“Maybe both.”
“Well, if there are mice, I can almost guarantee they aren’t magical. That’s one of the many reasons this was only my grandpa’s place. He came here when he wanted solitude, away from their cottage in town.”
“Nosy neighbors in town drove him nuts, huh?”
“You could say that.”
She flashed a grin at me over her shoulder, wandering farther into the place.
Watching her drink it all in was a balm to wounds I didn’t realize were still so raw.
I’d never stepped foot back inside after my grandpa’s funeral. It hurt too much. Then, losing my parents only a year later? I’d tried to forget this place, had to focus on the here and now of survival with a baby sister who was all I had left.
“Wow, your gramps liked to read, huh?” She wandered over to the bookshelves along the wall, his favorite recliner dust coated right next to them.
“It was one of his favorite pastimes, yeah. It drove him nuts that I’d rather run wild than settle down. But when we stayed the night with him, he’d always read us a bedtime story.”
“He sounds like a good man.”
“He was the best.”
The look she sent me this time was sympathetic, but I didn’t mind. If we were going to be mates, I wanted her to know it all. The good, the bad, the sad.
Unfortunately, in my life, there had been a lot of sadness.
“The entrance to the attic is this way.” I pointed toward the back of the house with my thumb, and she gestured for me to lead the way. I trailed through the empty house almost in a daze, the memories of old laughter still embedded in the walls an aching contrast to the utter stillness it held now.
The soul of it was gone. It seemed smaller somehow.
I stopped beneath the attic door, easily able to reach the rope to lower the stairs. Bits of dust floated over us as the stairs descended.
Elodie squinted up into the darkness overhead. “You guys used to play up there in the dark? Isn’t that kind of creepy for little kids?”
“Nah, we were explorers. Also, Pops had lanterns. Here.” I opened the nearest cabinet in the kitchen, finding them right where they always were, ignoring the pang in my chest as I did so. Nothing had changed, and yeteverythinghad changed.
I glanced Elodie’s way, and reminded myself that some of the changes were for the better.
Back to the task at hand, I turned the switch on the first lantern, and it lit on the first try, so I passed that one to her and grabbed the other for myself.
She let me lead the way up the stairs, and to my surprise, I had to duck when we made it all the way up, to avoid hitting my head on the rafters.
“It felt bigger when I was younger.”
“You’re just freakishly tall now, that’s all.”
I laughed, glad to have her and her irrepressible sense of humor as part of my life.
“Freakishly tall?” I tsked, feigning indignation, but something had caught her eye.
The trunk. Elodie carried her lantern over to kneel in front of it. “This has to be it, right? It looks… important.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“And you have no idea what’s in it?”
“Nope. None. We weren’t even supposed to touch it.”
“And you just listened? Weird. I would have been in this thing first chance if I were you.”
