Chapter 24 Lili
Twenty-Four
Lili
When I wake up the next morning and turn over in my bed, it’s to find Goldie awake and staring at me with her practiced creepy
doll smile on her face.
“Ah!” I scowl and roll back over to face the other side. “Mom told you not to do that to me anymore.”
I hear her sit up in bed. “I haven’t done it since Arizona. You should be thanking me.”
“No,” I say, my voice muffled from my pillow.
And then my bed is moving, jerking under the weight of her bouncing on her knees. “Come on, get up. You promised to come with
me to Mrs. Mayhew’s today.”
“Goldie! Stop!”
The bouncing slows. “Okay, but get up. Please.”
It’s the please that drains my irritation away. That and the fact that I’m witnessing weeks of pent-up impatience from a ten-year-old. Honestly,
I should be thanking her for only a creepy smile and jumping on my bed. I’d have been way worse at her age.
“Fine, but stop so I can get up.”
She climbs off and I take my time sitting up, doing the whole yawn and stretching thing, noticing that Goldie is already fully dressed and even has her shoes on.
“Lili.” My name is a whine coming from her.
“I’m moving.”
Her huffed response says not fast enough.
“What is the big hurry? It’s not like we’re gonna show up at this woman’s house this early anyway.”
“Her name is Mrs. Mayhew. And Stan and Ollie wake her every morning at five a.m. anyway.”
I pause in the act of digging through my nightstand that doubles as a dresser. “Who?”
“Her cats. They’re Maine coons and both weigh over twenty-five pounds. She brought Ollie with her the first day we met her.”
I can hear a bit of accusation coming from my sister that I didn’t remember this.
“Fine, whatever. Do I at least have time to take a shower?”
“Why? We have to get through some old boxes and everything’s really dusty.”
Great. “Are you sure you wouldn’t just rather go thrifting in town?”
Goldie can’t nod her head fast enough. “Positive.”
Keeping her dust comment in mind, I grab my least favorite pair of jeans and a T-shirt that I usually wear only when helping
Mom paint something, then I twirl my finger at my sister to turn around so I don’t flash her while getting dressed. She does
a good impression of someone whose bones are melting as she begrudgingly turns.
I make things worse when I insist that we eat breakfast. Never have I ever seen a kid scarf down Fruity Pebbles so fast. I, on the other hand, eat at a normal human pace, which gives Mom a chance to come down and join us.
She kisses us both on the head on her way to the fridge. “Well, this is a nice sight.” Then she sees the full pot of coffee
I’ve already made and gives me a second kiss on the head.
Goldie blurts out our plans for the morning with way more excitement than a kid should have at the prospect of digging through
someone’s old stuff.
It’s not like I planned on being so absent, it just happened. But the fact that something so little is bringing her this much
happiness just makes me feel guilty all over again for putting her off so much.
I hurry to finish the rest of my breakfast, then, with an apologetic look to Mom, leave the dishes for her to do. One more
thing this house doesn’t have is a dishwasher. I don’t think she minds, though, and seeing the way that Goldie is bouncing
in the doorway, she certainly understands.
“Go,” she whispers to me. Followed by “thank you.”
Mrs. Mayhew has indeed been up since 5 a.m., which she cheerfully informs us of when she pushes open her front door.
“Ollie just could not wait for his breakfast this morning, could you, my boy?” The big cat she’s holding licks his lips while
another seemingly identical cat winds between her feet. “Yes, you too, my sweet Stan. Now let’s move back so our guest can
come in.” The cat in her arms meows. “Yes, you are right, Ollie, guests plural.” Then she looks at me as though noticing Goldie isn’t alone for the first time. “Lili! It’s so nice to see you again.”
“Nice to see you too, Mrs. Mayhew. I hope it’s all right that we just dropped by like this.”
“Of course, I told Goldie she’s always welcome and now you know you’re always welcome too. The boys and I just love company,
don’t we?” She bends down to scoop up the second cat, then jiggles them both until they meow.
My sister grabs my arm and tugs me in after her, and I choke back a gasp once we step inside.
Cat houses, dozens of them in all shapes and sizes, and so many scratching posts. The furniture is covered by pillows with
cat faces crocheted on them, blankets with little paws stitched onto them. A mirror shaped like a cat head rests above the
fireplace, and every single surface everywhere is covered with cat figurines. In contrast, there are empty shelves angling
up and down all over the walls that I don’t understand until Mrs. Mayhew lowers her cats to the ground and Stan and Ollie
immediately dart up them like ramps. I’m not even allergic to cats, but I feel the need to sneeze just looking at everything.
“So,” she says with a grin at me. “I hear you’ve been spending quite a bit of time at that museum I recommended.”
