Bottled Up

by K. J. Emrick

  “Is it really?” He seemed surprised to hear that. Maybe he doesn’t get out much, working nights like this. “l’m sorry to hear it. I would’ve warned ya off, if I’d known. Can I maybe suggest some other places to go?”

  “No, thank you,” I tell him politely. “We found our excitement for the night already.”

  Holding the bottle up, I show him our find. My mind is already on getting upstairs to search the internet for tips on handling glass bottles and how to save old paper from the elements.

  It took me a second to realize the desk clerk’s expression had changed. A shadow had settled over his face and his features arranged themselves into a frown.

  When he saw me looking at him, he put a plastic smile back on his lips. After all, desk clerks are supposed to be overly friendly with their guests. It’s in the handbook for all hotels and Inns. I should know. I helped write that book, or at least I like to think I did. Whatever had him so twisted up, he shouldn’t let his guests—us—know anything was wrong.

  “Um, that’s nice,” he mutters through that smile. “Found yourselves a bottle, didya? Looks like it might be too old to get the container deposit back. If ya want, I could recycle it.”

  “No, thanks,” Jasmine says brightly, missing the subtle cues in the man’s behavior that I had picked up on. “We want to keep this one. It’s got a mess—”

  “A really pretty design,” I say, interrupting Jasmine before she could mention the little rolled up paper message inside.

  She shoots me a silent question, but thankfully she doesn’t ask it out loud.

  The clerk is a short man, young and obviously into his looks. Those perfectly plucked eyebrows really stand out against his pale face. Not a single russet hair out of place with all that product. His blue shirt might be off-the-rack, but it’s been ironed and starched into crisp lines. That watch on his wrist has to be a knockoff. Nobody wears a timepiece with real diamonds on the face unless they’re a Kardashian. Or a rockstar. Or RuPaul.

  This clerk was starting to feel a little dodgy to me.

  His eyes kept going to the bottle, making me feel like I had to snug it tighter to my chest even though it’s still dirty and damp. Usually I like to talk to the employees at the places where I’m staying. I like to get ideas from them, about their policies and their procedures, and maybe learn a thing or two that I can take back to the Pine Lake Inn with me. I don’t have any desire to talk to this guy.

  Right now, I just want to get back up to the room. I want to hurry over to the lift, and get in, and get away from… Zacron, his name badge says. What sort of a name is Zacron?

  Sounds like a bad guy in one of those cozy mystery novels or a Saturday morning cartoon from the ‘90’s.

  “Dunno,” Jasmine says as the lift doors open up for us. That’s when I realize that I’d spoken that rather unkind thought out loud. “Maybe it’s Dutch.”

  The doors close as I jab the button with my thumb, and as they do I cast one more nervous glance out into the lobby. Zacron isn’t following us. He isn’t out there making a hasty phone call to some shady criminal types. He’s just standing there, doing desk clerk things. I’m overreacting, is what I’m doing. Just as I did when that guy with the perm walked into Cathy Morris’s Milkbar back in Lakeshore. That’s all it is. At least, I hope that’s all it is. Something about all this isn’t sitting quite right.

  “What was that all about, anyway?” Jasmine asks when we’re on our way up to our floor. “It’s like you didn’t even want him to know about the little note in there. If that’s what it even is. You turning into that little goal tender guy from the Lord of the Rings movies?”

  I blink at her, again and again, trying to decipher that obscure reference. “Goal tender?”

  “Yeah, you know. The little pale man who tries to steal the ring in every movie and keep it all to himself.”

  Goal tender… “You mean… Gollum?”

  “Yes! Him. You gonna start calling that bottle your precious, or something? Bite the finger off anyone who tries to hold it?”

  Now that I got the joke I could laugh along with her, and admit I was being silly. Of course no one would have any interest in this particular bottle. I’d just dug it up out of the sand, for goodness sake. How would anyone be able to recognize it as anything other than just an old glass bottle? “Well, it is pretty,” I admit, “but I doubt it’s actually worth much. It’s just a nice curiosity for someone who likes curious things.”

