Suitcase of Stars

by Pierdomenico Baccalario

  I followed the main road to a small path that led toward the blackened tree trunks of Burnt Beach. After a few minutes of pedaling, I emerged again among the rocks that formed the promontory.

  I stopped at an arrow-shaped road sign that I’d never seen before. The direction it pointed seemed to change depending on which way you looked at it. “Not a very useful sign,” I muttered to myself.

  My dog barked. “What do you think, Patches?” I asked. “If we look at it from this side, it’s telling us to go straight. But if we look at it from over here, it seems to be pointing down this path.”

  Patches barked toward the path, so I pedaled the bike in that direction. We passed a group of huge boulders arranged in a semicircle. I remember thinking that they looked like they’d been placed there by a giant. I didn’t know it at the time, but that is exactly how they got there.

  I followed the path around a turn and down a hill. Farther below, a few feet from me, I could see the waves breaking on the rocks. The path continued about halfway up the coast to a small house that I had never seen before.

  I blinked hard, surprised to see a house this far out from the village. It had a black, pointed roof with a large stone chimney poking out of it. The walls were bright red. There was a large window that made the house look kind of like a shop. On the top floor, there were a couple of smaller windows with open shutters and white frames.

  Patches crouched in front of me and began to wag his tail, waiting for me to continue. I leaned the bicycle against one of the many oval-shaped stones scattered over the promontory and then began to walk down the path. There was a light breeze, so the only noise I heard was Patches trotting along beside me.

  As I walked, my imagination began to play tricks on me. I had this weird feeling that I was being watched. A strange idea popped into my head that many tiny creatures were hiding behind the stones and spying on me. I scanned the area, but the only signs of life were seagulls perched on the nearby stones.

  We passed one particularly large seagull that stared at us without budging an inch from its spot. It had a curved beak that looked as sharp as a knife.

  I drew the mailbag closer and tried to look more confident. “I wonder where number 36 is,” I said, mostly to myself.

  Then something weird happened — I swear I heard that creepy seagull say, “Down there.” It seemed to be pointing at the red house with its beak.

  I shook my head. I knew I must be hearing things. After all, seagulls are known for making shrill noises that can sound like human cries. Despite knowing that, my legs refused to move. Patches seemed calm as though nothing had happened.

  I made myself turn around and stare at the seagull on its perch. It was looking at me as if to say, “Well? Are you going or not?”

  I swallowed hard, drew the mailbag even closer to me, and walked on.

  As I got closer, I saw the number 36 beside the door. Even though there were no other houses around, the red cottage was number 36. Weird, I thought.

  I could have just left the package by the door and turned around to leave, but I didn’t. To be honest, the place intrigued me. I was fascinated by the thousands of rocks and stones lying around, the noise of the sea and the seagulls, and the sun that was beginning to set behind the islands. I felt a great sense of peace while I stood there, kind of like the time I spent alone down by the river. It felt like magic. Maybe it was.

  I looked around for a doorbell but couldn’t find one. I looked for a knocker, but there wasn’t one of those, either. So I tried to walk around the side of the house, but that wasn’t possible because it’d been built directly into the cliff, and it was surrounded by dense bushes of Butcher’s Broom with its prickly bunches of scarlet berries. I didn’t realize it at the time, but even that detail was strange since Butcher’s Broom produces its berries in a completely different time of the year. As it turns out, that was only one of many oddities I’d missed.

  I walked back to the front door. I sighed and shrugged at Patches. “Looks like no one’s home,” I said. I turned my back to the red house and gazed at the endless rocks that had been shifted and eroded by the wind. Suddenly, Patches barked so loudly that it made me jump.

  “What’s up, pal?” I asked, crouching down to pet him. Patches’s tail was bolt upright and he was pushing his nose against the base of the front door. I knelt down to look for myself. Just then, I heard what sounded like dozens of complicated bolts unlocking. A moment later, the door opened a crack. A pale white hand with long tapered nails emerged. Then an arm appeared, and then a shoulder, until finally I met Aiby Lily for the very first time.

