house, like all the exhibits, is furnished with antique furniture that fits right in with the age of the town. It has a funny old sideboard with china plates and jugs on it, a clock on the wall that really works, music on the piano stand and an old book lying on a round table in the middle of the room. Then, when you go around to the back of the house, you can see the kitchen with the wood cook stove and the pots and pans and kitchen utensils just sitting there, as if they were waiting for someone to come in and start supper. I really enjoy Barkerville and, as you can see, I’m learning some history as well! I wish you and Brian could come up and visit. I know you’d love it, too.
Well, in case Mom hasn’t written to you yet, I guess I’d better tell you that she is sort of worried about me. But she doesn’t have to be. She’s complaining because I haven’t made any friends yet, and although she says that Barkerville is a good place for me to spend my time, I know she thinks that I could find better things to do than to come here every day. But Dad, there’s absolutely nothing to do in Wells! It’s not fair, actually. She’s the one who dragged me up here in the first place, and now she’s nagging at me for enjoying myself. So, if she does write to you, don’t worry. I have made some friends, good friends, but they are different from the type of friends I had in Vancouver.
I’ve told you about the Judge. He is a fantastic person, and knows a lot of the real history of Barkerville — the things you can’t find in books. He has a daughter who’s married and lives in Nova Scotia, and he brought her up himself after his wife died, which is one of the reasons, I guess, he understands me so well. He treats me as if I were an adult; he never talks down to me the way some teachers do. He’s a good listener too, and some days when I get really lonely he’ll let me talk for hours about you and Brian and Vancouver. I’m glad he’s here.
I’ve also met the members of the acting troupe of the Theatre Royal. They let me see the show for free if I sit down front and babysit all the little kids they put there.
The show is a lot of fun. It’s a melodrama with music played on an old piano, and the audience is supposed to boo the villain and cheer for the hero. They really get carried away sometimes. The whole theatre seems to shake with the noise. Linda, the girl who plays the heroine, is a friend of the Judge and she says that when I get older I can audition for a part in the play. She says that it’s hard work doing two performances a day all summer, but it’s a great experience and you really learn how to act because you have to keep on doing it, day after day, whether you feel like it or not. Maybe I’ll do that, in a few years.
So, don’t worry, Dad. I’ve got lots of friends. It’s just that they are a bit older than I am. But you always did say that I was very mature for my age. And when school starts in a week I know I’ll meet some of the other kids and find a friend my own age. At least, I hope so.
I must go. It’s nearly five and I have to head back to Wells. I am getting enormous leg muscles from all of this bicycling, but I’m not gaining any weight. Mom has lost a few pounds, too.
I miss you and Brian. Do you think you could find a free week-end to come up and visit? You could have rooms in the Jack O’Clubs Hotel. You wouldn’t have to stay with us and move in on Mom’s space. I really would like to see you. Please come.
All my love to you and Brian. I do miss you very much.
Love,
Elizabeth
or Bess
(That’s what the Judge calls me. He says I look a bit like Queen Elizabeth the First of England and her nickname was ‘Bess’. I kind of like it.)
Elizabeth folded the letter carefully and put it away in her backpack. She rubbed her eyes and tucked her hair behind her ears. She really would have to do something about her hair before school started. It was getting so long that it looked scraggly unless she washed it every day.
Getting to her feet, she stretched. Although it would be a long time before it got dark, the days were getting shorter and the shadows lengthened in the graveyard earlier and earlier. There was always a chill in the air in the evenings, no matter how hot the day had been, and lately the early mornings were foggy, hinting of fall.
She shrugged her shoulders into the straps of her backpack and bent to give the old headstone a pat. It was a ritual with her; she gave the anonymous marker a friendly pat whenever she arrived at her favourite spot in the graveyard, and also when she left. As she bent over, her pen fell out of the pocket of her pack and rolled across the grass to the edge of the marker. She knelt to pick it up and as she did, a glint caught her eye. It was just a momentary flash of something shiny in the long grass at the foot of the headstone. She brushed aside the grass and there, half buried in roots and dirt, was a small gold ring.
She picked it up and rubbed away the dirt. It was a small ring, a woman’s or a child’s. A small red stone was set in the centre, flush with the ring itself, and an intricate pattern of engraving spread from the stone across the top of the ring. Something had been engraved on the inside of it, but the letters were too worn to read.
Well, she thought. It’s my lucky day. I wonder if it’s real gold? She slipped the ring onto the little finger of her left hand. It fit as if it had been made for her.
It’s a pretty thing. I guess I should check at the office, though, to see if anyone’s reported losing it. I hope no one has. I’d like to keep it.
Idly, she turned the ring around on her finger, wondering about the person it had belonged to and how it had come to be nestled in the grass at the head of an old grave in Barkerville.
Suddenly, her vision blurred. The air around her became hazy, as if a misty curtain had been drawn in front of the trees. She felt weak. Her head ached behind her eyes and, for a moment, she thought that she was going to be sick to her stomach.
She eased herself down onto the grass beside the grave. I’d better sit down for a while. I must be catching the flu or something.
Carefully, she put her head between her knees, a trick that she knew was good for getting rid of dizziness. She sat that way for several minutes, then, feeling better, she slowly raised her head.
The wooded graveyard had vanished and in its place was an open field studded with tree stumps and scrub grass. The gravestones which had been so numerous were now thinned to a handful, and her special grave, the one she had been sitting beside, was gone.
Elizabeth blinked her eyes, holding them shut for a few seconds. When she opened them the scene remained the same. Puzzled, and slightly frightened, she got to her feet and made her way to one of the nearest tombstones.
The wooden marker was new, the paint unweathered and the wood unsilvered by time. The grave itself was raised and covered with only a thin growth of grass and weeds, bare earth showing quite clearly in spots. Elizabeth was able to read the epitaph clearly:
IN MEMORY
OF
CHARTRES BREW
BORN AT CORFSIN
COUNTY CLARE, IRELAND
31 OF DEC. 1815
DIED AT RICHFIELD
31 OF MAY, 1870
GOLD COMMISSIONER
AND COUNTY COURT JUDGE
Elizabeth knew the grave and knew of Chartres Brew. He had been
