Chapter 70
I walk over to the basement door, not saying anything to Joan. She follows me, hobbling slightly, knowing that I’ve found something.
We walk down the creaking stairs and then veer left. My head is craned up, scanning the ceiling. It’s a mess of ventilation shafts, wires, cobwebs. It’s easy to see why I wouldn’t have noticed anything before. I didn’t know there was anything to look for.
But now I see it. In the area where I think it should be, there’s a panel of wooden boards forming a box. It’s not deep. Maybe eight inches, no more than ten. I know what it is immediately. It’s a hidden storage area. A place to hide things you don’t want others to find.
“Look,” I say, pointing up.
“What is it?” she asks.
“I think it’s like a homemade vault or something.”
We look at each other and both race back up the stairs. I grab the hammer from the mudroom and kneel down on the floor. I pry up the nail, grunting with the effort.
“Here, let me,” says Joan, taking the hammer. Her face clenches in concentration and a moment later, the nail comes out and clatters to the floor.
“Shit,” she mutters, looking up at me. “How will we get the others out?”
Joan’s right. This nail was rising, and we were at least able to grasp it with the hammer. But the other nails are firmly embedded in the wood. Damn this good craftsmanship.
“Fuck it,” I say, holding her gaze. “Just smash it.”
Joan smiles, a wicked gleam in her eyes, and she proceeds to smash the hell out of the floorboards. I can’t help but wonder if she’s imagining Madeline’s face each time the hammer falls.
Once she’s broken through, we carefully lift up the splintered boards and peer into the dark space below.
Inside, there is a thick layer of dust and a rectangular metal box with an old lock.
Joan pulls it out and sets it on the floor. She yanks on the lock, apparently hoping it might just break off with age.
“I could grab pliers?” she suggests.
“Wait,” I say and scurry back upstairs. I grab the keys from my underwear drawer and come back downstairs. My heart is beating fast.
“My uncle left me these,” I say. “But he didn’t say where they went. This one went to his desk.” I hold up the smaller of the two keys.
She gasps. “The hidden drawer.”
“Yes!” Then I stop and stare at her. “How’d you know about that?”
Joan flushes. “Yeah. Uh. I figured your uncle might have kept important documents in the library so I went through all the drawers one day when you were out.”
She gives an embarrassed laugh. “I even tried to pick the lock, like I’m a spy or something.”
“The paper clip?” I blink.
Joan flushes. “I’m so sorry. You must feel so violated. And I must look like such an idiot.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, you are much better with a hammer than you are with a paper clip.”
We stare at each other a moment longer, and then I start to laugh, in a crazed sort of way.
And then Joan is laughing too. Both of us kneel, clutching at our bellies, tears streaming down our cheeks.
Because everything is so absurd right now.
And, I think, because we are both so damn grateful to not be alone in this anymore.
When the laughter subsides, I hold up the older of the two keys. “This was in that drawer. I bet it goes to this box.”
I sit down and slide the key into the lock. I look up at Joan and she nods. I turn the key and it moves, a dull chink as it turns. I open the lid, hardly breathing. It clanks as it falls open. There is a waft of must.
“Holy shit,” Joan says.
Inside are two pieces of paper, yellowed with age.
The first is a newspaper article. The Green Mountain Herald from 1945.
The title and image, so familiar, it makes my breath inhale sharply.
“Bishop Girl Goes Missing and Is Found Alive.” There’s a grainy photo, the little girl’s face half shadowed, surrounded by adults, some leaning down to talk with her, others huddled, exchanging looks of relief and dismay.
Ten-year-old Mathilde Bishop has been found alive and well after spending nearly 24 hours in the woods of her family farm, known as Wildwood. According to Bishop, she followed a woman outside of her house and into the woods.
“She was beautiful,” Bishop said, not appearing to understand the danger she was in. “She told me to follow her and that the woods were safer.”
“It happened to my grandmother,” I whisper. “Oh my god, it happened to her too.”
I look at Joan and shake my head slightly, as this new piece of information slides into place.
It had happened to her. And then it happened to me.
And then I think of her letter. I know you don’t believe me about what happened to Elinor.
All this time, I’d thought she suspected Madeline.
But it wasn’t that after all. She thought I was being haunted, just as she had been.
“That’s why she thought it was cursed.”
Joan and I hold each other’s eyes for what feels like an eternity.
“What’s the other one?” Joan finally whispers.
I pick up the second piece of paper. It is yellow and feels older than anything I’ve ever touched. It seems to smell of age and history. Carefully, I unroll it.
There’s writing on it, the kind of elaborate scrawl I’d only ever seen on important historical documents, like pictures of the Declaration of Independence.
There’s also a drawing on it. It’s a map.
I squint at it more closely. There are property lines, markings for a road, and markings for a river.
In some innate way, I recognize the curve of the river, the distance of the river from the road.
It’s a property map of Newfield Village.
There’s a date in the corner. 1752. I knew it. I knew it.
I almost laugh, victoriously. But then I notice the details, the number of plots, the names and locations, and it makes my heart stop.
Newfield Village currently is essentially two properties.
With others scattered farther out. On this map, Newfield Village consists of many properties.
My eye scans the paper and I see names, many of which I recognize.
Clark. Garfield. Barrett. Smith. Proctor.
Lord. Abington. Brown. The hidden graves.
Amias Smith. Lavinia Brown. Hester Proctor.
Isaac Garfield. The current Brook property was divided then among several smaller plots.
One of the larger plots, which looks like it now contains the three Brook homes is labeled as D.
Clark. The plot belonging to an L. Brook lies next to it.
The plot of land where Wildwood should be is not labeled as Bishop.
It is labeled as J. Abington. But farther down the road, there is a property line.
This next property appears to be where the old foundation is now.
This property is labeled W. Bishop (Blacksmith).
I stare at it, dumbly, trying to make sense of it all.
This map contains so much. Proof that Newfield Village was settled in 1752, far earlier than everyone thinks.
Proof that the Brooks and Bishops were still there from the beginning.
But. It feels hard to breathe. I can almost feel Joan’s eyes on me, her turn to watch me crumble.
But. The Bishops didn’t live on Wildwood, just as the Brooks didn’t live on what is now Cold Brook Drive. So how did they acquire this land?
“Other people lived here first.” Joan’s voice startles me in the silence.
“So . . . so did the Brooks and Bishops buy the land from these other families?”
An agonizing pause. “Possibly.”
Our eyes meet, her expression of understanding, resignation, and futile hope matching what I know is etched across my own face.
“Have you ever seen a deed?” I ask.
She gives a small, almost imperceptible shake of the head. “You?”
“No,” I whisper, my mind navigating a labyrinth back through time.
Someone had mentioned a deed. Jean at the historical society.
When Newfield Village incorporated with Newfield, the Bishops and Brooks simply came to town and filed their own deeds.
They would have cut marks into trees with axes to declare their lines and town officials would have no reason to question their claims. Easy as that, Jean had said.
Easy as that.