The Stolen Letter

by Paige Shelton

  “Please visit any time,” Dina said. “I love to show off my things.”

  “Thank you, I will. Soon,” I said.

  “I look forward to it.” Dina smiled.

  Mary volunteered. Everywhere, apparently. She’d worked at the castle on the hill, as well as a docent in several museums throughout Edinburgh. A few years earlier, she’d worked at the National Museum of Scotland, where Joshua worked. I didn’t bring up knowing him. She’d recently been spending most of her time at the Writers’ Museum, just off of the Royal Mile.

  “I love that place. The books talk to me,” she said with a laugh.

  I looked at her to see if she meant it as literally as they spoke to me, but I didn’t think she did.

  She continued, “Museums bring back so many things from my past lives. I can’t tell if they’re memories or distractions. I can’t work in many of the old places with old things anymore. It’s just too much heartache, but I’m so drawn to museums. The Writers’ Museum is safe for me, not much about the queen inside.”

  “Oh, are you volunteering there again?” Dina asked Mary.

  Mary blinked at her. “Aye, Dina, I am. They welcomed me.”

  “Good to hear,” Dina said.

  “Seems sensible,” Rosie added, filling the uncomfortable and heavy silence that came after their cryptic words. “I mean, sensible that you like being at that museum.”

  From the beginning of the dinner to the end, my sense of Mary had changed some, but I knew that was only because of my own interpretation. I’d first thought she’d be interesting, but she was more than that; she was consumed by her “past life.” It was both interesting and, I thought, somewhat sad.

  “Did you see the article about the Mary, Queen of Scots’ papers that have recently been found?” I said, still not sharing my friendship with the young post doc who worked at the museum.

  Everyone had read the article though, and couldn’t wait to see the papers exhibited.

  “Do ye feel any ties tae such things?” Rosie asked Mary.

  “Not at this point,” Mary said. “When I see them, I might, but I have no sense of them at the moment.”

  Rosie nodded.

  “Come along,” Henry said. “Everyone’s finished. Let’s move over to the comfortable chairs and I’ll have coffee or more adult beverages ready momentarily. I know you’re here to see Mary’s proof.”

  We all moved to the other side of the space, the living room. Tom, Rosie, and I all sat on the couch. My senses were tuned to high alert, both because we were about to see Mary’s proof and because I couldn’t let go of the silent exchange I’d seen between Henry and Mikey. As furtively as possible, I tried to watch them both. Mikey fed my curiosity, but this time it was with a look between him and his wife.

  And I was sure I saw fear. Mikey looked at Dina with stern eyes and pursed lips. Dina’s eyes got wide before she looked away from his and pasted on a fake smile. I was sure I was the only one who noticed it, but I’d ask Rosie and Tom later.

  “Oh, I look forward to showing you the Writers’ Museum,” Mary said to me. “And, frankly, I look forward to showing you to the people I work with. Everyone will be very surprised to see there are two of us.” She quirked a half smile. “Or three of us, if you will. They all know who I used to be.”

  “Do they all believe ye?” Rosie asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Mary laughed. “Well, they say they do. Anyway, you’re here for proof.” She plunked her hands on her hips.

  “In fact, it has been a lovely evening,” Tom said. “Please don’t feel obligated to show us any proof. It has been fun to get to know you all.”

  I looked at him. His graciousness was poorly timed, and I held back the urge to nudge him with my elbow. He looked at me and smiled.

  “Although, I might be speaking out of turn.” He laughed. “I think my lovely bride would be disappointed if we left without knowing…”

  “Aye,” Rosie added as she sent Tom a frown. “Aye.”

  Mary smiled. “Very well.” She turned and spoke back over her shoulder. “You might want to come closer for a look.”

  Mary reached back and to the neckline of her dress. She pulled the material over about two inches, exposing a mark.

  “Oh, that’s not a tattoo,” I said. “That’s a birthmark.”

  “Aye,” she said. “In the shape of a crown. The queen herself had one identical. That’s how I knew. Like Rosie, the memories were stronger when I was a little girl. I sketched faces of people I knew and could give them first names. Some of the sketches matched some of the pictures of those people that we now have access to, though all of that is iffy I know. However, this birthmark confirmed it for me.”

  I didn’t remember knowing anything about a birthmark on the queen. It seemed hokey, frankly, but the mark on Mary’s back did look like a small crown.

  “I don’t remember reading anything aboot a birthmark,” Rosie said.

  Mary released the fabric and then turned around to face us again.

  “It’s a rare known fact, but she did have one, I’m sure,” she said.

  “There’s documentation?” Tom asked, but then he cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to be rude.”

  Mary smiled at him. “I understand your doubts. It is documented. In my memory. Since a girl, I have had a clear memory of having the mark, and having it in another setting, castles and other places too. Mirrors weren’t common in that time, but I remember a reflection in a stream. Though over the years, the memories of the people, the faces, have faded, the memories of the mark have not. I am sure of it.”

  A part of me wanted to confirm with her that this was really the “proof” she’d been talking about sharing with us, because as proof went, this was pretty shaky. But I didn’t express my doubts. Tom wasn’t the only one who knew how to be gracious.

