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Jenny lowered herself almost unconsciously into the dining room chair, eyeing the 3 boxes warily. "What do you think, Tidbit? Do we open up Pandora's box?"
Tidbit had sidled up beside her looking calmly into her eyes. The very tip of his tail twitched, but he didn't mrrrr back at her.
"Well, you're no help," she muttered.
She pulled the tape off of the top of the first box and pulled open the top. As promised, there on the top of a pile of file folders was a large, thick manila envelope. There was no writing on the outside, but she opened it as instructed. Out of the envelope fell another sheet of lavender paper attached to something that looked somewhat like a passport, but it was different than passports she had seen. The cover, instead of dark blue, was a yellow gold. And, surprisingly, there, just inside the cover was a picture of Jenny which looked like one of her college photos, but she didn't remember posing for it.
She didn't recognize the language or even the characters of the printing inside it, so she stopped to read the note attached to it. "You'll be needing this. Put it somewhere safe, where you can get to it easily and quickly. It isn't time yet for me to explain all of this, but you will understand in time.
The other documents in this box are some old photos, like the one you got in an email I had scheduled to send to you to get your attention. I have set up an auto-responder with additional messages you will receive from time to time. I want you to know I'm not playing games with you or trying to be mysterious, but what has been set before you needs to be done in order.
Unless I have misjudged you, you will not only be up to it, but I think what comes next will enrich your life and give you so much more than you can imagine.
One last thing. The next mail you receive will give you the details of a special account I have set up for you at my bank. There should be enough in there for you to live on for the next few years. After that, you won't need it. You might want to consider taking a leave of absence from your current duties very soon.
Love, Lizzie"
Jenny sat there dumbfounded and perplexed. What in the world did all of this mean? What in the world had she gotten herself into? She opened the "passport" again, staring at herself beaming up from the photograph on the first page. Other than the writing on the facing page, the rest of the little book appeared to be blank. It didn't have a country seal on it that she recognized. The symbol on the front cover was an 8 on its side, the symbol for...infinity.
"Whoa," Jenny breathed. "Whoa, whoa, whoa..."
She realized she was fingering the little gold key at her neck. What was this all about? How in the world had she gotten involved in what was beginning to feel like an adventure she hadn't volunteered for? Who was her aunt anyway? What she didn't know about her aunt now seemed to be a lot more important than ever before.
How in the world could she go to her agency and tell them she would be taking a "leave of absence" and what exactly did her aunt want her to do instead? Her head spun with questions and uncertainty. Evidently this "gift horse" had some serious strings attached.
Her eyes strayed to the contents of the box. Several large old-fashioned picture albums and large hard-backed books that looked like old accounting books or journals practically filled the box. She gingerly pulled one of the albums out. It was very old and as she opened it, black and white photos of people she didn't know filled the pages. She turned them idly. They were labeled with some names she actually recognized.
Her father had been a family history enthusiast and she knew a lot more about her ancestry than she had thought she would have researched on her own volition. Her dad used to tell her stories about her grandparents and great grandparents that dated clear back to pioneers in covered wagons and handcarts, who had pushed their way across the territories of North America and settled new places that eventually became the western states.
The people in these old yellowed and bespeckled photos stared out at her without a smile among them. Women in long dresses with aprons and men in white cotton shirts and dark trousers held up by suspenders peered out from the past at her. As she thumbed through carefully, for fear of tearing the fragile pages, the photos began to change, they were clearer, although still in black and white. Names were carefully inked in a cursive hand she didn't recognize. The ink was fading, but legible and as she got closer to the end of the album more and more familiar faces appeared.
As the photos crept forward in time, she recognized the wedding photos of her grandparents, copies of which hung in the dining room of her parent's house. And then, faintly colored photos of her dad and mom as small children. There was a photo of her dad taken at a family reunion, his parents were in the photo, and among the large family, what looked like a much younger Lizzie.
He and his aunt had never been close, but he had always spoken of her with a twinkle in his eyes. "You never knew what Lizzie would be up to next," he would say, his eyes focused on something only he could see. "When she wasn't in the library, she was corresponding with several pen pals around the world and writing in her little notebooks. She must have had dozens of them. And always fiddling with things until they did what she wanted them to do. She had the travelling bug for sure, never knew where we would get a postcard from next."
That was the most she knew of her aunt, however, and now what she didn't know made her wonder again, just exactly what was going to happen next.
She put down the album just as the doorbell rang again.
"Now what?" she grumbled.
A short, stocky older man with piercing blue eyes squinting under a plain black ball cap stood at the door with a large grey great dane at his side. He stabbed his thumb at his chest. "Elias Mensch. I'm next door. This is Cinder," he said nodding his head at the dog.
"Hi, I'm Jenny..." she began, but he cut her off.
"Postman must be new," he said. "I think these are yours."
He thrust a handful of letters at her and nearly didn't wait for her to reach for them until he began to turn back down the steppingstone walk. "I'll make sure he knows where you are," he said over his shoulder. And he stalked off down the walk.
The dog, Cinder, however still stood and stared at her. He could have been made of stone. Jenny had never seen a dog this big and his glare seemed menacing, although he did not growl. In the meantime, Tidbit had appeared at the doorway as well, stropping her ankles. As he did so, he made the most eerie sound. It wasn't a meow or even a growl. It went from a deep mrrrr, ascending to a high pitch and down again. Cinder's eyes widened, and he took a step back, never taking his eyes off of the cat.
