Oma pulled an old white pillowcase from the closet with three holes cut in the fabric and handed it to Holly.

  “You go to the bathroom and put this on so I can wash that dress. Your momma’s got enough to deal with without having to do laundry tonight.”

  Holly took the familiar pillowcase—it wasn’t the first time she’d come here covered in mud—and then dashed up the steps to change.

  “You know where your spare clothes are, Jordy. Go clean up and put your muddy clothes in the machine.” Oma kissed the top of Jordan’s head and sent him up the steps.

  Chapter Four

  Jordan squinted, trying to predict his opponent’s next move. Would she attack or negotiate for the treasure he held captive?

  Holly’s bare feet danced on top of the coffee table, and she jabbed at the air with her closed pink-and-purple umbrella, the pillowcase she wore making her look like a shipwreck victim.

  “Hand over the treasure, pirate!”

  Jordan met her pretend sword with his own, blades smacking together in a fierce battle. “You’ll have to take it from me. If you can.”

  He jumped on the nearby couch with the treasure box tucked in the crook of one arm. Holly sprang onto the opposite side of the couch, slicing at him even as she wobbled. “It’s the bottom of the ocean for you, scallywaggle!”

  He was too slow to stop her last jab, and she caught him in the ribs. He groaned and dropped his sword into the invisible waves below. He was a goner. The depths would claim him.

  Jordan swayed on the soft couch cushion, and the sealed box in his arms slipped free and crashed to the floor with a thud that made both of them cringe.

  The rough landing knocked the lid loose, and the contents spilled onto the floor. With a gasp, Jordan and Holly looked at each other and then the treasure.

  “Are you two all right in there?” Oma asked from the kitchen.

  “Fine!” They called back at the same time, and then scrambled off the couch to inspect the box’s secret contents. It wasn’t gold, dreams, or even baseball cards. It was a pile of strange and unexpected things.

  When Jordan reached for an item, Holly blocked his hand. “Wait! Buried treasure is almost always cursed. We should be careful.”

  Jordan snatched his hand back. “Cursed?”

  What did that mean? Would his fingers fall off if he touched something? Would he be doomed to walk the earth for all eternity like a ghost?

  Holly grinned in that way she did when she was teasing him, and he rolled his eyes. He’d fallen for it. Like always. This wasn’t even real treasure, and it wasn’t buried by pirates, so it couldn’t be cursed. It was a box of odd things someone stashed out in the woods.

  But why?

  Jordan might bury something bad to keep it hidden. Maybe even something important to keep it safe from burglars, but he wouldn’t bury the kind of stuff people found squished in the cracks of car seats.

  Holly scooped up a harmonica and turned it over in her hands. “This is one of those music things, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, a harmonica.”

  “Do you think it’s magic?”

  “Why would it be magic?”

  “Someone thought it was special enough to hide in a box and bury by the watcher tree where no one else would ever find it. Except we did, so I guess that plan didn’t work too well.”

  “There’s no such thing as magic, Holly.”

  Holly pressed the harmonica to her lips and blew into it. It made a terrible sound—like the trumpeting of an angry herd of elephants—and the lights overhead flickered.

  Holly froze with her lips still pressed to the harmonica, her wide eyes sweeping back and forth across the ceiling. Jordan’s eyes did the same, but the lights had gone back to normal.

  “Play it again,” he said.

  Holly filled her cheeks with air and blew it into the harmonica, making a noise so loud and awful that it hurt Jordan’s ears. The lanterns framing the doorway dimmed and brightened. So did the lamp on the side table. There was a faint buzzing and then pop! The lamp went out.

  Holly dropped the harmonica on the carpet. “Maybe we shouldn’t play with that.”

  Jordan wanted to know how it had made the lights flicker—it didn’t make sense—but he wasn’t willing to touch it and find out. It could break something more than a lightbulb.

  “Kids,” Oma said from the doorway, and they both jumped in surprise. “The wind is getting stronger, and the power is starting to flicker. If it goes out, I want you to grab the candles from the cupboard under the stairs and make sure every guest has one in their room.”

