The secrets within, p.9
The Secrets Within, page 9
part #7 of Saranormal Series
“Our daughter got Buddy as a puppy for the family, then discovered she was horribly allergic to the dog. Hives everywhere. She couldn’t live with him, but our three grandkids were so attached. Tom and I offered to take Buddy in. Our grandkids visited with him at our house on the weekends.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” My dad gave a grunt and twisted the screwdriver.
“Except Buddy needs to be with an active, young family. We are too old for that dog. My knees are bad, and Tom has back problems. We can’t chase after him.” Helen sighed. “Whenever he’s run off, we’ve been lucky to find him.”
“Not this time,” Thomas said. “Buddy’s gone, and our grandkids are crushed. Even worse, we had taken off his ID tags because the jingling was bothering us in the car. You have no idea the guilt we feel.” He pointed to the figurine. “Weirdest thing, don’t you think, Helen?”
At that moment, Dad pulled the screw out of the dog’s belly. We all held our breaths. He pulled the two halves of the dog apart. A wad of cotton tumbled to the table. Inside was a small silver key.
Thomas Meyer turned the key over several times. “So this is the key that opened forty-three?” Thomas wondered aloud as he studied the key. “But what is forty-three?”
“It looks like a key to a safe-deposit box. The kind they have at banks,” my dad said slowly.
“But what bank?” Thomas asked.
“The gardener lived in Jefferson, right next to Harbor Isle,” Helen said.
Thomas sighed. “Jefferson has dozens of banks.”
“Is there one called Seatight?” I asked.
“Box forty-three is at Seatight Bank,” Lady Azura announced with conviction before I could say it.
As the adults inspected the key and talked about the bank, I slipped out the back door. I had no choice. I had to tell Lily. Leaning against the rusted metal chair on the small patio, I pulled out my cell phone.
CAN U COME OVER? I texted.
NOT NOW. OUT WALKING BUDDY, was her reply.
I could hear Thomas Meyer’s booming voice thanking Lady Azura. He’d be going soon. I couldn’t let him go without his dog. Plus, I didn’t think Lady Azura would keep it a secret for much longer.
NOW!!!! COME NOW & BRING BUDDY!!!!!!!
WHATS UP?
YOU’LL SEE WHEN U GET HERE.
I felt bad not telling her, but I was afraid she wouldn’t show up if I did. I couldn’t totally shock her, though. I had to intercept her on the front porch.
When I returned to the kitchen to cut through to the front, I overheard Thomas talking to my dad. “We weren’t the right people for Buddy. I feel as if I failed the little guy. He deserved a house with loving, energetic kids.”
I stopped, and for the first time in a long time, the whirlwind of ideas and fears twirling through my brain slowed, and I knew exactly how to make everyone happy. “I have an idea—”
I didn’t get to finish.
“Buddy!” Thomas Meyer bellowed.
“You found our dog!” Helen cried.
Lily stood in the kitchen doorway, holding Buddy’s leash. Her eyes darted frantically between the man and woman who’d crowded around her to hug Buddy. Then she found me. Her look of confusion turned to betrayal.
“How could you?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. She dropped Buddy’s leash and raced out the open front door.
Chapter 14
“Stop, Lily! Wait!”
Lily increased her speed, refusing to look back. She bounded down the porch steps and took off toward her house.
I chased after her as fast as I could, calling her name.
Mr. and Mrs. Randazzo were in their front yard, pruning rosebushes. Lily flung herself into her mother’s arms. “Buddy! She took Buddy,” she sobbed.
Her parents turned to stare at me.
I would’ve felt horrible, except I had an idea. A great idea.
“You need to come with me. All of you,” I said.
I dragged Lily and her parents back into my house. I introduced them to the Meyers. Mr. and Mrs. Randazzo were polite. Lily refused to talk to them or to me. Buddy was beside himself with excitement, scampering between the Meyers and Randazzos.
“I have an idea.” I turned to the Meyers. “Lily and her family have taken really good care of Buddy. They love him, and he loves being with them. Anyone would. They’re the most welcoming and caring family ever. And they have five kids. Five loving, energetic kids.”
Everyone was staring at me now. I hoped this would work.
“Mr. Meyer, you said how Buddy was too frisky. How he keeps getting away from you and your wife. You kept him so your grandkids could still see him and play with him.” I took a deep breath. “The Randazzos live really close to your daughter’s family. What if you let them keep Buddy, and they promised to let your grandkids visit whenever they wanted? Kind of a shared-dog-between-two-families thing?”
For a moment, no one spoke.
Mr. and Mrs. Randazzo seemed to be sending each other silent messages. So were Mr. and Mrs. Meyer.
Then, all at once, everyone agreed.
