Long Lost, стр. 31
Ms. Miranda gazed down at Fiona for a long moment. “You might be right,” she said. “About the story waiting for someone to understand it. Margaret Chisholm certainly deserves that.” She put one hand lightly on Fiona’s shoulder. “You’ll make a great historian someday, you know. Or a great librarian.” A fraction of her smile curled back. “Take the book,” she murmured. “Just don’t tell anyone. Take perfect care of it, and bring it back soon. Got it?”
Fiona was already nodding eagerly.
Ms. Miranda nodded too. “I’ve got to get back to work. Come and see me if you need anything else. Anything except more chocolate-covered raisins, because I just finished them. All right?”
“I will,” Fiona promised.
The click of Ms. Miranda’s steps trailed out of the storage room.
Fiona stood by herself in the former kitchen, hugging The Lost One tight. She combed through the thoughts in her head, trying to separate the facts from the guesses, rereading them like the old documents that Ms. Miranda had handed over.
An idea lanced through her.
There was one more place to look for evidence. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
A moment later, with The Lost One zipped safely inside her backpack, Fiona rushed out of the library and onto her bike.
Chapter Sixteen
Wayfarer’s Rest Cemetery was lovely in the June sunlight.
Its hush enfolded Fiona as she pedaled through the open gates. Giant oaks lined the main path like living pillars. Moss blanketed the rolling ground. Fiona followed the path deeper into the cemetery, over a hill where colonial gravestones leaned together like whispering friends, and then over another hill, and another. Wayfarer’s Rest was huge. This made sense, Fiona supposed. Lost Lake was so old, it had a lot more dead residents than living ones. But how was she supposed to find the one grave she was looking for?
Like the answer to her question, a cottage with a sign reading CARETAKER’S OFFICE appeared around the next bend. Fiona zoomed toward it.
The outer door to the cottage stood open, a flimsy screen door letting in the grassy air. Fiona pushed the latch and stepped inside.
A man with thick glasses and a steaming mug in his hands was just emerging from a nook in the back.
“Morning,” he said, giving her a not-too-friendly nod. He obviously knew she didn’t belong here, Fiona thought. And not just because she was alive. He crossed the office toward a large metal desk. “Need something?”
“Yes,” said Fiona. “I need to find a grave.”
“That’s why most people come here,” said the man, sitting down at the desk. “Name?”
“My name? Fiona Crane.”
Now the man looked mildly surprised. “Is the grave for you?”
“Oh. No,” said Fiona. “I thought—never mind. I’m looking for the Chisholm family plot.”
“Ah. Chisholms.” The man leaned back in the chair. “Don’t need to check the files for that one. Built themselves the biggest house in town. Guess they needed the biggest monument to go with it.” He took a sip of coffee. “It’s right over on Silver Birch. By the pond.”
“The pond?” Fiona repeated.
With an almost silent sigh, the man pulled a laminated map out of a desk drawer. Fiona bent eagerly over it.
“Here’s Oak Lane,” he said, tapping a black line. “That’s the road you came in on. Here’s Silver Birch, where you’ll make a left. If you get to the pond, you’ve missed it. But you probably won’t miss it. The Chisholms wanted to be noticed. At least for some things.”
“You mean there were things they didn’t want noticed?” Fiona asked. “Did you know them?”
“Naw,” said the man. “Just heard plenty.” He tapped the map again before sliding it back into the drawer. “Left on Silver Birch.”
“Okay,” said Fiona, sidling back toward the screen door. “Thank you.”
She pedaled along the path, turning at the sign for Silver Birch. The branching pavement was narrower here, but the gravestones along it became grander and grander, growing from skull-and-bones headstones to stone mausoleums and towering marble obelisks. And there, on the tallest pillar of all:
CHISHOLM
Fiona dropped her bike onto the moss. She scurried closer, her heart starting to thump.
In front of the obelisk were two large matching headstones.
FREDERICK R. CHISHOLM 1866–1931
CLARA M. CHISHOLM 1867–1928
Fiona looked to both sides, breathing harder.
A few steps to the left, sheltered by two evergreen bushes, was a newer, smaller, grayer headstone.
MARGARET A. CHISHOLM 1902–1971
Fiona gazed past the gray headstone, into the shadows cast by a thicket of pine trees.
There.
The trees had grown thick enough that the stone between them was easy to miss. Its edges had sunk into the soft earth, and moss and lichen had crept close, covering its corners like green cobwebs.
Fiona crouched beside it.
EVELYN ROSE CHISHOLM
DARLING DAUGHTER–
BELOVED SISTER
Fiona touched the face of the stone, very gently. It was cold and solid and real.
Maybe Ms. Miranda wasn’t concealing anything after all. Maybe she was right about the story in The Lost One being a lie. Because Evelyn hadn’t disappeared at all. She was right here. She’d been here all along.
Fiona sagged down on the damp grass.
She’d been fooling herself. She had wanted so badly to find something meaningful to do in Lost Lake that she had clung to this silly quest—just like she had when she was a bored little kid waiting at Arden’s skating rink, pretending that the bits of trash she found in the stands were relics of an ancient civilization.
There was nothing here to discover. Nothing that needed Fiona to find it.
Feeling suddenly fifty pounds heavier, she hauled herself back onto her bike.
In the oily dimness of her family’s garage, with the book still zipped