by Lael Littke
“Has anybody ever looked here before?”
“Probably Grandpa did.”
“New eyes, new possibilities,” he reminded. He tapped around the tree, leaning his ear close to listen.
“It's hollow down below the hole, too,” he said. “Better check it out again.” He shoved his hand back inside the hole. “Some animal may have needed more living space and built a two-level condo.” He pulled out more leaves and trash. “HEL-lo.”
“What? What? Did you find something?” I tried to see past his arm into the blackness of the hole.
There was an intent look on his face as he leaned far into the tree. “Maybe. Did you ever reach all the way to the back of the hole?”
“No,” I said. “I don't like to put my hand in dark places.”
He grunted a little as he shoved his arm in all the way to his shoulder. “It slopes,” he said. “And I think there's an opening in its floor, way back.”
He strained a little more, standing on tiptoes.
“Payola!” he exclaimed, bringing out something about six inches long, with decayed leaves and other muck almost obscuring its identity. He began scraping the filth away.
“The hole in the back,” he said. “A flat piece of paper wouldn't fall through it, but this could.”
He'd scraped away enough of the dirt so we could see that what he held was a tall bottle, narrow and tube-like, a little over an inch in diameter. I'd never seen one like it before. Its metal lid was almost totally rusted away.
Bryan continued to rub the dirt from the sides of the bottle. “I feel like Aladdin,” he said. “Think a genie will appear?”
“I'd settle for a clue,” I told him.
“You got it,” Bryan said. “There's something inside.” Bryan broke away what was left of the rusted lid and poked a finger inside the bottle, bringing out a moldy, rolled up scrap of paper, brown with age.
My heart began to clatter in my chest. Could this be the clue Grandpa had been searching for all these decades?
Chapter 9
“I don't think it will unroll,” Bryan said, holding the piece of paper out so I could see. “It's all stuck together.”
I took the paper from him, holding it gently so as not to do it any further harm. I could smell its mustiness. It was as brown and fragile as an old mummy, and any writing that might have been on it was very likely obliterated by dampness that had gotten into the bottle through the rusted lid.
My hopes that it could be a helpful clue about Selena Marie were fading.
“We'd better show it to Grandpa anyway,” I said.
Bryan held up the tall, narrow bottle. “This is kind of unusual. Maybe it will tell him something.”
I hadn't thought about the bottle itself being a clue. I'd never seen one like it before. There was no label on it, but perhaps Grandpa would recognize what it was.
“Let's go,” I said. “Grandpa will be coming up to the house soon to celebrate Tyler's mission call.” I took the bottle from Bryan. Carefully I slid the moldy, rolled-up note inside and handed the bottle back to him.
Bryan picked up both of our playbooks and tucked them into a back pocket as we started walking toward home. “I guess we won't be getting around to rehearsing anyway,” he said. “But this is more interesting right now. The Mystery of the Mottled Bottle.”
“What does mottled mean?”
“Spotted or blotched.” He held up the bottle. “Like this baby.”
I had a moment of disorientation. This was Bryan Embree walking beside me, telling me he was interested in what was going on in my world. A week ago I would have soared away like a bird at the very thought of being in the company of Bryan Embree. But right now my emotional battery was too used up to allow me to soar.
“Thanks to you,” I said, “we may have a clue to Grandpa's mystery.”
“New eyes.” He grinned, letting me finish the thought.
His “new eyes,” those depthless, dark eyes, gazed at me, again saying things I wasn't ready to read. I tried not to think of the kiss in the melodrama script. It wasn't any big deal, was it? Just a stage kiss. Why then could I not suppress a slight shiver?
What would Bryan do if I told him about my own personal mystery?
I walked faster, a few paces ahead of him, leading the way back through the alfalfa field. Our feet crushed the tender stalks, and the smell of home rose up to surround me.
I wondered what St. Paul, Minnesota, would smell like.
• • •
Tyler's battered blue Honda was there in the yard when we got to my house.