  “That’s completely fascinating,” I said.

  “I believe you totally,” Rosie said. “I can relate tae what ye’re saying. I ken those sorts of memories. I don’t remember them much now, but I remember remembering them those first times. They are real.”

  Mary smiled at Rosie and then at me. I knew she could see my doubt, but she couldn’t possibly have known that at that moment, more than all the other moments, I was looking at something else—our differences. We did look alike, but there was something in the set of her mouth, the corners of her eyes that were different than mine.

  Then, everything changed again, her mouth and those eyes were, in fact, very similar to mine—when I wasn’t telling the whole truth, when I was lying.

  She and I were very much alike.

  The queen wasn’t mentioned the rest of the evening. We learned that Eloise had been Mary’s doctor for twenty years, that they’d met in Glasgow, at a clothing shop that was no longer there. Gretchen and Eloise had met at university thirty years earlier and had been together ever since. Dina and Mikey had also met at university, but only ten years earlier.

  As the enjoyable evening continued, I got no sense that Mikey was angry with anyone, and Dina didn’t seem afraid of him. I realized I’d probably jumped to conclusions that weren’t real. I’d been rattled by the news about the bookshop, so I knew I wasn’t quite in my normal headspace. We didn’t mention the bad news to our new friends. I wasn’t sure if that was because we didn’t know them well enough yet, or if we didn’t want to say the news out loud again, making it that much more real.

  I thought Tom might see Henry at the pub very soon. They talked football in that way that only true fans could. Henry liked the idea of catching a match on the telly at the pub.

  As we said goodbye, Mary grabbed my hands. “Oh, Delaney, it is so lovely to know you. Please, let’s not be strangers. It would be a shame, and possibly an affront to the universe if we don’t become friends. I will visit you at the bookshop but come see me at the museum too. Please.”

  “I will. I look forward to seeing you again,” I said.

  “Me too!”

  Truth be t
old though, and for reasons I didn’t quite understand, I couldn’t wait to see her again.

  SEVEN

  “Well, that’s disappointing,” Hamlet said. “A birthmark? I’ve heard of such legends, fictional only, but I don’t know anything about such a mark on the real Mary, Queen of Scots.”

  “Me either,” I said.

  “I still believe her,” Rosie said as she walked by the back table where Hamlet and I had settled.

  “I don’t disbelieve her,” I said. “It was an … interesting evening.”

  In fact, Rosie had been quiet on the way home the night before, lost either in the queen’s world, or maybe the Titanic’s. Both Tom and I had tried to start conversations, but she hadn’t been interested. We’d walked her to her door, given her hugs, gave some love to Hector, and then told them goodnight.

  I’d been thinking about both the bookshop and Rosie all night, worried mostly about my worker. So had Tom. I’d texted him first thing this morning when she’d come in and seemed fine, if maybe still somewhat distracted.

  Hamlet watched Rosie make her way to a bookshelf against the far wall. “Why are you so sure?” he asked her.

  Hamlet hadn’t heard the Titanic story.

  “Here,” I stood as the bell above the door jingled, “tell Hamlet about your past life. I’ll help the customers.”

  Rosie joined Hamlet as I walked toward the front of the shop.

  Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.

  Hello, Kierkegard, I said in my head. Though a philosopher who was more interested in talking about religion, it seemed only reasonable that the bookish voice was talking about the past life experiences of the last couple of days. I didn’t take the bookish voice for more than just an extra voice to reinforce that things were off kilter.

  The woman who came into the shop didn’t need anything specific, so I didn’t hover as she browsed. Instead, I grabbed Hector as he trotted toward me. We found a spot in the middle of the other side of the shop, not far from where Rosie had been pretending to look for something herself.

  “How about you, have you had other lives?” I said quietly.

  Hector looked at me like he wanted to answer correctly.

  “Good dog,” I said as he kissed my cheek.

  All of a sudden and in a stretched out beat of time, everything changed. In the blink of an eye, a boom sounded somewhere in the distance. There was a pop in the noise, but I wouldn’t remember if it came at the beginning or the end of the deep bass rumble mixed with a tinny percussion. It didn’t seem close enough to cause damage, but, nevertheless, my instinct was to put my arm up to protect my head. The glass in the windows rattled, Hector barked, and a solitary book fell from a shelf. When the noise stopped—I couldn’t be sure how long it lasted because every time I thought about it, it expanded, Rosie and Hamlet hurried to the front. The customer froze in place, supporting herself by placing a hand on a shelf. With wide eyes, we all looked at each other, wondering if what we all thought had happened, had actually just happened.

  It had.

  EIGHT

  A bomb—something homemade according to the first reports—had exploded a car. It was made clear that it hadn’t been what we typically called a car bomb, something made to murder a large number of people when a car with an explosive device was driven into a populated location, but something with the power that would surely kill or maim the person or people only inside the car. There was one fatality, a man in his early fifties. But that was all the information the newscasters shared yesterday.

