“I can’t. We have too much work to do. Pops told us—”
“Your grandfather is safe and alive, but you are dead on your feet. I’ll stay up and work on the case, figure out this pesky March Hare of yours. How does that sound?”
It sounded awful, honestly, not that I told him that. Duke would leave at midnight, case solved or not, which meant we only had sixteen hours left together. Yes, I had to get a little sleep or I’d be useless, but I didn’t want us spending any time apart when this was literally our last day on earth together.
“Actually,” I said, “I have a better idea.”
—
Technically, we didn’tbreak any of the ground rules.
After getting Koshka his breakfast, I put on my pajamas—an oversize, gloriously hideously purple Friends of the Fort Meriwether Library T-shirt and sleep shorts—and Duke took off his shoes and tie. Ilay down on my pillow while Duke sat propped up against my headboard to continue working on the case.
Koshka, an excellent chaperone, stretched out between us and fell fast asleep.
Sleep hit me like a sneaker wave, pulling me under the surface into strange but sweet dreams. I dreamed Duke and I were getting married in a library I’d never seen before with tall arched windows and a fireplace so big you could step into it. Pops was there, holding my hand. And for some reason, I had bunny ears on with my white dress, but hey, that’s a dream for you.
In the dream, Pops squeezed my hand.Almost time.
I wish Mom were here,I said.She could give me away.
Don’t worry. Your father will be here soon. He told me he was on his way.
In the dream, a door started to open, and I knew it was my father. He’d made it just in time.
And I felt that sort of relief mingled with full-body joy that you only experience in dreams when your brain plays such a good trick on you that you think it’s real, that you and the person you love will be together, and you do have a father and he is coming to your wedding and everything is fine now and always will be forever and ever…
Then I woke up.
It felt like I’d slept for days, but when I opened my eyes and checked the bedside clock, only three hours had passed.
With a groan, I rolled over toward Duke.
“Morning, sunshine,” he said with a smile. “How’d you sleep?”
“Like a baby. Or not. Babies don’t usually sleep that well, do they?”
“I slept like a baby when I was a baby,” Duke said. “But that might have been from the opium in our cough syrup.”
I felt a warm, empty spot on the bed. “Where’s Koshka?”
“Having a fit of feline insanity,” Duke said. As if on cue, I heard tiny feet galloping up and down the stairs like someone had let a Shetland pony loose in the house.
“Zoomies. He might be a familiar, but he is still a cat.”
Duke didn’t answer, merely turned a page in whatever book he was reading.
I sat up and eyed it. “Where did you get that?” I asked.
He had a copy ofThe Secret of the Old Clockin his hand, the same 1930 version as my mother’s book, except his was a brand-new copy.
“The bookshop,” he said. “Don’t worry. I paid for it. Left a dollar bill on the till.”
“Books cost a little more now than they did during the Great Depression, Duke.”
“I’ll mail them a cheque for the difference.”
I almost told him the bookstore also did not take checks, but I decided to let it go. I would buy the book. It was nice to have a copy back in the house, even if it wasn’t my mother’s copy.
