Sarah bolted up at her waist in bed. Her chest heaved in quick spasms as she threw the covers from her legs.
“Crap, not again.” She looked at her alarm clock. Seven thirty a.m.
She stripped down to her underwear and made a mad dash for the small bathroom.
“Why do I always forget to set that dumb thing?”
In five minutes, Sarah was dressed and holding an untoasted bagel between her teeth at the front door. She whipped her heavy coat on and flung her book bag over a shoulder as she stormed down to Main Street in a whirlwind.
“Where are they?” Sarah looked down the road in both directions for any sign of the Festiva. “It’s gotta be around ten degrees out here.”
She took turns with her hands: one bite from the right while the left got warm, and then do-si-do in the opposite direction. One raisin bagel and two sneezes later, the street still hadn’t produced anything close to a Festiva. Sarah pulled up her sleeve and glanced at her watch.
“Fifteen minutes late?” She shoved her hand back into its warm pocket and went back inside. “That’s not like her at all.”
Sarah tossed the door shut and flung her pack onto the floor next to the sofa. She marched over to the phone in the kitchen, not bothering to take her boots off at the door. I’ll have to mop that later. The line picked up at Tanya’s house.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Heavner?”
It sounded like Sarah had woke her up.
“Yes,” the groggy woman said. “Sarah, is that you?”
“Yeah. Is Tanya there?”
“Well,” Ms. Heavner cleared her throat.
You quit smoking. Yeah, right.
“She’s still asleep at the moment, dear, but I can leave a message if you want.”
“On a school day?”
Tanya’s mom sighed into the phone and chuckled. “Sarah, honey---today’s Saturday.”
“Oh, gosh.” Sarah set the back of her hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry, Ms. H. I’m such an idiot.”
She grabbed the remote off the table and flipped the tube on to CBS. Sure enough. Cartoons.
“Don’t worry about it, honey. It happens to the best of us.”
Sarah sat at the table and untied her boots. “I’m sorry, Ms. Heavner. I’ll let you go.”
“I’ll let Tanya know you called later.”
“Thanks. Bye.”
She clicked the receiver off and tossed her boots back over next to the entry.
“Oh, well.” She eyed up the tub of instant coffee on the counter. “I’m already up.”
She pulled her favorite mug out of the cabinet. It had been a Christmas gift from Annie back in middle school. The unassuming cup had a cartoonish dancing sweet potato on it with the words, I yam what I yam, embossed on the opposite side. Only you, Anne. She made quick work of the java and settled in on the sofa for a few hours of mindless entertainment.
“It’ll be that long until Collin wakes up anyway.”
She called it right. Somewhere north of eleven, her phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hey, babe. It’s me.”
“About time you rolled outa bed, mister.”
Collin groaned into the phone. “I had a long night.”
“Oh, you did?”
“Uh huh.”
“And, why wasn’t your girlfriend involved?”
A chair creaked across the floor on his end of the line. “Because my girlfriend isn’t into Axis and Allies.”
“Who?”
“I rest my case, Your Honor.”
She chuckled and took another nip of her bean juice. “Who all played with you this time?”
“Ah, you know,” he said. Cereal clanged into an unseen bowl. “The usual suspects.”
“Marcie’s gonna be ticked if Paul forgets what today is for them.”
Collin choked on his breakfast. “I’d better call him. You want me to come by later?”
“Sure.” She cradled the phone on her shoulder and cupped her mug in both hands. “You can take me up to the library to get started on my history project.”
“Your chariot will be along in thirty minutes, m’ lady.”
“Does a Prism even run on horses?”
“Nah,” he said, laughing. “More like a couple of hamsters and some cockroaches holding hands.”
Sarah blew coffee bubbles out both sides of her nose.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.” She coughed. “I’ll live.” She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “I’ll see you in half an hour, honey.”
“Will do. I gotta call Paul.”
She waited with a hand held high.
“Love ya.”
“You, too Collin.”
She carted the phone back to its charger and grabbed a handful of napkins from the top of the fridge. Her mom shuffled into the kitchen from the other end of the apartment.
“Hey, kiddo.”
“Morning, ma.” Sarah cleaned up the coffee table and set her mug into the washer. “I’m going to go to the library in a bit to work on my history project with Collin.”
Karla cracked the fridge door and fished out a slice of cold pizza. Its cheese had taken on the white lumpy appearance that reminded Sarah of the bottom of someone’s foot.
“Okay,” Karla said. “Just be home before 3:30 so I can make it to my shift.”
“All right, momma.”
Sarah trotted off to her bedroom and shut the door. “Time for a wardrobe change.”
Collin’s horn beeped from down below.
“Sarah!” Her mom’s voice echoed from the living room. “Your ride’s here.”
“I know, mom.” She hurried to finish pulling her ensemble together and rounded the corner for the front door.
Her mom sat propped up in the recliner watching musclebound men in tights beat each other to death with oversized Q-Tips. Sarah tossed on her coat and slid a foot into either boot. I’ll just tie them on the way there.
“Don’t forget.” Karla took a swig of her soda. “No later than 3:30.”
“Got it, mom.” She shut the door behind her. “Bye.”
Collin popped the passenger side door open as she bounded out of the main door. “I was beginnin’ to wonder.”
