Ten Days at Federal Hill: Chapter Fourteen

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Chapter Fourteen: A Midnight Meeting

Cecil was first to enter the Assembly Room that night as the hallway clock chimed midnight. He was glad to be first. He’d successfully whispered to the girls after supper to meet him there, while leaving Abe out of the plan. Cecil didn’t want to tell Abe any more of their secrets, and the three cousins needed private time to explore the possibilities of this room. Cecil silently crept under the draped cord guarding the entrance, carefully opened one door, and slipped in. The latch clicked behind him.

At last Cecil had time to study the room to his satisfaction. An imposing fireplace dominated the far side of the room, but on either side a towering window with twelve panes per sash stretched nearly to the ceiling. Voluminous draperies hung to the floor, pooling in piles on the worn boards under the windows. Between the fireplace and each window was a tiny set of build-in shelves for knick-knacks. These shelves were crammed with all the strange objects that had fascinated Carla before. The upper shelves, far out of Cecil’s reach, lay behind glass doors. Above the shelves near the ceiling were paneled compartments with tiny key holes. Cecil gazed up at them and sighed.

On the far side of each window the bookshelves began, and they lined the rest of the room all the way around to the entrance doors. Not reaching clear to the ceiling, the bookshelves also allowed for small wooden compartments above them. Each small door had a tiny key hole. Cecil wondered where all these mysterious keys were, and what was hidden behind each door.

He heard a soft noise behind him. Julia came in, then Carla.

“Sorry we’re late,” his sister whispered. “Had to wait for Frances to start snoring.”

Faint moonlight shone on them as they stood in the center of the room. Their silence hung heavily in the musty air.

“Well?” whispered Julia.

“Okay,” Cecil whispered back. “Let’s look around, shift the books in the bookcases, look for hidden panels or passageways.” Julia cleared her throat.

“Don’t you think I’ve already done that?” she asked. “Months ago, when we first moved here.” She waved one arm around the moonlit darkness. “I’ve examined all these shelves.”

“Oh,” the cousins replied. They were impressed at their cousin’s depth.

“Then let’s sit down and talk about it,” Carla suggested. So they sat cross-legged on the floor beneath the dusty chandelier that twinkled a bit still when the moonlight touched it. “You know your house, but we know what we’ve experienced before.” She paused. “I mean, we know what it feels like and looks like to travel from one house to another.”

A slight noise startled Carla and she jumped.

“Mice,” Julia noted.

“Ugh,” Carla said. “I hate mice. Anyway. We – Cecil and me – we believe there must be some way from your house to another house.”

“So,” Julia asked, “What was it like?”

“Huh?” Cecil responded.

Julia squirmed in frustration. “What was it like when you traveled from your house to the other place, the one we’re trying to get to? How did you find it? How did you do it the first time?”

Cecil and Carla looked at each other. They’d never thought of it that way before.

“We didn’t try,” Cecil said. “We were just playing in our basement.”

“I don’t have a basement,” Julia interjected.

“Yeah, but --” Cecil continued.

“Yes, you do,” Carla blurted out, trying still to whisper. “Kind of. The tunnel is underground. It’s like a basement.”

“But you can’t play in it,” Cecil added.

“Still,” Carla stopped him. “It is the first way we’ve traveled to the other Federal Hill. Only this time, instead of traveling first to a good place, we traveled to a bad one.”

Julia waved her hands at them. “Stop. Okay, so the method we’re looking for here is not to be looking, right? We should play instead.” Her cousins didn’t respond. “But we do that all the time! The boys and I play games in here, tell stories. We’ve done it with you too.”

“But not those kinds of games,” Cecil explained. “I remember.” He turned to Carla. “We played Hide-and-Seek in the basement, didn’t we? That’s one time we found things there we didn’t know about, right?”

Carla nodded her head. She looked around. “But this isn’t as big as our basement. It’s a good sized room with lots of furniture, but there’s not any places to hide.”

All three children then heard a muffled snort from a dark corner of the room. Julia’s face hardened.

“Abe!” she hissed. “Abe Christopher, get out here!”

Slowly from the darkness he appeared wearing black clothes. They could barely see him. He grinned at them.

“Tried to give me the slip, huh? Well, I got here first. Been listening the whole time.” He joined their circle on the carpet. “No more leaving me out, understand? Whatever you’re planning, I’m in. Otherwise, I’m telling Mom and Dad.”

“You little weasel,” Julia murmured.

“Yeah, whatever. But you’re sneaking around in the dark just like me.”

Cecil intervened. “Alright. Fine, Abe. Congratulations. You beat me into the room and hid in the corner.” He glared at his little cousin. “But do you have the guts to do what we’re about to do?”

“Oh, you mean all this house traveling thing?” He laughed. “Sure! I’m up for it. Another game in the Assembly Room!”

“Keep your voice down, idiot!” Julia hissed.

