Greenbriar Manor

Maps and Mayhem

The sun came up over the treetops early the next morning. The little girl danced in the house beyond the forest with her dog. She was waiting for her cousin. She had been waiting for such a long time. Her brother never let her play anymore. What else was she supposed to do? It wasn't fair that Brooklyn had friends and she had her dog. What could she do to get a little girl here? Desperately, she had written a letter and stuffed it in the library in an old book of horse stories. She knew sometimes that the townspeople would come and check them out. Maybe someone would wander in to Greenbriar and stay a while. Long enough for her to have friends like her brother. She had watched them from the shed. Playing catch and singing silly songs and pretending to be so many different things. Then night would descend and she would have the bad dream and wake up in the treehouse alone all over again. Brooklyn would come sit next to her until daylight and tussle her hair and remind her that tomorrow would be better. 

In the Attic there was a doll. A doll so old and worn it had half a face. A doll that held a secret in her stuffing. A doll that needed to stay hidden. 

Meanwhile, Fran started going through the library and the picture books in the cellar. She cataloged the books and their original owner. She found many things stuffed inside: pictures, postcards the occasional candy wrapper. She found a small slip of paper in one book on ponds and ornamental gardening. In very beautiful script read,  "Mill houses run full of rats and Mansions full of folly Give way to decay long after thoughts of mirth and jolly. For toils here are many still give not to the kin of greene in  music or the party lest you all go off your head to lose both wealth and leisure..sweet and dangeous the space between home and holiday. Go or stay will not be your choice one day the manor picks its tenders. There is but one recourse when here your spirit enters "  A cold chill went down her arms. Was that a warning? She turned the book over and noticed that it was owned and donated by Geneva Youngen. She would have to locate this woman and ask what she meant. Maybe the colorful neighbors were just trying to scare the new owners off the property. It was a landmark afterall. She knew that it had been in grave disrepair in stages for years except for the kitchen and library and quarters where the last remaining child had lived before her employer had bought it and refurbished it to as close to its original glory as they could without original maps of the property. They went off of a drawing that the eldest child had done before he left years ago. 

She thought about Bridgette her long lost cousin and how Vera had always talked about the saddest thing about her upbringing were summers on the "farm". She would hardly call this "roughing it". It was still a mansion. But, her grandma, Vera was obsessed with looking good and being a city born woman. Bridgette would have been older than her and taller. In the photo she had found she was thin and tall and tan. Nothing like her grandma had been even at so young and age. No wonder her great grandma had been so jealous and insistent that Vera find a mate first. Bridgette must have left something here she thought...What room would she have been in back then? There had to be a map. There had to be more that she did not know. Why did they send her away? Why didnt they go get her ? Letters must have come here after the recital something...even in those days there were some kind of record keeping. 

She aimed to find something about it even if she got scared. She had dreams every week of that girls face in the vanity. At 16, she had seen a secret and buried it. Shattered it. She did not want to look at the reflection of this place but she felt she would have to face herself soon enough. Like looking into the milky glass of the ancient vanity she hated, now blue and sitting in her bedroom. Who was that little girl she had seen and why had Brooklyn's mother not come calling after she sent him with dinner recently? As she put away a book about horses something rolled out of it on the floor. But she did not see it. In the hallway was a linen delivery girl, Fern, whose mother Eugenie owned the business she had come to deliver a tablecloth for the owner, and she didn't see anyone around, she didn't check the kitchen or the library but just as she rounded the hall to the foyer, she noticed a piece of light blue paper with roses on the edges. It looked pretty. She picked it up and looked around before opening it. 

It read:

"Hello, 

You must like horses too. My name is Marri and I live in this place just beyond the forest. I am looking for a friend as I have none and my mother homeschools me. There is no one here my age, 11 1/2, and my cousin moved away years ago. I have a dog and I lots of dollies. You can meet me for tea and cookies in the treehouse past the manner at 2 o clock if you would like but i cannot visit past sunset as my dog and mother get worried. I hope that you will come. I am so desiring a friend to stay here with me a while. I look forward to making your acquaintance.

 Best regards. 

 A friend" 

Beneath the letter was a hand drawn map of the house and the treehouse with an X drawn in large red ink. This is where to go. She had said.  Fern smiled all she had was 3 brothers and a goat at home and she did love horses and tea cookies. She would go into the woods and meet this girl 2 years younger than her for she also could use a friend maybe one that wouldn't go away like all the others had when they found out her mother was not well. Maybe she could find a home here away from her own. Her mom would like that her with a friend. She smiled and stuffed the map into her apron. 

As the brown car left the property Marisol watched it go. She felt the static on the air of something maybe hope.... the map would guide someone here to her and at last she would not have to wait anymore for someone to be her companion. As she watched Ingram and Brooklyn play cards in the treehouse from a limb of the sycamore across the pond, she thought maybe at last she would have no more lonely dreams. No fitful nights without mother or times where Bridgette returned but sick and sad. She would finally have the type of peace that Brooklyn had here with his new friends, and no one would be able to tell her she couldn't for this child had a desire to be young and happy as well. Just like Vera and Bridgette did and before long that desire would become as Greene as the glass in her doll's eyes. 

Brooklyn saw his sister spinning and laughing in the field before dusk and wondered what she had done this time...dusk came and she was gone home again and calling for him  and he went to seek her...