Willa MacKenzie, it read. Remember Nutfolk Wood. The penmanship was similar to my mom’s handwriting, only wider and loopier. This one phrase filled the page, written over and over again. Remember Nutfolk Wood.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know,” Lupine answered in her bossy way. “I thought you would know!”
I could only shake my head, mystified.
CHAPTER 10
Breaking and Entering
“THERE USED TO be a road here,” Lupine explained, “but it’s all grown over now.” Frederick and I stood in front of the Gypsy Wagon, waiting to follow Lupine on her mysterious trek.
Lupine gestured to a faded FOR SALE sign in the foliage and said, “See that? For, like, twenty years that property’s been for sale, only they’re asking way too much. Even the Glen Wood guys won’t pay the price.”
“Who does it belong to?” I asked.
“The Wicket family, I guess,” Lupine answered. “That’s who the road was named after.”
We passed the FOR SALE sign, following a narrow path that, once upon a time, had been a road. After walking in silence for a while, I volunteered, “I was named after Mrs. Wicket.”
“Your mother named you Wicket?” Frederick asked, horrified.
“No, she named me Hazel!” I shook my head at what a goof Frederick could be. “She was my mom’s babysitter when Mom and Grammy first moved here. So when I was born, Mom named me Hazel because she liked Hazel Wicket so much, and Jo after Jo March in Little Women. Only, I wish the old lady was named Lindsey or Laura because nobody names girls Hazel anymore.”
“I like unusual names,” Frederick declared.
“Same here,” Lupine agreed, going against her principle of contradicting everything that Frederick said.
Smiling to myself, I thought, Frederick and Lupine—of course these two kids would like peculiar names.
“Ouch!” Frederick exclaimed. He’d gotten snagged by a blackberry stinger and was struggling to free himself.
“I’m bleeding!” he cried, staring angrily at Lupine as if it were her fault.
“Oh, please,” she said. “You’d think you were dying. Come on, we’re almost there.”
The trail widened to reveal a very old house with wisteria clinging to every square inch of it. It reminded me of the enchanted castle covered in rose vines, the one where everyone slept for a hundred years. In fact, I felt sleepy standing there, warm in the afternoon sun, lulled by the buzzing insects and singing birds.
In a sea of wheat-colored grass, the house was surrounded by islands of picturesque outbuildings. Rickety and leaning, the old sheds sagged under the weight of their roofs, where years of decaying leaves had made inches of sod. Now, grass and small trees sprouted from the rooftops like absurd, gaudy hats.
Shading the rickety sheds and the hot, dry grass was an enormous maple tree that had cracked off a sizable limb. The broken bits littered the lawn like old bones, providing hidey-holes for the crickets who chirped as long as we stood quiet and still.
“This is nice,” I said in a trance of contentment, although in truth I was aware that nice was a lame word for the feel of this place. Even in its lonely neglect, the land, the house, and the air held a beauty that was both peaceful and sad.
Lupine broke into my sense of calm when she ordered, “This way,” and swished through the waist-high grass to the back of the house.
“I put a ladder here so I could tie my shoe,” she claimed without a hint of humor. A wooden ladder had been propped against the house under an open window. “Come on,” Lupine directed, already three rungs up.
Sensible Frederick did not approve. “Isn’t this trespassing?” he asked with a frown.
“Yeah,” I chimed in. “Wouldn’t you call this breaking and entering?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Lupine primly retorted. “We’re not breaking, just entering.”
Uncertain of Lupine’s logic, Frederick and I hesitated.
“I told you,” she insisted, “I found something interesting.” Lupine was trying to tempt us—and it worked.
“Okay,” I finally agreed. “But you’re sure that no one checks on this house?”
“No humans, anyway,” she said.
“Don’t talk like that,” Frederick nervously snapped, but she was already through the window and inside the house. Frederick and I followed Lupine, bumbling through the window and into a back bedroom where ghostly sheets covered the furniture.
