Barnard, Ben-Zackarias, Bolton, Bulasan...
Someone else’s boyfriends.
Chen ... De La Cruz...
Someone else’s dad and brother. She knew how awful it was to think that way, but she couldn’t help it.
Jacobsen ... Jones ... Lawrence ... Lindquist...
Powell.
The air she drew into her lungs was thin all of a sudden. So thin, it cut. She was high up on a mountain, cold as the snowfields and glaciers on Rainier.
She reached out and traced the letters with the tip of her finger.
Reg Powell? Or Gustaf Peterson?
One of them had died.
She could still feel his hands touching her, still hear his voice.
Her gut said it was Reg, though her mind knew it could be either of them. And it was worse, a thousand times worse than when she had seen Reg’s name the first time. Because this time she felt responsible.
Whaley's voice broke in on her. “Holy—!”
She spun around and saw him standing there, eyes wide with shock, the whites showing clear around the blue of the irises. He was holding her mirror, gazing into it one moment, and the next, turning to look over his shoulder.
His hand opened and the mirror slid out, striking the corner of the bench.
Addie dove for it.
Too late. It had already fallen to the ground.
With half a sob, she snatched it up. A thin fracture ran through the center of the glass.
She buried her head in her hands. Tears started in her eyes. Now she’d never return to Reg’s time. This couldn’t be happening.
She tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter. The mirror might still have the power to open the door to that other world.
But she had just seen Reg’s name.
Despair washed over her.
“What’s with that thing?” Whaley demanded.
In anguish, Addie looked up at him. She could barely even register what he’d asked.
But the frightened look on his face shook her out of herself. She’d never seen Whaley frightened before.
“Did you—” Her voice dried up. She swallowed and forced herself to go on. “Did you see something? In the mirror?”
“A girl. She was standing right behind me.” Whaley glanced over his shoulder again, as if to catch a second glimpse, then looked back at Addie. “But when I turned around, she was gone.”
Addie tried to still the thoughts tumbling through her head. “Is that all?”
Whaley nodded.
“Thank goodness.” At least it wasn’t some awful portent of doom like Reg had seen. No American flag on a coffin. Oh, God...
“Just a girl?” She tried to sound normal.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you imagined it.” Oh, how she’d hate someone to say that to her!
“I didn’t imagine it.” The familiar challenging look was back in his eyes, and suddenly he was sizing her up. “You know that. Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me what I saw. And you told me about that statue disappearing. Remember? So don’t try to placate me.”
“All right!” Addie raised her hands as if in surrender. “I know. I got it. Sorry.”
“You’ve more than got it. Look, Addie, I haven’t been so wrapped up in Whaley P. Price these last weeks that I haven’t noticed how weird you’ve been. And it’s this mirror.” He looked around at the monument, the ghostly trees. “And this place. When are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” Maybe it didn’t matter anymore. Maybe she could just tell him, because it was probably all over. But it was too painful. She couldn’t. Not yet.
Whaley studied her for a moment and then a note of concern crept into his voice. “It’s changed you.”
“For sure.” Her voice cracked. She glanced back at the cenotaph, and the tears spilled down her cheeks. Then she turned her head away.
“Okay,” Whaley said. “Now I’m spooked. But whatever, we need to get going. Right? Ghosts or no ghosts.” He held out his hand. She took it and he pulled her to her feet.
“Right,” she said quietly, wiping her face. “Thanks, Whaley.”
As they walked slowly out of the garden, still floating and unearthly in the morning fog, she asked, “What did she look like? Your girl in the mirror?”
“About your age.” He considered. “Or—no. Maybe a few years younger. Freckled. Reddish blond hair.”
They turned the corner, quickening their pace.
“She was putting a bunch of flowers on the memorial. Poppies.” He paused. “Definitely poppies.”
Addie licked her lips, which had gone very dry.
“It was weird. She reminded me of someone. No one I know. But still familiar somehow.” He stopped. “And there was one other thing.”
“What?” Addie had to work to keep her voice steady.
