“Come down here.” Lisa’s voice, although faint between the first and third floors, nonetheless grated on Abby’s nerves as usual.
Abby put aside the Civil War book she’d been flipping through. “Of course I’m coming, like I have a choice. I’m sure some very important project waits for me, like dishes, vacuuming, something to improve mankind. What a pain in the ass. No, I have to stop acting like this, it isn’t the me I want to be.”
She stopped muttering as she rounded the bend in the first-floor stairs. On the marble-topped entry table sat a huge package addressed to Abigail Whitney. “Yes.”
“What exactly is in there?” Lisa stood with one hand on the package. “The UPS man left this on the porch; did you order something? The return is from an antique store. I didn’t know you were into antiques—or that you had money to blow on frivolous things.” Lisa’s jutting jaw,and frown said more than her words did.
Abby reached for the package. “It’s nothing.”
Lisa’s hand clamped down on it. “It’s big, it’s heavy, and I want to know what it is.”
“Yes, well, it seems to be addressed to me, not you,” Abby said. “So if you don’t mind …”
To Abby’s surprise, tears formed in Lisa’s eyes and spilled in silence down her cheeks. “I suppose you have a right to your privacy. I forget you aren’t three years old anymore. I wish—oh, never mind.”
An unexpected ache filled Abby’s heart. “Hey, it’s not a big deal, just an old book I found on eBay. I have enough money saved up, so don’t worry about another bill.”
Lisa managed a small smile and went back toward the kitchen.
Abby lugged the package upstairs to her room, mind churning. The heavy parcel shook Abby’s old dresser as she plunked it down. Ripping off the tape, she lifted out the Munroe Bible. She ran her hand over the quilted leather cover, embossed dove, and gilded lettering, then bent down to sniff the musky parchment. “What secrets are you going to tell me?”
“Hey, Abs. You in there?” Morton knocked on the door and then barged in, uninvited. “What’s up? Your Mom’s crying in the kitchen, and I heard you up here. You guys have a fight again? You should be nicer to her, you know. At least your mom can cook and walk around and stuff. You gotta let the past go.”
He held up a glass. “I got some orange juice on the way through; it goes great with M&M’s—chocolate and citrus, yum. Want some?” He wandered around the room, then noticed the old Bible on the dresser. “Hey—you got it.”
Abby grabbed the book from Morton. She rubbed at a smear of chocolate on the cover. “Can’t you at least wipe the candy off your hands?”
“You do know how miserable you can be sometimes, right?” Morton said. “Besides, M&M’s are supposed to melt in your mouth, so I didn’t know there would be chocolate on my hands.”
Abby rolled her eyes. “I’m going through this book again. There must be something in here to help us figure out the big mystery about Silas. If there is a mystery. I’ll start in the front and work through one page at a time.”
“Are you for real?” Morton said. “This thing must be a foot wide and a bazillion pages long. We’ll never get done.”
Abby put one hand on her hip. “‘Never’ used to be my favorite word. I’d ‘never’ do anything too hard; I thought my life would ‘never’ change, my dad would ‘never’ leave, my mother would ‘never’ come back. Well, look at what’s happened. Every day’s a struggle, my Dad is dead, and my mother is worming her way back into my life. I will solve this mystery; don’t tell me I won’t.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.” Morton studied Abby. “Did you know you look like your mom when you stand like that?” He ducked when she swatted at his shoulder.
“Let’s get started.” Abby opened the Bible. “It’s divided into books, with chapters and verses. The first book is Genesis.”
She pulled Leticia’s letter from the drawer and studied the text. “Look at this, near the end. I thought it must be about a guy named Gene III, but that doesn’t make any sense. What if it’s a clue, you know, to check out Genesis, chapter three? Looks like they used Roman numerals instead of numbers back then.”
Abby opened the Bible and turned to Genesis. In chapter three, five verses down, she found a phrase underlined: knowing good and evil. In the margin, sideways, she saw a hand-lettered notation: PS XXXVII. “Morton, look at this. She’s sending us to another place. PS, PS …” Abby flipped through the pages. “It must mean the book of Psalms, number thirty-seven.”
Morton crossed the room balancing orange juice in one hand while he shoved the last of the candy in his mouth with the other. He tripped, lost his balance, and fell. The candies spit out of his mouth and bounced across the floor. Juice rained through the air onto the hardwood, splashing stray droplets on the Bible.
“Look what you’ve done. Where’s your brain? In your stomach as usual?”
Morton got to his feet. His face blanched, and he pulled his hands back as if burned, tucking them behind his back. “I’m s-s-sorry,” he said. “Here, I’ll take care of it.” He reached forward, grabbed the heavy Bible, and dropped it with a resounding thud. It landed in the puddle of orange juice, splashing Abby’s legs.
Abby gritted her teeth. “Do. Not. Help. Me.” She raced to the bathroom, returning with two bath towels. She groaned when she saw Morton mopping the floor with her pillowcase. She threw the towels at him.
Morton cleaned the floor while Abby lugged the Bible to the nightstand by her side window. Sunlight streaming through the lace curtains made fancy designs on the quilted book cover, softening it into a work of abstract art. The smell of old paper and orange juice, incongruent together, filled the room.
Glancing out the window she saw Jack on the barn roof hammering new shingles. His back gleamed with sweat, and the muscles in his right arm bulged with the effort. She watched him, wondering about his secrets.
Jack sat back on his heels, wiping his face with a red bandana. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he gazed over the treetops down the bike trail. A small smile played around his thin lips, and he nodded. As he turned back to the roof, he caught Abby staring at him and scowled. She waved, but he ignored her and went back to work, wielding the hammer with vicious energy.
“Jerk,” she said. “What’s your problem?”
“Look, I said I’m sorry. You don’t have to call me names.”
“Not you. It’s Jack.”
“Told you so from the very first time I met him.” Morton smirked.
Abby shrugged and picked up the sticky Bible. After examining the front cover, she leafed through the pages. “The leather protected the inside. I’ll clean off the rest of the juice. Just be careful from now on.”
“You’re the one who insisted we stay up here. I do better in the kitchen with food.” Morton cringed when Abby frowned. “Don’t forget I’m still a kid.”
“Yeah, okay; truce.” Abby handed him a pad of paper. “You can be the secretary.”
Morton giggled. “And do what, get you coffee?”
Abby ignored him. She opened the Bible to the first section, the Old Testament, and found the marked verse in Genesis again. “Write this down: knowing good and evil.”
While Morton wrote, Abby muttered to herself. “Good and evil. Dad good, cancer evil. If Silas did something good, how could it be evil? What about Jack, which one is he? The good, understanding, hot guy who rode in on a bike or the evil, moody, mystery guywho appeared out of nowhere? How do I know? How do I find out?”
She sighed and stared at the Bible, a little prayer playing through her mind, hoping someone out there heard her.