The Room that Led to Freedom

Dr. Melissa Hines turned off the light on her desk and headed to the door when four seniors burst into her office. Faces white-like sheets with looks of sheer terror, the students spoke all at once in such loud voices, that Dr. Hines had to use one of her ear-splitting whistles to get their collective attention.

“Now then, Bethany, you go first,” Dr. Hines said in her calm librarian voice.

“It’s Luis, Dr. Hines, he’s missing. He came to the library last night and no one has seen him since,” said Bethany, a tall girl with long dark hair pulled up in a messy bun. “He did not show up this morning for our presentation in anthropology. That’s not like Luis.”

“Have you checked his room? Maybe he overslept,” the librarian offered.

“No, Dr. Hines, I’m his new roommate this semester,” began Tony. “I know for a fact he did not sleep in his bed last night.”

“I’m sure he just made a quick trip home to get something or have dinner with his family. Maybe he changed his mind about going to the library.”

All four students shook their heads in the negative. Squeezing together on Dr. Hines’s Victorian sofa, they would not be deterred. They looked nervously amongst themselves.

“We think there is something you should know, Dr. Hines,” Jonah started. “We think something might have happened to Luis. He has been acting strangely. We think it might have something to do with the library.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Dr. Hines asked. “I have been the head librarian at Merriman College for the past ten years, not to mention I attended college here. If there was anything about this library, any weird secrets, I would know. You have exams coming up this week. Go home and get your rest so you will perform your best,” Dr. Hines said escorting the students to the door, taking her coat from the rack, and walking with them to the library entrance.

Melissa Hines grew up in the small Louisiana town where Merriman College had been established in the late nineteenth century. A liberal arts college Merriman enjoyed numerous accolades in every department, especially the English department. Several faculty members authored books of fiction and non-fiction alike. Angus Castile recently published a piece on the town of Primeaux where Merriman was located. In his story, Castile shed light on his family's involvement in slave smuggling into the nearby port for selling in Congo Square in New Orleans. The Castile family responded negatively to the piece and dismissed Castile’s research as rubbish.

“Angus, I need to see you at your earliest convenience,” Dr. Hines said into her cell phone walking across the quad towards the library.

“I’m just finishing the last revisions for my editor. How does two o’clock sound?” Angus said scratching through another incriminating line. The piece wouldn’t be worth the trouble if his editor didn’t stop catering to his grandmother. Madam Castile threatened Pennywell Publishing with a lawsuit if one word of Angus’s piece ever hit the newsstand.

“Perfect, bring your friends. We have a situation that needs resolving, and before you ask, no, I’m not overacting.”

Melissa and Angus were classmates at Merriman in the 1970s. They shared a love for reading and books so they spent many hours in the library. Angus needed to leave Primeaux in order to get out from under his family’s collective thumb. His mother and grandmother seemed to think they had the right to determine the path Angus would take in life, which meant attending Merriman then law school, and taking over the family practice. Angus did not share his family’s expectations but rather seemed to move in the opposite direction. Angus had been arrested on a few misdemeanor charges in high school and his first year of college.  Eventually, the patriarch of the family decided what Angus needed most could be provided by the strict environment only a Jesuit school could provide. Angus spent his secondary education at St. Ignatius until his expulsion during his senior year. Afraid that his family would insist on his readmission, the school administrators awarded Angus his diploma with honors. With nothing to do, Angus enrolled in a literature class at Merriman where he met Melissa.

“We’re all here, Melissa,” Angus said looking at the couple sitting beside him. “What’s this situation that needs resolving?”

“Hello, Matthew and Sarah. It’s nice to see you again. I think one of the students might have stumbled upon the room in the basement and found the door to the tunnel,” Melissa said sitting down at her desk. “Which would explain why he is missing.”

“It’s been years since any of us have used the tunnel,” Matthew said.

“It’s not like students should even go to that section of the library unless …”

“Unless someone has found out about the tunnel all these years later,” Sarah picked up on Matthew’s thought. Married for more than twenty years, the couple often finished each other's thoughts.

“We can’t waste time trying to figure out how Luis found the tunnel. We have to go and get him back,” Melissa said putting on her coat, grabbing her leather satchel, and slinging it over her shoulder.

“I’m not sure my new knees are up this,” Matthew said as the four made their way down to the library basement. “What was the boy doing down here in the first place?”

“We can ask him when we find him, now come on,” Melissa shouted behind her.

“Dr. Hines, what are you doing here?” Bethany asked looking surprised to see the librarian, who looked equally as surprised to see Bethany.

Bethany explained that Luis’s phone had a tracking device so his friends always knew where he was. The wall where Bethany stood indicated the last place Luis’s phone was detected. Melissa looked at Angus, Matthew, and Sarah who all nodded to Melissa to proceed. Melissa tapped the wall rhythmically in four places on the wall. A metal door appeared and slid open. Bethany’s eyes widened.

“Do you think Luis went through that door?” Bethany asked. “How did he even know it was there?”

“Read about it somewhere, I suspect,” said Sarah looking straight at Angus who was looking at the floor.

“How was I to know anyone was going to read anything from Medieval literature? I just grabbed some random book that day and haven’t thought about it since. Can’t even remember which book it was after all this time,” Agnus said trying to defend the actions of a scared twenty-year-old.

