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I shook my head. “No. Mother is acting weird. I think she’s right.”
I shoved the credit card between the doorjamb and the handle, wiggling it until it slipped beneath the lock and opened.
The smell of Mother’s perfume filtered out and warmed me. I’d always loved her smell. To think I was going against all of my raising. All of my feelings for my mother hurt me deeply.
Why would she do this? Why would she lie?
I turned on the light. The master bedroom was large, but my mother was a minimalist. There were decorations but no junk lying around. No lotions on her bedside table. Only a lamp.
Fern looked around the room. “I can’t imagine her hiding a spindle in here.”
I kicked open the closet door and looked into the darkness. Their bathroom was empty as well. Sliding my fingers into my hair, I sighed heavily and met Fern in their room.
She held two small packets in her hand. “What are these?”
I glanced at them. “Seeds for her garden ...”
My entire body stilled. Her garden. She’d never been a green thumb growing up and suddenly she took up a garden?
I’d thought it was because I left, and she was lonely. Maybe it wasn’t any of those things. Maybe she buried it.
I ran toward the back door and flung the door open. Birds and wildlife greeted me as I ran barefoot over the dew-soaked grass.
Fern shouted after me, but I couldn’t stop myself. I raced toward her garden and lowered myself to my knees. I’d sat here with her and spilled my deepest wishes of wanting a strong man.
While she potentially hid the object that had me kidnapped into another realm. I pulled up her flowers and began to dig with my bare hands.
“Josephine,” Fern said. “You’re scaring me. What are you doing?” she asked.
Her tangled blonde hair had fallen into her face, and she looked more like a faerie than ever. She looked youthful. Innocent. I was sad she’d been tossed into the life she had.
“Help me,” I said.
She bent down beside me and began to dig. “You think your mother hid the spindle in here?”
I nodded, digging faster, hitting rocks and dirt caking beneath my nails. I only dug harder. I wasn’t sure how long they would be gone for. An hour? Two?
What if it wasn’t—
I stopped when my fingers brushed something hard. Fern stopped beside me and glanced at me with big blue eyes. “You find something?”
I swallowed as I moved more dirt around and saw the tip of something golden. There it was. The spindle. Like a madwoman, I began to dig harder until my arms grew numb.
The fear of Mother showing up lingered over me like a ghostly shadow. Fern and I dug until the entire top was visible.
She ran her fingers along the smooth gold and gasped. “I can’t believe you found it,” she whispered. “We’re gonna save Kellan. I can't believe it!"
I wrapped my fingers around the top and began to pull, while Fern dug deeper around it, loosening the dirt.
I pulled until it was laying on top of me, and the I stared at the cloudy blue sky. A laugh slipped from me. We’d found it. We found the spindle.
Fern helped me stand it up. Then reality smacked me in the face.
“She will know we dug up her garden. Even if we try to fix it, she’ll know. She’s already suspicious. We have to leave. Help me move this.”
Fern grabbed one end, and I grabbed the other. We walked it over to the back door, and I raced toward the garden. Fern helped me put the soil back in and somewhat arrange the flowers.
It would buy us time.
