“No one knows.” Riley shrugged dramatically. “She was never heard from again. There were rumors—she changed her name and moved south, or went up to Canada. Some say she never left, that she drowned herself in the bog so she could be with her mother.”

“There has got to be a way to find out what happened to her,” Helen said. “What’s the latest on when the historical society might open again? I’d love to get in there and see if we can find any leads. Anything about Jane, about Hattie. I feel like there are so many unanswered questions.”

“I talked to Mary Ann last night. Sounds like the damage was a little worse than she thought. It’s going to take a couple more weeks to get it cleaned up and renovated.”

“Oh no!”

“I guess the old wood floor under the carpet is ruined, and when they started ripping it out, they discovered some structural rot underneath. Mary Ann says we can’t go back in until we get the all clear—insurance regulations. Fucking sucks.”

“Okay, that’s okay. I’ll keep doing what I can online in the meantime.” Helen was nodding, rocking slightly to and fro like she couldn’t contain the energy buzzing through her mind and body. What if Jane had moved away, had kids of her own? What if there were living relatives, direct descendants of Hattie, who might hold important pieces of family history?

“Wow,” Riley said. “I still can’t get my head around this. You actually saw her! What else did she say?”

“Nothing. I called Nate over, wanted him to come see, but she disappeared.”

“She didn’t want him to see her,” Riley said. “Not like that anyway—she appeared to him as the white deer. I can’t believe she came to both of you guys. This feels huge. Most people, they just get a glimpse of her out in the bog. I’ve never heard of anyone saying she spoke to them.”

“Do you think it was the beam?” Helen asked. “I mean, do you think it’s possible that installing it, if it really was a piece of wood from the hanging tree, that maybe it helped her come back somehow?”

Riley thought a minute, then said, “I’ve heard that sometimes objects act as conduits, you know? Like if you hold your grandmother’s wedding ring, you might call her back enough to be able to smell her perfume.”

“I’ve always had this idea that objects hold history,” Helen said.

Riley nodded. “But maybe it’s more than that. Maybe they don’t just hold it—maybe it flows through them, you know? Gives the dead a kind of…touchstone; something to pull them back to this world.”

MECHANICAL

CHAPTER 16

Olive

AUGUST 3, 2015