Chapter 5 - The Locked Box in the Sunroom
As autumn deepened, the atmosphere in Blackwood Manor grew warmer. Grace began eating her meals in the dining room with Clare and Harrison. She started speaking in full sentences again, though her words were still carefully guarded, and she kept her collection of origami animals near her at all times.
However, there was still one part of the house that remained strictly off-limits.
At the west wing of the manor sat the sunroom—a glass-walled conservatory filled with withered plants and covered furniture. It was the room where Emily Cole had collapsed two years ago. Since that traumatic afternoon, Harrison had locked the sunroom doors, forbidding anyone from entering.
One afternoon, while Harrison was at the Crestline Logistics corporate headquarters for a board meeting, Clare found Grace standing outside the locked glass doors of the sunroom.
Grace was holding a tiny, intricate paper bird made of silver paper. She was pressing her forehead against the glass, staring inside at a small wooden desk sitting in the corner of the dusty conservatory.
"Grace?" Clare asked gently, approaching her.
Grace didn't startle. She pointed a small finger through the glass toward the wooden desk.
"My secret is in there," Grace whispered.
Clare looked at the desk, then down at Grace. "What secret, honey?"
"The secret I hid the day Mommy fell asleep," Grace said, her voice trembling slightly. "I put it in the desk drawer. But Daddy locked the door, and he put the key away. He told the housekeepers never to go in there again."
Clare knelt next to her. "What did you hide in the drawer, Grace?"
Grace bit her lip, tears welling up in her pale blue eyes. "If I tell you... will you be mad at me like the other nannies were?"
"I could never be mad at you, Grace," Clare promised, her heart aching. "Never."
Grace tightened her grip on the silver paper bird. "It's my fault," she whispered, a tear finally spilling down her cheek. "Mommy died because of me."
Clare felt a chill run down her spine. "Oh, Grace... no. Sweetheart, no. Why would you ever think that?"
"Because of the note," Grace sobbed softly. "The day Mommy got sick, we were playing a game. I wrote a note that said I hated her because she wouldn't let me eat ice cream for breakfast. I hid it in her wooden desk. Then... then she fell down, and she stopped breathing. I tried to open the drawer to take the note back, but the ambulance doctors came and took her away. And then Daddy locked the door."
Grace looked up at Clare with unbearable anguish in her eight-year-old eyes.
"I thought... if God read my note, He took Mommy away to punish me. I tried to tell the other nannies, but they told me I was bad for saying mean things to my mother. So I stopped talking. I locked the secret inside."
Clare felt her own eyes burn with tears. For two years, this little girl had been carrying a crushing weight on her tiny shoulders—believing that her childhood anger had killed her mother.
Clare pulled Grace into a tight, warm hug. Grace buried her face in Clare’s shoulder, weeping quietly.
"Listen to me very carefully, Grace," Clare whispered into her hair, holding her tightly. "You did not cause your mother to go away. A bad word or a angry note cannot hurt anyone. Your mother loved you more than anything in the world, and she knew how much you loved her."
"I want to get the note back," Grace sobbed. "I want to destroy it."
May you like
Clare looked at the locked glass doors. She knew Harrison had forbidden anyone from entering the sunroom. But looking at the agony in Grace’s eyes, Clare knew that some rules were meant to be broken for the sake of healing.
"Alright," Clare said firmly. "We're going to get your note."
