Emiline dreams of being a fair lady. She longs for drama, fashion, cities and fancy tea parties. But as a twelve-year-old, farm girl in the late 1800's, those things seem to be out of her reach. Meanwhile, a mystery begins to grow as she and her bes...
From the thin shaft of light that fell down from above, Peter could see shelves of old jars and large trunks. The walls were made of stone and the floor was sloppy mud. Down there, the fire had never touched a thing. With excitement rushing through the boy's heart, he sloshed through the flooded cellar to a stack of boxes and trunks. Some of them were ruined from the water, but the others were sitting high enough to be safe. Eagerly Peter opened one and looked down inside. It was a box full of tiny clothes; clothes that only a toddler could have worn. They were yellowing and full of mildew. Then, there was an old, old photo. If Emiline had seen it, she would have called it ghastly. Water had made the ink bleed in several places, and the faces looked too white to be real. But, Peter knew that time had ruined the photograph's beauty. It was a picture of a young woman, holding a baby in her arms. She was a beautiful lady, and behind her a tall man with smiley eyes stood, looking proud and joyful. The photo almost made Peter feel sad. Whoever these people were, they were long gone now. They had probably all died in the fire.
The boy shut the trunk and moved on to the next. Everything he saw told a sad story. In the last trunk he found two journals. The writing inside was scribbly, like a child's. One journal had been written by William, and the other had been written by Mortimer. Peter flipped through the crumbling, old pages, glancing at the words with interest.
"Emma will want to see these," Peter thought, tucking both of the books into his pocket. Then aloud he asked "Now, what else can I find in here?" He lifted an old blanket out of the chest and saw a pile of other things beneath it. But one thing caught his attention and held him in awe.
Curling wood and shining strings looked up at Peter welcomingly. It was a beautiful violin, made of a rose colored wood. The boy's heart leapt joyfully as he wrapped his fingers around the instrument. Once he had seen an old man playing the fiddle, and ever since, the wonderful sound had made him wish that he could play one. He grabbed the violin's bow and then studied it for a few minutes, appreciating all of its details. Then, he lifted it in one hand, braced it against his shoulder and slid the bow across the metal strings. Nothing happened. It hardly made a sound at all. Peter gave a disappointed frown.
"It must be broken," he thought sadly. He almost wished that he could take the violin home with him, but that just didn't seem right. Carefully, he laid it back down in it's trunk and closed the lid.
There wasn't much more to see. Ready to get out of the wet cellar, he hurried back to the beam of sunlight that was shining through the broken floorboards. Suddenly he realized that getting up was going to be harder than coming down. The boards were too far above his head for him to reach. But surely there was a way out. He looked around quickly and saw a rickety staircase leading up to a small entrance in the ceiling. It was a gaping hole that either of the boys could have stumbled through accidentally. But when Peter tried to climb the stairs, the wet, rotting steps were too weak to hold him.
"Great!" he grumbled. "Now how am I gonna get out of here?" He tried stacking boxes to reach the entrance, but he couldn't keep them steady enough for him to stand on. After a few more minutes, Benjamin's worried voice started calling outside. Peter began to feel frantic. He went from one corner of the room to the other feeling trapped. Then, searching for any unseen way of escape, he began pulling all of the trunks around in a panicked way. He was about to start feeling doomed, but at last, his worried eyes found something that gave him hope.
"Ah, finally!" he exclaimed. He ran forward and swiped a thick wad of spiderwebs away from the object he had found. It was a coil of rope, and it had been tucked away in a dry place where the rainwater hadn't been able to touch it. With haste, the boy began tying knots in the cordage. Climbing a rope was always difficult, but the knots would give him something to hang on to. When he was done, he hurried to the opening in the floor above him.
"Benjamin!" he called. "Come here and give me a hand!" In a minute, his brother had walked cautiously over the floor and peeked down into the cellar. He looked unnerved by the deep chasm. Peter wasted no time. He felt anxious to get out of the filthy water he was standing in.
"Here, catch this and go tie it to something," he commanded, throwing one end of the rope up to the boy. Benjamin fumbled and missed it the first time, but on the second throw he caught it and hurried to obey. "Make sure you tie it to something strong!" Peter added seriously. His mind started to worry. "Benjamin isn't good at tying knots," he thought with a shudder. Falling back down wasn't a pleasant idea.
Benjamin was very careful about where he tied the rope. He found the sturdiest part of the crumbling foundation and made as many, tight knots as he could. Finally he called back down into the cellar and told Peter to climb up.
Cautiously, Peter gave the rope a tug. It felt secure. Then, gathering courage and trying to trust his little brother's abilities, he grabbed the rope and struggled upward. It took several tries and all of the boy's strength to finally reach the top. By the time he had scrambled up onto the floorboards, he was out of breath.
"I'm not trying that again!" he gasped. "That's too hard!" After that the boys walked away from the dangerous house.
"I like coming here," Benjamin said, looking back as he followed Peter across the property. "Can I come with you next time too?"
"Maybe," his big brother answered hesitantly. "But...I don't know if it's safe for you to be here. Mother's gonna be pretty mad at me if you get hurt." He glanced at his brother, feeling more and more certain that Benjamin shouldn't come back. The ground around the house was cluttered with boards, nails and all kinds of other things. Even now, the little boy was stumbling clumsily as he picked his way out of the rubble. They were heading across the property toward the forest now. But, as Benjamin walked across a few weathered boards, Peter heard a familiar, creaking and cracking noise. Benjamin stopped curiously.
"These boards feel funny, Peter," he said, bouncing up and down to feel the wood sag beneath him. One of the boards started snapping in the middle and as small fragments of wood crumbled, they fell into an unseen hole with a distant sound, like something splashing into water. Suddenly, Peter noticed something strange about the place where Benjamin was standing. There was a ring of old rocks beneath the boards, and not far away, he saw a rusty water pot.
"Stop that!" Peter yelled. "That's a well!" He grabbed his brother's arm and pulled him away as the board continued to break under his feet. Benjamin cowered.
"Sorry," he mumbled. "I didn't know!" Peter shook his head and shuddered. In his mind's eye he could picture Benjamin plunging into the well and floundering around helplessly.
"I've gotta get you home before something bad happens!" he said. Then, keeping Benjamin close and calling Pal, they marched homeward.
The next day at school, Peter gave Emiline the two journals he had found. She took them both gratefully, desperate for the clues they held. Then she soaked in all of the facts about the old photo and the baby clothes Peter had found.
"A baby," she thought to herself. "If that was an old picture, then that baby probably had time to grow before the fire burnt the house down." She remembered the old nightcap she had seen in the ruins. Maybe it had belonged to the child. It still didn't make sense. Why hadn't the nightcap been burnt?
She wanted answers to her questions so badly. But she was too busy to read the journals Peter had given her. She had to leave in just two days and she was still trying to mend clothes and pack them. At home, she put both of the journals into a big bag, planning to read them on the way to the city.
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