Abe frowned. Cecil took charge again.

“I’ll start. I’ll stand facing the doors to give you three the most opportunity to search everything in the room for hiding spots. Remember, we’re having fun. We’re not looking for a way out of here. Your only job is to hide.” He stood up. “I’ll count to two hundred so you have lots of time, and I’ll cover my ears so I can’t hear anything.” The other children stood also. “Ready?”

Cecil strode to the doors, leaning his forehead against the gap between them and covering his ears with his hands. “I’m starting,” he said. “One. Two. Three. Four ...” he whispered.

Abe receded immediately into the darkness again in a back corner of the room away from the windows. Julia approached the fireplace, inspecting the little powder horn and the tin cup. She ran her finger around the well of the candlestick, collecting a ball of dust, and she flicked it onto the floor. Carla went to the small table on the side wall, the table duplicated in the painting. She placed her palm on its surface. “Those men signed a document here,” she thought. “All those years ago, on this very table.” She curved her hand, pretending to hold a quill pen, and she glided it across the table top as if she were signing her name. Then she sunk to her knees and looked under the table. The bookshelves wrapped the entire room, including the space behind the table, down by its legs. “I bet nobody’s looked at these books for years.” She crawled under the table and sat within the four legs. She rested her palms on two of its curved feet. “This would be a good place to travel from,” she thought. “I’d just close my eyes, and turn around, and when I opened them and crawled out from under the table again, I’d be at some lovely home just down from Lucie’s house.” Carla sighed. She wanted to return to Lucie’s house more than anything. She forgot about the books she’d planned to inspect. She closed her eyes and wished. She’d never been to the Federal Hill House in Lucie’s world, so she hardly knew what to wish for. Then she turned around slowly and gripped the table legs. And she opened her eyes.

The room was quite still. She saw no one. But she heard Cecil still counting. “Eighty-six. Eighty-seven.” Carla sighed. It had failed. She turned around again, facing the dusty bookshelves behind the table legs. She removed a tiny penlight from her pocket that Julia had loaned her, clicked it on, and looked at each book as she ran her fingers down its spine. Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson’s Architectural Drawings, The Architecture of Charles Bulfinch. Squished beside these heavy tomes were a handful of dry, brown scrolls. Carla wanted to open them, but upon her lightest touch they seemed ready to crumble.

“One hundred seventy-one. One hundred seventy-two.”

Carla had forgotten about hiding. She’d become too interested in the books as her fingers traced their dusty spines. Hers was a terrible hiding place! If Cecil used a flashlight, he would find her right away. Quickly she scooted out from under the table, bumping her head into a solid, upholstered chair. Its back leaned luxuriously against the wall, and Carla was just able to squeeze behind it.

“One hundred ninety-seven.”

She clicked off her penlight and tucked her feet behind the chair just in time.

“Okay. Here I come!” Cecil whispered energetically. He search methodically around the edge of the room, locating Carla first behind her chair.

“You’re the worst hider, Carla,” he said.

Then he found Julia cleverly concealed behind the weighty window curtain, deep in its folds and bracing herself several feet off the floor inside the deep window sill.

“Very nice, cousin!” Cecil congratulated her.

The three of them searched the room thoroughly but could not find Abe. After combing the room several times with flashlights, they began to worry.

“Where is he?” Julia asked, exasperated. “This is just like him! I bet he slipped out and is asleep in his bed.”

“He couldn’t get out,” Cecil reminded her. “I was blocking the doors.”

They stood in the center of the room. The chandelier overhead tinkled slightly. Julia looked down and realized that she was holding the battered tin cup in her hand. She didn't remember taking it from the mantel.

“I don’t know what to say,” Cecil whispered. “He’s just gone.”

“You know where he’s gone,” Carla said to him. “He traveled. He’s at Lucie’s, I hope.”

“Oh man, do I hope,” Cecil said. “Because he’s certainly not here!” The three children stood in a small circle in the middle of the room, looking earnestly at each other as the moonlight glowed on them through the window.

They all jumped when the light switch clicked and the chandelier erupted in brilliant light. Aunt Velma stood in the doorway in her nightgown, her curly hair in shocking disarray.

“I knew I heard voices down here! Julia Christopher, I’m ashamed of you!” She turned to her niece and nephew. “And you two also! With the horrible day I’ve had!” She seemed on the verge of tears. “This room is off limits, do you understand? Now get into your beds this minute! And if I catch you in this room again, there will be serious consequences, do you understand?” She scowled at them with her hands on her hips, but her lips trembled.

“Yes, ma’am,” mumbled the children as they reluctantly exited the room. Not a word was spoken among them as they trudged through the silent house to their beds. Abe was gone now, in addition to Edward, and there wasn’t a thing they could do about it.

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[Ten Days at Federal Hill is copyrighted in its entirety by the author, M.K. Christiansen.]