The Key to Extraordinary Read online

  “Who is that?” Aunt Greta huffed, spinning her scooter around so fast the dirt spun underneath her tires. “And what’s she getting so worked up about? This ain’t Noah’s Ark. It’s just a cemetery tour.”

  The stranger looked about Topher’s age. She was a tiny thing. But she had to be stronger than she looked, because the bulky backpack on her shoulders seemed twice her height. Even then, it didn’t slow her down a step. Her hair was dark, mostly, but one bright pink stripe fell across her face. She looked cool, like a punk-rock mountain fairy.

  “How much does this tour cost?” she asked as she came to stand beside me.

  “There’s no charge,” I said brightly. “But of course we’d be grateful for a donation.” I held up my tote bag so she could see the slogan embroidered on the side:

  MAKE BLACKBIRD HOLLOW CEMETERY BOO-TIFUL AGAIN.

  Aunt Greta made the bags for last month’s fund-raiser. She didn’t grin when I showed off her creation, of course. But her face flushed pink with pride.

  “We do ongoing fund-raisers to maintain this graveyard,” I said, passing the newcomer a pair of heart-shaped shades. Then I fished around in my tote again for the notebook. “May I have your name for our guest registry?”

  “I’m Waverly Valentine.”

  I thought her name sounded as pretty as the names on the headstones. I didn’t say that, though. Telling somebody their name would look good on a headstone might not be considered a compliment.

  Uncle Periwinkle stretched out his hand to give hers a shake. “You’ve been hiking the Appalachian Trail, I see. Welcome to Blackbird Hollow! Stopping just for a breather or staying a while?”

  Waverly glanced back toward the Wailing Woods. “Honestly, I’m not sure how I got here. The place sounds cool, though, with all the Civil War history—and stories about ghosts and treasure and …” She shivered. “I hadn’t planned on stopping but that amazing smell pulled me in. It even smells magical in this town …”

  “That’s the cafe!” I pointed to my home-sweet-home. “You should go for breakfast! After the tour, of course.” Few things in this life thrill me more than showing someone the graveyard for the first time. “Let’s commence!”

  A soft breeze settled around our shoulders as we walked into the cemetery. That same breeze made the world around us shiver a little bit. The slick green leaves of the tall trees rustled, and the long curtains of ivy dangling from the branches began to wave. When the ivy blows in the graveyard, it casts the prettiest lacelike shadows on the ground. They remind me of banners, rippling over the dearly departed in silent celebration. I pointed out the smaller stones at the front of the cemetery. And then we walked past some of my favorite memorials: the stone angel with moss-covered wings and the bronze soldier. The soldier is a monument to young men from the Hollow who died in war.

  Sometimes, Aunt Greta gives me a note to tuck in the soldier’s hand. I don’t read what they say. One of the men who died was Aunt Greta’s brother. I figure the letters are her way of remembering him.

  A tremble of thunder rolled above the silver clouds, sending warning shivers up my arms.

  “We might have to cut this tour short,” I said as I pushed my sunglasses back into my hair.

  “I have a question.” Waverly twisted her hands together. “Can you tell me about the Conductor? A guy I met on the trail mentioned him to me.”

  The breeze died down to nothing but still air.

  The restless trees hushed their whispering.

  Even the thunder faded away, gently as a rock song on the radio. I felt like the whole world was listening close to what I was about to say.

  “The Conductor is our most famous ghost,” I said. “If you walk through the graveyard at night, or very early in the morning, some people believe you hear the Conductor’s song.”

  Uncle Peri cleared his throat. He can’t help but jump in when history’s involved. “Most people think the Conductor is the ghost of a Civil War soldier who hid his loot somewhere in the hills.”

  Depending on the day, that thought can bring me comfort or make me tremble. By day, the graveyard is one of my favorite places to be. But sometimes I scare myself silly at night, when I lie in bed and think about the Conductor wandering among the stones, singing his lonesome song …

  “ ‘The Treasure of Blackbird Hollow’ is a wonderfully spooky story!” I told Waverly. “I typically save it for the Saints and Scoundrels Tour. People have tried to find the treasure for hundreds of years.”

