Return to Cedar Hill

by Jacie Middlemann

  Mary waited quietly as Casey picked up another cookie and slowly nibbled her way through it. She was rounding her way around to the information in the way she wanted and Mary was willing to give her the chance to do so.

  "Great-grandma built this house," Casey said into the quiet as she picked up the almost empty bowl of cookie dough, licked the spoon a last time before carrying it and the bowl over to the sink. "Well, actually it was probably her and Great-Grandpa but it's her name that's on most the work orders and such...whatever they called them back then. They're both on the original contract and title though." Casey fingered a third cookie, tempted, very tempted. There was nothing quite like cookies warm from the oven. "There was some interesting stuff on the contract." She gave up, took a bite from the cookie before she could change her mind, and decided to give herself a week of enjoying all the foods she'd denied herself for much too much of her adulthood.

  Mary waited as she slowly cleaned up after her short anxiety driven baking spree.

  Casey pulled out some oversized sheets of paper from the mass of copies she'd made in her too short time at the library. "Look at these." She set them down on the table and accepted the steaming cup of coffee from her cousin as Mary sat down with her own as well.

  Connections. It hit her the moment she glanced over the top sheet in front of her. Almost from the first, since her arrival in Burlington, there had been so many of them. Now as she spread the papers across the table to read them her mind analyzed this new and somehow not surprising piece of information. She had bought her grandmother's home and in doing so unknowingly a piece of her great-grandmother's legacy. "What does that have to do with the attic?" She asked as she began reading over the legalese she normally left to her husband.

  "Keep reading," was all Casey said. She watched her cousin's expression as she continued to read through the document, especially as she got to the final page. She wasn't surprised by her reaction and wondered if her own had been similar. That look of speculative awe.

  "There was another house on the property before this one." Mary read over the last clause again, wanting to make certain she understood what she was reading.

  "And if I read it right, it had been badly damaged, almost completely destroyed by fire." Casey thought about the little she knew of history having spent so much of her life reporting on the here and now. All of which would be history as well years from now. That didn't mean she didn't appreciate what had come before. "I imagine fire was a real threat back then, especially in the winter months when keeping warm was a big deal and there were only a few ways of accomplishing it at the time."

  Mary silently agreed as she read that final paragraph one more time then glanced at the date below the signatures. February. It would still have been blisteringly cold just as the months before would have been. She wondered if more had been loss to the fire than just the structure.

  "Did you research to see how recent the damage had been done when they bought the land?"

  "Just months before, just shortly after Christmas." Anticipating the direction of her thoughts Casey shared what else she'd learned. "The paper called it a Christmas miracle because everyone in the family living here was able to escape without any serious injuries before the house collapsed," Casey answered the question she asked and the one she didn't. "It looks like Great-Grandma got it for a song and true to her nature wanted anything remaining of the structure not damaged by the fire to be incorporated with the new. And she wanted any leftover materials lying around undamaged by the fire to be used as well."

  Mary read directly from the contract. "That the property's surviving cellar and adjoining storm cellar be reinforced. That the exterior access to storm cellar be reinforced and additional access be added from the interior of the new structure." She looked at her cousin. "The front area of the basement where we found all the furniture was already there when she bought the property and had another way to get in from outside the house somewhere."

  "And is probably still there somewhere," Casey concluded. "And maybe the one that's supposed to be inside the house too." She shrugged. "Who knows, it's been a long time and there's no way of knowing what's been done to this house over the years."

  "But why would they need an exterior way to get in there?" Mary wondered out loud. "I can understand needing more than one way from inside if there's a storm coming out of nowhere and you barely have time to get down there to safety let alone from one room to another."

  Casey tapped her fingers against the table top. "Maybe not just a way to get in from outside but it may have also been a matter of getting out once you were in." She waited for Mary to look up from the contract. "I found some of the paperwork on the house that burned down. It was really old. The original part was built around 1849. They made some small additions over the years up through 1862." She waited, letting the timing sink in.

  "You're thinking that the closed up part of the basement might have been used to hide slaves making their way north," she said slowly trying to wrap her mind around the possibility.

  "Maybe. I don't know. And in all honesty, there's probably no way to really ever know." She admitted to it grudgingly. "I do know that there were other places around Burlington that were involved with the Underground Railroad," she said then paused, thinking about those other pieces of the puzzle that intrigued her as well but kept them to herself for the moment. "But I also think there's a lot more to find out first." She leaned back and smiled, they needed to get back to where they'd started for now. "But to answer your original question." She laughed at Mary's remorseful expression. "Regardless of how that little hidey-hole space originated, Great-Grandma saw its usefulness." The more she read and learned about her, the more she admired the woman she had never known. "Who's to say she might not have wanted something similar in the attic?"

  Mary thought about it and agreed it wasn't a huge jump. But it was also a little more difficult to achieve in the rafters of the house and told Casey that much. But there was always a possibility of what her cousin hoped for. She looked at her again, this time sighing deeply. "I really do hate bats."

