Johanna's Secret Read online

  “Have a seat,” Billy gestures to the chair next to his. I see the glass on the small end table that separates the two. “Fancy a drink?” he offers. I shake my head, “No thank you.” Though it looks tempting. “So, you’re wanting a history lesson, are you?” he smiles. “You more interested in the one in the books, or the one in the walls?” Billy worked as a handyman for most of his life and was in and out of most of the homes in the town. So not only does he know the official history, but he’s heard a lot of what’s been said inside the homes too. I return his smile, amused at seeing him light up at the suggestion of sharing the town gossip. “Well, I just realized that I know very little about the town’s past. I picked up two books today at the bookstore on Harbour St. One’s about ghosts and the other is unsolved local mysteries.”

  “Why then, you’ll probably be reading about your carriage house,” he says. “I don’t have a carriage house,” I puzzle. “Not any more. But you did, many years ago, before I lived here. Remember I told you there was a fire, back in the 20s? Well, that fire was in the carriage house. Burned it clean to the ground.” I nod. I’d forgotten until now that he’d told me that. At the time, it hadn’t really concerned me. Houses had fires all the time, especially back then, with less efficient appliances and such. But now, my seemingly impromptu arson comment makes more sense. “Was anyone hurt?” “Nope. Stroke of luck. The family had an au pair. A nineteen year old girl, beautiful they say, came from France. She usually slept in the carriage house, but that night the parents had been visiting family out of town so Julienne, the au pair, slept in the house with the girls. A slumber party, as the young girls would call it these days.” “So when the parents got home their carriage house had burnt to the ground? They must have been so relieved that Julienne had been safely with the girls!” Billy takes a second before answering. I can almost see his brain working, thinking about how to phrase what he is about to say next. “Well, that’s the thing. They didn’t.” “They didn’t what?” I’m afraid I already know the answer. “Come home. They disappeared that night. Nobody ever saw them again.” “Oh no!” I can’t keep the emotion from my voice. This story is getting a bit spooky, considering that it centers around the house I am now living in.

  I can tell Billy wants to tell me more, despite the macabre turn the story is taking. “Much later, two bodies were found by the shore a couple of hours north of here, but they couldn’t confirm the identities. Back then, there was no DNA testing and all that fancy stuff.” “So what happened to Julienne and the girls?” “Nobody knows that either. They lived in the house for a little while. It was thought that Julienne didn’t know what to do, being only nineteen herself, and didn’t want to make too many changes for the girls at once. The four had gotten very close in the days after their mother and father vanished, and they clung to her like she was a third parent, or so it’s said. Then one day, they were all gone. Vanished just like their parents. When the police searched the house, there was no sign of any violence or break in, and there was no note or indication of where they may have gone. Years later, a stranger would turn up here or there, and it would be whispered for a while that she was one of the missing Sheffield girls, but if it was, she wasn’t talking. Technically, the case is still open, but I think people have given up. That was in 1926, and the girls were ten, eight, and four, so the youngest would be ninety-two now, if she were still alive. Julienne almost certainly has passed. She would have to be 107 to be alive today.”

  “That’s so awful,” I inhale, thinking of the three little girls. They were the same ages apart as me, Nan, and Cat. Suddenly I think of something. “Have you heard of an Edward Sharpe? He supposedly came over from Oxford to see an au pair named Julienne, and never returned to England. My sister’s studying at Oxford now and says it’s a rather famous story over there.” Billy looks thoughtful for a moment. “Yes, the name is familiar, but I don’t know much about him. Not much other than what you’ll read in the books.” I can tell from his tone that he isn’t fond of whatever it was that I’d ‘read in the books’.

