Reconstruction

“I’m so sick of unpacking. I think I need a break,” Trixie muttered to herself with a wistful glance out the window of her newly-acquired house. Contrary to her original plans, she had come to live here all alone. Her friends had offered to help her, but she had preferred to mope by herself a little and reflect on what might have been.

Wandering outside into the bright sunshine, she noticed that a window was open in the house next door and that she could see her neighbour sitting at a desk there. The elderly lady was rattling away on an ancient typewriter, sending the carriage back at the end of each line with a well-practised hand.

“Hello there, dear,” the lady called, lifting one hand from her task to wave. As she lowered her hand, the stones in her many rings caught the light and sparkled, a large diamond making the biggest glint. “Come and introduce yourself. The front door is open; just let yourself in.”

Trixie nodded her agreement and made her way to the entranceway. The door of the rather shabby little house opened to her hand, revealing a hallway littered with fallen objects.

“Mind your step, dear,” the elderly lady called, as Trixie stepped inside. “I think I knocked something over as I came in just before.”

With a soft smile, Trixie bent to set right the rickety old hall table. “I’ll just pick these things up for you,” she told the woman, while gathering the balls of wool which had escaped from a knitting basket. She set the basket on the little table, returned an umbrella to the stand next to it and bundled some fallen papers into a heap.

“Never mind that,” the old lady called, as Trixie was about to tackle the scattering of paperclips she had noticed when she lifted the papers. “Come right in and introduce yourself. I’m Nona Senese, or as my grand-nieces and -nephews in England call me, Miss Nonsense of America.”

Trixie gave a start at the memory the name evoked. “You know, someone once called me that, too,” she admitted, “but it was to do with my personality, and not my name.” She added a brief introduction.

Miss Senese smiled. “I think they’d call me something of the kind no matter what I was named,” she told Trixie with a chuckle. “I’ve never been sensible my whole life, and I’m not about to start now. By the way, I have something here for you.” The old lady turned and peered at her typewriter, picking up a magnifying glass to check her progress. “I won’t be a minute.”

She rattled off a couple more lines, before pulling out the page with a zipping sound. Trixie reached out to take the out-held page, curiosity burning inside her. Quickly, she read down the page then turned a quizzical gaze to her hostess.

“I’ll admit that a little birdie told me something about you, dear.” The old lady’s eyes twinkled as she spoke. “It’s just a little mystery for you to solve.”

Outside a short time later, Trixie gazed at the page:

A very interesting event once happened in your house. If you find the following things, you might be able to figure out what it was. Bring them back to me when you’re finished to see if you’re right and I’ll tell you the whole story.

The name of the twenty-fourth book of the Bible.

A white flower from your front garden.

A hand-crafted horseshoe, or a horseshoe nail.

The name from the plaque on the fountain in the town square.

A copy of ‘The Sketch Book’ by Washington Irving from the local library. (It’s on reserve there under my name, with authority for you to check it out for me.)

Some mud from the edge of the pond in the field behind my house.

The title of the person whose reserved parking space is sixth from the left in the bay in front of the town hall, when facing the town hall.

Deciding to start with the easiest item, she set out for her own front garden to pick a flower. Right next to the front gate was a rose bush laden with creamy blooms. Deciding that it was near-enough to white, she picked one and put it in the basket Miss Senese had provided for the task. From there, she headed around the back to a building which she guessed had once been stables, but since had been converted to a garage. She seemed to remember seeing something in a back room and a short search was all that was needed to add another item to her list.

“Bingo!” she cried, pulling down a small handful of horseshoe nails and tossing them into the basket.

Taking a few moments to check that the house was properly secured, she then started on the items located in and around the town square. It did not take her long to find a presentation plaque on the fountain, bearing the name Edward Williams, and that the parking space in question belonged to the mayor.

Stopping by the library, which was right next to the town hall, she first went to the shelves and found a Bible. Quickly counting through, she jotted down Isaiah as the answer to the first question. At the counter, she picked up the book which had been reserved and then headed outside.

Her last stop was the pond. She found it without much difficulty, approaching it by a well-worn path. It came into view suddenly and she stopped short to look at it for a few moments. It was a larger body of water than she had expected from its name. To the left, a stream trickled down a short slope to feed it, while to the right another wound away further down the hill to the field mentioned in the notes. Near one end, a group of weeping willows trailed their branches almost to the water. Trixie found herself looking for a rowboat like the Water Witch in the Wheeler’s lake, but shook her head. While it was big enough to row across, there did not seem that much point when you could cross the stream by stepping stones.

The mud she was here to collect was easy enough to scoop up into a small jar which had been in the basket. Dumping it back in, she settled on the grass to think through the puzzle. Taking up the book, she checked the contents page to see which of Washington Irving’s stories were contained within. Hmm, she mused, flicking through the pages, both ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ and ‘Rip Van Winkle’. Glancing through some of the other stories, she found tales of people pretending to be ghosts, nagging wives and lazy men.

