“What would anyone do in our attic this time of night?”
“Burgling all our old junk?”
“You don’t think they’ll come down and attack us?”
“What, two old fools, with skinny backsides?”
“Thank God, the trapdoor only works one way, and is locked beneath.”
They began to edge step by step back up toward the hidden sounds.
“I know!” said Rose, suddenly. “In the Chicago papers last week: they’re stealing antique furniture!”
“Pshaw! We’re the only antiques here!”
“Still, there’s some up there. A Morris chair, that’s old. Some dining room chairs, older, and a cut crystal chandelier.”
“From the dime store, 1914. So ugly we couldn’t put it out with the trash. Listen.”
It was quieter above. On the top floor, they gazed at the ceiling trapdoor and cocked their ears.
“Someone’s opening my trunk.” Emily clapped her hands to her mouth. “Hear that? The hinges need oiling.”
“Why would they open your trunk? Nothing is there.”
“Maybe something …”
Above, in the dark, the trunk lid fell.
“Fool!” whispered Emily.
Someone tiptoed across the attic floor, careful after being clumsy.
“There’s a window up there, they’re climbing out!”
The two sisters ran to their own bedroom window.
“Unlock the screen, poke your head out!” cried Rose.
“And let them see me? No, ma’am!”
They waited and heard a scraping noise and a clatter as something fell on the driveway below.
Gasping, they shoved the screen out to peer down and see a long ladder being toted along the driveway by two shadows. One of the shadows grasped a small white packet in his free hand.
“They stole something!” hissed Emily. “Come!”
Downstairs, they threw the front door wide to see two sets of footprints on the lawn in the dew. A truck, at the curb, pulled away.
Running out, both ladies shaded their eyes to read the vanishing license plate.
“Damnation!” cried Emily. “Did you see?”
“A seven and nine, is all. Do we call the police?”
“Not till we know what’s gone. Shake a leg.”
By flashlight on the attic stairs they unlocked the trapdoor and climbed up into darkness.
Emily swept the attic room with the flash as they stumbled through old suitcases, a child’s bike, and that truly ugly chandelier.
“Nothing’s gone,” said Rose. “Odd-peculiar.”
“Maybe. Here’s the trunk. Grab on.”
As they lifted, the lid sprang back with an exhalation of dust and ancient scent.
“My God, remember that? Ben Hur perfume, 1925, came out with the movie!”
“Hush,” said Emily. “Oh, hush!”
She poked the flashlight into an empty place in the middle of an old party dress: a sort of crushed pocket, two inches deep, four inches wide, and eight inches long.
“Dear God in heaven!” cried Emily. “They’re gone!”
“Gone?”
“My love letters! From 1919 and 1920 and 1921! Wrapped in a pink ribbon, thirty of them. Gone!”
Emily stared down at the coffin-shaped emptiness in the middle of the old party dress. “Why would anyone steal love letters written so far back by someone probably dead to someone, me, good as dead?”
“Emily Bernice!” exclaimed Rose. “Where you been lately? You ever see those TV matinees make you want your mouth washed out with soap? How about the gossip columns in the town gazette? You ever look at the crazy ladies’ magazines at the beauty parlor?”
“I try not to.”
“Next time, look! All those folks got up on the dark side of the bed. Our phone’ll ring tomorrow. Whoever stole your letters’ll want cash to hand them back, or edit them for some crazed women’s book club, or for advice in a lovelorn column. Blackmail. What else? Publicity! Come on!”
“Don’t call the police! Oh, Rose, I won’t wash my underwear for them or anyone! Is there any grape wine left in the pantry? Rose, move! It’s the end of the world!”
Going down, they almost fell.
The next day every time a special-delivery mail truck ran by, Emily would part the parlor curtains and wait for it to stop. It never did.
The day after, when a TV repair van slowed to seek an address, Emily stepped out to fend off any ill-mannered reporters who might nose in. They never nosed.
On the third day, when intuition said there had been time enough for the Green Town Gazette to save up its spit and let fly, the spit was not saved or flown.
But …
On the fourth day a single letter fell in her mailbox with no mailman in sight. Emily’s name on the letter seemed written in lemon juice and scorched to raise the calligraphy.
“Look,” Emily whispered, “Emily Bernice Watriss! And the two-cent stamp is canceled: June fourth, 1921.” She held the letter up to X-ray its mystery. “Whoever stole this four nights ago,” she gasped, “is sending it back to me! Why?”
“Open it,” said Rose. “The outside is sixty-two years old. What’s inside?”
Emily took a deep breath and slid out the brittle paper with brownish handwriting in a fine flourished Palmer penmanship.
“June fourth, 1921,” she read. “And the letter says: My dearest dear Emily—”
Emily let a tear drop from one eye.
“Well, go on!” said Rose.
“It’s my love letter!”
“I know, I know, but we’re two old battle-axes now. Nothing can offend us! Gimme that!”
Rose grabbed and turned the letter toward the light. Her voice faded as her eyes squinted along the fine calligraphy from another year:
“My dearest dear Emily: I know not how to pour out all that is in my heart. I have admired you for so many years and yet, when we have danced or shared picnics at the lake, I have been unable to speak. At home I stare at myself in the mirror and hate my cowardice. But now at last I must speak my tenderest thoughts or go mad beyond salvation. I fear to offend, and this small letter will take many hours to rewrite. Dear, dear Emily, know my affection and willingness to share some part of my life near or with you. If you could look upon me with the smallest kindness, I would be overcome with happiness. I have had to stop myself from touching your hand. And the thought of anything more, the merest kiss, shakes me that I even dare to say these words. My intentions are honorable. If you would permit, I would like to speak to your parents. Until that hour and day, I send you my affections and kindest thoughts for your future life and existence.”
Rose’s voice sounded clearly with these last words …
“Signed William Ross Fielding.”
Rose glanced at Emily. “William Ross Fielding? Who was he, writing to you and