by Nicole Snow
“It’s a chance to find out the best, too,” I point out. “If you don’t want to, it’s all right. I don’t want to bring up bad memories.”
“No, no, it’s fine. Let’s look at them together.”
I reach up to brush my knuckles against her cheek, hoping to be reassuring.
I lever myself out of bed, snagging my jeans from the back of the chair under the window. “I’ll be right back.”
I step into my jeans, then drop downstairs and head outside barefoot and shirtless to fetch the small box I’d packed the journals into, hidden safely under a tarp in the back of my truck.
By the time I’m back inside, Libby’s gotten up and come downstairs, dressing herself in one of my flannel shirts that’s so big on her I can barely catch a glimpse of the tiny denim shorts she’s wearing under it.
Yeah, maybe there’s something stereotypical about a man getting all hot and snarly possessive, seeing his girl wearing his clothes.
Don’t care about being a stereotype.
When I see her like that, it punches me in the gut.
I try to ignore it as I thump the box down on the dining room table and toss the flaps open, exposing a small stack of leather-bound journals.
“Here we go,” I say.
The journals are dusty enough to make me sneeze. I brush a layer of grey off one and flip it open, while Libby takes the next.
The moment she opens the cover, though, she lets out a soft, warm laugh.
“Uh-oh. I don’t know if we’re gonna find much useful here.”
“Eh? Why not?” I look down at the first page of the one in my hand, then blink when I realize what I’m looking at.
“Holy shit. Is this?”
“Poetry,” she confirms. “Bad poetry, but Dad never cared about how awful his literary writing was.” She cocks her head, then laughs. “No, that’s not true. I remember him saying he took up astronomy when he was young because he couldn’t write to save his life, and the next best poetry was right up there in the stars.”
“That’s actually not half bad poetry itself.” I skim down the short lines, then laugh softly. “The swell of her mossy dell makes me feel like a ne’er-do-well...oh, fuck.”
“Ew!” Libby looks horrified. “Close it. I don’t even want to think about my dad writing nasty poems about mossy dells. Especially if he meant my mom.”
“Right, then. No mossy dells.” I clear my throat, suppressing my smile and flipping to the next page.
“Just keep looking to see if there’s anything else.”
We spend a little while longer digging through the pages.
It’s more poetry, a few observations on shooting stars, nothing all that incriminating or exonerating. But as we go through journal after journal, I pause when I get to the back cover of one.
The leather binding is folded in at the corners, glued to the hard interior cover, and then the inside all papered over to cover up the workings.
There’s writing on that paper.
There hadn’t been on the others.
I’m not sure what I’m seeing at first.
It’s just two lists of numbers, what looks like calculations based on...weight? Mineral value? And something to do with rarity and classification, or maybe I’m reading the abbreviations wrong.
What I’m not reading wrong, though, is the fact that those numbers have been run twice.
And they come out to dollar values in rough chicken scratch writing.
One number somewhere just over a million dollars.
Another not too far south of eight million.
And underneath, no, I’m sure as hell not misreading anything.
Big, bold, angry letters.
You lied to me, Gerald.
“Shit,” I whisper. “Libby, is this Mark’s handwriting?”
She leans over, peering around my arm. “That’s Dad’s handwriting all right. It—oh no.” She goes pale.
“Yeah,” I say reluctantly.
Libby closes her eyes, her shoulders sagging. “So we just found a motive. The value of that freaking rock—”
“Maybe, maybe not,” I tell her. “We don’t know the whole story here. Look.” I run my finger down the page. There’s a phone number, a local area code. “Someone at this number might be able to tell us more.”
“Yeah,” she says listlessly. “But do we really want to know?”
“We should,” I say as gently as I can. “If you want, I’ll make the call.”
“Sure, if you want to.”
She doesn’t sound too enthused.
Can’t really blame her.
I start to say something comforting, if I can, but then I’m distracted by another set of numbers, dashed into the corner of the page.
1831-1869.
Looks like years.
What could that mean?
I really don’t know.
But for Libby’s sake, I’ll try to find out.
I wait until I’m at work the next day to call the number.
If it’s bad news, I don’t want my expression to give me away in front of Libby before I can figure out the right way to break it that’ll hurt the least.
I kick my boots up on the desk in my office and tap the number in, waiting with my throat so tight I feel like I’ll choke.
This matters to Libby, so it matters to me.
My phone keeps dialing forever before a voice clicks on.
First that weird three-tone sound and then a lady’s voice. “We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service.”
Figures.
Only one thing left to do.
I flip open my laptop and type in the number. It’s definitely a Montana area code, and there’s a listing on Google Maps for a business marked Closed. Looks like it’s been shuttered for years before Google Maps even existed, but hey, gotta give them points for data completion.
Oddities and Antiquities.
And the owner?
G. Boston.
Gerald damn Bostrom, misspelled.
I pull the right name up a minute later in a state business registry, it’s LLC long since expired.
Hmm.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing else on a business this old. I sure as hell don’t remember an Oddities and Antiquities around here growing up, so they probably closed up when I was too young to give a shit about stuff like that, or before I was born.
