The Clue in the Weathered Hardback
July 30, 2024 by Dianna Sinovic in category Columns, Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic, Writing tagged as mystery, Nancy Drew, short fiction, writing
Emma worked her way through the tables of used books laid out at a community fair in Bucks County. Books! As if she didn’t have enough of them on her bookcases and her bedside table. Balancing an armful of books—mysteries, a literary classic, two romances—she spied a familiar cover.
“It’s a Nancy Drew.” She smiled at the memory. Her mother had bequeathed her small collection to Emma, who only skimmed them—too dated for her. But she had kept a few of the titles, mostly as a reminder of her mother, who had passed on three years before.
The book, The Secret in the Old Attic, was not one she’d read. Picking it up, mostly out of curiosity, not out of a desire to buy it, Emma opened the cover to leaf through it. Instead of a full complement of pages, though, the interior was carved out to make a book safe. Within the safe lay a folded slip of paper. She smoothed out the slip. On it, in spidery handwriting: IOU.
Fascinated at the clever use of the book, Emma added it to her stack of purchases and left the sale with the bag of used volumes.
At home, she googled the topic and learned that book safes had long been a common way to hide valuables, including money. As long as you remembered which books you’d carved up, no one else would be the wiser as they perused your shelves, either as a guest or a thief.
Lured by the information, she tucked away fifty dollars in the Nancy Drew book and slipped it onto the bookshelf in her living room. An experiment, she told herself. On a run to her public library after work several weeks later Emma remembered the book safe when she passed by the children’s section on her way to the checkout.
She pulled it from the shelf when she returned home and popped it open. The bills had vanished; in their place sat a folded slip of paper. It was identical to the one she’d seen earlier, at the sale, down to the faintly creepy message.
Feeling her pulse flutter in alarm, she dropped the book and the paper. WTF? She spun in a circle to take in the room. It was empty, as was the rest of her modest ranch, but she shivered. Who had been there? And when?
As the moments ticked past, she felt silly. I must have left the slip in the book when I brought it home. As for the money, maybe she’d imagined placing it there.
“Let me try again,” she said aloud to break the spell that seemed to keep her feet glued to the floor. Digging in her wallet, she pulled out two twenties, folded them in half and dropped them into the book safe. She tossed the IOU into the recycle bin.
This time she marked her calendar: Check in one week. Determined to solve the mystery—was she now Nancy Drew?—she set up a surveillance camera aimed at the bookshelf. If there was a thief—but there couldn’t be!—the camera would capture the culprit.
When the week had crawled by, Emma eagerly jerked the book from the shelf, then hesitated. The camera hadn’t caught any strangers in her home. What would the book reveal?
Inside the safe, the same slip of paper beckoned her to unfold it. The money was gone.
“Dammit,” she said, frustration coloring her expletive. Staring at the open book for a few moments, she hit on a solution. Two can play this game. She lay the paper slip on the kitchen table, found a pen, and printed neatly: You owe me ninety bucks. Pay up! With the refolded slip back in the book safe, Emma once again reshelved the hardback.
Barely twenty-four hours passed before Emma succumbed to temptation and pulled out the book. She laughed in surprise. No more notes; the safe contained ninety dollars in crisp bills—a fifty and two twenties—all neatly folded in half.
The cycle, she decided, had ended. She would keep the Nancy Drew book, but forgo putting anything into the paper safe, lest the mystery of the borrower be reactivated.
It was later, as she sat on the couch watching an episode of Stranger Things, that she looked at the returned cash more closely. She switched off the TV and turned on a lamp to inspect. The bills felt and looked authentic—the texture, the watermark, the colors shifting in the numerals—but the portraits . . . She struggled to remember who should be there. Jefferson? Jackson? She was fairly sure a guy named McCall wasn’t one of them. She turned the bills over. On the back, although each building was identified by caption, neither the Capitol nor the White House looked familiar.
The biggest, most obvious difference stared right at her. She ran a finger along the banner words above the buildings: United Territories of America.
More of Dianna’s stories can be found in the following anthologies:
Night Vision
June 30, 2024 by Dianna Sinovic in category Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic, Writing tagged as paranormal, short fiction, writing
The night the eyes appeared in the window for the fourth time was the night Casie moved to the guest room, leaving Benjamin to sleep alone in the master.