So was Grandpa's gray horse, Vinegar.
So was Lex's old brown station wagon.
What was Lex doing here? This was a family event.
But Lex had always considered himself like part of my family. He'd been there at most of our family events, as familiar as the furniture.
Was that the way I thought of him?
Maybe I should mention his presence to Bryan. They knew each other from athletic events between our two schools as well as summer dramatics and musicals. Bryan might think I had invited him.
Well, so what?
I decided not to say anything.
“Maybe we should hold onto the bottle until later,” Bryan whispered as we climbed the steps of the front porch. “It's your brother's show right now.”
I liked him for being so perceptive. “Let's leave the bottle here in Mom's fern,” I said, pointing at the luxurious plant Mom kept on a wrought-iron stand on the front porch. “We'll bring it in later.”
Bryan stashed the bottle in the fern and then looked inside the house through the open door. “Do you think anybody will mind if I stay?”
Lex might.
“No,” I said. “Mom invited you to stay for cake, and Tyler loves being on stage even more than I do. The bigger the audience, the better. Come on in and we'll find out where he'll be going on his mission.”
It hadn't really sunk in yet that Tyler would be leaving soon. Not just to BYU where he could come home weekends, but far away. Maybe even overseas. We wouldn't see him again for two years. My big brother was going away.
Maybe I would be going away too. No. They couldn't force me, could they?
I opened the screen door, and Bryan and I went inside.
My family was scattered around the room. Mom spoke into the phone. Dad and Grandpa stood by the kitchen door, talking. Tyler, with Keith practically glued to his side, was describing something that involved broad arm gestures. Hoover lounged on the floor by their feet.
They all glanced at Bryan and me as we came in, and for a moment they were still, like a tableau. I looked at them through the thin glaze of unreality that had been with me all day. My family. My blond, blue-eyed, pink-cheeked, Scandinavian family.
Where did my olive skin fit in?
In my mind the scene changed, as if dark gels had been slipped over stage lights. Hair and eyes changed color, and I saw the Russos as they appeared in the family picture they'd sent. There was a place for me, that empty space between Heather and Brittany. I could paste my face there, and it would fit perfectly, like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle.
Keith broke the brief silence. “I was about to come looking for you, Selene.”
The gels fell away from the lights, and I saw Mom's needlepointed sampler on the wall behind Keith. “Families are forever,” it said.
“Selene,” Tyler yelled, leaping toward me. “You lean, mean, teen queen, you.” He wrapped his arms around me in an enormous bear hug. Keith, his constant shadow, came over and joined in the embrace. Behind him, Hoover lumbered to his feet and came to whack his tail against our legs and give us big, drooly, doggy smiles.
This was my family. Forever, no matter what.
“Tyle,” I said as soon as I could breathe. “Smile, you vile, haven't-seen-you-for-a-while, don't-touch-that-dial, infantile crocodile, you.”
Keith snickered. “They're always doing that,” he explained to Bryan.
&n
bsp; “I figured,” Bryan said. He put out a hand. “Bryan Embree. Hear you're headed for the MTC.”
Tyler shook his hand, then held up the envelope that had arrived from Salt Lake. “We're about to find out where I'll go from there. We were just waiting for Selene and Naomi to get here.”
Mom hung up the phone. “Naomi's not coming. Jeddy is sick. She says to call her later.”
“I guess we're all here, then.” Tyler looked around, grinning. “The day I knew would come at last has come at last,” he said. It was a line Momma Peterson says in Bye, Bye, Birdie, the show he'd starred in as Albert during his senior year of high school. He moved over by the fireplace, which was like center stage. “Dad, want to say anything?”
Dad went to stand beside him, bringing Grandpa with him. For the first time I saw Lex, who sat in a wing chair in a corner as if he felt uncomfortable being here.
I motioned to him. “Come on, Lex,” I said. “Come in closer.”
He unfolded himself and came across the room. “Hi,” he said to Bryan, then turned to me. “Keith invited me. Maybe I shouldn't have come.”
