“What?” I asked.
“Trees!” she said. “You know, round trunks, rings inside. Kind of like a target symbol!”
We gazed around us at all the tree trunks in sight. There must have been twenty, thirty trees within our view. For a moment, I could almost sense the trees laughing at us.
“Should we dig under every one?” Alice asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “But we don’t even know if we’re in the right place. I’m starting to think this whole search might be kind of crazy.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Alice said. “Crazy’s fun!”
The truth is, Alice could make anything fun. “Crazy’s fine,” I said. “But if we’re going to start excavating the entire woods, I’m going to need a snack.”
“Mom’s making cinnamon buns,” Alice said, raising her eyebrows.
“Yum,” I said.
“First one there gets two,” she taunted.
She took off running in the direction of her cabin. I leaped to my feet and raced after her at top speed. But before I’d gone ten steps, my foot caught on a raised tree root and I pitched forward, falling to the ground. Alice came jogging back, gushing apologies.
“Oh, gosh, Adam, I’m so sorry,” she said, coming to kneel beside me. “Are you OK?”
I rubbed my knees and brushed a trickle of blood from my dirt-covered hand. “I’m OK,” I said, feeling completely stupid.
“Oh, my gosh!” Alice repeated.
“It’s just a scratch,” I said, holding up my palm. “See?”
But Alice wasn’t paying attention to me at all. Instead, she was staring at an enormous tree stump beside us. “Look!” she said.
Tall grasses had grown up around most of the stump, but eventually I noticed what Alice had seen — a piece of wood that didn’t match the bark beside it. I leaned forward and parted the grasses.
Someone had placed a piece of cut wood over part of the stump. On the right side of the wood was an ancient metal thumbtack, stuck into the wood like a doorknob. We stared in stunned silence. There was only one thing this could be.
“Oh. My. God,” Alice said. “I can’t breathe.”
“This is it,” I said. “It is, isn’t it?” My voice was shaky.
Alice nodded. “Open it,” she whispered.
I reached forward and tugged on the pushpin. Nothing happened.
“Here, hand me the measuring tape,” I said to Alice.
She handed me the tape and I used the metal end to trace the seams of the door. I pulled again. This time it opened — on tiny metal hinges.
“Whoa!” Alice said.
Behind the door was a natural hollow where the wood had rotted away. It was dark and full of tree debris, but we could see the edge of a square metal box lying inside.
“This is so intense!” Alice said, gripping my knee.
“Should I . . . ?” I asked, gesturing inside.
Alice nodded. I reached my hand inside and pulled out the box.
We stared in wonder at its top.
“For Viola. Forever,” Alice read.
The words were written on the surface in black paint. They had lasted for more than half a century. Now all we had to do was lift the cover to find the treasure hidden inside.
“Should we take it to her right away?” Alice said.
“Before we look inside?” I asked. It hadn’t occurred to me for a moment that we wouldn’t get the first look. But I had to admit that Alice had a point. “It’s hers, really, isn’t it?”
“On the other hand,” Alice went on, thinking it through, “I guess we don’t know if whatever he gave her is still, you know, presentable.”
“Right. It could be moldy cookies, decayed flowers,” I said. “We’d better check it out. Just in case.”
Alice nodded, and I slowly lifted the lid. Lying inside was a cloth bag tied with string. I loosened the ties and stretched the opening wide, peering in.
“Oh,” I said.
“What is it? What is it?” Alice asked.
“It’s not moldy cookies,” I told her.
I reached into the bag and pulled out a small wooden loon, expertly carved. Its beak was pointing up, as if it was just finishing a gulp of water. Lines of feathers defined a simple wing.
“Look at that!” Alice exclaimed. “It’s gorgeous!”
But there was more. Next I pulled out a squat beaver. Then a deer. Then a bear.
“These are amazing!” Alice said. “And to think, no one has touched them in decades! I’m getting goose bumps!”
