house. While Mr. Jackson showed his sister-in-law and brother-in-law to their bedroom, Kenny and Brenda showed Morgan, Scott and Mara to the rooms where they would be sleeping.
That evening, after a late dinner, everybody retired for the night. When Mara finally fell asleep, she had a very strange dream. In the dream, Mara saw a man dressed in a revolutionary uniform. Mara sensed that his name was Matthew. He was writing a letter, dated 1810. When he finished writing the letter, he put it in a thick brown envelope, which already contained several more sheets of paper. He then, wrapped the envelope in a large piece of white cloth and tied it securely with some brown string. He placed the bundle in a hole in a brick wall and carefully replaced bricks and cement to fix the wall.
Mara woke up suddenly and saw the man in her dream standing at the end of her bed. He motioned for Mara to follow him. Mara quickly put on her robe and slippers and followed Matthew to the third floor. At one end of a hall, he pointed to the ceiling and then disappeared.
Mara returned to her room and went back to bed. She was barely asleep, when she had a second dream. This time, she saw a man dressed in a different uniform. Mara somehow knew that his name was Thomas. He was writing in a journal and the date was June 3rd, 1860. After he was finished writing, Thomas placed the journal in a black wooden box, hid it in a hole in the floor, and placed a large stone tile on top of it. If Mara did not know the box was there, she would have guessed that there was a secret vault in the floor.
Mara woke up and saw Thomas standing at the end of her bed. “Here we go again,” thought Mara, as she put on her robe and slippers. She followed the ghostly apparition down some stairs that led to the basement. Thomas pointed to a brick wall at one end of the basement and then, he too, disappeared.
Once again, Mara returned to her bedroom and got back into bed. When she fell asleep, she had her third and final dream. She saw a boy about sixteen or seventeen, writing a letter. Mara noticed the date was June 10th, 1864. After the boy finished the letter, he folded the three sheets of paper, placed them in an envelope and sealed it. Then, he removed a board from the ceiling, placed the envelope in a hiding place, and replaced the board. Mara sensed that his name was Daniel, but Mara also knew that his mother called him ‘Danny Boy’.
Again, Mara awoke suddenly, this time, to find Daniel beckoning her to follow him. Mara was soon walking back upstairs to the third floor again, this time following Daniel. Daniel led her to the opposite end of the hallway, and pointed to a wall, and then, like each of the preceding ghosts, he too disappeared.
Mara walked back downstairs and went back to bed, and slept until morning. At eight o’clock a.m., Scott, Kenny, Brenda and Morgan woke Mara up, when they went into her bedroom. “Wake up sleepy head” said Scott. “We’ve been up for an hour already.”
Mara was still tired, and she just glared at Scott. “I didn’t get much sleep last night,” said Mara. “I kept getting woken up by pushy ghosts. It was like being trapped in ‘Dickens’ book; ‘The Christmas Carol’.”
When the others stared at Mara as if she was crazy, she replied, “I’ll explain everything after breakfast. I worked up quite an appetite walking around the house all night long.”
When the five teens walked into the dining room, Mara noticed that there were some new faces around the table. Brenda introduced Mara and Scott to her grandparents; Howard and Stella Jackson, who appeared to be in their late fifties, her great grandparents; Robert and Mary Jackson, who looked to be in their seventies and her great-great grandfather; Samuel Jackson who turned ninety seven that day.
Mara thought that it was cool that Brenda’s grandparents, great grandparents and her great-great grandfather, all lived together in the same house, just a few blocks away from the Jackson ancestral home.
A few minutes after the introductions, Samuel Jackson smiled and said, “I know who you are”, he said to Mara. You’re the girl who found that hidden room in the White House, aren’t you”
“Yes, with help from my friends,” said Mara. “In fact, Scott was one of them.”
Mr. Jackson looked at Scott and then said, “Aren’t you the lad who rescued the president’s daughter from the kidnappers?” Scott blushed when he realized that everyone was staring at him. “Yes, I did” he replied. “Betsy and I are very good friends now.”
