Chapter 9 #2
“I think I see something,” Robyn said, voice going tight with excitement. “It looks like… a metal box.
“Just a second,” she murmured, shifting her weight carefully. She reached farther in, trying not to think about spiders or whatever else might have decided this oak was home.
The box was wedged in the tree, as if the wood had grown around it over the decades.
Robyn’s fingers closed around the edge of the box. She tugged again, harder this time, and felt it slide forward with a reluctant scrape against the inside of the trunk. For a heartbeat, it felt like it might stick again, and then it came free.
“There!” Robyn said, triumphant, holding the little waterproof container up like a prize.
Mrs. Bishop clapped. Emma squealed.
“Okay, okay, bring it down,” Zoe said, laughing. “Before you two decide to start a circus act.”
Tyler lowered Robyn carefully, his hands still warm and steady at her calves until her feet hit the ground. Robyn stepped away on slightly wobbly legs, smoothing her sweater as if she hadn’t just climbed a man like a tree in front of Mrs. C. and Mrs. Bishop, the town’s biggest gossips.
Tyler’s gaze met hers for a second.
Robyn cleared her throat and turned to the box.
The container was the size of a paperback, and tarnished over time. Inside was a cream-colored envelope with that looping handwriting on the front.
She paused, looking down at the letter.
“Well, aren’t you going to open it?” Mayor Bloomfield asked.
“I don’t know. Are we allowed to?” Robyn asked the group. She remembered how adamant Mrs. C. had been about waiting to open the first clue.
“I don’t know, maybe we should wait… Then again, we can’t hold a meeting for every clue we find, can we?” Mrs. Bishop said.
“I say you open it, snap a pic, and text it to the rest of the group,” Zoe offered up reasonably as not everyone could slip away for the hike.
Robyn looked over at Tyler.
He nodded. “Sounds sensible to me.”
“Open it! Open it!” Emma added.
“Okay, here it goes…” Robyn took a breath. Her great-grandmother had stood somewhere near this very trail, laughing with friends, hiding pieces of a story like breadcrumbs.
Robyn felt a connection that was hard to explain.
Maybe it was because she hid away her own writing, tucked away on an anonymous page where no one she knew could find it.
Or so she prayed. Her fans were just as faceless.
Mostly. That morning, her top fan had left another comment, something about her latest chapter that made her laugh into her coffee.
She didn’t know who he was, and she probably never would.
Carefully, she opened the envelope and tugged the clue free.
“Search the text that tells of Maple Falls’s past,” she began, the words steady even as her pulse kicked harder. “Where pages turn gently, a sweet secret you’ll see. Page sixty-two has a photograph for thee.”
“A book, then,” Zoe said.
“Yeah, it must be.” Robyn reread the clue. “A history book, I think.” Unfortunately, they didn’t have any Maple Falls history books at the bookstore.
“Maple Falls has a bunch of local history books at the library,” Zoe offered.
“And the library’s over one hundred years old,” Mrs. C. added.
Mayor Bloomfield brightened. “Town hall has a display case with some of the early town books, too,” he offered, ever proud of his municipality’s trivia. “We could check there too.”
Emma tugged on Robyn’s sleeve, eyes shining. “Are we going to find another box?”
Robyn smiled down at her. “That seems to be the theme.”
“Well, I’d love to keep this clue hunt going, but I have my standing euchre game to get to—and if I’m late, Anita will deal me out and never let me hear the end of it.” Mrs. C. looked genuinely torn.
“Yes, yes, and I have a town to run,” Mayor Bloomfield added. “But Edith and I will check the archives, let you know what we find.”
“I wish I could help too, but I need to run out to the farm. We have lunch with Jackson’s family, and I promised Daisy and Tinsel I’d bring treats,” Zoe said, referring to the Hawthorne family’s Sunday lunch tradition and their farm’s beloved llamas.
“Can I come? I haven’t seen Daisy and Tinsel in forever!” Emma begged.
Zoe looked over at Tyler. “It’s okay with me.”
Tyler eyed his daughter. “Only if you promise to be on your best behavior.”
“I will! I will! I promise. Come on, Zoe, let’s go before my dad changes his mind.” Emma tugged on Zoe’s hand, and they were off down the trail before Tyler could add any conditions.
Robyn watched them go, then glanced at the time on her phone and winced. “I need to get back and open the store.”
“I’ll take the library,” Tyler said easily, like it was the most natural thing in the world, the two of them dividing up a treasure hunt on a Sunday morning. “I’ll text you if I find anything.”
She nodded, but neither of them moved. The trail had emptied around them with Mrs. Bishop and Mrs. C. already halfway back around the lake, the mayor striding ahead, eager to consult the archives.
For a moment, it was just the two of them standing beneath the canopy, the leaves drifting down in slow spirals, the distant sound of Emma’s laughter carrying back through the trees.
Tyler reached over and tucked a loose strand of hair behind Robyn’s ear. His fingers lingered, just barely, at her jaw.
“I should go,” he said.
“Yeah,” Robyn replied.
“Raincheck?” he asked, smiling and stepping back, hands in his pockets, already turning away.
“Definitely.”
Robyn stood on the trail a beat longer than she should have, watching him walk away under the amber trees. For one breath, then two, she let herself imagine following him. Sitting beside him in the quiet stacks. Pretending to look for a history book while really just wanting to be near him.
The want of it startled her.
Not because it was new, exactly, but because it no longer felt harmless. It felt like a burning choice waiting to be made.
Soon, she thought. Soon she’d cash in that raincheck. But first, she had a bookstore to open and a story to write—though she wasn’t sure anymore whether she meant her characters’ or her own.