Page 32 of Beneath the Poet's House

Back in the small patch of grass behind the house, Emmit inspects the winterberry and echinacea stalks before moving to the storied rosebushes.

“How green of a thumb do you have?” he asks.

Saoirse winces. “My gardening skills start and end with houseplants.”

“These rosebushes don’t need much. Just a little pruning before winter so they’re in the best possible shape come spring.” He smiles. “I could help you if you’d like. My mother was an avid gardener.”

Saoirse starts to open her mouth, but Emmit blushes. “Not that she ever got to teach me, of course. But my uncle always said she loved her gardens. As a teen, when I was going through a bit of a ‘phase,’ as my uncle called it, I grew plants to feel closer to her.” He smirks. “Sometimes they were even the ones you gazed upon instead of the ones you rolled up and smoked.”

He drops to his knees and brushes at the soil along the base of one of the thorny bushes. “It’s a little late in the fall to fertilize. They’d use that energy to struggle against the first frost of the year, which could be any day now.”

“Don’t worry,” Saoirse says. “I didn’t move here from Jersey with bags of fertilizer in tow.” Hadn’t Emmit hinted at wanting to come here for a very specific purpose? Not that she isn’t enjoying their timeoutof the bedroom, but she’s not sure how—or why—the focus has turned togardening. Emmit must realize, too, that he’s lost her a little. He drops his gaze and shakes his head, hands still in the dirt.

“Sorry. I guess I’m more like those Whitman groupies you told me about than I care to admit. It’s just—” He stops, frowns, and looks down. He moves his fingers back and forth as if he’s lost something, then digs his hand deeper and scoops up a handful of loamy soil. He sifts it, purses his lips, and digs deeper.

“What are you—” Saoirse starts, but something falls to the ground with the next handful of soil Emmit sifts. He grabs it, brushes the object off, and brings it up to his face for closer inspection.

“I can’t believe it.” His voice is breathless, incredulous. He climbs to his feet. “I felt something in the dirt, and this was it! I can’t believe ...” He trails off, digs in his pocket for his phone, and jabs away at the screen for several seconds. Whatever he’s found is pressed into the palm of his right hand. “Holy shit,” he says a moment later. “Come here. I can’t believe it. Youhaveto see this.”

She walks to him, but he holds out his phone rather than the mystery object. “Read this,” he says. “And tell me if I’m completely out there.” He points to a paragraph halfway down the page. It’s a Wikipedia entry. Sarah Helen Whitman’s Wikipedia entry.

Saoirse gives him a curious look but takes the phone.

Whitman was friends with Margaret Fuller and other intellectuals in New England. She became interested in transcendentalism through this social group and after hearing Ralph Waldo Emerson lecture in Boston, Massachusetts and in Providence. She also became interested in science, mesmerism, and the occult. She had a penchant for wearing black and a coffin-shaped charm around her neck and may have practiced séances in her home on Sundays, attempting to communicate with the dead.

“I’ve read this before,” she says when she’s finished. “A few days after I discovered where I was living.”

“You read the part about the charm she wore?” Emmit asks.

“Yes.”

Emmit opens his right hand. In it lies a charm the size of a grasshopper. It is dirt-caked but intact, its shape unmistakable. It is a tiny coffin, carved from some sort of dark metal. Tin, maybe, or iron.

“You found that?” Saoirse asks, now sounding as incredulous as Emmit. “Under the rosebushes? In my backyard?”

“Yes,” Emmit breathes out, then laughs. “Under the rosebushes. In your backyard!”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I know! It’s absolutely amazing.”

Saoirse makes a face. “No, I mean, I really don’t believe it. It couldn’t be hers. Not after a hundred and seventy-five years. That Wikipedia article is public knowledge. Someone probably came here wearing that necklace as part of some ridiculous cosplay, and it fell off their neck. Somewhere online exists a collection of photographs in which two weirdos reenact the night Poe first saw Whitman. I bet there’s a lot of dramatic swooning involved, and no small amount of cleavage.”

Saoirse thinks she’s speaking reason and so is surprised by how crestfallen Emmit appears. “No way,” he says. “Though, I won’t deny that many a cosplay of that nature has probably taken place. Can I bring this to someone, my contact in the historical society, for their appraisal?”

Saoirse shrugs. “Sure. Of course. Let me know if you find out anything.”

Emmit pulls his wallet from his pocket and places the charm in a zippered compartment. Then, without warning, he takes her head in his hands and kisses her deeply. When he pulls away, Saoirse’s heart is pounding so wildly, she can feel it in her throat.

Emmit smiles at her, the nervous half smile that allows her to glimpse the mischievous boy he might have been. “Now, should we go inside and get to what we came here for?” he asks.

Chapter 20

Night is creeping against the windows when Saoirse wakes from a dreamless sleep. Emmit had left just before she’d succumbed to a nap—after spending the rest of the morning and all of the afternoon together in bed—with a promise he’d call her that evening. She raises her arms toward the ceiling and rolls her neck against the pillow, but freezes when the door to her bedroom opens with a squeak of hinges.

“Emmit?” Itmustbe Emmit. She won’t let herself entertain the idea that it could be Aidan. Though, did Emmit lock the door when he left? Had she instructed him to?Stupid!She can’t get so distracted by this relationship that she forgets about Aidan and his resolve to find her.

Pluto noses the door all the way open and strides in, looking happier to see her than she deserves, and Saoirse breathes a sigh of relief. She hasn’t paid the cat nearly as much attention as she’d planned to only that morning.

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