I turn away from a floor-to-ceiling cat tree shaped like a pirate ship, complete with tiny portholes for the cats to peek
through, miniature sails for them to climb, and even a crow’s nest at the top. “Yes, thank you for that. Wren has been a huge
help.”
She beams. “He’s such a sweet boy, isn’t he? You tell him he’s still got my MacKenzie-Childs black-and-white casserole dish.”
I don’t know what that means but I guess Wren will. “Sure, I’ll let him know.”
Goldie nudges me to move forward. “Come on, I want to show you something.” Then to Mrs. Mayhew: “Can I show my sister what I found yesterday?”
Mrs. Mayhew is in the middle of scolding one of her cats for biting the other one and waves us off. “Of course, sweetie. Just
mind the Swarovski cats on the desk.”
Goldie leads me through the living room, then down a hall that has just as many framed cat photos lining its walls as it does
people photos, and pushes open a door that leads into what looks like a library.
As soon as we’re inside, I turn around to face my sister. “You could have warned me that we were about to enter the house
of a thousand cat figurines.”
“There are only three hundred eighty-one cat figurines,” Goldie corrects before moving to a specific bookshelf. She runs her
finger along the spines, yanks a book out, and quickly hides it behind her back.
“What’s your favorite book in the whole world right now?”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “That’s an impossible question. You have to at least narrow down by genre.” Then I frown
at her. “Wait, are you holding a first edition of Anne of Green Gables or something? Because that would be pretty cool.”
Goldie grins and shakes her head.
“I’m supposed to keep guessing?”
She nods, still grinning like a maniac.
“The Hobbit? The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?”
More head shaking.
“Anything by Jane Austen? What then? Am I at least warm?”
“Older than Jane Austen. At least I think. When did she write stuff?”
“Early 1800s.”
“Okay yeah, before that.”
I frown. “You have something that was written in the eighteenth century?”
She bites her lips and nods.
I throw my hand out and make a half circle in the room. Everything I see looks like cats. I’m trying to think of the oldest
cat book I know and I’m coming up blank. “I don’t know, Puss in Boots or something?”
She starts to shake her head again but must sense that I’m getting tired of this game. “Fine, I’ll give you a hint. Her initials
are K. G.”
“K. G.? And it’s a her, from the eighteenth century?”
Goldie looks ready to burst.
“What? What am I not getting—” And then I feel the blood drain from my face. “Kezia Gardner. Are you trying to tell me you
found another one of Kezia Gardner’s diaries?”
“Not exactly.” Goldie whips the book out from behind her back, and the next second she’s shoving it into my hands.
I stare down at an obviously faux leather cover that’s starting to crack and lift away from the corners. And then I sigh.
“Goldie, this looks like a photo album from the 1980s. You’re about two hundred years off.”
“Just look inside,” she insists, leaning closer.
I flip open the cover, expecting to see yellowed photographs or postcards from decades earlier. Instead, my eyes land on handwriting—unfamiliar
but unmistakably old. I scan it quickly, not comprehending anything until the name at the top snags my eye.
My breath catches in my throat.
The world seems to shrink around me, focusing solely on the inked letters. My heart pounds as the lines sharpen, revealing
the name I’ve been obsessing over since finding Dad’s notebook: Kezia Gardner.
I run my fingers lightly over the plastic-covered page. The room around me fades away, replaced by the weight of history,
the whispers of the past echoing in the strokes of each letter. And there’s a date at the top: 1776 Sunday, December 22. She would have received this letter mere days after the most recent diary entries Wren and I transcribed, where she wrote
about the increasing restrictions for Nantucket vessels and strongly condemned the revolutionary cause. I close the album
with shaking hands. Because there’s another name on this letter, and I recognize it too.
Slowly, I sit down in the nearest chair, the magnitude of what I might be holding sinking in.
Goldie watches me, her earlier excitement now tinged with concern. “I thought you’d be more impressed,” she says quietly.
“I know it’s kind of hard to read, but that’s her name at the top, isn’t it?”
I nod, barely able to process her words. “Where did you find this?” My voice comes out quieter than I intended, almost reverent.
“Mrs. Mayhew’s husband collected a lot of old stuff about Nantucket,” Goldie explains, her voice a distant hum in my ears.
“I started going through it to help her sell it, but then I found a bunch of letters and stuff like this—”
I grab her arm, the urgency bubbling up. “More letters? You found more letters to Kezia Gardner?”
She twists free, her excitement reignited. “There are a lot of boxes in the attic. But it’s cramped and dusty up there so I didn’t look long. Maybe.”
I stare at her, my brain barely processing the information. Each word she says adds to the growing storm of thoughts in my
head. The only clear, solid thought is a name: Wren.
I carefully set the album on the table beside me and pull out my phone.