Rose and I stare at her for a long moment.
“What?” She shrugs. “I used to help her glue stuff in. Cut pictures out, you know. Nothing fancy.”
“Maybe this isn’t what I think it was, then.” I purse my lips, disappointed.
“You thought it was a magic book, huh?” Rose says. She still hasn’t opened the scrapbook.
I look at Posey, hoping she can confirm or deny.
“It might be.” She scratches a spot behind her ear. “She let me look through it sometimes, but you know… I might not have listened as well as I should have.”
We all stare at the silky scrapbook still unopened on Rose’s thighs.
“If you don’t open it, I will.” Oatmeal darts out of the cargo pocket on Posey’s pants, grabbing a hunk of cheese as she scrambles across the table and sprints towards the scrapbook.
“Oatmeal,” Posey says, the tone exasperated.
Oatmeal twitches her whiskers at her before rearing up on her hindlegs. “What? You three would sit here and discuss what might be in the book for a damned hour before deciding to go to bed and put it off until tomorrow. You know I’m right.” It comes out slightly garbled from the hunk of cheese in her cheek.
“She’s right.” Fig chirps from the mantle, where she’s perched on an antique clock. “Open the book.”
Gunner makes a snuffling sound of affirmation.
Rose opens the book, and Posey scooches across the floor before giving up and getting on the couch next to her.
“Aw,” I say on an exhale. Rose’s knee bumps against mine, and we lean in closer.
There are the four of us, as little girls, so young I can’t remember this moment, grinning up at the camera in front of the pink magical house. Our names are written in tidy, familiar handwriting on small scraps of recycled paper, likely from the seed packets my grandmother used to save and reuse.
Rose sniffs, and we all ignore it, save for Fig, who flutters onto her shoulder and rubs her head against Rose’s neck.
“I miss Hazel,” Posey whispers, and Oatmeal snags a biscuit off the tray. Gunner stares at the ferret with sad doggie eyes.
“She’ll be back soon.” The words are hollow, though, because we all miss Hazel and we all know that she will whirlwind back into our lives and out again before we’ve had time to get used to her being home.
The next page is a picture of the four of us, up in the attic, Hazel and Posey moving so quickly that their limbs blur in the photograph. Hazel’s riding the rocking horse like a wild woman, and Posey’s dancing around with ribbons while I carefully color with perfectly sharpened crayons. Rose’s nose is stuck in a book, a child’s sized guitar tucked next to her.
“I remember that guitar,” she says softly. “We were so lucky, to have Grandma, you know? I miss her too.”
“We could go visit her,” I suggest, and neither of them look up at me or register the remark, because we all know that whatever is going on in Silverlight Shore right now very much precludes a visit to our grandmother on whatever Caribbean island she’s currently beach hopping.
The plastic wrapped pages crinkle as Rose turns them, the next two page spread showing something very different thanthe glimpse into the golden childhood we received when our grandmother took us in.
A pressed hydrangea, petals yellowed and brittle with age, the stalk still thick in spite of it, a newsprint clipping of a hurricane that blew through several decades ago, almost a direct hit, but somehow just missing the town. The article details damage: roofs blown off a neighboring city, a boardwalk underwater, the Ferris wheel looming like a dystopian relic, three boats half submerged. And next to it, on the adjacent page a menu from Nonna’s Table, and a hand-written recipe on the back of a napkin.
“That’s it.” I breathe, tapping a fingernail against the napkin. “That’s the symbol that was on the lighthouse lamp. It was glowing.”
Gunner shoves his face into the book, blocking our view of it and Posey lets out a little laugh before Gunner sniffs at her indignantly. “I was just checking.”
“I know, Gunner.” Posey gives him a cube of cheese, and Oatmeal chitters at her angrily before receiving her own snack offering.
Mollified, the familiars settle back down, and I trace my finger over the recipe.
“It’s a bread, right?” Rose asks. “Yeast, salt, rosemary… flour and a cast iron pan?”
“When the tide turns,” Posey reads the words at the top.
“I mean, it does look like a bread.” I squint down at the page. “I’ve never made a yeast bread in a cast iron though.”