Lucky for me, I know people with long memories.
I think it’s time Libby and I paid a visit to Ms. Wilma Ford.
21
Beating a Dead Horse (Libby)
Time for a silly confession.
I’ve always been a little scared of Wilma Ford.
It’s not ’cause she’s mean or anything.
She’s one of the nicest old ladies ever.
It’s because she’s formidable.
She’s seen, done, and lived through everything.
When I was younger and an even bigger hothead than I am now, I figured out early on that she wouldn’t take any bull from a brat like me.
A long time ago, one of our horses got out. Thoreau.
It was my fault. I didn’t latch the barn door tight enough because my head was scattered everywhere.
I’d tracked that horse to the edge of Ms. Wilma’s property by dark.
Back then, she’d been a bit more robust, her hair iron-grey instead of silvery-white.
She’d looked pretty terrifying when I’d snuck onto her property and turned around only to bump face-first into her, asking me if I knew what the criminal charges were for trespassing.
She wasn’t serious, but I was fourteen and didn’t know that.
I tried to lie and bluff my way out of it.
She just looked at me and didn’t have to say a word to tell me she knew I was full of it.
And when I burst into tears and told her the truth, she took me inside and wiped my face until I stopped snotting everywhere, then hugged me and told me she knew how hard I had it
with my mom and all.
Then she cleaned me up, took me out to go find that stupid horse, and tied him up to her front porch while she pulled me back into the Charming Inn. We sat down for some cocoa before she sent me home on Thoreau’s back.
That’s the kind of woman she is at any age, and it’s made me admire her a hell of a lot.
But that’s the thing with people you look up to.
You end up wanting them to think well of you, and it makes you kind of a fidgety, awkward mess in their presence.
That’s me, right now, as Holt parks outside of the Charming Inn.
Like I said—it’s silly.
But I’d rather focus on being a bundle of nerves over Ms. Wilma than think about the reality of why we’re here.
That info Holt found on the disconnected phone line.
The fact that it decisively ties Dad to Bostrom and something real bad going down...
Does that mean they pulled guns on each other because the guy lied to him about a Mars rock?
It just doesn’t make sense.
That’s the sort of thing Dad would take him to court over.
Sue him for fraud, deception, whatever, but killing him in cold-blooded revenge?
It doesn’t add up.
Ms. Wilma welcomes us into the Charming Inn with open arms and a promise of cold lemonade and cookies.
I’m less intimidated by her, and more afraid of what she’ll say.
She ushers us inside her kitchen, which is kind of like everyone’s daydream of the perfect grandma—homey and sweet and comfortable, clean and neat and welcoming, warm without being stifling and full of light.
There’s a long wooden table there with ladderback chairs, and she shoos us into our seats.
Next thing I know, Holt and I are sitting there like kids being served up treats, exchanging wry looks.
Even when I’m scared as hell, Ms. Wilma knows how to make people feel at home.
“Now,” she says, settling across from us and lacing her thin fingers together on the yellow-and-white-checkered tablecloth. She’s got smart, piercing blue eyes, just like her grandson. “What brings you here? I can already tell by those long faces it’s not for tea, or I’d have brewed some already.”
Holt starts to speak, but I hold up a hand, stopping him.
“First,” I say, “I need to know everything we say here stays here.”
“Dearie, I hear everything but say very little.” Her eyes twinkle, though her smile’s sticky sweet. “Now. What seems to be the trouble?”
I elbow Holt.
Now he can talk.
I don’t wanna be the one to ask this.
Holt jolts a little, giving me an amused look before clearing his throat.
“We were wondering if you knew anything about an old place here in town. Oddities and Antiquities, and a guy who owned it, supposedly. Gerald Bostrom.”
Ms. Wilma’s eyebrows lift up into her neatly swept silver hairline. “Gerald Bostrom? That’s a name I haven’t heard in ages. Wherever did you hear about him?”
“Old records,” Holt says grimly. “We’re just hoping to learn a little more about him.”
“He was quite a walking scandal, you know.” She leans across the table conspiratorially, like she’s telling us a secret. “Practically fancied himself the Gatsby of Heart’s Edge once upon a time.”
I blink. “Scandal?”
“Oh, yes,” she says merrily. “He was about to be indicted on a number of charges by several angry people before he disappeared.”
The way she says disappeared makes my stomach drop.
Like she knows.
Like she knows he’s dead, and my father had something to do with it.
But she doesn’t even seem to notice that I’m sitting here with my glass of lemonade frozen halfway to my mouth, clutched tight in my hand.
With a wave of her hand, she continues, “He was this antiques dealer who blew into town in the eighties, but that’s not all he was. He was always entertaining, putting on these lavish parties with some rather interesting guests. Thought he’d be a big fish in a small social pond. He was a rather small man of petty airs himself.” She sniffs, her aristocratic nose wrinkling. “I suppose he thought he’d get on well with these small-town rubes, never noticing what he was up to.”
“What was he up to?” I finally make myself speak, taking a sip of my lemonade to wet my parched mouth.
