Chapter 3 - The Bride in the Photograph
We went downstairs together.
The cedar chest sat inside the locked wine room beneath our bedroom.
That explained the thuds.
Not something alive.
Something inside had shifted because Ethan had left the chest balanced against a damaged storage shelf.
At least that was his explanation.
I almost felt relieved.
Then I saw the scratches on the inside of the wine-room door.
Fresh.
Someone had been locked in there.
“Who made those?”
Ethan said nothing.
Margaret closed her eyes.
I turned toward him.
“You told me it wasn’t who. It was what.”
“The chest.”
“Then who scratched the door?”
Silence.
I stepped toward it.
Three long marks.
Then another.
Near the handle, written faintly in red-brown residue:
C H.
My initials.
Claire Harper.
Except I had only been Claire Harper for less than twenty-four hours.
My legs weakened.
Margaret caught me.
“You were down here.”
“When?”
“After one.”
“What happened?”
“You opened the chest.”
Ethan interrupted.
“She wasn’t supposed to.”
I turned on him.
“Stop saying what I was supposed to do and tell me what I did.”
Inside the chest were photographs, letters, a tape recorder, several sealed envelopes and a wedding dress wrapped in yellowed tissue paper.
Not Margaret’s.
She showed me photographs from her own wedding.
Different gown.
Different lace.
The dress inside the chest belonged to another woman.
There were dark stains near the waist.
Old.
Decades old.
I found a photograph underneath.
Robert Harper stood outside a courthouse.
Young.
Beside him was a woman wearing the dress.
On the back:
Robert & Caroline — June 18, 1989.
I looked at Margaret.
“Who is Caroline?”
Her jaw tightened.
“Robert’s first wife.”
Ethan had told me Margaret was his father’s only wife.
He looked ashamed.
“I didn’t know until I was fourteen.”
“What happened to her?”
Margaret answered:
“She disappeared on their wedding night.”
I looked again at the stained dress.
“Disappeared?”
Robert claimed Caroline ran away.
Her family never believed him.
No body was found.
No arrest.
Eventually the case went cold.
Years later Robert married Margaret.
Then Ethan was born.
I felt sick.
“Why keep her wedding dress?”
Margaret whispered:
“Because Robert found it.”
“Where?”
“In this house.”
“When?”
“Sixteen years after Caroline vanished.”
The room seemed smaller.
The house Ethan and I had chosen for our wedding reception had belonged to Robert.
Caroline had spent her wedding night here too.
Then I noticed something in the photograph.
Caroline’s veil.
Same floral stitching.
Same scalloped edge.
Almost identical to mine.
I pulled my torn veil from my pocket and placed it beside the photograph.
Margaret stared.
“No.”
“What?”
She grabbed my veil.
Turned it over.
Inside the hem was a tiny embroidered letter.
C.
My mother had told me she made this veil.
But suddenly I remembered her exact words:
“I finished it for you.”
Not made.
Finished.
I looked at Margaret.
“Where did Caroline come from?”
“Wisconsin.”
My heart began pounding.
“My mother grew up in Wisconsin.”
Ethan whispered:
“Claire…”
I ignored him.
“What was Caroline’s last name?”
Margaret answered:
May you like
“Bennett.”
My mother’s maiden name.