Lily whooped with joy. She hugged her parents, my dad, the Meyers, and even me. She saved the biggest hug of all for Buddy.
Her dog.
“The queen of cups,” I said.
Lady Azura held up another card.
“The Empress.” I flipped to lie on my stomach on the front porch. “I’m getting good at knowing the tarot cards.”
“You are.” She smiled down at me from the porch swing. I could barely see her face under her large sun hat. “Next we will work on their meanings.”
Even though school had ended for the day, Lady Azura and I had our own lessons. Thursdays were tarot days. Yesterday we worked on blocking out the psychometry. I got really good at building those walls. I didn’t have to wear gloves to school today. There were just a few days left in the school year. I wondered if I’d need the gloves at all next year.
“Lady Azura!” Lily barreled down the street. Buddy ran alongside, tugging at his leash. “Lady Azura, you’re famous!”
I sat as they scampered up the porch steps. Buddy slobbered my face with kisses.
“Look!” Lily waved the newest issue of the Stellamar Sentinel. “Check out the front page!”
“Shouldn’t Buddy be bringing us the paper?” I joked.
“Buddy doesn’t have to do tricks anymore.” Lily nuzzled his neck. “Buddy can just be Buddy.”
“Oh. Look, there I am.” Lady Azura pointed to her photo. The headline screamed, MEYER FAMILY GETS STOLEN JEWELS BACK, THANKS TO LOCAL FORTUNE-TELLER.
Lily and I gathered close. We read together about how Lady Azura’s psychic abilities and connection with the dead led her to discover the key that opened a safe-deposit box at Seatight Bank, where the thief had stashed the family’s jewels.
“They’re saying it’s all because of you,” Lily told Lady Azura.
“Nonsense.” She waved Lily away.
“Mr. Meyer is so happy. He says that having his mother’s jewelry back helps soothe the pain of her death.” Lily turned to her. “Everyone in town is talking about you.”
“Nonsense,” Lady Azura repeated. “Besides, Stellamar is a small town. This is news here, but nowhere else.”
“Actually, you may be wrong about that.” My dad had parked his car in the narrow driveway alongside the house and was now mounting the porch steps with his smartphone outstretched.
“The article has gone viral. News sources all over the country have picked up the story. Everyone wants to meet the all-knowing Lady Azura.”
Just then the phone inside Lady Azura’s fortune-telling room started to ring. We heard it through the open window. It rang and rang. No sooner had it stopped than it began to ring again.
“We are living with a celebrity,” Dad declared.
“Nonsense.” Lady Azura raised her penciled eyebrows at me. I knew she was secretly pleased. Being able to help Irene after all those years meant a lot to her.
She’d told me privately how grateful she was to me. How proud she was.
“No one cares about old people. The fascination with me will be a local blip. Gone in a flash,” she said now.
I gazed at the stories flooding Dad’s screen. I had a feeling that Lady Azura was wrong. Her life was about to change. Big-time.
“Are you going to answer?” Lily asked. The phone continued to ring.
“Not now. Maybe after four.”
“Four?”
“Four is hot chocolate time,” I informed her. “The Queen of England has tea at four. We have hot chocolate. Want to help me make it?”
Lily handed Buddy’s leash to my dad and followed me into the kitchen.
“I’m sorry again that I took Buddy Two even though you told me not to,” I said when we were alone. I had apologized earlier, but I still felt bad.
“Why didn’t you just tell me that Lady Azura knew there was a key inside? I would’ve just given him to you.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t know how to explain it all. Are you mad?”
“No! I got to keep the best dog in the world, and you did that!” Lily had been so happy all week. “Can I have Buddy Two back, or did Mr. Meyer take him?”
“He’s in Lady Azura’s room. He’s all yours.”
I hurried into the fortune-telling room. Buddy 2 sat on a shelf beside gemstones, a bowl of dried herbs, and a doll with a porcelain face that I knew had belonged to Lady Azura as a child. It was given to her by her grandmother.
How many secrets did this doll hold? If I touched it, I could see Lady Azura as a child. Even see her grandmother. I could learn things that she hadn’t told me. Things she might not remember.
I reached my hand out . . . .
I had the power to reveal secrets.
I thought of my mother’s dresses, hidden away upstairs. They contained precious glimpses into her life. How would I feel if someone else intruded on those secrets, if someone pushed back the shades and peeked through my window?
I’d be angry.
I pulled my hand away. I wouldn’t do that to Lady Azura.
I turned, then noticed a photo on one of the side tables. I bent for a closer look. Lady Azura had framed a photo of the Meyer family that Thomas had given her. Buddy barked outside. Lily rattled cups in the kitchen. My attention was on the photo.
