Unraveling Isobel by Eileen Cook Page B

point there isn’t much else we can do.”
    Anyone with any news on the missing girls is encouraged to call Constable Edmunds.
    I rubbed the back of my neck. It might have been all the small, blurry print or the dust, but I was getting a headache. I still needed to find something recent about Nathaniel’s family. At the back of the next box I found it. There was a picture under the headline. I recognized Nathaniel’s mom from the picture in his room.
    Catastrophic Boating Accident Claims Two Lives
    Marine investigators declared yesterday that Sylvia Wickham and her daughter, Evelyn Wickham, were both casualties of the February 9 boating accident.
    The Wickhams’ boat, The Tempest, was found floating off Porto Cove Bay early in the morning of February 10. There was no one aboard and no damage to the boat. No life jackets were found on the boat. Mr. Richard Wickham reported his wife and daughter missing on Thursday evening when they failed to return home from what was planned to be a short sail. Mrs. Wickham’s body was recovered twodays later, but Evelyn, age 10, has not been found. She is presumed dead at this time.
    Investigators could determine no cause for the accident. Mrs. Wickham was an experienced sailor and there were no indications that the boat had any mechanical problems. The weather on the day Mrs. Wickham and her daughter disappeared was a sunny 38 degrees with light wind, which should have posed no difficulties. Although it is early in the season, it was not uncommon for Mrs. Wickham to take the boat out unattended. The police have stressed there were no signs of foul play and have declared the incident to be a tragic accident.
    Mrs. Wickham and her daughter, Evelyn, are survived by Richard and Nathaniel Wickham. A private memorial service for family only is being held this weekend.
    I put the paper down and rummaged through part of the box. It was clear that the Wickham family had had more than their share of trouble. Still, the boating accident sounded shifty to me. Why did the police feel it was so important to stress that there were no signs of foul play?
    The librarian cleared her throat. That’s when I noticed it had grown dark outside.
    â€œWe’ll lock up soon,” she said softly.
    I looked down at my watch. Shit. I’d lost all sense of time. It was already almost seven. My mom must be freaking out. I grabbed my phone out of my bag. I’d turned the ringer off when I’d gotten to the library. Shit. Six missed calls.
    â€œThanks for telling me about the archives,” I said, shoving the files back into the boxes.
    â€œI hope you found what you were looking for.” Mandy pulled on the sleeves of her cardigan. She was wearing about a hundred small silver bangles on her arm.
    â€œMost of it.”
    She had a smudge of gray dust on her cheek. I had one more question she might be able to help me with, and after all, if you can’t ask your librarian, who can you ask?
    â€œHave you ever heard anything about a member of the Wickham family being kept locked in an attic?” I asked. I had to hand it to the librarian. She didn’t look surprised or ask me how I could have become part of a family that I didn’t know basic things about, like if they’d had relatives in the belfry.
    â€œPeople at school telling you stories?”
    â€œSo it’s just a story?” I felt a band of tension around my chest loosen up.
    â€œThings weren’t quite right with the first Mrs. Wickham. Let’s see, she would have been your stepdad’s great-great-grandmother, I think. Of course, it isn’t clear what exactly the issue was, but she was mentally ill.”
    â€œSo they locked her in an attic?” My voice sounded panicked to my ears.
    â€œIt was the 1800s. Mental illness was something deeply shameful at that time. The kind of thing you locked away, so it didn’t contaminate everything else. I suspect the family thought they