Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle (ebook offline reader .TXT) 📕

I’m going to do with everything, but somehow I will cram it all in here and make it fabulous.

I was right; the tree looks amazing in the ballroom. I plug it in and voilà—soft white lights glow to life, casting a small golden halo onto raised plaster roses on the rococo-style ceiling.

My high-pitched “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, I love it!” earns me three thumps of a broomstick rapping from above.

“Your problem is that you love everything,” Wesley complains.

“My one flaw.”

“I’ve seen the furniture you’re trying to repurpose for your hotel. None of it matches.”

“The beauty of themed rooms,” I reply. “I’ll never get bored, because every room will be different.”

“Are you coming now?”

“Patience. I think I saw a tree skirt in the closet . . .” I rummage in Victor’s closet, which looks like a snow globe from all the white fluff. I find the tree skirt, along with a large silver box that makes me squeal with delight.

“Oh, no. What is it now?”

“Nothing! I’ll be there in a minute. Ten minutes, tops.”

He sighs.

“It’s an emergency.”

His voice goes low, suspicious. “You found ornaments.”

“I did! They’re wonderful. Wesley, come look at these ornaments. Ohh, here’s a little drummer boy. Ohh, here’s Rudolph. Ohh, it’s the whole set from Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town! Ahhhh!”

“Please. My ears.”

I grab a chair from where I’ve got it positioned by the wall, next to Wesley’s tub of paints and my three-quarters-finished mural. My attention’s temporarily waylaid by a new development in the waterfall-lagoon world, thrashing on stormy waves. “You painted a pirate ship.” Thick, sinewy tentacles, pearlescent as abalone shells, lunge out of the water to grip the Felled Star’s stern, ready to devour.

“I hope you don’t mind.”

“Is that the kraken? That is awesome.”

“Are you about done down there? You’re going to want to see this, I’m telling you.”

“Just a sec.” I climb onto the chair and stretch, hanging a particularly handsome ornament as high up as I can manage. It’s a glass sphere the size of a softball, splotched with gold shimmer. A plaid bow rests inside, the same ribbon that Violet used to bind her stacks of letters—

“Wait a minute.”

“I’ve been waiting for seventeen of them.”

“There’s a paper in this ornament.” I jump down, wriggle the top off, and shake it until a rolled-up piece of paper slides out. “Like a message in a bottle.” The ribbon’s stiff, permanently crimped after I loosen the tie, smooth the paper against my knee. “I think it’s a map.”

“Of what?”

“Not sure.”

I’ve got to show him this. Hard to believe I was tired earlier—I’m wired now, thundering up the staircase two steps at a time, crashing into a brick wall that’s been unexpectedly erected on the second floor.

The bricks are softer than they look, absorbing my muffled “Oof.” And an “Mmpphhhhh,” which might or might not be caused by how good it smells.

“Sorry.” The brick wall grows arms, gingerly tipping me back with the tips of its fingers. Has Wesley always been this tall? From down here, the top of his head is in the stars. I’d have to break my vertebrae to see his face.

He takes a blundering step away, raking a hand through his hair. “Can I . . . see it?”

Instead of handing the map over, I scoot next to him so that we pore over it side by side. “I’m pretty sure these are trees.” I point at a jumble of broccoli florets drawn in blue pen.

Wesley analyzes the map closely, raising it higher. Our height difference means that the half of the paper I’m still clutching is bending significantly downward. “This is the manor here,” he murmurs, pointing at a blue square. I’m distracted by his large hands with short, square nails as he skims a finger to a second, much smaller blue square next to the manor. I’ve seen these hands halve an apple without a knife, and they’re the same ones that paint miniature pirate ships. “This is labeled ‘shed,’ but that doesn’t make sense. The shed should be over here.” His finger dances an inch to the left.

“The cabin used to be Victor’s work shed,” I reply. “Maybe that’s the cabin, not the garden shed.”

He nods. “That has to be it. All this over here, I don’t recognize.” He circles an area that says prairie smoke field.

“That used to be a field, yeah. Back before Aunt Violet was anti-lawn.”

“Pro–natural habitats,” he replies with emphasis. “Everyone with a yard should designate a natural growth area, to be honest. Put up a small fence around it and just let—”

“Yep, sure,” I interrupt. “Look at those X’s! It’s like a traditional pirate treasure map.” There are five of them, scattered wildly all over the property. It would be an exhaustive trek to get to all of them, any potential treasure buried under the X’s hidden by more than shallow mounds of dirt by now. This map is at least two decades old. There could be whole adult trees growing over the tops of those X’s.

“Violet’s second wish,” we say at the same time, meeting each other’s gaze. I’m suddenly aware of how close we’re standing—so is Wesley, and we spring apart.

“Violet said Victor thought there was buried treasure,” I explain unnecessarily. “Maybe these are a few of the spots where they thought treasure might be located. Being older, and Victor’s health being the way it was, I guess they’d gotten to the point in their treasure hunt where they were theorizing instead of doing any physical digging.”

“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm,” he replies quickly. “Makes sense. I’ll just pocket this map, then . . .” He starts to slide it into his pocket, but I snatch it up.

“Not so fast.”

“Finders Keepers rules apply,” he says with a teasing half grin. “That’s part of Violet’s dying wish. I don’t know about you, but I’m morally obligated to honor her terms.”

“I’m the one who found the map.”

“And tomorrow, you’ll find that all the shovels have been hidden. Somewhere you’ll never be able to reach, like the top of the fridge. What are you going to use to dig