  I must have looked pretty strange kneeling on her doorstep with my jaw wide open, because she asked me, “Are you okay?”

  She was tall and slender with very long arms and legs. She had a flowing cascade of straight black hair. Her eyes were a striking lime green. Her clothes were nice, but it looked like she’d opened her closet and let various pieces of clothing just fall onto her. She wore two sweaters, jeans, a fancy belt buckle, and a pair of funny-looking, striped socks. She looked ridiculous and fabulous at the same time.

  And she was easily the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.

  “I think you’re strangling him,” Aiby said, pointing at Patches.

  She was right. I’d been so surprised by her appearance that I’d been accidentally throttling my dog’s neck. I let him go and rose to my feet in one quick, smooth movement.

  “Um, hi,” I said, and then finally closed my mouth. I pointed to the cliff face behind us. “Sorry about the intrusion, but I didn’t think anyone was home.”

  She ran her hands through her hair and laughed. “That’s okay,” she said. Then she added in a low voice, “The truth is, I’d fallen asleep.” She stretched and covered her mouth to stifle a yawn, highlighting the freckles and dimples at the edges of her mouth.

  “What brings you here?” she asked, tilting her head. “We haven’t opened our shop yet.”

  “Huh?” I said.

  “Who are you?” she said.

  I realized that I hadn’t introduced myself. “My name is Finley McPhee. It begins with an ‘F.’ I’m the mailman. Well, I’m not really the mailman — Jules is. But today I’m taking his place. This is Patches, my dog.”

  “You’re the mailman?” she asked.

  I nodded. “For now.”

  I searched through the mailbag and took out the letter that had sent me there. I read the address out loud, then asked her, “Is that you?”

  “I’m not the whole Lily family,” she said with a grin, “but yes, I’m one of them.” She offered her hand. “I’m Aiby Lily. Pleasure to meet you.”

  As I shook her hand, a surge of heat traveled up my arm to my neck. “Nice to meet you too, Aiby,” I said. “So I guess this is yours.”

  I handed Aiby the envelope with the gold lettering. She gave it a quick glance and then tucked it into one of the many pockets in her jeans.

  “Thanks,” she said with a smile. “This letter is a big deal for me. It’s the first one I’ve received here.”

  “Really?” I said. “What’s it about?”

  Aiby frowned and stared at her feet. I wondered if she’d quickly tucked the letter into her jeans because it was supposed to be a secret.

  I blushed. “You don’t have to tell me. I found a message in a bottle on the beach once,” I lied, trying to change the subject.

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yep,” I said proudly.

  Aiby let out a musical laugh. “What was the message?”

  I winked. “It’s a secret.”

  She grinned. “My dad likes that kind of stuff,” she said. “Finding rare items, hunting for rocks, things like that.”

  “How long have you lived here?” I asked.

  “We just got here, actually,” Aiby said.

  “I knew it.”

  “What did you know?”

  I blushed. “Well, I’ve never seen you in the village before, and it’
s not like there are thousands of people passing through. Actually, I’ve never even seen your house before today. It’s very . . .” Aiby followed my gaze to the red wooden walls of the cottage, waiting for me to finish speaking. “It’s very red,” I finally said.

  “I think it’s cool,” Aiby said. “I mean, the color is weird, but I like it. You can see it from far out at sea, which was helpful.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “It took me and my dad forever to find it,” she explained.

  “To find it?” I asked.

  “We didn’t know where the house was located,” Aiby said. “At one point, we thought we’d made a mistake and stopped looking. We almost went home. Then, all of a sudden, there it was — my great-great-grandfather’s red house.”

  “Your grandfather built it?” I asked, vaguely recalling my father’s story about the shipwrecked captain and his red boat.

  Aiby looked at me intently with her big, green eyes. “My great-great-grandfather,” she said. “Or something like that. I’m not very good with family trees.”

  I scratched my head. “Me neither,” I said. “But that means your great-great-grandfather lived in Applecross.”

