Ten Days at Federal Hill: Chapter Five

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Chapter Five: Cecil Gets Involved

Carla ran to the house and found her grandmother in the kitchen, knitting. Shamrock snored at her feet. The house was quiet and the kitchen smelled of roast beef and yeast rolls.

“Grandma Julia, have you seen Cecil?”

“Sweetheart, I haven’t seen much of anything for quite a few years,” she replied, “but no, he’s not in the house. Just me and Shamrock here this afternoon.”

Carla glanced down at the shiny black dog. She was lying on an oval rag rug. Another rag rug, thought Carla. Her heart leapt inside her, and a small gasp escaped her throat. Why hadn’t she noticed them before?

“What’s wrong, child? Has something upset you?”

Carla wanted to bolt from the door to find Cecil, but she hesitated. “Grandma, is that your rug that Shamrock sleeps on?”

“Well, I don’t know, Carla.” The woman leaned over to touch the rug. “I guess so. I’ve had it for years. I brought it with me when I moved here.”

“Is it the only one like that you have?”

“I think so,” the grandmother answered, but her voice quivered. She turned her face toward Carla, listening closely. “I’m not really sure. Why? Do you like it?”

Carla’s panic returned, and she only said, “I have to find Cecil. See you later!” And she was gone.

Cecil was swimming in the murky cow pond on the other side of the woods. Its banks were bright orange clay, and the water was a muddy green. A short, rickety dock jutted into the water. The boys took turns dashing the length of the dock and cannon-balling into the pond.

“Cecil!” Carla screamed, as she thrashed through the pine trees. “Cecil! Where are you?” She came suddenly into the bright sunshine and its glint on the water, and squinted. “Cecil!”

“What!?” he yelled back. “Carla, watch this!” And he hurdled off the dock and plunged into pond, splashing his sister.

She ran to the end of the dock. He swam far out, and when he finally came up for a breath, she called as loud as she could, “Come back!” She waved to him. “It’s important!” She jumped up and down on the dock, waving again and hollering, “Hurry!”

Cecil did not like being bossed by his sister, so he took his time swimming to shore. The red clay bank was a slimy, gooey mess to climb. By the time he reached Carla he was irritated and dirty.

“What d’you want? Good grief! I was just getting a good splash!”

She grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the other boys on the dock. “Cecil,” she began, but she didn’t know how to say it. “Cecil, something’s happened.” She gulped. “I mean, something’s happening. Julia’s been acting so strange --”

“Julia always acts strange.”

“No, no. I mean, she goes missing, and --”

“Carla, what’s wrong with you?”

“I’m telling you. It’s about the workhouse.”

“The workhouse!” Cecil’s voice lowered. He looked at her intently. “The workhouse? Here?” What do you mean?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Carla slowed down, trying to make sense of her own fears. “I saw a rug, Julia showed me this rug. It’s a rag rug from the workhouse! It’s one made by Celeste, I know it. She told me about her rugs. It’s hers!”

Cecil knew better than to doubt his sister’s opinions on matters so precise. “Okay. Okay, show me the rug.” He turned toward the house. “And what else? What’s bothering you about Julia?”

“Um, well, she’s actually really missing sometimes, not just hiding in a corner somewhere. And she puts all her stuff from her windowsill onto her bed. That was weird.” Carla tried to remember. “Oh! And there’s Grandmother.”

“Grandmother Julia? What’s she got to do with it?”

“We heard her talking the first night. She said the house wasn’t safe for kids.”

“Well, yeah, it’s not very kid friendly. That’s why we play outside so much.”

“No, it was more than that. Like it was a dangerous place for kids to live. Bad things might happen to them.”

“Okay ….”

“And Julia freaked out about the two ghost stories, and, well ….” Carla was running out of things to say. “And, and Shamrock. She and Shamrock both disappear.”

“She takes the dog somewhere?”

They were walking through the boxwood garden. Cecil ran his hand over the lady statue’s head. Carla saw it and remembered. “And this statue. She’s hidden underneath it before. That’s kind of creepy, right?”

Cecil stopped and looked at her. “Carla, calm down. You might be imagining things. Seriously – do you think Julia has been to the workhouse?” He whispered the word.

Carla could not respond. She led him past the house to the clerk’s office. The door scraped as before, and dust filtered from the ceiling.

“Julia?” she called. There was no answer.

“The rug’s over here, in the trunk,” Carla said. The dolls and blankets lay on the floor still, but the cups and saucers were gone. Carla lifted the lid of the trunk. She rifled through its contents. The rug was gone.

“It was here! Cecil, I promise, it was here.” She knelt a moment. “Actually, there were two, but I only noticed one. Julia must’ve taken them somewhere.” She jumped up. “I’ll ask Grandmother.”

Cecil was less and less willing to pursue this wild goose chase in his filthy bathing suit, but Carla made him come. This time Grandmother Julia was napping, her chin on her chest. Her gentle breathing whispered in the kitchen.

