October 28, 1870
What can I inscribe?
I do not know.
It has been some time since I wrote. Only a few months, though it lends comfort to raise a pen to these pages once more after that loathsome hearing. I am here in Chicago with a cup of coffee, a few blocks from the river in the downtown district. I took it upon myself to initiate a search for Jules' son, just as he instructed. Admittedly, I was never made privy to an heir. I thought Bernadette wished to keep childless, and so it puzzles me why Jules would deliberately conceal her pregnancy.
A few days after the hearing, I chartered a westbound steamer bound for Chicago, where Jules and Bernadette lived before the war. Their tenement was no more. Demolished. I spoke with the landlord who thoroughly explained that Bernadette had given birth to a son on Christmas day of 1863, just three years after the war was declared. It was nothing short of a miracle, he continued, that Bernadette had not succumbed to hemorrhaging or maternal infection and that when the child was placed in her arms, she bequeathed the name Zachary Maurice Morgan upon the young babe. The boy was fair-haired and held emerald eyes. He claimed he never saw a more radiant glow on Bernadette's face. The following year, in May, she vanished. The landlord, Claiborne I believe, suspects she moved out west to Dakota or Wyoming territory, though entirely unsure.
Now that I am nearing the date of my new employment with the University of Albany, I can no longer afford my inquiries, and so I must forfeit any hopes of resolution. One of the committee members is on the board of trustees with the university—I believe his name is Harvey Hale. I was very fortunate to curry respect before departing. I asked to be moved to New York; all that remains in New Hampshire and Washington are tainted recollections and travesties. Most of my colleagues—except Emmett and the others who moved out west—were distributed across New England in various scientific authorities. I suppose it was the committee's method to entice them into silence.
I toured the crime scene. Nothing remains of the warehouse. Not even the freight cars. The ground is hollow and otherworldly as if treading atop the tomb of a mighty emperor. An eerie calm lingers to incite feelings of quiet observation and uneasy discretion. It was hard to envision that a month prior, a building stood flourishing with eager minds and wondrous discovery. Now, in the axis of the crater, not a person could be heard for miles.
Though I suppose I am grateful that I had the opportunity to take part in such a revolutionary endeavor. If given the chance to do it over, I would, but with conviction. All that awaits me, now, is exile. I suppose I will make the best of it.