Working for the Masons was not for the faint of heart, but my family had been doing it for over 50 years. When my mother and father died, my sister and I stayed at the Manor, knowing nothing different. Nowhere to go. The Masons expected us to stay, of course, and I think a bit of me expected us to leave. But we didn’t. We stayed, and continued to be taken advantage of with labor at all hours of the day and night. Our only payment was being allowed to stay at the Manor, a sprawling expanse of glamor that most envied.

Monday breakfast was always the worst because the head of the house, Marley, demanded a plethora of eggs, all cooked diferent ways. As I brought them out, I heard him say, “We can’t dig there. It’ll be found.” He looked up at me as I came closer with his platter, and his wife, Marcine, continued, “We have to dig there. It’s crucial to our new piping.” Whatever it was, they trusted me to hear it. I set the platter down and began to walk away.

“She’s there, love,” Marley whispered, suddenly, and Marcine gasped. I didn’t hear anymore, but the next day I saw construction beginning at the right wing of the house, where the greenhouse was. They were digging up the soil there, and I, curious, approached.

By the time I got there, they had found something. A shallow grave, it appeared. Feigning a delivery of cool, pitchered water, I drew closer to see my mother’s wedding gown - unmistakable - covered in years of filth, being pulled from the ground. They had told me she died from a fall, not on her wedding day.

I rushed to tell my sister. Who had our parents been, and who were we working for?