“Moms! Moms!”

Helen frowned as she heard her daughter’s calls one rainy Saturday afternoon, the enthusiastic voice muffled by distance and, unless she missed her guess, the distortion of the attic stairs.

“What is it, Trixie?”

“Come quickly! You’ll never guess what we’ve found!”

Frown deepening, Helen considered the sheet of pastry balanced over her rolling pin, the waiting pie plate, the ready-cooled apples for the filling and the hot oven. While she could stop at the moment – and certainly would, if an emergency occurred – she really did not want to.

“You’ll need to wait a few minutes. I’m busy.”

Deftly, she transferred her pastry to the pie plate and began smoothing it into shape. Meanwhile, heavy footsteps thumped down the stairs. Helen could just imagine the frustrated groan her daughter might have made at hearing her reply and the decision to bring the attic to her, rather than wait the few minutes it would take for her to go there.

“Not in my clean kitchen,” she warned in a loud voice, just as her offspring reached the doorway. “Really, Trixie, it will only be a little while. I’m nearly finished.”

This time, she fully heard the groan. She also heard whatever it was being deposited on the dining room table.

Turning away from her pie case, Helen retrieved the filling she had made earlier. This particular recipe didn’t need to be blind-baked, so she spooned the cooked apple wedges in and smoothed them over. The pre-cut strips of pastry followed. By long practice she had perfected the art of weaving them together quickly. She picked up her pastry brush and added some glaze, then slid the pie into the waiting oven.

“Now, what have you got?” she asked, after washing and drying her hands.

“Oh, Moms!” Trixie cried. “We found the key to that cabinet in the attic – you know, the one that we thought it was lost and we never could get open – and you’ll never guess what we found inside.”

Helen’s heart sank. Considering the fact that she had carefully concealed the key many years ago – by sliding it into the cavity behind a loose board at the back of the linen closet and nailing that board into place – and that she had been the one who hid the items inside the cabinet first, she did not need to guess what was in there. She only need wonder which of the items inside had caught her daughter’s infamous curiosity. Straightening her face with an effort, she stepped into the dining room, where Trixie waited in agitation and Mart stood beside her, radiating exasperation.

“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation,” Mart was saying to his sister.

Trixie ignored him and picked up a box about the size of a hardback book. “Just look at this, Moms! Isn’t it beautiful?”

“It certainly is.” Helen took the wooden box in her hands, running her fingers over the carved details and the inlaid blue stones of lapis lazuli. “And you say it was in the locked cabinet?”

The seventeen-year-old’s curls bounced as she nodded. “But the really mysterious thing is what’s inside.”

“Really?” Helen felt a blush starting and hoped she could blame it on the hot oven.

“They’re love letters.” Trixie hesitated. “From someone called Dom to someone called Samantha. And I can’t figure out how they came to be in our attic.”

Helen opened the box and poked through them for a moment. “Perhaps you’ll never know,” she suggested lightly and closed it back up again. “They must have been there for a very long time.”

“But that’s the problem!” Trixie wailed. “If it was in anyone else’s attic, that wouldn’t be a problem. But our attic has been in the family for generations and we don’t have any Samanthas or any Doms. So, how did they get there?”

“Perhaps they came with the box,” Helen suggested. She stepped back and changed the subject. “Now, can you get the attic tidied up again, please? I think that had better go back where you found it and then I think I have a couple of things I’ll need your help with.”

Trixie shook her head. “It’s so pretty. I thought it could stay out for a while, after being locked up all these years. Please, Moms? It would look great over here.”

Unable to think of a reasonable excuse, Helen consented. But what Peter will say, I don’t know! she added to herself.

She had no opportunity to explain to him before he saw it for himself. He had taken Bobby out of the house for most of the day, returning minutes before she was ready to put dinner on the table, both of them dripping wet.

“We got caught out in the rain,” her husband explained, with an innocent smile.

Helen only shook her head at him and handed each of them an old towel. “Get dried quickly, please, both of you. I’m just about to set the table.”

She grabbed six plates, then with a pang put one of them back. In the seven or eight months since Brian left for college, she still had not gotten used to the smaller meals. Normally, she had one of the kids do this job, but after they’d finished in the attic and done some odd jobs, Mart and Trixie had both settled to some study. And since their discovery, Helen preferred not to make opportunities for further questions, at least not until she had decided exactly how to handle the situation.

“Oh, Moms! Why didn’t you call me?” Trixie wondered, as her mother placed the last knife on the table. “I would have helped with that.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She listened for a moment. “I think your father will be here any moment. You can help me carry the meal through.”

She kept Trixie busy with small jobs until the family all met around the table.

“Mmm, smells wonderful,” Peter complimented as he entered the room. “Just what I need after getting soaking…” he broke off, casting the box on the sideboard an accusatory glare, then belatedly finished, “…wet.”

Helen tried to meet his eyes with a look of apology, but he didn’t seem to notice. Then, before she could do anything to stop the impending disaster, Trixie launched into a long description of her discoveries in the attic.

