Touch of Eternity(3)

I took a deep breath and removed the lid. No sign of rare antiquities. But there was something about this box that made me think it was worth taking a closer look. A splash of red underneath a pile of yellowed papers caught my eye. It was a book with a leather cover—maybe a journal or a diary, I thought—and I carefully took it out. Next, I pulled out a huge pile of crumbling newspapers. I had almost given up hope of finding anything else interesting when my fingers ran into something hard. I groped around to get a good grip and tugged it out.

I held it up directly under the bare lightbulb. In my palm was a fairly unspectacular piece of jewelry: a tarnished silver chain and a round silver pendant. On the front was a circle with a bundle of arrows inside it. A ribbon was wound around the arrows and tied in the middle. Some words were engraved on the pendant—they seemed to be written in a foreign language—but it was so tarnished I couldn’t make them out, even though I rubbed it on my jeans to try and get the gunk off. The necklace couldn’t exactly be described as a treasure, but it was the most valuable thing I’d unearthed so far. I couldn’t remember ever seeing my grandma wear it, but I would definitely keep it.

I was still turning and twisting my find in the light, trying to decipher the writing, when my dad called for me.

“Sam! Can you please come down? We could really use your help putting all these boxes in the car.”

I sighed, shoved the necklace into my pocket, and called down the stairs to say that I’d be right there.

Looking over the papers and garbage bags strewn around the attic, I wasn’t sure all of my digging around had been of any use. But that little red book, the necklace, and a pile of letters I’d found—they seemed like they at least might be important. I figured I’d take another look at them at home. I stuffed them into my backpack and started to stand up, but my legs were almost numb from sitting cross-legged for such a long time. As I cautiously made my way down the steps, I heard a creaking sound from above and I turned around for a final look. I guessed this would be the last time I’d be in this house.

“Good-bye, Grandma,” I murmured. “I’m going to miss you.”

It felt wrong to me that we were selling Grandma’s house so soon after she had died, but my parents disagreed. I’d been avoiding them all day. Feeling for the necklace in my pocket, I swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat and put on an artificial smile.

“I’m here. Which boxes first?”

There was a chaotic pile of boxes in the driveway, and it looked like there was no way it was all going to fit into our car. Even if we could stuff everything in, I couldn’t see where I was going to sit.

But believe it or not, we managed to wedge everything in, like a giant puzzle, and I actually wasn’t too squished on the short trip home.

Our house was on Silver Lake in Milford, Delaware, only fifteen miles away from Grandma’s. I thought about how all these boxes with her belongings would now be put into our attic, probably only to be rediscovered when someone went through our stuff after we were gone.

It was already dark by the time we’d carried everything in. While Mom disappeared into the kitchen to make us a quick dinner, I sat down to do my homework. I hadn’t even started it when the phone rang.

“Hi, Kim,” I said as I picked up the phone without even checking the caller ID.

Kim hadn’t said a word, but she didn’t need to. Ever since we’d been in elementary school, she’d called every day at the exact same time to talk about important topics—mostly boys.

“Hi, Sam. How was it?”

“Dusty. But we finished everything.”

I was surprised she’d remembered to ask me about Grandma’s house. She’d been a little self-centered lately.

“Good, I’m glad that’s over with.” Then as expected, she quickly changed the topic. “You’ll never guess who I saw today.”

Kim’s enthusiasm practically radiated through the phone. I knew her cheeks must be pink with euphoria.

There was only one boy in Milford who could evoke such excitement, but I pretended not to know. “No idea… Tell me, who?”

“Ryan Baker!” She shouted so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear. “I was in line in front of him, so that means he got in line behind me!”

There was a meaningful silence. I shook my head.

Ryan was the coolest guy at our school. He was seventeen, a junior, just like us, and the quarterback of the football team. He had wild wheat-blond hair, luscious full lips, and cornflower-blue eyes. And, oh yeah, those devastating six-pack abs. Pretty much the entire school either wanted Ryan or wanted to be Ryan.