And she would have left us clues.
“So where are the clues?” I ask, staring at a lifetime of accumulation in the attic. A cream shade softens the light from the bulb overhead, and an old-fashioned rocking horse in the corner stares back at me with painted on eyes.
“Where would your grandmother have left her notes about the magic here?” Gunner asks, sniffing around at the old furniture and boxes. His thick tail wags slowly, and I get the distinct impression he’s enjoying himself.
“I don’t think she took notes. I never saw her.”
Gunner stops sniffing and gives me a long, hound dog look. “Just because you didn’t pay attention to everything your grandmother did doesn’t mean she didn’t do it.”
“Bit rude,” I mutter, shuffling past boxes labeled HOLIDAY ORNAMENTS DOWNSTAIRS TREE in huge block letters.
“Rude doesn’t mean wrong,” Gunner says. “I can smell the magic up here.”
“Are you sure it isn’t mice?”
“Well, attempt to prove rude means wrong, by all means, Ivy.”
“Sorry, Gunner.” I let loose a shaky breath. “I don’t know what any of this means.”
“You are a competent witch. You helped your friend in Texas solve a major ghost infestation. You can do this.”
I scratch him behind his ears, because I don’t have words to respond to that loyal expression of faith.
“If I were my grandmother, I’d have any and all writings in my old desk.” I’m not my grandmother, and we both know that, but Gunner nods and wriggles through the boxes to the old cedar roll-top along the back wall.
A green glass lamp sits on the top of it, and I twist the knob to turn it on.
Trepidatiously, I press my fingertips into the roll-top and push. It takes a moment, but the desk finally responds and the cover disappears into the mechanism.
Revealing… nothing. The desk itself is bare, devoid of dust or pens or any other ephemera that might have been helpful.
“Well, shit,” I say, pursing my lips. “There couldn’t have been a spell book just sitting there, waiting for me, open to the right page? No?” I sigh.
“That would have been nice.” Gunner’s tongue lolls out in a doggy smile. “Nice is hardly ever the operating system for magic.”
“Operating system?” I ask, pulling out the drawers and looking through the detritus of my grandmother’s life. Receipts, yellowed with age, a cracked fountain pen, ticket stubs for an event at the Reach. “Have you been reading about technology again?”
“What else am I going to do when you’re working?” He snuffles at the side drawer, letting out a whine. “Something’s in here.”
“It’s a shame you don’t have thumbs,” I tell him.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want those.” He snorts.
“Here.” I scoot him to the side and he leans against me while I tug open the drawer.
“Oh,” we say at the same time.
There’s a lone scrapbook in the drawer. Reverently, I pull it out, letting my fingers luxuriate over the brown silk cover, the matching velvet tie.
“I’ve never seen this before.”
He wags his tail, and I beam at him. “You did good, Gunner.”
Gunner looks like he could die happy from praise.
The light flickers overhead, and I frown, tucking the scrapbook under one arm. “I vote we go down stairs with this and wait for my sisters in a place where there aren’t stairs to fall down if the lights go out.”
“Agreed,” Gunner says. “But you know I wouldn’t let you fall.”
