Every Hidden Thing Read online

  For as long as I could remember, I’d been looking for things. As a boy it might be a warbler egg or the knuckle of an ox or the larva of a monarch butterfly. The thrill of the hunt, something lost now found. I’d kept shelves in my bedroom for my specimen boxes. They made me happy—but almost from the moment of the finding, that hunger rekindled and made me turn to something new, something more I needed to be discovering.

  But anything, everything, I’d collected before now seemed like nothing.

  Every other thought went out of my head. I knew instantly. I knew I wanted this creature, every bone of it. I wanted to chisel it out of the rock with my own hands and assemble it and see it mounted in the gallery of the academy.

  “We will not speak of this to anyone,” my father was saying severely, like I might just telegraph his day’s work across Philadelphia.

  “The letter is dated April second,” I told him.

  “What of it—” he started to say, and then paused, his eyes wider. “What day is today?”

  My father’s head was so full of genius he sometimes had to jettison little things—like the seasons or day of the week.

  “June fourth.”

  “Nine weeks ago!” He handled his beard a moment to soothe himself, then glared at me. “Why did it take you so long to open this?”

  This was rich. “I told you! You were using it as a footrest.”

  “That’s absurd!”

  I lifted the crate lid, showed him his muddy boot prints. “Under your desk!”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “Never mind that now. We’ve got to telegraph Mr. Plaskett immediately. Before he takes this to someone else.”

  By “someone else” I knew he meant Cartland. There weren’t too many scientists who called themselves paleontologists. Even Leidy and Hayden thought of themselves more as geologists and biologists.

  If—and it was a big if—we’d been the first people Plaskett told about this, we had to get in fast.

  “Take this down,” my father said, rocking on the balls of his feet.

  I found a clean scrap and dipped the pen in ink. It was just as well I was doing this. I’d seen his excited handwriting—a hideous jumble, even worse than mine. Which was no small feat.

  My father looked through me, addressing our invisible fossil hunter in Wyoming Territory. “Mr. Plaskett. I like your style. You’re hired. Retainer to come. Share news with no one. Await further digging instructions by post.” His eyes refocused on me. “That’s all. I’ll need to send him some money to bind his services. . . .”

  “You’re going to let him find it?” I blurted in dismay. “Just like that? We should be the ones! That way there won’t be any mix-ups—like elasmosaurus!”

  I knew I’d plucked the right chord. Could see his restless eyes trawling the room, trying to find anchorage. He brought his hand down hard on the table. “Damn it, but you’re right. I want to go and dig it up myself! The teeth and everything attached to them!”

  “Yes! Why don’t we?”

  His gaze meandered, losing intensity. “I’d like nothing more . . . but I can’t afford to mount an expedition at the moment. Do you know how little I have in the bank?”

  I nodded, because Father had also asked me to manage our bills. His genius did not extend to household finance. “Sixty-two dollars at present.”

  My father folded his lips over his teeth. “So very little?”

  He hadn’t had a paying job for years. For a while, when I was small and just after my mother had died, he’d taken a job at Daverford College, teaching zoology. But he’d lasted only five semesters before resigning in a fury, saying he couldn’t work with such pedants. At the time I’d had no idea what a pedant was—thought it must have been something really unpleasant like a goblin. Since then, of course, my father had made me familiar with its meaning—and all its lively synonyms.

  Grandpa had wanted my father to farm, like all the other siblings, had even given him a large portion of land. Father had rented it out, land and house, and for a while we got by on that. When that became too little, he’d sold the house, then the land, and we’d been living off the capital, shrinking year by year, boosted by articles my father wrote for encyclopedias and magazines.

  “What about the academy?” I asked. “Can’t they help?”

  He scoffed. “The academy is a gentlemen’s club for amateurs playing at science. What money they have is used to maintain their collections and publish their Proceedings. They don’t pay for their fossils, and certainly not for expeditions.”

  He frowned and paced the room. “It’s not like some,” he said, warming up to a rant, “who work for well-endowed institutions like Yale, who can raise funds. Cartland, for instance, I know has been planning something—”

  “What about the money Grandpa’s set aside for me?” I interrupted. I knew this was a sticky matter, but it was all I could think of.

  “That money is in trust,” he said, “to be released only for your university studies.” His gaze hardened. “Which you’ve imperiled by your recent delinquency.”

  “Why do I need to go to college?” I said. “Isn’t this a much better education? Working the field alongside you? Laying claim to the undiscovered world of Dinosauria? That’s better than studying in any classroom.”

  “Not anymore,” said my father. “It’s not enough to be self-taught. You need a degree from an accredited university.”

  “You have no degrees.”

  “That’s right!” he said. “And the world is changing. It demands degrees if you’re to be taken seriously!”

  “You’re taken seriously!” I said.

  His nostrils narrowed. “Not by Cartland and his cohort. I’ll never get a university appointment. No, that money is for college—which you will go to, after you finish school.”

  “But the expedition,” I said, worried we’d veered too far from my goal. “If we could ask Grandfather to let us use the money temporarily—”

  With force he said, “I will not ask my father and nor will you. And you will go to university—there is no question of that. Not this fall, clearly, but the next term.”

