“I WAS a morbid creature,” Emily says as she studies the skinning knife that had been hiding in the Gillans’ mailbox for the past forty-four years.
It’s later that afternoon and I’ve returned by myself. Ally has gone with Rose to help her pack her carry-on for the plane. I’ve laid out all the clues and clue elements (the original clue box, the mood ring, the concert ticket, the knife, and the photograph) on a table in the screened-in porch off the back of Mrs. Hale’s house. Emily McAllister and I sit beside each other on a bench.
“I’m amazed by all of this,” she says. “I’m amazed I did it, but I’m really amazed that you were able to make sense of it. What an interesting twist to my trip.”
“I have a question,” I say.
“Okay. Shoot.”
“Why do you think you did it?”
“The clues?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “It sounds like you were as obsessed making them up as I was obsessed finding them.”
“Well…” She thinks about it for a second. “I guess because being twelve was hard for me. I was different. You know, kind of introverted. I felt like nobody understood me, like I would never fit in. And looking back, I think making up the clues gave me something to hold on to while I was growing into who I was going to be. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. And you really grew up here?”
“Well, you saw the room.”
“That was weird. I mean, it hasn’t changed in a long time and you don’t live here anymore.”
“I know,” she says. “My mom is strange that way. After I left for college, I thought she might redecorate it, but she didn’t. It’s like a museum piece from the 1970s.”
“Where do you live now?”
“Brooklyn. In New York. My husband is a professor there and my office overlooks the East River.”
“No kids?” I ask.
“No kids. A cat named Jeremiah. And my books.”
“You’ve written lots of them?”
“Lots,” she says. “With an imagination like yours, maybe you’ll be a writer, too.”
I roll that over in my brain. “I don’t think so. That’s not really me. I’ll probably be a teacher.” I hesitate, then add, “Or a librarian.”
“Librarians are awesome!” she exclaims. “A librarian really inspired me when I was your age. I don’t know if I would have been a writer had it not been for her. She worked at the local library. Where I signed today.”
“Mrs. Thompson told me about her. Mrs.…”
“Mrs. Parsons,” Emily says.
“Right! Mrs. Thompson said people thought she was mean but she wasn’t.”
“Well, she was mean to some people, but if you were a reader, if you loved books, Mrs. Parsons loved you. She opened a whole world to me with books. She made suggestions. She encouraged me. That’s why I come back and sign at the library as often as I can. In honor of Mrs. Parsons.”
She grins, then stands up. “I’ll be right back.” As I wait patiently for her return, I gaze at the clues and artifacts arranged on the table. I know that they bind us together. But I also realize something else. That there are people like me out there in the world. As much as I will always be connected to Rose and Ally, I will find those other people, too. I know this now because I’ve just met one.
Emily returns with a book in her hand. “This might be a little old for you, but I think you can handle it.”
The book is her new book. The one she was signing at the library today. She opens it and grabs a pen off the table. “Thanks, Girl Detective,” I say.
“Girl Detective! You never told me what that means!”
I can feel myself blushing. “It’s you,” I say. “You’re Girl Detective.”
“What?” she asks, confused.
“That’s what we called you from the very start. Right after we opened the box. You became our Nancy Drew. Our Girl Detective.”
She smiles. “Okay. Girl Detective. I can get behind that.”
Then Girl Detective opens her book and writes something inside. When she finishes, she hands the book to me. “Thank you, Birdie,” she says. “Thanks for solving my mystery. And thanks for making me feel like a twelve-year-old again.”