  She giggled. “Of course he did,” she said. “Are you making fun of me, Finley?”

  I blushed. “No!” I said. “I only asked because I wanted to know if —”

  I heard a loud crash behind me. I turned to look. Beyond the inlet, a huge slab of rock had fallen onto the bicycle, knocking it to the ground.

  “Oh, no!” I cried. “Jules’s bike!”

  We both dashed down the path toward the bicycle. I lifted it upright and tried to spin the wheels. The front wheel was fine, but the back wheel wouldn’t move. The boulder had damaged the chain.

  “Look at that!” I said. “How am I going to get back to the village now?”

  Aiby crouched beside me. She grabbed a pedal, then looked me in the eyes. “If you promise not to tell anyone,” she said, “I can fix it for you.”

  “Why would I tell anyone?” I asked.

  “Do you promise?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Turn around,” she said.

  “Huh?” I said.

  She slipped a hand under her shirt and took out a brass pendant that was shaped like a spider. It looked different than the jewelry most girls wore.

  “Turn around,” Aiby insisted.

  I turned to look out to sea. Behind me, I heard Aiby press the brass spider against the bicycle’s chain. I heard a strange clicking noise, then a crack. Then I heard the sound of metal legs tapping rapidly. Then I heard her whisper something like, “Magic word: character.”

  Patches began to growl. I was so confused by what was happening that I didn’t turn around or even speak.

  Aiby let out a little cough. “There,” she said, turning me around. “Your bike’s as good as new.”

  I checked the chain. It whirred around perfectly. “What did you do?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she murmured, lowering her sparkling eyes.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  She tilted her head. A wisp of black hair fell across her eyes. “No one can know everything, Finley.”

  The sudden sensation of rain falling on my head made her strange statement seem profound. We both looked up at the oncoming rain clouds. Aiby sprinted toward her house.

  “Wait,” I said.

  “Thank you for the letter, Finley McPhee,” she shouted without turning around. “Enjoy the rest of the afternoon!”

  “Wait, Aiby! Where are you going?” I asked.

  It was obvious where she was going — inside. I wasn’t feeling particularly smart that day. “May I see you again?” I called out.

  Her answer was a laugh that sounded like tinkling glass. A moment later, she disappeared behind the wooden door of the red house.

  The sky darkened and the drops fell even harder. It seemed appropriate that it was raining so hard — I already felt like I’d been struck by a huge bolt of lightning. I looked around at the burnt tree trunks that used to be a forest. Perhaps lightning had struck the same spot twice — once for the forest, and now for me and for Aiby.

  “We’ll see each other again,” I said to myself, but I wasn’t convinced.

  I sighed and pushed the bicycle through the Burnt Beach. My dog followed faithfully. “Looks like it’s just the two of us again, eh, Patches?”

  Patches wagged his tail and barked.

  Later that evening, I strolled lazily along the soft, wet beach, leaving a long trail of shallow footprints behind me. The only creatures around were mosquitos, but they didn’t seem particularly interested in me.

  There was just enough light to illuminate the edge of the water. I saw ribbons of algae, branches, shells, and other debris that had washed in from the sea. I’d brought my backpack with me like I always did whenever I went treasure hunting. Normally, I’d carefully comb the beach in search of rare finds, but that evening I just couldn’t stop thinking about Aiby.

  I had counted every minute that had passed since we parted ways. In that time, I’d thought about almost nothing else. I was still a little overwhelmed by the fact that Aiby had repaired Jules’s bicycle with a magical robot spider while speaking strange words.

  While I walked and wondered about the day’s events, Patches stopped to sniff at something on the shore. I figured he’d soon yelp because a crab had pinched his nose, and then bark at it in revenge.

  And he did yelp. And then he barked. I dug my hands deeper into my pockets and kept walking, smiling to myself. I liked it when things happened the way I expected them to. It made me feel like I actually understood how the world worked sometimes.

