Excerpt: A Lovely Day Tomorrow
The de Piaget Family
The Cascades, Washington State 2008
She was finished with antiques.
Olivia Drummond repeated that under her breath like a mantra as she deposited a final bejeweled kitty figurine into a moving box with half a dozen of its equally well-wrapped litter mates and taped the top shut before anything could escape. How she’d gotten roped into packing up all her aunt’s junk was a complete mystery—
She paused and blew a stray hair out of her eyes. Actually, there was no mystery to it at all. She had owed her aunt an enormous favor and that same aunt had wanted to kick up her vintage Hush Puppies and jet off to rendezvous with her soul mate in Belize. Given that said favor-repayment had consisted of packing up the family cabin, she’d resigned herself to her fate and trudged home to pay the piper.
But now after a week spent cleaning out every nook, cranny, and familial hiding place, she could safely say that her duty was done.
Or, almost done.
She pushed herself to her feet, then looked uneasily at the final treasure sitting prominently on the mantel, a meticulously crafted cross stitch that her aunt had no doubt created under the watchful eye of her own mother. It was a no-nonsense axiom that had guided three generations of Drummonds to barns, haylofts, and sheds where they never should have gone.
To the seasoned treasure hunter, the lure of the unopened box is irresistible.
Considering the number of treasures she had packed up over the past week, Olivia thought she might have an opinion on just how thoroughly her family had been unable to resist that lure.
Maybe it was time to draw a line in the sand.
All she had to use was brown shag carpet, but that would have to do. She dragged the toe of her floral-patterned ked through it, made certain she was on the non-treasure-hunter side of the line, then faced off with that stitchery that should have been stuffed in a wooden crate and hidden away in some unidentifiable governmental warehouse.
“No more treasure hunting, mysteries, or collectible anything made prior to the year 2000,” she announced. “I, Olivia Grace Drummond, am making a change.”
She waited for possible repercussions, but the world didn’t end, deceased ancestors didn’t howl, and that cross stitch adorned with a couple of saucy, emerald-eyed felines didn’t leap of the wall and wrap itself around her face to smother any more possible declarations of independence from her former life.
So far, so good.
After all, wasn’t making big changes why she’d put all her eggs in the basket of a potential job in London? She was striding off purposefully into a future where the only old things she intended to encounter were managed by some British governmental body dedicated to the tidy preservation of historical structures of note too heavy to move.
Well, she might have to make an exception for swords, but those would probably be behind some sort of barrier where the average person couldn’t get at them.
But that was it. The only steel she was going to be encountering on a daily basis would be in her yet-to-be-found shiny, modern London apartment. Her yet-to-be-secured job would entail dealing with very expensive, potentially very old art, true, but as long as someone else would be doing the unearthing of it from dusty locales, she thought that might not interfere with her vow.
Her heart leaped a little at the sound of the front door opening because that meant that the last of her aunt’s junk had been packed into the truck to soon grace the nooks and crannies of the local thrift shop. She picked up the final box, promised herself a decent massage at some point in the future, and limped over toward the hallway.
The head of the moving crew, a man who looked as if he’d seen it all, was standing there looking as if he might have finally seen too much. She sympathized, but handed him the last box anyway.
“Finished, Greg?” she asked, trying to put just the right amount of enthusiasm and expectation into her tone.
“Would be,” he said slowly, “but we have a situation out front.”
Oh, no, not that. She had a plane to catch and no time for situations. Fortunately for her schedule, she came from a family of antique-store owners and knew there was nothing that couldn’t be fixed with packing tape, permanent markers, or a good shove. She followed Greg outside, ready to roll up her sleeves and do what needed to be done.
The truck was definitely overflowing with stuff, though an open spot remained for the brown Naugahyde recliner still sitting on the driveway. She watched Greg’s crew struggle to hoist the chair up and into place, but the chair was having none of that. It flung itself into a reclining position and came close to flapping its beefy arms at the men trying to keep hold of it. They were left with no choice but to set it back on the ground.
The recliner gathered itself back upright in a bit of a huff, then settled into place without help while the movers settled themselves around the corner of the truck without delay. She could have sworn she saw a flash of tartan disappear behind the chair as well, but that was probably her imagination. She looked at Greg and saw her own well-honed willingness to ignore anything odd mirrored in his expression.