Speckling the linen were dots of black mildew, which explained the musty smell that hit me like a punch in the nose. Mingling with the must was another bad odor that I could not identify.
“Ew! What’s that smell?” Frederick cried with an offended, crinkled nose.
“Mice,” Lupine said.
Frowning, Frederick stretched his T-shirt over his nose. “I read about a deadly disease that people get from inhaling the dust of field-mouse poop,” he warned through his shirt. “It’s called hantavirus.”
“Well, I’m not dead yet,” Lupine pointed out, “and I’ve had plenty of exposure.” From the bedside table, she lifted a kerosene lamp and carried it out of the room. “This way,” she called over her shoulder.
Frederick kept breathing through his cotton neckline, just in case.
CHAPTER 11
A Dismal House
CONTRIBUTING TO THE musty smell of the house was a hint of molding plaster and damp wood, which, along with the potent mouse stink, combined to create a powerful, unhealthy odor. I felt like turtling into my shirt like Frederick was doing.
My eyes adjusted to the dimly lit living room, and I noticed the telltale outline of a missing picture. It must have hung on the wall long enough to keep the rectangle white while the rest of the wall had turned ochre with age. I lowered my gaze to the floor and noticed some dirty footprints.
“Lupine.” I tugged on her shirt. “Check out these footprints.”
“They’re mine,” she said, not bothering to look.
“They can’t be yours,” I argued. “They’re gigantic.”
She placed her tiny sneaker inside one long print and issued a thoughtful “Hmm, that’s funny—they weren’t there last time.”
“Lupine, you are freaking me out!” Frederick exclaimed, shuffling backward toward the hall.
“Wait,” she pleaded. “I just have to show you one thing.”
At the far end of the living room, a narrow staircase led to an attic, and Lupine was already climbing the creaky steps.
At the top, we entered a huge, gloomy space crammed with junk. Dirty windows at each end let in a little filtered light, but they were hopelessly clogged by the overgrown vines. The mouse smell up here was not as strong, but the atmosphere was dark and claustrophobic.
Lupine crossed the attic and kneeled next to the far window, producing some matches from her pocket. Expertly, she lit the kerosene lamp, revealing her discovery.
She gestured to a series of unframed paintings and proudly said, “See?”
Propped against the wall was a row of charming and woodsy watercolors—perhaps illustrations for a storybook.
“They’re pretty,” I said.
“They’re not just pretty,” Lupine corrected. “Look here.” She pointed to a picture with a stump drawn like a fanciful house. “Look at the village green, over by the gazebo. See?”
There was the blue jay that I’d seen at the funeral, only here his beak was whole and his paint job was a fresh cobalt blue.
“Is that the bird?” Lupine asked.
I nodded.
“I don’t get it,” Frederick muttered. “How is it that I saw a cloud of fog, Lupine saw a balloon, and Zelly saw this bird thingamajig? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Yeah,” I added. “And how come no one else at the funeral seemed to notice any of it?”
“What I think is”—Lupine chose her words carefully—“it depends on awareness. Or maybe a degree of openness. Zelly, you can see it clearly
, and I can see a hazy version, and Frederick sees a hint of it, but no one else in Plunkit seems to have the ability to see it at all—although I’m not sure why.”
Before I could digest her theory, something moved outside the window. It was the same apparition of the tiny boy—now perched in the wisteria! His face was pressed against the dirty glass and he was watching us. Or to be more exact, he was watching me, and the gaping look on his face was one of either shock or surprise.
With freckles and sun-bleached hair, the boy reminded me of a miniature Huck Finn. He was dressed in boots and shorts and a long, messy shirt hitched at his hips with a loose, ropelike belt. He was glowing as green as the leaves around him.
I pointed with my eyes and whispered, “Do you guys see that?”
Frederick and Lupine turned toward the window—to behold absolutely nothing. The boy had disappeared in the fleeting second it took them to turn their heads.
“What was it?” Fredrick asked nervously.
Hesitating, I answered, “I think I’m seeing little people.”
