As she raced back into the house, her arms laden with photo albums, Emily was acutely aware of the sounds of hammering and drilling coming from the ballroom. That meant that despite the late hour, Daniel was still inside hanging picture frames and mirrors for her. He'd been working later and later into the evening, sometimes as late as midnight, and Emily had begun to entertain the thought that he was doing it to be close to her, to maintain a sense of proximity, as if he waited for the moment she brought in a cup of tea for him as keenly as she did. It was often around this time of the evening, after she was done organizing and rummaging for the day, that she'd pop her head around the door and catch up with him. He would be expecting her to do so tonight as well.
But tonight her mind was elsewhere. In fact, seeing Daniel was the last thing she wanted to do. She'd been so shaken up by the photograph of Charlotte, by the discovery of the darkroom, that she'd become solely focused on what she wanted to do next, what she needed to do, right now. At last.
Because there were still rooms within the house that Emily hadn't been in yet-rooms she had very deliberately avoided entering. One was her father's study, and it was here that she was heading. Even after months of living in the house, the door to his study had been kept tightly shut. She hadn't wanted to disturb it. Or, more likely, she hadn't wanted to let out whatever secrets it held.
But now she felt like too much had remained hidden for too long. The mysteries in her family were eating her up. She'd let the silences, the not knowings, take over her mind. No one in her family had ever spoken about anything-of Charlotte's death, of her mom's subsequent breakdown, of her parents' impending divorce which advanced closer with every year that passed. They were cowards-letting their wounds fester rather than taking action. Her mom, her dad, they were both the same, leaving so much unspoken, letting the wounds became gangrenous until the only course of action was to sever the limb.
Sever the limb, Emily thought.
That was exactly what her father had done, wasn't it? He'd severed his entire family, had run away from whatever problem it was he was unable to speak about. He'd walked out on all of them because of some obstacle, some hurdle, that he deemed insurmountable. Emily didn't want to spend her whole life wondering. She wanted answers. And she knew she would find them in that study.
She dumped the box of photos on the stairs before climbing them two at a time. Her mind raced frantically as she strode with purpose along the upstairs corridor until she reached the door of her father's study and paused. The door was made of dark varnished wood. Emily remembered staring up at it as a youngster. It had seemed imposing back then, almost menacing, a door through which her father would disappear as though swallowed up, only to emerge hours later. She was never allowed to disturb him and, despite her curiosity as a child, she'd never broken the rules and gone inside. She didn't know why she wasn't allowed in. She didn't know why her father would disappear inside. Her mom told her nothing, and as the years passed and she grew into a teenager, she'd adopted a couldn't-care-less attitude about the room, wrapping her unanswered questions in a blanket of silence.
She tried the doorknob now and was surprised to discover that it turned. She'd assumed the study would be locked, that it would put up some kind of resistance to her intrusion. So it came as a shock to her to realize she could just walk straight into a room she'd never set foot inside before.
She hesitated, almost as if waiting for her mother to appear and scold her. But of course no one came, so Emily took a deep breath and pushed open the door. It swung open with a creak.
Emily peered into a room of shadows. Inside she saw a large desk, filing cabinets, and bookshelves. Unlike the rest of the house, her dad's study was tidy. He hadn't filled it with objects or artwork or photographs; there were no mismatched rugs overlaid on the floor because he couldn't decide which one to buy. In fact, of every room in the house she'd been in, this one was the least like her father's. The incongruity was disconcerting.
Emily paced inside. There was the familiar smell of dust and mildew in the air, the same smell that had permeated the whole house when she arrived. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling, in between the lightbulb and its shade. She inched past them, not wanting to disturb any lurking creepy crawlies.
Once fully inside, Emily wasn't really sure where to begin. In fact, she didn't even know what it was exactly that she was looking for. She just had a feeling that she would know as soon as she saw it, that the mysteries of her family were hidden somewhere in this room.
She went over to the filing cabinet and began rummaging through the first drawer, deeming it as good a place to start as any. Amongst her father's papers she found legal deeds to the house, her parents' marriage certificate, and divorce proceedings from her mom. She found a prescription slip for Zoloft, an antidepressant. It didn't really surprise her to know her father was medicated-the death of a child could send anyone into a spiraling depression. None of it helped explain her father's disappearance.
Once she'd searched through the filing cabinet and examined the papers inside, Emily moved over to the desk to look in the drawers there. The first one she tried to open was locked, and Emily muttered a small a-ha under her breath. She was about to call Daniel up to see if he could jimmy the lock and get the drawer open for her, when her attention fell to a small vault in the corner of the room. At once Emily was hit by the distinct feeling that whatever was inside that vault would answer every burning question in her mind.
