What are you when you don't go to heaven?
But that's got nothing to do with how I found out who I am. It's like Martha, though: always butting in with questions no Mary on earth could answer.
Well, the way I found out was one of those mysterious ways in which God works his wonders. Yesterday afternoon I asked Miss Bray if I could go over and play with the Moon children, three of whom are sick, and she said I might. We were in the nursery, which is next to Mrs. Moon's bedroom, and she and the lady from Michigan, who is visiting her, were talking and paying no attention to us. Presently something the lady said—her name is Mrs. Grey—made everything in me stop working, and my heart gave a little click like a clock when the pendulum don't swing right.
She was sitting with her back to the door, which was open, and I could see her, but she couldn't see me. All of a sudden she put down her sewing and looked at Mrs. Moon as if something had just come to her.
"Elizabeth Moon, I believe I know that child's uncle," she said. "Ever since you told me about her something has been bothering me. Didn't you say her mother had a brother who years ago went West?"
"Hush," said Mrs. Moon, and she nodded toward me. "She'll hear you, and the ladies wouldn't like it."
She lowered her voice so I couldn't hear all she said, but I heard something about its being the only thing Yorkburg ever did keep quiet about. And only then because everybody felt so sorry for her. In a flash I knew they were talking about me.
After the first understanding, which made everything in me stop, everything got moving, and all my inward workings worked double quick. Why my heart didn't get right out on the floor and look up at me. I don't know. I kept on talking and making up wild things just to keep the children quiet, but I had to hold myself down to the floor. To help, I put Billy and Kitty Lee both in my lap.
What I wanted to do was to go to Mrs. Moon and say: "I am twelve and a half, and I've got the right to know. I want to hear about my uncle. I don't want to know him, he not caring to know me." But before I could really think Mrs. Grey spoke again.
"He has no idea his sister left a child. He told me she married very young, and died a year afterward; and he had heard nothing from her husband since. As soon as I go home I am going to tell him. I certainly am."