“It's okay, Lex. We're glad to have you here.” For some reason I wanted to pat him on the head, the way I would pat Hoover.
Lex looked morosely at Bryan. “You going on a mission someday?”
“Soon as I'm nineteen,” Bryan said. “Aren't you?”
“Prob'ly.” Lex looked as if he wished Bryan would be leaving right away, with Tyler.
Despite my drained emotions, I couldn't help but enjoy a little tweak of excitement. It was a new experience to have a guy jealous about another guy liking me.
Did Bryan like me? Or was it just Grandpa's mystery that he liked?
A slightly delayed reaction was surprise that Bryan planned to go on a mission. With a reputation like his, I thought he'd pretty much already blown it.
But what was the basis for his reputation? Maybe it was all just rumor.
Maybe I needed to look at him with new eyes.
Maybe I needed to look at Lex with new eyes, too.
Dad was speaking, saying something about being grateful that Tyler had kept himself worthy to go on a mission. Dad had been our bishop for almost six years before Bishop Newland was called to replace him. He still tended to conduct every family gathering like a church meeting.
“We'll have Grandpa, as the patriarch of our family, give us a prayer,” Dad said, “and then Tyler can open his call.”
“Let's get on with it and sit down,” Grandpa grumbled. I'd noticed he was limping. Probably whacked a toe while cutting wood without shoes. He would never tell us if he had, especially since I'd warned him about it.
He took a deep breath and looked around the circle at the rest of us. His eyes fastened on Bryan.
“Come for cake?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Bryan said, grinning.
“Smart kid.” Grandpa looked at me. “Who is he?”
I did a little praying of my own. “Please don't let Grandpa be an old coot right now,” I whispered inside my head. I wanted my family to look good to Bryan.
“This is Bryan,” I said. “He's in the play with me. And with Lex,” I added. “We're all in the play. At the Worm Creek Opera House. This summer. The melodrama. We're in it. Bryan and Lex and I.” If I kept talking, Grandpa couldn't say anything embarrassing.
But Grandpa merely jerked his head in acknowledgment and began his prayer.
If there's one thing Grandpa excels in besides being an old coot, it's praying. We never let him say the blessing on the food at mealtimes because cold and mold set in before he finishes. When I was little I thought of Grandpa's prayers as a strong wall, each word a brick, keeping all the evil things of the world out of our home.
Did the Russos have a grandpa? I hadn't thought to wonder about it before. What was their family really like? Did they have family traditions like we did? Did they think theirs was a forever family? Did they have family history charts, as Mom did, that listed all the names and birth dates going back for a hundred years?
Was my name on their charts? How could I be on both their charts and Mom's?
My thoughts went around and around like the carousel I had loved when I was little, the one that came with the annual carnival and rodeo in Prentice.
“O God, Lord of Hosts,” Grandpa began while all of us stood with our heads bowed. “We approach thy throne of grace with humble hearts and contrite spirits. We ask that thou wilt renew in us a willingness and a desire to serve thee this day.”
I sneaked a glance at Bryan, who stood quietly, his head bowed.
Next Grandpa thanked Heavenly Father for His Word that had come down through the ages by way of Adam and Abraham and Jacob and all the other ancient prophets. He thanked Him for His Word Incarnate, in the form of Jesus Christ, and for the writings of Paul the Apostle. With a leap through the centuries, he expressed our gratitude for Joseph Smith and progressed down through the history of the Church to the present prophet, then tacked on Bishop Newland and even threw in a mention of the devotion of our home and visiting teachers.
That was the preliminary part of his prayer. “At this time,” he intoned, “we thank thee for this family and invoke thy blessings on each of us as our son, grandson, and brother goes off to carry thy word into the world. We know that there is no limit to the usefulness of one who, putting self aside, makes room for the workings of thy holy Spirit in his life. We ask that thou wilt bless each one of us, while he is away, that we might sustain him with our own faithfulness.”