She abandoned the drawer and raced over to the vault, kneeling down beside the dark green steel reinforced safe. She saw that it was fastened with a padlock that required a combination rather than a key. With trembling fingers, Emily twisted the little silver dials around, trying her dad's birthday first. But the combination wasn't right and the padlock didn't budge. Then a little voice in her mind told her that Charlotte's birthday would surely be the combination needed to open the lock. Charlotte had been her dad's favorite child, after all. But when she entered the numbers, she found that that didn't work either. As a last stab, Emily clicked the numbers around until her own birthday was staring up at her. When she pressed on the padlock, she was surprised to discover that it popped open.
Emily sat back, stunned. She had always blamed herself for her father leaving (like every child inevitably does when a parent walks out of their life), because she thought that she wasn't enough like Charlotte, that Charlotte had been her dad's favorite child and losing her had been his first grief, his second being that Emily was not a good enough substitute. And those pictures she'd found of Charlotte in the house, the way they'd literally fallen out of the woodwork as though they were sewn into the fabric of it, had just confirmed that long-held belief. But Emily was now being suddenly confronted with a new reality. Her birthday was the combination to access the vault. Her dad had specifically chosen it. Because whatever was inside was for her eyes only? Or because her dad had loved her just as fiercely as he'd loved Charlotte?
Emily's hand shook as she reached out and removed the padlock from the vault's door. Then she pulled on the door. It squealed open.
Emily reached her hand into the unknown, feeling around. She felt some kind of fabric, velour or velvet, and pulled it out. She looked down and saw in her hand she was holding a dark red pouch with a darker red ribbon. It was heavy and Emily frowned. She unfastened the ribbon and tipped the pouch up. A stream of pearls fell into her hand, connected by a thin white thread. Emily recognized the necklace immediately. Many years ago, when she and Charlotte were performing one of their pirate plays for their parents, she'd been playing the part of a kidnapped princess. She'd worn the pearl necklace and her father, upon seeing it, had become very angry and demanded she remove it. Emily had cried, her mom had shouted at her dad for his overreaction, and the necklace had disappeared never to be seen again.
It was several days later before he'd calmed down enough to explain to her that the necklace had belonged to his mother. It was several years later that she understood why it held such important sentimental value to him; it was the only item his mother hadn't been forced to pawn to pay for his education. They never spoke of the necklace again and Emily hadn't seen it, though she'd thought of it often.
Now Emily stared at the necklace in her hand, feeling a sense of disappointment. A pearl necklace didn't exactly answer her family secrets or explain the mystery of her father's disappearance. And it stung her to think that her father had felt that the only way to keep his most prized possession away from a curious, sticky-fingered five-year-old was by locking it up in a vault of all things. Unless the necklace was worth something and he'd hidden it here for safekeeping to make sure her mom couldn't pawn it off after he left? Because he was going to come back for it one day? Or because he wanted to make sure it found its way into Emily's possessions, as though it were a sort of apology to the five-year-old version of herself? What if he'd made the padlock code her birthday as a clue? There was no way of knowing for certain, without her dad here to explain it to her.
Emily played with the pearls with her fingertips. She felt like a brat for having been disappointed by them; if her dad had hidden them specifically for her she should be grateful. It was just that she'd been certain the vault would contain the information she so desperately needed. That the final piece of the puzzle would be inside.
She sighed and was about to shut the vault door back up when she noticed something else, hiding in the shadows, way in the back. She reached her hand inside and took hold of it. Pulling it out, she looked down into her palm and discovered that she was holding a keychain filled with keys.
Emily stared at the keychain in her hand, her heart hammering at the discovery. What could possibly have compelled her father to hide his keys in a vault? What secrets did he hold that were so bad he needed to lock the keys away?
There were at least twenty keys on the chain and Emily looked at each one in turn, wondering what doors they might open. Then she remembered the desk drawer, the one she'd found to be locked when she'd tried to look inside. She rushed over to the drawer and tried each key in the lock until one slid in. Then, suddenly, she heard a click.
That was it. She'd done it. She'd finally found whatever it was that her father had hidden so thoroughly and for so many years from the family.
She peered into the drawer. It contained one thing: a single white envelope. In neat handwriting that Emily instantly recognized as belonging to her father, one word was written in faded blue ink.
Emily.
A sensation like ice swept through Emily's body as she realized that her father had written a letter for her but never given it to her. That he'd hidden it away in a locked drawer, further locking the key in a vault. Emily had the distinct impression that whatever was inside that letter, it would change everything.
But before Emily even got the chance to open it, the doorbell suddenly rang. She jumped about a mile in the air and squealed. It was almost midnight. Who on earth would be calling at this hour?
*
Emily stuffed the letter into her pocket then leapt up and raced down the corridor. At the top of the stairs she saw that Daniel had beaten her to the door. It was standing open, and there on the step was a short, portly man wearing an outfit that looked like he'd just stepped off the golf course.
