My name was on some.
Brent’s on others.
My father’s.
Even my mother’s.
At the very bottom was a large envelope labeled:
For the day this house becomes honest.
Evelyn made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.
“Rose,” she whispered.
Inside was a letter, a stack of photographs, and a key.
I read the letter sitting on the attic floor while sleet tapped the roof.
My dear stubborn ones,
If this letter is found, then the house has finally stopped protecting secrets. Good. Houses are terrible at it. They creak too much.
I laughed through sudden tears.
The key belongs to the garden cottage behind the old orchard. Margaret always hated that place because it was small and inconvenient. I loved it because small places make people speak plainly.
My heart began to pound.
The garden cottage.
I had forgotten it existed.
Behind my parents’ property, past the overgrown hedges, there had once been a small cottage Grandma Rose used for sewing and canning. After she died, my mother claimed it had mold and locked it. No one went there.
