Greenbriar Manor

Bridges and Beckoning Calls

Daniel had been waiting a very long time for Chessie to return. Almost as long as Mari and Vera had waited for Bridgette. Fern alone knew the truths of the Grey's and Greene's careful relationship. Brooklyn suspected but he had spent a long time trying to outrun the truth and keep all the family safe and sound. Time did not heal all things but the house had a system. One that he hoped would soon bring Brooklyn's father home. He always wondered why their family had never been whole. Maybe it was the desire for success more than secure love that ended them all in tragedy. Maybe it was the way that the Manor itself was steeped in a grave secret and someone of the Grey's would always be lost to the place. They were protected and loved but the peace he sought would only come when Daniel passed on his secrets to someone else. He smiled thinking of the house in Vermont. His sister had gotten her wish. A piece of the family fortune. But there was always a price for fame. For every good turn there was someone who must make a sacrifice. Salem had not counted on this when she had left for Paris or for the tiny mischivous little girl she brought here. Vermont held even deeper secrets than the Briar. Vera's mother had been a cold and calculated woman. When she visited before the summer of the recital she had taken an instant liking to Salem. Especially when she found out that she was a dancer in training. She was supposed to go to the Manor with Bridgette but at the last minute she made a grave error in judgment. Her angry sullen impetuous spirit left Lorna without a source of security. Their mother fearing for the child's station in the world had sent her instead and the cook's daughter in Salem's place. Two wards and a cousin full of natural talent went to Vermont to see Vera that summer and only one of them returned. Vera's mother was vexed when Salem had not arrived. She wrote angry letters. She worked with her niece to ensure that at the end of the summer Vera would win a place in the world. She gave the Grey child work at the Manor and the other girl never competed at all. Bridgette was gifted but she was between Myrna and the real desire of her heart--fame. Vera grew up to be well known and well respected but she was never talented like her cousins. As for the other girls--The cook's daughter had married and moved away. They presumed the same for Bridgette. Lorna came home and never spoke of the recital and eventually left for the house over the ridge and never wanted anything to do with the piano room again. Daniel wondered silently until Chessie began her stories and soon the truth was as red as ink on Salem's hands. Unbeknownst to any of them Salem had been secretly writing Myrna for years after Bridgette left. so, when she was old enough she left with a steamer trunk and a boy who also danced. But Salem had changed course at the last bus station she had not flown to meet her lover as planned. Vera had said that one strange October day she had arrived with a hurting ankle and stayed with her mother through the night in the sitting room talking in hushed whispers and rolling out almond scented dough. They had bonded over a need to leave their mark on the world and would like the eels and sharks of the giant endless sea conquer anything or anyone that got in their way.

Chessie had begun to unravel the threads of the Greene legacy. Her friend being more like a sister than her own flesh and blood. Only Daniel had any time for Salem and her frilly self important postcards. Every generation here born and raised at Greenbriar had one best kept secret. Fran's was that desk in her bedroom. Vera's the tea cakes at dusk. Bridgette's the tree that Brittany walked under that October day. Brooklyn's something he did not want to remember and a horse he could never reclaim. Mari's a doll that she could not fully see. Mack's a song he would never play again. Fern a meeting with a strange woman in a tea room that gave her a piece of a very old story one her own mother refused to tell. Obligation looks very much like protection when given a pretty dust jacket. He suspected that Mabel would soon be knee deep in secrets and Brittany would be wading in Salem's mess in Vermont. He was right. 

In the attic Mabel still dug to the back of the musty and dusty linen closet behind the bar mops was a tiny wooden box with a shiny pearl on the top. It looked like a candy dish. She opened it and inside was a tea towel. The smell of the musty cloth was acrid like moss. She coughed when she took it out. There was a large stain. Underneath it were other clean but dusty towels tied with string. She undid each one. Each had a drawing on the edge. A butterfly. A bunny. A bear. A dog. A narwhal. A bee. A cat. She unrolled the first two towels and realized they held a story. The first was scary and dark. All claws and torn wings. The second was about a strange little doll who gave its owner a special ability to see through the darkest storms. She began to notice that every story gave a clue at the bottom. She turned over the first ink splattered towel in her hands. Her stomach grumbled and she felt sick. Something fell out of it. A tiny piece of paper. An invitation on one side in green filigree to a piano recital and on the other a child's scrawling handwriting a strange cryptic message, "She gave me this narwhal heart. My horn is my crown. I am the hare fast and furious when cornered. I have been left behind but I only did what I had to do. No one will help me so I must help myself." She thought of Brittany and her bunny and that strange book of narwhal stories she carried around. Who was this other little girl? Why was she so angry? What she did not see was the look on Mack's face as he realized the handwriting on the envelope and noticed that the same ribbon tying that one story closed was the same as the ribbon Mari had found by the stream shortly before Brittany arrived. Somehow, he had a feeling that her See See or Vee knew much more than they were revealing. His mom would know what this meant. He took the dirty tea towel and placed it in the desk his mother had maybe this would open up a chance for him and his cousin to talk about what had become of their friend and her strange father. He wondered where Fern had gotten to as she was not in the library today. Brooklyn was in the stable brushing the horse. Mari as usual was in the house waiting for the man to return.She had a gift for him. She had been painting and wittling a tiny horse out of balsm wood. this one had no broken leg. Maybe it would bring them luck. Jake had healed well but Ingrim still was not quite himself, She noticed he looked out the window more and wanted to play with kids from school instead of her brother. Brooklyn needed a friend and maybe so did she. She went to find that Mabel girl and she saw her feet coming down the ladder to the attic. She had something in her hand. A green ribbon. Mack also was coming down the attic ladder behind her. He had a green invitation in his hands one she knew by heart. Where in the world had they found that? She watched as he took it to Fran's room and shut the door. She waited until he left the hallway before she snuck in and opened the drawer. Bridgette's recital. She turned it over. The strange writing swirled and blurred as she tried to read it. She put it back and quietly went to the treehouse. She pulled out the doll she had carried all her life. But what she did not notice was that the porcelian on its ankle was chipped as well as the face singed and malformed. She saw only beauty and she brushed her hair. Mari had played in this treehouse many evenings just like this. She heard the low rumbled of thunder. She started to go home but then she remembered her mother was away again viisting the man in the hispital. Daniel would not tell her anymore about his condition and she was too young to go on her own. She hoped one day he would return if not for her for her brother's future and the horse who liked him so much. She thought of her mother and drifted off to sleep. A fitful dream of falling and she woke up covered in leaves in front of the Grey house. She must have taken a walk home and not remembered it. She had noticed this seemed to happen everytime she found her doll. Brooklyn stood watching her and wiped a tear from his eyes. One day Mari would be able to read and to remember and then it would be up to her what she did--would she stay or go? 

