Gwendy's Magic Feather

8

GWENDY TOSSES THE REPORTS back onto the stack and sits at her desk. She reaches for her day-planner, but her hand freezes in mid-air before it gets there.

There’s a shiny silver coin sitting next to the keyboard.

Her outstretched hand begins to tremble. Her heart thumps in her chest, and it suddenly feels as if all the air has been sucked out of the room.

She knows before she looks that it’s an 1891 Morgan silver dollar. She’s seen them before.

A familiar voice, a man’s voice, whispers in her ear: “Almost half an ounce of pure silver. Created by Mr. George Morgan, who was just thirty years old when he engraved the likeness of Anna Willess Williams, a Philadelphia matron, to go on what you’d call the ‘heads’ side of the coin…”

Gwendy whips her head around, but no one is there. She glances about her office, waiting for the voice to return, feeling as if she’s just seen a ghost—and maybe she has. Nothing else in the room appears out of place. Reaching out with her other hand, she lets the tip of her index finger brush against the surface of the coin. It’s cool to the touch, and it’s real. She’s not imagining it. She’s not suffering some kind of stress-induced mental breakdown.

Heart in her throat, Gwendy uses her thumb to slowly slide the coin across the desk, closer to her. Then she leans down for a better look. The silver dollar is in mint condition and she was right—it’s an 1891 Morgan. Anna Williams smiles up at her with unblinking silver eyes.

Pulling her hand back, Gwendy absently wipes it on the sleeve of her blouse. She gets up then and slowly wanders around the room, feeling as if she’s just awakened from a dream. She bangs her knee against the rounded corner of the coffee table but she barely notices. Abruptly changing direction, she stops in front of the closet door, the only place where someone could possibly hide. After taking a steadying breath, she silently counts to three—and yanks open the door.

She recoils with her hands held in front of her face, nearly falling, but there’s no one waiting inside. Just a handful of coats and sweaters hanging on wire hangers, a tangle of dress and running shoes littering the floor, and a brand-new pair of snow boots still in the box.

Exhaling with relief, Gwendy pushes the door shut and turns to face her desk again. The silver coin sits there, gleaming in the overhead lights, staring back at her. She’s about to call for Bea when something catches her eye. She crosses to the filing cabinet in the corner. A bronze bust of Maine Civil War hero Joshua Chamberlain sits on top of it, a gift from her father.

Gwendy pulls open the top drawer of the cabinet. It’s stuffed with folders and assorted paperwork. She closes it. Then she does the same with the second drawer: slides it open, quick inspection, close. Holding her breath, she bends to a knee and pulls open the bottom drawer.

And there it is: the button box.

A beautiful mahogany, the wood glowing a brown so rich that she can glimpse tiny red glints deep in its finish. It’s about fifteen inches long, maybe a foot wide, and half that deep. There are a series of small buttons on top of the box, six in rows of two, and a single at each end. Eight in all. The pairs are light green and dark green, yellow and orange, blue and violet. One of the end-buttons is red. The other is black. There’s also a small lever at each end of the box, and what looks like a slot in the middle.

For a moment, Gwendy forgets where she is, forgets how old she is, forgets that a kind and gentle man named Ryan Brown was ever born. She’s twelve years old again, crouching in front of her bedroom closet back in the small town of Castle Rock, Maine.

It looks exactly the same, she thinks. It looks the same because it is the same. There’s no mistaking it even after all these years.

From behind her, there’s a loud knock at the door. Gwendy almost faints.