Slinging her laptop bag over her shoulder and scoping up her notepad and stationary bag off her bedside table, Sage looked at her bare feet, paused as she pondered whether she should wear shoes, shrugged and left her room, heading toward the library. This was her home, so why was she thinking she needed shoes? If she was getting to know the house this week, its records were the best place to start. A house this old must have a story or history documented. Pushing open the library door, Sage looked around the gloomy room. Firstly, she needed light. Walking over to a window, she looked around to find something to open the floor-to-ceiling heavy velvet curtains.

"There has to be something," she muttered, pulling the curtains away from the wall, "I'm half expecting to find someone staring at me from behind these drapes. Ah, here it is."

Finding the cord, she pulled the drapes open. Flooding the room with light and lifting the dust from the surfaces, a smile tugged at her mouth as she watched the dust dance in the sunlight. Walking around the room, Sage opened all the curtains. She nodded; it was amazing what light could do for a room, taking it from a room that would suit a horror story to one that looked welcoming and happy.

"Now, where do I start?" she sighed, looking around, "Upstairs, let's see what there is and go from there."

Climbing into the gallery, Sage browsed the shelves, making notes of where genres of books could be found. Finally getting to the ground floor, she listed the books coming across drawers under some shelves; carefully opening them, she gasped; the books and documents found here were ancient, and a pair of white gloves lay in the drawer.

"Guess other people have looked at these old records," Sage said, slipping them on and looking through the ancient books, sheets of paper and scrolls. The writing was beautifully penned, masculine and bold. Looking around the dim area, she found a table. Carefully lifting one of the books from the drawer, Sage placed it on the felt-covered table and turned on the light so she could read the script.

"A ledger of housekeeping," she read, carefully turning the pages, "everything was obtained from Coopers Creek ..." she turned to the back page, "... it was used until the early nineteen hundreds."

She closed the large book and returned it to the drawer, selecting a pile of parchments to go through next. Some were letters between someone called Simon and a woman named Charlotte.

"Very English," Sage muttered, "and very descriptive. Ahhh, Mother and Son."

She read through them; they portrayed an unhappiness she could relate to, a deep-set oppression of someone who was not permitted to be who they wished to be. The mother answered these letters with some of her own.

"Wait a minute," Sage frowned, "if they lived here together ... why are they writing to each other?"

Picking up another letter, Sage read, relating to each pained sentence, "Who is this from? The writing is more feminine."

Reaching the end of the anguished letter to Charlotte, Sage found a name scrawled across the bottom of the last page.

"Annabel," she whispered, "are those the children?"

Making notes, Sage returned the letters to the drawer and carefully lifted the first of several scrolls from where they nested. Opening it, she found schematics... laying it on the table, she looked at the bottom corner, gasping.

"The House at Coopers Creek," she read, "is that its name?"

Looking at the names of the rooms drawn on the parchment, Sage realised it must have been the basement floor of the house as she recognised nothing on the plan. Returning it to its place, she slowly worked through the rest of them, getting to know the original house as it was intended. Finally, she pushed the drawer closed and opened the next, finding it filled with leather-bound books with golden engravings on each front.

"Journals, and it looks like one for each year," she murmured, "I wonder whose they are?"

Picking up the first marked as early as 1869, she opened to the first page and began to read; settling cross-legged on the floor in front of the drawer, Sage found the story of a young merchant couple who survived a shipwreck miraculously with most of their belongings and landed on a beach which seemed to be in front of where the house was built. It was fascinating that they were not transported to where they should have been when found. Instead, supplies were brought to the beach for them to continue living here, building a home, making a life and raising a family.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"The husband seems like any normal man. What happened?" Sage asked no one in particular as she sighed, finding a gap between the journals, "Huh... I wonder where these two years have gone?"

Lifting the next journal after the two-year break, Sage found a difference in the tone of the writing. The penmanship was the same, but the person writing was more agitated and perhaps distracted. What had happened between the last entry from the previous journal and now? Sage frowned as she took in the woman's worry regarding her young children and the man she had married. Something was clearly wrong. It worried her young mind as she shielded her children as much as possible. But what was she protecting them from?