There were seven animals in all. Alice picked them up one by one, turning them over and rubbing their smooth sides.
“He sure had a thing for animals,” I said.
“And what an artist,” Alice said. Then she gasped. “You know . . .” An enormous grin spread across her face. “I think I just figured out who G is!” She drummed her thighs with excitement. “Do you know?”
I shook my head. “Is he some famous sculptor or something?”
“Nope,” Alice said a little smugly. “Don’t these look a little bit familiar to you somehow?” she hinted.
They did, actually, but I had no idea why. And I didn’t appreciate it when Alice burst into laughter. “Think, Adam! Think!!”
“What?” I asked, still not getting it.
“The mantel . . . Those little carved spaces. These are the same animals!”
I looked at the animals again. Of course: bear, loon, beaver, fish, squirrel, wolf, and deer. They were the same seven animals on the mantel in Grandma’s living room.
“Alice,” I said, “do you think they fit into those spaces?”
“I bet they do,” she said. “It’s like he carved the outline of the animal for the mantel, and then turned the leftover piece of wood into a three-dimensional figure.”
I saw it all now, just as Alice did. “So G is the builder’s son!”
“It sure looks like that to me,” Alice said. “Do you know his name?”
I shook my head. “Not yet,” I said. I picked up the animals again, one by one, imagining the hands that carved them into life.
“This whole thing is so amazing,” Alice said. She opened and closed the little wooden door, then examined the whole tree stump, brushing off the dirt and needles that had piled up on top. “And here’s our target,” she added, pointing out the tree rings.
I shook my head in amazement. Frustrated as we’d been in certain moments, we’d actually been working with one super tightly constructed treasure map.
I looked at the animals in my lap. “I’ve got to show these to her,” I said. “But I don’t want my mom around. She doesn’t even know about G. And she obviously knows nothing about the treasure.”
“Can you wait till she’s out of the house or something?”
I shook my head. “How? She’s in full-time planning mode about how to get Grandma packed up and out of here. And I don’t think I can invent any old errand to distract her.” I put the animals back in the bag, then settled it into the metal box.
Alice watched me, looking thoughtful. “I know what to do,” she said after a few moments. “Just leave it to me.”
WHEN ALICE AND I got back to the cabin, Grandma was still in her room and Mom was taking a shower. We pulled one of the animals from the bag — the bear — and slid it into its space on the carved mantel. It was a perfect fit.
Alice gave me a thumbs-up sign, and we put the bear back in the bag.
“I’d better go now,” she whispered. “Stick around. If this works like I want it to, your mom will be getting a phone call in about fifteen minutes.”
I felt suddenly uncomfortable. “This isn’t a mean trick, is it?” I asked.
Alice frowned. “When are you going to finally believe that I’m a nice person?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was a dumb thing to say.”
I hid the treasure box under my bed and waited to hear Mom come out of the shower and go into her room. A few minutes late
r she emerged, dressed and ready, it seemed, for action. She had a pen behind her ear and a thick notepad in her hands. She passed me sitting on the couch pretending to read a book.
“It’s not fair of Grandma to tell me not to make plans,” she said.
“Have you talked to Uncle Martin?” I asked.
“He said he could come stay for the week after we go,” she said. “But that hardly seems worth it.”
I shrugged. “She’ll appreciate every day.”
Then, right on schedule, the phone rang. I heard Mom talking to Mrs. Jensen for a few minutes about Grandma, and then, to my surprise, she ended by saying, “Why, that would be lovely, thank you. I’ll see you in a few minutes!”
“Are you going out?” I asked her.
She nodded. “Mrs. Jensen offered to help me strategize,” she said, sounding amazed. “I’ll have a quick cup of tea over there and be right back.” She picked up her purse and her calendar. “What’s the fastest way?”
“You can try Poison Ivy Parkway,” I said.
Mom looked at me with confusion.
