It was time to for everyone to move on.
Both girls looked up when Calvin and Jarod walked in the door. They exchanged pleasantries before two men got to work, loading the biggest things first, carrying couches and tables out the front door. Poddy barked with excitement, circling around them.
“What can I do to help?” Cali asked Calvin, hovering. “How’s your shoulder?”
He set down the box he held, coming over to wrap his long arms around her and over to kiss her on the forehead. “I’m fine. Just keep Poddy out of the way and let us take care of it.”
She protested. “Are we supposed to just sit here and watch you guys work?”
“Yes you are,” Calvin said.
“I know,” Layla cut in. “Let’s take a hike up to the ruins.”
“Good idea,” Calvin said. “Why don’t you take Poddy along with you?”
“I really should stay and help,” Cali fretted.
“You’ve already done all of the packing,” Calvin told her. “Go ahead.”
“Yeah,” Layla said. “We should go … I haven’t been up there in ages. Who knows when our next chance will be?”
“True …” Caledonia said, feeling a little nostalgic. “I suppose I could check in with Jesse to see if he needs anything.”
Layla’s sudden rush of enthusiasm was infectious, and she sprang out of her chair with excitement. “Then it’s settled. Let’s do it.”
Cali looked down at Layla’s shoes. “I’ll loan you a pair of boots.”
Calvin came closer to squeeze Caledonia tight once more, speaking into her ear. “Be careful. And don’t forget to take your phone.”
Once Layla was outfitted properly the two girls climbed into her little blue convertible, pulling away with a wave to Calvin and his brother. Cali leaned back in her seat and enjoyed the drive in silence, holding her hand up to play with the air as it pushed past her. Her thoughts strayed to the first time she’d laid eyes on Layla, sitting primly in her aunt Angie’s kitchen like she’d come from another era.
Sometimes it was hard to believe everything that they’d been through.
Layla turned the radio down and grinned over at her. “You know, I had a dream about our grandmother last night.”
“Me too!” Cali exclaimed. “She was in the rose garden.”
“Whoa.” Layla didn’t even need to tell her that hers was the same. “I think she’s sending us a message.”
“About roses?” Caledonia was skeptical.
“Do you think she wants us to transplant them?”
Caledonia started laughing, “Or prune them?”
“I’m serious. Since we won’t be rebuilding the house, maybe she wants us to look after them or something.”
“Maybe.”
Layla parked in front of the mossy little cabin in the woods, and Cali clipped a leash onto Poddy’s collar, leading him out of the car. Jesse was outside working in the garden, and he stood and wiped his hands on his overalls. He regarded the cousins with a huge smile, straightening up taller than Layla had ever seen him stand. Cali noticed that the hollows in his cheeks were smoothed out, and his gaunt frame had filled in a little bit.
“Well, if it isn’t the girls with the kaleidoscope eyes. What brings you out here today?”
“We thought it was a nice day for a hike,” Layla said.
“That it is,” he agreed.
“The place looks great,” Caledonia complimented him, happy to see her mother’s garden brought back to life. Carrot tops were poking up out of the rich brown earth, and neat rows of peas were growing on twig trellises. The chicken coop hosted a few new inhabitants, and a stray cat that had adopted Jesse slunk around the corner, wary of the little dog that strained at his leash to follow it.
“Do you want to come in for a cup of tea?” Jesse asked politely.
“No thanks,” Cali said. “We decided to pay the ruins a visit. You can get back to your work.”
The girls started out on the pathway up the hill, pausing to admire the delicate beauty of the wildflowers that lined their pathway. When they crested the summit they found the spot just as spectacular as ever: a romantic jumble of crumbling ruins and overgrown roses looking out across the wild and unspoiled landscape.
Cali unclipped Poddy’s leash, letting him run free among the fallen bricks.
“What made you change your mind about re-building the house?” Cali asked.
Layla looked all around, taking in the endless expanse of trees and sky. “I’m not sure I ever really wanted to,” she confessed. “It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time… I suppose that I was looking for a direction to go in.”
Poddy started barking at the lizards that ducked under rocks when he tried to catch them, hopping all around and wagging his little stub of a tail. They meandered through what was left of the house, stopping to smell the blooms of roses that had gone wild and were rambling over the remaining walls.
“I used to come up here when I was little,” Caledonia reminisced. “Mama would send me to gather the rose hips in the fall after the blooms died.”
“Rose hips? What for?” Layla asked.
“To make tea. Did you know they have more vitamin C than oranges?”
Layla’s eyes lit up, and her face brightened. “My dream! I remember now!” She cast her gaze around, looking for something.
“What?”
“Are there any pinkish colored roses growing up here?” she asked.
“Yes,” Cali said, looking at her funny.
“Show me!” Layla demanded.
Caledomia led her to the end of the far wall, pointing to an old vine, it’s thick canes spread in great sweeping arches over what were once neatly bricked garden beds and pathways. It had just barely started blooming, but the one open bud revealed the pink-coral rose that Layla had smelled in her dream.
She turned to Cali, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “She showed this one to me,” she said reverently.
