Greenbriar Manor

You Can't Go Home Again or Can You?

Brittany's dad woke up in his hotel room with a fever and a strange feeling he was forgetting something. Since he had come back from the Manor things had been like a hazy dream. That strange woman had been on his mind at the strangest times: on the street corner, in the hotel lobby, in his rearview mirror. It was like she was haunting him ever since the accident with wrecking crew all those weeks ago. He felt that the woman was some memory he had long forgotten. A figment of his issues with authority a psychologist would likely say. He wondered if it was all the salty food and stress he had endured since coming back to Vermont. Green Briar was the sanctuary and this was the Secluded house of a family recluse. Webs and worry lived in thoae walls instead of well meaning maids and old childrens stories. 

His mother had gotten him out of a jam but strangely he had not been able to reach her again. He thought of when they lived in the apartment above the psychologist who owned the house he had to weasel and gravel over his uncle to get for his own family, Not that he had one of those anymore. He remembered long ago how the tiny guest house held them in all the ways that his mother never did and he sighed. All her clout and all her secrets would never keep him safe. He had gotten the piece of his inheritance but Brittany would soon learn exactly what she was made of--if places could talk that old house was a tomb and he was the undertaker in a thousand dollar sharkskin suit. 

Vera had been kind to his mother and all the other Greens's but his father was an enigma. One as shifty as a shark. Daniel had tried to take Jeffrey multiple times as he grew up and raise him properly away from stardom and strange people. But oceans of deep blue sea seperated him from Vermont and the other family home. Jeffrey had begun to understand the only way you get anything worthwhile is doing everything you can to never be known completely. He had three names. Even his own mother had forgotten his birth name after so many years on the road. Salem had lost everything and yet when he had a daughter she had strangely waltzed back in and taken charge. Her own mother not good enough tor social graces or respect. Left behind somewhere on the way here. Sometimes, he thought he could still hear her and he wished he had never come calling for his mother's help. He realized quickly that there was a space between now that Brittany would never be able to overcome. Where a parent wanders out into the world and doesn't return to pick up their child from daycare or summer camp or college. He had lived that all his life. Now he had made Brittany feel that pain. His mother had called and told him they were leaving going back to Nova Scotia. Without him. That the house he had sold everything to preserve was unlivable. She had taken Brittany to stay with a friend for a while. That he was not to call her again until he had gotten his life together. He knew his mother was right with her white hot searing spirit like a scalpel. Brittany needed something he could never give her. A woman's strength and grace. Mother had that in spades she was a ballerina afterall. 

But what Jeffrey had forgotten was that the woman was real. Long ago in the library at Vera's house he had ran into the kitchen with wet sneakers and tracked mud all over her house. Even though Vera always loved Jeffrey the old woman grew angry. She stalked after the boy with something not going to harm him just scare him. A rolling pin. As punishment he was made to roll out dough for her next party. Fifty sheets of almond dough. He remembered the cookies at the Manor the evening before Jake was sick and he left to return. That strange woman was there at the edge of the thicket waiting and watching for someone to mess up.  Salem alone knew the truth about Myrna's dark moods but she also knew that she was the strongest of them all. Salem's time had come to return to the dark cold place. She had left her son a scournful message this time she had only lied enough to protect Brittany. Vera and her had a deal. When the summer crested the trees she would come calling for her granddaughter and take Brittany to another place on that strange bus of hers. Unlike the rest of the Greene's she would never be in one solitary house where there would be long buried secrets. She had taken the bunny with her. No use in her granddaughter finding out all of See See's ancient history. She worried that Mabel had already thanks to that pestulent author lurking around the old Manor. When one Greene leaves another comes home. Soon Daniel would finally have to leave for the last time. Fran would stay as long as she was welcome. But the Grey boy would outstay them all. For Brooklyn held that Manor in his very heart and nothing could break its spell over him. She had watched all of the siblings and cousins grow and go away. Some returning others never again. She had not expected  Susan to bring Mabel. She had hated Vera's house in Vermont. After she saw Bridgette in the mirror it had taken years of therapy to erase those green oily fingerprints and the sound of the music at dusk. That old house was one were horrors were made. Green Briar only looked that way. But it had its own secrets too. One worked with those who were young and the other old. Someday, one of the townsfolk would come calling and find out something more than just dusty books and old architectural bones. She knew that Mabel like Chessie had a very special light and gift. One that they could not squelch. Fern was stronger than her mother and it made Salem's stomach roll with contempt. She could not believe that they still lived on the land cared for by her bleeding heart of a brother. What would people say if they came to see the horse and found a strange rickety shack at the edge of the property with brooding children and an absent mother. Or worse nothing there at all but a washtub and a grimy window and water pump. she wondered what Mabel's gift was. All the Greenes and Grey's had them. She only knew that child was the antithesis to Mari's brooding. A child full to the brim with light and no cunning. Just like Chessie. Dangerous in every way. She also had known Vee who they believed to be her. While she had been keeping watch all those years dark and cold. Waiting. Vera had met her granddaughter one strange day and everything had changed. Bridgette had returned home but Mari still had not found her and as long as it stayed that way no crossing cousin of hers would tip the scales. She waited on the platform for the train to come and she boarded it knowing that the next time she saw Brittany she would be older and wiser. Jeffrey would wander just like her twin brothers and never return but at least the house and land was hers. The portal too under a tree in the yard connecting the future to the past. She hoped she had made the right decision.