"Hey ho," he said to Daniel, his voice said floating up the staircase toward her. "Sorry for the late call. I'm Trevor Mann, your neighbor. I live in the hundred acres behind you and am just up for the season."
He held out a hand to Daniel. Daniel just stared at it. "This isn't my house," he said. "It's not my hand you need to shake."
Emily felt a small smile tug at her lips as Daniel turned and gestured to her standing at the top of the stairs. She bounded down and took hold of Mr. Mann's hand, shaking it firmly to make sure he knew who was boss.
"I'm Emily Mitchell. It's nice to meet you."
"Ah," Trevor said as friendly as ever. "Sorry for the mistake. Anyway, I won't keep you long, I know it's late. I just wanted you to know that I have my eye on your land and I'm hoping to take it over by the end of the summer."
Emily blinked, confused by his words. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Your land. I've had my eye on it for the last twenty years. I mean I know I already have a hundred acres while you have a mere five but you have the ocean view, which means you have one of the last prime lots on the water. It really would complete my lot to purchase it. This is your moment to cash in."
"I don't understand," Emily said.
"Don't you? Am I still speaking French?" He guffawed loudly as though he'd made the funniest joke in the world. "I want to buy your land, Miss Mitchell. You see, there's been all kinds of loopholes what with the owner being AWOL. But I noticed that there were lights on and asked around town. It was Karen in the general store who told me someone was occupying it again."
Emily and Daniel exchanged a brief bemused look.
"But it's not for sale," Emily said, her voice sounding stunned. "This is my father's place. I inherited it."
"Did you?" Trevor said, his tone still friendly in a way that didn't seem to match the words he was speaking. "Roy Mitchell isn't dead, is he?"
"Well, no, I don't know, he's…" Emily stuttered. "It's complicated."
"He's a missing person, as far as I understand it," Trevor said. "Which means the house is in a sort of legal limbo. Back taxes haven't been paid for years. There's all kinds of red tape around it." He chuckled. "I'm assuming by the blank look on your face you weren't aware of that."
Emily shook her head, confused and frustrated by Trevor's intrusion into her life, on this night of all nights, while the letter from her father burned in her back pocket. "Look, the land isn't for sale. This was my dad's house and I have every right to be here."
"Actually," Trevor said, "you don't. I forgot to tell you that I'm on the zoning board. Me and Karen and a whole bunch of other people who didn't take too kindly to you when you got here. I've taken it upon myself, as my neighborly duty, to inform you that due to the back taxes being unpaid, technically the town owns the house. Furthermore, it was declared uninhabitable years ago, so if you want to live here, you'll need a new certificate of occupancy. It is illegal to live here right now, do you understand?"
She scowled. At every step in her life, Emily had discovered, there had been people looking to keep her down, to tell her what she could not do-whether it was bosses, or boyfriends, or rude neighbors, they were all the same. All looking to be an authority on her head, to stop her from her dreams, to keep her down.
But she was done with authorities in her life.
"That may be so," she finally replied, "but that still doesn't make my father's house yours, does it?" She spoke with an equally steely grin, smiling wide, her expression, like his, not matching the hard venom in her voice.
His face finally fell-and his smile along with it.
"Our town can claim your house and auction it off," he insisted. "Then I can buy it."
"So why don't you?" she gambled.
His scowl deepened.
"Legally," he said, clearing his throat, "it would be far cleaner to buy it from you. That sort of legal situation could tie it up for years. And as I'd said, it's a gray area. Nothing like this has happened in our town before."
"A shame for you, then," she replied.
He stared back, tongue-tied, and Emily felt proud of herself for standing up to authority.
Trevor smiled an insipid smile. "I'll give you a little time to think about it. But really, I'm not sure what there is to think about. I mean, what will you do with this house? When the novelty wears off you will leave. Come back in the summers. Two months a year. Are you telling me you will live here year round? And do what? Be realistic. You will leave in the fall like all of them. Or run out of money." He shrugged and laughed again, as though he hadn't just threatened her and her livelihood. "The best thing for you to do is sell the land to me while the offer still stands. Why don't you make life easier on both of us and sell me your property?" he pressed. "Before I call the police to evict you?" He looked at Daniel. "And your boyfriend," he added.
Daniel's eyes smoldered.
She held her ground.
"Why don't you get the hell off my land," she said, "and go back to your viewless hundred acres-before I call the police to convict you of trespassing?"
He looked like a deer in the headlights, and she had never been so proud of herself as at that moment.
Then he grinned, turned on his heel, and strolled away across the lawn.
Emily slammed the door shut so hard the whole house vibrated. She looked at Daniel, lost and bewildered, to find that the concern in his eyes matched her own.
