The Decrypter: Secret of the Lost Manuscript (Calla Cress Techno Thriller Series: Book 1) (46 page)

Calla peered through the open window to the right of the door.  Inside, the light in the front room hung swinging without a lampshade. 

Someone must be home.

She rang the doorbell once more, of what used to be the Girls’ Village Home of Blackmore. 

Blackmore, just thirty miles west out of Central London was a fifty minutes’ drive. A village once termed in the Middle Ages as ‘Black Marsh’ or ‘Black Swamp’. The house was one of three, stone-built properties on a converted farm, set in the picturesque countryside in the heart of Blackmore. 

She gazed down at a printed-paper in her trembling hand.  There in her grip, the local tourist information indicated that the home shut its doors in 1991.  The Home had opened in 1876 as a large complex for disadvantaged girls.  In 1945, it was converted, accommodating boys as well. 

Calla’s Internet search had also produced the name of the last director who had run the home.  Rosetta Black.  According to her intelligence sources, Rosetta still lived here.

Calla hammered once more on the sturdy cedar.  She stepped back and considered the plaque on the wall.

GIRLS’ VILLAGE HOME BLACKMORE

Even after more than two decades of closure, it still hung visibly suspended above the entrance.

Calla drew away from the veranda and took a few paces back.  She blinked as the sun peered through the heavy clouds, causing her to squint as she glared up.  Most of the shutters were closed except for those on the second story. 

She scanned the driveway.  A dated white Peugeot 403 stood in the overgrown parking space. 

Calla scrutinized the old brochure of the Home that she had kept in her stash of research from the age of ten - a fragment of her past that made no sense to her.  Mama Cress had given her the brochure one summer during half term when she kept questioning them about her real parents. 

She turned to the back page and studied the information again.

The girls that are received at Blackmore Village Home range from infancy onward.  Most of our girls stay with us until they reach the age of seventeen, provided a suitable home is not found.

From 1876 until 1939, thousands of girls called Blackmore Village Home.  Many received excellent training in various professions, and there was always a great demand for Dr. Sterling’s well-trained girls.  Today our hope is to place girls in proper schools through sponsorship or homes through adoption.

Calla would have been five years old when she left the orphanage in 1987.  She remembered little of her life here except for the cottage and the little wooden swing that used to stand beside the driveway, where she would spend several hours.

Alone. 

The swing was gone, probably removed to make room for the new driveway.

She rang the doorbell one last time. 

Nothing.

Shrugging her shoulders, she turned to leave.

“Yes?”

A gray-haired, woman slowly pulled the door open, wearing what appeared to be an over-sized kitchen apron.  She leaned on a copper-colored, walking stick and eyed Calla intensely with her hooded brown eyes.  It was clear she did not receive many visitors.

Calla gave her a heartfelt smile, turning towards the door.  “Hello. I…I’m Calla Cress.  I wonder if you can help me.”

The woman cautiously slid the door open and peered through the inch crack.  “What is it you want?”

“Have you lived at this address long?  You see, I was brought here as an orphan.  I’m looking for any information on what happened to the orphanage and the orphans—”

Calla stopped mid-sentence, feeling an enormous weight on her mind.  The woman’s stare remained frigid and she dragged the door to close it.  “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

Calla had come too far. She’d avoided knocking on this door for months. The answers had to be here. Determined not to be warded off, Calla set a firm hand in the door crack.  “Please help me.” A wrench of misery surfaced to her throat. “I’m dying—” she whispered.

The woman’s look stiffened.

An agonizing tear emerged in Calla’s left eye and dropped to her elbow as her hand remained steady on the door. “Please help me.  I have a genetic disorder and I need to talk to you.”

An invisible weight lifted from Calla’s shoulders.  She’d finally acknowledged the full extent of her fraught existence.  “Won’t you help me, please?”

The frown lines in the old woman’s face eased. She attempted a weak smile.  “I’m sorry; I’ve lived here since I was a girl.  But, I don’t see how I can help you.”

Calla pulled out a wrapped object from her denim pockets, a laminated photograph.  “Perhaps this can help?  This is the only memory I have from this place.  Do you recognize it, and why it was filed with my adoption papers?”

The woman’s glare dropped to Calla’s hands and without a word, her feeble hand eased the photograph from Calla’s grip. Once she had surveyed the black and white image, she lifted her gaze to study Calla’s intent. “Where did you get this?”

“I’ve had it since I was baby, I think.  You see, it’s a photograph of a birthmark.  I’ve had it as long as I can remember.  My adoptive parents, Mama and Papa Cress said it was the only personal belonging they took from this orphanage.”

Calla raised the right leg of her denim jeans.  “Here. Take a look at this.  It looks like a tattoo.”

The woman’s eyes widened even further as they fell on the impressive birthmark. She drew the door wide open.  “Come in.”

Calla closed the door behind her as the gentle woman led her inside the humble cottage. She moved at the woman’s slow pace as they trailed past the cloakroom that led one into an inviting living space.  She studied the arched windows and the rustic Inglenook fireplace, which still emitted a distinct burnt odor reminding her of the quiet, winter evenings she spent listening to Papa Cress’ stories by the fire.  They paced past the room, settling in a retro, orange and brown tiled kitchen with its sixties décor.

The mature woman took a seat at a round kitchen table.  “For years I wondered what had happened to you, Calla.  We didn’t call you Calla then.”

Calla pulled a seat across from her and slowly dipped into its synthetic frame, not once taking her gaze off the tender, yet wrinkling face.  “What did you call me?”

“Baby.  Just, Baby Cress.  You were the youngest baby we had in the home at that time.”

