Like I’d imagined her in the first place.
Daddy was dead, and all I’d gotten from Mama was a nod and a squint from eyes that looked as empty as a winter sky.
But tomorrow would be different, wouldn’t it?
Back inside Miss V.’s kitchen, I washed up in the sink and flipped open the cabinet, looking for a glass.
Stuck to the inside of the cabinet door with crackled tape was the question Miss V. had asked me.
MONDAY’S QUESTION:
ONLY ONE COLOR BUT NOT ONE SIZE.
STUCK AT THE BOTTOM, YET EASILY FLIES.
ANSWER ON FRIDAY.
BOB
If Miss V. had asked me that question, I guess she never did get her answer.
I eased the cabinet door back closed.
Me and Miss V., we were both wandering around, wondering things.
I didn’t have an answer for Miss V., and I sure didn’t have an answer for me.
It must have been along about lunchtime when Miss V. walked into the kitchen and handed me the latest issue of the Messenger. Percy had chewed the whole bottom part off, but I could still read the top.
HOPE WANES FOR MISSING GIRL
Continuing searches have turned up no sign of Ariana “Cricket” Overland.
Mrs. Bullard, art teacher at East Pickens Middle School, reported that the loss was particularly tragic because a sketch done by Cricket had just won the Fluhrer Prize at the prestigious Stokes School for the Arts in Jackson, winning her a place in the weeklong spring-break camp for middle school students, beginning March 3. Past winners of the Fluhrer Prize have gone on to gain admission to the Stokes high school program. Mrs. Bullard reported that “Cricket’s work showed such promise. We are all mourning the tragic events that have surrounded her.”
Meanwhile, the victim’s aunt, Belinda Overland, has kept up her vigil at the fire station, providing free samples of Classy Lady lip balm to the firemen. “Even at a time like this,” she said, “it’s important to keep moisturized.”
“Congratulations,” Miss V. said. “So you’re an artist, too. But people are really missing you, Ace. Maybe it’s time to head back.”
“Tomorrow,” I said. “A deal’s a deal.”
She sighed and went off for more chores.
I knew just exactly which drawing of mine Mrs. Bullard must have sent in—that drawing of Mama standing in front of a mirror with her hands folded under her chin.
After Mama left, I was scared I’d forget what she looked like. I mean, what she really looked like, not just when she put on her camera smile for pictures.
I couldn’t stop working on that drawing. When I was sketching, I forgot where I was. I could pretend Mama was sitting right there next to me, sketching too. It took me a week of study halls and a mess of grubby eraser bits to get my picture halfway decent-looking.
I was going to tape it on the inside of my notebook, where I could see it whenever I wanted.
But it was funny. As soon as I laid down the last pencil stroke, I couldn’t bring myself to look at it. My picture had no more life in it than a shadow on a dark-gray wall.
All my picture did was remind me—Mama had left me.
When Mrs. Bullard asked if she could have it, I was glad to see that picture go.
Now my drawing was the reason the Stokes School wanted to have me at their spring-break camp.
It just figured. The one good thing that had happened since Mama took off, and I’d be too busy getting Mama settled to go to the camp. And that was if everything went my way.
But, sure as shooting, I was fixing to make certain that everything did.
“It’s the magic hour.” Miss V. turned her key in the lock.
I followed, Charlene on my shoulder.
The magic was already showing itself.
The walls glowed with slanty sunlight through the painted-over windows.
The light was soft except for that one bare place on the fall window. There, the light became a bright yellow spotlight. It lit across the pea tendrils, just like the ones in Miss V.’s garden.
I spread my hand on the springtime wall. It felt like the garden was growing even as we watched. This room was full of paintings of the things from Miss V.’s garden. Mr. Bob’s clue had to mean to look where the light landed at exactly five-thirty. Soon, the light would land on some plant or tree from Miss V.’s garden, and that would tell us where to dig.
Outside, the sun sank lower in the sky. It took five minutes for the spotlight to ease off the garden rows. My watch told us when it was five-thirty. By then, the light had moved across my hand and come to rest on a praying mantis on a dogwood branch.
The light lingered on the bug and then slowly slid up the wall as the last of the daylight faded and disappeared outside.
No constellation.
“That can’t be right,” Miss V. said. “I’ve got bugs all over my garden. That isn’t the puzzle piece.”
Charlene crawled around my shoulder to drive home the point.
Miss V. and Charlene were right. A praying mantis didn’t have a thing in the world to do with a constellation. The light hadn’t shown us where to dig.
Two more paint chips fluttered off the ceiling and landed at my feet.
No constellation. No treasure.
Miss V. put her shoulder to the door. “Sorry, Ace. We tried.”
I sat on the front porch and stewed, Charlene sitting on my shoulder.
Percy came over, laid his big head in my lap, looked up at me with sad eyes, and started licking up a storm on my hand. He could tell how I felt. Charlene did, too. She stroked her antennae against my neck and let out a yant that echoed like a sigh.