“Maybe you should drive,” I said.
She nodded and left.
I was growing impatient waiting for Grandma to wake up. She never took such long naps. Was it because of the stroke? The hospital stay? For a brief moment, I had the morbid thought that maybe she’d died in her sleep, so I was doubly relieved when I heard a sound in her room moments later. I peeked in through a crack in the doorway. She was sitting up in bed, and when I knocked and opened the door, I realized she’d been awake for some time. There were papers surrounding her on the bed, and she was reading.
“Hi, Grandma,” I said, hoping like crazy that she was going to be clear-headed now, not lost in the past as she’d been the last time I’d seen her looking at old papers.
“Hi, Adam,” she said. “Did I hear your mother go out?”
“Yeah. She just went next door.”
“Good,” she said. “I’d like to take a walk down to the lake and say hello. Before your mother tells me it’s time to say good-bye.”
She started stacking up the papers, but before she was done, I sat down beside her.
“Grandma, can we talk?” I asked her.
She eyed me uncertainly. “What for?”
I looked down at my feet and tried to think of what to say next.
“Is this about my accident?” she asked.
“No, not that. It’s about . . .” My voice trailed off. I almost said “G,” but that seemed too obscure. “It’s about, um, the treasure.”
“Treasure?” she asked, looking at me blankly.
I realized I didn’t even know how to start. I took a deep breath. “Grandma, before your accident, you wrote me notes. You left them in my room. Do you remember?”
Grandma frowned and shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I forged on. “Notes. Kind of . . . personal ones,” I said, trying not to blush. “You wrote them to someone named G, and you talked about missing him and about a treasure he’d left for you. . . .”
Grandma’s gray eyebrows gathered together like mini storm clouds. “Stop right there, Adam! What have you been doing? Going through my personal things? I didn’t know you were the kind of kid who did such . . . such . . .”
“Grandma, please!” I interrupted. My voice cracked. I never imagined she’d be angry at me. It was true, I guess — I had gone through her things when I’d taken the map. But she didn’t even know about that yet.
“You really did write me notes,” I said. “I’m telling the truth! You left them in my room when you were . . . confused. Like the way you were at the hospital.”
At the mention of the hospital, she grew quiet. She looked at me apprehensively and took a small breath. “What did they say?”
“Nothing much,” I told her. “They were hard to follow. But I figured out, I mean, I think I figured out there was somebody before my grandfather. Somebody whose name started with G.”
“Gil,” my grandmother said, almost in a whisper.
“Was he the builder’s son? The one who carved the mantel and the porch rail?” I asked.
She nodded.
“He was an artist,” I said.
She nodded again. “He was a lovely boy.”
When I looked at her face then, full of its lines and creases, I thought how an old person’s face was almost its own kind of map. Trails of joy, furrows of anger, lines of sadness — it was all there for a person to read. But it could also change. Looking at her now, the anger wasn’t so visible; instead, I saw all the sadness and hurt in sloping trails beside her eyes.
“You really liked him, didn’t you?” I said, surprising myself when the words came out. Maybe I wanted to hear more of the happy part of the story, because I already knew it didn’t end the way Grandma had wanted.
Grandma sighed. “We met when he was helping his father build the house. We were just teenagers, you know. But back then, sixteen or seventeen wasn’t too early to talk about marriage. My dad was very critical of Gil, though. Said he was too much of a daydreamer. A romantic. So I kept our relationship a secret. Everyone thought we were just friends.”
“Even Dottie?” I asked.
“She hardly knew him. She was away working as a camp counselor that first summer,” Grandma said. “The following June, we were all back at the lake. I was just getting ready to tell her about Gil when she introduced me to your grandfather. And then . . .” She trailed off.
I didn’t say anything, just waited and watched. Grandma really was a tough old bird — she still didn’t cry as she told me about the accident. Gil had been driving his truck back to his house one afternoon when he lost control and drove off the road over an embankment. The truck flipped and he’d been terribly hurt. He lasted one day in the hospital before dying, but Grandma had never seen him again.
