Chapter Four
Lynette fingered the three small keys on the loop of worn velvet ribbon her mother had brought downstairs. Each key was unique, so they weren’t a set.
“I guess it doesn’t matter which one I try first.”
The third try was the charm. She breathed a sigh of relief at the satisfying click she both felt and heard.
“Want to make any guesses as to what’s in here?”
Donna shrugged. “I remember one thing that Sybil used to store in there, but Raven hated them, so those could be long gone. Just open it already.”
“Now you have me even more curious. I think you’re more impatient than me.”
Lynette smiled at the same click when she twisted the key into the second hole in the box’s top. When she tried to open the lid, the tenacious seal held for an instant, then gave way with a sound similar to pulling Velcro apart.
“Boy, this baby might have been practically airtight with this rubber seal. Whatever someone stashed in here is probably still in decent shape.”
She reached in and pulled out a small ivory box that reminded her of the kind that held a deck of playing cards, except slightly larger. She flipped it around.
“Oh . . . wow. Tarot.” She glanced up at her mother to find the woman leaning toward her. Her forearms rested on the kitchen table. “Interesting.”
The smaller box opened at the top or bottom, like most card decks. Lynette flipped it open on top and pulled out a random card. The top right corner of it was missing. The card was yellowed, its edges worn. She wriggled her eyebrows at Donna and waved the card in her direction, knowing the woman disliked anything mystical. Then she studied the picture on the front of the card.
“I wonder if these are supposed to be two wolves. One is a light color, and the other is black. They are howling at a full moon. A pond of water is reflecting the moon.” Two mountains sat in the background while a pair of some kind of posts framed the foreground. She had no idea what any of it meant. “Donna, pull your phone out and look up what this tarot card can signify, will you? It says ‘The Moon’ across the top.”
“I will not. You know I hate that kind of thing. What else is in the box?”
Lynette set the card on the table and pulled her own phone out. “Give me a minute. We have all night. There’s no rush.”
Lynette did a search from her cell’s browser and easily found the answer. After reading a few lines, she picked up the card again and examined it more closely. “I guess this is actually showing three phases of a full moon. It’s supposed to represent the three faces of the feminine.”
Donna snorted. “This should be good.”
Lynette nodded. “The new moon is supposed to represent the virgin whose purpose is unfulfilled. Guess that doesn’t fit for either of us.”
“Don’t be crude, Lynette,” Donna said, reaching for the unlocked box.
She pulled it out of her mother’s reach. “The full moon represents the mother who has fulfilled her potential. Huh. That makes one of us.”
“And, let me guess, the old moon represents the old crone who’s all washed up. Does that make one of us or both of us?”
Lynette couldn’t tell if Donna’s words were joking or self-deprecating. “You tell me. Here, let me pull a card for you.”
This time, Donna swiped at the card box, but Lynette again avoided her reach. “Mother, don’t be a party pooper.”
“You know I hate it when you call me that.”
Lynette laughed. “Party pooper? Or Mother? Most moms hate it when their kids call them by their first name.”
“Yes, but we’re different,” Donna said. “All those years of working together changed that for us. I don’t want you to pull a card for me. Those things creep me out. With my luck, you’ll pull the Death card. If the Grim Reaper is coming for me, I’d prefer not to know.”
Lynette pulled a card despite her mother’s protests, but checked it before showing it to her, just in case. “It says ‘The Hermit.’ It’s a picture of some old guy with a long white beard. Let me see what that might mean.”
Donna reached across the table and picked up the single card, examining it. “At least it isn’t a dancing skeleton or something ominous like that. Fine. What is some old hermit supposed to signify? That this represents me, now that we are living in this dinky little town where there’s nothing to do?”
When the comment registered for Lynette, she set down her phone to stare at Donna. “Jeez. Is that how you really feel? Do you think I dragged you back to Ruby Shores against your will? Because that isn’t how I remember it.”
