“Benny’s been monitoring the news. Only one post online about the time capsule, and it’s making fun of the festival security. I’m thinking we got lucky.”
Thank God.This instantly reduced my stress levels.
“And secondly,” Seb continued, “this isn’t a gun. It’s a replica. Doesn’t fire real ammo. Doesn’t fire at all.” He showed me what he meant. “It came from the Wyrd Jack museum—back whenthey redid the gangster room about the Valentine’s Day Massacre and Bugs Moran. They tossed this in the dumpster along with a couple of prop machine guns.”
“Seriously?” I took a closer look. “Huh. Not historical, is it?”
“Nope. Pretty much valueless. Weighs nothing, which gives it away, but itlooksreal, and that’s the important part. Sometimes all you need is a little flash to convince people that they’d be wise not to break into your house. That’s what this baby is for, flashy ol’ Calico Jack.”
I had my doubts that Calico Jack would convince a would-be burglar, but as long as it wasn’t real, it could stay, I supposed. I wasn’t all that happy about it, though.
“How’s it going here?” he asked, tossing the prop gun aside. “Have you been wallowing like we have at Benny’s?”
It honestly made me feel better to know that he’d been depressed, too. “I’m trying to claw back some hope. If there’s any to be had.”
“The time capsule was just a little road bump,” he said, sounding as if he were trying to convince himself, too. “We’re going to find the Golden Venus this time. We aren’t kids. We’ll figure this out, okay?”
Foolish to even dream that was possible, I knew. But how could I not? I was just relieved that we both still cared about it after all these years.
Seb glanced at the open door of the empty second bedroom. Not totally empty: Nana’s bed and mattress were still there, as well as a chest of drawers and a lamp. I’d walked through it several times today already, dusting, making sure I wasn’t going to freak out when Seb showed up. It was hard, letting go of memories I had in that room... and feeling guilty that I was somehow dishonoring Nana by not making a shrine out of it. But I knew that wasn’t true. She was one of the most generous people in town and, more than likely, would be more upset with me if I just wasted the space and didn’t use it.
“Hey,” he said. “I was thinking, maybe it would be better if we rearrange the room. You know, move the bed to a different spot. That way it will be... I don’t know. Fresh.”
I nodded enthusiastically. “It’s a good idea. Let’s do that.”
We headed into the sunny room and tackled the chest of drawers first. It wasn’t all that heavy, but it was old—from the 1950s—and we tried to be gentle with it. Last year, when the Neelys came over to help me pack everything up, we emptied the drawers and separated out clothes to give to Goodwill.
“It’s still a nice piece of furniture,” I told Seb. “Plenty of room for your stuff.”
“I haven’t put clothes in drawers since I was a kid,” he said. “This is four-star luxury.”
We argued about where the double bed should go. Only two choices, so Seb finally relented to my suggestion and we began pulling the heavy wooden headboard away from the wall—something that had never been moved. Not in my lifetime, anyway.
“Holy shit, this is heavier than it looks,” Seb marveled. “What’s this carved out of?”
“It’s called wood. You might’ve heard of it. Humans made furniture out of it before the age of plastic. Ugh—Jesus! Maybe we should just leave it.”
But we’d already pulled it out from the wall, so we figured we might as well finish. Both of us wiggled into the space between the wall and the headboard as Punkin looked on from the doorwaywith aThese folks are nutsexpression. But once we’d wedged ourselves back there and readied ourselves to push, my eyes lit on a yellowed piece of paper affixed to the back of the headboard.
“What in the world... ? Are those nails holding it in?”
“Think they’re old tacks. Maybe it’s the warranty, or something?”
“On a bed?”
We looked at each other for all of two seconds, then Seb grunted and used his shoulder to shove the bed farther out from the wall so he had space to remove the tacks. He couldn’t get them out without ripping the paper, so I got a butter knife from the kitchen and we carefully pried them out.
The paper was folded like a letter, and when I opened it, the bottom third of the paper broke off along the fold line. “Oh shit.”
Seb grabbed it out of the air and took the pieces around to the mattress and laid them out, unfolding the top piece carefully.
“Whoa, it’s a genuine handwritten letter,” Seb said with wonder in his voice.
A very old one, written in a beautiful cursive hand and addressed to “Elsie.” The name signed at the bottom was none other than Mabel herself.
“Who’s Elsie?” Seb asked.
“That’s...”