  Ha! It wasn’t the harmonica. Jordan knew there was no such thing as magic.

  “Jordy, did you hear me?” Oma asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. Give candles to the guests if the power goes out.”

  Oma nodded and left them to their investigating.

  Jordan picked up a roll of paper tied with a piece of string and opened it. The paper felt crispier and heavier than normal paper, and the ink was faded. He stared at the cursive handwriting, but he still couldn’t make out the words.

  He held it in front of Holly. “Can you read that?”

  She pressed her face close to the paper and squinted. “I don’t think that’s English. It could be a code or something.”

  “I wonder if we can figure it out.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  Jordan made a thoughtful noise and set the cryptic note aside to check out the other stuff. He pushed aside a rock-hard Tootsie roll, a long, gold bullet, and a marble before picking up a roughly carved wooden bear. “This is kind of cool.”

  “Ooh, pretty.” Holly took the bear from him. “I wonder who buried this stuff.” She upended the bear in her hands. “There’s a name and date on the bottom. Look!”

  It was hard to read the numbers and letters scratched into the wood, but it looked like “John, 1918.”

  “I wonder who John is,” Holly said, “1918 is forever ago. Do you think he’s older than Oma?”

  “Dad says Oma’s older than dirt.”

  “She can’t be older than dirt. In Sunday school, Ms. Tawny said we came from dirt.”

  “I didn’t come from dirt. I came from a hospital.” His mom and dad had a whole picture album of him when he was a wrinkly raisin wrapped in a blue blanket. And he wasn’t dirty like someone who crawled out of the ground.

  “There’s John from school, but he’s not old enough.” Holly stared at the carpet in thought. “Maybe it’s a Bible verse. There’s a John in the Bible.”

  “Let’s check.” Jordan hopped up and grabbed Opa’s worn leather Bible from the bookshelf. He died of a heart attack when Jordan was only four, so Jordan didn’t really remember him, but Oma read from this Bible sometimes. He handed the Bible to Holly. “Here.”

  Holly set the Bible on the floor between them and opened it. She ran her finger down the table of contents page. “John. Found him.” She flipped to that section of the book. “Chapter 19, verse 18. ‘Where they . . .” She paused before the next word and tried to sound it out. “C-r-u . . .”

  “It’s—”

  “Don’t tell me. I can figure it out.”

  Jordan pinched his lips and waited. They had both heard the word in church enough times to know what it meant—Jesus gave His life to save all mankind—but Jordan only knew it by sight because he sat with Oma some evenings when she read her Bible.

  “Cruci . . . oh! Crucified,” Holly said. “That’s how that’s spelled. ‘When they crucified him, and two others with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the . . . mid . . . st. Midst.’ I’m not sure that’s a real word.”

  “It means ‘in the middle,’ I think.”

  “Maybe they didn’t have enough room to write middle, so they sort of squashed it into a different word. There are a lot of words and not a lot of space.”

  “It’s only one more letter. People back then just talked funny.” Jordan flicked the stale Tootsie roll. “It doesn’t make sense to put that on the bear. I don’t think it’s a Bible thing.”

  “Hmm.” Holly closed the Bible. “Oma probably knows who John is. We could find him and give his stuff back. And if we can’t find him, we keep it.”

  Figuring out the mystery of who this box belonged to sounded like a lot more fun than keeping the stuff that was in it. What would they do with a stale Tootsie roll and an old harmonica?

  A knock came from the front room, and a moment later, Gin’s voice—so much like Holly’s, except more childlike—drifted through the house.

  “Hi, Oma! Mom says she has to go to work, and I can’t stay home alone ’cause I get into things, and she doesn’t wanna have to come home and clean the house after a long day ’cause I made a mess. Can I please have a giant cookie?” Gin asked, rattling off the entire sentence without a breath.

  “Of course you can, precious,” Oma said. “You know where the jar is.”

  Holly abandoned the contents of the treasure chest and dashed down the hall to see her mom and sister.

  Jordan hopped up and followed her into the entryway. Ms. Emily was the tallest woman Jordan had ever seen, but aside from that, she looked like Holly and Gin—pale skin, carrot-red hair, warm brown eyes.