Donna flipped the card back at her. “No. Never mind me. I told you, tarot makes me nervous. Just stop with them already, would you? I want to know what else is in the box.”
Lynette weighed her words, trying to decide if her mother really was coming to dislike living in Ruby Shores. It wasn’t like they could just pick up and leave again. They had this house to think about now. She picked up the card from where it had landed.
“Honestly, Donna, I think you might like what this one could mean. According to Google, at least, drawing this card can signify a sense of peace and tranquility once one accepts that youth doesn’t last forever.”
“Great. So it isn’t the Death card, but it means I’m potentially on death’s doorstep.”
Lynette turned her phone screen off and dropped her forehead down to rest on the tabletop. “You are impossible.”
This time, when Donna reached across for the larger box, Lynette let her slide it back across the table.
“I’m not impossible,” Donna countered. “But those cards are what I remember Raven and Sybil fighting about, way back when. How about we don’t go down that same path, and instead see what else is in here?”
“Fine,” Lynette said. She straightened, shoved both the Moon and the Hermit cards back in their box, and set the tarot deck off to the side. She should remember to stick it in her suitcase when she packed for Whispering Pines. Her friends would have fun with the cards. If there was time, maybe she’d do a little research on how to do proper readings before leaving on their girls’ getaway. “Your turn to pull things from our mystery box.”
Donna appeared relieved to move on. “There’s a stack of photos in here.”
She watched as her mom laid half a dozen photographs out on the table between them. All were black and white, giving some sign of their age. Both women studied them, unsure what, or who, they were looking at. Lynette stood and moved around to Donna’s side of the table for a better vantage point.
“Are any of those of Sybil?”
Donna reached for two similar photographs, both of which had a bride and groom in them. One was of the couple by themselves. In the other, a woman stood next to the bride. Donna pointed to the woman, who could have been the bride’s mother. “This might be her.”
Lynette picked up the photo and flipped it over. Someone had penciled names and 1942 on the back. “Here are names. The top two say Evelyn and Oscar. There’s another name under theirs, but the pencil smudged.” She held the photograph closer and looked over the top of her reading glasses. “I think you’re right. I think it says ‘Sybil’!”
Donna held out her hand, and Lynette gave her the picture back. She examined the penciled notation, too. “I wish I could remember what Raven’s parents’ names were. This might have been them. Raven had a twin brother, too, but the clothes don’t look modern enough for the groom to be her brother.”
Lynette picked up two of the remaining four photographs and sat back down. “I forgot Sybil was Raven’s grandmother and not her mom. But I never knew either of them as well as you did. I was only over here at the house a couple of times when I was in high school. Did Raven have kids? Could this boy be hers? These two pictures seem newer than those bridal shots. The paper is thinner, and the surface is shinier.”
This time, when she turned the pictures over, the backs were blank.
“Let me see.” Donna wiggled her fingers at her. She studied one by holding it close and moving her glasses out of the way.
Lynette laughed. “I wish we had the same eyesight we had back when I was in high school.”
Her mother nodded, then pointed at one of the pictures of the young boy. “Look at that sedan in the background. It looks like the Marquis I used to drive, only newer.”
“We never had new cars,” Lynette said. “So what model year would you guess this one was?”
“I’m no expert, but I’d guess the mid-seventies, maybe?”
She nodded. “So that picture couldn’t be older than that. The boy looks like he’s about ten years old, doesn’t he? Maybe my age or a few years older? It wouldn’t be Raven’s brother, then. Maybe her nephew?”
“Listen to you. You sound like a real-life Nancy Drew, honey.”
Her comment reminded Lynette of the woman by the same name who they’d met on the beach in Maui during her first big trip with her girlfriends. “Did you know there are some really old Nancy Drew books in the library? Those had to have belonged to Sybil, too. Or maybe her daughter read them when she was a little girl. They have blue covers. But now we’re getting sidetracked. What if you took copies of these old pictures with your phone and texted them to Raven? I know you have her phone number. She could probably tell us who these people are. I know it doesn’t really matter, but I’m curious. If they are some of her family members, she might want the originals back. We could frame a copy of this cool old bridal picture and display it on a mantel in a spare bedroom. Since their family was the only owners of this place before us, the piece of history would be nice.”