“Like I said,” he said with a vague wave in the direction of the recliner. “A situation.”
She sniffed suddenly. “Is your truck on fire?”
Greg shook his head. “It’s pipe smoke, but I can’t find where it’s coming from.”
Considering the number of her aunt’s vintage treasures cluttering up the insides of his truck, Olivia thought she might have an opinion on that, but maybe that didn’t need to be said.
“As long as it’s not coming from the chair itself,” she said confidently, “I think we’re safe.”
Greg didn’t look as though he felt safe, but then again, he and his crew had already spent some quality time with that renegade recliner.
“Any suggestions?” he asked.
She recalculated quickly. The cabin’s new owners had asked that it be empty, but people needed a place to sit and rest while they contemplated their remodeling plans, didn’t they? Besides, they might look at that piece of fake-leather goodness and fall immediately in love. She pushed the front door back open.
“It’ll look great back by the fireplace,” she said.
“Couldn’t agree more.”
She left them to it and went to grab her bag from her rental car. She waited for Greg on the porch, trying to avoid being trampled by his guys bolting out the front door, then handed him a check.
He took it, then paused. “I don’t usually say this, but maybe there’s something hidden in that chair that you’re supposed to find.”
She laughed politely when what she really wanted to do was do her own bit of bolting off into the woods before any involuntary reactions to Possible Items of Great Value kicked in and left her taking the time for a final rummage through recliner pockets.
Greg bounded off the front porch with the enthusiasm of a man leaving trouble behind, packed himself and his crew into the cab of his moving van, and wasted no time hitting the road.
Olivia pulled the house key out of her pocket, fully intending to lock the front door and do the same, then paused with her hand on the doorknob. Was that a squeak? The last thing she needed was to blow the sale for her aunt because she’d left a window unlatched or a door still open. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have a last look around.
She walked back inside, checked all the doors and windows one more time, then found herself coming to a stop as she met the ghost of her younger self there in the den. It had been a good place to land after her unsettled childhood, though why her grandfather had agreed to take a wild-eyed, wild-haired ten-year-old girl under his wing was anyone’s guess. Unconditional love, maybe.
A prince of a man, definitely.
She smiled faintly at the sight of her grandfather’s recliner sitting in its accustomed spot by the fireplace and her aunt’s stitchery on top of the mantel. The new owners would probably love—
The chair suddenly kicked up its foot rest.
She almost went reclining as well, but got hold of herself just in time. The chair was at least fifty years old and the mechanics were probably going. That was obviously the answer for the squeaking she’d heard a few minutes ago and what looked like some serious paranormal activity at the moment.
She started to turn away, then Greg’s words came floating back to her. What if there were something hiding inside that chair? She looked frantically for her line in the carpet only to find it had been obliterated by work boots. Her will-power was vanishing just as quickly because apparently the lure of a possible find was just too strong to resist while standing on familial ground.
“All right,” she said slowly, setting her bag down out of the way. “A quick look for old time’s sake.”
The chair refrained from comment.
She faced trouble head-on because she was a Drummond and Drummonds didn’t shy away from the difficult. Gang warily was the motto her grandfather had always attached to the end of standard discourse on their glorious heritage, and she suspected warily was exactly how she was going to be ganging at the moment. The last thing she needed was for that chair to close up while her hand was inside it.
She checked the outside pockets to find them just as empty as she’d left them earlier that day, then got down on her hands and knees where she could more thoroughly explore the undercarriage. She was fairly sure she wouldn’t find anything past a few petrified butterscotch candies or a stray cat figurine, but she’d been wrong before. She reached into the cavernous area under the seat and came away with nothing more otherworldly than a book.
Well, she found more hard candies than she’d expected, but she tossed them back inside and decided they could be a bonus for someone else.
She pushed the chair back into its locked and upright position, then sat back on her heels and examined her find. She had a weakness for old books and what she held in her hands was a stunner. The blue linen cover was as mint as the heavy paper inside. She opened it and checked the printing details: 1910; Wright & Sons, London. She closed it and looked at the title.
Northumbrian Ghosts and Legends
She almost put the book back in the chair. She had no idea where Northumbria was and she wasn’t interested in any paranormal doings to be found there. It was the sort of thing her Aunt Phyllis would have considered fascinating reading, though, so the book had probably slipped down the side of the seat as her aunt had rushed off to investigate another unopened box. She would just have to pop it in the mail once she’d landed in England.
