Eight Keys (10 page)

“What about the other rooms?” I asked. “There was only one key, but there are still seven rooms.”

“I guess you just can’t worry about the other rooms. Maybe you’ll get to open them later,” Uncle Hugh said.

“But there aren’t any more keys for me.”

“That doesn’t mean the keys don’t exist. They’re still out there, somewhere.”

“Are you sure you want them right away?” Aunt Bessie asked. “Wasn’t that enough for now?”

“For today,” I said. “But now that I know those are for me, I want to know what’s in them.”

“Just keep your eyes open. Isn’t that how you found this one?”

I nodded.

“How did you put two and two together?” Uncle Hugh asked.

I pointed to the birthday letter on my nightstand.

“You doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just tired now.”

Aunt Bessie got up and put her hand on Uncle Hugh’s shoulder.

“Good night, Cricket,” he said. “Sleep well. Your dad loved games, puzzles, and clues. He asked us to keep this secret.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I needed a surprise.”

At school the next day, I thought about Mom, who was kind, and a good friend, and a reader, and somehow brave.

If Dad wanted me to know what I came from, did that
mean I should have those things inside me somewhere? Was that true? I didn’t seem to be anything like my mother. I was exactly the opposite.

It was lab day in science. Mr. Fleming gave out instructions and set us loose to find partners. Normally I was partners with Franklin and probably still would have been this time, too, but before I could blink, I heard someone say,

“Sorry, Elise already asked me.”

I turned to see Caroline talking to Amanda, who scowled and went to find someone else. Kate and Lindsay already seemed to be together. Ha, ha … Amanda, the odd girl out.

Caroline whispered, “Can we be lab partners?”

“Sure.”

Franklin had heard the whole thing. He found a boy to be his partner.

I went with Caroline to collect our materials. The lab was about simple machines and work. We took a series of planks, wooden carts, springs, and pulleys out into the hallway to see what was best for moving the load, our science textbook, different distances.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“Amanda’s my friend, but she thinks I’ll do all the work.”

“And you’re still friends with her?”

“Hanging out and doing work together are different. Like last night I went to her house and it was really fun. She painted my nails—see, Pearlescent Pink—then when she said, ‘Let’s do the language arts homework,’ I said I had to go home. Here, let’s start with the horizontal distances. What do you think will be the best way?”

“Use the flat cart. We can make a ramp with the planks so the cart can run down and then speed along the distance.”

Caroline set up the ramp. We ran the cart a couple times and used a stopwatch to time it. When I recorded the information, I noticed that my nails were broken off at different lengths. Amanda would probably have told me how gross they were.

“Do you think she’s mean?”

“Amanda?”

“Yeah.”

Caroline shrugged. “She’s never been mean to me.”

“She’s mean to other people. Really mean.”

Caroline picked up a cart, spun its wheels, and thought. “She was never like that before. It’s like she wants to seem tougher now. I don’t really know what’s going on with her. I’ll ask. Maybe she’ll cut it out.”

I didn’t mention that Amanda’s seeming “tough” included lunch-smashing, because I didn’t want Caroline to pick Amanda over me if she knew this was a fight. Instead I spun the wheels on one of the other carts and asked, “What are you friends with her for, anyway?”

“We’ve always been friends, ever since kindergarten.”

That sounded like me and Franklin. Sometimes you are friends with someone just because you’re used to it, and maybe you forget why it happened in the first place.

I looked down the hallway to where Franklin was working. He seemed to be having fun. It really was his kind of project. Was he giving all the instructions? Did the other kid mind?

What were we fighting about, again?

Trying to figure out why things change is probably even harder than trying to figure out how they started.

When I got home, Annie and Ava were on the couch in the living room, nursing. I tried to hurry past, but Annie saw me.

“Sit for a minute, Elise.”

I sat across from them, tapping my feet.

“Ava would like to get to know you,” Annie said, “when she’s not busy.”

It felt like she wanted me to laugh, so I did, a little.

But I was thinking about the picture of Mom with the pregnant stomach. With me in it.

“Annie?”

“Hmm?”

“How much do you love Ava?”

“More than the moon and the stars and the sun combined. More than the whole world.”

“When did you know?”

“When I first saw her.” Annie changed Ava’s position and looked back up at me.

“And you will love her always, no matter what?”

“Yes.”

“Do you love her enough that, even if it meant you couldn’t live another day, you would want her to live instead?”

“Yes.”

“Even if she grew up to be a serial killer?”

“Are you saying I’m going to raise a serial killer?” Annie laughed.

“No, I’m just …” I looked down at my lap.

“Come here, Elise,” Annie said. “Come sit with us.” I moved to the couch. She shifted Ava to her shoulder. “Never, ever doubt how much a mother loves her child. Even before she is born.”

With that, Ava spit up.

I headed to the kitchen for a snack. Aunt Bessie said, “Elise! I made cookies this morning. Maybe you could still smell them and that’s why you came by?”

I smiled. “I just feel like hanging out.”

“Good. Help yourself. I’m going to get dinner started. Pot roast needs to cook for a long time. Get your homework out and keep me company.”

The cookies were still a little soft. Mmm, chocolate with melty butterscotch chips. I poured myself a glass of milk and dunked the cookies as I ate.

Aunt Bessie had gone back to chopping veggies at the counter. But she asked, “You want to talk about something?”

“No. I mean, yes. I … I think I want to visit Mom.”

“We can do that,” Aunt Bessie said. “It’s probably been too long, hasn’t it?”

I nodded.

“Do you want to plant some flowers? Like we used to?”

“I wanted to go alone,” I said. “We’d have to go in the car to plant flowers.”

“Not necessarily,” she said. “There’s just enough room on Hugh’s bike for what you’d need.”

