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The memory floods back. Me and Honey tucked up together in her bed while I read to her, picking up wherever Mom had left off, reading the familiar story in piecemeal, Honey’s small, warm body next to mine. “I’d forgotten.”
“I haven’t.” Honey pulls her hair up into a ponytail, revealing a small tattoo of a delicate bird at the nape of her neck. “I missed it when you left. Clover and Dani weren’t big on story time.”
“No. I can see that.” Guilt pulls at my center. I was so eager to get away from home, to move on to my bright future, I didn’treally think about what or who or I left behind. Or maybe I just blocked it, the pain too raw and real, and focused on school and work.
“Here it is.” Honey spreads her arms like a game show host as if I can’t clearly see my upright bass against the wall, the rest of the attic completely bare.
It’s clear the bass has been cared for, its wooden body gleaming in the sunlight, the strings in good shape, possibly new. I run a hand over its surface, remembering the hours I spent playing and how much I enjoyed it.
After Dad left us, I put it away and did my best to forget about it. Dad had been the one who’d wanted us all to play, not because of a wish to engender in us a love of music, but because he thought we might become rich and famous. Five sisters in a band, traveling the country.
Running my fingers over the warm, smooth wood now, I still feel it. The jolt and the pain when Dad vanished on us. But it’s muted and gone quickly, to be replaced by the good memories I have of playing and laughing with my sisters.
None of us can sing to save our lives, which put an end to Dad’s dreams. He even got Goldy and Clover singing lessons, but none of us had the voice to make it big. And our father only cared about something if it could be big. He had little patience for half-way or mediocre.
I pull the bass away from the wall. It’s lighter than I remembered.
As I lift it to carry it down to my room, something falls out from behind it and rolls across the floor.
Honey grabs the cardboard tube, the sort of thing a rolled up poster would fit inside, and stares at it. I set the bass back against the wall, curiosity piqued.
“I didn’t know this was up here,” Honey says, awe in her tone.
She pulls off one of the plastic ends and slides out a rolled up poster of some sort. I kneel next to her as she spreads it open on the floor. It’s a topographical map that someone has covered in notations and highlights.
Curled up inside the map is an eleven by eight sheet of paper. Honey uncurls it and reads aloud while the map curls in on itself and rolls back up.
“Dear girls,” Honey reads. “I’m not the first con-artist in the family. My father, your grandfather, Chet Weston, was an adventurer, a pirate, and a con-artist who would put me to shame. I once watched him convince a woman who lived in the desert that what she needed to cure her aching back was his patented, custom-made heating pad. He was out of town long before she figured out the thing didn’t even put out heat.”
“Hell of a thing to be proud of.” I peer over her shoulder at our father’s brusque, tight handwriting.
Honey keeps reading, “My father had the most amazing stories of his adventures. He claimed he owned enough in gold and diamonds to make us rich, but he didn’t dare try to cash it in because it had been stolen from a riverboat he’d pirated or a mining site he’d raided. He buried all that treasure in the mountains outside Catalpa Creek, but he didn’t make it easy for anyone to find, because he believed the person who deserved it would have to be smart enough to follow his clues. He didn’t even tell me, his own son, where to find it.”
“Like father like son,” I say.
Honey ignores me and keeps reading, “I don’t know anyone in the world smarter or more resourceful than you girls. I spent eighteen years of my life searching these God-forsaken mountains for the treasure that would have solved all our problems and made us a wealthy family. I eventually had to admit I was never going to find it and make my own way to wealthy.”
“So that’s what happened.” I sit back on my heels, the answer sliding into place like a missing puzzle piece. “He finally accepted he was never going to find the treasure, and he left town, abandoning us all.”
“Maybe.” Honey looks up from the letter. “I wonder if Mom knows about this.”
“If she does, I don’t blame her for not telling us. Look what it did to Dad.”
“It’s our family legacy.” Honey’s jaw is set in that same stubborn way it has since she was a kid and got her heart set on a plan she knew the rest of us would hate.
“Don’t go getting any ideas, Honey Bear. If Dad couldn’t find it after eighteen years, it’s probably not out there.”
“Let me at least finish the letter.” Honey bows her head over it, her dark hair sliding to cover her face and put the letter in shadow. “This treasure belongs to you, girls. It’s yours by birth and by blood. I’ve left you a lot of money, but if you find the treasure first, you won’t need my money. You can get the hell out of this town before the year is up, or you can use the treasure to fund the business you start in my name. Either way, it needs to be used, not left to rot in some hole in the ground or found by someone who has no rights to it. Don’t get lazy, my girls, find this treasure and live like the queens you are. Love, Daddy.”
“Daddy?” I say with a snort of disbelief. “Laying it on pretty thick there.” I don’t think we called him Daddy even we were little.
Honey’s eyes, when she looks up at me, are lit with excitement. “A treasure hunt, Daisy. Can you imagine anything more exciting?”
“I’d rather watch grass grow than spend nearly two decades of my life searching for a treasure that probably doesn’t exist.”
Honey spreads out the map and studies it, running her fingers over the surface. “But look at all the places he’s already been. That’s got to narrow it down.”
“Narrow it down? Honey, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of acres of mountains. How would we ever find it? Not to mention, none of us, except for possibly Dani and Grant, have any wilderness survival skills.”
