BECAUSE OF THE RAIN, the oak on the corner of Lockhart Avenue had been spared one more day. Matt had been taking the tree down slowly, in pieces, the top limbs first, and he didn’t want the trunk to split on him, as it was a sure target for lightning. In fact, Matt had been in the library ever since noon, having lunch in the historical collections annex, able to enjoy the sandwich he picked up at the market by special permission of Mrs. Gibson, who didn’t usually allow food in the library, but was willing to make an exception for one of her favorite patrons.
Matt especially liked the collections room when it rained; he felt as though he were in a fishbowl, swimming toward knowledge, diving into the journals of the Hathaways and the Elliots and the Hap-goods. Today he had been working on his favorite topic, charting the effects of the Sparrow women on the town of Unity. Constance Sparrow had begun the lifesaving station, out on the tip of the marshes where the lighthouse was later built, initially set up because her husband was a sailor, so often at sea. Coral Sparrow, who predicted the weather with amazing accuracy, rang the bell at the meetinghouse to warn of storms, thereby evacuating half the people in town during the hurricane of 1911, an incident which began the weather service stationed on the far end of Lockhart Avenue, still in operation and far more accurate than those meteorologists on TV. Most people in town knew that Leonie Sparrow began a brigade that was later to become the volunteer fire department. But few people knew that Amelia Sparrow was the first midwife in Unity, and if not for her ability to see a mother through the most difficult of births, there’d be no Hathaways in town, including old Eli, for Margaret Hathaway would have died during labor before producing a single heir.
“Still fooling around with those Sparrow women?” Mrs. Gibson said when Matt brought the key to the research room to her desk at the end of the afternoon. She and Marlena Elliot-White exchanged a look. Neither had figured out why none of the girls in town had managed to snag Matt. Mrs. Gibson’s own daughter, Susan, who had changed her name to Solange and was dating a married man up in Boston, an alleged artist who treated her cruelly, when here was Matt, all alone in the library nearly every day, free as a bird.
“Hopefully, I’ll be done by the end of May,” Matt said. “That’s when my thesis is due.”
Mrs. Gibson lowered her voice. “I heard about your brother.” She looked over her shoulder to make sure that Marlena, who always reported everything back to her mother, Sissy, and her half-sister, Iris, wouldn’t overhear. “I’ve heard he murdered some woman in Boston.”
“I’m the one who told you!” Marlena called, not in the least tricked by her coworker’s whisperings. “And it’s not exactly a secret. There was a full report in the Boston Globe and the Unity Tribune.”
Matt had a soft spot for Mrs. Gibson, even though they’d all been terrified of her back when they were kids. No talking! the boys in town would scream at the top of their lungs when they saw Mrs. Gibson on Main Street or in the market, but Matt had never resented the fact that she wanted books cared for properly or that she insisted upon peace and quiet.
“My brother had nothing to do with it. Murder takes some kind of effort unless it’s accidental, so you can count Will out. You know he never applies himself at anything. This is one time he’s innocent.”
“Well, that’s nice.” Mrs. Gibson was headed off to the research room, where the founding fathers’ journals were stored in a metal cabinet that had a separate humidity control. “I’m glad it wasn’t Will. To tell you the truth, I always hoped he’d find his way. If only for your mother’s sake.”
Driving through town on his way home, Matt thought about how easy everything had been for his brother. Good fortune stuck to Will like glue. He didn’t even have to try and he came out a winner. On that night when they’d dared each other to sleep beside Hourglass Lake, the payoff had been that whoever chickened out first was bound to be the other’s servant for an entire day. But for all Will’s bravado, Matt had always wondered if his brother had in fact been too scared to sleep that night. Matt had woken early, his bones aching from the damp ground, to find Will watching him, his sleeping bag thrown over his shoulders like a cape, his expression bleary. The boys blinked at each other in the cool, laky air.
“I’ve been keeping my eye on you,” Will had said. “I’ve been waiting for you to bolt and run. Why don’t you go ahead and run right now? I can hear that horse underwater. He’s coming after you.”
They had spent the night so close to the shoreline they both smelled like water weeds. But obviously the dead horse had not yet risen, although the other boys in town swore that when the demon surfaced it would chase them into the lake, forcing them to run until it wasn’t solid ground beneath their feet, but floating lily pads. So far, that hadn’t happened, and Matt had experienced a fairly good night’s sleep.