Tidbit stepped gracefully forward like a leopard Jenny had once seen in a jungle documentary. His front quarters were low, his tail twitched like a flicking finger. One step forward. Cinder backed up one step. Another step. Cinder backed again one careful step. Was that a whimper from the big grey dog? The mirrored action of the dog and the cat was almost a dance. For every slow forward stalking step Tidbit would take, Cinder would back up one step, constantly keeping wary eye contact with the cat, almost as if mesmerized.
As they reached the wrought iron gate, Cinder suddenly turned tail and ran full out with Tidbit in hot pursuit until they were out of sight. "Looks like you've got this well in hand, Tidbit," she murmured to herself, shaking her head. "Curiouser and curiouser."
She sorted through the pile of three letters. One was marked "resident". One was obviously from her mom, covered in little heart stickers. And there was one thicker envelope from a bank.
She dropped into her reading chair with another sigh. She opened her mom's letter first. The letter went on and on about her mom's new Zumba group and the many goings-on of her siblings and concluded with:
"I'm glad to hear you're settling into your new 'digs'. Your dad says this is typical Lizzie, to spring something like this on someone. I am sure you are as surprised as the rest of us, but you should know that, although many thought your aunt was a bit 'dotty', she was a nice person. I always liked her, as much as I ever saw of her.
Dad and I may come down to visit in a few weeks. I've never been to her house before. It will be good to catch up and you can show us around. We got you a little house-warming present and we'll bring it with us when we come. Love, Mom"
Jenny grinned. Her mom always had such a positive take on things. She knew her parents were unused to the idea of someone working from home and being their own boss, but although they hadn't approved of it, they hadn't once discouraged her from doing her best at her chosen profession. Jenny thought they may have been a little disappointed that her writing career had left few traces. As a ghostwriter, she seldom got public credit for her work and that didn't leave much in the way of bragging rights.
She then hefted the thick envelope from the unknown bank. This must be the bank her aunt had told her about in her last missive. Inside the envelope was a debit card with her name on it and the details of her account with all the usual legalese. If her aunt hadn't mentioned it specifically, she would have been suspicious. She had received cards like this in the mail that had turned out to be fraudulent.
She goggled at the amount in the account. Lizzie's note had said something about the money sustaining her for a few years, but, considering her own spending habits, she calculated that she could live very well on this for many years to come, especially since her housing was rent free.
This reminded her of the boxes sitting on her dining room table. What were all of those photo albums really about and why had Lizzie kept them separate from the other things left to her in the storage building? She felt like she needed time to catch her breath. All of this was happening so quickly. She remembered fantasizing as a kid about fairy godmothers and all, but in no way did she ever expect anything like this. And it was beginning to feel like this was about way more than just an estate from a "dotty" old aunt.
In the meantime, she heard Tidbit meowing loudly from the back yard. "Business taken care of?" she asked him, letting him in. He peered up at her with his big golden eyes for a moment and, after drinking daintily from his water bowl, he hopped up gracefully to his place on the window seat, curled up and closed his eyes.
She wandered back over to the dining room table. Surveying the first box, she decided to thumb through the remaining albums later. She was surprised to see that the light was already fading, the colors in the sky beyond the backyard fence diluted like watercolors and she realized she hadn't even thought about supper. She fixed herself a sandwich and took her plate into the office and ate while she considered what to say to her agency. She had never considered changing her vocation and she couldn't help but feel like Aunt Lizzie was taking a lot for granted.
True, she had provided a beautiful house and a substantial nest egg. Not to mention a cat, of all things. But the rest of this was so bizarre it set her to wondering if this was some elaborate joke. Again, she touched the key at her neck, which, despite her ongoing efforts to find the catch, she had been unable to remove. What was up with the little key? She had searched the house pretty thoroughly to discover some mysterious box that it might open. At first, she had been sure it went to a security box or jewelry box, but there had been nothing.
She didn't mind the cat. Tidbit was his own "person" and most of the time she didn't even know he was there. Occasionally he would strop her ankles with a rumbling purr or butt her hand to be petted, but mostly he had his own business either outside or contemplating the front garden from his perch on the window seat in the front room.
But what exactly had she gotten herself into? She passed the boxes in the dining room on her way to take her plate to the kitchen. And these boxes? A puzzle for tomorrow. WAIT! Not tomorrow. Tomorrow was her weekly meeting with her hiking club. They were going to hike Topanga Canyon, on one of her favorite trails. The nearly 10 years of drought had taken its toll, thinning the trees, lowering the water levels and yet it was still one of the most beautiful hikes in her area.
This meant she needed to set out her gear before bed, as it meant getting up at 4 a.m., if she was going to make the meeting at the trailhead. So, she washed up and as she walked past the dining room table she noticed the little passport, or so she had begun to think of it, sitting on the lid of one of the unopened boxes. She grabbed it to put into her wallet and headed off to get her things together and get to bed.
That night she dreamt she was walking in an unfamiliar forest. Up ahead of her were Aunt Lizzie and the large black man moving purposefully ahead at a quick pace. The trail ahead of her was clear, but try as she might, she couldn't quite catch up to them, even though they didn't seem to be more than a couple hundred feet ahead of her. For some reason she knew she shouldn't call out to them, but she also knew, as one often does in a dream, that it was somehow important not to lose their trail.
