She saw him glancing at the statuettes. “Rivendell,” she said. “Elf city.”
“Got it.” He pointed to the clock. “But technically, that one’s a Smurf.”
Maggie tried to smile.
Jake said, “I’m still in shock. Devastated is a better word. He was… he was the most amazing man I’ve ever known.”
“He cared about you a great deal.”
“He wouldn’t shut up about you.”
Dylan emerged from the dark hallway.
“Hey,” Jake said. “You okay, big guy?”
“I’m sad.”
“Me, too. You’d be crazy if you weren’t.”
Jake pulled Liam’s note from his pocket, handed it to Maggie. “I got this a half-hour ago.”
“Who gave you this?” she asked, after taking a look.
“Liam’s lawyer.”
“Melvin?”
“I don’t know. He just used his last name. Lorince.”
“He was here, too.” Maggie handed Jake her own note. He recognized the stationery and the handwriting, both the same as the note he’d received. Her note said: “Tell Dylan that it’s one last trip to the moors. Jake knows the territory. Ask him where the elephants perch.”
“Liam put it in with a bunch of legal papers,” Maggie said. “To be delivered on his death.”
“But why?” Jake asked.
“He’s leading us. The moors reference—”
“Pop-pop said it all the time,” Dylan interjected. “When we were about to go on a letterboxing expedition.”
“Letterboxing?”
“It’s a kind of treasure hunt,” Maggie said. “A combination of hiking and puzzle solving.”
Dylan scrunched up his face. “How ’bout a trip to the moors, laddie?” he mimicked, in a surprisingly good rendition of his great-grandfather’s intonation. “Letterboxing was invented in the moors of England.”
“So Liam was into letterboxing?” Jake asked.
“Pop-pop and I did it together,” Dylan said. “It was my idea—I read about it online. But Pop-pop loved it, too.”
“He and Dylan went all the time. I tagged along once or twice, but I thought it was better to let the boys have it to themselves.”
Jake said, “And I know where an elephant perches.”
“Anywhere it wants to,” Dylan answered.
Jake smiled. “Why shouldn’t you sit under an elephant’s perch?”
“Because of the elephant,” Dylan said.
Maggie looked to Jake. “What are you two talking about?”
“The elephant’s perch. It was something I told Liam. I know where the elephant’s perch is.”
“Where?”
“The Sawtooth Mountains. Near Stanley, Idaho.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The Elephant’s Perch is an eight-pitch rock-climbing route. I almost got killed there. The woman I was dating at the time took me up it. A rope got stuck, a storm came in. The lightning nearly nailed us before we got down. Liam turned it into one of his elephant jokes: ‘Where does an elephant perch?’ ”
“How did Liam know about it?”
“From one of our bull sessions. Talking about brushes with death. First war stories, then outdoor disasters. I told him about Elephant’s Perch, he told me about nearly drowning in a box canyon in China.”
“What does this have to do with letterboxing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dylan? Do you have any—”
But Dylan was gone.
THEY FOUND HIM IN HIS ROOM, SEATED AT HIS LAPTOP, FINGERS flying over the keyboard. Jake watched, the back of his neck tingling. He was at a site called Letterboxing North America.
Maggie said, “A letterbox is—it’s kind of hard to explain. It’s usually a small box of some sort hidden in the woods, with a notebook and a rubber stamp inside.”
“There’s one on the desk, Mom. Over there. Pop-pop and I were going to put it out near Lucifer Falls.”
It was a cigar box. Inside was an inkpad in a thin snap-shut metal case, a logbook, and a little wooden block with a rubber stamp on one surface. Maggie picked up the logbook. “People who visit the letterbox will make their own personal stamp inside, a record of their visit, that they found the letterbox.”
She took the stamp and inked it, then stamped it on the page. The image was a spiral.
“That’s Liam’s letterboxing stamp. That swirl.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Everyone has their own stamp. Liam’s is a spiral. Mine’s a mushroom. Dylan’s is an arrowhead.”
“What’s the purpose?”
“Nothing. It’s just an adventure, a treasure hunt. You follow clues to find the letterbox, and stamp the logbook inside the box.”
“So you hide these. How do people get the clues?”
Dylan said, “The instructions on how to find letterboxes are on this site. There are thousands of letterboxes listed.”
Jake watched over his shoulder and quickly began to understand. They entries were organized by geography, by state and region, followed by city. Dylan was on the central Idaho list.
“I think Pop-pop might have been playing. That the elephant stuff was part of the riddle. There are four letterboxes near Stanley, Idaho.”
Maggie nodded. “I knew it. I knew he wouldn’t leave us without an explanation. I knew it.”
Dylan clicked on one.
The Spiral LbNA # 23877
Placed by: FungusAmongUs
Placement date: October 17
State: Idaho
County: Tompkins
Nearest city: Stanley
Number of boxes: 1
“Look who placed it: FungusAmongUs,” Maggie said. “Click on the directions.”
Dylan clicked on the icon.
LETTERBOX CLUES
“You think Liam wrote this?” Jake asked.
“It sounds like him,” Maggie said. “He often wrote his clues as silly poetry. But why would he give us clues to a letterbox in Idaho? He wants us to go to Idaho?”
Dylan stared at the screen. “What land in trust?”
“Oh my God,” Maggie said. Her eyes were on fire. She reached over her son’s shoulder, hit print. An inkjet in the corner sprang to life.