Earl grave tea, p.16
Earl Grave Tea, page 16
“I know,” Quinn said, giggling like she might have had a bit too much to drink. “Mr. Murphy is still here. I think he tried to give me detention on the way to the bathroom.”
A few titters from the small audience said that they were getting into it.
I felt an unexpected rush of enthusiasm and didn’t dare let it go. I held my own imaginary cup and danced my way over to them. “Did you guys see Sammy Devlin? He’s going around trying to convince everyone to run a naked mile on the track.”
This sent up a howl through the viewers, and I felt a weird elation. People had laughed! At a joke I’d made!
Was this why people liked acting? I felt like there were fizzy bubbles in my head, and I could barely stay in character. I wanted to smile so badly.
“Seeing how Sammy looks now, I think a lot fewer people will take him up on it than they might have in high school,” quipped Liam.
Daphne joined in a prissy cheerleader with a long-held crush on Liam—which might not have been acting considering how moony-eyed Daphne looked around him—and Honey played the part of Sammy the jock with rib-splitting perfection. When Norman came in as stodgy old Mr. Murphy throwing out detention slips to everyone, the small crowd was cracking up, and we got a big round of applause on taking our bows.
For the first time since Dierdre had mentioned the play, I wasn’t dreading it. Yes, there was still a lot to learn, and I wasn’t entirely confident I could memorize the whole script in two weeks. But if we were going to be allowed to wing it whenever we forgot something, then there was a chance… a small chance… I could actually make this work.
And I was surprised to find that I wanted to.
Rehearsal lasted almost two hours, and when we had gone through improv exercises in various groups and we all still liked each other, the mood seemed to be high all around.
Everyone filtered into the lobby, but I realized quickly that I’d left my bag behind and excused myself to retrieve it. The auditorium was already dark, someone having shut the lights off when they left, but I knew where we’d been sitting and there was a small light on the stage, so it wasn’t pitch black.
I found my bag right where I’d left it under our seats and was about to leave when I saw someone move behind the curtains. At first, I thought I might have been imagining things. I also briefly wondered if it might be a ghost. No matter how many times Honey insisted on telling me that there was no such thing, I couldn’t help but wonder.
I froze in place, daring not make a move. Then the curtain rustled again, and a moment later Keidi appeared. Gone was her permanent smile, her face now set in a focused stare, brows furrowed. When she peeked her head out from behind the curtain and scanned the auditorium, she must not have seen me because I was too close to the front. The stage was quite high, and I wouldn’t have been visible from where she was because of how dark it was and the angle.
I watched with curiosity as she came out onto the stage, carrying something in her hand, and moved quietly towards something I couldn’t see. She knelt down and, to my surprise, managed to lift one of the floorboards. Whatever she had been holding, she slipped inside, and then was gone in a flash, hurrying back behind the curtains and out of sight.
What on Earth?
I was itching to go up on stage to see what she had hidden, but Daphne peeked her head in the auditorium. “Hey Phoebs, you coming? We want to walk to Peach’s and get some cocoa.”
I took one longing look back to the stage but knew I wouldn’t be able to explain myself if anyone from the crew saw me snooping around. With a sigh, I followed Daphne out, knowing that if I couldn’t hunt for clues that hot cocoa was a good secondary option.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The next morning, after I went through my usual opening shift ritual and had been relieved at ten by the arrival of Daphne and Imogen, I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Rich in my backyard. In one hand I held Eudora’s second letter, and in the other the key.
The backyard of Lane End House was only a “yard” in as much as it was a green space behind my house. There was a small lawn, still green even in the dropping autumn temperatures, and the rear of the house also had a vegetable garden, a small tool shed, and affixed to the house was the new catio I’d recently had built for Bob and Coco so they could venture outside when the weather permitted.
Right now, it was chilly, but the sky was clear, so I’d opened the interior window that let them come outside. Bob, much more delicate in his sensibilities, hadn’t come outside yet, but Coco was sitting on one of the shelves watching us with the intensity of a construction foreman.
“Miaow,” she declared, her voice higher and more delicate than Bob’s, almost like she had a different accent.
“Yeah, I’m not sure either, Coco,” I called back.
“Do you always talk to them like you understand them?” Rich asked, raising a brow at me and glancing back over her shoulder to Coco.
“Sure. I get the gist of what they’re trying to say. Plus, it would be rude to ignore them when they’re talking to you, I think. Communication is a two-way street.”
He stared at me, trying to decide whether or not I was making a joke. I wasn’t, but I understood that not everyone was as co-dependent with their cats as I was. I wasn’t ever going to have kids, so I’d kind of started treating Bob and Coco like they were my little fur children. If people thought it was weird, so be it. Rich, however, just seemed more curious than anything.
“That’s actually very sweet,” he said finally.
From behind us, Coco meowed her agreement.
The yard gave way to a wooded expanse. Only about a quarter acre of it actually belonged to me, but the woods just kept going for miles and miles out my back door.
It was not out of the question for me to see deer grazing in my yard, and other woodland creatures had been known to visit as well. I’d seen foxes, a few eagles, and more birds than I knew how to track.
