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I opened my mouth to reply, but no words came out. Words are hard for me with strangers. I wanted to say, “Sorry,” and make up some excuse, but the sentence just wouldn’t happen. I could feel it, trapped in my throat, like a piece of food that was lodged there trying to choke me.
The little man with the bushy beard didn’t seem to notice my anxiety, however.
“At any rate, now that I’ve got you, are you Sarah J. Massey?”
Mutely, I nodded.
“All right, good. I have a certified letter you must sign for.”
He whipped out a clipboard with a form and handed me a pen—a very strange looking pen. In fact, it wasn’t a pen at all, I discovered after closer examination. It was a quill—a long, plumy quill that looked like it might be made from an ostrich feather. It waved a good two feet above my head as I held it in my hand.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” the little man demanded in his booming voice. “Why aren’t you signing?”
Again, I couldn’t answer. So I bent my head and did my best to scratch my name onto the clipboard. However, the sharpened end of the quill didn’t make any marks.
“Oh—pardon me! Here—I see the problem.”
The little man pulled a little pot out of his pocket, uncapped it, and held it out to me. After a moment, I realized it was an ink pot and he wanted me to dip the sharp end of the quill into it.
This encounter was getting stranger and stranger. I wished I could ask some questions, but they lodged in my throat. I dipped the point of the quill into the little pot and scrawled my signature on the form, rather messily.
The little man studied my writing for a moment and then nodded to himself.
“Not the neatest, but I suppose it’ll have to do, so it will,” he muttered to himself.
He whisked away the ink pot and the long, plumy quill. I tried to see where he put them, but he was too quick—they almost seemed to just disappear. Then he pulled out a large, creamy white envelope that at first glance looked like a wedding invitation. Holding it out in both hands, he presented it to me with a little bow.
What’s this?
I wanted to ask it out loud, but as usual when talking to strangers, my words were stuck. So I just took it from him. On it was a strangely familiar name…Elvira J. Pruitt. Where had I heard that name before? Pruitt was my mother’s maiden name but her first name had been Linda. So who?—
“May I present to you, Sarah J. Massey, the last will and testament of your maternal Grandmother, Elvira J. Pruitt,” the little man said, answering my question and interrupting my thoughts at the same time.
Grandmother? A sudden flash of memory like a light bulb flicking on in a dark room popped up in my mind’s eye. A woman with thick gray hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck. She was standing in a sunny kitchen, wearing a faded red apron and holding a bowl filled with…something? Brownie batter? And she was humming a tune that was somehow familiar.
Then the memory was gone again, as quickly as it had appeared. But it left an afterimage, like a bright flash of light does, behind my eyes.
I looked at the envelope again. The date on it was five years before—almost exactly five years. I pointed at it and raised my eyebrows at the little man.
“Ah yes—well, sometimes it takes a while to find the next of kin,” he said, nodding. “And sometimes the invitation doesn’t come to you until you really need it.”
Invitation? But I thought it was her last will and testament?
I couldn’t say the words and he didn’t stay any longer. He nodded briefly at me and said,
“I expect I’ll see you round the Hollow.”
See me around where?
But he had already hurried down the hallway, past the other apartments in my row and was gone around the corner before I could do—or try to say—anything else.
If I had known what was going to happen next, I might have dropped the creamy white envelope and shut the door. Or maybe I would have made the trip all the way down to the dumpster to throw it as far away as possible. I might even have burned it.
But I didn’t know, so I took it inside with me and shut the door.
CHAPTER TWO
Sebastian purred and wove himself around my legs as I walked back to the tiny two-person table in the corner that served as my combined dining room and breakfast nook. He’s a gray Norwegian Forest cat and he’s big—almost twenty-five pounds. He was my mom’s before she passed and I inherited him from her.
