Cade carries the old metal coffee canister to the bed and climbs up so he’s sitting across from me. He places it in between us and smiles kindly at me.
"I found it in the bottom of the box," he says. "And there was a note attached to it."
"A note?"
"Yeah," he says. "It pretty much just disintegrated when I touched it, but it was from Grammie. It said 'Rupert, stop burying things in the yard'."
I laugh, tossing my head back.
"I wonder how long it was actually buried," I say. "When were we supposed to open it?"
Cade turns the canister around until he finds a scribble of black permanent marker across the surface.
"Time Capsule," he reads. "Do not open for ten years."
The time frame takes some of the breath out of me, and I feel my smile falter. I remember making the time capsule with him when I was thirteen.
"Since it’s more than five years overdue, should we open it?" I asked.
"I think so," he says. "I don't even remember what we put in there. Do you?"
I shake my head.
"Ready?" he asks, putting his hands on the edge of the lid.
I nod.
"Let's see what was so important to us."
He peels away the lid and puts it aside. We both lean forward to look into the canister as Cade pours the contents out onto the bed. The first thing I see are pictures of both of us. I immediately think of the picture I found in Cade's wallet, and my heart skips. He picks up the picture of himself, and I see him cringe.
"There should be some sort of screening process for teenagers before we're allowed out in public," he says.
I pick up the picture of myself, mirroring his cringe as I look at my frizzy hair and the bright scattering of freckles across the bridge of my nose.
"I wish Grammie had let me wear makeup then," I say.
"Why?" he asks.
I turn the picture toward him.
"Are you kidding? Look at the freckles."
"I like your freckles," he says. "I think they're adorable."
Cade brushes his fingertips over my cheekbone, and I draw in a breath, remembering what followed a similar touch last night.
"I've never liked them," I say, looking down.
"I know."
I put down the picture and reach for a piece of paper. Unfolding it, I realize it's a list of groceries and their prices from the year we buried the capsule.
"We should keep this," I say. "I wonder what the prices will be like in another ten years."
"We'll bury it again," Cade says. "Grammie won't find it this time."
"Well, maybe this time we shouldn't bury it at the edge of her vegetable garden."
"That's probably a better plan."
"Look at this," I say, picking up another piece of paper. This one is folded in a complex pattern that isn't quite origami, but I remember being popular when I was in high school. "I think it's one of the notes I wrote to you."
"What does it say?" he asks.
"Cade...I miss you so much. I'm thinking about you so much today. I don't know why. I wish it were summer and I was at the country house. I never thought I'd say that. I used to feel so lonely there and dreaded having to go. Now it's the only place I want to be."
My voice shakes slightly as I read the words. Cade takes the paper from my hands and looks down at the lines written beneath the note to him.
"Fiona...I miss you, too. I'm always thinking about you, and I know exactly why. You should be here. I don't understand why you have to wait until summer to be here with me. I never want you to feel lonely again."
The words are heavier now that they’re spoken in adult voices deepened and intensified by the decade and a half that has passed since then.
"We were just kids," I murmur.
"I meant it," he says.
I did, too. Even though it would be years before we understood what we were feeling, or the depth of what was happening between us, I know I meant those words. Every single one.
I've turned my attention back to the assortment of trinkets from the time capsule when I notice Cade staring across the room. I follow his gaze and see he's looking at the massive vanity table positioned on the opposite wall from the bed. He looks curious, and for some reason, completely fixated on the piece of furniture that has been in the room for as long as I can remember.
"What are you looking at?" I ask.
Cade picks up the other soda and takes a drink.
"Does that vanity look strange to you?"
“No, it looks just like the one in my bedroom.”
"Something about it is off. It’s strange," he says.
"Well, I know it's really old. The one in my room has been there since well before I was born. I think Grammie told me it originally belonged to Gramps's grandparents."
He shakes his head.
"No, that's not it. I know what antiques look like. There's just something weird about this particular vanity."
"What about it?"
He gestures towards the table with his bottle.
"It's flat against the wall.”
I wait for him to say something else, but he doesn't.
"It's a piece of furniture," I say. "Isn't it supposed to sit flat against the wall?"
"No," he says. "I mean, yes it's supposed to be on the wall, but not flat against it. Think about your vanity – the physical body is against the wall, but the mirror isn't. The table has an edge, which means the mirror should be standing out a few inches from the wall. The edge would touch the wall, keeping the mirror out away from it. But look at this table. It's not doing that. The back of the mirror is flush against the wall behind it."
"Could the tables just be designed differently?" I ask.
"I guess," he says, climbing off the bed and crossing over to the vanity. I see him run his fingers along the edges of the table. Suddenly, he pauses.
"What is it?" I ask.
"A piece of the edging is loose here," he says.
I get off the bed and walk over to him. Setting my soda on the table, I step up beside him and look at the section of the wood he's touching. I watch his fingertips wiggle a piece of the decorative scrolling back and forth. The wood responds by moving out of the way. I expect it to fall, but instead, it swings to the side. Cade runs his fingers along the inside until there is an audible click. Almost instantly, the entire vanity shifts forward a few inches.
