“We have a winner! Let’s see what you’ve been hiding, Roger Carlton!” Several minutes later she cried out triumphantly. Looks like I was right.” Irene bent and began trying to fit one key after another into the little lock. I almost got rid of them, but ended up shoving them in the back of his desk drawer, worried that I might need them at some point. He kept them on him at all times, even after we no longer owned the businesses or properties they once opened. Especially Roger’s secrets.” She huffed out of the room and returned a minute later, slightly breathless and clutching a huge ring of keys. Carlton?” She said lamely, blushing at her attempt to be blasé and innocent. Maggie wrenched up on the lid, wiggling it without success. Irene stared blankly at the lock and then looked at Maggie with a puzzled frown marring her pretty face. Maggie eased the cushion off the seat, pointing to the little lock set in the smooth wood of the bench. They made their way down the stairs from the attic to Maggie’s room. Irene smacked the album closed and stood from the old stool she had been seated on.
You wouldn’t know where the key is, would you? I wouldn’t mind using it if it’s empty.” At little less direct that time. Irene frowned and tilted her head to the side charmingly. Is it some kind of chest or something?” Sometimes the direct approach was the best one. Maggie started at the resemblance between them…she had only to look at her aunt to see what she would like in fifty odd years. Her hair was disheveled and there was a dirty smudge on her nose. Irene looked up absently from the photo album she was lost in. “Aunt Irene?” Maggie asked tentatively, brushing her dusty hands on her faded jeans.
You can’t exactly bring up ghostly apparitions over the breakfast table. She’d never said anything to her aunt about it, obviously. The spring clean reminded her of the locked window seat in her room. She set a few things aside, unwilling to try them on but unwilling to give them away, and organized and catalogued everything else, filling several boxes with items Irene was ready to get rid of. The blue dress had been relegated to the farthest corner of her closet, tucked away from sight in its protective zipper bag. Irene told her she could have anything she wanted, but Maggie realized playing dress-up would only remind her of the blue dress and dancing with Johnny. She cleaned Irene’s house from top to bottom, discovering a few unbelievably cool things in the process: old vinyl records, a working record player, clothes and handbags and shoes that would make any little girl – or big girl - squeal with delight.
Maggie spent most of Christmas vacation trying to be the best niece in the universe.
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