“I love that idea,” Donna said, looking much more cheerful over their discovery of the photographs than she had about the tarot cards. “It wouldn’t surprise me if these last two pictures were of this house. One looks like a basement, and I think the other is the very beginnings of a new building. Sybil told me that her husband built this house shortly after they got married.”
Donna set the six pictures off to the side, much as Lynette had done with the card deck. “There are a few more things in here. Here’s an old-fashioned ring. It might be a diamond. I wonder if it was the wedding ring of the woman in the photographs?”
“Or Sybil’s,” Lynette suggested. She took it from her mother so she could see it better. “Maybe Raven will know. What else is there?”
Donna pulled a white envelope from the box, her fingers obstructing some writing on the front. Lynette craned her neck.
“What does it say on the front?”
“Hold on,” Donna replied, reading the cursive across the front. “It says ‘Raven and Gideon.’ That was Raven’s twin brother’s name. I could only remember that it was kind of different, but now I’m sure this was his name.”
“Was?”
Her mom nodded. “Was. Raven said he died. Cancer or something. It was a long time ago. Before I knew either her or Sybil.”
Lynette sighed. “Poor Sybil. And Raven. So much death. That explains why Raven reached out to you when she was ready to sell this place. There probably wasn’t any other family left that might have wanted it. What’s in the envelope?”
Donna pulled the back flap free. Someone had tucked it in instead of licking it shut. She dumped the contents into her hand, then screeched when tufts of hair landed in her open palm. She shook her hand, dropping the items onto the table.
“Eww,” Lynette said, wrinkling up her nose and leaning closer for a better look. “I bet those are locks of Raven’s and her brother’s hair. Look! They tied one with a pale pink ribbon. The other is blue. I guess we know why her parents named her Raven. That is some black hair. She must have dyed her hair red.”
Donna laughed. “I knew the auburn wasn’t natural because Sybil complained about it. She told me once that the twins had such beautiful blue-black hair. She never liked that her granddaughter dyed it a different color.”
Lynette picked up one of the hair tufts, despite Donna’s shudder. “What? It’s just hair. It isn’t going to hurt us. Anything else in the box?”
Her mother took another look. “Not much. Just a few rocks.” She picked them out and set them on the kitchen table.
Lynette exchanged the hair for one of them. “I don’t think these are just any old rocks. This looks like a tiger eye. These other two might be rose quartz and amethyst. I always knew I liked Sybil. And that was before I even knew she was into crystals and tarot.”
Donna scooped the stones off the table and dropped them back into the box. Then she handed the white envelope to Lynette and told her to put the tufts of hair back. “Give me those tarot cards, too, and we can figure out where to put all this old stuff while we wait to hear from Raven. She may appreciate getting it all back.”
A phone rang. Lynette looked around for her mother’s cell.
“It’s in my purse,” Donna said, reaching for her handbag. She pulled her phone out. “I should take this.”
“Go ahead,” Lynette said. “I’ll clean this up. Then I think I’ll go soak in a hot bubble bath. I’m sure I stink after a full day of cleaning in that shed out back.”
Donna sent Lynette a grateful smile before leaving the room.
Lynette wondered about who might be on the other end of Donna’s call. Her mother hadn’t seemed to want to specify.
But she was even more interested in the items they’d pulled out of the old box. Especially the tarot cards. Without Donna there to witness her actions, she snapped pictures with her phone of everything in the box except the tarot cards and relocked the box. Then she tucked the tarot deck in a pocket of her jumper.
After she sent copies of the pictures she’d snapped of the photographs to Donna, she headed upstairs with the wooden box and keys. There was an empty dresser in the spare room next to hers. It seemed as good a place as any to store the wooden box, now that they knew what it contained.