Jane Was Here (32 page)

“Can I see her? Is she awake?”

No, Hoyt will have to come back in the morning.

WHEN HOYT COMES
out of the hospital, the lieutenant is waiting with the breathalyzer kit. Hoyt comes within a tenth of a point off his prediction, measuring a blood-alcohol content of .01.

Disgruntled, the cop follows Hoyt’s truck for a few miles, then turns off at the Quikabukket police station.

Hoyt drives through darkened streets.

He almost took an innocent life. What does his own amount to? He imagines chomping down on the muzzle of his .22, the gun wedged between his knees, the eager obedience of the trigger. His pointless life bleeding out through the back of his head: a life precious to no one, least of all himself.

A mysterious, knowing voice echoes in his mind:
See what you’ve done to your soul.

At that moment, he’s passing by the First Calvary of Innocents. It’s three a.m., but the Pentecostal church’s lights are still on. First Cavalry is popular with Graynier’s meth addicts, who can repent and save souls all night long until the drugs wear off. The windows are open, releasing the holy-roller throb of bass, drums and tambourines into the night.

Hoyt himself has refused to go near a church since his mother deserted him for her faith. Now he wonders,
could
he be born again? Is it possible a laying on of hands could remove his sin, cast his devils out? What if he turns the wheel, pulls a U-ey, walks into the tabernacle and gives himself to Jesus?

And if he backslides to his old ways, what then? Could he be born all over again? And again and again?

No way, the knowing voice tells him. There’s a limit to the Lamb’s patience, and you have exceeded it.

It’s time to pay.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
IVE

A
s his father pores over dusty volumes in the museum’s reading room, Collin follows Elsa Graynier through the door marked “
THE HISTORY OF GRAYNIER GLASS
.”

They enter a gallery of framed photos, documents and engravings, lit by low-hanging glass chandeliers and glass sconces. With all the lights on and no air conditioning, the room is as hot as the tropics. Beads of sweat trickle from Elsa’s hairline, damp patches spreading across the back of her blouse; her lipstick is smudged.

“So, young man! You’re here to learn all about Graynier!”

Collin grunts. He’s here because his dad made him come.

She ignores his disinterest. “My great-great grandfather Philip founded Graynier Glass in 1828. The Graynier family were wealthy plantation owners in Louisiana. But Philip wanted to try his hand at industry. He came north, bought land to build the factory and to house his workers. He began with two furnaces, twenty-five cutting mills and a pressing machine…”

If Collin were at Gita’s, they could be figuring out a plan soon, before Jane—She Who Is He—decamps from the hunting blind.

“Then Philip brought over the finest glassblowers he could find from Italy.” She leads him to grainy 19th century photos of workers holding strange tools, gaunt-framed in grimy clothes, posed before hulking machines. Their haunted eyes make them look hungry and sick.

“The factory produced eight tons of leaded glass weekly,” she is still talking, “which was cut and shipped to Boston for sale. Maybe you saw some of these beautifully-finished pieces when you came in.”

How will he and Gita get away from their parents for the hours it will take to climb up and down Rowell Hill? The Poonchwallas are making Gita do her summer reading at home before school starts. And Brett has been “supervising” Collin ever since the cop brought him home, managing to keep his son close while still completely ignoring him. Like today, dragging him to the Historical Society and palming him off on this weird lady.

“…Then, in 1853, Philip Graynier died of stomach cancer. His son Ellis Graynier—my great-grandfather—took charge.”

Why are they even here? It must have something to do with Jane. Everything his dad does these days comes down to Jane.

They stop before an oil painting of a family posed in a richly decorated parlor, a handsome, dark-browed, unsmiling man seated at its center. “That’s Ellis.” Two younger women languidly play cards, their mountainous hoop skirts wedged under the card table. “Those are his two sisters.”

Collin looks over at a pasty, blond, blank-faced woman standing in the corner as if cringing against the picture frame. Elsa explains: “And that is my great-grandmother Ophelia. Her family owned textile mills all over New England. When she married Ellis, her money added consider ably to the Graynier fortune. Eventually she went insane.”

Collin pricks up his ears. “She was crazy?”

“I think her heart was broken. All her children died in infancy, except my grandfather Faro.” She nods to a ringlet-haired child crouched on the carpet of the painting, playing with a wooden elephant on wheels. “His maiden aunts named him after their favorite card game.”

The whole family looks crazy to Collin, starting with the old lady beside him flapping her mouth.

“Business declined once Ellis took over the factory,” she continues as they move toward more exhibits. “The forests were depleted, and coal was expensive. And then, so many men were lost to the Civil War…”

Collin is drifting toward the exit when his gaze falls on a daguerreotype hanging beside the door. The boy stops to stare.

A wrinkled, white-maned old man, face bracketed by muttonchop whiskers, glares fiercely at the camera. There is a deep whorled scar under his cheekbone: it looks as if half his face is being sucked into a hole.

“Who’s that?” Collin asks, creeped out.

Elsa comes alongside. “That’s Ellis Graynier, too, but much older.”

“What happened to him?”

“A gunshot to the face. The factory laborers were threatening to strike and Ellis hired guards to raid the shanties looking for unionists. Somehow a fire got started. Several children died trapped inside the shacks. The father of one tried to assassinate Ellis. Fortunately, the town had an excellent surgeon, and Ellis lived to the grand old age of 83.”

“What happened to the guy who shot him?”