“You know this photo?”

“Would you like some tea?” the woman asked ignoring the question. 

Calla nodded out of respect for the woman’s hospitality.  “Just milk, no sugar, please.”

The woman doddered at a shaky pace towards the sink by the window overlooking the driveway.  April showers began a steady descent in the courtyard, as the sun disappeared behind the graying clouds. 

The woman closed the windows and soon the whistling kettle broke the serene silence.  She brewed two cups of Earl Grey and took her place at the table. 

Her voice shook with strain as she spoke.  “You were the one we were most careful to place in the right home.  That’s why you stayed with us longer than most.”

Calla decided she would not interrupt, even though everything in her wanted to know why. 

The woman slurped audibly from her steaming, tea mug.  “I remember the night well.  We had been told for months that a baby girl was to come to our home.  She needed special attention and delicate care.”

Calla tasted the weak tea and set her cup on the table, as the beverage warmed her hands more than her throat.  “Why?”

“I remember the couple well.  They were well groomed from head to toe.  The woman was so stylish.  For a village girl like myself, I thought she was royalty.”  She let out a small laugh.  “The man was tall and strong.  Everything about him pronounced his authority.  But, what gentle eyes he had.  Especially when he looked at you, Calla, all bundled up with your tiny face in that sweet white bonnet.  Your hair, my dear, is as dark as it was then.”

The woman reached over and raked her feeble hands through Calla’s dark mane. “Still silky like a raven’s coat.”

Calla listened intently as the woman’s narrative sparked her imagination, picturing the man and woman in her mind.  These must have been her parents.  “What were they like?”

“They seemed reluctant to leave you, but they both signed and agreed that it was for the best.  They only had one legal condition, that this birthmark never be removed.  That is why we took a photo of it and kept it with your file.  The contract stipulated that they would pay your adoptive parents for all your expenses into adulthood. And I remember they said a trust fund was left in your name with a beneficiary.”

“Was there a name?”

Any name would do. Please God!

“I don’t remember.”

Calla now understood.  That’s how Mama and Papa Cress had afforded her education.  They had always claimed it was a fund they’d inherited. 
They lied to me.

The woman took another noisy draught of her tea.  The rain had stopped and sun rays sparkled off her spotless kitchen sink.

Calla investigated further; perchance this time she would get a response.  “What’s so special about this birthmark?  It’s very unusual.”

The woman cradled the photograph in her bony hands.  “Dear child, they didn’t explain anything.  The adoptive papers were in order.  I distinctly remember they were in a tremendous hurry.  I was just the office assistant then, told to administer everything with the new office computers.  In the eighties, that was a novelty.”

“Did they say where they were going and the reason for my adoption?  Where can I find those files?”

“I don’t know.  The home closed when it ran out of funds.  I’m not sure what happened to the files.  Destroyed maybe.”

“They just walked away?” 

Calla’s host nodded slowly. “I just took you in my arms and watched as the woman was pulled away from you.  Oh, did she cry!  We heard her weeping all the way to the waiting car that night.”

“What happened to them?”

“I don’t even know if they were your parents.  The papers did not have any information about your birth.  If I remember correctly, it listed them as your guardians.”

“What were their names?”

“Oh, if only I had the files.  I don’t remember.”  She glanced at Calla’s eager face.  “As soon as they placed you in my arms, they left.  You were such an angelic child.  And at five, your new parents came to take you.”

A tear strained out of Calla’s right eye, however hard she tried to control it. Her throat lost all moisture. 

The aging woman took Calla’s hand into hers.  “I’m so sorry, Calla.  I wish I could tell you more.  That information was legally classified to protect both parties.  They were very specific about that.  In fact, I think I remember, we were to destroy your files once you left the orphanage.”

“Why?”

“I remember asking myself the same question.”

Calla took one hand back and wiped her damp eyes.  “In all the time I was here, did I ever visit a doctor?  Is there anywhere I can find out more about my medical history?”

The woman sympathized.  “That’s all I know.”

Calla’s cheeks burned, rejection and despair immersing her mind. Her voice clogged with emotion.  “It’s almost as if they paid the Home and my adoptive parents to take me.  Why? What was so wrong with me?”

The woman’s disheartened eyes turned from Calla’s solemn face as her own sorrow echoed Calla’s grief.  “I hope that’s not true.”

Knowing it was the only comfort she could offer, the gentle woman drew her in her warm embrace. 

Calla rested her head against the comforting heart of the compassionate stranger.
Why did these people just leave me?
 
They must’ve known I had an abnormality.
That’s why they gave me away and asked for special treatment for me.

Calla’s unsteady voice broke through the sobs.  “I was a burden to them…a weakling and therefore undesirable.” 

Everything she had feared. 

My changing state can’t be attributed to the carbonados.

Jack and Nash aren’t affected.

The senior woman wiped Calla’s tears with a thin index finger.  What had been a twenty minute cry in the woman’s consoling arms, felt like it had lasted all afternoon. 

Calla lifted her throbbing head and blood-shot eyes from the woman’s arms. She wiped moist eyes with her sleeve and sat upright as the darkening cloud cover told her it was getting late.  “Do you know what time it is?”

“Let me check.”

“I need to go.”  She fixed intent eyes on the woman’s face.  “Thank you.  I have the closure I need.”

The woman cupped Calla’s face in her hands.  “I don’t like the resolve in your voice, dear.  Calla Cress, you are your own person.  Live your life to the fullest.  Just because your parents did not want you, does not mean that no one does.  You may have been an accident to them, but your life is not accidental.”

The woman’s words were still ringing in Calla’s head as she headed back to her car. 
Nothing matters now.