Greenbriar Manor

Bygones, Ballgames and Best kept Secrets

Fifty Years Ago: 

When the manor was new there was a cook and her family that lived over the hill. They had a little girl named Marisol. Marisol and her brother Tad had been playmates for some of the younger Green children.  Marisol had especially been fond of Bridgette. So much so that she spent every day wandering the halls of the estate hoping to talk with her and play dolls. Their father Mario had made them a treehouse in a large Elm tree between their house and the manor. Tad spent hours up there reading and looking at Dodgers baseball cards with the other boys. It was a clubhouse of sorts. Marisol and the girls sometimes snuck up there also to play checkers and draw and playhouse with their dolls. The treehouse was very special. 

One summer Marisol and Bridgette received an invitation from a distant cousin to come and learn etiquette and other needful things for a few weeks. The cook Esmerelda was surprised that her daughter was invited along. She felt happy that Marisol would be included in a family event. So, she gladly let her go. They would go to a family estate on the East Coast and take piano lessons. At the end of the summer, there would be a recital and they all would go to see how the new little ladies had grown and matured.  The first few weeks, Marisol wrote her mother a lot. Every week she got a postcard from Bridgette. Then, mail got sparse. Until they received a shiny piece of paper to attend a recital. They boarded a train and went to the home of a distant cousin. The house was Victorian and drafty and there were many things covered over. Some rooms were locked tight. The woman of the house seemed preoccupied with her instruction especially hard on her daughter Vera. They seemed to practice for hours every evening. Marisol complained to her mother about the way that she was treated and how they had been promised a special party after the recital. Marisol's mother grew worried about her involvement and removed her from competing in a final recital. Some things between families needed to stay there. However, she did want to see Marisol play. So, in the early morning hours she watched her daughter play a very complex piece flawlessly on the piano in the Victorian house. The little girl Bridgette stared on in disbelief as she finished the piece and went to sit beside her mother. She smiled at Vera and at Marisol. She walked over to the little girl and held out a tiny square of white cake with green icing. she told her that when she won the cakes and her families honor, she would return to Briar Manor and continue to spend time with her friend. Even though she was going on the age where she must find a suitor. She really just wanted to be a little girl a while longer. 

Esmerelda returned to Green Briar with Marisol the day before the recital.  In a case was a tiny pink music box with a ballerina that spun when it opened. Vera's mother had sent it as a gift for all her hard work over the summer.  That night Tad was woken up by a strange tinkling noise. the music box was open and playing a melody beautiful but haunting.  Inside her suitcase was a doll with green eyes and dark hair just like Bridgette. He sat it on the windowsill and left the room. Marisol slept through the night but woke up with a start the next morning. Something was wrong. Tad had climbed the treehouse in the middle of the night. He had not yet come down.  she rolled over to see the doll staring at her, on her porcelain hands was a thick green substance. it looked like the icing from the cakes. 

Miles away, Bridgette prepared to compete against Vera. She was so ready to win affections for her house and her family. She played as hard as she ever had, and her cousin watched on in happiness. when she finished the piece, she walked to the vanity table and took the largest petite four piece of cake. The almond icing was slick but sweet.  Vera started playing and she faltered her first two bass notes. The room started to spin. she walked outside and laid down in front of the tree in the yard. She felt warm sun on her face and drifted into a dream of home.  but when she woke up she was back in the great room of the dark house in front of a vanity table. what had happened to Marisol and the Green's? where were her siblings? Oh yes...those cakes...that pretty mirror....she was where she needed to be right now. Her mother would send for her in a few days. Now, she was going to enjoy the time here. However, long the endless summer seemed...

Marisol played in the treehouse waiting for news from the recital.... Tad ran up the ladder with his baseball mit in his hands. Vera had won.... Bridgette had been invited to start a new school in the fall. She would be staying in the East. It startled her and she jumped. Tad lost his balance onto the tree and fell backwards. He landed in a pile of leaves and started laughing as his sister struggled down the ladder herself, Meanwhile, a signed ball and a doll were safely tucked away on an out shelf between some checkers, a dodger's card, a piece of sheet music lay next to a tiny yellow saucer with the letter M on it.  Marisol grew and so did the distance between her and the friend she spent a summer with...Tad crept into the treehouse alone at night to see the doll and wondered if Bridgette was ever going to show up again, he was getting lonely watching for fall and seeing his sister worry so much. The doll had a toy chest and inside it was a perfect piece of cake made from clay. He put it back and stretched out in the clubhouse waiting to hear his mother's voice from beyond the hill. Come home...come home...