In Vermont, Brittany had begun her strange instruction with Myrna. As the dusk had settled over the house things had seemed to turn into a strange and calming atmosphere like it had been when she was small. She missed her father and had no idea why he had not shown up yet to take her home. Then she realized that this was her home. What had See See done? Why was she suddenly not allowed to leave. She remembered that woman who had lived here when she was small. The strange plastic covering everything. Mournful dirges in the piano room and almond extract like they had made at the house the last night before Ingrim went into the hospital. Her mom had blamed all their bad turns on her See See and somehow as she sat here in the dark old house she felt like they might be right. Narwhal's horns are their crowns. But all she wanted was her bunny and a hug from her father. She almost wished she had never found that little girl at all and walked under the tree. If this was home she wanted to go back to Mabel's and have tea. She removed the tiny teaspoon from her pocket. A spoonful sweetens the bitterest bites her mom used to tell her when it was time to take her medicine. That was so long ago she had forgotten about it. A lady told her that something was wrong with it and that she would go live with daddy now. She boarded a plane with a woman in blue and arrived somewhere cold, Her dad wore sunglasses and a ballcap and hurriedly thanked the women. She never saw her mommy again. But it had all come down to this and See See had never forgotten her or led her astray. She would send no bitter medicine and she would never abandon her in an airport. She wrapped up in Vera;s old pink blanket and hummed that ballerina miusic See See showed her long ago in an empty house. 

Fern walked home by herself and she woke up her mother. She sat the invitation in front of her. Lorna's eyes grew large. She had hoped this day would come and yet dreaded it. She told her that there were things the Grey's had to keep safe and that linens were one of them. She told her that long ago Daniel had given them a place to grow and it was always so important that when something old and valuable and carefully loved is stained that someone cleans it before company arrives. She showed her how lemon juice lifts stains. She reminded her that some stains wont come out in the washroom with lye or even with dry cleaning chemicals. She said that is how the bond is with the Greene family. We wash out their stains and they make sure we always have a way to get through our day to day ups and downs. Daniel had been her friend for ages so had Chessie. Fern told her the strange story about the cat and the butterfly. Her mother listened and then a tear fell down her cheek. Who was the butterfly? She grabbed her hand and told her it was no one that she knew. She said that the stories Chessie had the power to pen would begin to show her things mysterious and magical but she must also be ready to let go of what she knew about herself, her home and her confidant. Briars pierce as they grow. No one who ever began to uncover the brambles beneath the beauty of that place remained. Soon Fern would understand why her mother named her after an unfurling shaded plant that nurtures. She had been given a task that was deeper and purer than any Grey before her. She and Mabel would become the keys to the next guests at the Manor. One photo and uncovered story at a time. 

At the hispital the man woke up. He saw a tiny gilr in a muslin gown holding a very work doll. He smiled at her and waved. She looked so much like his own little girl lost in a storm. He had called her Soli. Little sun. But he had no idea what would come for Martha after he left the Manor in search of less painful memories. This girl had never come to him in the night before. She sat there on the edge of his dreamy clouded spaces in his head. She opened her hand beaconing him to go down the hallway. But as he reached for her the loud beeping of a fire alarm woke him up and a nurse pushed his gurney down the hall and through a metal door. There had been a fire. Electrical. Third floor. Someone had been waiting to go home. They loaded him on an ems and drove him past the  farm hills to a large brick building--convelescence they called it. He asked where it was located and they told him Bear'sGlen. His eyes filled with tears he had crossed over the bridge into hsi childhood city. He was finally home. He had not returned here since the accident years ago that claimed his son. He thought of a soft black muzzle of a horse and the bang of a starting gun and his heart turned into a strange uneast rythm and then he felt peace as the EMT gave him medicine and covered him up nice and tight. He told him they would be sending him home as soon as he got good and ready. They had no idea he was already tehre.