“She was crying.”
They went on a bit in silence. At the bottom of the hill, Addie saw the Jewel looming. She hugged herself against the clammy mist. Then she said, “Whaley?”
“What?”
“What does the P. stand for?”
“Huh?”
“The P. Whaley P. Price. What’s your middle name?”
He gave her an irritated look. “What does it matter? This isn’t about my enlistment form, is it?”
“No. What does P. stand for?”
He rolled his eyes. “Peterson. So? Hurry up. We’re going to be late.”
31. Curtain
Addie stared at Whaley's strong guitarist's fingers, roughened by carpentry work, and remembered Gustaf’s cut and crosshatched hands. Guilt cut through her like a knife. Was it Peterson, then, who had died?
And Frida ... she could see her standing in the backyard under the Douglas fir last night, waving as Sadler’s car disappeared from the alley. She heard her say to Reg, Where's Papa? Why are you here and not him?
“Addie? Come on. Don’t you want to get to the theater?” Whaley’s eyes were resting on her, and all of a sudden, she could see Gustaf and Frida in him, as strong and clear as the sunbeam that had just cut through the fog.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said as they descended the winding street back to Tenth Avenue. “That there’s no reason for us to rush to get there when those folks are just going to turn Mrs. Powell down anyway. But—”
“No,” Addie said slowly. “That's not what I’m thinking.”
There were threads she couldn’t even begin to connect, but here, she felt, was a chance at some sort of reparation. She tried to keep hold of what she actually knew. One of them had died. And though she now felt it was Peterson, she didn’t actually know. But whether it was him or Reg, she did know one thing for sure. The only way to make reparation for death was through life.
She was determined to save the Jewel. She had to. Whaley could make his own decisions from there.
They reached Tenth and turned toward downtown.
Frida and Meg would have hidden that newspaper. She was sure of it now. They would have held on to it forever, because of that death. But they hadn’t hidden it at the Jewel. Nor in an archive. Nor had anyone turned it into digital signals and loaded it onto the Internet. But it had to be somewhere else. Somewhere she hadn’t thought of yet.
She pulled herself up very straight, grabbed Whaley’s hand, and squeezed it fiercely. “Wait a second.” A conviction had entered her.
“Wait for what?”
“There’s one more chance.” She looked toward downtown, to where the theater waited, but saw only the rolling rise of the street ahead of her. In the foggy distance, two headlights were approaching, with a row of lights high above them. A bus, heading north.
Abruptly, she reached into her purse and fished out Gustaf's union card. She held it out to Whaley. “This is for you.”
He took it and looked at it curiously. “IWW?” He held it closer and a startled expression swept over his face. “Gustaf Peterson? Are you kidding? He’s my great-great gran
dad. Where did you find this?”
There was no way to explain it. “At the Jewel,” Addie sa id.
“But why would it be—”
“Whaley. I—” If she didn’t cross the street this instant, she’d miss the bus. “I have to run!” She darted away from him, flying across the middle of the road.
“Wait, Addie! You have to explain this!”
“I can't now! But I’ll get to the theater soon! Tell Mrs. Powell—” The bus pulled up, blocking him from view. She jumped on, paid her fare, and grabbed a seat, watching as Whaley got smaller in the distance, still studying the IWW card she’d given him. The card that had belonged to his great-great-grandfather. That belonged to Whaley now. Her heart thumped as she sank into her seat and headed back home.
Almaz was standing outside the bookstore, scribbling a note on a scrap of paper. Her sports duffel was on her shoulder, and she was wearing her team sweatshirt, shorts, and shin guards. She glanced up. “I was going to stick a note in your mailbox to say come to the game at Hale.” She gave Addie a severe look. “I’ve scored four goals in two weeks and you haven’t even been there to cheer.”
“I know.” Addie swung an arm around Almaz’s shoulder for a second and then let go. “I’m sorry. I’ll come to the next one.” She pulled out her key and opened the door. “Can you help me for a few minutes? If you’ve got time before the game?”
