“Boots!” Annie scolded as she bent to retrieve the box and lid, and gather the spilt contents. “What is it with us and boxes?” Grandpa had brought the box home from his travels during World War II. It was intricately carved from mahogany and was accented with genuine ivory, the inside padded with rich red velvet. Annie had always wondered if the beauty of that box had been what sparked Grandpa’s hobby of carving. She scooped up the bits of paper scattered on the floor, glancing at them one by one. Most were notes of appreciation from relieved animal owners, a few receipts from local stores, and a few index cards filled with Gram’s handwriting. Annie flipped through the cards, delighted to see they were some of her grandmother’s most beloved recipes. The last one excited Annie the most. “Boots, you’re forgiven. I found Gram’s rose-hip jelly recipe!”
Boots trotted through the library door and down the hall, having had enough of the booby-trapped library. Annie followed her into the kitchen to restore the recipes to their original place on the baker’s rack, the jelly recipe lying on top. If the rose hips had not needed a couple more days before reaching their peak, she would have abandoned the library to make jelly. But Gram had taught her well; rushing never made the best jelly. So she brewed a new cup of tea and carried on with her chore. After returning the desktop to its pre-Boots condition, Annie finished adding the rest of the books for the children to the area she had cleared. One of those books was The Jungle Book. Annie positioned it at the end of a shelf where it would be easy to find on the day she felt John and Joanna were ready to enjoy the stories.
Satisfied with the new children’s section, Annie dug into shelving the books stacked around the reading chair. The variety of titles she read on the spines reminded her of how far flung her grandparents’ interests had been. No wonder there had never been a moment of boredom during her summers at Stony Point. Once the reading chair had been liberated from the surrounding wall of books, Annie decided to give her back and knees a little break. She allowed herself some time to leaf through some of her grandfather’s journals. In spite of the aura of cozy clutter in the library, his journals were meticulous, organized chronologically. Annie thought back to her conversation with Cecil and calculated in which years the journals were most likely to mention her new acquaintance. Pulling those journals off the shelf and stacking them on the side table, Annie settled into the reading chair.
For the next hour Annie was engrossed in her grandfather’s adventures as a small-town veterinarian. With an economy of words, the journals told of filling out rabies certificates for disgruntled dog owners in December before they expired on New Year’s Eve, detecting stomach ulcers in an alpaca, setting a leg of a Persian-mix cat that had not quite made it to the other side of the road. Then, Annie’s eyes rested on the first mention of Cecil. “Cecil Lewey came along to assist on call to Hanover Farm. Ram. Calm and strong. Cecil, that is. Did not flinch when Percy tried to butt down the posts. Will offer him more work.” Annie did not understand enough of the technical terms her grandfather had used well enough to know what had been ailing Percy.
Annie read enough to increase her appreciation for Grandpa’s knowledge, skill, and his giving heart. She also was reassured she had been wise to pursue a different career path. Her teacup was long empty. Careful to keep the journals in the correct order, Annie began to put them back in their place. While the journals had been off the shelf, the books around them had shifted. Annie pushed the books to the left to make room again, holding them back with her left hand. She was reaching for the journals when she noticed a slip of white winking between the dark wood shelf and a book. Raising the book, Annie gently pulled the paper free. Her breath caught as she realized it was the same kind of delicate writing paper she had found in the birch-bark box. And it was torn.
Annie turned it over. The first line was the last line of the second verse she had read so many times:
How would you thrive?
Sister Rabbit, thicket thriving
Rain nurtures the chokeberries you eat.
If love took you to ocean deep,
How would you thrive?
There was a third stanza:
Sister White Deer, forest leaping
Come, bring your power to aid me now.
For love took me from all I know.
I cannot leap.
And there, below the third verse was a name, Clara Stewart, followed by the year the poem was written—1904—and two words, “mikwid hamid.” Those words seemed strangely familiar to Annie, but she couldn’t remember why. Had she seen it at the museum? No, it was during her visit with Cecil! Those were the Passamaquoddy words Tomah Joseph sometimes etched into his carvings. Annie strained to recollect the translation. Remember me, she thought. Wasn’t that it?