CHAPTER 9
Early morning Nat was woken up by a call from his brother. Nat immediately freshened up and went on to meet his brother as he seemed like he wanted to have a serious conversation. Charlie met Nat even before he could enter the house and took him outside. Charlie jumped directly into topic."Nat this is about Elezabeth. I didn't tell you the complete story when I told you about her. She is not really from a different country. She is from a different age." and then he continued on to tell the whole story. He also showed the letters that they had found and the locket that had transported her to this era. He told her the whole story that she had told.
The science geek in Nat refused to believe in what his brother was telling him. But then he knew why his brother had kept this piece piece of information from him till now and he also knew that there must have been something which would have proved that what she was saying was true if his brother had decided to tell the truth now. "So you now believe her story? " Nat asked his brother.
"The thing is...I am not sure what to believe in. Katy is an expert and Katy believes she could be really from the past. Else she would have to a very good historian and actress to have convinced her otherwise. Also I remember how distraught she was on the day I found her. I dont think that could have been faked. I also remember when I was leading her towards the guest room she seemed mortified that I was sending her off to the stables." he chuckled and Nat joined along. "So this was either the same house she lived in or she would have to have observed this place for a really long time and done proper research into this family and house. But the thing is why would she lie...if she was lying that is" Nat wondered out aloud."Which we can try and confirm by doing some research and back ground checks." " But what do we search for? Random people who were lurking around here?One of us would have noticed if something unusual was happening around here for sure" "We could first start with history. Find the newspapers from the past and see for any records which would lead to some mention of Elizabeth's family. According to her story her whole family was killed in this robbery. There must be some mention of that at least." "Lets go check in the net. We might find some archives stored somewhere." And both the brothers hurried inside.
After poring through various sites for a some time , they found a library in the city where they would find all the news papers around the timeline from which Elizabeth was. As Charlie had to go meet the customers, so Nat decided that he would go and search the newspapers for any information related to Elizabeth. Charlie did not remember the exact date when her family was attacked. So he asked Katy to help him with the investigation. She decided she would make small talk with Elizabeth and try to gain as much information as she could without raising the suspicion. She also intended to examine the necklace and the locket to ensure the authenticity.
So Katy decided to ask Elizabeth to help around in their own garden and both Katy and Elizabeth went out with the garden tools. Katy initially just told her about what she had in mind for the day and which patch was to be cleaned and which seeds to sown. Then she casually started talking about how they had come upon the house and how they renovated it."So was this the place where you lived when you were..." "in the past? Yes. I can see that the rooms are similar in the main house. But the decoration seem to be differnet. But then as I haven't really gotten a proper tour of the house, I wouldn't be able to say for sure."
Being aware that Elizabeth could be a fraud for all she knew, Katy didn't feel very comfortable showing the whole house to Elizabeth. So she decided to play a little game and make the conversation a little lighter. "Ok , why don't you just draw a map of the house , the way it was when you were in the past and then I will tell you if its still used for the same purpose." she said with a smile and handed her a stick.
Elizabeth looked at her with a twinkle in her eyes and started drawing all the rooms and showed her the map of the whole house. While Elizabeth wasn't looking, Katy kept taking pictures of the map so that they could compare later with the house and see if that would give any clues as to her origin. At times Elizabeth would get distracted and talk about an event that occurred in a particular room or about people from her family who used to live there. She also spoke about an attic where her nephew loved to play but was scared to go in there alone.Katy didn't remember any attic being there when they built the house and figured the attic must have burned down or ruined at some point of time. She made a quick not of that too and asked Elizabeth to show that in the map and point towards the entrance. Elizabeth did it through one of the rooms inside the house. And continued to spin another story from her life.
Katy and Elizabeth spent quite some time with their heads bent in the garden and finally it was almost noon by the time they got back inside the house. Katy and Elizabeth had a quick lunch and then Katy went to her lab to along with the letters , the locket and other items that she had found in the trunk. Elizabeth had already left for helping Charlie's parents ,so KAty also sneaked into Elizabeth's room and took the clothes that Elizabeth was wearing the first time she met Charlie too from her room .
She also called Nat and gave him all the information she had managed to collect and both of them were determined to find out everything they could about this mysterious girl from the past.
