The Secret of the Stone House (20 page)

“I know, Mom, but I had to look for the box.” Emily barely acknowledged the pair of them. “Geordie suggested I look at the fireplace again.”

At the mention of Geordie, Kate rolled her eyes at Aunt Liz as if to say, “We have a serious problem here.” Emily ignored her and knelt at the hearth, where Aunt Liz joined her.

“Let’s just go along with this for now,” she suggested.

Emily removed the stone and worked the mechanism again. Carefully, she reached inside and did another search of the hidden compartment. In systematic fashion, she tapped and wiggled, and felt around inside. Exasperated, she rubbed her hands over the sides and the top. Then, near the bottom at the back, she noticed a notch. She clawed at it with her fingernails. All at once, the base of the compartment budged.

“Wow,” she said, lifting the bottom board. Underneath was another slender niche. Inside was a small, hand-carved wooden box. She’d found it at last! Emily drew it out to the exclamations of her mom and aunt. It was about fifteen centimetres long, ten centi-metres wide, and six centimetres high. A tiny metal clasp held the lid down.

Gently, she caressed the carved flowers and vines on the top as she imagined her great-grandfather cutting carefully into the wood with his chisels. What kind of person was he really? She suddenly wished she’d been able to get to know him. Anyone who could do such intricate work must be patient. He must also have had a great imagination to create the secret compartments.

“Locked, of course!” Kate said, after trying to open it.

“Beautiful carvings, though!” Aunt Liz examined it closer. “Look, Emily. In between the violets: a stylized letter
E
. It’s definitely yours.”

Emily traced the initial softly. Her great-grandfather had made something special for her. Wait a minute! Something wasn’t right here. How could he have made something for her? He didn’t even know about her existence. She’d been born long after he’d died. All at once, Emily knew. This box had belonged to Emma.

Suddenly, Emily realized she didn’t have the key with her. What had happened to it? Where had she last had it? She had to find out what was inside!

“I have to find the key!”

Emily dashed upstairs, carrying the box.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

She rummaged around in her bedroom,
checking the nightstand drawer, the pockets in all her discarded clothes. It wasn’t anywhere! Stumped, she sat on the edge of the bed and thought about where she’d had it last. Just then her mom and Aunt Liz appeared in her bedroom.

“Don’t tell me you’ve lost the key!” her mom said, looking at her in disbelief.

Emily bit her lip. She tried to think of where it could be. Had she left it in the past?

“Why can’t you be more organized, Emily?” her mom asked. “It’s not that hard, you know! Just take some time and plan it out. This goes here, that goes there, and then you can always find things.”

“I’m sure it’s just misplaced temporarily,” said Aunt Liz, trying to soften Kate’s words.

Emily looked up at her gratefully. Then she faced her mom. Suddenly, everything about her mom seemed clear.

“You know something, Mom? You’re right!” Emily stood up.

“What?” Kate asked in disbelief. “I’m right?”

Emily nodded. “Yes. I know I need to be a little more organized, but I’ll never be as good at it as you are. I’m just not that kind of person.”

She thought of Kate from the past and how her mom was so similar to her. She couldn’t seem to stop voicing her opinion. “I know you can’t help being the way you are, Mom, any more than I can help the way I am. All right, I can change a little,” she admitted. “But what I’m trying to say is that we’re all different. I’m not going to let you make me crazy, just because we do things differently. Yes, I’ve misplaced the key. I’ll find it.”

She ushered her mom and aunt to the door. “I just need time to figure out where it might be.”

Aunt Liz clapped lightly, bowing to Emily, and left. Her mom tried to say something, but Emily held up her hand to stop her.

“Not now, Mom. I need to think!”

She closed the door in her mom’s surprised face. When she was sure they were both gone, Emily lay back on her bed and giggled. The tension she felt around her mom seemed to have dissolved. From now on, she was going to have her mom treat her more like an adult, and she was not going to take her mom’s bossy ways so seriously.

She had enough to worry about with her parents divorcing, not seeing her dad for a very long time, and trying to save the stone house for the future. Her mind went blank over the lost key, so eventually she gave up and crept downstairs. Maybe if she didn’t think about it, she’d remember. She could hear them in the kitchen, their voices muted.

“I don’t know what to do about Emily,” Kate complained.

“What do you mean?” asked Aunt Liz.

“I just don’t understand what’s come over her lately. Look at the way she acted upstairs. Ordering me around.”

Aunt Liz laughed. “She’s growing up. She has her own mind. You should be proud that she’s finding out who she is.”

“Speaking of her mind, I’m wondering if there isn’t something seriously wrong with her. All these stories she’s telling.”

“I think you have to face it, Kate, your daughter is fey, just like Mom was,” Aunt Liz spoke frankly.

“Fey?” Kate questioned.

“Yes, you know, psychic, second sight, woo-woo-WOO-woo.”

“I know what it means,” Kate replied in disgust. “I just don’t believe in it.”

“How else are you going to explain what’s been happening?”

“Well, she’s been seeing ghosts, maybe, but nothing else!” Kate insisted.

“Talking to them too,” Aunt Liz said smugly. “And if we were to believe her, interacting with them as well.”

Emily burst into the kitchen.

“They’re not ghosts,” she declared.

“Well, how else do you explain it, then?” her mom demanded.

A sudden smile tugged at the corner of Emily’s mouth, when she thought about the similar discussion she’d had with Geordie.

