Christmas in Evergreen Tidings of Joy - Nancy Naigle Page 0,38
for the new friends and memories she’d made here.
The days were clicking off much quicker than she’d like. Her phone rang. With coffee in hand, she hugged the phone to her shoulder as she doctored it up with a sugar cube and creamer as she answered.
“Did I wake you?” her mom asked.
“No, I’ve been up for a while. I’m dressed and ready to go.”
“Does that mean I’m going to see that story soon?”
“I just have a few more tweaks to make. But I wanted to start fresh this morning.” Katie slid the copy she’d reprinted at the library last night from her notebook.
“Well, I can’t wait to read it,” Pam said with all the excitement of someone who’d had four cups of coffee already that morning.
“Mm-hmm.” Katie picked up the print out, glad this last bit of work would be done and she could get back to what she’d come for—vacation-mode. Only, it wasn’t her article. It was a readers group discussion guide. She groaned. “Oh, no. Except I grabbed the wrong paper off the printer last night and—”
“Sorry, what?”
Her breath caught when she realized what had happened. “Oh, no. Mom, I’m going to have to call you back.” She slugged back a sip of her coffee and put the mug in the sink, then grabbed her coat as she race-walked out the door to get to the library before someone else found her notes.
She knew the walk to the library by heart now. Her boots clicked on the wooden walk in front of Daisy’s Country Store. A pretty gold-dipped snowflake ornament caught her eye in the window, but there was no time to stop and shop now.
As she walked past Allie’s red truck parked along the street, she heard someone call out her name. Across the way, a crowd was gathering in the alley next to Kringle Kitchen.
“Katie.” She spotted Ben in the crowd. “Katie, come over here.”
Hannah, David and Michelle were all staring down Kringle Alley too. Nan and Nick stood off to the side chatting, their faces beaming.
“What is going on?” Katie went up on tiptoe so she could see.
“I honestly don’t know,” Ben said. “David called me to come down. He said they’d found something. He called everyone in the historical society.” He looked around. “As usual, word travels far and fast around here.”
Another woman chimed in. “I just saw the crowd gathering and stopped. I don’t know, but it’s exciting.”
Carol came out of the diner, and with a dramatic shrug, she gestured to Hannah and David to join her. “I don’t know about all this.” She balled her hands into fists then crossed fingers on both of her hands, excited about something. “It’s a long shot, but…I don’t know, I just have a feeling.” She took David by the hand. “Come on.”
The two of them marched right past that huge growing group of locals up to the wood slat wall of the building.
David took the key from his pocket, and together he and Carol twisted it into the keyhole that’d been long hidden-in-plain-sight behind the stained wooden siding.
It took a little wiggle. To the left. To the right. Followed by a click that caught Carol and David so off guard that they leaped out of the way. The trim pieces on each side of the building pulled back, and then every horizontally stacked board plummeted into a well-planned stack in a trough below.
The sound of over two dozen boards slapping to the ground in a heap was a little dizzying, but as the racket subsided, a collective gasp replaced it.
Every single person standing there looked up in awe. The only stained boards of the facade that remained were those along the peak of the gable roofline. From the point at the tippity-top all the way to the bottom was one massive masterpiece embedded into a larger-than-life shadow box painting of an Evergreen winter.
“That’s the painting from the picture of my grandparents,” David shouted.
But it was so much more than just that.
The opening around the painting held carved wooden pieces—snowflakes, evergreens at the base with a single snowman, top hat and all. Twenty-four wooden boxes, each one numbered, framed the shadow box from knee high all the way to the top.
Katie stumbled back, but Ben caught her by the arm. “Is this the, uh…”
“What in the—” He looked to the others. “Is this the time capsule?”
“Wow.” Ezra still stared above. “So it’s…”
Michelle covered her mouth with her hands. “I can’t believe this.”