He laughed at her the next morning. “You were dreaming. There’s nothing out there but a few deer, maybe a raccoon.”
She stirred sugar into her coffee and frowned. “They were glowing—the eyes.” She shivered at the memory, now running on a loop through her brain. “Our bedroom needs blinds or drapes—something to give us privacy.”
The floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on a dramatic hillside of wildflowers, studded with hemlock and pine, a captivating view during the daylight hours. But at night, the blackness beyond the glass made her uneasy.
“The eyes were … glowing?” He chuckled. “Some dream, sweets.” He drained his mug and shoved back from the table. “See you tonight.”
She noted that he’d ignored her request.
They both loved the light, airy feel of the house. The wood floors, the kitchen with its cute eating nook, the guest room tucked into the second story—every aspect said this was a place they would be happy in.
And they had been, over the last seven months since moving in.
Until the eyes.
Casie slept lightly on a good night, and tossed and turned on a bad one. Benjamin barely stirred on his side of the bed, even during fierce thunderstorms that had her wide-eyed until the last rumble receded.
A month ago, as summer burst onto the hillside behind the house, Casie saw the eyes for the first time. Benjamin had been out of town and she was reading in bed. She sensed that someone was watching her, but the darkness beyond the windows showed nothing; the shine from the bedside lamp masked any details. Switching off the light, she waited for her vision to adjust.
There, about four feet off the ground, a pair of golden eyes glowed.
With a yelp of fear, Casie fled the room. She spent the next three nights that Benjamin was away lying on the living room couch, the drapes drawn, willing herself to sleep. During the day, she struggled to sit for more than a few minutes at her laptop. She had an article to write, but couldn’t concentrate, jiggling her foot, pacing through the house, stopping to study the yard from the master bedroom’s windows. The hillside beyond was benign, peaceful, lush and green.
When her partner returned, Casie weighed how to tell him what had happened but ultimately opted to say nothing. She began to discount what she’d seen. Had there been something staring at her? Their property was far from any neighbor—that was one of its appeals. An animal—even a bear—posed no threat as long as it stayed on the other side of the glass.
Benjamin was back home for a week before she next spotted the eyes. They had made love in the dark, then turned away from each other to sleep, he facing away from her—and the windows.
She muffled a gasp at the golden eyes, this time positioned higher up, maybe five or six feet from the ground.
“Sweets, what’s wrong?” he mumbled, already drifting into dreamland.
The eyes held their position and slowly blinked. Casie pulled a pillow over her head and closed her eyes. It’s outside, outside, outside. She repeated the mantra silently to herself.
The third night she saw them, she woke Benjamin.
“Something’s out there,” she whispered.
“Where?” He propped himself up in bed.
The eyes, which had appeared only a few feet off the ground, faded away.
“Never mind,” she said.
Sleep would be futile that night, but she took comfort in Benjamin’s soft snoring beside her.
#
Over a dinner of chicken salad, Casie listened to Benjamin recount his day. When it was her turn, she sighed. Her stomach felt as tightly coiled as an overwound watch, with her jiggling left foot the ticking second hand.
“I got nothing done today.” She stabbed a chunk of chicken with her fork. “It’s the weird eyes—I am so freaked out I can’t sit still.”
He shook his head. “This is how you get me to do what you want about those damn windows, isn’t it?”
“I’m not making it up.”
He carried his plate to the sink. “Here’s what I’ll do. When we’re ready for bed, I’ll go out, scout around with a flashlight, make sure we’re safe.” The way he said safe carried a whiff of belittlement.
True to his promise, Benjamin made a show of traipsing through the grasses and wildflowers that grew near the house, while Casie watched from the bedroom. He swept a high-power flashlight across the area, then stepped back inside the room through the glass door.
“Not a spooky thing out there, sweets.”
“Whatever,” she said, resigned that he would never believe her.
At his suggestion, they traded sides in the bed that night; he would sleep closer to the windows.
Perhaps it was that switch, or the effect of her emotional exhaustion, but she fell into a deep sleep almost immediately.
When she woke later, her phone said it was nearly two-thirty. In the dimness of the bedroom, she grasped two things: Benjamin was not in bed, and the glass door to the outdoors hung open.