She took up the list once more and began to read the results aloud, to see if that helped at all. “Isaiah. Rose. Something to do with horses’ feet… maybe a farrier? Edward Williams. Washington Irving’s famous stories. Mud from the pond. The mayor.” She closed her eyes and thought. Okay, so maybe it’s Rip Van Winkle that she meant. Let’s see… he was lazy and good for nothing; his wife nagged. He went for a walk and fell asleep, but when he came home the next morning twenty years had passed. Maybe it’s a story about Isaiah and Rose, and that they’re people like Rip Van Winkle and his wife. Instead of falling asleep, Isaiah abandoned Rose and worked as a farrier for twenty years to support himself. When he came back Edward Williams was the mayor and he dug up dirt on Isaiah – to do with leaving his wife – and ran him out of town. She frowned a little, thinking it through once again. I think that fits in with the clues.

Triumphant, Trixie took her haul back to Miss Senese’s house and breathlessly told the old lady her reconstruction of the events in question. For several moments, the old lady cackled to herself, finally explaining, “Entirely wrong, but I rather like your version. It shows great imagination – though not particularly good attention to detail. Anyone would think you had other matters on your mind.” Settling comfortably in an exceedingly shabby arm chair and offering another to her guest, she went on to retell the whole story.

“Your house was once owned by Jeremiah Smith – not Isaiah, that’s the twenty-third book of the Bible, dear, and I was aiming for a blacksmith, not a farrier, which is why the horseshoe was to be a handmade one. He was an ambitious man, and he married a woman who was just the same. Her name was Lily, which you could have figured out if you knew the difference between white and cream. Jeremiah and Lily were the ones who built that dreadful little hut at the bottom of your garden, by the way. I’d knock it down, if I were you.”

Trixie, for whom the abandoned summerhouse had been a huge attraction, said nothing on the subject, but urged her new friend to go on with the story.

“There came a time when an election was coming up and Jeremiah set his sights on the position of Mayor. His main opponent was a local businessman by the name of Edward Williams – and I’ll admit that you got that one detail correct. He didn’t fancy a long, drawn-out battle for the position, so he thought he’d fix old Jeremiah in advance.” She chuckled a little at the thought. “It was some years since Washington Irving had published that particular book, but it seemed to Ned Williams that one of the stories in it held some potential for his situation – not Rip Van Winkle, though; he was thinking of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”

Her guest frowned. “You mean, he scared the man away by pretending to be a ghost?”

“No need to be so literal,” Miss Senese chided. “You’ll remember from the story that the reason the trick worked on Ichabod Crane was that he was already afraid of the phantom. No, Jeremiah Smith was most afraid of scandal, and most particularly afraid of scandal connected with his youngest daughter, who by all accounts was rather wild. So, of course, Ned Williams set out to create the illusion of the man’s greatest fear, just like in the old story.”

“And that’s where mud comes in,” Trixie guessed. “What did he do? Start up rumours about the girl?”

“Exactly!” The old lady laughed loudly. “Nasty, dirty rumours, that I wouldn’t want to repeat. Jeremiah Smith was so mortified that he pulled out of the race, sold the house and moved far away from here. His daughter stayed right here, though, and married a local man by the name of Joe Senese – who cared more for her than for what the townspeople thought – and they had nine children, of whom I am the youngest.” She leaned forward to her guest and added in a low voice. “That house brought good things for my mother, and I’m sure it can bring good things for you.”

Trixie smiled, suddenly feeling brighter than she had in months. “I hope so,” she admitted. “Though I’m not sure about the prospect of nine children!”

Miss Senese laughed. “My mother told me that she never thought she’d have nine, either. For a time she thought she’d never have any, that no one would ever want her, especially after the scandal. But the time that seemed to be her darkest hour turned out to be her redemption. Before that, her father would never have let her marry someone as lowly as my father. They were very happy together – and you never know, Trixie, my dear; your knight in shining armour might be just around the corner, complete with the potential for nine future children. Or, maybe, you’ll have a life like mine that’s been full and rich without the complications of husbands and children.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Trixie replied softly.

“Good girl,” pronounced the old lady. “Though, if you do end up with nine children, dear, I want to live to see it!”

The End

Author's notes: This is a (slightly late) submission for VTC CWC. The requirements were a length of no greater than 2,500 words and to include the following elements: a carriage, Miss Nonsense of America, a magnifying glass, an umbrella, The Water Witch, a ball, a diamond ring, and (optional) a scavenger hunt. Thank you to Wendy and Dana for coming up with the challenge. It was fun! This is completely self-edited, due to the time constraint of the challenge. As always, I can be reached by email or via the Jix message board for questions, comments or clarifications.

Back to Janice’s Odds and Ends Page

Please note: Trixie Belden is a registered trademark of Random House Publishing. This site is in no way associated with Random House and no profit is being made from these pages.