“A person planning to do his thesis on Medieval literature. Luis has checked out almost every book in the library,” Bethany added.

“What’s inside there? How do you all know about it?”

“Because we were students here twenty years ago and found it, just like Luis,” Melissa said. “And now we must go back in to save your friend.”

“You ready?” Melissa asked her friends. “Shall we see if the tunnel is the same as we left it?”

As the four moved in a single file through the door, Bethany joined them. Melissa started to tell her she would have to stay behind but knew it was pointless. Turning on her flashlight, Melissa led the group through the first few feet of the tunnel in silence.

Angus began feeling the sides of the walls for something. Matthew focused on the ceiling. Sarah stayed close to Sarah looking more bewildered than before.

“It seems smaller and darker now,” Sarah said. “I guess I was more fearless when I was younger.”

“You were, Dear,” Matthew said laughing. “You wanted to be a part of what Angus had found that his family was so desperate to keep secret.”

“It’s funny,” started Angus, “they’re still desperate to keep what they think they know a secret. But the truth is; they don’t know the purpose of the tunnel. They convinced themselves the tunnel was used to smuggle slaves in. My great-grandmother refused to believe what her brother wrote in his diary in 1858. Micah Castile joined forces with the Underground Railroad to smuggle slaves through the tunnel so they could crossover to freedom.  Micah was the one who built the building that would become the library so it would cover up the tunnel.”

“And then we come along a hundred years later and find it,” Melissa said remembering the day they all became friends with Angus.

The four college friends met in an American history class that required a project involving research into a family secret. Every family has at least one, especially in the South. Angus knew the land where Merriman set once belonged to the Castile family known as Maplewood Plantation. To overcome their shame the land where the plantation once stood now belonged to the college. Micah Castile studied architecture and designed the building that became the library.

“If you look close, you can see initials all over the walls of people who walked through this tunnel to their freedom,” Angus said shining his flashlight onto the walls. Micah made sure each person had the documents stating their freedom.”

“But this doesn’t explain why Luis didn’t come back after he went through the door,” Bethany said.

“Luis probably went through the last door on the other side,” explained Angus. “Which means he is probably sitting on a bench in the woods trying to figure out where he is. Disorientation is a side-effect of the tunnel. You probably haven’t even noticed the various twists and turns and backtracks we have made. Micah was a genius when it came to tricking his enemies. I found his diary in an old trunk in the attic one day. He never married or fathered any children. No one showed much interest in him until I came along. I must be a lot like him considering how my family treats me.”

“Here we are, Bethany. This is the final door to freedom. But once you go through it, you can never come back. That’s how Micah designed it. He knew some would let the uncertainty change their minds and they would want to go back to the familiar. He wanted to protect them from themselves in that final moment, so the door only opens one way. It locks immediately when one tries to go in the opposite direction.”

Bethany slowly walked up to the door and pushed against it.  She couldn’t get it to move. Angus and Matthew motioned her out of the way; they knew exactly where to lean on the door to open it. Bethany walked through the door with Melissa shining her flashlight in the direction of the woods. There on the bench shaking from the cold sat Luis.

“Luis, you’re alright,” cried Bethany.

“How did you ever find me?” Luis asked through chattering teeth visibly shaken by his experience.

“It’s a long story that we’ll be happy to share with you after we get you someplace warmer,” said Angus removing his jacket and covering Luis with it.

“Wait,” Bethany cried, “what about the door from the library? Does it work like the door to freedom?”

“Why yes it does,” said Melissa.

“Then how will we get out?”

“We learned about the stub in the door that keeps it from closing completely when set,” said Angus. “I told you Micah Castile was a genius, always thinking about how objects function and how people react in certain situations.”

Sitting around the fire in Dr. Hines’s office, the four friends remembered the first time they went through the tunnel. Angus brought out Micah’s diary now in tatters and paper yellowed with age. Barely able to read the lead writing, Angus found the passage explaining the details of the tunnel.

It took us some time to figure out the best yet most confusing path for the tunnel. We knew the Union soldiers were onto us. The idea of a door just came to me when I spent more time convincing that young woman her life was not better off in the big house, far from it. She nearly did make her escape. She’s lucky I don’t mind rendering a person unconscious when necessary. I put that stub in the door so only those who knew to tap it so the door would not lock when closed, would be able to return back through the tunnel. I don’t know what this building will become one day, but I hope it will be used for good.

“Wow, I had no idea the mess I was getting myself into when I decided to find the secret room,” said Luis. “I saw the paper in the book I checked out of the library a couple of weeks ago. It gave the instructions but not much of an explanation of what I would find. I thought a treasure map or something.”

“I’m just happy Bethany came to me with her distress,” Melissa said.

“As far as we know, we four are the only ones who know about the room that leads to the tunnel that leads to freedom.”

“Everyone knows if you need to solve a problem, you find a librarian,” Bethany said smiling and sipping her hot cocoa.

“Dr. Castile, do you think I could do my thesis on Micah Castile and his role with the Underground Railroad?” Luis asked Angus. “Maybe you could share your stories with me, and we could co-author a paper?”

“It would be a pleasure, Luis. Maybe my family will believe someone other than the family renegade. I propose a toast to Micah Castile and his work for freedom,” Angus said lifting his glass of cognac.

“To Micah and to freedom,” the others said joining the toast.