Slowly, fearfully, she pried open the bottom lid. A piece of paper fell out, folded into the shape of a crane just like the one Maria had left Grandma Esme years ago. When Maria unfolded it, she found a note written in her grandmother’s cursive.
The spiders are your friends, the first line read. And underneath that:
Do not abuse their friendship.
News of Grandma Esme’s death traveled fast, and the next day saw an almost constant parade of visitors bearing casseroles and desserts. Rob and Claire’s mom came by with banana pudding. A bouquet of flowers arrived with a note from Derek’s parents. And a group of fellow park rangers from Falling Waters brought a whole cooked turkey, along with a collection they’d taken up to help pay for the funeral.
All in all, the day felt so out of the ordinary that it only furthered Maria’s feeling that none of it was really happening.
It wasn’t until Derek came over around three thirty that everything finally started to sink in.
“Maria, Derek’s here,” Rafi called from the front door. Her brother had been antsy all day, happy at first to get to stay home from school, but then, when Mom had said he couldn’t play outside, increasingly rambunctious.
Derek had been to Maria’s house enough times that he usually didn’t have a problem walking right in (and going straight for the refrigerator). Today, he stood on the doormat, looking in every direction but straight ahead and fidgeting absently with a single yellow flower.
“Hi,” Maria said, shooting her brother a look to let him know he could leave now. Rafi shrugged and went to join Mom in the kitchen.
“Hi,” Derek said.
“Is that for me?” Maria nodded to the flower in Derek’s hands.
“What? Oh, yeah.” He seemed to have forgotten that he was holding a flower at all, but now he handed it to Maria with a flourish. “Well, you and your family. Mom said yellow means hope. And friendship.”
“Thanks.”
“Also, I took notes for you in history. We started on the Civil War.”
“Thanks.”
Maria racked her brain for the right thing to say. Something like, “Grandma Esme really liked you,” or maybe, “Thanks for always being so nice.” She knew Derek would have no problem saying something like that if their roles were reversed. What she finally said, in a breathless whisper, was, “Do you want to see what Grandma Esme left me?”
Derek smiled, nodded, and followed her inside. Mom always made Maria keep her door open when she had friends over, but today Maria bent the rule, leaving it open only a crack.
She went to her dresser and pulled out the second drawer. She reached into the back and removed the wooden box. She opened it toward Derek.
“Whoa,” he said, leaning in until his face was almost right next to it. “That’s the one she always wore, right?”
“Yup. She left it for me in one of our secret hiding places. Don’t you think it’s weird that she took it off like that? Almost like she knew something was going to happen to her.”
Derek gave her a funny look. “You don’t think … I mean, my mom said it was a heart attack …”
“Well, that’s what the ambulance people said. But Mom said when she got there, Grandma Esme was still awake. She even talked to her. Does that sound like a person who’s having a heart attack? And plus, she said the thing about the spiders again. The same stuff she was saying to me on Friday.”
Her theory seemed to upset Derek immensely.
“You really think someone would hurt your grandma?” he asked.
“No. No, not really,” she said, if only to make him feel better. “But there’s something else. When I put the ring on last night, I’m pretty sure that — Well, it’s going to sound crazy, but I’m pretty sure that it made the spiders in my house listen to me.”
Now Derek had a very different look on his face. His right eyebrow arched up higher than the left, and his mouth turned down in a skeptical line.
“I’m serious, Derek. My glasses were in the living room, and I wished that they would come to me. And the spiders, well — they brought them.”
“And you saw this happen without your glasses on?”
“No. Not exactly. I mean, I heard them, and then I sort of talked to them, and then I saw them leave. Basically.”
“Right.”
“Oh, and there was this note from Grandma Esme.” She opened the bottom of the box and showed him the cryptic letter — the one she was blaming for her nightmare last night about sitting at a table with seven spiders and playing a game of cards. In the nightmare, she’d thought it was funny that there were seven spiders instead of eight. Then she’d realized that she was the eighth spider. She’d woken up itching.
Derek read the note. If anything, his eyebrow only shot higher.
“Okay, yeah, so this is a little weird. But, Maria — and I mean this in the nicest possible way, because I loved your grandma, you know that — Grandma Esme has been a little confused lately. My mom said maybe she had dementia or the other thing, old-timer’s.”
“Alzheimer’s,” Maria said sharply. “And, Derek, she was scared. She wasn’t crazy.”
“I didn’t say ‘crazy.’ I said ‘confused.’”
“You believe in magic, don’t you?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I mean like the coin, and the pen, and all that stuff. You do it because you believe in magic, right? Well, what if this ring is magic, too?”
“Maria, those are all magic tricks. ‘Tricks’ is the key word. You want me to tell you how I did the coin trick for real? Because I’ll tell you. I just —”
“No, I don’t want to know,” Maria said, cutting him off and putting her fingers in her ears. “La la la,” she said.
Derek gave up then, his shoulders slumping like he’d just bowled a gutter ball.
“Tell you what,” he said, gently pulling her hands from her ears. “How about you bring the ring by my dad’s shop? Maybe he’ll be able to tell us something about it. He’s got all those appraisal books and stuff. And if it’s got powers — I mean, if it’s rumored to have powers — he’ll be the one to know.”
Derek’s dad did know an awful lot about antiques. He’d even shown Maria a collection of old rings once and told her what some of the symbols meant. But Maria wasn’t sure she was ready to tell anyone else about the ring. Her grandmother hadn’t just left it for her; she’d left it for her in a secret box on a secret shelf. There had to be a reason for all that secrecy.
“The funeral is on Thursday,” Maria said. “And tomorrow, Mom and I are going back to her house to sort through her stuff. Maybe after everything is done, I’ll bring it by.”
“Does that mean you won’t be at school all week?”
Maria nodded. “Mom said I should go back on Friday. Give myself the day to catch up without too much pressure.”
“Man. How will I survive lunch without you?”
Maria smiled. She knew that Derek was only being nice — any day she wasn’t there, there were a ton of people who would want him at their lunch table. But still, it made her feel better just having a friend who wanted her to feel better.
“I don’t know,” Maria said. “I guess it’s like a magic trick. The secret is practice.”