Irene sat in the center. Frail but still regal and wearing her pearls. Thomas and Helen stood on one side of her. Their daughter and her husband stood on the other side. Three kids knelt in the front row. The two blond six-year-old twins, whose names were Ben and Rachel, and a blond thirteen-year-old boy.
My Mystery Boy.
They said his name was Mason.
I couldn’t stop staring at him.
Even through the photo, his eyes drew me in. Called to me. Those piercing green eyes. The eyes with secrets.
He wasn’t like other boys.
I sucked in my breath. Soon he would be here, visiting his dog at Lily’s house, and I would meet him. I had the weirdest feeling that was what Buddy, Irene, and the key were really all about. A way to bring me and Mason together.
Something bigger was still to come.
“Suddenly, the curtain moved all by itself.”
The late June sun found its way onto the front porch. I squinted into the glare at my best friend. “How?”
Lily Randazzo shrugged. “No one was standing anywhere near the window. And it was closed, so it wasn’t a breeze that moved it.”
Lily’s voice grew quiet. “Everyone in room seventeen of the Spalding Inn sensed what was happening. Mr. Spalding was there, in that very room, pushing back the curtain and looking out the window. He was staring at the pond where he had drowned fifty years ago.”
“Drowned?” I repeated. “Wait, is Mr. Spalding . . . dead?”
“He’s d-d-dead?” Lily’s five-year-old sister, Cammie, stuttered.
“Totally dead,” Lily confirmed. “Now he’s a ghost trapped in the inn.”
“Ghosts are scary.” Cammie tugged their dog Buddy closer.
“Even scarier,” Lily continued, “was when Mr. Spalding’s ghost pulled down the window shade. Right after he did that, there was this supercreepy wailing noise that sounded like it was coming from within the walls and from under the floors. Everyone was so freaked out . . . .”
“What was it?” Cammie asked. The color drained from her normally rosy cheeks.
“The ghost of Mr. Spalding was crying out in pain and frustration!” Lily explained, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Did you help him?” Cammie grasped Buddy tightly.
Lily gently tugged one of her sister’s black braids. “No, silly. I wasn’t there. I was watching a movie.”
“What movie?” I asked.
“The Haunting at the Spalding Inn. It was soooo good! And Justin Drexler was totally amazing! He played Mr.Spalding’s great-grandson. At the end of the movie, you find out . . . oh, I don’t want to ruin it for you!”
“No, tell me!” I said. “You know scary movies and I don’t mix. I’ll never see it.”
“Well, you find out that Justin’s character is a ghost too! I had no idea the whole time . . . he’s such a great actor, Sar! I think he might get nominated for an Oscar for his performance.”
Justin Drexler was the guy Lily—and half my friends, to be honest—had a crush on. He was a pop star turned movie star.
“And look at how amazing-looking he is! He’s even cuter with this new haircut!” Lily extended her phone to me. On the screen I could see a picture of a smiling guy with brown hair. He was definitely cute. Lily continued to gush. “And he has this great blog where he talks about all sorts of stuff, like what charities are important to him. I also read on his blog that he’s writing a book! He’s really into talking about how anyone can do anything they put their minds to. He’s so positive! I can’t wait for his book to come out!”
“Really?” Reading wasn’t Lily’s thing. I could finish an entire book in the time it took her to daydream through the first page.
“I know, right?” Lily grinned.
Lily continued to talk about Justin and I did my best to listen, but I was a little preoccupied. My mind was on another guy. I tried to change the subject and hoped I wasn’t being too obvious.
“So, Buddy’s previous owners are coming for a visit soon, right?” I asked as I reached over to rub Buddy’s belly. “When was that? And is that kid coming with them this time?”
“Who?”
Him. The boy with the white-blond hair. The boy with the piercing green eyes. The boy I couldn’t stop thinking about.
“The grandkid. What’s his name, Mason?” I asked. Of course I knew his name. I’d tattooed it on my brain ever since I saw his photo. Lily was forever crushing on celebrities like Justin Drexler, but I was crushing on a boy who wasn’t famous. A boy I’d only seen in one picture . . . .
About the Author
Phoebe Rivers had a brush with the paranormal when she was thirteen years old, and ever since then she has been fascinated by people who see spirits and can communicate with them. In addition to her intrigue with all things paranormal, Phoebe also loves cats, French cuisine, and writing stories. She has written dozens of books for children of all ages and is thrilled to now be exploring Sara’s paranormal world.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SIMON SPOTLIGHT
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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Copyright © 2013 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
SIMON SPOTLIGHT and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Text by Heather Alexander
ISBN 978-1-4424-6849-8 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4424-6850-4 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4424-6851-1 (eBook)
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2012941867
Phoebe Rivers, The Secrets Within
