← Sleep Tight Stories - Bedtime Stories for Kids
Sleep Tight Stories - Bedtime Stories for Kids
Nicole And The Box In The Barn P.27 ✨
00:19:08
A bedtime story series for kids set in Prince Edward Island
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- [00:09]
A
Hello, friends, and welcome to Sleeptight Stories. Nicole and her mom talk about the picture that they saw and realize they need to wait now to talk to Angus and see if they can find out any more information. When Saturday finally arrives, Nicole is awake early and goes downstairs to find her mom is already there, looking at the book and the journals. It looks like she has been there for a while, and as they are talking, something happens in the book. Nicole and the Box in The Barn Part 27 Saturday Nicole was dressed and downstairs before 8. Saturday meant Angus, and she'd been thinking about the illustration since Friday afternoon. The barn, the two figures, the one that looked like Margaret. She was mentally halfway through the garden door before she'd even reached the kitchen. Her mom was already at the table. Both journals were out and the book was open. Between them there were two mugs of tea, one on each side of the table, which meant her mom had made one for Nicole without being asked. Nicole sat down. She knew this look. It was the same look from the night they'd found the coordinates and the night they discovered the foundation stones. The look that meant her mom had been up for a while and had found something. Morning, her mom said. I've been going through the journals again. How long have you been up? Her mom glanced at the window, where the light was still pretty thin a while. Nicole wrapped her hands around her mug. The tea was exactly the right temperature, which meant it had been sitting there waiting for her. She she felt a little guilty for sleeping longer than her mom, but also grateful she had made tea for her. Ok, she said. Show me. Her mom turned the book around so Nicole could see the illustration, the barn, the two figures outside. She'd photographed it Friday, stared at it all evening. Dreamed about it, probably. She knew every line. I've been comparing it to the journals, her mom said. She slid her father's journal across the table, open to a page near the back. The handwriting was messier here, more rushed farm notes, mostly names, dates, short observations. Her mom pointed to a line near the bottom of the page, easy to miss between a note about fence repairs and something about the weather. D Worked the east field. Knows more than he lets on. Just that one line. Nicole looked at it for a moment, then she looked up at her mom, then back down. D, she said. D, her mom said. Nicole put her finger on the initial and left it there. Outside, the garden was quiet. The compass was already warm in her pocket and she hadn't even touched it yet. Her mom got up to put the kettle on for a second round and Nicole stayed at the table, looking at the illustration. She wasn't sure what she was hoping to see. The woman who looked like Margaret, the man she didn't recognize. The barn doors slightly open behind them, the same red she saw every morning from the kitchen window. She leaned a little closer, and then, so quietly she almost missed it, something changed. Not the whole picture, just a small part of it in the shadow of the barn doorway. A shape that hadn't been there before. Or maybe it had been there and she hadn't noticed. That was the tricky thing with the book. Sometimes it was hard to tell if it had actually changed or or if she just hadn't looked carefully enough the first time. But this. This was new. A third figure, small, half hidden in the shadow of the doorway, too unclear to make out properly. Just a shape, really, the suggestion of someone standing just inside the barn. Mom? Her mom turned from the stove. Come look at this. Her mom crossed the kitchen and leaned over Nicole's shoulder. She was quiet for a moment, then. Did that just. Yeah, nicole said. It does that. Her mom straightened up slowly. She didn't say anything for a bit, which Nicole had learned to just let happen. It was different seeing it in person. Her mom had heard about the book changing, had looked at photographs of the new illustrations on Nicole's phone, had read about it in the journals. But watching it happen in front of you was another thing entirely. There's someone in the doorway, her mom said finally. I can't tell who it is. It's too small. Her mom sat back down. She picked up her mug, realized it was empty, and put it back down. Does it usually do that while you're watching? Not usually, nicole said. Normally I just notice it's different and I can't remember what it looked like before. They both looked at the small, shadowy figure for a moment longer. Okay, her mom said quietly. Her mom went to make the second round of tea after all, and Nicole got up and stood at the kitchen window. Outside, the garden looked different from the summer version she'd first fallen in love with. The big showy flowers were mostly gone now, the peonies and the sunflowers long finished, the strawberry plants gone small and rust colored, close to the ground, but the apple tree still had a few leaves hanging on bright yellow against the gray October sky, and the berry bushes had gone a deep red that was almost prettier than they'd been in August. Some of the hardier plants she couldn't name were still flowering, too small and pale, like they were determined to get every last day they could before winter arrived. A regular garden would have given up by now. This one hadn't quite decided to yet. In another few weeks it would go quiet. She wasn't sure what that would look like. She'd never had a magical garden in winter before. She thought about