Above me, the sky was bright with a thousand constellations that couldn’t help me one bit. The only things out with us were a bunch of moths. They flung themselves against the front windows, leaving little chalky marks.
Stupid moths.
Mama was already on her way. She’d be here tomorrow, and I wouldn’t have her treasure.
And what would happen to Miss V.? The nights were cold, with the dark still coming so early. With her house falling apart, how long could she make it out here?
Wait a minute.
A good thought had just flickered across my mind. It was like the taste that lingers in your mouth after a piece of Valentine’s chocolate.
I tried to catch hold. Charlene crouched down on my shoulder. She was thinking, too.
Percy wagged his black tail at me, and Charlene took a little jump. She landed on my arm and looked at me with her deep, dark eyes.
That’s it!
With the dark still coming so early.
Of course the dark was still coming so early. It was February.
With spring on the way, the sun set a little later every day.
Mr. Bob wrote his note on March 6, the same day as Mama’s birthday. The light would be different that day. But how?
“We need to talk about daylight.”
Miss V. looked up from the poetry books she was plucking off the shelf. She drew her brows together. “You taking up farming?” She went to the door and held out some books.
Percy scratched the Dickinson near to pieces. She sat down and started up reading.
“A winged spark doth soar about—
I never met it near
For Lightning it is oft mistook
When nights are hot and sere—”
I paced the porch while she finished. “That poem even drives home my point.”
Miss V. shut the book. “Make some sense, will you?”
“That poem talked about when days are hot and sere. That means summer, right? The days are longer in summer.”
“Go on.”
“And spring is coming. The days are getting longer.”<
br />
“Of course.” She looked like she had better things to do.
“Today is February twenty-eighth, right?”
“Right.” Her voice was wary.
“Mr. Bob’s note was written on March sixth, not February twenty-eighth. The sun would have set at a different time. If we could just figure out how to tell how much different it would be, we could solve that clue.”
Miss V.’s eyes lit up. She marched to the bookcase, sorted through the spines of the books for about five minutes, and came back with a copy of the 1984 edition of the Mississippi Gardener’s Almanac. “We have all we need right here.”
Ha! That book would have sunset times!
She handed it to me. I flipped it open and looked for the Deerfield section. I found February. Then I traced my finger to February 26…Sunset: 5:48; February 27…Sunset: 5:49.
Then I came to February 28:
Sunset: 5:50
I flipped to the date of the letter, March 6:
Sunset: 5:55
I showed her. “So on the day Mr. Bob wrote that note, the sunset would have been five minutes later. Sunlight from the window would have shined on a different spot. It took five minutes for the spot to move across my hand. What we’re looking for has to be one hand size away.”
“Poetry saves the day,” Miss V. said, and headed for the stairs.
Back in the room, I shifted over a bit and measured one hand width up the wall from the praying mantis. It landed on a tanager.
But that room had lots of tanagers. What was special about this one?
Miss V. held up the lantern, and we both studied that bird.
“Look at its mouth.” I pointed.
That tanager held a tiny star in its beak. The same kind of star as the one carved in the woods. The same kind of star as the one carved on that contraption in Miss V.’s piano.
But where does that get us?
Then I measured with my hand again. That sunlight spot wouldn’t shine on the whole tanager. It would shine on the star. “One star. Okay. So far, so good. Now we have to figure out how to turn that one star into a whole constellation.”
Now Miss V. was the one doing the pointing. A faint dotted line started at that star and made its way down the wall, weaving in and out of branches and weeds.
Miss V. traced the star line with her finger. “Twenty dashed lines, Ace.”
Most of the other dots and lines on the mural seemed to be random—some short, some long. These twenty lines were all the same distance. They ended in a tiny X.
“Like footsteps on a treasure map. X marks the spot,” I said. I remembered those underlined words from Treasure Island: Steps outside.
Except that the X was over a tangle of vines that didn’t seem to match up with Miss V.’s garden at all.
Miss V. said what I was thinking. “But if they are footsteps, we’ve still got to figure out how to match this up with a real place. We’ve got to find a constellation to know where to start walking.”
A constellation. All I knew about constellations was from science class—“a configuration of stars.” I ran my hand back over the star on the wall.
The writing below the star was so little, it looked like fine brushstrokes. But there it was:
WORTHY #1
That’s when it hit me. I knew where to start.
I should have known it the whole time.
Percy pranced ahead of us, sniffing the air, digging a hole every ten feet or so and circling back to nudge at me with his muddy nose. I patted him and wiped the mud off my hands. “Almost there.”
When that lantern light hit the tanager tree, Miss V. and Percy both jumped back. Percy growled.
Then Miss V. eased up on that tanager and ran her fingers over the star. “Well, I’ll be….Worthy #3.”
