“Doesn’t it seem strange to you to keep your gardening tools in a bedroom?”
Maybe the seeds of the garden Tanya mentioned are more literal than we thought.
After showering, brushing our teeth, and getting ready for the day, we run outside to Janine’s garden.
“We can’t just start digging in someone else’s garden, can we?” Micah asks. It’s barely a garden. It’s more a patch of dirt. Not a single flower, fruit, or vegetable is growing here.
I’m ready to leave Richmond, so whether it’s him or me, somebody is going to get to digging.
He holds up his hand to hide from my murderous glare and then starts. I wish I had brought some water with us. It’s such a nice day out I didn’t think I’d need it, but I also wasn’t expecting to be subjected to Micah on his knees in nature with every muscle he has bulging out of his clothes. Jesus, why does he have to walk around looking like that?
“Oh, I’m so glad this garden is getting some love. I really wanted to have a green thumb, but I just don’t,” Janine’s cheerful voice rings in my ear. She’s watching us from the porch with her head in her hands. “The garden’s been so popular lately, I think I’ll leave it up. Maybe someone else can get something to grow.”
“Who was here last?”
“Oh, Tanya’s friend. Victor. He came by a few months ago and asked if he could plant some things for me. I don’t know what he planted, but I hope his blooms turn out better than mine usually do.”
“Victor was here, you say.” Micah’s voice is full of amusement. So, we know we’re on the right track.
“Dig faster,” I mouth to him.
“Well, didn’t you know that? He’s the one that said you’d be alright sharing that guest bedroom and boughtMario Kartfor Charlie so that you could play it with him.”
Oh, now Victor has a sense of humor.
“Must’ve slipped my mind,” Micah responds.
Janine leaves us to our “gardening” and Micah digs faster, coming up empty. He sits back on his haunches and wipes the sweat from his brow. I would clean that sweat for him with my tongue if he asked.
Get a fucking grip, girl.
“I really do feel bad digging up Janine’s garden like this. We could at least plant some stuff for her,” Micah says.
“What do you want to plant?”
“Really?”
“What do you think I am? A monster? She thinks she’s getting a garden back here, so we should make that happen.” I’m not sure if they’ll survive, but we can try.
We take a break from treasure hunting to peek in the shed where Janine keeps her gardening tools. She has an abundance of seed packets here ranging from vegetables like cabbage, carrots, and radishes, to early season flowers like daffodils and pansies. We decide to focus on the vegetables and take a nice haul back to the “garden” with us.
While Micah gets back to digging, I search YouTube for tutorials on planting because I don’t know a damn thing about it.
Ting.Micah’s trowels hits something hard and metal.
There in the dirt is a lockbox that requires a code and a large key with a strange owl symbol on it.
Chapter Fifteen
Micah
JANINE HAS TO GO TO A PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCEat Charlie’s school, so she’ll be joining us at Legacies later. Now that we know she’s not a Peeping Tom insisting Dani and I share a bed just because, her cheeriness doesn’t creep me out as much.
Dani and I spend a good chunk of the car ride to the center plotting our revenge on Victor. Though I won’t tell Dani this, I’m actually proud of the old man for pulling a prank on us. I wasn’t sure he had it in him.
Dani yanks on the lockbox again, but it doesn’t budge. We’ve been fidgeting with it since we found it, inputting any code we could think of.
“I mean how many combinations could there be?” she asks.