  “What if we had money for an expedition, though?” I asked him.

  “There’s no point entertaining such a question. Now take that note to the telegraph office. I’m off to the bank to get a check for Mr. Plaskett.”

  I took my coat from the hook. I’d send his telegraph.

  But I was already planning a way to dig up the rex myself.

  3.

  THE EXPEDITION

  I AM COMING WITH YOU,” I TOLD PAPA.

  I was in the library, inking in the vertebrae of one of his prehistoric horses, when he’d come to tell me the news. His summer expedition to the Western Territories had been fully approved. The army had offered an escort. Union Pacific had granted free rail passes. And he had twelve paying Yale students keen to delve into the earth alongside him. Normally Papa relied on amateur prospectors to send him fossils. But this was to be the first expedition he headed himself. I fully intended to be a part of it, and had been telling him for months, but he’d made no promises.

  He patted my hand. “My dear, it’s out of the question. The arrangements are made. Your aunt Berton has very kindly offered to host you here in New Haven, and she has planned your entire summer.”

  “Yes, and I can guess what her plans involve. Picnics and church socials—and another debutante ball. I’ve done one, and I have no intention of doing another.”

  There is a realization you have as a young woman—and it comes very soon, maybe twelve for me—when you walk into the room and know you might as well be invisible. You are not the prettiest thing in the room; you are not even in the running. Men’s gazes move over you as though you were a pattern on wallpaper or a pillar blocking their view of something more interesting. I knew what admiration looked like in a boy’s eyes—but only directed at other girls, not me.

  It was crushing at first and made me angry, thinking men so
unobservant. How could you see anything with such a cursory glance? Church picnics found me alone. Skating parties and sleigh rides too. But by and by, I became resigned. Men did not care for me, so I would not care for them. I tried to think of it as liberating. I did not have to mind my appearance or my posture; I did not have to laugh at feeble jokes or feign interest in dull talk. Loneliness had its own rewards, for it left my mind and energy free for the things that were truly important to me.

  “Your aunt has only your best interests at heart,” said Papa.

  “She hasn’t a clue about my interests. The natural sciences. Fossil hunting. All she wants to do is trot me around town until she finds me a fiancé.”

  My father frowned at my bold talk, but with the vivid purpling bruise around his left eye, it only made him look like a sad clown.

  “What on earth is wrong with being engaged?” Papa said.

  “Nothing at all, except that I don’t want to be engaged right now, and maybe not ever. I want something different, and marriage would only get in the way.”

  My father tilted back his head and rocked on his heels. “Ah, you’re talking about university again.”

  “I can’t see any man allowing me to attend classes and scrabble in the dirt looking for fossils.”

  Samuel Bolt, with his warm eyes and mop of hair, flitted across my mind, quick as a sparrow, and gone just as fast.

  “Well, after marriage no woman should be scrabbling in the dirt,” said my father.

  “And that is one of the many reasons I may never get married.”

  Papa sighed wearily. “With attitudes like this, yes yes, I’m afraid you may end up a spinster.”

  The word had always been hideous to me. It was “spit” and “spider” and “spindly” all wrapped into one. It was an ancient cocoon, long evacuated, dried out, and barren. It seemed such a cruel name for someone who, in some way or another, was unlucky or unusual or just different.

  “I’d be willing to have that word on my tombstone,” I said, “so long as ‘paleontologist’ is above it, and in much bigger letters.”

  He gave a small grin. Encouraged, I picked up the magnifying glass I’d been using to examine the vertebra.

  “You gave me this, Papa. When I was eight. You encouraged me to start my own collections, to make a museum of my bedroom. You never advised me on dresses or the latest hair fashions, but you taught me how to find a fossil and use a killing jar, how to skin a bird, and how to shoot. For three years I’ve been drawing your specimens and seeing them published alongside your articles—”

  All this time my father was nodding and patting the air as if trying to shush a tiresome orchestra.

  “You have been an excellent helpmate to me, my dear. And many women have made a contribution to science in an amateur capacity.”

  “I don’t want to be an amateur. I’ve heard you heap scorn on enough amateurs. Including Professor Bolt. I want to go to university and get a degree. There are women doctors now. Berkeley has just admitted its first woman engineer. Miss Maria Mitchell—”

  “Self-taught,” my father interjected.

  “—discovered a comet, and was the first woman admitted to the American Philosophical Society. That was some years ago! I would make a very good paleontologist, Papa. My school marks are excellent—”

  “They are indeed—”

  “So if you have any doubts about my abilities, let me come on this expedition and prove myself.”

  “Yes yes,” he said, which, of course, did not mean yes. “And who would chaperone you?”

  “I’ve never needed one before.”

  “When you were younger, it was acceptable to come on the odd trip with me around the county. Even then, people thought it inappropriate. Now it would be quite scandalous. You’re not a child anymore—”

  “Exactly—”

  “You’re a young woman. And think of the journey. Even getting there by train is many days, and my companions are all young men.”

  “I’ve met most of them already.” His students sometimes dined with us, and my father would hold court at the head of our enormous mahogany table in our fine dining room in our mansion, as they took their nourishment in both body and mind. “They’ve never shown the slightest interest in me. So I think it’s safe to say that I will not be wooed out west.”