  I try to mentally piece together what I know. A fire burnt down the carriage house where Julienne usually slept, but that night she happened to not be there. That same night, both parents disappeared after visiting family, and shortly after, Julienne and all three girls vanished into thin air. At some point, Edward Sharpe also fell off the face of the earth, although, since so little is known about him, perhaps he just moved and nobody knew who he was. I can’t yet consider the fact that he never returned suspicious. Were they all connected? Was it intentional – some scheme by the family to change identity? Or could the parents, in a moment of grief after hearing about the fire, perhaps thinking that their children were dead, jumped from the cliffs into the waters below. Maybe they were speeding home to see what had happened, taken a turn too sharply, and gone off the edge of the road and into the sea. But I don’t even know if the parents had heard about the fire, and no car had been found. And why had Edward Sharpe sailed all the way across the Atlantic Ocean for Julienne? Was it out of love? Out of hate - a jilted lover? Could he have set the fire, not knowing she wasn’t in the carriage house, and then disappeared? And what did it all have to do with the door in the spare room of the house. There’s a connection, I can feel it, but I have no idea what. Perhaps, given his former career, Billy might know about the home’s construction.

  “There’s a little door in the spare room of my house. It’s about the size of a crawl space, but it has a very ornate lock on it. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but I can’t get the lock open. It looks like it may require some type of key, in fact. The space sounded hollow when we – my sister and I – knocked on it, almost like a large laundry chute. Is this common in the houses around here?” Billy shakes his head. “I’ve wondered about that myself. No, I’ve not seen one in any house around here except yours. James, the father of those girls, was very handy, and my best guess is that he had it built, or built it himself, but for what purpose, I have no idea. Nobody knows where it leads either, believe me I’ve asked around. It’s like one of those staircases that leads nowhere,” he chuckles. “Far as I know, it’s been locked for almost a century now and try as they might, nobody’s found an outlet for it.” “And he definitely built it?” I ask. “I don’t have any great shots of that room from before they lived there, but that room’s in the background of a few, and I can’t make out anything that looks like that door,” he shakes his head again, and I can tell he is as puzzled as I am. “Hmm,” I muse. I don’t tell him about Nan’s attraction to the door. I don’t know Billy all that well yet, and I don’t want him to think his new tenant isn’t all there. “Well, thank you. You’ve been a huge help.” I sincerely mean it. I am more confused than I was before, but I also have more to work with. “Oh, one more thing. Did they ever identify those bodies, now that we have DNA testing?” “No,” his eyes look sad. “With nobody claiming them, there wasn’t much investigation. We don’t even know if they were from around here.” “Were they given a burial at least?” I’m curious as to why, if the case was still open, they wouldn’t have tried to determine the identity now. “Yes, in St. Peter’s cemetery about a mile up the road, just off Harbour St. It’s an old church and it’s where they bury the unknown around here.” The unknown? How many are there in this tiny town. And why here, instead of where they had washed up. The whole thing seems odd, but I don’t want to hound Billy with more questions. After all, I came in and took up his afternoon without much warning. “Thank you again.” “Any time!” Billy smiles and waves as I head out the door, his eyes crinkling at the corners making him look younger than his seventy plus years.

  I haven’t made it a block towards home when my phone buzzes with a text from Nan, “I’m starving!”. “Me too, I reply. “Want to meet on Harbour? We’ll grab a bite to eat, perhaps at a pub.” “Sure. Straight down the side street, right? How was your meeting with…. What’s his name?” “Billy, and it was good. Found
out some interesting information. And yes, straight down Colwick until you hit Harbour. I’ll meet you at that corner.” Despite the fact that she looks like she belongs in a fancy French restaurant, Nan has a weakness for pub food. To that end, so do I. Perhaps it’s my love of all things British that drags me into pubs and makes me order fried and fatty foods that I know I’ll regret. We joke about it often, how you’d better not let Nan and I loose in a pub, and people smile at our properly dressed selves gnawing on fish and chips like we’d better eat it before it gets away. This town had no shortage of them, with its British influence, and we decide to try the first one we come upon, for lack of willpower more than anything. We grab a seat at a high top near the bar.

  “So,” Nan says, eyeing me skeptically, “what’d you learn?” “Well, first I heard from Cat,” I tell her, explaining our online exchange. “Ok,” Nan nods. “So I asked Billy about it and he confirmed that it was Julienne who lived in the cottage.” “Well, that’s an interesting coincidence. Did Cat know that when she told you?” “No, but she knows I like unsolved mysteries and, with it being such a small town, figured it would be something I’d want to check out. But there’s more. Much more.” I tell her about the fire, the disappearances, and the door in the room she was staying in. “Ok that sounds a bit creepier. But you said nobody died, right?” “In the house? No, I confirmed that. That might spook even me,” I chuckle.

