The question hung in the air, and Kathleen felt the weight of three pairs of concerned eyes. She set down her fork and looked at her dearest friends. If she couldn’t tell them, who could she tell? “Patrick and I found something,” she began carefully. “In the basement. Something... unexpected.”
“What kind of something?” Lynda asked with a frown. “Was it a dead body?”
“Not a dead body,” Kathleen told her friends. “A hidden room.” The words tumbled out now. “It’s behind the foundation wall and was completely concealed. We only found it when we moved the old workbench.”
Susan’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. “A hidden room? In your house?”
Kathleen nodded, the images from yesterday flooding back. “It’s small, maybe six by eight feet, carved right into the earth. And it’s filled with all kinds of things. Victorian things. Baby clothes, medical instruments, and lots of papers scattered everywhere.”
Isabel’s eyes widened. “Why on earth would there be baby clothes under your house?”
“I don’t know,” Kathleen told her. “But there are drawers full of tiny gowns with handmade lace and little booties no bigger than your thumb.” Kathleen’s voice caught slightly. “Patrick thinks the papers are medical records from the 1880s and 1890s.”
The kitchen fell silent.
“Do you think your house was used as some kind of medical facility?” Susan whispered.
Lynda choked on a piece of toast. After Kathleen handed her a glass of water, she took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “Sorry about that. I’ve been watching too many psychological thrillers. As soon as Susan said ‘medical facility’, I imagined someone doing gory experiments in the basement.”
Everyone’s head swivelled to Kathleen.
“It’s nothing like that,” Kathleen assured them. “We think it was a safe house for pregnant, unmarried women. Some of the journals have birth dates and the weight of babies. What’s interesting is that each entry only has the name of the mother.”
Lynda set down her coffee mug. “Those poor women. If they were unmarried, their lives wouldn’t have been easy, especially in the Victorian era. Can you imagine how terrified they must have been?”
“I keep thinking about them,” Kathleen admitted. “And about the people who stitched the tiny gowns and made the room as safe and comfortable as possible. Whoever set up the room was helping people who might have had nowhere else to turn.”
Isabel’s eyes were bright with excitement. “Do you know how incredible this is, Kathleen? You’ve stumbled onto a piece of history that’s been hidden for over a century.”
“I want to see it,” Susan said suddenly.
“Me too,” Lynda agreed. “This must be the most exciting thing that’s happened in Sapphire Bay for ages.”
Kathleen shook her head, glancing at the kitchen clock. “We don’t have the time to look. The hairdresser arrives in an hour, and then it’s time for makeup and the photographer.”
“That can all wait,” Isabel told Kathleen. “After what you’ve said, we can’t sit here and eat our breakfast like it’s an ordinary morning.”
“But it’s your wedding day,” Kathleen protested. “You should be focusing on that, not crawling around a dusty basement.”
Isabel stood up from the table. “I’m not getting married until eleven o’clock. Besides,” she added with a grin that reminded Kathleen of when they were teenagers, “when have we ever been able to resist a mystery?”
Susan was already pushing back from the table. “Isabel’s right. This is too important to wait until after the wedding.”
“And too amazing to experience alone,” Lynda added, standing as well.
Kathleen looked at her friends. “All right,” she said, surrendering to the inevitable. “But we’ll need more lighting than what Patrick and I had yesterday. And we’ll have to be careful. Some of the things we found are fragile.”
“I’ll grab my phone. The flashlight’s incredible,” Susan said, already heading toward the stairs.
“Mine too,” Lynda called, following her.
Isabel picked up a piece of pancake. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Silk Pajamas won’t last long in your basement.”
Ten minutes later, they stood beneath the house, armed with phone flashlights, a camping lantern Susan had found in the garage, and the LED work light Patrick had left behind.
“I can’t believe this,” Susan breathed as Kathleen led them to the concealed door. “It’s so well hidden.”
“We never would have found it if we weren’t checking the foundation,” Kathleen admitted, running her hand along the nearly invisible seam in the stonework. “We were moving the workbench to examine the wall. When Patrick shone his flashlight on this section, he found this.” Kathleen showed her friends the hidden latch.