  “Perhaps, but men are men, and I can’t be at your side the whole time. We’ll be sleeping on trains, and once we begin, we’ll be camping with soldiers. Tents and crude latrines and army food. There’s nowhere for a young lady in all that. The terrain is savage.”

  “I am quite capable of managing.”

  “There are the Indians as well. The Sioux are renowned for their savagery.”

  “But you’re not going to Indian territory,” I said.

  “Ha! That doesn’t mean we won’t encounter them.”

  “We’ll have the army with us. Anyway, I’m a better shot than you. I’ll prospect and draw fossils for you, and I will help cook the meals. I will shoot the meals if necessary. You said I was an excellent helpmate, so let me help.”

  He was shaking his head. “It won’t do. It’s not safe, and it’s not appropriate.”

  “Papa—” I began, but this time when his hand lifted it was like a shield.

  “You will stay with your aunt and be a help to her, and spend your summer in New Haven. And that is an end to it.”

  I said nothing, but I thought, Oh, no it isn’t.

  I liked meetings. It was the one time in the week I could sometimes—not always, but sometimes—be guaranteed I wouldn’t hear Father’s voice for an entire hour.

  Silent reflection. Quaker meetings could pass without a single word being spoken. You were supposed to listen and wait—and if you were moved by God’s spirit to speak, you could speak.

  I’d never spoken. Maybe because my mind was always roving about. In any case, I didn’t think I had anything worth saying to the other Friends. Or God. But sometimes, in the middle of one of those big silences, I’d get a moment where I felt like there was a light spreading out from me. Across the room and beyond. It didn’t have a name, this light, and it didn’t have a shape or a meaning. But it was there, and I felt better for it.

  Whenever Father cleared his throat, my gut clenched, because I knew what was coming. Most people, if they said anything, kept it quick. A prayer for a sick friend. A short Bible passage. Father made little speeches. Observations. Revelations. Dreams. Once he spoke about the beauty of God’s creation and how each blade of grass and beetle wing was sacred, and his voice shook, and I stared at the floor until he stopped, my cheeks burning. There was quiet after that—there was always supposed to be quiet—but this was beyond quiet. This was the quiet you heard when people stopped breathing. Or maybe even died of embarrassment. No one else said anything that meeting. Father had used up all the words. Afterward some of the Friends looked at me sympathetically. Even pityingly. One fellow put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze, like I’d just suffered a death in the family.

  This Sunday morning my mind was even more restless than usual. Not because I was worried my father would speak.

  But because I knew I would.

  And the words in no way came from God.

  I’d planned them out the night before, scratching and scribbling over and over in my head.

  In my seat, I started, then lost my nerve, making a little cough-grunt. My father looked over at me questioningly. I stared at the floor, then finally lifted my head, my eyes screwed shut. I had planned carefully, and everything, everything, rested on this. I couldn’t back out now. My voice wavered.

  “The Lord’s creation is vast. And there is still a great deal of it unnamed. I feel called upon to name it.”

  I opened my eyes to the room’s silence. It had a new attentiveness to it. No one was looking right at me, but I felt like they were all leaning slightly toward me, wondering and waiting. My pulse was fast.

  “I feel called upon to go west and see a
ll of his great works, buried and waiting in the earth.”

  I had them. I could feel it: the air before a lightning strike. They wanted to know more, to know what this normally silent boy had to say for himself. My voice wasn’t shaking anymore.

  “I want to find all his creations and name them. I will go west, and continue Adam’s work!”

  The big ocean silence lapped up my words, sucked them back into itself. I tilted my face to the floor. Now I did feel all the eyes of the congregation on me, including my father’s. I tried to look pious.

  As we left the meeting hall, several Friends nodded and smiled at me, and a few offered me their hands to shake.

  Farther down the street, alone, my father said, “Adam’s work. A stirring phrase. A fine speech.”

  “It just came on me, very strong and sudden.”

  Father was proud of his intellect. But I knew he was also a big believer in spiritual commandment. I wasn’t a practiced liar, but I was hell-bent on giving it a fair shake. Despite the cool air, I felt sweat on the back of my neck. My father stroked the foxy tips of his mustache.

  “I must say, I’m surprised at your sudden fervor.”

  “You speak out all the time!”

  “When I’m truly moved—”

  “And I can’t be truly moved? I have a very spiritual nature!”

  Which would have surprised my schoolmasters. And everyone, really.

  When Father spoke again, his voice was severe.

  “Samuel, the things spoken in the meetinghouse are meant to be inspired by God.”

  “We’re meant to go west,” I persisted. “What we’re doing would be God’s work—”

  “Enough. Were you really hoping the Friends would contribute money?”

  “No one values education like them,” I said, “and they’re always setting up schools and scholarships and—”

  “You’ve embarrassed yourself, and me.”

  “At least I was trying something!” I said. “Not just giving—”

  “Mind your tone with me.”

  “I thought it was our only chance. To dig it up ourselves.”

  “We’ll just have to hope that our Mr. Plaskett has a good eye and a strong back.”