“He was conscious when they first brought him to the hospital,” she said quietly. “He told them he swerved so he wouldn’t hit a butterfly.” She smiled ruefully and shook her head.
I pictured the moment: the delicate butterfly, the heavy metal truck.
“That was Gil for you,” Grandma said. “He was so talented. And so smart. But he was almost too sweet for his own good, and he had a huge soft spot for animals.”
I wanted to hear more about him, but it didn’t seem like the time. “I’m sorry, Grandma,” I said instead.
“Well, don’t be too sorry,” she said, recovering her usual voice. “If I hadn’t married your grandfather, you wouldn’t be sitting here today!”
I could tell that she was ready to be done talking, but I still hadn’t told her about the box. “Grandma,” I said, “I found Gil’s treasure map that day you asked me to file some papers. You’d mentioned it in one of your notes.”
I waited for her to erupt, but she only scowled. “That old thing? Gil gave me that a few days before the accident. He thought it would be fun to send me off running through the woods on a wild-goose chase. And of course at first I thought it was great sport. Then Gil was gone and that map became a torment! That boy was a wonderful artist, but he didn’t have the least idea how to make a map. I tried it hundreds of times. But I never found anything at the end of my route.”
I looked at Grandma, unable to contain a smile.
“What?” she said.
“We found it,” I said.
“We?”
“Alice and me,” I said. “We found the treasure, Grandma. We found it this morning!”
Her eyes widened behind her glasses, and her expression was almost like a child’s again. “You have it?” she whispered.
I nodded.
“Here?”
“It’s in my room,” I said.
“Well, then, what are you waiting for? Go get it!” she said.
I hurried out of the room and came back with the box. There was still dirt on the bottom, but I knew Grandma wouldn’t care. I placed it on top of the quilt covering her lap.
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She traced a shaky finger over the inscription. For Viola. Forever. A tear slipped down her cheek, and then another. Feeling suddenly awkward, I started to get up to give her some privacy. But she laid a hand on my knee.
“Stay,” she said.
She placed both hands back on the box. Wizened and spotted, thin and frail — they weren’t the hands that were supposed to be doing this. They were supposed to be young hands. Teenage hands.
Grandma gingerly lifted the cover off the box and set it aside. She stared for a moment at the little cloth bag. Then she took it in her hands, pulled it open, and slipped her hand inside. She felt around with her eyes closed for several seconds, then spilled all the animals onto her lap.
“Oh,” she said with a hushed gasp. “You see. . . .” Her voice trailed off. She picked up the bear and gently stroked it head to tail as if smoothing its shaggy fur. Then she slid it between the pinkie and ring finger of her left hand and held it there. She picked up the loon, turning it left and right, and then slid it between the next two fingers, beside the bear. She admired and caressed each animal in turn — even the fat fish — and placed them between her fingers until all seven were upright in her two hands. Then she held them out in front of her, not able — or maybe just not bothering — to wipe away the tears that had come now, like rain on cracked earth. She drew the animals to her face and kissed them, with a quiet sob. “It almost feels as if he’s here again,” she said. “Oh, sweet Gil.”
After a few minutes, she set the animals down and took off her glasses. I handed her a tissue, and she wiped her eyes.
“Well,” she said. She looked at me with an expression that said “I guess you’ve seen it all now.”
“They’re amazing, aren’t they?” I said. “And they fit. In the mantel. You probably already figured that out.”
Grandma nodded. “That’s what I guessed. How on earth did you find this, Adam? I tried that map so many times.”
“Remember the paces?” I said. “Two hundred paces on Deer Drive, thirty paces on Beaver Boulevard . . . that kind of thing?”
She nodded.
“You had to measure animal steps — you know, the deer’s and the beaver’s steps. Not human steps.”
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