  We’d spent the rest of the day walking around in a confused daze with emotions that ran the gamut. Rosie closed the bookshop and Hamlet found an old, small television in one of the offices. He’d brought it and some old-fashioned rabbit ears up to the front of the shop. I didn’t even know it was possible to view television that way anymore, but that’s what we did, watching the repeating, vague news over and over again.

  Because the explosion took place at the bottom of the Royal Mile, it was discussed that perhaps a political figure had been targeted. With not many facts, the newspeople speculated that maybe the explosion, something the police immediately labeled a murder, had something to do with a recent scandal, one I hadn’t heard about, but that sounded uncomfortably relevant when I learned some of the facts.

  As I’d heard from Edwin, Burgess Tickets were once granted to merchants giving them the right to do business in a specific burgh, or geographical area, as well as offering the recipients community perks. Back in the day, the tickets were delivered in miniature coffin-like containers called Freedom Caskets. The Freedom Caskets were sometimes silver or gold and ornately decorated. When the newscasters ran out of new information to share with the public, they talked about the tickets, the caskets, and their recent revival. Granting the tickets was an old tradition and one that the Lord Provost wanted to bring back, just because it was something nostalgic and gave a nod to Scottish history. The idea had gone over poorly—as something antiquated and “coffins are weird,” but it had given life to something else.

  Some citizens thought that all the old Burgess Tickets should at least be tracked down. If a business didn’t have one, they should have to apply for one, or at least go through the same sort of motions businesses used to have to go through, and in doing so only be allowed to continue to do business if they were able to earn one. None of the newspeople seemed to know what all the specific requirements or qualifications used to be.

  However, some of the citizens of Edinburgh wanted the standards raised to a point that included the potential for lots and lots of remodeling. The circumstances sounded eerily similar to what was going on with the bookshop, but Edwin assured me that Burgess Tickets had never once been brought up in the phone message he’d received the previous week, that it had been solely his idea to try to find The Cracked Spine’s. He also claimed not to have heard about the recent idea of bringing the tickets back with even higher standards, though he didn’t rule out that he might not have paid close attention to the news. Perhaps something had seeped into his subconscious; he just couldn’t be sure.

  And because of the murder, of course we all felt some confusion.

  As we all came back to work the next morning, Edwin kept the bookshop closed and Hamlet again switched on the old television. It was as if the newscasters were still in repeat mode.

  “Och,” Rosie said when the Burgess Tickets were brought up again. “They have no idea who was kil’t. They are making things up just tae fill time now.”

  “I think so too,” Hamlet said. “But what if the bomber was someone who wouldn’t meet the new ticket standards, if those standards ever came into effect? Maybe that’s what they’re thinking.”

  “We need more information,” Edwin said. “Aye, the newspeople just want something to talk about.”

  What we did know was that it was a miracle that only one person had been killed. The explosion had taken place in a populated area. It seemed that there was no damage to any other buildings in the area and the only other injury was an elderly man who’d been so surprised by the noise that he’d fallen and hurt his knees. I wondered how there was so little other damage and yet we’d heard and felt the explosion as if it was right next to us.

  Tom had run down to the bookshop from his pub seconds after the noise. Once we knew each other was okay, we called everyone else. Edwin and my landlords, Elias and Aggie, were fine. In fact, they were far enough away from the explosion that they hadn’t heard or felt it. Tom’s father, Artair, was also fine, though he’d felt the explosion from his office inside the University of Edinburgh’s library, which was even farther from the bombing location than we were.

  Then we called my family in Kansas to let them know all was well if they heard news of the explosion. They were happy to know we were okay.

  Tom had headed back to the pub. He’d left it unattended, trusting a well-known customer to make sure no one robbed the place, either of the liquor or th
e money in the till. He’d dropped me off at the bookshop again this morning before heading back to work. He could have remained closed like Edwin had chosen to do, but Tom thought some of his regulars might miss their routine.

  Once again, the newscaster began to say that the name of the victim hadn’t been released yet, but she stopped speaking suddenly and held her hand to her ear. She continued, “We’ve just received word. The name of the victim has now been released. We have confirmed that he was a councilor to the Lord Provost. At one time the victim had been in banking, but he was retired from that profession, devoting all his time to helping govern our fair and beautiful city. The name of the victim is Henry Stewart.”

  And then a picture popped up on the screen. Even in grainy black and white, the man on the screen was familiar, too familiar.

  I didn’t hear the next few sentences because my ears had closed as my mind swirled. What the hell?

  I looked at Rosie. She put her fist to her chest and sat down hard in a chair. Oh, no.

  Suddenly, nothing was as important as my friend and coworker. With my ears still closed and my mind still swirling, I jumped up and ran to her.

  Edwin, Hamlet, and Hector joined me just as she went down.

  NINE

  Rosie was okay. It took a few minutes for her to come back from the faint, but she did. Hamlet made it to her first and, with quick thinking, he managed to get a hand under her head before it hit the hard floor. Once she was lucid, she was able to move all parts and the color came back to her face.

  “Och, I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “No need to apologize,” Edwin said as he reached across the table for her hand. “We’re glad you’re all right.”