  Nan planned to leave the next morning to head back to Baltimore. Despite our differences and the fact that we didn’t always see eye to eye, I’m sad to see her go. I’ve lived on my own and away from home plenty, and I am making fast acquaintances, if not yet friends, in the town, but I’ve enjoyed her company. Besides that, I can’t escape the fact that I felt some connection between her and that door. It must just be that it’s in the room she’s staying in. She discovered it and showed an unusual interest in it, and perhaps I am just excited to share my curiosities, for once, with the sister closest in age to me. We head back early, just after dinner, knowing that Nan has an early morning and I have some writing to get done on my book.

  The book has nothing to do with the area, except that it’s set in a small town in New England, and I so far find the history here more alluring than anything I’ve written. Despite my love of history, my writings don’t lean that way. They are more character studies, focused on relationships between people. They aren’t nearly as dramatic as some of the historical fictions – often more historical than fiction – or mystery books I like to read. Instead, I use my passion for psychology as inspiration. I’d been a dual major, psychology and history, and in the end, psychology had won out when it came to choosing a career. Writing had been a hobby of mine for years – I’d kept a journal, occasionally had glimpses of characters in my head. I’d written short stories for the equivalent of change, really. I did it for the love of writing, not the money. Then one day in my daily journaling, characters came alive. I couldn’t stop them. They danced onto the pages day after day as if possessing my pen, and my journal became the first pieces of the first draft of my first ever novel. It happened all without plan. I don’t want to give these characters up, they are so special to me. And yet the history of this town has sunk its teeth into me within just forty-eight hours. Perhaps it’s meant to inspire me in some way I haven’t yet realized.

  I do a quick meditation. It’s amazing how ten minutes, used the right way, can clear your mind. “Night!” Nan calls to me from across the hall. “What time do you plan to leave in the morning?” I call back. “Probably around 7:30. I want to get an early start. You know how traffic is on 95.” I set my alarm accordingly. The lack of schedule is both a blessing and a curse for a writer. I often get struck by inspiration at 5 AM and I wake up writing feverishly. Other times, it’s a random thought here or there. When I was seeing patients I was on more of a schedule, but working remotely it’s tougher. I’ll be teaching some webinar classes, which I can record remotely, and have a contract to write two articles a week for various publications, but even those more fact and science based articles are inspired any time or place, and often without warning.

  My meditation is a deep one, and I sit down, giving myself an hour to write. It turns out to be closer to two, but I’m thankful I’ve come to a natural stopping point and can allow myself some rest. I wrote a bunch of articles ahead of time, knowing the first couple of weeks here may be chaotic, and my next webinar isn’t due for nearly a month.

  My alarm wakes me up, as does Nan’s knocking on the door. I open the door sleepily, which is unusual for me in the morning. “That door is creepy,” she blurts out. “Huh? What door?” I ask, still not completely awake. “The little one with the lock in my room.” I raise my eyebrows. She sounds much more like me, or even Cat, but not at all herself. “Creepy how?” I yawn despite my rapidly piquing interest. “It just is. I don’t know. I had all kinds of weird dreams about it,” she paused. “God, now I sound like you,” she adds, laughing, though I can tell something is still bothering her. “What kind of weird dreams?” “I don’t know, I rarely remember them. It was something about trying to find the exit, crawling in it, trying to find some sort of secret. It wasn’t creepy as in scary, just weird.” “Hmm, I’ll have to ask Billy about it. See if anyone else has had the same.” “Just try not to make me sound too new-agey. Anyways,” she says, making her best attempt to sound flippant, “Nothing some coffee and a chocolate croissant can’t fix. I spotted a café on my way to Harbour Street last night. I guess I don’t need that early of a start.” “Yeah, Jenna’s, right on Colwick. It’s a neighborhood favorite, I’m told.” “Great!” She threw her long brown hair up in a ponytail and headed downstairs. “I’m surprised the doorway ghosts didn’t scare you away,” I tease. “Oh, shut up,” she looks back smiling, sounding like the old Nan.

