“You finished it already?” She glares at Elaina, who shrinks back. “The wedding’s not till Thursday! I bet Gigi’s cake isn’t finished yet.”
Mrs. Rattles turns on her heel and ushers Ginny and me out of the cake shop. “We’re going up to Austin to meet with some real bakers. Just the three of us, and we’re leaving first thing tomorrow. Whatever plans you girls have, break them!”
“Yes, ma’am.” I squeeze Ginny’s hand as we fall in line behind her mother. “The baby’s getting a real good vantage point of what his or her grandmother’s like, huh?”
“He or she is kicking up a storm.” Ginny puts my hand to her belly. “Kicking to get away from Mama’s shrieking.”
I laugh. “Smart baby.”
“I can’t talk,” I tell my mother the next day. “Mrs. Rattles is outside my door honking right now.”
“That’s why I’m calling,” Mama says. “Riley told me about your upcoming trip to Austin today. And it got me thinking—do you remember about twenty years ago, you were around four or five, and the Darcy Museum agreed to loan Vivian’s diary to that newfangled place up in Austin, the one that specializes in haunted buildings?”
“Um, no…”
“I sent for a brochure, and it looked quite interesting. They collect items from haunted buildings all over the world. It was Darcy’s first brush with statewide fame.”
“Is the museum still there?”
I open my door and wave at Mrs. Rattles. She replies with another loud honk.
“It’s been downsized to a pop-up,” Mama’s saying in my ear. “So it moves around.”
“Like a food truck?” I grab my keys and sling my purse over my shoulder.
“Yes. And I’m looking online, and it says that this week the museum will be on East 7th Street.”
The honking is getting steadier. And louder.
“Okay. But why would I go there, Mama?”
“I was going through Vivian’s diary again, and in one section, a sentence doesn’t match up to the next page.” She’s talking a mile a minute. “I looked closely at the seam of the book, and sure enough—ripped paper! Fitting, isn’t it? The capital of our great state could be holding such an important piece of evidence for the purpose of liberating a great author’s spirit.”
“Mama, you’re talking nonsense.”
I step out of my duplex and turn to lock the door behind me. The honking increases.
“A clue was lost in Austin!” Mama insists. “It’s the only time Vivian’s words were taken out of Darcy. Someone in that museum up there must have torn a page out!”
“Okay, relax.”
Loud, insistent leaning-on-the-horn type honking is happening now in my driveway.
“I’ll find the place and call you from there. Love you, bye.”
I stand outside the truck titled “Haunted, Ghosts, The Dead, and More” and knock tentatively. The windows are dusty and tinted, and I’m not sure anyone’s inside. But when I called, the hours said nine to five, and it’s just after noon.
Ginny and her mother are happily relaxing at a café down the block after our smashing success in ordering Ginny a cake that the baker swore up and down could be done by the thirtieth of June and delivered to the reception hall in Darcy. Mrs. Rattles convinced the poor woman that Ginny would fall apart if they couldn’t get her a cake, and who wants to disappoint a pregnant woman? And who wants to say no to a domineering lady bearing down on you angrily from the other side of the counter? Either way, the cake is a go.
When no one answers my three knocks, I try the doorknob and am surprised when it opens.
I step inside and close the door behind me. I look around the nondescript room with photographs of buildings all along the walls and paintings of ghosts and goblins in between. Ropes separate the different sections. One area is called “New York’s Most Famous Spirits” and another “The Dead Live on—See Where They Lurk.”
A young girl wearing square-rimmed black glasses and chewing a huge wad of pink bubblegum sits at a makeshift welcome area and asks if she can help me.
“I hope so. I’m from Darcy in Hill Country, and a number of years ago, y’all borrowed one of our haunted items for an exhibit. And a page of it didn’t make it back.”
She points to a glass case in the corner. “That’s all of our archived items. We kept some things from old exhibits. Nobody usually wants them back. Nobody cares about ghosts’ belongings.”