  

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  "This could make a really nice work space if you ever get the urge to get back to writing." Casey settled the hanging light bulb fixture onto a huge rusted nail protruding at an odd angle from the roof just about where it began its downward pitch. It was only one of many, she observed looking around the large open space.

  Mary was taking her time and looking around as well. With both lights connected and switched on and hanging on opposite sides of the attic, dragged up from where they had been situated in the basement, the otherwise dark attic was fairly well lit up.

  "There's a lot this could work for besides writing. I've played around with the thought of converting it into a dormer type room," Mary agreed. Casey was right. It was a good space. It needed work, lots of it. But it could be a great workroom or studio of sorts. For that matter, it could easily do double duty and give her an additional guest room if a couple of skylights could be installed. She could hear Casey moving some of the clutter around of which there was plenty. There was an assortment of small pieces of furniture including a stool, some small tables, and assorted other knickknack pieces. There were also large groupings of boxes. None of which looked like they had any sort of labeling and could belong to anyone from anywhere in time. Anyone who might have lived here over the last couple of decades, she thought to herself. Belongings she didn't necessarily care about. But there was, she thought hopefully, the very slim chance there could be something in any of those boxes that belonged to the time before that. And those, if they existed, she did care about. Dearly. She sighed knowing there was a lot of difficult work before them. They'd have to at least check each of them out to figure out what to do with the contents. More importantly to determine if the contents were from the time before their grandmother had died. She nudged aside a smaller box to make her way forward. She didn't have much hope there would be an
y hidden secrets up here like she knew was Casey hoping for. But knowing now that Nanno's mother had built the place, owned it until her daughter moved in, made these boxes more important. If for no other reason because there was now that chance, however slim it might be, that any one of them could contain family stuff.

  "Mary, come over here."

  Mary looked in the direction of her cousin's excited voice and saw only boxes. "Where are you?"

  "Over here, go towards the front of the house and then to the left of that window."

  Mary glanced wryly at the window Casey referred to as she made her way carefully past stacks of boxes. It could really only loosely be referred to as a window. It looked to be more of an afterthought than anything else. The framing around it looked like it had been thrown together from left over scraps of wood. The glass panes waved with age and appeared ill-fitted at best. But it was the only real natural source of light in the attic. As she pushed past another stack of boxes, she saw Casey on her hands and knees. "What in the world are you doing?"

  "Remember how you said I was engaging in wishful thinking?" Casey could almost hear the humming of excitement that she could feel coursing through her. She pushed aside another box that had been stacked in front of the wall directly in front of her. The short wall was barely waist high before the roof line sloped upward. She had almost missed it. Would have it if not for luck and luck alone when she had glanced over in this direction. The little bit of sunlight shining through the small window would never have been enough if she hadn't been in the exact right spot. But because she was she'd caught the reflection of light off the metal of what she now realized was a small odd looking latch. Luck. Pure luck she thought again. Because where there was a latch, there had to be something for it to hold shut. A door.

  And now that she was closer to it, she realized with no little amount of excitement that there was indeed a door. It was a small one with its outline barely discernible but it was definitely a door. That fact was helping her to ignore the layers of dirt, the nasty bugs, and Lord only knew what else she heard scattering as she moved through it all.

  "Great-Grandma must have been one super cynical lady." Casey tried to move the latch upward to push it over and open only to find it near to rusted in place. She felt around the metal for screws, realized if worst came to worst they could unscrew or pry the entire thing off. But for the moment she began moving it up and down in an effort to work it loose and then all the way over to open the locking mechanism.

  "It could be nothing," Mary suggested quietly. But inside she was every bit as excited as Casey. She knelt down as best she could without disrupting her efforts. "Is there anything I can do?"

  "Just a minute...it's starting to move a little. I think just a little more will do it." She felt before she heard the final click and it slid all the way over. "There!" She gave the door a little push. Nothing. Then taking a good hold on the latch again, she pulled it in the opposite direction and the door slowly shifted towards her. As it did she could see its size was a bit larger than she initially thought. It went up to where the wall stopped and the roof-line began to pitch in. Three feet if that much she guessed. But its width was at least the same if not a bit more, much more than she had anticipated, thinking initially it would be a real squeeze. Wrapping her fingers around the edge of the door she continued to pull on it. "This is pretty thick Mary, it almost feels like a real door."

  "Maybe it is. Maybe it was just cut down to fit." She moved back as Casey did, making room for the door's movement as together they pulled it open. Even as she maneuvered backward, she bent to peer into the space beyond the slowly opening door. Dark, very, very dark. "We're going to need more light."