  The sky rumbled again.

  “Sadly, we have to end the tour when the weather gets rough,” I told Waverly and the rest of my guests with a shiver. “Bearclaw is afraid of thunder.”

  We scampered down the hill just as the rain began plop-plop-plopping, splotching the sidewalk all around us.

  “So,” Waverly asked, “have you heard the Conductor sing about the treasure?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Lots of people claim they’ve heard him, though. I think sometimes folks want to hear him so badly they probably think they do … even if it’s nothing more than the wind in the woods. I’d like to hear the Conductor’s song, though.”

  It was nice to think that a song could last forever.

  Uncle Peri cleared his throat. “I’ve heard the song.”

  “Peri.” The way Greta said his name sounded like a warning.

  “You’ve heard the Conductor?” I looked up into his bristly face. “You never told me that!”

  “Periwinkle,” Greta warned, louder this time. “Do not get carried away. You know Blue doesn’t like treasure talk.”

  Periwinkle cleared his throat. The sky swirled silver and gray behind him. A summer storm was brewing, the kind that looked too scary for a tour … but just right for storytelling. “It’d be impolite not to share the story with our guest, wouldn’t it? What if Miss Waverly never passes this way again? It’s like this: When I was twelve years old, I came out here at night with my friends. The legend says that the Conductor won’t show the treasure to somebody with bad intentions, now. He’ll just lead ’em down a wrong trail, into a cave so deep they’ll never get back out. I figured it was important for me to show the Conductor I was pure of heart …”

  “Pure of heart?” Greta said. “Ha!”

  Uncle Peri shrugged. “Pure-ish. So my friends and I—we walked out into the middle of the graveyard and I sang:

  I’m pure of heart,

  Not filled with hate,

  I’ll use the loot

  For something great!

  Oh Conductor,

  At your pleasure,

  Take me to your wondrous treasure!”

  “Why’d you sing?” I asked.

  Peri tugged on his beard. “According to legend, that’s what you need to do to summon the ghost. Turns out to be true because he sang back. It went like this.”

  Uncle Peri clapped his hands against his pants. And he shuffled down the path toward the cafe in rhythm to his song:

  “Beneath the stars of Blackbird Hollow

  By the shadows of the ridge

  Down a path no man can follow

  Lies a treasure someone hid.”

  I scribbled Peri’s song down on the back of the guest registry. That’d make a great detail for a future tour.

  “That’s the whole song?” Waverly asked.

  “That’s the only part I remember,” Uncle Peri said. “We were so scared we ran screaming out of the graveyard and didn’t even try to solve the riddle. People claim they hear all sorts of things, of course. But I heard that song with my own ears.”

  A purple stripe of lightning branded the skies over the faraway mountains, followed by a sharp clap of thunder.

  Periwinkle held the gate open for us. “People have lost their minds trying to find that treasure,” he said. “They thought if they could just find the treasure, they’d be set for life. No more hardship then. No more worries. Just the hope of gold makes a man do crazy things.”

  “Any kind of ho
pe makes people do crazy things,” Greta said. “Hope of riches. Hope of love. Hope of goodness.”

  “Hope of hot chocolate.” Peri sniffed the air. “It’s fitting Blue stirs her brew so close to this graveyard. Because I’m convinced heaven will smell like hot cocoa.”

  Only Waverly Valentine stayed at the gate. She stared out over the cemetery, arms wrapped tight around her chest. My heart clinched at the sad pull of her mouth.

  “You should come inside, too,” I told her. “Get a mug of Boneyard Brew and some breakfast. Wait out the storm. We have peach-lavender muffins this morning.”

  “Peach-lavender?” she breathed. She shook her head, disbelieving. “Those are my favorite muffins. I didn’t know anybody else in the world made peach-lavender muffins except … a friend of mine. A friend I used to have.”

  I grinned. “No offense to your friend, but I’m certain these muffins will be the best you’ve ever had.”

  “Thanks, but I need to keep moving. You can’t fight destiny.” She walked away, hands clutched around her backpack straps.

