The Legend of Annie Murphy by Frank Peretti Page B

Annie is the key to their getting back to the present.”
    Alice showed them photocopies from an old diary. “Regarding more carvings, look what a woman named Helen Billings recorded in her diary about that time: ‘I will miss Annie and Cyrus. Sometimes I think my sorrow over losing them affects my judgment, for early yesterday morning I am certain I saw their faces looking at me from the cliffs above their half-completed cabin.’”
    Dr. Cooper thought about that one. “A carving overlooking the home she and Cyrus were building . . . another overlooking Cyrus’s grave . . .” Cooper looked at Mac. “Both carvings were made from key locations in Annie’s life.”
    â€œWhich would also be true of the courthouse and the boardinghouse,” said Mac, picking up the idea.
    â€œI’m not sure about the mercantile.”
    â€œBut I think the kids are onto something.” He had to smile. “They’re thinking like archaeologists. They’re reading a story in Annie’s carvings much as one would read the picture symbols in ancient hieroglyphics. Annie was illiterate, so it makes sense that she would try to carve her story.” In just another quick moment, Dr. Cooper was quite sure about his theory. “Mac, we’ve got to find that carving of Annie and Cyrus. We’ve got to find that cabin’s location.”
    Mac added, “And the sites of the old boardinghouse, the courthouse, the mercantile . . .”
    They both thought of an eyewitness source and said his name at the same time, “Sheriff Potter!”
    They hurriedly gathered up all the photos, articles, and other data Alice and Rob had gathered and dashed out the door.

NINE
    L ila remained still, her heart pounding, squeezed into a hiding place between the courthouse floor joists. She’d fallen right through the courthouse steps and landed soft as a feather in the rubble of the present-day Bodine. But gravity, time, and space were in a teasing mood. She’d hardly had a chance to get herself oriented before the quivering stopped and she was solid again, totally in the past, trapped in the dingy, dirty crawl space.
    A few adventurous fellows had tried to come after her by prying off some boards and peeking inside. But it was easy to tell they were timid about crawling into such a dark place to look for a ghost. When their wives showed up and insisted they not get dirty, they abandoned the idea altogether, nailed the boards back on, and left, talking excitedly about giving their story to the local paper.
    Lila remained still, listening to the town outside come to the end of its day as horses clip-clopped and wagons rumbled lazily out of town. Doors and windows were closed to the cooling air, and the last pedestrians on the wooden sidewalks bid each other good night.
    When it was quiet and the light coming through the cracks between the boards began to ebb, she lowered herself to the dirt floor and had a look around. The crawl space was a cobwebbed, dusty world with plenty of dried out rat carcasses. Roughhewn beams and floorboards were only two feet above her crawling body. She wasn’t usually bothered by tight places, but the thought of an entire courthouse resting just above her did jangle her nerves a bit.
    Then she heard a voice. “Lila?”
    â€œJay! I’m over here. I fell through the front steps.”
    â€œYeah, I fell through the floor. Come over this way.”
    She crawled through the dirt, shoving cobwebs and dead rats aside, and finally saw her brother coming the other way. He’d lost his borrowed clothes just as she had and looked very dirty. He also looked very excited.
    â€œLila,” he said in a hushed voice as they met nose to nose under the floor beams. “I heard the judge and those guys on the committee talking. It’s all a big scheme. They fixed the auction so the judge could get the Murphy Mine.”
    Lila could feel her skin tingle.