  “You’re wearing the pillowcase again, I see,” Ms. Emily said when she saw Holly’s skinny arms and legs sticking out of the fabric.

  “This is my uniform for catching thieving pirates. Not a pillowcase, Mom,” Holly informed her.

  “Her dress is in the washing machine,” Oma explained. “I couldn’t send it home filthy.”

  Ms. Emily offered Holly a frustrated look even as she said, “Thank you, Rose. I can never make up for all your kindness.”

  “You don’t have to make up for acts of love, dear. They’re freely given.”

  Holly straightened her pillowcase dress and lifted her chin. “I’m ready for pictures, Mom.”

  Ms. Emily’s eyebrows lifted. “Not in that you’re not.”

  “I mean for next time. I don’t want you to forget me, and if pictures help old people remember, I’ll sit still for one.”

  “Old people, huh?” Ms. Emily bent down to Holly’s level, hands on her knees. “I have one gray hair. Only one. And it’s from you.” She tapped the tip of Holly’s nose with a finger, and Holly scrunched it in response.

  “I didn’t make your hair gray.”

  “Oh, yes you did.” Ms. Emily straightened and spread her arms. “Jordan, where’s my hug?”

  Jordan rushed forward into her arms. He loved Ms. Emily. She was like a second mom, and she always made him feel welcome and loved at her house. “Can Holly hang out with me a little longer? I don’t want her to go home yet.”

  Ms. Emily gave him a squeeze before releasing him. “That’s up to your Oma. I have an emergency surgery. A cat attacked by a wild animal.” She turned her attention to Oma. “Cris is doing inventory at the bookstore. I can drop the girls off with him if you’re busy or—”

  “Absolutely not. I have all my precious ones under one roof for the next few hours. I couldn’t be happier.”

  “Thank you.” Ms. Emily closed her fingers around her jingling keys and fixed a hard gaze on Holly. “Behave yourself, young lady, and don’t bother the guests.”

  “I won’t.”

  Jordan grinned and whispered, “Won’t behave or won’t bother the guests?”

  Holly flashed a mischievous smile in reply. She was always getting into trouble for something, and she usually dragged him into it with her.

  The screen door tapped shut as Ms. Emily left, and Gin bounced into the room in a frilly dress and sparkling shoes, half-eaten cookie in hand.

  “Holly!” She tackled her sister onto the steps with a hug, as if it had been days rather than hours since they last saw each other. She pounced on Jordan next, squeezing him around the neck. “Hi, Jordan.”

  He patted her back. “Hi, Gin.”

  Oma smoothed her hands over her patched apron, one of the pockets sagging on one side from loose threads. Jordan had watched her fix it a number of times, and she would break out the needle and thread again tonight. “You kids wash up and set the table for dinner.”

  “What are we having?” Jordan asked.

  “Chicken and au gratin potatoes.”

  Gin gasped. “Rotten potatoes?”

  “Au gratin potatoes, my little Ginevieve. I would never serve my precious ones anything rotten,” Oma corrected.

  “Can we have French fries instead?” Holly asked.

  “That depends. How badly do you want homemade French fries?”

  Jordan raised a hand. “Bad enough that I’ll sweep the porch.”

  “I’ll help peel potatoes,” Holly offered.

  “I’ll, um . . . I can . . .” Gin twisted her dress around her fingers in confusion. “What should I do?”

  Oma rested a hand on her head. “You can wash the potatoes for me. Scrub them real good to get all the dirt off.”

  Gin popped onto her toes with excitement the same way Holly always did. “Okay!”

  The three of them followed Oma into the kitchen to clean and prepare dinner.

  Chapter Five

  Jordan swept the porch with the straw broom, but the stormy winds blew the dirt back onto the porch. He scowled at a leaf he couldn’t seem to get rid of. He even tried throwing it once, and it flew back and smacked him in the face.

  He slapped it down with the broom bristles before it could skip away, and snatched it up, stuffing it into his pocket.

  I win, he thought. There was no way it was escaping from his pocket. He swept the rest of the dirt back into a pile, but before he could sweep it off the porch, Gin twirled through it.

