A Bird on a Windowsill Read Free

“Looks like a key to some toolbox, maybe.”
    “A toolbox?” I try not to sound disappointed.
    “Yeah,” he says, still looking at it. “Where’d you get this from?”
    I shrug. “That girl that’s been hangin’ out at the paper gave it to me.”
    “Aah,” he breathes out. “A gift from a girl.”
    “It wasn’t a gift,” I shoot back. “She just found it and said that I could have it.”
    “Aah, son,” he breathes out again, pushin’ his thick glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “When a girl gives you somethin’, it’s special.”
    I wrinkle my nose in disgust. Grandpa’s talking crazy again. He does that sometimes. I go to fiddlin’ with a string that’s come lose on my shirt—just to pass the time. Mom says it ain’t right to walk away when someone’s talking—even when you don’t want to hear what they’re talking about.
    “Girls are treasures, son.” He points the key at me while eyeing me from over the top of his glasses. “And when one gives you somethin’, it’s like she’s givin’ you a piece of her treasure.”
    “That’s crazy, Grandpa. Girls aren’t treasure.”
    “Oh, sure they are.”
    I stick my tongue out and roll my eyes to the back of my head.
    “Your grandma is.”
    I stop and think about it for a second and then shrug.
    “Yeah, maybe Grandma,” I admit. “But that’s it.”
    “Well, your mother is, too,” Grandpa offers.
    I shrug again. “I guess so. But that’s it.”
    “Your sister?”
    “No way!” I say.
    His deep, full laugh fills the air. “Son, all I’m sayin’ is that if a girl gives you somethin’, you hold onto it.” He pauses and then points a crooked finger in my direction. “Better yet,” he says, “you hold onto her.”
    I stick my tongue out, resisting the urge to roll my eyes back in my head again. Mom says if I do it too much, my eyes will stay there.
    “You’ll find that out the hard way sooner or later.” He gives me his Grandpa look—the one that’s somewhere in between his normal face and a smile. “We all do.”
    I push my mouth to one side and lazily shrug my shoulders before turning to find Grandma. She’s always got some kind of chocolate to give me when I see her, and chocolate’s a lot better than whatever Grandpa’s tryin’ to feed me right now.
    “Son,” Grandpa says, stopping me. “You forgot your treasure.”
    “Aah,” I say, starin’ at the little silver key in his wrinkly hand. “You can keep it, Grandpa. I thought it was to a star tower.”
    “A star tower?”
    “Yeah,” I say, sounding a little defeated. “It’s a place where you can see the stars up close.”
    “Like an observatory?”
    I shrug. “Maybe.” I don’t know what that is.
    Grandpa just looks at me and then smiles and sets the key onto the edge of the table. “Okay, but I’m still just gonna leave it here for you, son.”
    I sigh and venture off to find Grandma, but I don’t even get two steps into the hallway when I hear Grandpa’s old, scratchy voice again.
    “Son.”
    I stop, but I don’t turn around.
    “I’ve been known to be wrong...a time or two,” he says. “That there might very well be a key to a star tower. ...A big one.”
    I still don’t turn around, until after I hear the paper rustling behind me. Then slowly, I peek back around the corner. Grandpa’s taken a seat in his big easy chair, and he’s got the paper opened wide in front of his face.
    I stare at him for a few seconds, and then carefully, I tiptoe back into the room, quietly grab the key and stuff it deep inside my pocket.

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Two
    Salem 
    (Eight Years Old)
     

     
     
    Day 1,095
     
    “D illon, go get that shovel. We can scoop it up with that.”
    I cup my hands and dig into the powdered woodchips. Dillon and I are trying to see if we can make the biggest sawdust mountain we’ve ever made.
    “Dillon,” I shout over my shoulder. “The shovel.”
    I don’t hear him move, so I look up to see what he’s