36 
Another Key
Maggie was still mostly bedridden after two weeks and could only get about with help. One of the Heathersleigh women stayed with her at the cottage every night and throughout most days.
Dr. Cecil Armbruster had declared the hip suffering from a hairline fracture, not an outright break.
“You should be able to walk on it within a month,” he said to Maggie and Jocelyn on the day of his diagnosis. “But, young lady,” he added, poking a stern finger toward Maggie while flashing a quick grin in Jocelyn’s direction, “I know you! Your doctor is giving you strict orders to stay out of your garden until I pronounce you fit.”
“But the weeds—” Maggie began to protest.
“Will still be there waiting for you a month from now,” interrupted the doctor.
“They will take over.”
“And we will help you,” interjected Jocelyn. “Betsy will love to get her hands into your dirt. That is all she is talking about these days, pulling weeds. She will have a splendid time, and the rest of us will all help her.”
————
“Amanda dear,” said Maggie one afternoon when Amanda was spending the latter half of the day at the cottage, “would you bring me my Bible? I think your mother put it on the secretary—you know, there in the sitting room—when she was here this morning.”
Amanda rose from her chair, walked into the sitting room, and picked up Maggie’s Bible. As she made her way back to the bedroom, Bible in hand, she paused and glanced back and took another long look at the open secretary from which she had just lifted it.
Suddenly it struck her how similar it was to the one in the library at the Hall she had noticed just a few days ago when she and Betsy were on their way to the secret room. Was she remembering correctly, that the cubbyholes and drawers in back of the lid-desk were on the right of the secretary back at the Hall? If so, the two cabinets would be nearly exact mirror replicas of each other. And why not? Maggie’s great-great-grandfather had built them both. For here, as Amanda looked at the open desk, the drawers were on the left, and the ornate panel hiding the compartment Maggie had shown them was on the right.
What other similarities might there be that were not discernible at first glance?
Amanda continued to stare at Maggie’s cabinet, the wheels of her brain slowly turning in a new direction. She recalled months ago sitting here with Catharine and her mother as Maggie explained about finding the secret panel and shelf where the deed to Heathersleigh Cottage had lain so long hidden.
Slowly she made her way back to the secretary, pulled out the drawer, just as Maggie had shown them. There sat the key, just as Maggie had described finding it.
Her curiosity heightened and her thoughts accelerating, Amanda reached into the drawer, picked up the little key, and held it a moment, turning it over in her fingers.
Suddenly an explosion went off in her brain.
She knew this key!
Or one just like it. She had known it for years! Geoffrey knew it too. And it still sat on the same key ring where it had baffled them all this time!
She stood back and beheld the secretary again.
What if—
By now Amanda’s brain was spinning rapidly.
If the same craftsman had built the two cabinets, why shouldn’t both pieces of furniture be alike . . . down to every detail!
“Grandma Maggie—here is your Bible,” she cried, hurrying into the bedroom. “I have to run home!”
“What is it, Amanda dear?” asked Maggie in alarm.
“Maybe nothing—I’ll tell you about it as soon as I get back.”
Already Amanda was out the door and flying through the woods toward Heathersleigh Hall.