“There’s a number etched underneath.”
He turned it carefully.
A sequence had been scratched into the metal.
2-14-16-19.
“Date?” he asked.
I stared at the numbers.
“No. Letters.”
B-N-P-S.
It meant nothing.
Then my breath caught.
“No,” I whispered. “Not letters. Positions.”
Luca looked at me.
“When my grandmother taught us recipes, she numbered the spice tins so Vanessa and I could help before we could read. Two was cinnamon. Fourteen was nutmeg. Sixteen was orange peel. Nineteen was star anise.”
“What does that mean?”
I thought of the final line.
Take it to the woman who taught you to make orange tea.
“Her kitchen.”
“But her house was sold after she died.”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “To a family friend.”
“Who?”
The answer came like a match struck in darkness.
“Mrs. Alvarez.”
Luca frowned. “Do you know where she is?”
I looked down at the box.
“She moved away when I was in college. I haven’t heard her name in years.”
The library seemed to listen with us.
Then, from somewhere above, floorboards creaked.
Luca rose instantly.
We both looked at the ceiling.
Another creak.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Someone was upstairs.
He moved toward the door, but I caught his sleeve.
“No,” I whispered.
His eyes met mine, and for once, he did not argue.
We took the metal box, the envelopes, and left the library without turning on another light. Every sound felt enormous: the brush of my coat, the soft shift of wood beneath our shoes, the wind pressing at the windows.
At the front door, I glanced back.
At the top of the staircase stood a figure in a gray coat.
For one impossible second, I thought it was a ghost.
Then she stepped into the light.
Vanessa.
My sister looked thinner than in the photograph, her face pale, her eyes wide with fear and relief and something that looked heartbreakingly like shame.
“Sarah,” she whispered.
My name cracked in her voice.
I could not move.
Three years of anger rose inside me, sharp and hot. Behind it came memories: Vanessa stealing my sweaters, Vanessa crying into my lap after our father scolded her, Vanessa singing off-key in our grandmother’s kitchen, Vanessa standing in my bedroom wearing my robe.