Emma instead. On Thursday on the bus, Emma had mentioned something that Nicole hadn't been able to stop thinking about since they'd been talking about old island families. Emma's mom had been telling her about properties that had been in the same family for generations, and Emma had said, almost as an afterthought, that her gran used to talk about a family who lived near Nicole's farm a long time ago. The McDonald's. Emma had said her gran thought they were really important to the community once, but then they just sort of disappeared. Nicole had nodded and said something like, huh, interesting. Which was the kind of thing you said when you actually found something very interesting but didn't want to show it. She hadn't mentioned it to her mom yet. It wasn't a secret. It was just she wanted to sit with it first, turn it over a bit. That was something she'd started doing lately, holding things for a little while before saying them out loud. Margaret had said once that a good guardian learned to listen before speaking. Nicole wasn't sure she was very good at it yet, but she was trying. She filed the Emma detail away carefully, right next to the D in her father's journal, and turned back to the table. Ready? Her mom said, handing her a fresh mug. Ready, nicole said. She finished her tea, pulled on her jacket, and headed out to the garden. The door was waiting, the way it always was. Vines curled around the frame, the wood warm under her hand even on a cold October morning. She took a breath, turned the handle, and stepped through. The garden door opened the way it always did, a shimmer, a breath of different air, and then Angus's farmyard, solid and familiar around her, the smell of hay and wood smoke, a chicken complaining about something near the fence. I thought you weren't coming. I got held up, nicole said. My mom and I were looking at the book. He nodded, like this made complete sense, which after everything, it probably did. He sat down on the hay bale near the barn door, their usual spot, and Nicole sat beside him. She told him about the illustration, the woman who looked like Margaret, the man she didn't recognize, the third figure that had appeared in the doorway while they were looking at it. Angus listened without interrupting, which was one of the things she liked about him and there's a note in my dad's journal, she said. Just an initial D. It says he worked the east field, that he knew more than he let on. Angus was quiet for a moment. He picked up a piece of straw and turned it between his fingers, which she'd noticed was something he did when he was trying to remember something. Gran used to talk about a man who worked the east field, he said slowly. A long time ago. Before my time even, she said. He asked a lot of questions about the garden. Nicole kept her voice even. What kind of questions? Just questions. What grew there. Whether the door was always there. Whether anyone had ever gone through it. Angus frowned. She said he wasn't trying to cause trouble, he was just curious. But it made the family a bit nervous, not knowing what he'd do with the answers. Do you know his name? Angus thought about it. Something like Donny, maybe, or Donald. Gran wasn't always clear on names. He looked at her sideways. Why? Do you know who it is? Maybe, nicole said. I'm not sure yet. Which was true. She had a strong feeling, but a feeling wasn't the same as knowing. She stayed a little longer and they talked about other things. The harvest, a fox that had been bothering the chickens. Whether Nicole thought it would snow before Christmas in her time. Normal things. Good things. When she finally stood up to go, Angus said, you'll tell me when you figure out who it is? Yeah, nicole said. You'll be the first to know. He seemed satisfied with that. She stepped back through the door. Her mom was still at the kitchen table when Nicole came back through the garden gate. She could see her through the window, both journals open, laptop beside them, waiting. Nicole came in through the back door, toed off her sneakers, went into the kitchen, and sat down. Angus knows the name, she said. Or close to it. He thinks it was Donald. Maybe Donnie, someone who worked the east field a long time ago, asked a lot of questions about the garden. Her mom looked at her for a moment, then she turned to the laptop and typed something. Nothing fancy, just a local record site Nicole had seen her use before, when they were tracing the family history. The kind of site with old census records and farm labor lists and names that had mostly been forgotten. Her mom scrolled, stopped, turned the laptop around. One result a Donald listed in farm labor records for the Kensington area, 1942 and 1943. Nicole leaned forward and read the whole line, even though she already knew what the last part was going to say. Done, Donald done. She sat back. Marcus done, she said. Marcus Dunn, her mom said. Outside. A crow landed on the fence post close by the garden and then thought better of it and left. The kitchen was very quiet. Nicole thought about Marcus sitting next to her in science class, drawing cartoon cows on his notes, going that is so cool, like it was the best news he'd heard all week, talking about his gran's box of old letters that nobody had ever gone through. He had no idea. She put her hand in her pocket. The compass was warm, not urgent, not pulling her anywhere, just warm the way it sometimes felt after something had clicked into place, like it had been waiting for her to catch up and was just letting her know she'd finally got there. What do we do now? Nicole asked. Her mom closed the laptop gently. I think, she said. That's a question for next Saturday. And that is the end of this part. Good night. Sleep tight, Sa.