  “Hmm. Maybe if we clean it up, a genie will pop out and grant us three wishes!”

  The lift dings and we’re already in stitches, making fun of ourselves and what we would do with a genie. Wish one, an endless supply of Cheezles. Wish two, more money than the Queen. Wish three, half naked men dancing in nightclubs that never close!

  “And to be twenty again,” Jasmine adds. “Don’t forget that part. To be twenty, and rich, and never more than a wink away from a man willing to rub our feet.”

  “I seem to remember you at twenty,” I say as we head down the hall toward our room. “You didn’t need magic to find a man back when you were twenty!”

  “Yeah,” she sighs. “Those were the days. Always enough money, and always enough men. What happened to us?”

  I shrug. “We grew up.”

  “Now why,” she asks with a wry twist of her lip, “did we go and do a thing like that?’

  Excellent question, I have to agree. Ah, the misspent days of our youth. If I could only have them back again and store them in a bottle.

  Like this one in my hands. Holding it up to the ceiling lights in the hall, I study the rolled-up piece of paper inside. What would I find when we finally got that out to look at it? A message from someone’s long lost relative? A sailor’s last profession of love before their boat capsized? Maybe it’s just a shopping list, I chuckled to myself. Maybe it’s someone’s fortune from a Chinese restaurant.

  She who looks for meaning in old bottles will find her life empty.

  Or something like that. There’s a reason that I’m the proprietor of an Inn, instead of a writer. Nobody would buy a book about my life.

  Speaking of Chinese food, though… “Hey,” I suggest, “want to order some take away”

  “Sure! Pizza, maybe? Most food for the buck that way.”

  The room is spacious for just us girls. Two beds, and a couch, and of course a television on the chest of drawers next to the mini fridge. The bathroom’s only about as big as the ones our guests get at the Pine Lake Inn, but then there’s only so much you can do with a bathroom space, I suppose. When we first got here Jasmine had been in such a rush to leave that I hadn’t really had the chance to check it out. Now that I do, I find it… adequate. Nice, but not overstated. A little basic, but charming nonetheless.

  Fine. The rooms in my Inn are better. So I’m biased. So what? Doesn’t make me a liar.

  Both of us enjoy a long, long shower while we wait for the pizzas to get here, along with the cans of cordial we ordered with them. We eat, and we talk for a couple of hours, flipping aimlessly through television channels without finding anything worthwhile to watch. It was relaxing to just sit for a time with nothing to do but just sit, and talk, and enjoy each other’s company.

  The urgency I had felt to scour the internet for ways to safely extract the message in the bottle had quickly faded. Jasmine had been right. I was obsessing over it too much. It couldn’t be all that important. Stuff like that only happened in the movies.

  I did spend some time cleaning the sand off the outside of the glass, and when I did I found that there was condensation beaded on the inside. I grimaced at that discovery, because that meant the bottle wasn’t as airtight as I’d hoped, and the note might have already been ruined. The paper didn’t exactly look like paper, though. Maybe some kind of card stock? Something with a waxy surface? If that was so, then it might be just like those birch bark letters and drawings in that town in Russia. It could be perfectly fine, sitting on that beach for years, ju
st waiting to be found.

  The thought crossed my mind that maybe it was somehow connected with Mabel McGowan and whatever the events were in 1937 that had prompted her to donate that beach property to the town. Could this glass time capsule have been sitting out there since 1937, buried so deep in sand that the waves had only now exposed it for me to find?

  Until I got the note out, there would be no way to know.

  I found there was writing on the bottle too, in raised glass letters, which I hadn’t noticed before. Abe’s Ale, it said, in letters as tall as my pinkie finger. Fine Liquor For A Fine Time, was in smaller letters underneath. Well. I wasn’t exactly having a fine time of things, but I had to admit that finding a message in a bottle was kind of exciting. Even if it did turn out to be someone’s shopping list or just a simple “Kilroy was here.”