“It’s different,” she attempted to explain. “I actually went back into pioneer time. Just like I did before, with Emma.”

“Oh boy, here we go again.” Her mom’s look of disbelief, said it all. “Emily, you really have to quit fantasizing.”

Emily raised her eyebrows at her mom. “Do you really think that’s what I’ve been doing?”

Kate spluttered, “I have no idea what you’ve been up to. It all sounds crazy to me!”

“That’s just because you don’t try to understand it,” Emily said. “Don’t you believe in ghosts at all? I don’t mean the scary haunting kind, but maybe relatives coming back to tell people about something, like they sometimes show on television documentaries.”

“There are some amazing stories, all right, but no one can prove they’re true,” Kate said.

“They can’t prove they aren’t true, either,” Emily grinned.

Aunt Liz gave her the thumbs-up.

“You quit encouraging her!” Kate admonished her sister.

“She made a good point, Kate!” Aunt Liz laughed.

“Fine!” Kate conceded. “I can see I can’t win with the two of you. I still don’t believe it’s true, but you can think what you want.”

Kate rose as if to leave the kitchen.

“Wait, Mom,” Emily said. “Can we talk about keeping the house?”

Kate’s mouth fell open. “You can’t be serious!”

“I am serious! I know we need to keep this house in our family. When you know how hard our ancestors worked to build it and keep it, through bad crops and prairie fires, it just doesn’t seem right to let it go.”

“Look, Gerald Ferguson is going to allow us access to it any time we want,” Kate stood with her hands on her hips.

“Yes, but coming to stay in the stone house for a visit isn’t the same thing as owning it,” Emily argued.

“I’m not even going to discuss it anymore. I know how you feel and I’m sorry. If there was a way to do it, we would have done it by now. End of story.” Kate said, leaving the room.

“There has to be a way!” Emily protested.

Aunt Liz looked crestfallen, too. “I’m sorry too, because it’s the centre of our family heritage.”

Suddenly, Emily’s face brightened. “You may just have hit upon something, Aunt Liz!”

“What?” she asked mystified.

“The heritage part.” Emily said eagerly.

She began searching through the stack of papers on the end of the counter for the local newspaper she’d been reading, remembering an article about the Wolseley courthouse. At last, she found it, and quickly turned to the right page. She strode over to show her aunt.

“See,” she pointed out the article. “It’s been declared a heritage site.”

Aunt Liz raised her eyebrows. “And so?”

“So, why couldn’t we do that with this house?”

“I really doubt it!” said her mom, returning to the room somewhat calmer.

Aunt Liz pondered for a few minutes, scanning the article. “I wonder if this house would meet the criteria for being declared a heritage site?”

“Pfff! What’s so special about it?” Kate chided.

“I don’t know, but I could phone and find out on Monday,” Aunt Liz said. “At least it would be kept from deteriorating.”

Aunt Liz looked at Kate. “What do you say, Miss Bossy Boots?” Aunt Liz teased her.

Kate answered slowly. “I suppose it can’t hurt to find out.”

Emily danced around behind her aunt. “Yes! I knew there had to be something.”

“Don’t get your hopes up yet,” Aunt Liz warned. “There are plenty of stone houses around the area, so it might come to nothing. It doesn’t have any particular historical significance.”

Aunt Liz held up her hand in anticipation of Emily’s protest. “I mean to others besides us!”

“I suppose something that might be in our favour is that we’re still living here, and most of the others are abandoned or falling down,” her mom said, warming a little to the idea.

“If being a heritage site doesn’t work, I’ve got another idea.” Emily grinned at them both. “Why don’t we turn the house into a bed and breakfast? We could run it and stay here too.” Emily looked excitedly at them both.

“Aunt Liz, you wanted to retire, and a bed and breakfast wouldn’t take much work. And Mom, you’re always complaining that you’d like to do something different. What could be more perfect?”

Kate groaned. “I don’t think so, besides we just had an auction and got rid of everything.”

A shadow crossed Emily’s face and then she brightened again, and laughed. “I think we still have enough furniture, with all my stuff!” She laughed.

Aunt Liz grinned, “I suppose you’re right about that!”

“I’m not saying I’m interested,” said Kate, “but there would still be the problem of who owns the place and the upkeep of the grounds.”

“You said yourself, Mom, that Gerald doesn’t want the house, and he’d have to mow the yard anyway, so what could be so difficult about running the place?”

“I’m sure there are plenty of things!” Kate looked over at Aunt Liz, who had a pensive look on her face.

Emily appealed to her aunt, “We’d just have to cook some meals and do some laundry and a little cleaning. Aunt Liz, you’re a whiz at cooking.”

Aunt Liz laughed. “You’re quite the conniver, Emily!”

“I’ll say!” said Kate.

“Have I convinced you yet?” She smiled at her mother.

Kate protested, “No, Em, you haven’t. I’ve got my job to do. How would I ever manage it out here?”

“The Internet!” Emily answered. “Most of what you do, from what I’ve seen, is all done on your computer anyway.”

Kate seemed stumped. “This is all too sudden,” she protested. “We’d have a lot of thinking and planning to do before we’d ever consider doing something like that. I doubt it’s something we could do full-time.”

“But, it’s a good idea, isn’t it?” Emily asked. “Just let me know what I can do to help!”

“For starters, you can set the table for supper,” her mom interjected.

Emily rolled her eyes. “Mom, you are such a damper!”

But Emily smiled, pleased that there might be a chance of keeping the stone house after all.