Caledonia nodded. “Me too.”
Poddy barreled through their legs, chasing a ground squirrel that he’d frightened from its rocky perch. The little striped rodent ran right between the two girls, diving down a hole at the base of the bush with the excited dog hot on its heels. Poddy tried to follow, yelping in pain when his scruffy coat got caught on the spike of a thorn.
“Poddy!” Cali cried, falling to her knees and crawling under the bower of thorny branches after him. She held him still and untangled him, only to have him start barking and digging at the hole, unaware that the little chipmunk had already exited out the other side. She reached under the bush to grab him by the collar and pull him away when a glint of silver caught her eyes.
She brushed some dirt away to reveal more metal. “There’s something in here.”
Layla knelt behind her. “What is it?”
“I don’t know… something metal. I need something to dig with.” She backed out and cast about on the ground, wandering off to return with a sturdy stick. She went to work, unearthing half of a tin box, its lid held firmly down by invading roots.
After a good deal of work she managed to pry one a corner of the box open a few inches. Layla gasped with surprise over her shoulder. The tin was packed tight with dozens and dozens of small golden bars, words stamped into them.
“What do they say?” Layla asked.
Cali reached two fingers in and pulled one out, reading aloud, “Ten ounces troy… Ninety-nine percent.” She handed it to Layla.
“It’s heavy,” she said, weighing it in the palm of her hand. “It looks like real gold.”
“She must have hidden it here,” Cali guessed.
Layla nodded solemnly. “Millie told me that the whole family was killed by robbers. This is probably what they came looking for.”
Caledonia backed up, taking a seat on the ground. “She wanted us to find it.”
“What for?” Layla asked, handing the small bar back to her like it was a hot potato.
�
�I don’t know,” Caledonia replied, a sudden chill raising gooseflesh on her arms. She got up and gathered a few bricks, covering the partially revealed tin.
“What are you doing?” Layla asked.
“We can’t get it all out now … Let’s go home and find out what we have here first.”
“Cali–” Layla started. For a split second she wished that they could just un-do what had happened.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
They hurried back down the hill like they were trying to escape from the ghosts of the past, jumping into Layla’s car and speeding away. The drive home was a silent one, with the weight of the past pressing down upon both of them. They burst in the door to find the place completely emptied out. Calvin and Michael were leaning against the counter in the barren kitchen, the remains of a half-eaten pizza in a takeout box between them.
“Wow!” Layla exclaimed. You sure cleared this place out fast!”
“Where’s Jarod?” Caledonia asked, going over to greet Calvin with a hug.
“He had to get going. Crystal wants to know if we’ll come over for a BBQ next weekend.”
“Um, okay. That would be nice.”
“She wants us to be sure and bring Poddy along.”
“Of course, listen–”
Michael gestured to the open box. “Guys want some pizza? There’s plenty left over.”
“We have something to show you,” Layla said, pulling the gold bar out of her purse and plunking it down on the counter.
“Is it … gold?” Calvin asked.
Michael picked it up and inspected it. “Looks like it. Where did you get this?”
“We found a box of them at the Redcastle ruins. They were buried in the rose garden,” Cali told him.
“Millie mentioned something about them paying the builders with gold bars,” Layla added, “but I thought it was only gossip.”
“How much do you think it’s worth?” Calvin asked, mildly interested. Michael pulled out his phone and did an internet search.
“If it’s real gold … at the current rate of exchange …” He looked up with shock in his eyes. “This bar is worth over ten thousand dollars.”
The girl were both quiet for a moment, the shock registering on their faces. Calvin finally spoke up. “How many more were there?”
Layla and Cali’s eyes met. “Lots,” Cali answered.
Michael handed the bar back to Caledonia. “What’s lots?” he asked, his voice rising.
“At least fifty,” Layla replied. “Maybe more.”
Calvin ran both hands through his hair, chuckling. After a year spent with Caledonia he was surprised that he could even be surprised anymore. “Looks like you guys are rich again.”
Michael, Caledonia and Layla all exchanged looks, none of them happy.
“What if it’s cursed?” Layla blurted out.
Calvin was the only one who laughed. “Oh c’mon––You can’t be serious!”
Layla shook her head. “I mean, if what Millie said is true and it was stolen, our grandmother was killed for it.”
“Just like the money I lost,” Michael said, looking down at his missing finger.
“Everything is going so well right now,” Layla said. “It feels like some kind of trap.”
“Like a test,” Caledonia added.
“I agree,” Michael said. “I finally have something that I earned for myself. I don’t want any part of it.”
“Me neither,” Layla said, her voice rising in strength. “I don’t need it. Ramon and I have plans!”
Cali chewed her lip thoughtfully, considering everything for a few moments. “Maybe we can think of a way to make it right.”
“You go ahead and do what you want,” Layla said. “Leave me out of it.”
“Same here,” said Michael.
Caledonia looked at Calvin, who was watching them all with a look of amusement.
“You know …” she mused, holding up the gold bar. “I bet I could do a whole lot of good with this.”