She stood up, then realized there was one last piece of business to take care of. She sighed gustily.
“I do not need anything else—”
The stitchery fell off the mantel.
She stood there and surveyed the battlefield. Her common sense was there to the left—huddled there, admittedly—while off to the right stood bekilted foot soldiers representing at least three generations of American Drummonds off to gang in directions they shouldn’t.
And there in the middle of the field lay the words that had inspired all that business.
She sighed gustily, picked up the stitchery, then freed it from its pink plastic hoop and put it in her pocket. She could send it along with the book.
She put the hoop back together, stuck it in a side pocket of the recliner for someone else to enjoy, then grabbed her bag and ran for the front door before the chair could come galloping after her and demand more attention. She locked the door, turned, then realized abruptly that she was still holding onto the house key.
Short of hiding it under the doormat, all she could do was take it with her. She shoved it into her pocket to keep the stitchery company, then turned and stepped off the porch.
Her future was waiting for her, and she couldn’t wait to get to it.
Five hours later, she found herself sitting in a different fake leather chair, counting the minutes until her flight would begin boarding while simultaneously trying to ignore all the hemming and hawing her aunt was doing on the other end of the phone. Fortunately there was plenty of distraction in the persons of two elderly gentle- men sitting across the aisle from her in full Highland dress. She wondered why someone hadn’t spoken to them about their enormous swords tucked between the seats, but maybe they’d gotten some sort of special permission for their re-enactment gear.
“I had a bit of a snag, sweetie.”
Olivia dragged herself back to the conversation she was having with her aunt over a very bad connection. The fact that she could hear that same aunt purposely crumpling a piece of paper near the phone was perhaps something she didn’t need to acknowledge. There was trouble ahead, she could hear it coming.
“What kind of snag?” Olivia asked uneasily.
“You remember Irma, don’t you?”
Who wouldn’t remember Irma? She owned half the local town and had the goods on the other half. Everyone had warned Phyllis not to take her on as a business partner, but her aunt hadn’t listened.
“I’m mortally embarrassed to admit this,” Phyllis said, sounding very embarrassed indeed, “but I’ve been bamboozled.”
Olivia nodded sagely. Par for the course.
“Envision your poor aunt being blindfolded with a fake Hermès scarf and carried off to an undisclosed location where she was bullied into a state of financial peril. There was a bare bulb there, sweetie, and brawny helpers in sunglasses. It was terrifying.”
Olivia suspected there had been less brawn than scrawn and the undisclosed location had likely been the local diner, but no sense in bringing too much reality into things. Irma was, as any of her tenants would have testified, very fond of movies where kneecaps were targeted. Whether or not her sunglasses-wearing nephews could have broken anything including a sweat was debatable.
“Financial peril,” Olivia repeated. “How terrible.”
“It was, cupcake. You see, it all began a couple of years ago when Irma started using the business credit line to feed her unwholesome addiction to Bakelite bangles and her initial foray into vintage bell bottoms. I told her that the cusp between the 60s and 70s was a very tacky place, but she didn’t listen.”
Olivia put her hand over her eyes to block out any more reality than what she was having to listen to over the phone, though she definitely agreed with her aunt’s fashion opinions.
“I should have been paying more attention, but I was distracted by looking for love in the classifieds.” She sighed rapturously. “I had just met Randy thanks to an ad in the back of Yesterday’s Treasures, which as you know is my favorite trade journal.”
Olivia had very vivid memories of boxing up a decade’s worth of the same, memories she was more than ready to put behind her.
“By the time I noticed what was going on,” Phyllis continued, “the business was in a deep vermillion color. Irma was happy to take the inventory and try to sell it to her connections, but that didn’t seem to go very well. Thank heavens the cabin sale got me pretty close to paying off the business debts.”
Olivia only managed not to moan because she was a Drummond and Drummonds didn’t moan. They squared their shoulders and marched into battle with heads held high. Warily high, maybe, but high nonetheless.
“Pretty close?” she managed.
“Within spitting distance,” Phyllis admitted. “If you can spit a long way, which isn’t ladylike so I don’t do it. You know I was just so thrilled to have someone who wanted a quick close that I didn’t ask any questions. Did I tell you that Irma was my real estate agent?”
