Margie's entry:
"This must be where she lives," I muttered to myself, knocking on the cottage door.
It opened, revealing a face lined and contoured like an ancient, crumpled map.
"I don’t want anything today." The door began to close.
"Wait!" I cried, plucking the photograph from the packet I had brought with me. "Look at this! Please." I thrust the photograph at her, my carefully prepared introduction lost in my anxiety to keep her there before me.
She reached out, took the photograph and studied it silently. "Come in", she said, and led me into a room, dim and cool, shuttered against the blazing heat outside.
"Sit there." She pointed to a chair and sat in one opposite. "You found it?"
"Yes." I felt a stir of excitement but some sixth sense kept me silent.
She held the photograph in both hands, looking at it, a far-away expression in her eyes, a replica of those before her.
"My mother", she said simply. "The picture was taken soon after we learned she was incurably ill. After she died, my father took us away, but before we left I hid her picture on top of a cupboard, face down so it would not be noticed. I had to leave it there. It was her home – she loved it passionately."
Several weeks later I hung the photograph, now framed, in the hallway of our Victorian house. My new-found friend came to visit and reminisce.
"You left the dust marks on the photograph", she remarked softly. "Why?"
I thought back to the moment of my find, while cleaning the top of a dusty cupboard; how the image of the unknown woman had touched me from the start, compelling me to discover her identity until finally my searches had led me to the cottage at the edge of a lonely field.
"They are part of the story", I said. "And mark the beginning of a friendship".
Rosemary's entry:
“You definitely put it in the skip?... You’re certain… God I’m glad we’ve moved… What am I going to tell him?…” Despite his hand over the receiver, I could hear their muffled voices. I felt an eerie discomfort.
“We found the photo in the house when we moved in a year ago. It seemed to go with the house so we left it.”
“You don’t want me to send it to you?”
I could hear the panic in his voice, “No! Please don’t.” He coughed, “No that’s fine. Thanks. Try throwing it out.”
“Try?”
“Sorry I’ve got to go.”
Without another word, I heard the dial tone.
I sat down, looking at the picture. “It’s you and me then. “D’you fancy a pint?”
***
“Black Sheep please?”
“How you settling in at Tall Trees?”
“How did you know?”
The landlord threw his head back and laughed. “A village this size? You’ll get away with nothing.”
I reached under my jacket. “I was going to ask about this photo.”
I saw his face turn ashen, “You get out of my pub with that. Go.”
I returned later, after laying the photograph face down on a table at home. My beer was still waiting.
“I’ll have a pint,” said a gnarled man looking straight at me, “if you want to know about the picture.”
I did as bidden and followed him to the corner away from the fire.
“She lived there. School governess, only her children kept dying mysterious like. Story goes that all who’re caught in her gaze’ll be dead within twelve months.”
He left and I sat and drank my beer in silence.
When I returned home, the picture had gone. I breathed a sigh of relief, until I found it standing up on the table in the kitchen, facing me as I entered.
I shivered. “It seems to be you and me then.”
Clare's entry:
“Look Lisa” I flapped the photo at my daughter, and dust motes spun in the sunlight streaming through the bedroom window.
“Oh, she`s beautiful! I wonder who she was,” Lisa took the photo and examined it carefully.
“Eliza Stewart, she lived here.” A voice from the landing startled us both, and we turned to see a plump smiling woman, clutching a large cake-tin.
“Sorry I startled you – the front door was open for your removal guys. I called from the hall, but you obviously didn`t hear me. They said you were sorting things up here.”
“Hi, I`m Suzy Adams, and this is my daughter Lisa,” I stuck out a hand, and it was shaken enthusiastically.
“Marie Maddox. I live opposite.” Marie thrust the cake-tin towards me. “Just a little welcome, some homemade goodies, and that photo, well, thereby hangs a tale.”
“Let`s go and put the kettle on, I`d love to hear it,” I said, leading us back downstairs.
Perched on packing cases, sipping tea, and nibbling delicious chocolate brownies, I stared again at the photo.
“Do tell,” I begged Marie.
“Well, you`ve bought Lavender Cottage, but years ago, it was The School House,” began Marie. “Eliza set up a nursery school in the parlour, and was much loved in the village, so they say. She married, very happily, and had a little girl, Lavender, who trained to be one of the very first women doctors in this country. When Eliza retired, she renamed the cottage in tribute to her daughter. That photo you found, it always appears when somebody new takes over the house. It is Eliza`s way of welcoming you to a home she loved and encouraging you to follow your dreams, just as Lavender did.”
“Woops, where`s it gone?” said Lisa.
“Ah, that`s the thing,” grinned Marie. “The photo appears but once the story`s told, it disappears – until the next time the cottage changes hands.”
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