  I shivered all over. Even the trees seemed to shiver as the storm wind blew around us.

  Destiny. That’s a touchy subject in my family. I should tell you why.

  It all started with a strange old book.

  A couple of years ago, on the day I turned ten, I came to this conclusion: I think I know how it feels to fly. I don’t have invisible wings blooming out of my back, or pixie dust that lifts me from one rooftop to the next. I’ve never even flown in an airplane.

  But whenever I ride on the back of my granny Blue’s motorcycle, I feel like it’s only the two of us and the wild, endless air.

  That’s what I was doing on my tenth birthday—riding on the back of Blue’s bike, with my arms locked tight around her soft middle. With the growl of the motor beneath us and the blue horizon pulling us farther ahead, I imagined we were airborne.

  Flying on a rumbly storm cloud.

  Flying on the back of a cool autumn wind.

  It wouldn’t have surprised me one bit if Blue’d popped a wheelie and driven that motorcycle straight into heaven. Kind of like Elijah, in the Bible, with his chariot of fire. Except we’d be on a Harley-Davidson.

  I rested the side of my face against Blue’s back as we zoomed over the rolling hills of Blackbird Hollow. Past the old, crumbly buildings downtown. Past the curvy gravel road that led to the trailer park where my best friend, Cody Belle, lives. Blue was taking the long way home.

  “Your mama’s got a present for you,” Blue said to me as we dismounted the bike in front of the cafe. “She’s waiting for you on the back porch.”

  Blue pulled off her helmet, sending a waterfall of icy-white hair cascading down around her shoulders. The sun shimmered down the paler strands that framed her face, then glinted off the silver stud in her nose. For as long as I’d known and loved Granny Blue, she looked the same way: like a walking, talking rock song.

  “You guys already gave me my presents. My new drumsticks and this!” I spun around to model the leather riding vest they’d had made for me. My vest had a white skull-and-crossbones symbol stitched on the back, just the same as Granny Blue’s. But above that swanky emblem, they’d asked the shop to spell out my name in rhinestones:

  EMMA PEARL CASEY

  It was Mama who came up with my middle name. She said my dad named me Emma, after his favorite fictional heroine. But Mama named me Pearl, after her favorite Janis Joplin album. (“Because I don’t want her to tiptoe quietly through her life” is what Mama said when she told me the story. “I want her to scream and sing and howl.”) I never knew my dad, but I was happy with the name he gave me. A good name is a fine thing to leave a person.

  “So I really don’t need another present,” I grunted as I tugged the helmet off my head. For the record, my hair did not fall pretty and cascade-y like Blue’s. I have tight, curly ringlets that frazzle and point straight to heaven. I call it my hallelujah hair. Not even a helmet can flatten the flouf.

  Blue’s face was troubled when she looked down at me. She rested her hands on my shoulders. “It’s a special gift she’s giving you.”

  “If it’s special, why do you look so sad?”

  “Honestly, I think the timing is lousy. But your mama disagrees with me, so go on. I’ll meet y’all back there.”

  There wasn’t even a hint of joy in Blue’s voice. That was true for all of us, for every person who came to the cafe. We all had sadness in our eyes. The day was a celebration, for sure. But even birthdays were dark days back then. Sickness hovered over my mama like a shadow, traced dark circles under her eyes, and pulled her skin tight against her bones.

  I found Mama sleeping on the back porch swing with a quilt wrapped around her thin shoulders. We called the back porch our Fortress of Wonder, similar to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude but noisy and fun. We strung Christmas lights all around the beams. We collected nature’s treasures and displayed them on old shelves—acorn tops and fossil-rocks and clusters of different-shaped leaves.

  I leaned over and kissed Mama’s cheek, and she smiled. Even without opening her eyes, she knew it was me.

  “There you are,” she said, scooting over on the swing and pulling me down beside her. “How was school?”

  “Fine,” I said quickly, hoping she wouldn’t be attuned to the worry in my voice.

  Mama tilted up my chin and looked me in the eye. “Those girls giving you problems again?”

