A Fugitive Truth by Dana Cameron

agreed. “Thank you. That’s very kind.”
    As Jack went off chattering and humming to himself, Michael slouched up the stairs, still dressed in his overcoat. I was beginning to believe that he’d been born in a tiny London Fog.
    “Care to join us, Michael?” Jack had returned and was very excited to have company in what was clearly his favorite pastime. He’d brought out a bottle of cheap cherry brandy.
    Michael eyed the bottle askance. “Thanks, I won’t. But I will watch you and Emma enjoy it.” A blank expression crossed his face. “I’d have thought you could make it up the stairs without tossing back another shot.”
    “Oh, Michael!” All atwitter with the unexpected attention, Jack explained the reason for the impromptu party in the sitting room.
    I took a sip and instantly my teeth ached to crawl back into my jawbone. My stomach rebelled, and I noticed Michael was leaning back, half-glasses perched pretentiously on his nose, watching me with vast amusement.
    “Deans are a malignant force of nature.” He shrugged. “Can’t be helped. It only gets worse, in our little slice of purgatory.”
    “Pshaw, you dreadful thing, that’s no help!” Jack swatted at Michael, who rolled his eyes. He took another sip, his round little eyes bright with the liquor, and took his glasses off to clean them as he spoke. “Oh, my dear, you must take heart! You see, both Michael and I have been through precisely the same thing, and now look at us. Just fine.”
    And if the sickening brandy wasn’t cause enough, I almost lost my dinner when Jack licked the lenses of his glasses, then dried them off with his sweaty shirttail.
    Michael made a rude, wet noise in the back of his throat. “Yes, Emma. Do look carefully at us.” He heaved himself off the wall. “That’s enough frolicking for one evening. Night all.”
    I threw back the rest of the thimbleful of liquor so that it wouldn’t linger on the palate and said “Thanks, good night” to Jack. But it was with that revolting taste, the churning in my stomach compliments of Dean Belcher, and the thought that I could look forward to grow up to be just like my housemates—seen and unseen—that I eventually fell into an uneasy sleep.

Chapter 3
    M ADAM C HANDLER KEPT ME FASCINATED FOR THE next day and a half. The journal was just about one hundred pages, covering just a few months. Although I had hoped for a full year, the content of the journal made it perfect for my needs. I wanted to be able to speak about everyday life on the site I’d been excavating, and I wanted to try to say something about the life of women, especially since all the other documents spoke of the public life of Justice Chandler. Margaret recorded much of her activities in running her household, possibly set down to provide an example for the children she had hoped would fill her future.
    Two things troubled me as I worked, however. I began to wonder about the location of the other volumes of her journal, if indeed they still existed. More immediately, I worried about the meanings of the unfathomable numbers I found on so many of the pages, since it was clear they held some deeper significance.
    As I read the normal text, I knew that something was causing the clouds to gather over her existence. She was concerned with the rapidly declining health of her friend, the Reverend Blanchard, and her sour relations with her neighbors. It was in these passages that the numeric sequences seemed to dominate, and I began to believe that her true feelings might be hidden in a code. Other journalists, like Pepys, William Byrd, and Leonardo, used codes or shorthand to confuse the casual reader and to protect their ideas, thoughts, and sins, so that it was possible that Madam Chandler was doing the same. But as compelling as those numbers were, my first task was to read and transcribe as much of the diary as I could, to take it with me when I finally left Shrewsbury. I’d have to leave cracking that code for