Chapter 20: Under the old willow tree

After searching the bookshelf from top to bottom, Hailey found out the hard way that movies sometimes lie. No secret passage appeared after she tried each book on the shelf.

There were no secret compartments in the walls or the floors, nor were there in the ceiling. It was almost two in the morning, she was on the verge of giving up when her eyes caught something peculiar on Dr. Ramsay's mahogany desk.

An open book with blank pages that almost looked yellow; beside it was a small jar of black ink and a wood-stalked paintbrush. Holding the two objects in her hands, she put two and two together.

"It's the twenty-first century, even pens and pencils are coming out of style, and this old woman is still using ink and brushes?"

Hailey was returning the ink and brush to their positions on the neat mahogany table when her hand bumped into a flower vase, and the ink spilled onto the open book.