“Don’t wake her up!” Cecil warned, but Carla was already tapping her arm.

“Grandmother,” she said. “Grandmother!” Carla bent over the lady’s gray head.

“Yes? Carla! What’s wrong?” The old lady drifted back to reality. Carla’s nervous voice worried her.

“Have you seen Julia?”

“No. I’ve seen nobody since you were here a bit ago.” Grandmother slipped an arm around the girl. “What’s wrong with you today, Carla? You’re not usually this anxious. Has something happened?”

Julia looked down. “No, nothing.” She saw the rug again beneath her grandmother’s feet. “Grandma,” she began.

“Yes?”

“Can I borrow your rug for a minute?”

“My rug? Whatever for?”

“Um,” Carla was challenged again to explain herself. “I just want to show it to Cecil,” she said. “It reminds me of one I saw before. I just wanted to … to … show it to him.”

“Really? Another … well, certainly, child. Just shove Shamrock off of it.” And she scooted her feet over and gave the sleeping dog a gentle push. Carla lifted the small rug.

“Thanks so much. I’ll bring it right back.”

When Carla and Cecil inspected the rug, its stitching was the same as the one Carla had seen in the clerk’s office. The triple-stitch pattern was unmistakeable, and even Cecil began to wonder if somehow this rug had come from Celeste’s hand to Federal Hill. But how? How could their cousins’ home be connected to the Mortessen Workhouse? The thought baffled and terrified him. He and Carla sat on the kitchen stoop whispering.

“Did we ever find out what happened to the rugs from the workhouse?” he asked.

“I don’t remember exactly,” Carla replied. “They worked the kids hard, so I always assumed they made money off the rugs, sold them somewhere.”

“So maybe somehow a rug was sold in our world, and it came here.”

“Two came here.” Carla paused. “Well maybe three. There were two in the office, I think.”

“Yeah,” Cecil murmured. “Three. And all of them came to the Christopher family.”

“I don’t understand that,” said Carla. “What are the chances our house would be connected to the workhouse, and our cousins’ house would be too? I just don’t understand that at all.”

“I don’t either,” said Cecil. “But from what you’ve said, we’d better find Julia and start asking her some questions.

They searched for their little cousin the rest of the afternoon with increasing alarm. She was not in the clerk’s office. Carla showed Cecil the secret panel and the ladder upstairs. They called into the dark hole for her. They hunted the woods and searched the barns and gardens. They went through the house room by room quietly, so as not to worry the adults, although only their grandmother was in the house. Carla showed Cecil Julia’s alcove bed. And again, the contents of the windowsill were strewn across the covers, but the flashlight was not there.

Finally they decided to ask their aunt where Julia might be playing. But Aunt Velma wasn’t at home. When they inquired of their grandmother they discovered Aunt Velma had driven to the Lynchburg airport to meet Uncle Robert and wouldn’t be home until quite late, after they’d all gone to bed. She’d left Grandmother Julia in charge.

Upon hearing this, the brother and sister went back to the girls’ room dismayed.

“Grandmother’s in charge? A blind old lady?” Cecil ran his hands over his crew cut. He and Carla sat on the edge of Julia’s bed. “Okay, we have to think clearly. Maybe we should ask Teddy or Ben.”

“No. Let’s only tell them as a last resort,” she said. “They’ll just say she’s hiding again. She does it all the time, plus nobody notices her. She could be gone all day and nobody would care.”

Cecil looked quizzically at her. “Really?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I think it makes her sad.” Carla pulled her legs up on the bed. “This is really a cool place to sleep. She reads in here at night.” She looked out the window at the huge cedar tree. One side of it was aglow with the setting sun. “I wish I had a deep window like this,” she said. “I’d sit on the sill.”

She scooted over into the window box and tucked her legs beneath her on the sill. When she did, the boards under her made a strange, hollow sound.

“Oh!”

“What was that?” Cecil asked.

Carla moved her feet, and again a dull, hollow noise came from under her. The windowsill creaked and the boards moved.

“That’s not solid,” Cecil noted.

Carla slid from the window back onto the bed. The siblings looked at each other. Cecil put his hands under the lip of the sill and pulled. The entire deep windowsill lifted easily like a trap door. He raised it gingerly and leaned it against the window pane. A concealed hinge underneath kept it from slipping. There, right beside Julia’s bed – inside the alcove where she slept each night – was a large, dark secret passage descending straight down. Cecil picked up a pencil from the bed and dropped it into the hole. There was no sound at first, then a faint rattling, and then a distant clunk! as the pencil hit the bottom.

“This is where she’s been disappearing to,” Cecil said.

“This is where she is now,” Carla added.

“I wonder where …?” Cecil murmured.

(To continue to Chapter Six, click here.)

[Ten Days at Federal Hill and all its components are copyrighted by the author, M.K. Christiansen.]