Free Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama Page B

voice again. “An old friend. A very old friend. My name is Sarah.”
    She knew that her paleness would distinguish her in their memories. Eventually they would tell Ezra of her visit, and perhaps he might guess it was her, in human form. If he still wanted her, he might not give up his search. He might sustain his hope for the seven months it would take her to be free.
    A part of her—the part that had learned compassion from him and from Lydia—was grieved to deceive him by hiding her pregnancy. But she could not stop herself from wanting him, and she could not bear to let him see her carry another man’s child. If he still loved her seven months from now, she would find him. If he would have her, she would devote herself to him for the remainder of her mortal days.

Chapter 13
    H ESTER CHANGED into her street clothes and hurried to Nancy’s car. The public library was just a five-minute drive from work.
    As architecture went, the library looked like a high school in the suburbs: it was a large contemporary building with red brick walls and a domed skylight above an open staircase to the second and third floors. She was disappointed to discover that the strategy of looking up the murders in the Old Colony Memorial newspaper was fruitless. The archives were stored on microform—an antiquated set of film reels that were not indexed. She should have remembered this from her school assignments: the only way to look anything up on microform, other than educated guessing or browsing, was to know the exact date of the event you were searching for. She tried reading headlines starting from 1892, the date of the church fire, and working backward in time, but quickly gave up. There were too many films, the librarian had to retrieve each one for her, and the reader was a finicky machine, making winding and unwinding the film a slow process.
    On the way home she passed Burial Hill and her mind returned to Linnie. She had never even asked Linnie what her last name was. If she had, she could search for her online. She might contact her, and find out what college she was going to, and what she looked like now that she was eighteen. They could reminisce about their creepy childhood playing in a graveyard, and Hester would apologize for dropping Linnie’s friendship after the Bible incident.
    On an impulse, Hester pulled into a space in front of the hill. She got out of the car and climbed the long steps, past headstones that were still familiar to her so many years later. It was a lovely place, she realized. She should come here more often, just to read or to think in a peaceful setting. She strolled for a while, and then she searched out a bench that she remembered under an ancient tree. The wood was parched and splintered, but she sat down carefully and leaned back. The evening breeze off the bay was damp and salty and wonderful.
    The three headstones in front of her were made of blue slate. The first had one of her favorite decorations: a cherub’s face with wings, chiseled in a charming folk-art style. She glanced at the inscription:
    ISAAC ONTSTAAN
    Dec. 6th 1866–Jan. 19th 1870
    Stop traveller and shed a tear
    Uppon the sod of a child dear
    Hester sat up straight. Ontstaan was the last name of her great-great-great-grandmother. Surely she had read this headstone many times before, while playing on this very bench. She tried to remember if she had known Marijn Ontstaan’s name when she was seven. If she had, it had not made an impression.
    She quickly read the second headstone, which had a skull above crossed bones carved at the top:
    Here lies Buried the Body of
    MR OLAF ONTSTAAN
    deceased by the hand of a Fiend Unknowen and departed this Life July 8th 1872
    O ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains
    Draw near with pious reverence and attend
    Here lie the loving Husbands dear remains
    The tender Father and the courteous Friend
    The dauntless heart yet touched by human woe
    A Friend to man to vice alone a Foe
    And next to