“Then he’ll get over it.”
“Why did you say no?” Marcy asked. “It’s none of my business, but I can’t help but be curious. I hope it wasn’t because I was here.”
“It wasn’t.” I picked up a skinny Santa and polished his boot.
“Are you playing hard to get?”
“No.”
Marcy studied me, head tilted. “Well, I’m glad someone has finally said no to him. Being motherless and an only child, Zack is used to getting one hundred percent of his father’s attention, which I understand, but it isn’t good for him. And he is so popular with kids his own age, he expects everyone to do whatever he wants. This time, someone didn’t. You’re a different kind of girl, Anna.”
“I guess so.”
Playing hard to get? A guy had to be interested in you before you could play hard to get.
When I arrived home that evening, Aunt Iris and her gold Chevrolet were gone. I found two large trays of cat food and a scattering of nuggets on the kitchen floor, indicating she had recently fed the herd and let them out again. I fixed dinner and carried it into Uncle Will’s den. Two cats were sleeping on the porch, and I lured them inside with scraps from my plate, trusting them to tell me when Aunt Iris was coming home.
I sat at Uncle Will’s big oak desk, eating a chef’s salad and planning my search. The wall across from the fireplace was lined from floor to ceiling with shelves. Books, magazines, and newspapers were crammed between the shelves and piled on the floor next to an old leather chair, where Uncle Will must have read. The papers on the desk and things on the floor were neatly stacked, perhaps the result of a police search. But it didn’t look as if the stuffed bookshelves had been touched.
I began with the desk, rifling quickly through old bank records, canceled checks, and outdated warrantees. When I opened the last drawer, I stopped. It was filled with photos, pictures of my birth mother and me: me with a tricycle, me with an inner tube, several photos of me with a fishing rod. I had my own copies of the photos that included my mother, but seeing them here, in the place where we had lived together, made the woman in the pictures more real. Even I was struck by the resemblance between us, especially since I was almost as old as she had been in the photos. If I wore my hair up as she did, we could have passed for twins.
Finding no important documents in the desk, I turned to the wall of shelves. In my study nook at home, I tended to stick things on the shelves closest to where I was sitting.
Since Uncle Will’s desk backed up to the wall, making some of the shelves within easy reaching distance, I decide to start three shelves from the bottom, then work progressively above and below that shelf, going from most accessible to least. Removing each book in turn, I flipped through it, hoping to find loose papers. If there was something in this room about my mother or family, something Uncle Will had wanted me to know, I was going to find it.
Most of Uncle Will’s books were about Maryland, the two World Wars, and wildlife, some of the volumes quite old. He must have subscribed to every fishing and outdoorsman magazine in existence. The magazines and newspapers were stuffed between the tops of the books and the next shelf up. I removed one newspaper, skimmed it, and finally found an article on a fishing charter service out of Wisteria, which may have been the reason Uncle Will had saved it.
Realizing it would take forever to go through all the newspapers looking for the reason they had been kept, I began to stack them on the floor with the plan to go through them when I had completed my search of the den.
As I removed book after book, I stopped reading the titles. Then I noticed one with pictures different from battlefields and shorebirds: mug shots. I thumbed back to the title page: Psychosis and the Criminal Mind. Well, that was interesting! I glanced at the binding of the next book: Famous Psychotics. I pulled it out, turned to its table of contents, and scanned the chapter headings: Criminals, Kings, Scientists, Musicians, Writers, Actors, Mediums.
There was a penciled check next to the first and final chapters. Aunt Iris probably considered herself a medium, a channel for thought and feelings from “the other side.” I hoped she wasn’t a criminal. Continuing down the row of books, I found A History of Psychosis and Healing. I guess it wasn’t surprising that Uncle Will had an interest in mental illness. There were three more thick books on it, then the topic changed. You and the Paranormal, I read. He had about a dozen books on that subject.
I completed two shelves, petted the sleeping cats, telling them to keep up the good work, then moved on to a third.
Halfway through it, I pulled out a wad of newspaper that was lighter in color than the others. Figuring it was more recent, I checked the date: May 22, one day before Uncle Will had written his letter inviting me to Wisteria. I reviewed it carefully but found nothing that appeared related to him or Aunt Iris. Setting it aside, I pulled out the books beneath where it had been crammed. Another wad of newspaper came out with them, this one toast-colored — old. At first I thought that the wad was nothing more than neatly folded paper, then I realized something was wrapped inside it. I knew that the tape on the wrapping had been broken recently, because it had left behind white stripes. I carefully removed the layers of dry paper and found an old notebook with soft covers.
Fingers trembling, guessing that this was something important, I opened the book. My mother’s name was inscribed on the inside cover. I touched the ink, then traced her handwriting, as if I could read the person who wrote it in the slashes and curves of her letters. The phone number listed beneath her name belonged to Uncle Will and Aunt Iris — she had used this book when I was part of her life.
The first sheet was headed “Appointments,” the information beneath it written in neat columns: month, day, time of day, followed by initials. Many of the listings bore the designation “Paid.” It must have been my mother’s client book. I wondered why she had used initials; perhaps some people didn’t want it known that they were seeing a psychic adviser.
The entries ran for at least ten pages, with blank sheets following. As I flipped through them, a piece of unlined paper slipped out. I unfolded it and read what appeared to be a poem: The seed cracks open, the green sprout of a plant emergesa green snake.
The snake slides past a rabbit, glides past a cat.
Winding itself around flowersa garden shaped like a heartthe snake turns to me.
It wears a mask.
Flowers wilt.
I read it three times, trying to understand what my mother was saying, finding it even more cryptic than the poems written by my old boyfriend. Slipping the paper back into the book, I flipped to the back cover. My mother had written down dates on which term papers were due and several names and phone numbers. One was labeled “Chase College,” where she was taking courses. Another said
“Pharmacy.” The third belonged to someone named Elliot Gill. Gill — Erika’s last name. Were they related? It was, after all, a small town.
Although the cats gave no sign of Aunt Iris’s imminent arrival, I rewrapped the notebook and placed it back where I had found it, worried that if I left it out, Aunt Iris might sweep it up in one of her angry displays. It occurred to me that Uncle Will may have shared that concern. Perhaps he was interrupted while examining the notebook and hastily slipped it behind the other books, hiding it with whatever newspaper was handy, the newspaper from that day. I wondered if there was something he had read in the notebook that caused him to write to me the next day and ask me to come.
I sat back in his chair, thinking I had made a big mistake.
Because my feelings were hurt by Zack, I had passed up an opportunity to get to know the girl who appeared to be responsible for the fire. I was like Marcy with her response to Cindy Reed and her beautiful angels, forgetting my ultimate goal. And it wasn’t just contact with Erika that I would be missing out on. Kids talked at parties, boasting and gossiping; chances were good that I could learn something from some of her friends who had been at the fire. I owed it to Uncle Will to find out how he had died. And I had come here to learn whatever he needed to tell me about my mother and her family. If Elliot Gill was important enough to have his number listed in my mother’s book, he might know something. The truth was, I had more reasons to go with Zack to the party than he had to go with me. “Two can play this game,” I said aloud, and headed for Zack’s house.