"Did you see that?" Cade asks. "It moved."
I nod. I'm getting as swept up in the mystery as he is.
"Can we move it more?”
"Help me," Cade answers. "Go to the other side."
We grasp the sides of the vanity, and I prepare myself for the antique piece to be horribly heavy. Instead, it glides out of the way, opening like a door. I walk back around to stand beside Cade, and we both stare incredulously at the dark, narrow opening that just appeared in the wall.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Cade's face lights up.
"It's a secret passage," he says. "A hallway probably used by servants when the house was first built. I studied things like this back in architecture school. They aren't very common anymore, but they were a century or so ago. People liked to carry on the image of their home running seamlessly, so, their maids and butlers couldn't be seen around the house handling things. So, they had these passages built that would let the staff move around the house undetected. Usually, they would connect the areas most used by the staff, so one would go from the kitchen to the bedrooms or to the sitting room or the nursery. Did you know there was anything like this in the house?"
I shake my head.
"No," I say. "Grammie and Gramps never mentioned any kind of secret passageways. They probably thought I'd get lost in them." I shrug. "Shit. I probably would get lost in them."
"We don't know where it leads," Cade says.
I look at him.
"Which would be why I would get lost in them."
"Valid." He grins at me. "We'
d probably still be looking for you." He glances into the passage again, and then back at me. "Shall we go in?"
"You just said we don't know where it goes."
Cade peers inside. He straightens and pulls his phone out of his pocket, directing it into the darkness.
"It looks like it goes behind this room and the stairs. That makes sense. The dimensions of this room are off. It's not as wide as the other rooms on the floor. That's because this thing is behind it."
He steps into the passageway, and after a few seconds of hesitation, I follow. We start down the tight, hot corridor. It feels like there is almost no air in here, and I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of people using it while working. This space would be suffocating without air conditioning. At least it doesn't feel damp and musty like the basement. Except for a few cobwebs clinging to the edges near the ceiling, there isn't anything in the passage at all.
Despite this, an eerie shiver crawls down my spine the further we get from the bright light of the entry behind the vanity. I step closer to Cade until I can feel the warmth of his body through his shirt. I'm very aware of the closeness of the space, and how much breasts brush against his back as I ease closer to ward off the anxiety I’m experiencing.
"There's a corner ahead of us," he says. "I'm not sure where we are exactly, but I think we're somewhere near the stairs."
Almost as soon as he says it, Cade stumbles. He reaches out and I grab onto him, but both of us go down, sliding down a short set of stairs and landing in a heap on the floor. Sprawled on top of him, I feel like the breath has been knocked out of me.
"Are you alright?" he asks.
Cade's mouth is close enough to my neck I can feel the warmth of his breath trail along my skin and down into my shirt. I nod.
"I'm fine," I say.
I reluctantly climb off him, and we stand, using each other for stability as we get back to our feet.
"There are stairs there," he says.
"Thanks for the warning," I say with a wry grin.
Ahead of us, I see the glow of the phone Cade dropped when we fell, and I realize there's another small set of stairs. Cade goes down and scoops his phone up, holding it up to illuminate the rest of the passage. I see a curve, and realize we aren't just walking down a hallway. Instead, we are following a gradual coil bringing us away from the outside of the house, and toward the heart of the building. We keep going until there's finally a dead-end in front of us.
"I certainly hope none of the servants were expected to get anywhere fast," Cade says. "That was not a shortcut to anything." He runs his hands along the wall, and I see him pause like he did when he was examining the vanity. "I think this is another entrance."
"I hope so," I say. “If it isn't, this is the worst secret passage ever.”
“It would explain why it's hidden behind a vanity, though,” Cade says.
He presses on a section of wall, and it moves out of the way just like the vanity did. I feel instant relief when a rush of air-conditioned air greets us. The room in front of us is dark, and Cade holds his phone up as we step into it. The light touches furniture and ornate wallpaper I don't recognize.
"What are the chances the secret passage led us into a different house?" I ask.
"Probably not great," Cade says, "considering the nearest house is half a mile away from here."
"I don't recognize this room," I say. “Where are we?”
Cade uses the light of his phone to find the nearest wall, following it with the flashlight until he illuminates a light switch. I mentally cross my fingers as he pushes the switch and light bursts into the room.
"You’re right. Where the hell are we?" he asks, looking around. "I don't think I've ever seen this room before."
I shake my head, taking in the towering bookshelves along the walls, and the heavy table sitting in the middle of the room.
"Me, neither."
"How is it possible that neither one of us has ever seen this room?" he asks.
"Because it never occurred to us to go into the wall behind the vanity?"
"True."
The room is cool, so it's obviously equipped with modern air conditioning, but the light is another of the old-fashioned bulbs that tell me it hasn't been changed in quite a while. I walk around the perimeter of the room before something suddenly occurs to me.
"Gramps," I say. “Oh my god.”