Sage shook her head, curiosity welling as she moved to the following journal. Even the entries here were darker, more worrisome and fearful. What could have made a loving couple creating a life for themselves become estranged in this way? Were they estranged or living apart? Sage couldn't decide.

Noting the years in her notebook, Sage returned the journal and gloves, careful with the drawer as she closed it. On a different table in the sunlight, Sage opened her laptop and entered the information found on the plans of the house into a search engine, waiting to see what came up.

"Wow, those are a lot of hits," Sage sighed, starting at the top and working through the information; some of it was the same; however, they all referred to a specific acronym Sage had never come across. Not something she knew of, and when researching it online, Sage found it reverted to the English Navy of that time. It seemed strange for the day, but could it be something covert?

Following the links, Sage found herself reading articles about a place that hunted people could disappear to during the time of the journals. Could the two missing journals hold more than what happened with the family during that time? Typing in the two lost years, Sage gasped as several names appeared on a Navy list of people who were said to have abandoned their posts, disappeared from their ships, or were declared missing after a fight.

Frowning at some last names, she searched for Cooper's Creek during those years. She came across a few similar last names of people who established businesses, homes and trade in a new town on the coast. No name was attached to the town, but there was a name that may be the key to the naming of the town. A ship's Captain by the name of Henry Cooper disappeared in a raging storm and was never heard from again.

Leaning back in the chair, Sage frowned, "What do a ship's Captain and a non-existent modern-day town have to do with a legend? What happened in those two years?"

There had to be more to those two years. Following the rabbit hole of that period, Sage came across horror stories that made her wince; the mistreatment of families, sailors and people, in general, was appalling, but it also led her to stories and articles on the movement and activities of pirating. Fascinated, Sage followed where the articles led her, taking notes as she moved through the online history. The name of Henry Cooper surprised her in one of the articles about a pirate who smuggled people from place to place.

"Wait, could it be the same person?" she whispered.

Typing in Henry Cooper and the two lost years, two grainy pictures filled her screen, one of a man in Navy Commander gear and another of an older version of the same man wearing evening attire of the period. The pictures were titled with the man's name, and the year it had been painted.

"Twenty years apart," she sighed, "could he be the same man ... of course he is .... its plain as a pike that's the same man," shaking her head, Sage frowned. "What changed Henry?"

The face of the younger man was open, gentle, carefree, and relaxed. The eyes sparkled with mischief and smiled at the world. The face of the older man showed signs of severe exposure to the elements; the eyes were so different, Sage couldn't believe how hard and cold they were, and his expression was tense and controlled.

"What does a person go through to change so drastically?" Sage wondered, "It cannot be good, but what impact did it have on his family? Why was he the way he became? Could that have been how the legend started?"

So many questions poured from her pen onto the page as Sage let her mind process what she had discovered. The information wasn't only about the legend and history of the family who first lived here. Sage had so many questions about why previous residents weren't required to learn about the legend. Why was it something she had to do?

There was a mystery about all of this ... the house, the land, the village and the fact that the road coming here wasn't marked or tarred to make it more accessible. It made it more of a mystery that only a certain number of people knew about the place, and that knowledge was from previous generations. A knock at the library door drew her attention.

"Here you are," Maddy said, "just wanted to let you know that I have lunch in the kitchen. Do you want to eat in the dining room or the nook in the kitchen?"

Sage smiled as she looked at the large clock on the wall, "Nook in the kitchen. Thanks for fetching me, Maddy. I was a little engrossed with what I've found in the documents."

"Oh, you're the first resident here who would find those interesting," Maddy said, "as far as I understand, previous people get as far as the house architecture and go no further. I hope you found something useful."

"I did, but I do need to eat," Sage said, "is it okay if I leave my things here?"

"I don't see why not," Maddy said, smiling, "it is only the two of us in the house. You can come back when you've eaten."

"Nice, let's get some food,' Sage said, following Maddy from the room.