The first page was a description of a garden. Evie couldn’t guess where or when; it didn’t have a label. It didn’t matter. The pages held her mother’s voice. Evie put them back on the shelf, where they looked out of place and lonely.
She left the room, closing the door softly, as if an infant slept inside. It was precious, wondrous. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
She made tea and sat at the kitchen table with a pen and sheet of paper to write longhand, which she hadn’t done in ages. It helped sometimes, making the words physical. Not much story happened. Mostly, she made lists, character sketches, snippets of description for if, when, she ever got around to writing the novel.
She was asleep with her head on the kitchen table when her father emerged for breakfast in the morning.
“Trouble sleeping?” he said, standing on the other side of the table, amused.
Stretching the kinks out of her back and neck, she rubbed her face. “Yeah. No. I don’t know, I just meant to get some tea.” She didn’t remember falling asleep; her body still felt like it was midnight.
“It was the wind blowing last night. Rattles the whole house. It kept me awake, too.” He didn’t act like it. He was already dressed for the day. He poured a glass of orange juice and drank it while he pulled his coat from the rack by the door.
She wanted to ask him about the storeroom, but realized he was getting ready to go out. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve got a Watch shift this morning.” He was on the local Citizens’ Watch, had been since her mother died. The local police didn’t have enough people to staff the checkpoints and continue their usual workload. Citizens’ Watch took up the slack.
“Are you sure—I mean, are you sure you should still be doing that? I didn’t think you’d still—”
“I’m not dead yet,” he said cheerfully.
“But what if something happens?”
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
“But—”
“Evie, I plan to keep things as normal as possible for as long as I can. I like the Watch. It gets me out. I’ve got everyone in town looking out for me. I’ll be fine.”
This was like when she was in high school, with her parents standing in the kitchen, listing all the reasons she shouldn’t go out after the game, with all the drunks on the road, and her insisting that she’d be fine.
He put the empty glass in the sink. He’d reached the door when he looked back and said, “You want to come along?”
“I should try to get some work done. I don’t want to leave Bruce hanging.”
“I’ll see you after lunch, then.”
“Dad?”
He hesitated, hand on the doorknob.
“I went downstairs last night.” She let that hang for a moment, waiting for him to offer a response, wondering what he would say without her prompting him.
“Oh?” was all he said.
She wet her lips and tried again. “The storeroom—has the stuff in there ever been cataloged? Do you have any idea what all is down there? What it’s worth? You could have your own antique show.”
A slow smile grew on his lips, and the look in his eye told her before he even spoke that he wasn’t going to answer her question.
“I’ll see you this afternoon,” he said, then was gone.
Figured. Though she wondered why a roomful of antiques demanded such deep dark secrecy. Had someone in their family’s history been a master thief? Run a pawnshop in the last century and never bothered to sell off the assets? Was a budding museum curator? At least he hadn’t gotten angry at her for invading the forbidden storeroom.
She set up her laptop in the living room, on the coffee table, and sat on the hardwood floor in her robe and stocking feet. She’d shower and change later. Who did she have to impress?
Curled up in the middle of the carpet, napping politely, Mab kept her company. When Evie got up for a glass of water or to stretch her muscles, Mab always looked at her, ears cocked, alert. When Evie relaxed, so did Mab. Evie worked up the courage to scratch the dog’s ears; Mab acknowledged the attention with a couple thumps of her tail. Her father must have kept the stray dog for company.
Bruce had already e-mailed her sketches of the new pages. He must have been up all night, too. Once colored, the Cessna explosion was going to be spectacular. He had it covering a two-page spread.
So, what to write next. They had a formula that demanded a certain number of shots fired each issue, and she was in danger of running short. She needed a battle scene.
The crew barreled across the tundra in a stolen Jeep, racing against an execution order sent out for one of the men they were supposed to rescue. The Blackhawk was out of commission for now—sabotage in the fuel tank. The Russians were supposed to be helping them, but someone on the inside didn’t want them to succeed. A three-way battle ensued, and no one was sure who was siding with whom.
Usually, Evie wrote things like “chase scene” and “fight,” and let Bruce’s capable imagination construct the details in four-color panels that splashed across entire pages.
But something about this battle tickled her story instincts. Throw out a clue, a hook that could carry the plot to the next issue. An enemy chopper ran them down. Matchlock managed to steer them into a gully and under cover, but not before Talon saw a face he swore he knew, a man he thought he had left behind to die in the arctic years before. Talon had had to make a decision—stay to save his platoon-mate, or leave and ensure the success of the mission. Talon had abandoned him. The memory still haunted him.
And there the issue ended, centered on the expression of stark disbelief on Talon’s face.
Next issue: He’ll want to follow the enemy chopper. He’ll want to learn what had happened to his friend, how he’d survived. Tracker argues with him. Her mind is on the spy imprisoned in Siberia. On the mission. She’ll go alone if she has to, she’ll defy him—
Someone knocked on the door.
Evie couldn’t see who it was out the kitchen window. Mab wasn’t barking. She opened the door.
An old woman stood on the porch, looking at Evie with a patient, expectant expression. Mab turned a circle and wagged her tail, as if asking for praise, or forgiveness, or any acknowledgment of her canine presence.
“Can I help you?” Evie felt awkward in her unwashed, half-dressed state, not worthy to appear before this kind old woman.
“Perhaps,” she said. “I’m looking for something, and I thought it might be here.”
Her skin was wrinkled like old linen, and her hair was ash gray and tied in a bun at her neck. Her eyes were clear and green.
She might have been anyone, from anywhere. Someone from town, from down the street, from the next farm over, looking for a stick of butter, or wanting to borrow a hammer. But Evie’s blood rushed in her ears. She felt electrified, like when she’d touched the fleece in the storeroom.
Her words seemed to come from some other lips. “What are you looking for?”
“Shoes. A pair of slippers, like you might wear with a ball gown.”
Evie didn’t know where the words came from. She spoke on a hunch. “Glass slippers?”
The woman smiled, lighting her face. “Yes, exactly.”
“Come in.” Moving softly, Evie led her to the basement. She stopped the woman outside the storeroom. “Wait here.”
She didn’t even need the flashlight this time. She stepped around the stacks of crates and warrens of shelves. Dozens of boxes, a hundred objects wrapped in cloth and packed away, and Evie knew where to go. Only her second time in this room, and she knew. Against the side wall was a wardrobe made of oak with beveled edges and brass knobs. Inside hung gowns—rich, amazing gowns that seemed to sparkle with their own light, shimmering and changing color when Evie tilted her head. At the bottom of the wardrobe, shoes were stacked. Iron shoes that might be put in a fire until they were red hot. A tiny pair of boots that might have fit a cat. Sandals with leather wings stitched to them. Gold slippers, silk slippers. Glass slippers to fit a pair of small feet—blown glass, etched with ribbons and lines to make them look as if they’d been sewn. Flashing, they caught the scant light, which seemed to shine deep within the glass. Evie picked them up; they were light, fragile. She couldn’t imagine dancing in them.
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