"What?" Cade asks from where he’s inspecting one of the bookshelves.
"Gramps," I say again. "Don't you remember he used to disappear all the time? We thought he was going out to his shed, or the yard, but you'd try to find him, and he wasn’t there? And when he showed back up, he wasn't dirty?"
Cade nods.
"I remember that."
"Yeah, well, he used to do that even before you and I met. Grammie always said he needed his time to his thoughts. I figured that meant he was out being an old man wandering around the grounds, but it never made sense to me that he wasn't dirty or sweaty or anything when he'd show back up. I could never figure out what he was doing. This is it. Look at the books. Half of them are about woodworking. And there's a bottle of his favorite bourbon over there." I open a drawer in a nearby cabinet and pull out a pipe. Breathing the smell of stale but sweet tobacco in, I smile. "It smells like him."
"Grammie hated when he smoked those things," Cade says. "I think that may be one of her few logical traits. She was positive tobacco was going to kill him."
"That's probably why he died of a heart attack. Just to prove her wrong."
"Smoking puts you at four times the risk of having a heart attack," he says.
"What? How do you know that?"
"How do you not know that?"
"Why the hell do people do it then?"
Cade laughs.
"Well, Grammie didn't want Gramps doing it near her."
"Exactly. She wouldn't let him smoke anywhere near her. So, he came in here."
Cade laughs.
"Gramps had a man cave," he says.
"Yes, he did." My phone suddenly rings, startling me. I pull it out of my pocket and look at the screen. "How does she always know when we're talking about her?" I ask.
"Grammie?"
I nod.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Honey."
"Grammie, why did you never tell us about the secret hallway behind the spare bedroom? The one Cade is sleeping in now?"
"Because it was a secret," she says without missing a beat.
I roll my eyes and look at Cade.
"She says she never told us about the secret passage because it was a secret."
He nods.
"Fair enough."
".... but he found it in the bottom of my pool bag."
I realize I've missed most of something Grammie said.
"Wait, what?" I ask. "Who found what?"
"Arthur," she says. "Arthur found his book in the bottom of my pool bag. Can you believe we were reading the same one? He tried to take my copy."
She laughs like it is the funniest story she’s ever told, but I'm still back with the pool bag and the mystery man digging around in it.
"Who's Arthur?" I ask.
"Oh, you know. Arthur."
"No, Grammie. I don't know. Who is Arthur, and why was he looking through your pool bag? Why do you even have a pool bag? What do you need to bring to the pool at the rehab center?"
"I told you, he thought I had his book, but it turns out we are just reading the same one, and his was still in his bag. I'm not at the rehab center anymore."
She just slides that comment in at the end of her story like she thinks I won’t notice it.
"You're not at the rehab center anymore?" I ask. "Where are you?"
I notice Cade moving to the other side of the room like he's trying to distance himself from the conversation.
"The doctor thought I made good progress, and that I need to continue to focus on getting stronger and healthier. But the house, with all the repairs and th
e noise and the chaos...it's just not an environment conducive to healing right now. So, I'm with one of the girls at her retirement community."
"And when were you going to tell me that?"
"I just told you."
"Do you know when you’re coming back?"
"No. I still think I need some time. The girls are very welcoming. And Arthur wants me to teach him how to do the breaststroke. I was just checking in. Tell Cade I send my love. Ciao!"
"Wait, Grammie – who's Arthur?"
I let out an exasperated sigh as she ends the call. Then the last thing she told me about the man ran back through my head, and I shudder.
"Well, isn't that fantastic," I mutter.
"Something wrong?" Cade asks.
"She's not even at the rehabilitation center anymore," I say. "She decided to go to a retirement community for a while."
"She'll enjoy that," he says.
I know I can leave. Grammie obviously doesn't need me to be her caregiver, and now that Jace isn't around anymore, she doesn't need me to watch over the house, either. But I'm reluctant to walk away just yet. I go back to looking around the room and notice a box sitting under the table.
"Look at this," I say, pulling the box out and setting it on the table. "It's Clue."
"I love that game," Cade says. "Do you remember how we used to play with Gramps?"
"Of course," I say. "Grammie played a couple of times, too."
"Until she tried to convince Gramps she could consult with police files by looking in the folder."
"That did take a little bit of the excitement out of the game," I admit. "We should play later." I look up at Cade and see his eyes burning into mine. "Clue," I say. "We should play Clue later."
The sudden sound of a bell resonating through the room makes me gasp, and I press my hand to my chest to hold my heart in.
"What is going on here? Suddenly everyone wants us."
"Are you expecting anyone?" Cade asks.
"No," I say. "Are you?"
He shakes his head.
"No. We should probably go find out who it is."
I look around the room, noticing for the first time there is no door.
"How?"
Chapter Thirteen
Cade
A few minutes later, Fiona and I still haven't figured out how to get out of the room. We are considering making our way back through the hidden passage when I notice a sconce on the wall that looks slightly askew. I press it, and the wall slides open. We rush out into a back hallway, and exchange glances.
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