  A few girls at school had always teased me about my mouth—about the scar that slants sideways from the base of my nose to the tip of my lip. According to them, this gives me a zigzag crooked smile, which they loved to joke about. I tried to ignore them, like Granny Blue suggested. But ignoring them hadn’t made them go away. It’s almost like it made them even more determined to hurt my feelings.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, resting my head against Mama’s arm.

  She played with my hair and hummed a gentle song, the kind that quieted my heart and made me feel safe. We stared straight ahead, at the grassy-hilled slope that bordered our property. The headstones of the cemetery shot up out of the ground like crooked, crumbly teeth. From our back porch, it looked like flecks of glitter hovering around those graves. Of course, I knew I was really just seeing the sun reflecting off the bugs’ wings.

  But even bug swarms looked pretty when I was beside Mama. Less like pesky insects, more like twilight confetti.

  The sun shimmered low over the woods, stretching its warm, orange arms until we felt the light on our faces. Back when Mama felt good, we pressed our hands together and made shadow puppets right there, against the setting sun.

  “Emma Pearl,” Mama said softly, “I have a gift for you. Blue says you’re still too young. But I want to be the one to tell you. You see that old trunk off in the corner?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I was already on my feet, walking through that pretty mix of late-day shadow and light. I could tell that the trunk had been one of Mama’s gig boxes, from back in the day when she was a touring folksinger. Stickers of some of the cities and countries she’d toured were peeling away from the outside. Worn leather flaps buckled tight around the trunk’s bulging middle.

  I blew the cobwebs away from the lock. Then I pushed the trunk open. The hinges screamed as loud as one of her electric guitars. The trunk was full of Keeping Susans—which meant something special was tucked inside. Keeping Susans are pale yellow flowers that only bloom in Blackbird Hollow. We tuck them into letters and old books and boxes of keepsakes, because they help preserve important things.

  “Should be right on top,” Mama said. “You’ll see an old leather book. It’s not too big, about the size of a journal. Kinda scuffed up, though.”

  The book was bound in leather, and secured with a plain black strap. Without even opening it, I could see the edges of hundreds of pages—all yellowed, all tattered and soft, as though dozens of fingers had traced across them. I blew the dust off the cover and studied the fad
ed title.

  “ ‘The Book of Days …’ ” I read as I settled in beside Mama.

  The book’s spine crackled underneath my fingertips when I opened it. It sounded like my spine when I first wake up and stretch in the morning, and I wondered if it was possible for a book to come alive that same way. To tell you things. To change the course of your days.

  Blue cleared her throat from the doorway. “Jasmine.” She regarded my mama with a worried look in her eyes. “Are you sure this is the best time—?”

  “It’s fine,” Mama said, waving her hand in dismissal. “Come on out here. I want you to be here when Emma hears this.”

  Blue sighed, but she sat down across from us.

  Mama smiled down at me. “For many years, the women in our family have done marvelous and wonderful things. I’m talking truly extraordinary. Ingrid Noble was the first to write it down. Read the first page, now. See for yourself.”

  A golden stretch of late-day sunshine fell across Mama and me and the yellowed pages in my lap. My heart felt warm under the weight of the light, but my hands still trembled. I knew I held something special in my arms. I’d seen enough old books to know time turns pages yellow and brittle. Even Keeping Susans can’t make a book last forever. The words were faded now, but I could tell they’d been written proudly, and bravely.

  I read the words aloud:

  The Spy

  In the Year of our Lord, 1777, I, Ingrid Elizabeth Noble, became part of the Destiny Dream of my ancestors. On the eve of my seventeenth birthday, I dreamed of the field of blue flowers. Standing in that field was the Great General himself. Thus, I knew my legacy was bound with his somehow.

  Shortly thereafter, I entrusted my service to his leadership and began the most terrifying and most wonderful year of my life: I became one of his spies. As a new recruit to the Culper Ring, I personally delivered messages to 711’s top officials. I often met with them face-to-face. By day or by night, I’d pull the cloak over my face and make my way casually through the enemy-filled streets.

  Some days I walked miles.