Right now, there were no animals to be seen, just the looming woods. I was grateful it was such a nice day, because the old-growth forest could be dense and very dark. When I’d played there with Rich and Leo as a kid, it had felt like stumbling into a fairyland.
We had played there so much Eudora needed to leave markers showing us how to get back to the house in case we wandered too far afield. I wondered if any of the signs she’d made were still around.
“Do you think our fort is still there?” Rich mused, thinking along the same lines as me.
“I have no idea. I haven’t been out here since I moved here.”
“What?” He was incredulous. “All this prime hiking right out your back door and you don’t use it?”
I shrugged. “I thought it might be nice to get some running trails going back when I first arrived, but I just never had the energy to put in the work. The growth it pretty dense, and there are lovely groomed trails all around town. But if you’re volunteering to help make me a 5K track, then by all means.” I smirked and took his hand, giving it a squeeze.
“Don’t issue me challenges like that, Phoebe, I’m inclined to try.”
“Rome wasn’t built in a day. You can do it like Vin Diesel said in the cinematic masterpiece The Fast and the Furious… a quarter mile at a time.”
Rich laughed, and the sound of it went right to my heart. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a ridiculous human?”
“I feel like this town brings it out in me.”
“Then I should write a thank-you letter to the town.” He squeezed my hand back, then gave me a kiss that lingered just long enough for my toes to tingle.
“All right, stop distracting me,” I teased when he pulled away. “We have to figure out where she’s hidden the lock that this opens.” I dangled the key in the air. “And you seem to think it’s out there.”
“You’ve tried every room in the house, right?”
“Anything even remotely lock-shaped, yes. No dice.”
“Then, I think we need to remember where we went as kids and try that. And I think the first step is to go looking for that old fort.”
I wasn’t optimistic about the fort’s fate. We’d built it when we were eleven, and had hauled old wood scraps, palettes, and sheet metal out to make it. The Pacific Northwest weather and the passage of time in the woods must have obliterated it in the twenty-five years since we’d built it, but perhaps there might be some lingering traces.
Rich and I headed into the woods. He brought along a light backpack even though we weren’t technically going for a hike. Still, he reminded me that we weren’t as young as we used to be when we ran wild through the woods, and having a couple water bottles and some granola bars wouldn’t be a bad idea in case we had to go further than we had originally planned.
I wasn’t going to argue, especially since he was willing to carry them.
The first part of the old trail was easy, since it angled downhill, though after about a hundred feet that nice downhill angle got a lot steeper, and rocks were sliding under my hiking boots making me periodically stumble and grab Rich’s arm for support. It was almost a shame we were already dating because this would have been the perfect opportunity for him to hold on to me just a little too long and make his first move.
Alas, we were well past the first move at this point, but he was still my knight in flannel armor as he caught me every time it seemed like I might twist an ankle and end our adventure early. The trail evened out some after we were hiking for about ten minutes.
I didn’t remember it being quite so treacherous when we were younger, but the reality was that we’d been fearless and brimming with energy. We had likely flown down that hill at top speed, shrieking and giggling the whole way. Danger hadn’t even been a concept for us at the time, though I know Rich had his own version of danger at home, which made the woods even more of an escape.
I was amazed how much the atmosphere changed in the trees. It was darker, but the sun being out created a dazzling stained-glass effect on the overhead leaves. The trees were all tall and huge around the trunk, and their bark was covered in thick moss. The forest floor was dense with ferns and other ancient-looking foliage.
While Raven Creek was by no means a noisy town, it was still evident that the world got so much quieter here. Birds were singing and flitting from branch to branch overhead, but otherwise it was just a mellow nothingness that I liked to imagine was the sound of trees breathing.
Rich moved with a purposeful sense of direction, but even he was going at a leisurely pace, looking around us, awed by the incredible power of nature. It was astonishing to me that this was all part of my backyard. Or backyard adjacent. Why didn’t I come out here more?
Then I thought back to my half-falling descent and remembered it was because I’d probably end up with a broken ankle and then die alone in the woods when no one knew where to find me.
As we moved through the trees, I was surprised to find that some things were starting to look familiar. There was the rock shaped like a turtle, its shell covered in moss. The tree with a burl on its trunk that was so big we had called it the Pimple Tree because we were eleven and zits were the height of personal embarrassment. There was the little creek we had wanted to build a bridge for, but it was so shallow we just splashed through it.
Now, being a fully grown person, I could almost jump across it, but there was a nostalgia in splashing into the smooth river rocks.
Before I knew it, we’d been in the forest for almost an hour, and Rich handed me a water bottle. I hadn’t even realized how thirsty I was until I took a sip, and then I almost polished off the whole thing. As we paused to drink, Rich put a hand on my arm.
“Look.” He pointed to something behind us.
As I turned, I immediately knew what he’d spotted. There was a little wooden plaque in the shape of an owl. The paint had almost entirely faded, but the ghost outline of an arrow was somehow still visible.
One of Eudora’s trail markers pointing us home.
We were definitely going the right way. My memory hadn’t been playing tricks on me. I just hadn’t remembered how far out we had hauled all that stuff to make our little fortress. It must have taken us forever, but it didn’t seem like it in my recollections.