~
Chapter Twenty-Two
RESOLUTION
~
“Just a minute!” Mina called. She turned off the sink and grabbed a dishtowel to dry off her hands as she went to answer the door. She swung it open to find Michael standing with a smile, a bouquet of roses clutched in front of him.
“I’m early,” he said.
She smiled at his thoughtfulness, taking the flowers he offered her. “Come on in.”
Michael had gotten a job in town and settled into his own tiny apartment, and in the weeks since they had returned from Los Angeles he truly had transformed his life. He got up early and went to work every day, and spent his spare time going for jogs or exercising at a gym on his way home. He finally felt like the past was completely behind him, embracing a new optimism about what the future might have in store.
Mina had been busy with work since they’d returned from LA, traveling around the state to gather information in a case of campaign finance corruption. She and Michael hadn’t been able to see very much of each other in person, but they’d spent nearly every evening together, texting back and forth or playing games in their virtual online world.
Like Caledonia before him, Michael found many of the small details of day-to-day life mystifying. Being raised with household staff left him essentially helpless in the kitchen, and despite Mina’s advice to eat more vegetables he’d been living on cheap fast food and Ramen noodles. He missed Cali’s cooking, and had developed a new appreciation of how well she had taken care of their little family.
“I can’t believe you don’t even know how to scramble an egg!” Mina exclaimed as she helped him draft his very first grocery list over the phone. When she finally returned from her travels she called to invite him over for a Friday night dinner, and he could barely think of anything else the entire day. He was looking forward to a real meal, but even more than that, he was eager to see Mina in person again.
“What smells so good?” he asked, following her in and closing the door behind them.
“Lasagna,” she answered. “It should be ready in about half an hour.”
“When did you learn how to cook Italian food?”
She smiled sheepishly. “I didn’t. I picked it up at the local deli. I’m only heating it up.”
“Well,” he shrugged. “It still smells good.”
“I did make the salad,” she added with a laugh.
“Then I’m sure it will be the best salad ever,” he said diplomatically.
“Would you like a glass of wine while we wait?” she asked.
“That would be nice.”
“Have a seat,” she gestured for him to sit down on the futon couch that she folded out to sleep on at night. Just the thought of it made his heart beat a little faster.
Mina bustled around in the tiny kitchen of her studio apartment, putting the flowers Michael brought into a vase and rummaging in a drawer for a wine opener.
“So, how’s the job been going?” she called over to him.
“Good,” he replied, “Great as a matter of fact–I got a promotion.”
“Already? Congratulations!”
Mina stood on her tiptoes, stretching up to reach deeper into the cabinet. Michael couldn’t help but stare, mesmerized by her graceful movements. She looked over her shoulder to catch him watching with adoring eyes, and it made both of them feel self-conscious.
He looked away and cleared his throat, “Thanks.”
Ever since Mina had surprised him with a sweet kiss on their evening out in Koreatown they’d done nothing more than held hands. Michael had chalked up her boldness that night to the beer they’d been drinking, compounded by her desire to irk her former fiancé. He’d imagined taking her in his arms and kissing her again more times than he could count, but he was afraid try it for fear of spoiling their friendship.
He was also more than a little afraid of her. She was as smart as she was beautiful, and so formidable and profe
ssional in her role as a government agent that he had a difficult time imagining her as his equal. He had no problem, however, imagining her naked.
Much like him, Mina had enjoyed a privileged education combined with a strict but a sheltered upbringing. She’d also borne the burden of having huge expectations put upon her, and being unable or unwilling to live up to them. Mina had disappointed her parents much as Michael had frustrated the professor, but unlike him, she’d fought for her autonomy and created an independent life all her own.
He thought she was the bravest, smartest, most wonderful person he’d ever met.
“I hope these are okay,” she said, returning to sit down next to him with a pair of juice glasses and an open bottle. “I don’t have any real wine glasses.”
“Works for me,” he said, watching her pour them each some wine. She handed him a glass and raised hers up for a toast. “Congratulations on the promotion! Now tell me all about it.”
He clinked her glass and took a drink, excited to share the news. “They put me in charge of cyber-security for the whole company. I’m going to be trouble-shooting all of their systems, and setting up new encryption codes for their web sites. I’m going to be doing a lot of traveling, and I even get a raise!”
She smiled at his enthusiasm. “They certainly have the right person for the job.”
His mouth twisted wryly. “I guess all those years of cyber-crime were good for something.”
“So, how does it feel to make an honest buck?”
“Surprisingly good,” he replied, looking into her eyes.
“It takes a thief,” she said, adding, “to stop a thief.”
His face clouded a bit, and she laid her hand on his. “I’m really proud of you. I know it’s not easy to make a change.”
He felt better instantly. “Thanks.”
They sipped the wine and told each other stories from the past week at work, getting re-acquainted while they waited for the food to heat up. They even found a way to laugh about the terrible events that had brought them back together, discovering that they both had a dark sense of humor. Despite the completely different paths they’d traveled, they were surprised by how much they had in common.
The Redcastle Redemption (The Athena Effect) Page 19