“Help you with what?”
“I have to find something.”
“Why are you in such a hurry?” But Almaz stepped inside behind her.
“Because I have to find it before a nine o’clock meeting at the Jewel.” Addie shoved aside a pile of bills on Dad’s big desk and sat down on it. She glanced at the Victrola on the shelf by the window. Dad had left one of his 78s sitting on the turntable. In her ear the shimmering notes of the piano piece Reg had played for her sounded faintly. Dad had put the Ethiopian posters back on the wall—the bright-colored saints carrying their swords and shields—and underneath, Addie imagined, she could see the turquoise walls of Meg’s living room.
“What do you have to find?”
“Those pictures I was looking for. Listen.” Addie's gaze drifted around the bookshop. She could see the room as it had been last night, could feel the others who had been there, still sharply, unbearably, present. “Do you remember how Mrs. Turner told us that her aunt used to own this house? And she was the director at the Jewel?”
“Sure.” Almaz dropped her duffel by the cash register.
“Meg Turner was her name. She was an amazing woman. She...” Addie looked straight at Almaz and felt relieved that, finally, she could reveal something to her. She dug into her handbag and pulled out the silver mirror. “This mirror belonged to her. Mrs. T. and I found it in those crates.”
She held it out to Almaz, who took it, handling it carefully, examining the delicate embossing on the back and then turning it over. “Oh, it’s cracked,” she said. “That’s too bad.”
“I know.”
Almaz returned the mirror, and Addie ran her forefinger lightly along the crack, as if her touch could somehow fuse the pieces together. “It was a talisman of hers—s he never directed a performance without it. And she lived in this house until she—until she died. Do you see?” She stopped. “We’ve been searching the theater for evidence of the Jewel as it was long ago, but we never thought of looking here. And yet Meg Turner lived here for so many years.”
“Ooh, I get it.” Almaz’s eyes lit up. “You’re thinking that she had all the costumes from the Jewel and so maybe—” “That’s right.”
Almaz spun around, surveying the shop. “But where?” “I have no idea. But it’s our last chance. And there’s at least one thing I know for sure.” The certainty rushed up in her so fiercely that she felt dizzy. She held up the mirror. “This is mine now. And when I’m working at the Jewel, I’m going to use it in every performance. Meg left it for me.” She slipped it back into the purse. ‘And I feel—oh, don’t laugh at me!—I feel as if she’s left me the pictures of the Jewel, too.”
Almaz crinkled her nose. Her big eyes, with the dusky shadows underneath, examined Addie with concern. “Addie,” she said gently. “I don’t want to pop your bubble...”
“You can’t!” Addie cried, and jumped off the desk. “Because we’re going to find something.” She grabbed Almaz’s hand and pulled her along to the drama section. “Help me move this shelf.”
“You want to look in that closet again?” Almaz surveyed the c lose-pressed bindings of the books. “It would be a whole lot easier if we pulled out the books first.”
“I moved it alone, with all the books on it!”
“Yeah. You don’t know anything about muscle injuries. If you played soccer, you’d think before—”
“Are you going to help me or am I doing this myself?” Almaz grinned. “You’re doing it yourself.” Then, at Addie's thundercloud look, she amended, “Just kidding.
“Dark in here,” she remarked when they’d moved the shelf and opened the closet behind it.
“I know. Hold on a minute.” Addie ran back to Dad’s big desk and pulled out the bottom drawer. She removed the flashlight he’d kept there ever since the earthquake and switched it on to make sure it worked.
Then she checked her watch. Eight thirty.
She grabbed her phone to call Whaley but put the phone away before she’d touched the button. Look first. Then call.
Or not.
She went back to the closet just as Almaz emerged, disgustedly wiping a cobweb off one of her braids. “I don’t think there’s much in there, but I can’t see too well.”
“Let me.” Holding the flashlight in front of her, Addie stepped in.
The scent of cedar struck her once again, but differently, because this time it was the smell of the smooth wooden benches in King Street Station the night that Gustaf Peterson had gotten on that train. The scent of Frida's dress when she’d first met her.
