Pretend She's Here(52)

“You started it,” Carole called.

“If you have a fort, you have to expect invaders. You’re soooo easy to spy on!” Chloe shouted, lobbing another snowball.

I jumped the fort’s wall and ran toward her. We met halfway, tackling each other, into the snow, laughing so hard it reminded me, just for a minute, of how it felt to have a sister.

All three of us were freezing cold. The sky turned deep lavender, the color just before dark when the first planets appear in the west and Orion rises above the eastern horizon. We trudged back to the house, feeling good-exhausted. It was such a relief to forget about everything for a minute.

When Carole texted her mom, she raised her eyebrow at me because she had fine cell reception right here in the spot where I never did, and thirty minutes later, her mom arrived to drive her home.

*

After dinner, I went down into the dungeon, and that’s when something remarkable happened. I almost wondered if I’d imagined or dreamt it, if the spirit of Sarah Royston had somehow cast a spell over me, had entered my life just when I needed her most.

I lay down on my bed, arms folded behind my head, looking up at the ceiling. There was the fan with big white blades, the same one that had hung over Lizzie’s bed in her room in Black Hall. The steeple clock chimed seven. I noticed the bell sounded deadened, as if the striker had caught on something.

Standing up, I went over to investigate. The clock was about fifteen inches tall with two sharp spires on either side of a pointed roof. A glass door with a small brass knob covered the clock’s face; clear on top, the glass was etched with a colorful wreath of holly on the bottom. The door could only be opened with a key.

As if I knew exactly where to find it, I turned the clock around and there, taped to the back, was a tiny skeleton key. It fit into the lock perfectly. I had never thought to look in here before, but this was the first time I’d heard the clock ring in such a dull, muffled way.

When I turned the key, the glass door opened.

I heard myself gasp.

Here were Mame’s photos and letters, jammed into the small space. The corner of one envelope had slipped between the chime block and rod. My hands shook as I pulled the letters and photos out. I scattered them onto the floor, looking for the cell phone, but it wasn’t there. Still, I felt I’d been given a gift, treasures from Mame—a woman I’d loved, who’d cared about me as if I were her own granddaughter.

I spread the photos and mail out on the bed. There were pictures of Mame with Hubert in France, in Gaillac in Languedoc, the hometown of my patron saint Emily de Vialar. There were photos of Lizzie and me when we were little, on day trips with Mame to the carousel in Watch Hill, the ferry to Orient Point, Newport’s Cliff Walk.

The letters from Hubert: the love letters that had sustained Mame during his illness and death, when she’d missed him so terribly. Each was written on fine white onion skin stationery, the envelopes emblazoned with his monogram and the French tricolor flag.

But there was one envelope that had Lizzie’s handwriting. It shocked me to see my best friend’s writing, so clear and plain, as if she had written to her grandmother just days ago, as if she was still alive. I turned it over in my hand, raised it to my face hoping for her scent. It smelled only like paper.

I had a sudden lightning-bolt feeling these letters and photos had not been here before today, that Lizzie had left them for me.

Very carefully, I pulled the letter from the envelope. Dearest Mame, I read Lizzie’s sharp, perfect script. I researched, just as you told me, and found out everything there is to know about Sarah Royston …

“What are you doing?”

I looked up quickly, straight into the eyes of Mrs. Porter. I fumbled the letter, and it would have fallen to the floor if she hadn’t snatched it from my hand.

“Where did you find those?” she asked.

“In the clock,” I said.

Without a word, she gathered the letters and photos up and left the room. She closed the door behind her. I could still feel the letter from Lizzie in my hand. I knew it was real; I’d seen the name Sarah Royston. And I was certain, absolutely positive, that Mrs. Porter hadn’t known the papers had been in the clock. That realization gave me a triumphant thrill, a feeling of surprise and totally unexpected victory over her.

But who had put the letters there? And when?

And how had Lizzie known about Sarah Royston at least a year before her family had moved to this town?

Maybe it was a lucky double day after all.





Standing at the bus stop Monday morning, I pulled my jacket collar up over my face, and the zipper metal was so cold it stuck to my lips. I had to take off my mitten and warm the spot with my palm to thaw the zipper off. I had thought Decembers in Connecticut were frigid, but they were nothing compared to Maine. I figured the temperature out here was close to zero, and it hadn’t been much warmer at the breakfast table, Mrs. Porter’s ice-cold eyes silently accusing me of finding the letters.

Chloe and I stood in the shelter of the snow fort Carole and I had built. Chloe was fiddling with one of the icicle ornaments that had frozen straight down the smallest cutout window. We stamped our feet to keep the blood from freezing. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, holding the question inside, but I couldn’t wait any longer.

“Have you ever felt Lizzie here?” I asked.

“Here? In Maine?” Chloe asked.