Olivia understood why her grandfather had left her a yet-to-be-disbursed inheritance in the care of a former law student, not her poodle-skirt wearing aunt who was at that very moment calling from the beach where she was no doubt gazing lovingly at Randy from Fresno who had big plans to open a daiquiri bar.
Not that there was anything wrong with Fresno, daiquiri bars, or beaches. As for anything else … she took a deep breath. Actually, she took several. It seemed wise.
“So, sweetie, I’m afraid I’m going to have to sell a few drinks before I can pay you back for the movers—”
“No,” Olivia said, dredging up a smile, “no, don’t worry about it. I have plenty of money in my account.” She did, though it would be substantially less plenty once the movers cashed her check. She would just have to be frugal until she landed her dream job. “I still have the key to the front door, though. Where should I do with it?”
“Toss it in a planter and call it good. One of Irma’s kids is a locksmith.”
Of course he was. Olivia shuddered to think what that meant for the locals, but perhaps she was too cynical.
“Now, you have Randy’s address and phone number, don’t you? Call me when you get a new phone in England. And you brought lots of skirts and those cute sweater sets I left you, right? You might meet a handsome lord over there and you’ll want to look your best. Make sure you put on makeup every day and sleep in curlers.”
Olivia made noises of agreement because there was no point in stating for the record that she was not heading across the Pond to look for a guy, no matter how handsome or lordly he might be. She was tempted to add swear off men for a least a year to her list, but after what she’d been through so far that day, she suspected it might be best to just keep her big mouth shut.
She did cross her fingers in her jacket pocket and make a no-dating vow silently, but that was just between her and her self-control.
She listened with one ear to her aunt extolling the virtues of sturdy woolen socks and looked around herself for some kind of distraction. She found it in the persons of those two elderly Scots who looked as if they’d just stepped off the pages of some lovingly illustrated history book. Given how many of those she’d seen thanks to her grandfather’s enormous pride in his Drummond heritage, she thought she might know what she was talking about. One of them was reading a newspaper and puffing industriously on a pipe while the other had his nose buried in a book entitled, Genealogy: It’s Not Just for Boomers, OK?
Pipe smoke. Was she going to be haunted by that for the whole trip? She almost pointed out to the grandpa on the left that smoking was illegal inside the airport, but then what her aunt was saying registered.
“Wait,” she said. “A what?”
“A dream about a castle,” Phyllis repeated. “That’s why I’d gone into Andrew Fergusson’s bookshop. I was on the hunt for a particular book on them—dreams, not castles—and I almost ended up brawling with some Scottish man in a kilt. I told him he shouldn’t smoke a pipe in public and he swore at me. In Gaelic, of course, which I understood. As Daddy always said, Drummonds speak the Mother Tongue.”
Olivia wished she’d had a nickel for every time she’d heard that over the course of her life, in Gaelic. Then again, she wasn’t sure there was enough money in circulation to mitigate the effects of looking at a bekilted grandfather sitting across from her, smoking a pipe that she honestly couldn’t smell, while listening to her aunt describing having seen someone very like him in an entirely different place.
She was, she had to admit, having a very strange day.
“Randy stepped forward and displayed a serious bit of chivalry by hustling us away to avoid any unpleasantness or I do believe I would have punched the man,” Phyllis said. “I didn’t have a chance to properly search for the book I needed to replace the one I’d surrendered to my new friend in London.”
Olivia pounced on that opening without hesitation. “About that friend in London, Aunt Philly, and her company that I’m interviewing with—”
“I told you before, Livvy honey. We both ordered a real peach of a book about interpreting dreams. Since there was only copy to be had and she seemed to need it more than I did, I told the dealer to just send it to her. We got to chatting as you do with new friends, and when I told her about your background in art history, she was interested.”
“But didn’t she used to have a jewelry business?”
“Still does, but she’s branching out.”
“By going into art?”
“Funny, isn’t it? She’d had a dream about a McKinnon clansman who visited her like a Dickensian specter and apparently encouraged her to pursue a new direction in that direction. That’s why she wanted the book, you see, to unravel all that. Who knew that it would lead to her wanting to interview you? And you know, sweetie, the connection’s getting really bad.”
Olivia could hear the paper-rustling intensifying. “Aunt Philly, you promised you’d tell me everything before I got on the plane and I’m about to get on the plane.”
“Must dash, sugar.”