“Hey! I’d like to see the things in the attic,” Bobby interrupted, while his sister listed all of the hidden things she had found. “Moms, can I go and see?”

“Not now, Bobby. Eat your meal,” she answered, in her most dismissive tone.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m ten, nearly, not three.”

Peter shook his head at their youngest. “If you want to make it to ten, instead of only nearly ten, you’ll listen to your mother.”

His tone remained dry, but Helen sensed the underlying tension and, judging by the startled look they exchanged, so did Mart and Trixie. Helen could almost see the word ‘mysterious’ forming on their daughter’s lips.

“And I meant after we’d finished dessert,” Bobby added, showing that the subtle message had sailed past him unnoticed.

“I, for one, would not postpone partaking of the pinnacle of pastry perfection in order to peer into the peculiar parts of a ponderous portmanteau.” Mart waved his fork at his sister. “And neither would you. Admit it!”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “I don’t even know what that last part meant, but I know I wouldn’t do that. Moms’ apple pie is a definitely worth eating while it’s still warm from the oven.”

Bobby let out a growl of frustration. “Didn’t I just say that?”

“Yes, you did, Bobby,” Helen soothed, “and while I don’t think you’ll find anything to interest you in the attic, you may go up there for a short time after dinner, provided you don’t make a mess.”

“Anyway,” Trixie continued her earlier monologue, ignoring the entire tangent Bobby had taken them on, “the thing that most interested me isn’t even in the attic any more. It’s over there on the sideboard and isn’t it beautiful, Dad?”

Peter turned his eyes in that direction and stared as if he had never seen it before in his life.

“It’s quite nice, but not really to my taste.” He glanced at Helen. “I think I’d prefer it to go back to the attic.”

Trixie’s jaw dropped for a moment, then she shifted gears. “And the things I found inside the box are the most mysterious of all. They’re love letters. Illicit love letters. Between people I’ve never heard of.”

“Trixie! You told me you were studying!” Helen accused, showing just a little more outrage than she intended.

“I was.” A blush began to tinge Trixie’s cheeks. “Mostly. I only had just a little peek.”

“What’s ‘licit’ mean?” Bobby wondered, a deep frown marring his brow.

“Licit means lawful,” Mart answered, not meeting anyone’s eyes but Bobby’s. “Or alternately, it means allowed.”

“That makes no sense,” Bobby muttered.

Helen wondered briefly whether he knew enough about language to conclude that the word Trixie had used was the opposite of the one he’d just said, and then to infer the meaning of the phrase, but the conversation swept on.

“So, I was wondering, Dad, where that cabinet came from, and how long it had been in our attic, and how long it’s been locked up?” Trixie looked at him appealingly. “Because I can’t think of any way that they could have come to be there.”

Peter hesitated, casting Helen a glance that cried out for help.

“The cabinet’s been here as long as I’ve lived here,” Helen answered, slowly. “It’s kind of a squat one, with two doors and little Queen Anne legs. It has shelves on one side and drawers on the other. I think it used to be unlocked.”

“Yes, that’s right.” Peter glanced up at the ceiling, as if it could give him some answers. “I distinctly remember it when I was a child. It was unlocked then. And that box wasn’t in it.”

“We locked a lot of things when Trixie started crawling,” Helen added. A happy thought occurred to her. “Didn’t we get some things from Andrew about that time? Do you remember, he asked us to store some things while he was between houses?”

Trixie frowned. “But Uncle Andrew’s name isn’t Dom,” she pointed out. “It’s nothing like it.”

“Yes, but he owned a house here in Sleepyside for a short time. Before he moved to Iowa. It might have been in his attic,” Peter decided, looking decidedly pleased. “And since I don’t think you should be reading other people’s love letters, how about if we put the box back where you found it?”

Helen smiled, trying to mask her relief, but not quite succeeding. “That does make sense. Andrew probably never missed those things when he collected everything else because they weren’t his to begin with.”

“Didn’t I say there’d be a logical explanation?” Mart commented to his sister.

“It doesn’t explain how the key got behind that board in the linen closet,” Trixie persisted.

Mart waved the matter away. “We already decided that must have been some kind of accident.”

“So, we’re agreed?” Peter asked, mostly looking at Trixie. “We’ll pack up the things and put them back in that old closet and close it back up again.”

“But not until after I’ve seen everything,” Bobby corrected, looking mutinous.

Mart chuckled. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to be disappointed. But you and I can take that old box back up there after we’ve finished our delectable dessert. How will that be?”

Bobby scowled, but muttered, “Fine, I guess.”

“Good.” Peter glanced around the table and saw they had all finished. “Mart and Trixie, you can clear the table and go and serve out our pie.”

They both did so without comment, stacking the dishes and carrying everything out in one trip.

Through the doorway, Helen faintly heard Trixie say to Mart, “Suddenly, I don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, same,” Mart replied.

Unheard by either of them, Helen breathed a sigh of relief.