Summer Street Secrets (The Hills of Burlington Book 3)

by Jacie Middlemann

  "Ready to share?" Mary teased but inwardly holding on to her own excitement. She'd seen the look in Addie's face when she'd come out of the first bedroom.

  "Okay." Addie took a breath and tried to slow down her speeding heart. "Even when we were painting this closet I just thought it was odd for some reason. I just blew it off because it was an old house and who knew why they did the things they did."

  "Why did you think it was odd?" Mary studied the closet door trying to see....sense what Addie had.

  "I'm not certain," she shrugged at Mary's questioning glance. "Well, maybe it was the size of the door. I now that sounds stupid but I couldn't get past why they wouldn't use the same kind of door for a closet that they used for the other rooms."

  "Of course." Now she could see it. The difference in size...proportions. "But ..." she waved her hands toward the bedroom gesturing in the direction Addie had first taken when she was so obviously pacing off the distance from the closet to the next doorway.

  "Maybe it's nothing..." but she was betting otherwise.

  "Go on," Mary encouraged.

  "When I count off the steps to the bedroom door I come up with seventeen." She took another breath and tried to contain her excitement. "But when I counted the same on the inside of the room to the wall it stops at thirteen feet." She looked up into Mary's eyes and saw the tentative thoughtfulness of someone trying hard not to get their hopes up to much. "It was the same thing going down to that bedroom," she gestured down in the opposite direction.

  "So the walls in each of the bedrooms are about four feet from where the closet wall is." As Mary spoke she paced off the four feet in the direction Addie had first gone. When she turned she saw Addie had done the same going the other way.

  "That's an awful lot of space for someone to have just messed up," Addie said eventually from where she stood.

  Mary could only nod her head. When she did speak it was directed to Addie. "You are a genius."

  "You would have found it eventually," Addie offered but privately was thrilled with the quietly stated praise. Nothing could have meant more to her.

  "Probably not," Mary countered. "I was looking for a door. You were looking for a space." She shook her head in wonder. "I wouldn't have found this. I'm still not certain what we've found." She ran her fingers along the edge of the door wondering how to get beyond it.

  "Maybe the opening has been covered up," Addie offered slowly.

  "Maybe," Mary agreed. But now she did have a feeling. A strong one. Maybe, she thought, but maybe not. "She would've wanted us to find it."

  Addie agreed silently. "Maybe someone else closed it up after she died."

  Mary nodded her head in agreement. It was possible. But she couldn't help but wonder. "Maybe. But I would think instead of closing space like that up someone would turn it into closets or something. Neither room has a closet." She closed her eyes, pushed for what seemed to be hovering on the very edge of her consciousness.

  "It would have to be easy," Addie thought out loud, thinking of an older woman having to get into whatever this was. "But not obvious."

  "No," Mary agreed simply to Addie’s last statement. She opened the closet door and gazed inside. With a sigh she reached out and pressed on the back of the closet wall. When she heard the slightest clicking noise she turned toward Addie. Without a word she placed her hands alongside Mary's and pressed with her. Within moments the entire back wall, shelves and all, swung aside allowing entrance to the dark space behind it. Mary and Addie literally clung to each other stunned.

  "That was easy all right," Addie sputtered out on a wave of laughter. "How did you know?"

  "I’m not really certain.” Mary reached over blindly to grab Addie's hand. She wasn't certain whether it was to keep her standing upright or to provide her with a connection to reality. "I just suddenly knew and I have no idea how."

  "Hey," Addie leaned over so she could wrap her free hand around Mary. "It's cool." She laughed again feeling giddy with the wonder of it. "I mean, this is really cool." She threw her other arm around Mary and jumped up and down like a ten-year-old as she hugged her. And just as suddenly she stepped back. Grabbed Mary's hand again and tugged. "Come on. Let's check this out."

  "I need to call your aunt and Casey first." Mary felt calmer after the juvenile expression of exhilaration. "And Aunt Charlie," she said as she fumbled blindly into her pocket for her phone.

  "Okay." The single word was drawn out slowly. Addie struggled not to sound like she was pouting. But it was there. "Do we have to wait for them?" Addie really wanted to explore their unexpected discovery.

  Mary stopped in mid-dial, she heard the frustration of impending disappointment. If she was honest with herself she didn't want to wait either. "No." She smiled conspiratorially at her partner in this little quest. Or whatever one could call it. "But I need to let them know." She continued dialing even as she shot Addie another knowing smile. "Then we'll check it out."

  Addie listened to her leave a message for her aunt then make drawn out explanations to Casey who was obviously excited and asking numerous questions even as she did whatever she needed so she could come over right away. Finally when she closed the phone Addie looked at her, waiting for her to make the first move. She wanted to scream when Mary started digging through her suitcase size purse.

  "We need light, sweetie." Mary didn't try to hold back the smile. "Casey thinks we'll have to wait for her since she's bringing flashlights." Mary shot Addie another big smile as she held up the small flashlight that normally sat buried at the bottom of her purse.

  "Cool." Addie smiled back, "How bright is it?"