  That was enough fantasizing over the bottle for tonight. It was time to lay my head down on the pillow and get some rest. Jasmine and I would pick up where we left off on our vacation plans tomorrow, and the bottle would still be here.

  Setting it on the nightstand between our beds, I closed my eyes, and went to sleep.

  Chapter 3

  I had no idea what time it was when I woke up.

  It was dark, and the blankets were snugged up nice and cozy under my chin, and my flannel pajamas were warm and comfy. The air conditioning hummed as it fed more warm air into the room to counteract the falling temperatures outside our window. It was a perfect night for sleeping.

  But something had woken me up.

  I hate it when that happens. I can’t remember the particulars of the dream I’d been having, but it was something about me and James, and very little clothing.

  That put a smile on my face, sure enough. Stretching, I yawned and blinked my eyes in the general direction of the nightstand between my bed and Jasmine’s. There was a clock there, with big red digital numbers, right next to where I left the bottle. I squinted into the darkness and blinked again. Where was the clock? How was I supposed to figure out the time if I couldn’t…

  A man’s hand clamps down over my mouth, sweaty and rough. It pushes my head down into the pillow, and panic swells up inside of me. My fingers dig at his, but his grip is like iron. He was covering my mouth, and my nose, both at the same time.

  I can’t breathe.

  “Didn’t mean to wake you up,” a whispered voice hisses at me. “Didn’t bring anything to put ya back to sleep, either. Leaves me just one option if’n I want to be sure ya don’t go and blab to everybody that I was here.”

  That woke me right up. Nope. Sure not sleepy anymore!

  My eyes strain to see him but I can’t make out anything more than a vague silhouette against the darkness of the room all around us. He’s faceless. Nothing more than just a voice in the gloom. Crazy, scary thoughts whip through my mind at lightspeed as I dig my fingernails into his skin in a desperate attempt to get him to let go so I can get air into my lungs. I don’t have time to figure out who my attacker is. I just need to live.

  Then there is a flash of memory, and I think I know who my attacker is, even if I can’t see them.

  No time to prove if I’m wrong or right. Need to breathe. Need to breathe!

  “Thing is,” his voice whispers, “I need that bottle. If I gotta kill ya to get it… well, that’s just too bad. You’re too pretty to kill. Hmm. Maybe I got a little time. Yeah. Might have me some fun.”

  If I was panicking before, what I’m feeling now is full blown terror. Kicking my feet, pushing with my hands, I somehow manage to get out from under the blankets but he’s still holding me down. His other hand pushes hard on my shoulder and it hurts and my lungs are burning for oxygen and in the dark I can start to see little pinpricks of light.

  Do something, a voice screams inside my head. Do something!

  Then my knee rams something soft and squishy. My attacker yelps and stumbles away from me, his hand releasing from my face as he reflexively reaches down to protect himself after my unintended blow to his crotch sent parts of his anatomy up into his small intestines.

  There’s no time to enjoy my little victory, though. I’m too busy gulping in huge amounts of air, again and again, until I’m not seeing stars anymore, and I’m convinced I’m not going to die after all.

  “You… nasty little… woman!” the man grunts at me. Now his voice is hoarse and pitched just a little higher than usual. Still whispery. Still unidentifiable. “Gonna… mess you… up… for that!”

  I’m alive, I realize, but only for the moment. Maybe not for too much longer if I don’t do something.

  Ever see those movies where the female lead somehow unexpectedly knows karate or kung fu or whatever, just when she’s being attacked? Yeah. I’m not that kind of woman. Neither is anyone I know, for that matter. What I know about fighting I learned by watching reruns of Wentworth on TV, so I’m not exactly ready to go a few rounds with this guy, even if his family jewels are mortally wounded.

  So I did what any rational woman would do under the circumstances. I screamed.

  Criticize me if you want, but I’m not dying today.

  It does the trick as surely as if I’d threatened him with a gun. As soon as I let out the loudest screech for help I could, he scrambles up to his feet and crashes into the wall and knocks over a lamp in his haste to get to the door. It opens, and then there was bright light from the hallway that flashed against my eyes and leaves me just as completely blind as the darkness had before. My attacker was still a shadow as he ran into the hallway, and then he was gone.