  I reached the end of the beach where the white sand gave way to black rocks. Patches still hadn’t given up his mad pursuit of the crab. I glanced upward at the stars in the sky. They were so beautiful that it made the grating cloud of mosquitoes sound more like violins in an orchestra tuning up for a performance.

  “Patches, give up already,” I said. “And get over here, will ya?”

  I retraced my steps to the spot where my stubborn little friend had been pinched. I found him barking and growling at a pile of black seaweed. His muzzle was placed stubbornly between his front paws and his tail was raised in the air.

  “What’s wrong with you, boy?” I asked.

  I gave a cautious kick at the pile of seaweed near Patches and realized there was something underneath.

  “What’s that?” I muttered, crouching on the damp sand.

  I recognized what the object was, but I couldn’t believe my eyes. “No way!” I said, and then repeated it probably a dozen more times.

  At every low tide in the last five years, I had trawled the beaches of Applecross hoping to find something like this. And now that I had finally come across an actual message in a bottle, all I could do was stare at it.

  In a burst of uncharacteristic courage, Patches nipped at the bottle. With great care, I dislodged it from the sand and held it up to my eyes. I studied it against the light, shifting it back and forth in front of the moon.

  “There’s no doubt about it, Patches!” I said. “We’ve just discovered a message in a bottle!”

  The bottle looked normal enough, but the label had long since worn away. The bottom of the bottle had an inscription that read, “Murano Brothers – Sea Couriers – Always Riding the Crest of a Wave.”

  The scroll of paper inside was dry and safe due to a strong cork that appeared to be sealed with wax. I pulled out my pocket knife and popped the cork off. Slowly, I tilted the bottle until the sheet of paper slipped into the palm of my hand. I carefully unrolled it to reveal a written message. I read it aloud: “Five people were crossing the land, all dressed in black. One was a woman, the other four were men. They got caught in a sudden storm. Rain poured down and lightning struck. The four men fled for cover, but they arrived at their destination wet. The woman did not run, but she stayed dry. Now I ask you this ques
tion: why did the woman stay dry?”

  It was a riddle! I re-read it a dozen more times. Then I checked inside the bottle to see if there was anything I’d missed, but I found nothing.

  I couldn’t make my mind up whether to be happy or disappointed. On one hand, I had finally found a message in a bottle. I could just imagine waving it in front of Doug’s face to show him that I wasn’t as crazy as he said I was — that bottles with messages really did exist.

  On the other hand, I could imagine what he would say after he read the message. I imagined it would be something like, “That’s great, Viper, you found a useless riddle. Who cares?”

  And honestly, he would have been right. Why would anyone put a message like that one out to sea?

  I wondered if it was just someone playing a joke on me. After all, it was a pretty huge coincidence that I’d found it on the same day that I’d mentioned messages in bottles to Aiby. Even though she’d seemed to be kind of playful, I didn’t think she’d be the type to try a practical joke like this.

  I thought about the message, Aiby, and the bottle while I walked all the way up the road that led from the beach to Baelanch Ba. At that point, I started to try to solve the riddle. Four men and one woman, all dressed in black, got caught in the rain, I recalled. The men ran, but she didn’t. Yet she stayed dry while they got soaked.

  Where did the men run? I wondered. And why does the color of their clothing even matter?

  Just then, I saw the man with the blond hair who had taken the pizzas from the supermarket the week before. He was walking swiftly down the middle of the road toward me. He wore black clothing and carried a bouquet of flowers. The silvery moonlight gave his blond hair a ghostly halo. Not that ghosts have halos, but that was the thought that was going through my mind at the time.

  Before Patches knew what was happening, I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him behind one of the standing stones along the edge of the road.

  I kept my dog’s muzzle closed with my hands. “Promise not to bark, okay?” I said, looking him directly in the eyes.

  Patches whimpered, indicating that he understood. I slid myself around the stone to get a better view of the road. As I did, I heard the message in the bottle tinkle in my backpack. There are way too many strange things happening in Applecross today, I thought wearily.