“But, the book you left me in the chair—”
“Glad you found it, we’ll catch up soon!”
Olivia listened her aunt hang up, then closed her phone and put it in her pocket with the stitchery. That was a completely unsatisfactory end to the conversation, but for all she knew Aunt Phyllis had also been visited by some McKinnon-plaid-wearing ghost and advised to stay mum.
She pulled her bag onto her lap, then looked around to find something to take her mind off what would soon be her decimated bank account. Fortunately for her, there was an enormous distraction in the person of that flame-haired grandpa who was making a production of reading his book.
The man was wearing a McKinnon tartan.
She realized with a start that his pipe-chewing companion was wearing what she should have noticed immediately was the Drummond plaid.
She felt her nose twitch, but she rubbed it quickly and used all her will-power to ignore those catastrophically unusual coincidences.
She did jump a little when she realized the McKinnon genealogist was looking at her expectantly, but she wasn’t quite sure how to begin a conversation with an utter stranger dressed in that kind of gear. Should she start things off in the Mother Tongue, hoping that would lead naturally to a discussion of clans and their mottos, or should she instead announce that she was completely opposed to the sort of extended family get-togethers she was sure had inspired most of the content of his book?
The pipe-puffer rolled his eyes, used his pipe to gesture toward her with a fair bit of impatience, then made exaggerated book opening-and-closing motions.
She frowned. She didn’t have any book—
Oh, but she did, didn’t she? And why not, when most people brought things to read on a flight, especially a transatlantic one? For all she knew, those two grandfatherly types were just being polite by reminding her of a handy way to keep herself amused on the plane. She smiled politely, then retrieved her vintage treasure from her bag.
She looked at that marvel of century-old publishing and couldn’t suppress a brief twinge of curiosity. Old books sometimes contained extra items of interest. Maybe she would find a four-leaf clover, or a secret love letter, or perhaps directions to a secret chest of doubloons buried in a Scottish garden—
She stomped on the mental brake pedal before her former self ran away with her. What she had in her hands was an old but no doubt very ordinary book on fanciful Victorian imaginings. She was perfectly capable of examining it with a jaundiced eye and absolutely no rampant speculation.
She gently opened the cover and fanned the pages. No spiders or pressed flowers dropped into her lap, though she did find a fancy little travel folder tucked inside the back cover. She took it out and examined the goods.
There was a one-way train ticket made out in her name for the next day as well as a reservation—paid in full—for a trio of days in what she assumed was a spot somewhere near where the train would drop her off. She had no idea where Artane was, but the brochure she found behind the reservation confirmation had pictures of an enormous castle right on the coast. She also found a note scrawled on the back of a faded receipt.
Olivia, honey, I wanted to give you a little good luck journey before the big interview and my travel agent friend Maxine suggested this spot. Maybe you’ll find a mystery there to keep you busy …
Olivia closed her eyes briefly. She was half tempted to call her aunt back and first curse her for suggesting anything to do with what she’d just given up, then thank her profusely for something she wouldn’t have done for herself. Maybe a thank-you note posted with a royal stamp would make a better impression. She folded up the reservation and tucked it along with the brochure and the train ticket back inside her book.
It was probably crazy to do anything besides huddle in a budget hotel near London and gnaw on her fingers while she waited to dazzle in her interview, but the chance to stay at the feet of a castle that looked like that …
Something washed over her, something that seemed like equal parts hope that she might find something she couldn’t walk away from and terror that she might find something she absolutely couldn’t walk away from.
Gang warily, sweetheart, but make sure you go just the same.
She could hear those words as clearly as if her grandfather had been sitting next to her, saying them right then.
She took a deep breath and decided she would go and make the most of it. Three days in a charming bed and breakfast, a train ticket that was already paid for, and something very old to casually look at more than once? It was the perfect way to start what she hoped would be a very long stay on yon blessed isle.
She realized what she was hearing wasn’t her heart pounding in her ears, it was the announcement that her flight was boarding. She couldn’t go wrong with a quick thank-you to those Highlanders as well. She might not have opened that book if it hadn’t been for them.
She looked over their way to find they were already gone. No doubt they had better seats than she did, especially with all their unusual gear. For all she knew, they were famous.
She put her book in her bag, sent Aunt Philly a mental hug, and got up to walk confidently into her normal, unmysterious future.