“Now here’s where the puzzle part comes in.” I handed her the contraption I’d taken from her piano. Worthy #2. “Star to star. A constellation.”
She smiled. “Do you even know what this is?”
I shook my head no.
“It’s a dowser. It vibrates when there’s something underground. My daddy used it to find the right place to dig a well. Bob carved on it and turned it into his own creation.”
She held out the two shovels she’d brought. “How many dashes before the X?”
“Twenty.”
Miss V. pointed. “In the painting, it was south. That-a-ways.”
She touched the star on the dowsing rod to the star on the tanager tree, held the dowser out in front, and measured off twenty even steps from the south side of the tree.
Nothing.
“You try it, Ace.” She handed me the dowser. “Maybe you’ve got the touch. Hold it loose. Let the rods guide you.”
Twenty marks on the mural.
I tried to think of how a man would walk it.
Big steps.
I stretched mine out for twenty long paces.
Something was happening.
The contraption quivered in my hands.
Miss V. had seen it, too. “Trust the dowser.”
Tightening my grip, I followed it deeper into the woods.
The quivering didn’t change until I breathed in the sweet smell of the tea olive trees growing at the edge of the Pickens County Baptist Cemetery.
Miss V. turned up the flame on the lantern. “That son of a gun,” she said.
Just say the words “grave robbing,” and it brings to mind something a heap sight more exciting than what me, Percy, and Miss V. were doing. Come to find out, grave robbing is mostly just digging.
It was all heave, take a shovel load, dump it out, beat the shovel against the side of the hole to shake off the clay, and start over again. And the whole time, Miss V. was digging faster than me.
It’s downright embarrassing to get outworked by somebody six times your age.
I guess you can’t always tell strong from the outside.
Percy, he was running back and forth between us, digging every time he stopped, throwing out a huge clay trail behind him.
The dowser had led us to a sandstone rock laid flat in the dirt in the corner of the cemetery, near the first tanager rock I’d found.
“It’s all making sense now,” Miss V. said. “This is my family’s cemetery plot. Those are my mama’s initials. Of course Bob would end the clue trail here.”
We dug faster.
The wind whistled through the gravestones. A screech owl let out a shuddery cry.
The whole place spooked up my arm hairs.
Grandma, I hope you’re looking out for me.
Miss V. started humming—“Nearer, My God, to Thee.”
In a weird way, I’d miss her after I left with Mama tomorrow. There was something about Miss V. I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But she knew who she was. She was storm steady, like my ginkgo tree. And she’d trusted me through all these clue trails she didn’t believe in.
After a while, the hole opened up around us like it had been waiting for us all those years.
What Miss V. was thinking about, I had no idea, and she kept that to herself. Me, all I could think about was seeing Mama.
I worked out in my head how it would go. I wouldn’t want to just jump out of the woods at her. If I showed up too sudden, I might scare her away.
I’d leave her a sign so I could ease her into thinking about me. Then I’d come up slow so she could see me coming. I’d spread out my arms and hug her tight. With nobody else around, I could talk to Mama good. I could tell her I was sorry. I could tell her about the Bird Room. She wasn’t crazy. She hadn’t imagined it. I’d tell her all that. I’d get her to stay.
A thud echoed.
Had Miss V. run her shovel into a root?
She dug her shovel in that spot a second time.
>
A metal-hitting-metal sound rang out.
We’d found it!
We carved the dirt out from the edges and heaved it out of the hole.
It was a metal case about the size of a suitcase.
We had the treasure! I went over to Grandma’s wooden headstone and drew a cricket in the dirt. I drew it big and bold where Mama would see it right off.
Tomorrow, everything that mattered would be right again, most of all Mama and me.
“Let’s see what Bob left us.” Miss V. patted the case on her kitchen table.
I unsnapped the buckles and opened it.
But all I saw were sticks of chalk and a bundle of cloth gone gray and spotty.
I held my breath, waiting for the sparkle of gold. Or rubies. Or diamonds. Or something. But the bundle smelled like dirt and rain and old sweaters as Miss V. unwound it.
It was just a pile of typing paper, wrinkled and crinkled by the cloth.
My stomach drew itself into a lopsided knot.
I almost got myself killed over a stack of paper.
The note. The stars. The constellation.
Mama.
After all those clues, how could there not be treasure?
Disappointment squirrel-jumped through every single part of me.
But beside me, Miss V. let out a whoop. “I should have known….” She started spreading out the sheets.
A glimmer of red caught my eye—a tanager, flying high over Miss V.’s woods. It was aiming for the last ray of light shining on the tallest limb of a black walnut tree.
“The golden hour.” Miss V. grinned.
I leaned into the sheets.
That paper held drawings and watercolor paintings of Miss V.’s woods. Of my woods. The woods I’d tramped through, the greens I’d eaten, the squirrels nesting above me, the raccoons who’d stole my food. Even a rough-sketched coyote.
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