Chapter 40 Unraveling
Unraveling
Lydia Brown
Kate comes to my cottage as soon as she returns. She’s got good news to share and it radiates off her skin. We settle on the sofa. “Tell me.”
“I got evicted from my cabin,” is how she starts and grins.
“Like we thought, Granny C moved into my old place. When I went there for my things, I saw tools that Birdie used. The singing bowls and tarot cards and the red porcelain bowl Eli saw. And the reason they survived was that they weren’t in her trailer at all.
They were somewhere else,” Kate looks impish. “But you already know the answer.”
“An underground room,” I state.
“Yep. We went inside the stone wall, and Granny C pushed a hidden lever on the center headstone and the ground opened up easy as pie. It looks similar to your moonshine room but older. Entering that room, I’d stepped back into the Middle Ages when scribes labored over writing desks.
The modern day falls away when you’re standing there.
It’s under Birdie’s graveyard, completely hidden.
It’s why Birdie wanted to be buried outside the wall. ”
“So you went underground and saw what?”
“It’s where she made her books and stored her witchy stuff.
And there were more books on wooden shelves than I could count.
Smaller rooms spun off from the main one that was at the intersection of three tunnels and held up with ancient timbers.
The floor isn’t packed dirt. It’s covered in slate tiles laid as tight as a jigsaw puzzle. It was made to last.”
“And nobody knew about this before?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible Granny C is the only living person who knew.
Maybe she learned about it when she was a girl.
Maybe when she came back she remembered.
At least that’s me filling in the blanks.
She wasn’t exactly forthcoming about those private things, but at least she let me see the room. ”
“This is a huge piece of the puzzle, isn’t it? To discover that a connected world exists hidden and safe. I’m reminded of one of the tales we were told about our haunted woods. That a coven of witches lived below ground. Even I thought it was a made-up ghost story.”
Kate sits back and looks proud. “What have we stumbled upon, Lydia? I feel like we’ve discovered a new planet in our solar system. An alternate world that’s out of place. Can we hope to do justice to Birdie’s mystery that keeps expanding?”
“We now know one thing: Birdie’s on our side now. We only have to be patient and thorough and not miss a clue.”