What Samuel Jackson said next surprised both Mara and Scott. “I know President Morgan quite well,” he said. “In fact I knew his father and grandfather too. I was a United States Senator for thirty years. I also personally knew William Carver when he worked in the White House.”
“That was a noble thing you did, Mara, by making the Carver journals available to the public.”
During breakfast and afterwards, Mara and Scott were fascinated by stories that Brenda’s relatives told them. Mara was intrigued to learn that every generation of the Jackson family from Brenda’s father, way back to Matthew Jackson; the first generation to come to Ohio, all served in the military, with at least one member of the family serving in every war clear back to the Revolutionary War. Some of them even made a career of the military.
Brenda’s father was an Army reservist who had served in Iraq and in Desert Storm. Her Grandfather served in Desert Storm and Vietnam, her great grandfather served in Korea, Vietnam, and his father served in WW2 and Korea, before becoming a United States Senator.
Suddenly, Mara remembered her nighttime visitors. Mara started thinking aloud. “Maybe that explains the ghosts I met last night,” she said. The room got quiet and When Mara noticed everybody looking at her, she realized that she had said that last thought aloud. She had no other choice, but to explain everything to the Jackson family.
“The reason that I came to Cincinnati in the first place, was to help Kenny and Brenda solve a mystery of weird things that have been happening over the past several months.”
After Brenda and Kenny explained about their dreams and the strange things that they had seen and heard, Brenda said, “We didn’t mention this to anyone, because we were afraid that you would laugh at us, or worse, think we were crazy.”
“Their dreams were real,” said Mara, “and I can prove it. Since I was twelve, I have had psychic visions, while awake and asleep. Last night, I had three separate dreams. In each of them, I saw a different man in military uniform. After each dream, I woke up to find the man in my dream standing at the foot of my bed, beckoning me to follow them. Each time, it was to a different location of the house where they wanted to show me something.”
Not one word was said by anyone as Mara told her story. Mara could not tell if they all believed her or not, and she continued with the story.
“The first soldier I met was named Matthew and he wore a uniform from the Revolutionary War. The second soldier that I met was named Thomas. His uniform was from a later period than the Revolutionary War. The last soldier I met wore a blue Civil War uniform. His name was Daniel, but his mother called him Danny Boy.”
Samuel Jackson interrupted at this point in the story. “My great grandfather was Daniel Jackson and his nickname was ‘Danny Boy,’” said Samuel. “He served in the Union Army during the Civil War. The other two descriptions fit two more of my ancestors as well; Matthew Jackson and Thomas Jackson.”
Mara was excited to hear this information, because she suspected that the spirits might have been of people who used to live in the house.
“Why do you think they appeared to you?” asked Kenny.
“I think that they left something behind that they want me to find for your family,” said Mara.
For a moment, nobody said anything. Then, Samuel spoke up; “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s start this treasure hunt.”
Brenda’s father; Kyle asked Mara if she could remember everything that she had seen during the night.
“Are you kidding?” asked Scott. “Mara is the best mystery solver ever,
and she never forgets a clue.”
Mara’s face turned a light shade of pink, with embarrassment. She stood up, and with nine adults and four other teenagers behind her, she headed up to the third floor. When she got to one end of the third floor hallway, she pointed to the ceiling. “This is where Matthew wanted me to find something,” Mara told the others. “I think there is a secret room up there.”
Kenny and his father got a stepladder and Kenny climbed up and started tapping on the ceiling. He heard a hollow sound and when he looked closely, he noticed there was a gap between two of the boards, with a couple of screws holding it on. With a screwdriver, he removed the two screws and then he began prying the board loose. Slowly, a four foot by four-foot panel of ceiling came loose. It was hinged on one side, with the hinges hidden on the other side of the panel. Apparently, the door had not been used in several years. Kenny and his dad swung the secret door all the way down and open, revealing an open space above the hall.
Kenny climbed down, and after repositioning the ladder under the opening, he climbed up into the dark abyss that lay before him, followed closely by Brenda and Mara. Kenny noticed that there was a wooden floor. He tested it and after he found it sturdy, he helped his sister and Mara up into what seemed like another room.