The Overtons used their basement for the antiques they were still polishing, painting, or otherwise restoring. Maria always thought it looked like a dragon’s horde down here. The old mirrors scattered around only added to the effect, multiplying the space and the treasure infinitely.
“Derek? Are you down here?” Maria called out at the bottom of the stairs.
“Maria!” Derek said, appearing from behind a bookcase with the sound of crashing objects trailing in his wake. He held an old clock in one hand and a wrench in the other, and he was scratching at his neck as if he’d just hit it on something. “What are you doing here so early? I thought you weren’t coming over until after dinner.”
“Mom had such a busy day she forgot to eat lunch, so we ate an early dinner. We called fifteen minutes ago to say we were on the way.”
“My dad didn’t tell me.”
“Oh. Well, sorry. Do you want me to go?” She said it jokingly, but Derek hurt her feelings by actually seeming to consider. “Your dad says you should lighten up, by the way.”
Derek frowned. Then he asked, “Did you bring Grandma Esme’s ring?”
“It’s my ring now, and yes, I did. Just like I promised. Any moment now, you’re going to stop acting weird, just like you promised.”
Derek looked around skittishly.
“You’re right,” he said, scratching his neck again. “It’s just, I thought you were coming later.”
“Well, Claire’s party starts in less than an hour, so …”
They stood there staring at each other, as if they were having an argument instead of a conversation between friends. For the life of her, Maria couldn’t figure out what the argument was.
“So did you want to show my ring to your dad? See if he can tell us anything?”
“No, that’s okay,” Derek said. “Aunt Luellen is the one with all the jewelry knowledge, and she’s out right now.”
“Why would Aunt Luellen know anything about jewelry?”
“She’s an appraiser. That’s what she does in New York, and all over the world. She works for one of those big auction houses, telling them how much to sell things for. Stuff that’s a lot more valuable than anything around here.”
“I like the stuff here,” Maria said, her hand going to the rock necklace at her neck. Now she knew something was really wrong with her best friend. The Derek she knew would never insult his family’s shop. “Well, is your aunt getting back before Claire’s party?”
“I don’t know,” Derek said. “She left to go see her friend again. She didn’t say when she was coming back.”
“Okay, then,” Maria said, feeling increasingly exasperated. She nodded to the wrench in Derek’s hand. “What are you working on?”
“This? It’s nothing. Just fixing up an old clock. Come on, do you want to head upstairs and walk around outside? I feel like I’ve been in this basement forever.”
Maria couldn’t agree more. She followed Derek around the piles of antiques back toward the stairs, but jerked his arm suddenly when she saw a spiderweb in their path.
“Whoa, what gives?” he said, rubbing his arm.
“You almost walked right into that web.”
“Oh, wow. I didn’t even see it.”
He leaned in to take a closer look at the web just as Maria located the spider that had made it. The spider was looking right at her, but she could still see its body, and its bloodred hourglass.
“Derek, don’t!” she exclaimed. “That’s a black widow spider. Their bites are poisonous.”
Derek jumped away.
“Jeez. Thanks, M. Now I really think it’s time to go.”
He grabbed her hand and started to lead her around the web. It was strange, she thought, that he didn’t at least want to cut the thing down.
“Derek, wait.”
“Seriously? You want to stay down here with a poisonous spider?”
“It’s just … if a black widow bites you, my mom says you can go thirty whole minutes before you feel it. I noticed you scratching your neck earlier. Do you think the spider could have already bitten you?”
“What? No way. I’m fine, Maria. But I might not be if we stay down here a second longer.”
“Do you want me to take a look at your neck?”
“I said I’m fine.”
“All right, all right,” Maria said. She didn’t want to be down here another moment, either, with the black widow spider she could swear had been watching her. She let Derek pull her up the stairs that led back to the shop. She waved helplessly to Mr. Overton as Derek gave him a very gruff good-bye, mumbling that they were going to grab root beer floats at the old-fashioned pharmacy down the block.
Outside, the sun was just beginning to set, the pinks and reds reaching out to them like fire filtered through a gemstone. Maria remembered what her mom had said about old people who got more confused as the sun went down. Could it happen to young people, too? Would Derek be warning her about lurking enemies next?
And if being confused was the first sign of something worse, would Maria be able to save him, the way she hadn’t been able to save Grandma Esme?
Distance from the shop seemed to do Derek good. Root beer floats seemed to do him even better. By the time his float was a creamy soda at the bottom of a tall glass, Derek was almost back to his chipper self.
“So remind me what the plan is for Claire’s party?” he said, raising his voice in a question at the end. “We’re just going to walk up and act like we’re totally welcome there? Won’t that be really unpleasant for you?”
“It would be unpleasant, which is why we’re not going to do that. We’re going to sneak around the entrance by the lake and hide behind Claire’s pool house until the ‘surprise’ happens.”
Derek’s eyes widened. He coughed on the last sip of root beer float.
“You’re joking.”
“What?” Maria said. “I’ve been over there with Rafi before. I know my way around. And we won’t have to be there for very long.”
“Oh, well, that makes the thought of trespassing on Claire’s property so much better.”
“Come on, Derek. Please? You know you want to see Claire get what she deserves.”
“You still haven’t told me what that is, exactly.”
“I told you, it’s a surprise.”
“If you want me to come with you, you at least have to give me a hint.”
“Fine,” Maria said, sipping the last of her own float. She tried to think of the best way to put this. “Let’s just say you and I won’t be the only unexpected guests at the party.”
Maria hadn’t been lying when she’d said she’d been here before, to the narrow gravel driveway that led around the McCormicks’ lake. But that had been in the daytime, in her mother’s jeep, dropping Rafi off. She hadn’t been trying to walk on uneven rocks in a fancy dress that time, shivering in the cold. She also hadn’t paid any attention to the forks in the path.
“Are you sure it was supposed to be a left back there?” Derek whispered. Maria didn’t have the heart to tell him they had a while yet before he needed to be quiet.
“Pretty sure.”
“Are we almost there?”
“Yup, almost,” she replied, deciding to sound more confident than she felt.
“I don’t think my dad believed me when I said we were walking back home. Do you?”