Now he listed in detail what he hoped would come to each one of us during Tyler's absence. I held my breath when he got to me, embarrassed at being the focus of attention, yet curious as to what he'd see as my most crucial needs.
Most of what he said was ordinary stuff, like that I might remember the teachings of my parents, but then he said, “And bless Selene now in this time of uncertainty and tribulation. Bless her that she might, with thy divine help, come to the decision that will bring peace to her mind and joy to her heart.”
He said more, but I didn't hear it. Why did he have to use that word, tribulation? What would Bryan think?
I was going to have to tell him the whole story.
Well, it wasn't anything to be embarrassed about, was it?
No, but he might not want to get tangled up with a girl who didn't even know who she was. He'd probably be like Lex and tell me I had to go see the Russos. He'd probably want me to resign from my part in the play and go unravel my own mystery.
Grandpa was in home stretch now, listing all the blessings that Tyler needed in order to be a proper emissary of the Lord. The list was long, but he finally wound up with, “Seal upon us, thy children, the blessings thou hast richly promised to bestow upon those who place their faith and trust in thee. Bless us, O Lord, with thy divine grace and benediction, for thine is the power and the glory forever and ever.” Closing in Jesus’ name, he finished with a resounding “Amen.”
Everybody echoed “Amen,” and then shifted position, easing cramped legs and necks.
“Thanks, Grandpa,” Tyler said. “I could have served my mission and returned home in the time it took for that prayer.”
Grandpa smiled. He was used to being kidded about his prayers.
Bryan gave me a puzzled glance, probably in response to that mention of tribulation, but I pretended not to notice. As he'd said, this was Tyler's show. One thing at a time.
Tyler was carefully opening the envelope from Salt Lake City. “Want to keep it for my memoirs,” he explained, “so I don't want to trash it.”
Taking a deep breath, he looked at the top sheet of paper.
“Romania,” he said. “I'm going to Romania.”
Everybody cheered, and Mom and Dad hugged Tyler. Hoover ran around in circles, barking, not knowing what the excitement was about but realizing it was a big moment.
“Time for cake,” Mom sang out. “Everybody come into the kitchen.”
As we crowded
into the kitchen I chattered feverishly about Romania and Tyler's being gone for two years and the melodrama and anything else I could hang a sentence onto. Anything to avoid Bryan's puzzled eyes.
Lex hovered like a dark cloud over the gathering, and I tried to include him in my scattered conversation. Too bad I couldn't split myself into Astrid and Zorina, so each could talk to one of the guys. Too bad I couldn't split myself into Selene and Micaela.
But that was what I'd been doing, wasn't it? Trying to separate the two? How could I, when they were both me?
Around and around and around.
I remembered that I'd lost interest in the carnival carousel one year when I realized it went nowhere. Just around. In order to get on with things, I had to get off.
It was time to stop going around and around. Time to stop being as stubborn as Grandpa and look at my situation with new eyes. Time to get off the carousel and do something about the “tribulation” Grandpa had mentioned.
I needed to go on a mission too. Not to Romania, but to the Russos. A mission to find out who I really was.
“‘The day I knew would come at last has come at last,’” I muttered.
Bryan leaned closer. “What was that?”
Not now. Later I'd tell him all about it. Instead I said, “I think it's time to tell Grandpa about the bottle.”
Chapter 10
In late afternoons in the summertime the mourning doves roost in the ash trees at the edge of our lawn and hoo-hoo predictions that night is coming. It seemed to me that my decision to go visit the Russos perched the same way in the gloom of my mind, hooting out warnings that disaster was impending. My life would be changed forever by this visit, and I was not at all sure it wouldn't be for the worse.
It wasn't too late to undecide, was it? I hadn't yet told anybody about my decision.
On the other hand, my life had already changed, hadn't it, by the mere knowledge of what had happened to me as a child? I could never go back to the way I'd been before that first letter had come from the Russos.
But I would have to deal with that later, because the business at hand was to give the bottle from the tree to Grandpa.