dinner.”
“We’ll get a pizza on the way or something,” Josie said. “Right now we need to get to Callowhill.”
Fifty-One
Two hours later, Josie, Noah, Shannon, and Christian were deep inside the Paynes’ attic in Callowhill tearing through the boxes that Shannon had so painstakingly put back together only days earlier.
Noah used his forearm to wipe the sweat from his brow. Then he opened a new box. “What are we looking for again?”
“It’s a movie,” Josie said. “Called Frequency. You’re looking for the collection of VHS tapes that Trinity had—it will be with those.”
“I don’t understand why we have to find this movie,” Christian said from behind a pile of old clothes and purses. “Can’t you just watch it? I’m sure you can stream it by now.”
“That’s not it,” Josie said. “It has the diary. I’m sure of it.”
“How could a VHS tape have a diary?” Christian asked, a tinge of frustration in his voice.
“Just look for the damn tape,” Shannon snapped.
“Don’t snap at me,” Christian shot back. “I’m just going to say what no one else will: this is absurd. This is a wild goose chase.”
Shannon stood up straight from where she’d been leaning over a box, riffling through it. She glared at her husband. “Shut up, Christian. Just shut up. Just do what we ask.”
He froze, a cosmetic bag in hand, and shot a dirty look right back at her. “Shan, this is ridiculous. No offense, Josie, but I think this is going nowhere.”
Josie had never seen Christian this way—frustrated to the point of lashing out—but now she could see where the tension between him and Patrick stemmed from. She could also see where both she and Trinity got their punchier sides. She said, “I don’t need you to think it’s going somewhere. I just need you to help me look.”
Shannon pressed a hand to her chest. “I trust our children, Christian. If Josie says she needs that tape, she needs it.”
Wordlessly, he bowed his head and resumed searching. Five minutes later, Noah yelled, “Got it!”
He held the tape in the air. Josie jumped up and ran across the attic, leaping over the mess of items her parents had left all over the floor. She tore the tape from Noah’s hands and turned it over so she could see the base where the tape slid out. The black plastic piece was there, just like all the other VHS tapes had, except when she tried to slide the tape out, it wouldn’t budge. She ran a nail inside the edge of the cardboard and dislodged the plastic. It flipped out—not attached to a tape, just taped to the inside of the box. Josie pulled the piece off and shook out a small brown book.
“Holy shit,” Noah said.
Josie opened the cover and it nearly fell off in her hand. Inside, the lined pages were filled with Trinity’s shorthand, scrawled in black ink. Josie thumbed through them. “Wow,” she said.
Noah said, “That’s going to take forever to get through.”
Christian walked over and picked up the discarded cover, reading the back of it. He looked up at Josie. “How did you know?”
Josie clutched the diary to her chest. “If you had a chance to go back in time and change something, would you?”
Tears welled in Christian’s eyes. He put out a hand and Shannon stepped up to his side to take it. “You know what we’d change, Josie. You would have stayed with us. We never would have been separated.”
Just like that, Josie knew the worst thing that had ever happened to her sister. Cradling the diary, she said, “I need to get this to my grandmother.”
* * *
They drove back to Denton. Lisette had the coffee ready and the kitchen table cleared. She and Josie sat side by side, Josie with a blank notepad and Lisette poring over the diary. Occasionally she had to look something up in the dictionary. Slowly, she began to read the pages out loud.
Vanessa:
Mom and Dad made me see this stupid therapist. They think I’m all crazy and psychotic because I told a couple of the girls at school that you were real. I mean, you were real. You’re just dead now, like Nana. But it’s not like you were never here. I like to think you’re out there somewhere, looking over me, the same way Nana promised she would be. Maybe you two are together now. Anyway, the dumb old therapist made me write these letters to you except that she wanted to read them. Holy invasion