“Are you teasing me?” Lupine bristled.
“I wish I was.”
CHAPTER 12
Working Things Out
BEHIND THE COUNTER at Plunkit Books, Mom was pricing a tall stack of secondhand novels while Aunt Viv sat repairing the bindings.
“I’m here until Christmas,” Mom reminded Aunt Viv. “Now’s the time to schedule that surgery and get it over with. Then you can come back and manage.” She brightly added, “Pick your hours and name your price.”
Aunt Viv was so capable, it would be like having Grammy in charge, and then Mom could hurry back to life in the city with a clear conscience.
“You’re right about my knee.” Aunt Viv sighed.
“It’s high time I deal with it. But I have to admit I’m undecided about my future here.”
A noisy whoosh of steam announced another latte at the coffee bar. Coffee had always been the smell of Plunkit Books, just as classical music had been its soundtrack. But if Aunt Viv was not inclined to take charge of Grammy’s legacy, the future of the bookstore was uncertain.
“Hey, Mom, look at this,” I said, filling up the uncomfortable pause. I placed the note from Lupine’s room on the counter and waited for her reaction.
“Looks like my handwriting,” she said, examining the old piece of paper. “But I don’t remember why I wrote it. Where’s Norfork Woods?”
“That’s not what it says, Mom. You wrote ‘Nutfolk Wood.’ Does it mean anything to you?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “It must have been some Acorn thing, but I don’t remember what. Does it ring a bell with you, Aunt Viv?”
“Uh-uh.” Aunt Viv shook her head no.
“It was in your old bedroom at the Gypsy Wagon,” I explained, “and Lupine was curious about what it could mean.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Mom said, mildly irritated at her own rotten memory.
Shrugging, I switched subjects. “The trailer looked really cute, and the property was nice . . . except for that awful clear-cut.”
“I can’t believe the county let them get away with that,” Aunt Viv spouted. “And so close to the creek!”
“That old road used to look like something out of a storybook,” Mom said quietly. “When I drove up there yesterday to get you, I was sick. I was just sick.”
The front door jingled, and Lynn from the café came in, looking for more Edna Ferber. When Mom led her into the stacks, I saw my chance to get a few answers.
“Hey, Aunt Viv, do you feel bad that Grammy didn’t leave you this store?”
Her eyebrows arched in surprise. “Not in the least.”
“Well, I thought since you and Grammy worked as a team, you might be unhappy about how things turned out.”
“To tell you the truth,” Aunt Viv confided, “I urged Bertie to leave the bookstore to your mama.”
“Why?”
“It’s been a fun ride, but I’m tired of the retail grind. And, anyway, Andrew made some good investments over the years. He may look like a redneck”—she grinned—“but he’s a smart old boy. We’re in good shape financially.”
I felt relieved. This detail had bothered me since the lawyer explained Mom’s inheritance.
“Zelly . . .” Aunt Viv paused. “Bertie wanted your mother to have the store for another reason.”
“So she’d come back to Plunkit?” I speculated.
“Very good,” Aunt Viv dryly praised. “That girl has a few things to work out of her system, if you know what I mean. Closure is what they’re calling it these days.”
As Grammy’s best friend, Aunt Viv had watched my mom grow up, and I sensed in her a fierce loyalty for the bookish niece she’d acquired through marriage.
Aunt Viv sighed. “Maybe if Willa could forgive your daddy, she could close that broken door and move on. Does that make any sense?”
It made a lot of sense, and I agreed, except for the word close. I felt if Mom could just forgive him, maybe she could open that jammed-up door and get out.
CHAPTER 13
Vin and Wil Forever
THE ACORNS DECIDED to get reacquainted by having a girls’ night, and we kids were to spend the evening with Mr. Henderson at the Gypsy Wagon.
After our moms dropped us off, Frederick and I found Lupine in the carport pestering her father, who was tinkering under the hood of his truck.
With her girly voice on the edge of whining, Lupine was being her usual demanding self. “So, can we, Dad?”