  “Can you tell me more about the dreams?” I ask Nan as soon as we sit down. “How’d I guess?” she answers, but she’s laughing. I am glad to see it. Nan’s always been the composed sister. To see her rattled had me, well, rattled as well. “It was more like flashes,” she say slowly. “It jumped around. First I was crawling through the space behind the door, and it was fun. Who knows, perhaps that’s reminiscent of us playing in the laundry chute like we were talking about…Woah did I just use the word reminiscent. God I am starting to sound like you.” “Slow down there on the big words, Nan.” I tease. “Ha, funny,” she smiles. “Anyway, in the next ‘scene’ I was looking for the outdoor entrance.” “How’d you know it had an outdoor entrance? How’d you know it had any other entrance?” I interrupt. “Good question. I don’t know. I guess in my dreams, it did. So maybe when you start searching for the other entrance, because I know you will be, you should start outside. Maybe it’s my subconscious sending a message, or whatever all that psycho-babble says,” she grins. The jab meter is now even. But secretly, I think she might be right, and she knows it. She’s also right that I’ll be looking outside for the other entrance at some point. “You said something about a secret?” I continue. She nods, “I remember locking that lock - must have figured out how to get that damn thing open - and saying “don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret.” “Who were you talking to?” “The three-headed cyclops….” she gives me a classic Nan look of mock frustration. “I don’t know. Nobody else was in the dream. Just me the whole time. Which is weird, you know how I hate to be alone.” Nan is nothing if not self-aware.

  I can see that the re-telling of the dream spooked her. I also know her almost as well as she knows herself, and if I let her sit there and sip her coffee and nibble at her chocolate croissant long enough, she’ll keep talking. Nan, for all she tries to be mysterious, loves the sound of her own voice too much to be quiet and demure for long, especially in the company of family. My phone buzzes. I’m about to let it be, but I see a message from Billy. “Found a bit more about your Mr. Sharpe. Stop by today for a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you.” I reply quickly while letting Nan silently pretend not t
o care about the dreams. “Great, can’t wait! I’ll come by this afternoon.”

  No sooner do I put my phone down then Nan starts to speak. “It was just kind of creepy that I knew so much about the door. I wish I’d seen how to get it open so that you could explore.” I bite my tongue from saying that I think she wants to explore it as much as I do. Nan may not be a history buff or believe in ghosts, but once she sets her mind to figuring something out, she won’t let it rest until she has, no matter what the subject matter. I see it all the time with her fashion design work. She’ll stay up all hours trying to perfect a wardrobe or get each minute detail of a show perfectly lined up, just as I do with my writing. That determination is one thing all three of us sisters, even free spirited Cat, have in common. “Well, just what you told me and what I’ve learned from Billy will be helpful,” I assure her. I don’t call her out on her own curiosity about it. Nan has an image of disinterest to protect, and I let her do it. “Considering that no other house has one, it’s likely the family’s father, James, built it for a specific purpose. Quite possibly something for himself. Though if it did lead outside… hmmm” I think out loud. “Perhaps an evacuation route for the family in case of emergency. Or it could have been something fun for the girls…. you said in your dream you were playing in there. But it does seem an extreme ‘toy’ to build.” Nan nods. “You said there was a carriage house right? Maybe it led there. Some sort of covered walkway for the servants. Was the family rich?” I thought for a minute. “That’s an interesting possibility. I’m not sure how the carriage house was used, except that the au pair slept there for the year or so that she stayed with them. You may be onto something.” Leave it to Nan to think of rich people and their servants. But I don’t discount her theory. Could there be a staircase behind that door? Could a covered walkway have burnt down along with the carriage house? I’ll have to ask Billy this afternoon. Nan smiles triumphantly, and I laugh. “Proud of yourself, are you? Don’t puff out your chest too much. I mean, more than it already is.” “Oh stop,” she fake swats me from across the table. All of us siblings are slender, but Nan got the Italian curves, while I look somewhat athletic, and Cat is just thin, though her vibrancy makes her seem much more of a physical presence than she actually is at five foot one and a hundred pounds soaking wet.