Next, Annie decided to give it the “tip test.” Scooting a box on the bottom shelf over a few inches, Annie placed her right foot in the space she had just made. Then, she pulled the rack forward just a little to test how easily the tall piece might topple with its load. The light pull barely moved the rack, so she kept her foot in place and jerked harder. Something launched off the top shelf, skimmed off Annie’s head, and tumbled onto the dusty floorboards.
Boots padded over to sniff the object that had attacked Annie. “Maybe it would have been better if I’d looked at that top shelf more closely.” Annie leaned over to scoop the box from under Boots’ nose. Round and very light, the box was made from a dark, reddish-brown bark. Annie turned the box slowly in her hands; along the sides, etched deer and moose roamed among grass with birds flying overhead. The lid’s rim was etched with vertical lines spaced about a half inch apart, and the top featured double geometric shapes and leaves.
When she had first picked up the box, it was so light Annie had assumed it was empty. But as she turned it to look at the designs she heard movement inside. Taking off the lid, Annie laid it gently on the soft stack of linens. She carefully drew out what was nestled inside. Tilted toward the afternoon sun coming in the attic window, light caught colorful beadwork. “How exquisite!” On a slightly faded black fabric background periwinkle blue and soft rose wildflowers bloomed among delicate green leaves. The long rectangle was less than three inches wide. “Hmmm, I wonder,” Annie murmured. She gently lifted the beaded strip to her forehead to wrap the piece around her head. “Either I’m as big-headed as I am hard-headed, or this was not made for a head, even a child’s head. A little lower, perhaps.” The ends of the beautiful beadwork met around Annie’s throat. “That’s more like it.”
She looked around for a mirror and remembered the broken tramp-art mirror in the pile she had just rearranged. Tilting the mirror for a better angle, Annie caught a look of herself and the beaded flowers adorning her neck. “Gram, how did this find its way to your attic?” Annie supposed it was silly to keep asking Betsy questions, but she always felt so close to her grandmother whenever she ventured up to the attic. She almost expected to see Gram winking at her from behind the old vanity in the corner, just like she used to when they played hide-and-seek together during Annie’s first summer in Stony Point. And almost as though Betsy had whispered a reminder, sending it along on the sunbeams, Annie remembered there was something else in the intriguing box.
A folded sheet of paper was curled along the inside wall of the box. When Annie opened it, she realized the bottom third of the sheet had been torn. The writing was old-fashioned and finely flourished, much different from her own utilitarian script. Though not titled, the words on the page formed a poem—or at least part of a poem. Annie read aloud:
Sister Otter, water dancing
Sun splashes over circles you draw.
If love took you to desert dry,
Where would you dance?
Sister Rabbit, thicket thriving
Rain nurtures the chokeberries you eat.
If love took you to ocean deep,
There the lines ended, the words silenced in midthought. The handwriting revealed a writer who had been taught long before electric typewriters or computers. Was the poem copied as a penmanship exercise? Or had it flowed from heart to pen? Where was the rest of the page?
Betsy was well remembered as a person who loved beauty in all dimensions; Annie could not imagine her hiding away these pieces of art in her attic without a good reason. But what that reason could possibly be was beyond her. Annie tucked the poem back into the box, taking care to be gentle with the aging paper. The knowledge she had gained from her grandparents’ love of antiques and her parents’ international travel in their ministry convinced Annie the designs were not European, Asian, or African. Rubbing her finger over the texture of the wood, she decided her friends at the Hook and Needle Club might enjoy seeing the box and beadwork, and Annie hoped that between them all they could puzzle out their origin.
“Come on, Boots. I think we’ve had enough time up here for the day.” Annie maneuvered her way through the attic maze to the door. Boot darted ahead, down to the second floor. Stopping in the cozy sitting room off her bedroom, Annie retrieved her camera from its perch on a double corner shelf. Boots meandered into the master bedroom, springing effortlessly onto the plump quilt of the bed. Annie set the box and camera on the chest of drawers. Her hands free, she rummaged through the shallow top drawers to find a white handkerchief. “This should do.”