Greenbriar Manor

Libraries and Last Invitations

Fern woke up in the chair in the living room in their apartment clutching the picture that she had stolen from the library of the woman that looked so much like herself. A cup of cold tea set in front of her. The smell of almond cookies wafted in from the open window of the kitchen.She looked around for her mom but she was not there. It was almost noon. Maybe her mother had gone to the market. She could not remember anything she had done since last night's delivery.  She checked her pockets for her keys or a bus ticket and she found nothing but dry leaves and crumbs. Her shoulder ached but she didn't remember doing any needlework or laundry the night before. She didn't even remember coming home. She even was wearing the same dress.  She noticed that the hem of her dress was now stained red with the same dye that she now knew to be made from ferns in the thicket of woods between the treehouse and the Grey house. She thought about the words of the strange woman in Martha's house who thought she was her mother. Who was she? 

 She thought about all those strange pictures in the collections all over the house with the last numbers smudged so no one could tell exactly when they were taken that she had taken so much care to organize over the last yeat. A legacy project Daniel had called it. He was the one who had taught her that photographs were believed to hold onto bits of a memory or soul after everything else fell away. Houses had bones and Green Briar was a skeleton in some deep dark antique wardrobe just waiting for someone to happen upon it. It was a place of nightmares but also beauty and grace. Somehow, when she was there in the library, she often felt safe and brave. Even in the corners of the attic that no one else would venture. Except yesterday. There was something about that man's voice that frightened her. More than old stories and ill women with rolling pins, More than her mother getting frail and more than loneliness. She desperately needed Daniel to tell her what was going to happen next. Not just for her but for them all. She opened her backpack and out fell a tea towel stained with ink as she unfurled it she saw something flutter to the floor. She picked it up and turned it over. It was a very old off white library lending card. Every entry was used but one. The last name was Marisol Grey. The date stamp was smudged with a single red fingerprint. She remembered meeting her in the library after finding the book about horses several summers ago when they were lonely and wandering alone around a huge house. She remembered the flash in Mari's eyes when storms brewed. The way she was always twirling her dark hair around her pinky. The doll she carried that was always a little off putting with its dirty face. She turned inward and began to spend all her time in the library and treehouse. After Brittany and Mabel came the spirit of this place had changed. Brittany and her father had come in like a hurricane and Mabel had arrived and left in the storm. Mari had simply disappeared. One day Mari seemed to drift away. In truth, Mari was a mystery. She was there one day and the next it was as if she had never been there at all. Fern guessed that was the way that most childhood things passed by. Either disrupting everything with its changes or ebbing away so slightly that one day you wake up and it is there in front of you a mosaic of moments but none of them concrete--all fleeting away in mere blinks--like remembering a pleasant dream. 

Brooklyn had begun to annoy her with his skulking about. He was constantly present but his mood seemed to change with the seasons.At times he was focused on things so intensely she could not get him to speak and others he was so flitting about with work that he grabbed her hand and spoke in frantic tones about things she did not fully understand. Some times he was protective of her and the house and of Daniel and others he surveyed from a far with the little dog at his heels. Sometimes, he would turn odd and almost menacing if she made decisions he did not like.  She remembered his strange gaunt appearance and greasy hair and uneven smile when he had first brought her back here as if something was wrong but he never acknowledged it to anyone. How he never aged. How his ballcap never was switched for a modern one. How sometimes when you were at the Manor after sunset an hour could fade into midnight. How Fran and Vivien seemed oblivious to the changes in Mack and Ingrim's demeanor..