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RILEY FINCH PRESSED her hands into her thighs to stop herself reaching for the journal from her bedside table. She’d had a horrible dream in which she had to account for writing in it. It was useless. She couldn’t fight its pull any longer.
She sat up. Her fingertips glided toward the journal’s spine and curled around it. She cradled the book in her lap, losing herself in the rhythm of moving her fingers back and forth, each sweep pushing away lingering fragments of the dream.
Riley turned on her reading lamp and opened the journal to the spot she’d marked with a ribbon the day before. Her heart sped up. As she had hoped, what had been an empty page when she went to bed now contained an entry from Detective Winston.
May 11 ’97
Today yielded an answer I was hoping not to get when Walter Huntington’s body was found at False Creek. I am disappointed that I failed to find Huntington alive. I am not convinced his death was natural; his shoes were on the wrong feet. Cole suggests the death was accidental, a drunken night leading to misadventure. If so, where was he on the nights before? Most importantly, Huntington’s shoes had none of the metal shavings mine picked up walking around the foundry.
I have also identified the woman in whom Huntington was interested, though that may matter little now. She is a maid working in the home of one of his acquaintances. The pair were courting in secret, and judging by the gifts he gave her, he was quite fond of her. I will tell her tomorrow of finding Huntington. Perhaps she will remember more about his plans.
I must lock this journal up at home. Someone has made notations to accompany my last entry. I cannot think why or how.
Riley reread the words. Could the detective see what she’d written? Was this why she could see his new entries?
She threw off her duvet, cold air stinging against the film of sweat that cloaked her skin. Riley paced, hands clasping her head. She picked up a pen and wiggled it between her fingers, considering what to write. A question nagged at her thoughts. Should she return the journal instead of trying to unravel Detective Winston’s mysterious new entries?
Riley weighed her options. She’d already written in the journal and taken it home—two actions that would likely get her fired if Claire or anyone else at the museum found out. Would writing in the journal again make the situation worse? She bit her lip and thought of the teasing she’d endured from Lucy when they were kids. She’d often made fun of Riley for avoiding risks. Riley had kept training wheels on her bike until she was nine, long after she could ride without them. At school, she took two extra courses “just in case,” even though she already had enough credits to graduate. She told everyone it was because she found the subjects fascinating.
Here she was, contemplating repeating the most reckless thing she’d ever done. Riley put the pen down and opened her nightstand drawer to look for a pencil. Reckless or not, she couldn’t quite bring herself to mark the pages permanently. Before she wielded a pen, she needed to know what would happen if she left a note now. She could always return the journal to the archive later, but if she returned it before writing in it again, Winston’s message would haunt her. She wrote four words, hand shaking as she formed the letters.
Are you Detective Winston?
It was a silly question. The journal belonged to Jack Winston, but Riley wanted him to confirm it and didn’t want to ask anything else until she was certain it was him. What else could she ask? Is this magic? The idea made her laugh, and she covered her mouth at the sound. She considered searching “magic journal” online, which sent her into a fit of giggles. The absurdity overtook her, and she laughed until tears streamed down her cheeks. She muffled the sound with her pillow until she remembered Lucy was spending the night with her boyfriend, Alex. To calm herself she lay on her back, setting her hand on her stomach, focusing on its rise and fall with each breath. The magical journal gradually became less hilarious.
It was clear the journal had some quality that connected her to Jack Winston. While she didn’t believe explicitly in magic, the universe was big and full of the unexplained—like Stonehenge, or the pyramids. Why not a magic journal? She had no alternative explanation. As her eyes grew heavy, she clutched the duvet and pulled it around her. Perhaps she was still dreaming.
Sleep teased Riley, but her thoughts returned to Detective Winston. Could she communicate with someone in the late nineteenth century? Did she really believe that? The explanations she’d considered—magic, aliens, a portal—went around in her head. A magic alien portal? She shuddered at her foolishness and rolled over.
She had written—intentionally—in the journal. If she returned it to a box in the archive, would the journal remain undiscovered? What if she dumped it in the recycling bin? She hadn’t written her own name, so anyone who found the book couldn’t trace its damage back to her. Not easily, at least.
But what if she confessed? Honesty was easiest. She had no credible explanation for why she’d written in it, and she couldn’t claim ignorance. Mindlessness wasn’t any better. What if she kept the journal? Apart from the writing, the book itself showed no signs that it was old. She could add it to her shelf and forget about it. Nobody would miss it. As she slipped toward sleep, she promised herself she would check tomorrow for Detective Winston’s reply.