I abandoned my cookies and we went out to the yard. Aunt Bessie dug up some mums, repotted them, and put them in the bicycle basket. She added a watering can—“There’ll be somewhere to fill it”—and a trowel. “Ready?”

I straddled the bike, my feet barely touching the ground as I kept it steady.

Ready? “Well,” I said, “here I go.”

The cemetery is out along our school-bus route to town. Usually I pass it without even thinking about who’s in there, because I’m so used to it. It took a long time to pedal there with the full basket.

At the cemetery, I set the bike against a tree. I walked through the headstones, and eventually I found them, Louisa Celeste and John Peter Bertrand, chiseled into one block. I stood, just looking.

I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I put them in my jeans pockets, took them out, put them in my sweatshirt pockets, took them out.

Well, it wasn’t like she was going to talk first.

I sat on my knees in the grass in front of the marble stone.

“Hi, uh, Mom,” I started. “Dad—uh—I think Dad wanted me to get to know you. Well, a long time ago he did, but I’m here now. You have a pretty spot.… ”

I tore up some of the dry grass in my fists. Then I realized it probably wasn’t a very nice thing to do. I let the blades go and brushed my hands on my jeans.

“Is it my fault you’re here?”

Cold stone never answered anyone.

“Well, it probably wasn’t worth it. I’m bad at everything and nobody but our family likes me. I can’t even keep one friend.”

I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

“I’m really sorry.”

I lay down on the grass, a little closer to them.

“I brought you something,” I said when I eventually remembered. “I’ll go get it.”

I walked back to the bike and wheeled it over. I did my best digging two holes, one in front of each name. There was a little house nearby for the gardeners’ supplies and I filled up the watering can at a spigot. After I had the flowers in place and watered, the plot looked a lot more cheerful.

Back home, Aunt Bessie met me on the porch and folded me into her arms. When she finally let go, she held out something. It looked like a necklace.

“It’s the key. I took it out of the door where you left it. You can wear it, if you like.”

“Thanks.” I slipped it over my head. The key felt light, resting gently below my collarbone, near my heart.

Another Surprise

I didn’t dream at all. That was nice. When I woke up, I felt rested. Uncle Hugh hadn’t even knocked on the door yet to tell me it was time for school. I was thinking about Franklin. I felt so much better today, and maybe what had happened really wasn’t his fault. We could try again.

As I lay in bed, I noticed something that could only mean one thing:

I
was
dreaming.

My daybed is pushed up against a window, so I can see the windowsill through the white-painted bars.

Sitting on the windowsill was a key.

I closed my eyes and opened them. Then I closed them again and counted to ten. The key was still there. I reached through the bars and picked it up.

It felt cool and smooth.

It had to be a key to another one of the barn rooms, didn’t it?

Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe I was just being hopeful.

The possibilities:

Dream: key won’t open door to a barn room, because you’re always left hanging in dreams.

Dream: key opens a barn room, but room is empty.

Dream: key opens a barn room, but room has something scary inside (like a dragon).

Real life: key isn’t for the barn rooms.

Real life: key opens door to a barn room (inside, I find …?).

In dreams, it doesn’t usually matter where things come from. They can just appear for no reason. But in real life, things have to come from somewhere. Someone would have had to have put the key there. Uncle Hugh and Aunt Bessie were the most likely suspects. Had they had the keys all the time? But then why wouldn’t they have given them to me before?

I could just ask them, but something made me hesitant. What if I
had
dreamed the key up, and they thought I was crazy?

I got dressed before I went to have breakfast so I could have more time to think. I slipped the key into the pocket of my jeans; that way, I’d know if it was still there and real, or, if it vaporized later, that would prove I’d imagined the whole thing.

Aunt Bessie had scrambled eggs waiting. She was already washing the frying pan at the sink.

“Did you put something in my room?” I asked as I carefully sprinkled salt and pepper over my eggs.

“Yes,” she said. “Fourteen pairs of socks that I found left all over your room instead of in the hamper, washed, dried, balled up, and returned to you. They’re on your desk.
I’m glad you noticed so you can put them away where they belong.”

“Oh great, thanks,” I said. I hadn’t noticed the socks at all. But I figured the key wasn’t from Aunt Bessie. She seemed all business. “Where’s Uncle Hugh?”

“He left early for deliveries.”

I updated my suspect list:

Aunt Bessie

Uncle Hugh. Was it a coincidence that he’d left early?

I didn’t really have anyone else to add to my list.

Unless the key was coming from someone else entirely. What if Dad …

I shook the crazy thought out of my head.

“You need to get going,” Aunt Bessie said. “It’s a little later than usual. I let you sleep.”

I gulped down my orange juice. I had to get to the barn, but I didn’t want Aunt Bessie to notice, and I didn’t think I could sneak off now. Especially since I had something else to sneak. I opened the fridge and slipped a cold bottle out. Aunt Bessie didn’t turn around from the dishes.

I hurried to brush my teeth; grabbed my lunch, jacket, and backpack; and rushed out the door. On the way down the porch steps, I put my hand over my pocket. The key was still inside.

Franklin was waiting at the bus stop, standing with a few other kids. When I showed up, he looked at me. I motioned for him to come over.

“What?” he asked.

I pulled the bottle of cream soda out of my jacket. “Here.”

“Thanks?” he said, with a question mark.

“Come over later?” I said, also with a question mark. “We have a puzzle to finish.”

“Yeah, okay,” Franklin said.

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Then he tried to take the metal cap off his soda with his bare hand, but he couldn’t. I took the bottle, opened it, and handed it back.

He stood next to me and slurped quickly; you can’t eat or drink on the bus and Franklin isn’t a rule breaker. He’s also not a litterbug, but he agreed to leave the bottle on the side of the road if I promised to help him remember to pick it up after school.