“No way!” Olive said. “Like, from the actual hanging tree?”
“That’s what people say,” Riley told them as she started looking at the tags stapled to the beams. “This one,” she said, pointing.
Helen came up, reached out to touch the beam, hesitated a second, then placed her hand on it, gave it a soft caress.
“This came from a tree from our land? From Hattie’s time?” she asked.
“I can’t prove it or give you a certificate of authenticity or anything, but I’m reasonably sure it did, yes. Then it helped frame the old one-room Hartsboro schoolhouse.”
The beam looked like all the others to Olive—old, a rich brown color, full of ax marks.
“It’s perfect,” Helen said. “It’s just what we need to be the header between the living room and kitchen.”
“No way!” Olive said. “You’re going to put the hanging tree beam in your house? What if it’s, like, haunted or something?”
Helen laughed. “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” she said. “But this beam…remember what I was telling you about, how they used to make lumber with just an ax? That’s what all these marks are from.” She ran her fingers over the face of the beam. “You can practically feel the history in it, can’t you?”
Olive put her hand on the beam, too, trying hard to imagine the tree it had once come from, standing at the edge of the bog; trying to imagine Hattie with a noose around her neck, how that tree was one of the last things she ever saw. And that tree had seen Hattie, too. Had held her weight, felt her last movements. Olive imagined there was some piece of Hattie in that tree, like a stain somewhere deep down inside it.
CHAPTER 13
Helen
JULY 12, 2015
“It’s perfect,” Helen said.
She and Nate had just installed the beam as the header framing the opening between the living room and the kitchen.
It was a rough-hewn beam about four by eight inches, and it spanned the top of the six-foot opening between the two rooms perfectly. It tied the rooms together and added a wonderful old-wood warmth.
It was amazing how the rooms were beginning to feel like rooms, like an actual space they might soon live in. The framing for the walls was up, the plywood subfloor nailed down, and all the outer sheathing in place; they’d put marks on the floor and stud walls to show where the counters, cabinets, and big soapstone sink would be installed. The sink was being stored under one of the pop-up canopies in the yard. Nate had balked a bit at the price but agreed that it would go perfectly in their kitchen.
Helen was already starting to look at the inside of the house and think about where their couch and favorite reading lamp would go; what it would be like to make coffee in their kitchen. She felt like a little kid playing house with imaginary furniture as she moved from room to room.
“Let’s just tell people the beam came from the old Hartsboro schoolhouse and leave out the hanging tree bit, okay?” Nate said, blinking up at it like it was something he was still trying to understand.
Nate had found the beam’s history a bit disturbing, unsettling even, but had agreed it was a beautiful piece of wood.
“You can’t buy wood like this these days,” he’d said, running his fingers over its surface, feeling the rough edges left by the hewing ax. “Sturdy old heartwood from the center of an old-growth tree like this.”
The beam seemed to give a warm glow compared with the new, pale spruce two-by-fours underneath it.
“I love the way it makes the house feel,” Helen said now, as she took Nate’s hand, led him around the downstairs. “The way it brings in this real sense of history.”
Nate laughed. “Kind of a morbid history, but yeah, I get what you’re saying.”
“It’s pretty amazing that it came from a tree right here on our land. Imagine the stories it would tell if it could,” Helen said. “I really want to incorporate more old building materials—more stuff with local history. You should see that salvage yard, Nate! So many beautiful things just waiting to be given new life. My dad would have loved the place!” She remembered going to barn sales and flea markets with him, picking up old windows, doors, sinks, and hardware for him to use in his renovations. “They had stained-glass windows, claw-foot bathtubs, old farmhouse sinks, and so much lumber. And all of it had stories to tell!”
Nate nodded, rubbing his beard, which had filled in substantially and was now looking more beard-like and lessI forgot to shave–like. Helen wasn’t sure whether she liked the new beard yet. She thought it made him look more like a serial killer than a woodsman.
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Nate said. “We wanted to build green, right? And you can’t get much more green than reusing and recycling. And it’s a definite bonus when the materials are of higher quality than what you can buy new. Plus, I imagine it’s cheaper in a lot of cases. Maybe with the exception of that massive stone sink you brought home. Overall, it’s a win-win.”
“I’m going to go back to the salvage yard, check online sites, just be on the lookout for other things we can use.”
“Okay,” he said with smile. “You’re officially in charge of acquiring salvaged materials.”
“Artifact hunting!” she declared.