“Well...you didn’t hear this from me.” She leans closer still, her voice dropping to a stage whisper. “Illegal art dealings. The kind of thing you see in those absurdly delightful heist movies. Why, he’d have flipped the Mona Lisa if he could’ve gotten his hands on it, but as it is, I’ve heard he ran quite a few stolen artifacts through Heart’s Edge and sold them in secret auctions at his home. There were wicked rumors about those auctions. Things like Hitler’s personal art stash, spell books from the middle ages, missing gold...oh, and of course, the orgies.”
“The what?” I blink, glancing at Holt to make sure I heard her right.
She sniffs again and takes a ladylike sip of her lemonade. “Oh, people always think whenever there’s wealth and secrecy, there must be orgies. Rich people seem to have nothing better to do.”
Holt chokes on his own lemonade, spluttering on a laugh. “I hadn’t really thought about it, ma’am. That’s pretty interesting, if he was brokering stolen stuff. Where do you think he got it all?”
“I certainly wasn’t involved in his dealings, so that I can’t say.” She tilts her head. “I imagine the usual means, though. Thieves looking for someone to fence their stolen goods without exposing them. Perhaps swindling people out of their personal effects, when they aren’t educated enough to know the value.”
Holt and I exchange somber looks.
That note.
Those numbers.
Bostrom probably tried to swindle my dad one way or another.
It’s all making sense and it’s not looking pretty.
Ms. Wilma clucks her tongue. “The two of you look as though you’ve just seen a ghost. Why so terribly glum?”
I offer a hasty smile. “It’s nothing, really. We’re just digging up info while we try to figure out some property zoning stuff.”
“Well, I can’t imagine what Gerald Bostrom might have to do with that.” She folds her hands on the table, watching us shrewdly. “You haven’t touched your cookies, dear.”
Holt and I are like chastised kids, both of us dutifully taking a bite of our cookies.
I’m not sorry I do. Ms. Wilma’s baking is legendary, and the still-warm, gooey chocolate chips practically melt on my tongue.
Maybe it’s enough to clear my throat and give me enough of a sugar rush to clear my head so I can ask another question.
“Ms. Wilma, have you ever heard of a place called Ursa?”
Her face goes pale. Now she’s the one who looks like she’s seen a ghost, and I can’t help but wonder why.
“My, my,” she says, sitting up straighter in her chair. “There’s a name I’ve not heard for ages. They say it wasn’t far from here, but I wonder...even by my grandmother’s time it was just a wild story. Everyone acted like it was cursed.”
“Cursed?” Holt echoes, his brows pulling together.
She stops, shaking her head with a sigh.
“It’s less that, and more...” Trailing off, she tucks her silvered hair behind her ears, her eyes unfocused as she looks somewhere past us. “...more like they didn’t want to invoke bad luck. Like summoning an evil spirit. Say its name, and it might bring you grave misfortune.”
The place is creepy enough, isn’t it?
I could definitely see that.
“What did your grandma tell you about it, if you don’t mind me asking, ma’am?” I prompt.
She blinks and gives me a look, offering a polite but sheepish smile.
“Old, far-fetched stories, mostly. Half legends she’d whisper mostly at night to scare us kids into bed, or else Danny the Rattl
esnake and his magical blood stone would come out of the mountains to take me.” She wiggles her fingers with a smirk before trailing off into a ladylike laugh. “All these tales of cults and crazy outlaws, surely you’ve heard them?”
“Grade school stuff, yeah,” Holt says. “Never heard of Danny or cults, though. They’d tell us all those stories to keep our attention so we wouldn’t riot like the sugar-filled little monkeys we were. I always figured they were just exaggerating, making it up as they went to keep us entertained.”
“Exactly,” Ms. Wilma says, her eyes twinkling. “But there’s some truth, you know. Danny the Rattlesnake was real. So was Ursa, I believe. It was an early silver town, before Heart’s Edge, back in the mid-eighteen hundreds. Sadly, it didn’t survive. The veins tapped out, and Heart’s Edge just proved to be more stable when our founders broke ground here. So as Ursa started falling apart...the bad folks moved in. All sorts of thieves and lunatics and con men. Danny was the worst of them.”
“What’d he do?” I whisper.
She tilts her head. “He played the people of Ursa, they say, the ones who didn’t pull up stakes when money and mining work dried up. He said he’d make them rich because he had a vision, and claimed he had proof—a blood-red stone he pulled out of the ground.”
Proof.
Like an ancient rock that sent him messages, and he used it to turn the entire town of Ursa upside down.
Just like Father Matthew’s journals said, always talking about how the town fell to sin.
It’s real.
Oh my God, it’s all real.
There’s no other way Ms. Wilma could know about the town at the end of the mountain pass or the journals we found or the maybe-meteorite.
Any chance that this is all a weird hoax or misunderstanding vanishes.
I can’t breathe.
But I can’t let her know what’s going through my head, so I take a quick gulp of my lemonade to try to settle myself, kicking Holt lightly under the table.
I need him to keep talking while I can’t.