“Eat whenever you want to,” he replied, distracted by the mysteries of his engine.
“And we can roast the hot dogs over a fire?”
“’S okay with me.”
“Can I build the fire?”
“It rained last night so I guess I wouldn’t worry.”
“Can we use the old fire circle in the woods?”
Sighing, Mr. Henderson laid down his screwdriver. “You are a very persistent girl,” he said in a droll tone. “Just keep the fire low and drown it when you’re done. And Lupine, you’re in charge.”
This order was dictated with a stern glance at Frederick and me, just in case we may be hooligans waiting to set our clothes on fire or burn down the forest.
Her nose tilted upward. “You hear that?” she said with queenly emphasis. “I’m in charge.”
Behind the Gypsy Wagon, we followed Lupine on a trail that wove through a forest so dense, it had its own climate. A million leaves and needles blocked the sun, creating a cool and shady house of trees. From the dim woods, we stepped into startling sunlight, blinking like moles emerging from a tunnel.
“It’s so bright, I can hardly see,” Frederick complained with a squint that looked distinctly molelike.
“Your eyes will adjust,” Lupine sternly informed him.
“It’s so pretty,” I whispered, gazing at the bright meadow spread out before us. “I think Bambi must live here.”
Lupine smiled against her will. It was funny watching her try to be stern all the time.
Next to a picturesque stream was a fire circle surrounded by log rounds that served as chairs. Not far from the ring of stones stood the most noticeable landmark: a tall, pale stump with a water bucket hanging from a notch. As I wandered around the wide perimeter of the stump, I saw something near the base that caught my eye.
I leaned in close and, holding a clump of reeds out of the way, discovered an old valentine carved in the wood. Vin and Wil forever, it said.
As I stared at the carving, a bee buzzed near my ear, and somewhere, a blue jay squawked its raucous call. Time seemed to stop, and a sad feeling spread through me. It was so sad, it made me feel heavy and tired. I knew where the weight came from. Vin and Wil were my parents, and they’d carved that heart long ago when they were young and in love. Then all their dreams of romance were ruined by the responsibility of a baby—the baby, of course, was me.
Suddenly, I was uncomfortably warm, awar
e of how much heat my dark sweatshirt was absorbing. As I tugged the neckline away from my throat, I realized that Frederick and Lupine were standing behind me, watching my reaction.
Lupine opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. Then she broke my melancholy spell by ordering, “Come on, you guys—help me gather kindling!”
This time I was grateful for bossy Queen Lupine.
CHAPTER 14
A Dollhouse
I SCROUNGED THROUGH THE underbrush searching for kindling and noticed two lines of white pebbles leading into a thicket. Curiosity got the best of me, so I stooped under the branches and crawled into the brush.
Wriggling through the salal bushes, I came upon an unexpected sight: a miniature cabin built out of sticks. It was probably a creation for Lupine’s dolls when she was younger.
Still on my hands and knees, I scrunched down farther and fingered the tiny latch on the door. Once I clicked it open, I had to lie on my belly to see the interior. Bundles of plants were hanging from mini rafters above a long table in the center of the room. I reached my hand inside and felt gently around for dolls or accessories, identifying a fireplace, six wooden chairs, and a cupboard with locked drawers. At the back wall, on top of some shelves, was something square. Pinching it between my fingers, I pulled it out into the light.
In the palm of my hand was a tiny book. As I flipped the minute pages, I strained my eyes to decipher the letters and decided a magnifying glass would be helpful. I slipped the book into my pocket, determined to examine it later.
Over my shoulder, I called, “Hey, Lupine, I found your old dollhouse!”
Lupine emerged from the same tunnel through the salal bushes. Standing, she planted her fists on her hips, like she did when she was thinking hard.
Then with cries of “Ouch!” and “Dang it!” Frederick came crashing through the underbrush, sporting a new scrape on his cheek. “What’s the big deal?” he grumbled, annoyed.
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