We’d loved each other forever. Grew up two houses down from each other. Went to the same schools and sometimes, if luck was with us, were in the same classes. We looked enough alike that some thought we were sisters. In a way, we were: sisters with different last names. We held each other’s secrets close, and kept promises made with the passionate loyalty of youth. When college years approached, we promised each other we’d choose the same college.

That was the first promise we broke. Her parents wanted her to go east to their alma mater and she agreed. I wanted something close to home. We kept in touch with weekend girlfriend chats, though less because of studies and new friends. Then one week we didn’t.

She moved back to town ten years later. I’d already settled there with a husband and two kids in a starter house that was fast becoming our forever home. We ran into each other at the local grocery and stopped at the cafe next door for lunch. By the time we’d caught up, her ice cream had melted and my fish sticks had grown soft.

We fell back into the familiar dance of friendship. My kids thought she was a superhero. Without the extra treasure and tension that mark the presence of a family, she had energy, money, and time to do those kinds of things that lives of mundane structure cannot. I promised I would cheer her on in whatever next adventure she undertook. She promised to understand when I did not join in.

I can see now what I didn’t then. Our long, repetitive accounts of years together and apart lasted sometimes into the night. Honestly, I was flattered she was so interested in the time I’d mistaken salt for sugar on Valentine’s Day or missed my car payment one December. I was grateful for the sweet little presents she bought for my kids. Her excuses for the missed lunch dates were little bits of nothing I ignored. All were tells I could’ve noticed.

When she suddenly moved and I was left without an inkling why, I dusted off college-honed research skills to find her. Hours of effort resulted in nothing other than a suspicion of identity theft in different cities across the country. Her parents were of no use, only saying it was her way to visit them on an unplanned day and they were resigned to her preference. My husband told me to let it go. Let it go.

It’s been ten years since. Shortly after I’d turned up nothing other than suspicion, I was served with a subpoena for the information I hadn’t found. From there it was a hop, skip, and a jump to complex accusations I still don’t understand.

My life continues its mundane structure, but my schedule is behind bars. My children grew up to call another woman ‘mother’. My friends seem to think she is me, as if that were possible. My husband grew distant and divorced, and my friend?

She broke a whole stack of promises when she stole my identity – complete with its extra treasure and tension. And I broke only one: I no longer cheer her on in whatever next adventure is hers.

Image: enwikipedia.org heart

It’s been four years since. I’ve met some people from town, but mostly prefer the solitude of this place. The vastness of the grounds does something to you; something forgiving, maybe. The quietness feeds you.

I found it finally; pulled it out of a very twisting, very dark, very wet cave underneath a small waterfall. I dragged it home, the birds and their progeny following me hoping for some fresh berries in the rookery I had built up for them.

I turned on every light in my vast house, made a celebratory cup of tea, scratched my ankle vigorously, and opened the trunk at last.

I’ve been reading its contents for days now; love letters written over many years from a man to his wife; flirtatious notes, long letters of yearning, crisp pieces of ordinary detail, always signed the same way: “Undying love”. Treasure indeed.

The End

Image: Public Domain

I returned to the little town later and stayed in the same “cheap motel” as it had been so kindly described by what I was now referring to in my thoughts as “my stranger”. I had taken odd jobs here and there, long enough to save money enough to pull up roots and wander again. I had felt unsettled, admitting now that I had felt that way since I was a teenager, and, as inexplicable as it seemed, this was the one place I had lost that unsettled feeling one evening turned to night about one year ago. I picked up the paper in the tiny lobby as I sat down to eat my continental breakfast. As I turned a page, a small obituary stopped my hand, leaving my next bite untaken. It was she, no doubt: the dry, black hair; the harsh, definitive profile; the eyes the color of a turbulent sea.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked up. An overweight man in a black silk suit asked my name and sat across from me.

“Ah. I see you’ve been reading the death announcement. She became very ill a few months ago, called my office and asked that I find you and give you this.”

It was a copy of her will.

“She wrote it in my presence. It’s all legal.”

I scanned the type.

“Everything?” I asked, stupefied, unsure what I would do with worn, clompy brown shoes.

“She had no one. Not after her husband died. Here are the keys to the house. It’s the stone one on the hill. I’m sure you noticed it as you entered town.”

“I only recall a . . . what looked like a large . . . house.” I gave up trying to describe what I had seen.

He nodded. “Moved in as a young couple. Crazy in love, those two. He was away on business when he was hit by a little Honda. She wished she’d died with him. Never got over it.”

Upon those words, I was immediately transported back to the day when, as a careless teenager, driving much faster than the limit, I had killed a man. I felt the blood drain from my face.

He shook his head and then roused himself. “A very large estate indeed. That’s the one.”

He fished out another set of keys.

“Here,” he said handing them to me. “The keys to her cars. The Mercedes is parked in front,” he nodded out the window. “You might call the salvage yard to pick up that piece of junk,” he chuckled as he pointed to my Honda, the only car I had ever owned.

As he rose to leave, I called, “Wait! I . . . I don’t know what to do.”

“Why don’t you go home?” he laughed as he walked out the door.

I found it the moment I entered the house. A note lay on a table in the large entryway of the mansion. It said simply, “Do you wish to play a game?” Then I heard a familiar shriek.

to be continued . . .

video: youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHBJTVzvhkA

Looking at the birds that crowded around the box, she said, “So now you come! Now when I’ve done all the work!”

One of the birds pecked at her shoe.

I’ve nothing more left. Thank you for your help in finding it, but it’s all gone now.” She shooed them with her hands. “Go on. All gone.”

They squawked loudly, and she raised her voice over theirs, “The lady that came with me. She might have something for you.”

I suppose there are worse things than being found when you wish to hide, but I can’t think of many.

I shivered for a moment, enough to give myself away. They all looked my direction. I suppose there are worse things than being discovered when you wish to hide, but I can’t think of many. I crawled out from my place under the bush and took a few steps.

“The box,” I said, rather crossly. “What’s in it that you come so far from town, at night, with these, these . . .” I interrupted myself long enough to scratch my ankle furiously.

“Birds,” she finished calmly. “It’s a treasure I’ve been hunting for – oh, so many years I’ve lost count now. My husband buried it after a fight we had – years ago. He died not long after, but had left a note in his will telling me of some little birds he’d trained to show me where the treasure was. He always did love gamesmanship.”

“You’ve been hunting a treasure.”

She nodded.

“The birds led you to the treasure?”

“They led me to this little spot. I had to figure out for myself where exactly it was.”

She paused. “It took awhile,” she concluded.

I pointed to the chest. “I don’t suppose there’s anything there for me.”

“Not in this lifetime,” she said without malice, to my dismay.

“What do you think I can give those shrieking things?”

“I always gave them little pieces of meat. And berries. They seem to like berries.”

“Berries!”

What kind of mundane, insane conversation was I having with a stranger in the middle of the night? I began to walk. Then I ran. I must get to some place normal; a place that carried familiar scenes and scents; a place where people and birds said and did what they were supposed to say and do. I left town that same night.

to be continued . . .