  "Bright enough. It's one of those LED things. My husband gave it to me for my last birthday."

  "Odd birthday gift."

  "Not when you get to know my husband," Mary said with soft laughter in her voice. She took Addie's hand. "Let's go."

  With a deep breath Addie took those first steps into the hazy darkness of the small room beyond. "There's a window." She gulped down her excitement. "That's a window," she moved without thought to the back wall and pulled on the rickety wooden shutters covering the windows. The only thing that signaled a window even existed and what blocked the outside light was the thin line of sunlight shining through the wooden slats of the shutters. Though old and worn they opened easily letting in enough light to make Mary's flashlight unnecessary. At Mary's gasp Addie turned around quickly to see what had cause that reaction in the calmest woman she had ever known next to her aunt. "Wow!"

  "Ditto," Mary said weakly. Completely overwhelmed by what she saw. Not even what they'd found in her home, in the Marshall Street house, could have prepared her for this.

  Before them, surrounding them, were shelves filled with books intermingled with shelves of bottles containing powders, liquids, and aging leaves brown with age, all as they had been left long ago. As Mary turned she saw that the room included a small space on each side of the shallow closet that made up the missing space in the connecting rooms that Addie had discovered. There were more shelves there on one side with numerous bottles and jars holding who knew what. On the other side was an old desk with papers and pens scattered across its surface. A small lamp. She slowly walked the few steps it took to reach the desk then reached out her hand to tug gently on the chain hanging down from the lamp. The light flickered at first then steadied out to a gentle glow that did little to light the room but glowed brightly on the papers strewn below it. She settled in the chair heedless of the dust no doubt covering it. Gently lifted one of the many sheets of paper closer to her so she could read its contents.

  "What is it?" Addie edged closer. She could still hear her heart pounding. She'd heard the story of how they had found the secret rooms at Mary's and her Aunt Carrie's house. But this was different. Somehow she just knew this was different.

  "I'm not certain," Mary answered. She shifted the paper so Addie could see it as well from where she stood behind her. The writing was hard to read and beginning
to fade. But there were words that she recognized that jumped out at her. "But I think it might be her notes on..."

  Before she could finish Addie jumped in. "Herbals. She was an herbalist," she said softly in awe.

  "Something like that," Mary agreed quietly. Shifting her gaze back to the shelves that surrounded them. The many tightly lidded jars were now beginning to make more sense. And something else came to her mind. "Her mother was a midwife," she breathed out barely loud enough for Addie to hear. But she did.

  "How do you know?"

  "It was in some of the journals and letters we found up in my attic. There wasn't anything specific, just that she knew how to mix herbs and could heal almost any illness. That many who suffered injuries survived because of her knowledge."

  Addie followed Mary's gaze. "I think this is all the specifics," she said wryly.

  "I think you're right," Mary agreed calmly even as she removed her phone from her pocket where she'd slipped it after making her quick calls to her cousins. This time she wanted to make sure they were both on their way over here. Minutes later she slipped it back in. "Casey is almost here. Your Aunt Carrie got my message earlier when she was still at the clinic with Wes and Beth so they're all on their way." As she spoke she heard the sound of steps on the stairway. Carrie walked in slowly followed by Beth and then Wes. Mary kept her eye on Beth worried that the little she felt would be so much more so for the younger woman. Talent or curse, however one viewed it, the feelings, the intensity of long gone memories were strong in this room. She rose quickly to walk to her when she saw Beth's eyes go wide and she stopped where she stood just inside the doorway.

  "Beth." Mary took one of her trembling hands in her own then slipped her arm around her waist alerting Wes who turned and immediately took Beth's other hand in his.

  "I'm okay." Beth squeezed Wes's hand letting him know it for truth. "I just wasn't prepared."

  "Do you need to leave?" Casey walked in behind them glancing around and grasping the situation quickly. "We can go through it later."

  "No." Beth walked further into the room. "There's nothing evil here now. But there is a terrible and painful flood of what was. And some of it from long ago was very evil." She looked around, took in the huge, thick volumes, books older she suspected than all of them together and then some. She gestured to them with a gentle wave of her hand. "These contain the knowledge of many lifetimes. Some lived very short lives because they were branded witch and worse." She sighed, a gentle sound filled with sadness. "Their greatest crime was the desire to heal. And when they did they were found guilty of either possessing too much knowledge or too little purity." She looked up into her aunt's face and saw there an understanding that made the agony of centuries upon centuries of pain easier to bear. "This is who we come from."

  "We were always meant to find this," Mary said gently. Her belief in that knowledge stronger than anything she could express. She didn't know where it came from but it was there.

