think you’ve identified someone, he or she disappears down a hole, then pops up somewhere else.”

“You don’t have to do this, you know, if it’s so frustrating.”

“But I do! Now that I’ve seen Samuel. Maybe if I hadn’t, I’d just say,
Too bad
, and forget about it. But I did see him. And I heard him. And I heard him say what that clerk in the corner wrote down—not verbatim, because the clerk left out the ‘ums’ and ‘ers’ and cleaned it up a little—I’ve read the text, in the scanned version. Although come to think of it, Samuel spoke pretty clearly, and he didn’t seem intimidated by the judges, which is kind of surprising under the circumstances. The whole witchcraft trial thing was just getting started then, and it hadn’t gotten out of control yet.”

“Do you want to like Samuel?”

“You mean, am I biased, so I’m seeing what I want to see? That all my ancestors were brave and true? Or handsome and intelligent? I don’t think so. I knew exactly nothing about him when I started, so whatever I saw should have been objective. Well, as objective as anyone’s view of a ghost can be. Absurd, isn’t it?”

“Kind of,” Ned agreed.

Abby took another bite of her sandwich. “Can we talk about something else?”

“What?” Ned looked wary.

“Ellie. Don’t flinch—I just wondered if you had any idea what she and I should do on Wednesday, assuming this plan Leslie and I have cooked up goes forward.”

“You’ve spent more time around kids than I have. What do you think?”

“I think Ellie’s seen enough history and museums, so I won’t drag her through any more, particularly in summer. But I don’t know what she likes. Can she swim? Is she artistic?”

“Abby, I am not the right person to ask. I haven’t seen much of Leslie for years, and we certainly don’t discuss Ellie when we do talk. Use your own judgment. She’s seven years old. I might suggest that you don’t sit inside playing video games or watching movies, when there’s gorgeous spring weather out there. Go outside, run around, have a picnic, visit a forest or the ocean.”

“What, no cemeteries?” When Ned started to protest, Abby held up a hand and said quickly, “Joking! I’ll just treat her as a normal kid. I can ask her what she likes to do. And about any friends she has, and what they do together. I’ll confess I’m a little worried on that front: she seems like kind of a loner, although I did see her with some other kids when I picked her up at school. I hope she has some BFFs and they giggle together, at least now and then.” She hesitated before asking Ned about something that had been troubling her. “Ned, do you think Leslie is a good mother?”

“What? What are you asking?”

“I’m not sure. You know Leslie a lot better than I do, and you helped her make Ellie and Peter, so I have to assume you felt she really wanted children. But wanting them and having and raising them are different things.”

“I have no reason to believe that Leslie is not a good mother,” Ned said stiffly.

“Normally, I wouldn’t judge—but based on what we’ve learned recently about Ellie, Leslie missed a few things.”

“Abby, nobody watches their own child like a hawk to make sure she isn’t seeing things that aren’t there.”

“What about when Ellie would disappear to visit the local cemetery? Did Leslie not notice?”

Ned stood up abruptly and started pacing around the room. “Abby, I don’t know. Did your mother always know where you were? I know mine didn’t. And I was hanging out with Johnny, and my mother never knew about that either. I can’t speak from experience, but I think hovering parents are a pretty recent development, and I’m not sure it’s good for the kids.”

“I agree. But should we worry that Ellie didn’t share any of what was happening with her mother? Or with George?”

“Again, did you, with your parents? No secrets? No special places you didn’t want anybody else to know about. Abby, what is it you’re asking?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t want to overstep any limits, or Leslie won’t let me see Ellie anymore. And I know I have to watch that I don’t treat Ellie like a lab rat. I’m just feeling my way along here.”

“We all are. Just take it as it comes. You haven’t even spent a full day with Ellie yet. I’m sure she likes normal kid things, but she comes with a little something extra.”

“Gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘differently abled.’” Abby stood up and started clearing away their lunch dishes. “Are you finished mowing?”

“Uh, maybe? I may now go practice my pruning skills.”

“Try not to kill anything, okay? You might want to consult with your mother about gardening—I think she’s been practicing lately.”

“I’ll see how it goes.” He came over and squeezed her shoulders. “Don’t worry about Ellie, okay? I think any kid will pick up on your anxiety. Just relax and let her set the pace—you’ve got plenty of time.”

She smiled at him. “Time kind of has a new meaning these days too, doesn’t it? I seem to keep dropping in on different centuries.”

“That it does.” He went out the back door, whistling tunelessly. Abby marched back to the dining room and sat down in front of the laptop. “Okay, Bartons, where are you hiding?”

It seemed only a short time later that she looked up and discovered the sun was low in the sky, the room filled with shadows. The table was strewn with pads and loose papers covered with scribbled notes and diagrams. But she’d found what she was looking for.

18

“Earth to Abby?” Ned said when he came into the room and found her sitting in the dusky light staring at the ceiling.

“What? Oh, hi. Sorry, I was thinking. I’d better stop, since my head feels like it’s stuffed full of insulation. The pink kind.”

“Want me to figure out dinner?”

“Sure, if I can watch and talk to you. I want to make sure I’ve got all this stuff straight in my head.”

“Got what?”

“The Bartons. I’ve followed them back to Salem, but it’s kind of a long and twisting path.”

“I’ll be happy to listen. I can do that and cook at the same time.”

“You are a wonderful and multi-talented man.”

She settled herself on a stool and watched Ned as he moved efficiently around the kitchen. Was being a scientist an asset or a hindrance to cooking? Did he insist on accurate measurements? Did he get frustrated when using a precise recipe didn’t turn out the same way each time he made it? But she wasn’t going to interfere, and she hadn’t been disappointed by the results.