  Casey dug into her pants pocket, pulled out one then another small flashlight. "These are super duper mini-lights." She handed one to Mary even as she shifted and began moving forward through the short door. She flipped on the little flashlight. She'd been amazed when she’d seen it in the store how much light the little thing put out. She was even more so now for what it did in nearly complete darkness. There were boxes, old, very old boxes. Almost more like wooden crates. Made before man began on its cardboard binge, she thought. Then she let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. This was more than she could have ever begun to hope for. Sure, she'd had a hunch. But that was all it was. She had hunches all the time which had certainly played a large role in making her the successful reporter she’d become. But this was different. It was personal...very personal. Even finding all they had in the basement space had been based on at least a sliver of knowledge because of what they'd heard and seen all those years ago. This was nothing more than wishful thinking at best. And a hunch. She had to remind herself to breathe again as she knelt on shaky knees praying she didn't hyperventilate. Only the slim hand that took hers and gently squeezed kept her steady. "God, Mary. Look at all this."

  It was a small space, smaller than the area in the basement in more ways than one. From what they could tell at first glance there was no space even close to being high enough to walk around comfortably. "This place is stuffed."

  Mary was aiming her little flashlight slowly around the perimeter of the room and finding it hard to contain her own excitement. "Do you think Nanno knew about this?"

  "I don't know." Casey thought about it, had a feeling in the pit of her gut that this room had been left untouched for a really long time. "I just don't know. Just looking at this, most of it dates back...well pretty far back. I don't see a square inch of cardboard. All these boxes, or whatever they are, they look like they're made of wood. And I think there's some old steamer trunks over there." She waved her flashlight to shine in the direction of the back of the house, situated almost over the back bedroom where she slept. "Look at that, there are trunks almost all along the outer edges of the entire room." She ran the stream of light along the entire area she spoke of to make her point.

  "It's floored back here too." Mary rubbed her hand along the floor they crawled on as they both moved further into the small area. "This is decent wood, it's not rough or unfinished."

  Casey continued looking around as she listened to her cousin, tried to understand where she was going with her thoughts. "Dot the lines for me."

  "It's the same flooring as the rest of the attic." Mary moved toward the middle of the small room. "Either this space was part of the original attic and closed off later, or it was planned this way to start with."

  "Like I said about Great-Grandma, gotta love her." She turned over an old stool, brushed off the top of it the best she could, and shifted so she could sit on it. The top of her head skimmed the roof. She glanced around making sure there weren't any rust coated nails nearby. "I think I'm sitting on velvet."

  Mary glanced back at her. "Probably, it looks old enough." She shined her small flashlight at the piece. "Looks like old cherry wood. It may have come over with them on the boat, or sent over later. It looks like some of the pieces Aunt Charlie still has."

  "Maybe." Casey looked around. She was tired. Sleep hadn't come easy the night before. If it weren't for the lack of light factor she would have come up here then. She gotten unbelievably dirty. There might not be enough soap in the house to clean off all the yuck she'd crawled through already this morning. And the day wasn't half done. But for the first time in a long time she hadn't been able to sleep because of the excitement drilling through her. Far different from not being able to sleep for dread of the next day and a job she had come to literally fear without even realizing it. "Mary."

  "Um?"

  "This is great."

  "This is dirty."

  "No, really. This is really great. I can't thank you enough for letting me stay. Letting me talk you into this. I know you probably planned it anyway somewhere along the way, but I really appreciate you letting me muck around in all this with you."

  Mary smiled to herself. Hearing her own thoughts, her own excitement out of someone else, someone who needed it every bit as much as she did, w
as a good thing. She dusted off the piece she'd seen out of the corner of her eye and crawled around it. Years of dirt and grime fluttered in the air around her. Next time, she thought, they really needed to wear some air-filtering masks. "Well, then I'm about to make you really happy. How about getting off that stool and crawling over here to see what I just found." She didn't even bother trying to contain the excitement from her voice.

  Casey scooted off and made her way over to where Mary was hunched over a trunk shaped piece of furniture that was larger than most of the others and way longer than any of them. "It's fancy that's for certain." She ran her hands over the ornate wood carvings along the front of it. "Is it a steamer trunk or what?"

  "I'm not certain. I buy antiques because I like them but I don't know all that much about them."

  "Yeah, well then you like a lot, cousin. I've been in your house and you have a fortune in them."

  Mary shrugged offhandedly. She loved old furniture. And she was fortunate to be able to indulge herself as she chose. But this did more than intrigue her. "Casey, this is old." She ran her hands along the front, where the carving was the most ornate. Shining the light on where her fingers felt slight irregularities in the flow of the wood. "It's hand-carved." She struggled to sound casual and failed. "It's hand-carved and really, really old." Somehow this opened up. She just knew it. "We've got to get this downstairs so we can see it better. Figure out what it is and if there's anything in it."

  "You think it came over on the boat with somebody?"

  "Maybe. I don't think it was made here, I've never seen anything like it." She took a breath. "But I think this has been in the family for a long time, long before Great-Grandma or Grandpa came over." She didn't know where the knowledge and the certainty of it came from. But it was there...and it was strong. "I'd love to know which side of the family it came from. Great-Grandma's family was from Sweden and it certainly has that Scandinavian kind of look."