“He was hanged, I suppose, like the other one.” She lowers her voice. “Someone tried to kill Ellis once before, over a factory girl he’d got in the family way. Ellis was a naughty man, I’m afraid.”

What did it mean, “the family way”? If the Graynier family way was insanity, then did Ellis make the factory girl go insane too? Was craziness like a virus that the Grayniers spread around?

He backs away from Elsa Graynier so he won’t catch it.

“Are you going to the St. Paul’s fair tomorrow?” she asks.

“What’s that?”

“The church puts on a carnival every August. The fair is held on the same grounds where the glass factory once stood.”

“What happened to it?”

“The government took it over for the manufacture of munitions during World War Two. Afterwards my father closed it for good. Later some vandals set fire to the building and it burned down.” She sighs. “It’s just a field now. But the fair is very jolly! There are rides and games and lots of food. Crowds of people attend from all over the county.”

Crowds.
An idea starts forming.

“…So if you go, you can walk around imagining what it looked like in the old days.”

Collin abruptly heads back to the reading room, where he announces to his father, “I have to go to Gita’s.”

Brett doesn’t look up from the book he’s paging through. “I’m not finished yet.”

Elsa joins them. “We had a fine time, your little boy and I. He was awfully interested in the exhibit.”

Collin says loudly, “It’s boring here! I don’t want to stay!”

For the first time that afternoon Brett focuses on his son. “Apologize to Miss Graynier for your rudeness.”

“Sorry,” Collin says to the floor.

Elsa looks deflated. “It seems few people are interested in the story of glass.” With a sharp jerk, Brett pulls Collin down on the seat beside him. “Sit down and behave. You’re not going any where.” He turns to Elsa. “Do you have something for my son to look at while we’re working?”

“I have a lovely book of gravestone rubbings, sweetheart.”

“No, thank you.” Collin kicks his father’s chair leg angrily.

Ignoring him, Brett beckons Elsa over to his open volume. “I found a Jane Pettigrew listed in the 1850 census, but not 1860. Does that mean she moved away sometime during those ten years?”

“Possibly. Or she stayed, but got married and changed her name. Or she died.”

Just as Collin thought: his dad is trying to find Jane. But why here, in a museum?

“The church registries recorded deaths and marriages,” Elsa says. “Unfortunately we have to look through ten years of them for all six churches in Graynier, unless we know which denomination the Pettigrews belonged to. What does the 1850 census give as her birth date?”

Brett reads aloud,
“Pettigrew, Jane. Date of birth: March 2, 1833. Place of Birth: Graynier, Massachusetts.”

“That makes it easier. We’ll assume she was baptized in the same year as her birth. Let’s look through the six 1833 registries until we find her, and that will tell us which church we need to focus on. Give me a moment to pull the books from the archive.” She leaves the room.

Collin asks, “Who’s Jane Pettigrew?”

“A lady who lived a long time ago. I don’t know much about her yet.”

“Why’re you so interested in someone you don’t know anything about?”

Brett is quiet for a moment. “Is Gita a Hindu?”

“Why?”

“You know what that is, right?”

“Yeah. She told me her parents used to be Hindus but now they go to a Christian church.”

“Does Gita ever talk about something called reincarnation? Where somebody dies and comes back as another person, or a dog or whatever?”

You are the reincarnation of Yenu Krisnu. Don’t tell anyone. We have to battle in secret, or all is lost, the fate of the world and everyone in it.

“Gita never said anything about that,” Collin lies.

Elsa returns, unloading large books stamped with gilt crosses onto the table in two piles. “You check the Catholic, Unitarian and Christ Church registries and I’ll do the Presbyterian, Methodist and Universalist.”

Brett reaches for the first volume.

“I wanna go to Gita’s
now
!” Collin explodes.

Brett starts turning pages. “What is it about ‘no’ you don’t understand?”

“It’s just down the street! You let me go by myself a hundred times!”

“Stop bothering us.” Brett and Elsa bend their heads over their task, as if Collin isn’t even there.

The boy walks over to the display cases. What could be more trivial than these bottles and goblets and plates and little glass birds, when
evil
is about to swallow the whole world?

The door of one case is slightly open, the key still in the lock. Studying the array of stemware on the shelves, Collin eases the door wider, then carefully picks up a delicate pink cup. The display card says
“Blown Stem Cordial Glass.”
He studies tiny bumps of purple grape clusters decorating the cup.

He opens his hand and lets it drop.

The splintering crash brings Elsa rushing over. “Oh, no! Oh, no! You bad, terrible boy!”

Brett marches Collin out to the sidewalk. “Go to Gita’s and wait for me there. No going off on bikes, understand? And don’t think you won’t be punished just because you got what you wanted.”

Shaking his arm free, Collin hurries off to the Poonchwallas’ motel without a backward glance.

NO ONE IS AT
the motel reception desk. Collin presses the bell. After a minute Mrs. Poonchwalla comes out, her orange sari whispering, her long gray braid grazing her butt.

Gita can’t come out; she’s busy doing schoolwork in her room. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll see her,” Mrs. Poonchwalla says kindly. “Are you and your father going to the fair?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll look for you there.”

She withdraws behind a beaded curtain. Peeking after her, he can see her padding barefoot down the hallway into the kitchen. Collin waits a few minutes, then slips into the corridor.

He peers into the kitchen. Gita’s mother bends over the stove, her elbow working hard. The swish-swash of a spatula, the sizzle of steam, and the whirr of a portable fan cover the sound of Collin tiptoeing past the doorway behind her.