“So, what have you got?” he prompted.

“My goal was to trace the line from me back to Samuel Barton from Salem, by way of the Flagg family, who you’ve already met. That’s eleven generations, if you can believe it.”

“William Flagg’s wife was a Reed, and we’ve already pinned them down. So it was William’s mother’s side?”

“Exactly—his mother was a Barton—Eliza. But it bothered me that Eliza seemed to have been born in Vermont, so I had to go hunting for her father, who, as it turns out, was born in western Massachusetts. Eliza’s father was Daniel, and his father was also named Daniel, but I ran into a snag there because Dad didn’t exactly marry Daniel Junior’s mother. As you can probably guess, people weren’t always eager to record illegitimate children. But there I got lucky, because there’s a document that shows that Junior’s mother got pissed when Daniel Senior announced he was planning to marry someone else, right about the time Junior was due. So she sued him! And since he had no money of his own, she included his father in the suit. Good for her!”

“So Daniel Senior was not a sterling citizen, and you found his father’s name. What ever happened to Mom?”

“She moved back home, married twice, and wound up living in Ohio, although I’m not sure who Daniel Junior ended up living with. But she provides another clue—she came from Oxford, and so did Daniel’s father, Reuben Barton. And Reuben’s father was Joshua Barton, and his father was Samuel!” Abby finished triumphantly. “Samuel died in Oxford.”

“That is good work, Abby. I wonder why he left Salem?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet. Maybe he wasn’t too popular, after he stood up for Elizabeth Proctor. She’s the one from
The Crucible,
she and her husband John.”

“Yes, I have heard of that,” he chided her as he started sautéeing pork chops.

“I’m sorry—do I sound condescending? It’s just so weird to find these connections, and that they’re personal.”

“Is that what you hoped to find?”

“Yes, I suppose. But . . .” Abby stalled, wondering if she wanted to go on.

“But what?”

“Like I told you, when I saw Samuel, I saw him from the outside, you know? I was watching him, not seeing through him. Which means I could have been seeing through someone else’s eyes. There may have been someone else there who belongs in my family tree. So finding him or her would be the next step.”

Ned put a lid on a casserole and turned down the heat. “What’s your goal here, Abby? You’ve already made your point. Salem was a nexus for strong emotions, and you found an ancestor there who was in the thick of it, and then you saw him. Point proven. Why do you want more?”

Abby took a moment to consider. “I’m not sure how far I wanted to go. But if I now believe there was someone else involved, I want to know who it is. Call it curiosity. And was it Samuel who was generating that energy? Or the person who I was seeing through? Or was it just kind of free-floating, because everyone was upset?” She studied him a moment. “Ned, do you disapprove of what I’m doing?”

He didn’t answer immediately. “I . . . I don’t know, to tell the truth. I understand why you’re doing it, but I’d hate to see it become an obsession.”

“Ned! That’s not fair. I’ve known about this for less than a year, and I’m a long way from understanding it. Am I going to let it consume the rest of my life? No, I don’t think so. I’ve always thought of myself as pretty level-headed”—
well, maybe not so much where Brad was concerned, but that wasn’t the same thing—
“and I haven’t lost my perspective. But right now I want to know. Don’t you?”

“I guess I’d have to say I’m ambivalent. Part of me wishes we’d never uncovered this ability. Another part of me wants to pin it down and analyze it until we both understand it. All I want is a simple, normal life. With you.”

The simple normal ship sailed a while ago,
Abby said to herself. “And so do I. Just two ordinary people who happen to see ghosts.” She smiled at him. “But I’d like to find out more about what happened at Salem. I still don’t really grasp
why
it happened. How can people have been studying this for three hundred years and still have no single answer?”

“You’re not the only one who wonders that, Abby. Hey, dinner won’t be ready for another half an hour. You want to stroll around the garden and decide what annuals to put in?”

He was clearly changing the subject, but Abby didn’t have the energy to object. “That sounds lovely. How do you feel about marigolds?”

• • •

The next morning Abby sent Ned off to work with a kiss and a smile—that faded as soon as she turned to go back in the house. He was right, in a way: she shouldn’t let this unexpected ability dominate her and shape her life. After all, it didn’t intrude on other people, unless she made an issue of it. It didn’t get in the way of her leading a so-called normal life, as long as she didn’t gasp and point when she saw one of the people from the past. If she kept her cool, no one need ever know. But ignoring it didn’t seem right.

In the past she had heard that genealogy could be addictive. That was true, she had discovered, even without the bonus of all those family ghosts. Too bad they didn’t come with handy name tags, or even a brief description: “Hi! I’m your sixth great-grandfather Fred Smith, born in Cambridge, moved to Worcester, and fought in the War of 1812.” No, that would be too easy. The bottom line was, it was up to her to decide when to put the whole issue to rest, or at least on the shelf until some later date. Right now she had a man she loved, a house that needed a lot of improvement, and a job to find, somehow.

That resolution survived through breakfast. After cleaning up, she found herself drifting back toward the laptop.
Just for a little while—then I’ll do something else, like buy plants,
Abby told herself. Or rather, lied to herself, because one thread led to another, and then there was this interesting footnote, and . . . The day sped by, and at the end of it she was left with another stack of notes, this time about Salem, who was who, who lived where, and what happened in what order. As she had seen from her earlier cursory research, there were lots of theories and little agreement. Kind of like the research on Stonehenge, in fact, and that went back much further: each generation came up with new theories and interpretations. But as far as she knew, she had had no ancestors at Stonehenge—and there was no way to prove it anyway.