  The door closes behind him.

  I reach for the nightstand, wanting to turn on the light.

  My slapping hand catches the smooth surface of the bottle, accidentally knocking it over and sending it over the edge to the floor.

  Just as my fumbling fingers find the light switch, just as I turn on the lamp, the bottle hits the thin but chic carpeting. It lands badly on one corner edge.

  And it shatters.

  In the other bed, Jasmine sits straight up, swinging her arms wildly around, her eyes all bleary and squinty. “What’s it?” she blurts out. “Who’s there?”

  I can’t believe she slept through all of that. That guy was going to… hurt me, and she never even woke up? It doesn’t matter now, and I don’t have time to explain it to her, either. All I can do is look at the destruction I’ve accidentally caused. The bottle has cracked into three large pieces, and several smaller shards are spread across the carpet. That’s sad, because I really wanted to display it back at my Inn, but my main concern is something else entirely. Reaching down carefully I pluck the rolled-up note from among the pieces of glass. It’s eight or nine centimeters long, from end to end. The twine tying it closed is frayed and about to fall apart. It feels oily to the touch. I was right about it not being paper. At least not the usual kind.

  I don’t really care what it is, I just want to save it.

  With a horrifying image of the note drying up into dust flashing through my mind and pushing me forward, I get out of bed—making sure to swing my feet over the opposite side from the broken bottle—and I take it to the top of the bureau, where I can set it down again.

  The string falls apart when I try to tug the edge free. The note uncurls, sort of, sticking wetly to itself. I know this is important. In the back of my head, there’s something telling me that this note is more than just an interesting find on the beach. I have to wonder if I was meant to find this. If this is fate, and if I’m falling feet first into another mystery whether I want to or not.

  Slowly, methodically, I push the note down flat on the top of the chest of drawers. There’s writing on the inside. It’s bold and dark, written in cursive, which is a disappearing language in this modern world of texting and e-mails. Kind of a secret code that only older people like me are going to be able to understand in a few short years.

  It’s faded, and blotchy, and I can only make out a few words of it.

  “My dearest Ma…where
I can be…don’t know…gold…find…”

  That’s all. There’s other words in between all of that but nothing I can make out. I kind of think maybe if it dried out more, the writing might become more visible with time.

  Or that might just be wishful thinking.

  All of this trouble, and a man breaking into our hotel room, for this? Hardly seems right.

  “Dell?” Jasmine asks, still in her bed. She pushes her fingers through her messy, golden hair. “What’s all the ruckus? Hey, did you break the bottle?”

  “Call the police,” I tell her. “Someone just tried to kill me.”

  “You ladies really should lock your hotel room doors,” Officer Halloway says to me.

  It is not the first time since he’s stepped into our room that I’ve had the overwhelming desire to smack him.

  I have to say the police in Hobart do things a might differently than the cops back in Lakeshore. Back home the police are there to help the community. Here, they seem to be more about closing a case without getting all the facts first.

  Or that might be just this one particular officer.

  “There’s signs on the door right there,” he continues. “Always keep your door locked when you’re away. Even here in Hobart, people like to steal what’s not theirs. We’re not all friendly here in the land down under, no matter what those Outback Steakhouse commercials say.”

  “The door was locked,” I insist. “I own my own Inn. I understand about keeping yourself safe when you’re on vacation. The door was locked. I threw the lock myself.”

  Officer Halloway looks at me skeptically. It’s obvious he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying, no matter how I protest. He’s tall and lean, and his face is severe with those narrow eyes and sharp chin. His buzzcut is uneven, like he shaves his hair down himself. The blue shirt of his uniform is all wrinkled. The impression I had of him personally matched his appearance. Five minutes after stepping into our hotel room he already looked bored.

  We’d gotten dressed again after making the call to the police. It was only four o’clock when I finally checked the time, so that told me exactly how early it had been when my attacker broke into our room.