Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
The little man studied my writing for a moment and then nodded to himself.
“Not the neatest, but I suppose it’ll have to do, so it will,” he muttered to himself.
He whisked away the ink pot and the long, plumy quill. I tried to see where he put them, but he was too quick—they almost seemed to just disappear. Then he pulled out a large, creamy white envelope that at first glance looked like a wedding invitation. Holding it out in both hands, he presented it to me with a little bow.
What’s this?
I wanted to ask it out loud, but as usual when talking to strangers, my words were stuck. So I just took it from him. On it was a strangely familiar name…Elvira J. Pruitt. Where had I heard that name before? Pruitt was my mother’s maiden name but her first name had been Linda. So who—
“May I present to you, Sarah J. Massey, the last will and testament of your maternal Grandmother, Elvira J. Pruitt,” the little man said, answering my question and interrupting my thoughts at the same time.
Grandmother? A sudden flash of memory like a light bulb flicking on in a dark room popped up in my mind’s eye. A woman with thick gray hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck. She was standing in a sunny kitchen, wearing a faded red apron and holding a bowl filled with…something? Brownie batter? And she was humming a tune that was somehow familiar.
Then the memory was gone again, as quickly as it had appeared. But it left an afterimage, like a bright flash of light does, behind my eyes.
I looked at the envelope again. The date on it was five years before—almost exactly five years. I pointed at it and raised my eyebrows at the little man.
“Ah yes—well, sometimes it takes a while to find the next of kin,” he said, nodding. “And sometimes the invitation doesn’t come to you until you really need it.”
Invitation? But I thought it was her last will and testament?
I couldn’t say the words and he didn’t stay any longer. He nodded briefly at me and said,
“I expect I’ll see you round the Hollow.”
See me around where?
But he had already hurried down the hallway, past the other apartments in my row and was gone around the corner before I could do—or try to say—anything else.
If I had known what was going to happen next, I might have dropped the creamy white envelope and shut the door. Or maybe I would have made the trip all the way down to the dumpster to throw it as far away as possible. I might even have burned it.
But I didn’t know, so I took it inside with me and shut the door.
CHAPTER TWO
Sebastian purred and wove himself around my legs as I walked back to the tiny two-person table in the corner that served as my combined dining room and breakfast nook. He’s a gray Norwegian Forest cat and he’s big—almost twenty-five pounds. He was my mom’s before she passed and I inherited him from her.
He was about the only thing I’d inherited, except for a few knick-knacks like her mirror. Her house and everything in it had to be sold at the end—it went to pay for her hospital bills. The cancer that killed her had been slow and painful and in the end it took everything—literally everything of any value.
I always felt like that was somehow unfair. The hospital shouldn’t be able to charge so much when they hadn’t been able to save her. I wouldn’t have minded giving them all that money if they’d just been able to give me back my Mom. Instead they had failed and I’d barely had enough money left over to bury her.
Still, I had Sebastian and he was a good companion. My words never got stuck in my throat when I talked to him, since he was an animal, not a person, and he was an excellent foot-warmer at night.
“This is weird,” I told him, showing him the envelope as though he could read. On the outside of it my Grandmother’s name was inscribed in thin, spidery handwriting that looked somehow familiar.
I didn’t just mean that getting my Grandmother’s last will and testament—five years late—was weird, though. I meant the fact that I had a Grandmother at all.
I mean, everyone has a Grandmother of course—it’s a fact of biology. But until the strange little man mentioned my Grandmother’s name, I had completely forgotten her. I mean, that flash of memory with her humming in the kitchen and stirring brownie batter was the first thought I’d ever had of her—that I could remember, anyway. It was like there was a blank space in my mind where she ought to have been.
But honestly, a lot of my earliest childhood memories were like that—blank spots and gaping holes. My distant past was dark—a void I couldn’t see into.