  "Yes." Beth looked around. She closed her eyes. Let the memories still ever present in the room flow around her...through her. "She was ill the last time she was here. She knew it and was certain that the daughters of her daughter's daughters would be those who would someday return. So many were leaving. Others simply didn't believe. Or chose not to. There had to be distance but not so much that the strength of the knowledge was lost." She opened her eyes again. Looked at her aunt and the other two who were the daughters she had sensed in the foresight of the last woman of this family to have stood here. "If it is denied it is lost. Only through acceptance can it be felt and strengthened." She took a deep breath, the flood of memories in this room on the whole were overwhelming but those closest to them in time were especially difficult. A mother's grief. Nothing was worse. "Her daughter did not believe, would not accept. Did not allow her daughters to. All she could do was look to the future and believe in what she saw. That the three daughters of three daughters would be the hope that she couldn't see in her own lifetime. She did what she could to leave them what they needed." Beth slowly lifted her arms, spread her hands in a gentle wave that sent a flow of air around the room, a gentle breeze that lifted dust and poured light to shine ever so gently so that the dusty bindings of the volumes, decades and centuries old now, glowed brightly with gold and silver lettering. Ornate and simple. Old and even older. "Here within this room is held the knowledge of centuries of women, all healers, all more intelligent than the men of their times allowed for. Many paid for that knowledge with their lives." She closed her eyes again, reaching for each bit of what seemed to flow towards and within her instead of closing it off as she had spent a lifetime doing. "And in all the books found where all knew were but only two bothered to look. Look behind the obvious for what you're meant to know."

  "Your attic," Casey said on a shaky breath as she looked away from her niece to her cousin. "The room in the attic that the two of us found."

  Mary nodded in agreement even as she moved towards Beth again. "Are you okay, honey?"

  "I am," she took the hand offered. "Really I am." But she gently slipped her hand from Mary's and walked back to Wes, leaned into him. Found the calm there she always did. "It's very strong in here. I think when you begin to go through all these books you will find stories of their lives and the knowledge they gathered." She looked at them, knew and understood their awe. "I think that in recent generations, at least recent to her," she gestured towards the desk used by the last woman to have studied these vast volumes of knowledge. "I think they began to gather and condense the information into separate books." She looked around, felt the power that came from knowledge that far too many for far too long had named evil. "But they never destroyed any of these books for fear that something might have been missed, something important that could not be lost." She looked sadly at the eyes that watched her and she knew worried for her. "Some of these volumes kept by your ancestors end abruptly," she sighed at what could not be changed. "As did their lives."

  "Your ancestors as well, Beth," Carrie said gently.

  "Yes." How did she explain she could feel them? What it meant that she could. Feel their acceptance into a family she was only just beginning to feel a part of. Their deepest need that she guide these three women standing in front of her to accept what their mothers and grandmother did not or could not. She heard the steps pounding up the stairs. Felt the understanding in Wes as he moved a step away so she could turn as he rushed into the room. Lifted her into his arms in an embrace that filled her with strength and love. "Daddy." She breathed quietly as she let her face find comfort in the warmth of his neck as if she was still ten. But she wasn't. And struggled to find her own strength.

  "You only call me that when you're upset," he accused her gruffly..quietly so no one else heard.

  "I forget myself," Beth tried to tease. But she heard in his voice for the first time what it meant to him. And how much it hurt when she didn't regardless of how he said otherwise time and time again.

  "I'm sure you do," Jake said as he set her away from him. Satisfied she was okay now that he'd seen so for himself. He'd had a terrifying moment of concern that had hit him like a ton of bricks. The drive over here had been a harrowing one, knowing she was here without knowing why. That he had made it in one piece said much for the luck of the Gods over the stupid.

  "I'm okay," Beth reassured him. And it was true. Really true this time after his arrival. She'd known he was coming. Had held on to it. "There is so much here, so much left over of so many lives." She shrugged, not certain how to explain. "I don't even have to try to feel it, it’s all so strong. None of it is bad, there is no evil here at all in this time." She looked around the room at all of them. "But there was evil done to too many who left their words behind in all these books for you. And that is here." She closed her eyes on the grief that wavered, let her head fall forward. "Their sorrow still lives even though they don't."

  "Hell," Jake looked around the room, not certain what all she referred to. Yet
there was something. "Whatever it is even I can feel it."

  Beth looked at her father. She could feel something different in the air.

  "Beth?" Mary knew something had shifted she just wasn't certain what.

  "He shouldn't." Beth finally said. There was more but she wasn't certain what. At the silence she went further. "It goes through the daughters."

  "Okay..." Casey was worried about the lack of color in her niece's face. "I can attest to the fact he is not a daughter. I know this personally because I once hid in the bathroom when he was in the shower." At the silence that brought she felt compelled to add more. "I was a very enterprising six-year-old." She caught the numerous looks sent in her direction. She shrugged negligently. "I was bored. I flushed the toilet, turned the cold water at the sink on, then ran out and left the door open." At the continuing looks of confusion she elaborated further than she'd planned. "It was an old house. If you used more than any one thing that needed hot water, like the shower, you lost it pretty quickly. His hot shower got really cold and with the door wide open he was in something of a conundrum."

  Carrie flicked Jake an understanding look. "Obviously your household was as entertaining as mine."

  "More so," he agreed but couldn't hold it against his sister at the moment since he saw and understood her intention to move the subject beyond this room including moving Beth out of it which she was quickly and adeptly doing. But they still had no clue why he was feeling what according to his daughter no man of the family had...or should.