  “Gin!” he shouted.

  She never paid attention to what she was doing, and she made things so much harder.

  “Gin-Gin,” Holly said. “Jordan’s trying to sweep, and you need to stay out of the way.”

  “Oh. Sorry, Jordan,” Gin said.

  He sighed. “It’s okay.”

  He couldn’t stay mad at her. She couldn’t pay attention to everything because her brain worked differently. Oma said he was supposed to love her for the unique way God made her, and he did. Usually.

  Gin kissed his cheek, giggled, and twirled away. Yuck. Jordan wiped his sleeve across his cheek. Kisses were gross.

  “I think my peeler’s broken,” Holly said, giving the butchered potato in her hand the evil eye. Each swipe of the blade flaked off a speck of skin and left a gouge in the white of the potato.

  “It’s not broken. I use it all the time,” Jordan told her. “You’re just doing it wrong.”

  Holly glared at him. “Am not.”

  “Yeah, you are. You’re messing it all up, and it’s not even that hard to do.”

  “Jordy,” Oma said in that warning tone she used when he’d done something wrong. “There was a time when you didn’t know how to do it either, but I taught you. Instead of criticizing how she’s doing it, offer to show her how you do it.”

  “Sorry, Holly,” Jordan mumbled.

  Oma offered her peeler and potato. “Well, go on then. Show her how I taught you.”

  Holly lifted her chin. “I can do it myself.”

  “It’s okay to admit when you don’t know how to do something, Holly. All that means is you have an opportunity to learn something new. And it’s important to always be learning.”

  Jordan leaned the broom he was sweeping with against the railing and came over, taking the potato and peeler. He sat down beside Holly. “Don’t press too hard. It’s gotta be soft, long strokes. Like this.” He showed her, and she tried to mimic his method.

  Her lips puckered to one side in concentration as she dragged the blade across the skin. By the third attempt, she managed a long strip of brown peel, and she brightened with her accomplishment.

  Jordan grinned. “You got it.”

  “You see? Helping someone learn and succeed feels better than tearing them down, doesn’t it?” Oma asked.

  Jordan nodded as he passed the dinner items back to her. “Yeah, it does.”

  “And learning something new is worth the effort, isn’t it, my expert potato peeler?” she asked, and Holly nodded.

  Gin snatched up the long potato peel, held it above her upper lip, marched across the porch, and said in a deeper voice, “I’m Officer Mustache, and I’m here to collect all your Skittles! Hand ’em over.”

  Oma pressed a hand to her chest. “Demanding all my Skittles without just cause . . . that sounds like robbery.”

  “No, no. I’m not a robber. There’s . . . um . . . there’s a cause. It’s because I like Skittles.”

  Jordan leaned toward her and whispered, “You need them because they’re evidence, Officer Mustache. Dad says evidence is important.”

  Gin puffed out her chest. “I need them ’cause I’m an officer, and they’re epidence.”

  Jordan slapped a palm to his forehead at the way she said evidence wrong. Typical Gin.

  “Oh, well, in that case, I might be able to hand over a few after we clean up the dinner dishes. But only a few, Officer, since I know for a fact you already had a cookie,” Oma said, and Gin hopped up and down with excitement.

  Jordan kicked his chair into motion, the rusty springs squeaking. “Oma, do you know anyone named John?”

  “I know quite a few Johns.”

  “This one would be really old.”

  “Anyone over twenty seems old to you kids. You’ll need to be more specific.”

  “Like 1918 old.”

  “Hmm,” Oma said in thought. “I knew a John when I was a girl. He was quite a bit older than me, probably ninety or so now. But he moved away some forty years ago.”

  Great. How were they going to find this John if Oma didn’t even know him? She knew everyone in town.

  “Does this have something to do with that box you two were messing with in the den?” Oma asked.

  “We found it in the woods, and we wanted to give it back to whoever it belongs to,” Jordan explained.

  “You’re right about it belonging to someone older. It’s an ammunition box from World War I. Whoever this John is, his father probably served in the war.”

 

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