Then I realized Eudora might have had a part to play in that.
If anything, I was surprised that thought hadn’t occurred to me sooner. Of course nothing bad had ever happened to us. Of course we’d carried heavy wood and metal miles into the woods without any issue.
We had magic on our side.
Rich and I came around a bend and stopped dead in our tracks. If I’d been suspicious of magical involvement before, I was sure of it now. Because there was our childhood fort, and it was in the exact same condition it had been in the last time we’d ever left it.
Of course, we hadn’t known that would be the last time, but children rarely know when they’re about to reach the moment they outgrow something once beloved.
Seeing it, impossibly still in the same condition, my breath caught in my throat, and Rich and I shared a quick look. He seemed as surprised and dazed by it as I was.
“I was hoping some of it might still be here,” he said. “But I never could have imagined this.”
The fort wasn’t much to look at, even with all four walls and the roof still intact. The frame was built from packing palettes and zip ties, with a few nails for good measure when we remembered to ask to borrow a hammer. The whole exterior was covered in corrugated sheet metal, which might explain some of its resilience, but certainly not all.
No, Eudora definitely had a hand in this.
The roof was covered in leaves and twigs, but the area around the little building was clear, the rocky border we’d built in a circle still visible. We had built a little fire ring as well, but we’d been told that we weren’t allowed to start a real fire in it under any circumstances, so we just built a little tipi out of twigs and imagined a roaring fire while we ate raw marshmallows.
I could almost imagine the three of us passing the plastic bag and giggling like we’d gotten away with something. As if Leo’s dad hadn’t handed them to us.
As we approached the little shack, I pulled the key from my pocket, finding that it was unexpectedly cool to the touch. The fort had never had a lock—what were we protecting—but now that I was standing in front of it, I could see the unmistakable shape of a keyhole in the door.
Rich and I once again exchanged befuddled glances. I was glad he knew about Eudora and me being witches, because this was hard enough to explain on its own without having to get into the finer nuances of magic existing. Magic was the only way to explain this.
“That never had a lock before, right?” he asked, even though we both knew the answer.
“Never,” I confirmed.
“Well then… what are you waiting for?” He nudged me with his shoulder, and the small gesture gave me the little flourish of courage I needed to stoop down and stick the key in the door. It fit perfectly, and when I turned it, there was a satisfying sound, like a very old lock being opened for the first time in decades.
I still didn’t understand what the lock was doing there or how it was even latched, but I pulled open the door and looked inside the fort.
On the dirt floor of the fort were reminders of what it had once been: our safe haven. There were cans of pop that were so old the designs on the labels would now be considered retro. A few comic books were scattered around, their pages wrinkled from all the moisture in the air. A quilt and a few old throw pillows were piled up on the floor, and a little lantern sat on a wooden crate in one corner. We had taped some of our own drawings to the walls, depictions of this fort as a castle, and dragons hiding among the trees. Somehow, the tape was still holding even after all this time.
And there, in the center of the floor, was a wooden box.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Rich and I sat cross-legged and hunched inside the fort. It had been a fine size for three eleven-year-olds, but for two adults pushing forty, the space was a little tight. Still, it felt like the right place to open the box. I wasn’t sure my curiosity would let me take it all the way back to the house before opening it.
Inside the fort, the sounds of nature were even more hushed, and if Rich hadn’t been moving, I would have wondered if my time-stopping magic had been triggered somehow.
The box was made of a similar wood to the one back at the house, but this one had obvious hinges. I lifted the lid, and inside was another envelope of the same crisp paper as the others—no damage from moisture whatsoever—and underneath the envelope there was a small puzzle, the pieces disassembled and the final image unclear.
I looked up at Rich, perplexed, then opened the envelope as I handed him the box to look at. He picked up a few pieces, but it was clear he didn’t know what to make of it either.
Inside the envelope was another short letter in Eudora’s neat handwriting.
Darling Phoebe,
I hope you’re not too annoyed with me for setting up this little hunt. I also hope you’ve learned the trick of finding each next piece of the puzzle. Sorry, I suppose that’s a bit literal in this case.
You’re close to the end now.
Love,
Eudora
I handed it to Rich to read over. “Huh, so I guess there’s going to be a missing piece of the puzzle. But do you know what she means when she says you’ve learned the trick?”
I shook my head. “I have no idea; I feel like it was pure dumb luck that led me to the first clues. Or, more specifically, it was good ideas from other people. Bob was the one who took me to the horse. You’re the one who took me out here.”
Rich looked at me, grinning. “Maybe that’s it.”
“What?”
“Maybe the trick is that you need to find the right person—or cat—to help you. Maybe the whole point of this is that you’re not supposed to do it on your own.”
I thought about this, re-reading Eudora’s letter, and realized it was actually genius if he was right. Eudora had no idea when I might stumble across the box, and what I might or might not know about myself when I did find it. I also might have uncovered it when I first moved—which would have happened if I hadn’t put off cleaning the attic for a year—in which case, I wouldn’t really know anyone in town.
