Bardstown Baby Mama

“Your mother is not, in fact, Hildegard Bard, and you are not the rightful heir to the Wyatt David Crane Bard name! Your birth mother’s name was Charlotte Augusta Gibbes. I should know; I was the nurse that the Wyatt David Crane Bards paid to switch the paperwork.”

This came as quite a shock to Kevin Wyatt David Crane Bard V, the great-great-grandson of the man who founded the town and put the locket into the time capsule some 200 years earlier. After generations of rampant spending, the Bard fortune was all but gone and Five, as he liked to be called, had nothing to his name but the family’s one remaining asset: a local bookstore which he worked hard to keep out of the red.

The time capsule was promptly forgotten as everyone’s attention immediately turned to Five’s biological mother Charlotte. Everyone with access to a web browser on their smartphones started looking into it, until excited utterances began spreading throughout the crowd.

“Charlotte Augusta Gibbes went on to marry John Jacob Astor III, heir to the majority of the Astor Family’s fortune!”

“Who are the Astors?”

“You know, New York elites: Astor Library, Astor Place, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, hell, even the entire neighborhood of Astoria in Queens is named after them!”

“And our very own Five is related to them?”

“If this note is correct, he’s the firstborn son to someone who married into one of the biggest fortunes in America at the time!”

“Think of what this could do for Bardstown!”

“This of what it would do to Bardstown, if news of this terrible baby-swapping travesty were made public! To the public outside of this town, I mean.”

“What does Five want to do about it?”

Five, who had often entertained flights of fancy about what it would feel like to be rich and famous rather than always just scraping by, discovered that fame and fortune might not be all they’re cracked up to be. He was happy just getting by in his small local bookstore, his only claim to fame being a remote descendant of the town’s founder.

“What else is in the time capsule,” he asked in an attempt to distract everyone else from the decisions that he himself would have to make eventually. “If these are the first two items out, who knows what else might be in there!”



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Sentence Count: 20
Written for: "The Bard's Hall Contest" 
Prompt ▼

Cop Shop Mystery 2020: What the Time Capsule Holds!


The Time capsule which was stored in the basement of the library’s storage room, had caused quite a stir a year ago, when their was a hostage situation at the library involving the elderly librarian. However, that mystery was solved!

Tonight is to be a major celebration in Bardstown as it is the 20th decade of the town’s founding! Founder’s Day has always been celebrated in a festive and unique way each year. This year, the historic Time Capsule will be opened, and the mayor will present each item which will be shown and or read depending on the item enclosed.

That evening, Mayor Writon got up to the podium and made his speech. He spoke of a couple hundred years of history since the town’s founding. He mentioned Sister Delores of Sweet Sorrows, or “Sister D” for short by her students and those who know and love her in the town. He said that she was given the precious honor of guarding the secrets delivered to her to be added to the time capsule over the past quarter century. The grand reveal would take place this night, the 20th decade of founding of Bardstown!


The mayor began by using his key along with Sister D who had the second key to open the time capsule in front of the enthusiastic towns people. There wasn’t even a peep from the children who had been enjoying the various carnival rides plus eating cotton candy, candy apples and if any room left, the corn dogs that were a locally made Bardstown hit.

“The moment we were waiting for, ladies and gentlemen! I give to you a history of the 200 years of Bardstown!”

Mayor Writon opened the first item he pulled out of the capsule. It was a small package and inside it was a locket. “To my beloved Hildegard on our 50th Wedding Anniversary, Love forever, K.W.D.C.B” The mayor’s eyes misted as he comprehended where the gift originated. “Folks, this is our town Founder, Kenneth Wyatt David Crane Bard! (He had many family names. His parents couldn’t decide which to settle on, so he got them all.) How wonderful that on this special occasion, the first item we open was from our Founder to his beloved wife!

The mayor proceeded to unveil the various trinkets and notes from school-aged children, and “modern” items from times past. The next item he took out was a sealed note. He gently broke the seal and prepared to read. The mayor turned a whiter shade of pale. Hot beads of sweat formed on his forehead. His mouth was agape, but no words came forth.

The crowd clamored. “What does it say, Mayor?!!”

Speechless, the mayor handed the unsealed note to Sister D. She read it to herself and passed out.


Back at the Cop Shop


Ringgggg!!!! Ring-ring! “Hello, Captain O’Leary, here. If that’s you, Mayor, I’m sorry I’m late but you insisted retired Former Deputy Fife be deputized by Sheriff Taylor before I leave him alone at the 20th Precinct, during the Bardstown Founder’s Day events. Sheriff Taylor is running late, so …”

“Stop your blabbering, O’Leary, this is Mrs. Writon! Get down to the town square immediately. My husband, your mayor, has gone mute and Sister D has fainted! The cause appears to be an unsealed note both of them looked at. I fear going up on stage to check them out in case the letter contained some hazardous materials that they touched causing their mysterious health problems!”

“Okay, Mrs Writon I’m on my way!” Now where are those hazard material handling suits we store here for emergencies?



Back in the town square.


Mrs. Writon greeted Captain O’Leary when he arrived with a curt remark. “You look like a deranged bunny in that suit O’Leary. Please take it off, get on stage, and do something!”

Captain O’Leary took it upon himself to get to the bottom of the mysterious letter that had caused the biggest talker in town, Mayor Writon, to be cast silent and the beloved Sister D, to faint on stage.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I will pick up where the mayor has left off. He needed a glass of water for his sudden onset of laryngitis.”

“Get him off the stage, Officer Smith. And, Officer Jones please let the medics know it’s safe to remove Sister D from the stage.”

With his new found importance, O’Leary began reading the letter.

“My fellow Bardstownians, I cannot keep silent any longer. A child in this town has been raised as another woman’s son. It saddens to me to admit this, but I have been complicit in keeping silent about the baby-switching all these years. I won’t continue to live with this lie or allow your life to be based on a lie.

There were two emergency C-Sections on that dark and stormy night. One was the woman who gave birth to one of you. She was a charity patient, very young no means of support. The other was the woman who raised you. She and her husband were thought better situated to raise a child. It was she whose baby was stillborn, while the young mother’s son was born alive.


The decision was made that night at Mercy Me Private Hospital, to switch the babies, thus making sure the live infant went to a good home, while the young, frightened birth mother would be given a better chance at having a fresh start, perhaps get an education and career one day. She was told her son was stillborn. Although devastated by the news, she seemed relieved. Perhaps that was just the shock of the situation along with heavy sedatives. *Think*

I will now reveal to you who your birth mother is … ”


Here’s the mystery YOU have to solve in only and exactly 20 sentences!

Who wrote the note found in the time-capsule?
Which Character in the town is the son, switched at birth?
Who is the birth mother?
…if the note-writer didn’t do this on his or her own, then... Who convinced the note-writer to help switch the babies that night at “Mercy Me Private Hospital? (Why, How?)