Page 94 of You'll Be Sorry

“A memento mori.” Betty gazed up at her. “Family?”

“No.”

Further consideration. “Gift from a friend?”

“I picked it out. It…it spoke to me.”

A nod, then, with devastating accuracy: “I’m sorry, dear. I’ve been there myself. Was finally blessed with two children, but not without heartbreak along the way.”

“She was a Dixon.” Raquel took the piece back, gazing at the pale woman, clutching her dead infant hopelessly, desperately, achingly. “Best I can tell this photo was taken in the mid-nineteenth century. Researching her brought me to this property.”

“You’re drawn to old tragedies?”

“I needed something I could fix. This house.” Raquel looked around. “It wishes to be a home again. It wants to shelter a family, be filled with love and laughter. I know it may sound crazy, but I can feel it. It’s down, but not out. I get that.”

Betty smiled softly. “I think that makes perfect sense. And I knew this house back in the day. It was a happy place. It would be nice to see it become that again.”

Theo returned with fresh coffee, just as Betty’s phone chimed. She inspected the incoming message.

“Oh my. Austin’s crew has been out all night. And it sounds like they’ve made a discovery. Mason, in his charming Mason-like way”—a sly quirk of her lips—“is demanding we all attend a two p.m.town hall for an update.” Betty peered at Raquel. “But you already know what’s happening, don’t you, dear?”

“Not…a hundred percent.”

“The crew isn’t here.” Betty regarded her curiously. “Meaning, their discovery is not on this property?”

“Not on this property.” Raquel shrugged. She honestly didn’t know that much. Theo was standing behind her. Now he gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze.

“I’ve been googling,” he announced.

“Oh dear!” Betty, in mock horror.

Theo gestured to the poor shredded journal. “So, you got the pages in order, right? And you’re reading all the entries, which sound like they’re fairly humdrum. Especially given everything that was going on. Which begs the question, are you still missing something? I think you are.”

Raquel twisted around to give him a dubious look.

“Bear with me.” Theo tapped one of the pages. “Books were expensive and hard to come by in the late 1700s. Just having a journal was pretty impressive.”

Betty nodded.

“The price of paper, the craftsmanship of bookbinding, all meant something like this would’ve cost a pretty penny. The owner would’ve treasured it, valued every inch. Not wanting a single page to go to waste…” His voice trailed off suggestively.

Betty and Raquel exchanged looks. “There are blank pages at the back,” Raquel acknowledged, “but I was assuming that’s because the poor woman was killed. The date of the last entry would be near the end of that tragic winter, after all the babies died and the town, apparently, had had enough.”

“Maybe.” Theo was clearly relishing his dramatic show. “But also look at the final few entries. I noticed something different about them. You didn’t?”

Betty, appearing as baffled as Raquel, obediently turned to those pages. She studied the accounts in question, gave a little shrug, offered Raquel a better view.

“The entries are longer,” Theo announced when both remained confused. “Roughly the same number of lines, but they take up more of the page. Like you said, the woman was prone to concise summaries, except those summaries now occupy nearly a full page instead of half.”

Raquel was starting to get it. “In the beginning, the passages are very tight. The lines squished closely together, such as what we saw in the ledger. Those pages are nearly black with ink.”

“Shame on me; I should’ve realized it sooner.” Betty’s voice rose in excitement as she caught on as well. “Back then people would reuse old documents, filling margins, utilizing all blank spaces to maximize efficiency. Which is representative of what we see in the beginning. But yes, toward the end…”

“There’s more white space. Between words, sentences, et cetera. It’s…extravagant.”

“I think,” Theo continued his grand reveal, “the value of this diary isn’t what you do see, but what you don’t.”

“Now you’ve lost me,” Betty confessed.