“No, it’s too heavy. I think it’s filled with magical golden goblets.”
She sighed. Her daughter’s imagination was a precious thing, but sometimes it could be a pain in the bum. Just the other day, a group of elves had supposedly moved into the fairy house and she’d had to supply them all with Hobnob biscuits. Now she was going to have to deal with fairy treasure if there was any hope of getting her daughter home this evening.
“Okay, I’m coming up.”
She climbed the ladder set to one end of the tree house and crawled in through the small doorway. The room was just high enough for her to stand up, and she dusted her knees for what felt like the ninetieth time that day as she rose.
“Where’s the fairy treasure?” she asked.
“There, under the reading bench. My sticker fell down the back when I was reading to a pixie.”
“Uh-huh,” said Maggie, crossing to the bench built into one of the walls beneath a round window. She bent down and peered underneath. “Oh!” Whether there was fairy treasure in it or not, there was indeed a chest under the bench. How long had that been there? Then again, how long had it been since she’d been in here? Reaching around it with both hands, she pulled. It was heavy, and for a moment she wasn’t sure it would budge, but with another prolonged heave, the chest began to shift inch by inch until she had pulled it clear. Quick as a flash, Verity ferreted around behind it and emerged triumphant with her sticker, minus all its stick; Maggie would have to tape it to her school jumper tomorrow.
She looked down at the box and shook her head, half smiling, half mildly pissed off at their old man’s wily sense of humor. This had to be it. He’d hidden the strongbox in their most favorite childhood place in the world. Of course he had. “You crafty old bugger!” she said under her breath.
“Uh! You said a swear!”
“Yes, I did. But in this case it’s true, so it doesn’t count. Your granddad was a crafty old bugger, which nobody can deny.”
The box was too heavy for Maggie to manage on her own—quite how Augustus managed to get it up there in the first place was a mystery—but Duncan’s wiry frame belied an easy strength, which meant she was able to lower the box down into his waiting arms. Star, Maggie noticed, couldn’t take her eyes off those arms.
Once back inside the curios shop, she sat down, pulling Verity onto her lap, and Star took the chair opposite, leaning forward eagerly. Duncan stood on the perimeter, and they all watched with bated breath as Simone knelt before the chest and pushed the key into the lock. It fitted. The scrape of metal turning in metal was followed by a clunk, and the lid gave a little jump as the lock snapped open. Simone pushed the lid up and let it fall backward.
“That’s not treasure! It’s just old paper!” Verity was disappointed. Newspapers browned with age shouted Victorian headlines of the day beside old curly-edged notebooks. Maggie stole a glance up at Duncan, who was almost salivating at the contents; like her, he probably wanted to dive in and have a good rummage, but he kept a polite distance. When they unearthed the shop’s ledger, a weighty tome with a cracked spine—as promised in Augustus’s letter—Simone handed it up to Duncan, who took it as though she’d just passed him the Holy Grail. He retired immediately to his desk to look through it.
Looking incongruous against the backdrop of biscuity paperwork was an oxblood leatherbound photograph album. Simone looked up at her sisters, who nodded reassuringly that she should open it.
Star’s hand flew to her mouth. Maggie too felt a sudden rush of emotion. Simone held the album steady and bit her lip to keep her emotions in check. Their younger selves stared gleefully out at them from the page. Three little girls, wild looking, like woodland nymphs, with flowers in their hair and clothed in cotton sundresses smudged with grass and blackcurrant stains. They were grinning at the camera, the sun’s rays catching in their hair and casting a yellowy film over the scene. Simone’s jet-black hair was cut short, in contrast to Star’s white-blond shoulder-length hair, while Maggie’s curls were a thick magenta tangle to her waist. If their differing hair and skin tones had caused anyone to question their sisterhood, one look into those matching green North eyes would have set them straight.
She turned the page.
“I don’t remember these,” said Star.
“Me either,” said Simone.
“But I can remember the feeling of it,” Maggie added, and her sisters agreed. “Dad must have taken them.”
“And then he took the time to put them all in an album.” Star smiled.
“You look like me,” said Verity, peering closer at a photograph of Maggie holding a plump pink-faced baby, Star, while Simone grinned like the proudest sister that ever was, Star’s tiny hand clasped around her fingers. Looking at these photos, it seemed impossible to imagine the distance adulthood had brought.
“We were happy, weren’t we.” Simone was smoothing the bubbling cellophane over the photographs. “I forget that sometimes.”
“I don’t think it occurred to us not to be happy,” said Maggie.
“I looked forward to the summer all year. It was my favorite time,” added Star.
“Better than Christmas?” Verity asked, astonished.
“Better than anything,” Star replied.
“Do you miss Granddad?”
“I do, very much.” Star smiled sadly.
“He was one of a kind.” Maggie’s hair fell over her eyes and she tucked it behind her ear.
“It doesn’t seem right that he’s gone, does it? I didn’t think I’d feel the lack of his presence in the world as much as I do.” Simone was still kneeling by the box.
“That’s just how I feel,” said Star.
Maybe by sifting through the past they could find their way back to when they were summer sisters, and bring those lost parts of themselves into the present. It occurred to Maggie that for a man so invested in a life of free-spirited chaos, Augustus sure knew how to play the long game when it came to his daughters.
19
It was Friday morning. The night before, each sister had taken a pile of papers from the strongbox to look through. It had been an emotional evening. Old memories, old hurts, and old happy times swirled around them in a confusing jumble.
In the morning light, Star had her head bent over a collection of silver lockets and periodically looked up at the tablet Duncan had loaned her, to confirm the dates against a hallmark checker website.
The ledger was open on Duncan’s desk, and he was prowling the shop looking for a pair of seventeenth-century shoe buckles, which had supposedly belonged to Charles the First.
“Are you starting from the first page and working through methodically?” asked Simone, who had left sifting through old winter solstice celebration menus and budgets to help Duncan’s search.
“I am attempting it this way first, yes. If that doesn’t seem fruitful, I will do it the other way: pick an item and attempt to match it to the ledger. Have you looked through it?” he asked.
“No.”
“It’s a bit . . . disjointed. I’d expected it to be laid out chronologically or alphabetically by item. Whilst it is alphabetized, it’s organized according to where the items came from rather than what they are. Where space has run out for a particular letter, another page has been added in with glue. It’s a little chaotic.”