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No, it was Gemma.
Just Gemma.
“Here,” she exclaims, voice pitched with excitement. “Wow. Look at this place.”
I follow her into the office. She finally releases her hold on me. We both take in the ancient room in awe. It’s covered from floor to ceiling in dust, wallpaper has peeled off the walls in some areas, and a few bookshelves have shelves that have completely collapsed. This place is a mess—a wonderful, beautiful mess.
“Do you think there are artifacts hidden in here?” Gemma asks, practically giddy as she bounces on her heels. “What if we find love notes? How freaking romantic would that be?”
Listening to her babble reminds me of Dad. Whenever he’s passionate about one of his interior restorations, he can’t contain his excitement. He also bosses Pops around and tells him what sort of hard shit that needs doing. Pops always does it with a gentle smile on his face.
“The artifacts they hid were silly things like jars of random stuff. Edgar once collected hundreds of dead moths, put them in a jar, and then hid them someplace in Hemingford Hall for Alexander to find.”
“That’s so sweet,” Gemma says, grinning. “Right? You know they were in love.”
Again, she reminds me of Dad, finding romance in everything. My gut twists at the thought of her being more like him than me. Fate, in an epic plot twist, gave him me instead.
“Perhaps,” I say, “or maybe they just liked to terrorize one another.”
“My nephew, Spencer, is always pestering his woman,” she reveals, “and he’s wildly in love with her. Maybe they can be friends and lovers. It’s a thing, you know.”
Actually, I don’t.
My experience with lovers is one person, one time, and we didn’t exactly stay friends after.
Dax sleeps with lots of his friends, but I think they all want to be longtime lovers after. He’s never interested in more than a few nights of fun.
“Where do you think they hid their artifacts? Surely they weren’t in difficult places like beneath the floorboards,” she says as she closely inspects a bookshelf. “Their guests who would go on these hunts with them wouldn’t like having to destroy the floor to find their prize. It had to have been obvious.”
I nod, letting her giddiness bleed into me. “Like hidden in a false book?”
Her eyes widen comically and she starts checking the books on the shelves, gently tapping on their spines as she goes along. Since I’m much taller, I mimic her actions but go for the ones that are out of her reach. A few minutes in and I thump one that feels hollow.
“Bingo!”
She squeals and rushes over to me. “Hurry. Pull it down.”
Definitely bossy like Dad.
I pluck the book from the shelf, coughing when a plume of dust flutters down on my face. Before I have a chance to open it, she takes it out of my hand and gently flips it open.
It’s indeed a false book, but there aren’t love notes inside.
A tiny golden key sits in the bottom.
“What do you think this opens?” she asks, voice filled with awe. “This is so much fun!”
I can’t help but grin at her. It is kind of fun. I’ve never known anyone besides my parents and Mr. Pederson who agrees with me.
“If I had to guess,” I say, forgetting for a moment that I hate her, “it opens a secret compartment in that desk.”
Her eyes glimmer as she beams. “We’re going to find where it goes. Our project is totally going to be the best, right? How can it not be?”
“Hell yeah, it is.”
For once, I actually agree with her.
Gemma