“About?”
He pushed the shifter into drive and pulled out. “Whether or not you’d be late.”
Sarah let out an indignant huff. “Women are never late. We arrive exactly when we’re supposed to.”
Collin made the turn onto Hacker’s Creek Road toward the interstate. “What are you doing your project on anyway?”
“A great uncle that no one’s heard from in sixty years.” She bent over and tied her boots.
“Wow, and I thought interviewing my grandpa was extensive.”
He navigated the little coupe onto the desolate stretch of highway and turned on a CD.
“Is this okay with you?” He maneuvered past a slow-moving farm truck.
Sarah nodded and settled in next to him.
“Tell me more about this mysterious uncle,” Collin said. “Is he still alive?”
“Dunno.” She turned her attention to the passing snow-covered trees. “He might be. That’s what I want to find out.”
Collin took the exit onto the road into Weston proper. “I wonder why he never bothered to try and contact anyone in six decades.”
“If I knew that then it wouldn’t be a mystery,” she tapped his thigh, “would it?”
“Touché, Ms. Daniels.”
They pulled into the parking lot of the public library and headed straight for an empty table near the reference section.
“Relatively quiet today.” Sarah tossed her coat and book bag into the vacant chair beside her.
Collin disappeared behind a high shelf of tomes dedicated to local history and lore. Sarah scanned the area looking for a place to begin her research. Worn leather spines of every color and size drifted past her eyes until they fell upon a collection of oversized tan books near the librarian’s station. She strode over to the small bookshelf and knelt down in front of it.
1900, 1910---ah ha!
Sarah heaved the big book up in her arms and headed back to their table.
“Looks like you hit the jackpot.” Collin thumbed through one of the books in his stack.
She set the book on her side of the table and cracked its long spine. The acrid smell of its ancient pages beckoned Sarah closer.
“It’s the Census reports for this county from 1930,” she said, scanning the pages. “I figured it was as good a place as any to start.”
Collin nodded as he jotted down something in his notebook.
She flipped to the G’s in the book until at last the Greene family name appeared. None of these names jump out. She turned back to Greene, Albert and began again. I guess I’ll just have to review every one of these for their kids’ names.
The morning burned on into early afternoon. Collin had made three other trips into the rows of books scratching notes into his history notebook all the while.
Sarah slapped a palm onto her current page. “Found you!”
The middle-aged librarian burned holes into her from behind her thick goggles.
Sarah winced. “Sorry.”
She fumbled through the little front pocket on her backpack for a pen. She flipped to a clean page in her notebook and scribbled her findings into it:
Father – Waldon Greene
Mother – Eleanor Bridges Greene
Children – November, Ina Jane, April, Maximillian, Mortimer, Emma, and Patricia.
Sarah noted the address in Jane Lew and returned the Census book to its shelf. Collin slid his coat on and rounded up his belongings.
“You ready?” he asked, grabbing his belly. “I’m starving.”
She nodded and zipped up her coat. “Me, too.” She slung her pack over a shoulder and strode toward the main doors. “Would you mind if we swung by someplace on the way?”
“Nope. Where to?”
She sat down in the passenger seat and buckled up. “An old farm out on the south side of town. We can get some hot dogs on the way back to my place.”
“Sold!” Collin fired up his car and navigated them back onto the interstate.
The naked trees passed by in sullen blurs as they made their way out onto the back roads leading to the old Greene farm.
“I think this is it,” Sarah said, pointing to a dilapidated two-story house on their right.
“Looks haunted, if you ask me.” He turned his car up into the worn gravel driveway.
Sarah shook her head as she shut her door. “No. The spirit has been sucked right out of this place.”
The home’s once opulent wrap-around front porch now sat in decayed disarray. Bare wood poked through its whitewash paint like weathered scabs. Windows sat broken, allowing the late fall breeze to whistle through their shattered remains.
“Looks like it was quite a place in its heyday.” Collin walked around the side of the house. “Who lived here?”
Sarah strode around to join him following a thin worn trail through the shin-deep weeds. “My Gram grew up here.”
“Check that out.” Collin walked over to a rusted pipe jutting out of the earth. He took the pump handle in his hands and forced it down. “I wonder if there’s still anything underground.”
“Leave it alone.” She grabbed Collin by the forearms. “It’s not our place to mess with it.”
“Sorry.” He dusted off his hands on his pants and trailed after Sarah who rushed toward the leaning barn in the backyard.
She disappeared into the cool shadows of the structure. “It’s not here.”
“What isn’t?” Collin asked jogging up behind her.
“The ---” her eyes lit up at a rusty object on the far wall, “bucket!”
She ran over to the old pail and picked it up by its frail handle. The brown dust rubbed off in her palm.
“Congratulations,” he said, “it’s an old bucket.”
Sarah chuckled walking back toward him. “This was the bucket that he used to bury the treasure in when they were kids.”
Collin stood at the big door wearing a blank expression.
“I’ll tell you about it on the way to lunch.” She carried her find back to the car.
“You’re not seriously going to bring that with you, are you?”
Sarah sat the pail between her legs on the floor of the car.
“Guess so.” He turned the key in the ignition and drove them back into civilization.