She blinked, sternly forcing herself to stop thinking about the past. She had to examine the place inch by inch. The crates were gone, leaving fresh square marks in the deep dust on the floor. She’d hoped that perhaps she and Mrs. Turner had overlooked an extra one hiding in a corner. But they hadn’t.
She shone the beam higher up the wall. There was a steel dowel to hang clothes on, which she didn’t remember from before. And up above it, a long shelf, just like they had in their own coat closet and on which they threw all their hats and scarves and gloves.
She couldn’t reach the shelf and had to climb up on the little bench built into the wall where she’d sat with Mrs. T. amid piles of vintage clothing. Now she could see clearly. And what she saw was...
Nothing.
Again nothing. It was always nothing. She shook her head, trying not to let the disappointment overwhelm her.
She leaned forward as far as she could without losing her footing, held the flashlight high, and ran her hand along the shelf to make sure she hadn’t missed anything hidden in the shadows.
“Ow!” She pulled back her hand and looked at the nasty splinter she’d jammed into her finger.
“No luck?” Almaz ducked back inside the closet.
“No,” Addie said, and carefully stepped back off the bench.
“What are you standing on?” Almaz frowned. “Not a crate, is it?”
“Just a bench.” Addie looked down at it. The wood was blackened with age. The seat was narrow, and it wasn’t just a seat, but a base as well. The whole thing projected from the wall about six inches. Actually—it reminded her of the old toy chest built into the window seat in Zack's room upstairs. The toy chest that you could open just by taking off the cushions and lifting the top...
She looked up at Almaz and saw her eyes widen at the same moment.
“Y’know—” Addie handed Almaz the flashlight.
She bent down and put her fingertips under the lip of wood. Gently, she lifted it.
“Shine the light in here!”
&
nbsp; Almaz pointed the flashlight down, and its powerful beam stabbed into the dark recesses of the bench. Addie saw immense balls of dust. Small bits of scrap wood. She knelt to get a better look.
Then, at the bottom, shoved in a corner, she saw a metal box with a black handle on top.
“What’s that?” Almaz cried at the same moment that Addie yelped, “Hold up the seat!”
When Almaz had it propped open, Addie reached down and lifted out the box. It was pretty light, but she could tell it wasn’t empty.
“Bring it out here,” Almaz said, and Addie carried it back to Dad’s desk. The sun had torn away the fog by now, and the whole front of the store was bright, dust motes shimmering in the air. The light struck the golds and reds of book covers in the unsorted piles on the floor, and they sparkled.
Addie’s mouth was dry as she settled herself in the big wooden chair and set the box down carefully. On its front, she saw a silver latch with a keyhole.
“A keyhole, but no key.” She frowned and pushed a button next to the lock. But the box wouldn’t open.
“Let me.” Almaz leaned over Addie and tried to twist the lock with her fingernail, but it really was stuck. “You know, I learned something about locks in physics, of all places.”
Addie looked up at the clock on the wall. Quarter to nine.
“No time for physics,” she said, and opened a desk drawer and found a box cutter. But it wasn’t sturdy enough. She shoved aside more papers and found a letter opener, a stapler, sticky notes—“Aha!” Dad’s Swiss Army knife.
She pulled out the knife and extracted a short blade.
“Whoa!” Almaz objected. “Don’t you think—”
But Addie had already jammed the blade underneath the lid. She jerked the knife to one side, and levered it up. The top sprang open with a creak.
For a moment she couldn’t look. The exhilaration shaking through her almost made her sick.
Trying to control the tremor in her hands, she picked up a paper folded in quarters. It crackled as she touched it. A bit of its brownish edge flaked off, like broken pie crust.
“Careful!” Almaz warned. Addie nodded, trying to keep her touch light enough that no more damage would be done. It was agonizing how slowly she had to move. But when she laid the paper on the desk and gently unfolded it, she gasped with delight.
The Jewel and the Key Page 34