“Benjamin?” she called, but softly, now aware of yet a third thing: The glowing eyes were in the room with her.
The following anthologies contain some of Dianna’s short stories:
First Step
May 30, 2024 by Dianna Sinovic in category Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic, Writing tagged as Feathers, First step, wings
From the fourteenth floor of Kaitlin’s apartment building, the view of the atrium was breathtaking, even gut-wrenching, especially if you were terrified of heights, which Kaitlin was. Because of that, she lived on the second floor, just high enough to feel the thrill of looking down onto the atrium’s floor, but not paralyzing.
Floor 2 was also safe enough for her son, Zeke, all of seven. He wasn’t a climber, so she didn’t have to worry about him falling from the overlook. He was content to peer through the balusters, or on tip-toe, peek over the top rail. Occasionally, he would beg her to take him up to the fourteenth, the top floor, so he could ooh and aah at the building’s lobby floor far below.
“We’ve already been up there once this month,” she said, when he asked for another look only a week after they’d ridden to the top that May. “Other people live up there. We don’t want to be bothering them, or the management will restrict who can visit.”
“Oh, Mom!” He pouted and ran to his room.
What she didn’t tell him was that she frequented the top floor during the day when he was at school. On a break from her home-based editing work, she would ascend to the upper floor and fantasize about standing on the top rail, spreading her imaginary wings and gliding down. In her dream-state, she pictured landing at the bottom with a whisper touch of her feet.
One morning, a woman with frizzy red hair surprised Kaitlin by appearing at her side without warning, making her jump. “You sure come up here a lot.” The woman was early fifties, with frown lines, freckles, and green eyes. “If you’re on a suicide mission, I’d rather you take it somewhere else.”
Kaitlin felt her face grow warm, in opposition to the coldness of the stranger’s voice.
“I just love the view,” she said, quickly turning to walk to the elevator.
“Well, so do I. That’s why I leaped at the chance to rent up here.” The woman watched her narrowly. “No pun intended. If you like it so much, tell management you want the next opening on fourteen.”
Not willing to admit to her acrophobia to this woman, Kaitlin opted for a gesture of friendliness. “I’m Kaitlin, down in 203.” She thrust her hand out and looked the woman straight in the eye. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your floor.”
The woman blinked at her for several moments, and the frown on her forehead smoothed away. She glanced down and then back to Kaitlin, and slowly extended her own hand to shake. “Chris,” she said. “You’re not intruding. We’re all tenants.”
Chris hesitated, and Kaitlin checked her watch. “I’ve got to run,” she lied. “My son will home from school soon, and I’ve got a work project to finish.” She would come back another time, when Chris wasn’t there to snoop.
Before she could turn again for the elevator, Chris stopped her. “Wait. I have something I think you could use. I’ll be right back.”
Kaitlin stood at the railing, idly running her fingers along the metal. She heard a rustle of softness and spun around.
“Here.” Chris held an armful of . . . feathers? The bundle overflowed her arms and trailed to the floor. Mostly grays and whites, but with flashes of teal. “I haven’t used these in several years. They’ll fit you; we’re both about the same size.”
“What is this?” Kaitlin reached out and stroked the feathers. They were synthetic and strong. “A costume?”
“Better.” Chris shook out parts of the bundle. “Try them on. I’ll help you.”
Together, with Kaitlin following Chris’ instructions, they fastened the pieces to Kaitlin’s arms and torso. When every bit had been strapped and buckled in place, Chris smiled, a sadness in her eyes. “They’re perfect on you. I want you to keep them.”
“To do what with?” Kaitlin felt awkward in the outfit, like a circus performer in a Big Top act. “Am I supposed to be a chicken?”
Chris laughed. “Not a chicken. More of an albatross or eagle, a bird with a broad wingspan. I could see it in your eyes. You want to glide down from here. This will let you slowly spiral your descent.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not a bit.” Chris straightened a section, tightened a strap. “Try them.”
Kaitlin’s stomach churned; this interaction couldn’t be real. “You’ve used these . . . wings?”
“Don’t worry. They’ll support you fully. The hardest part is the first step. After that, easy as pie.” She considered for a moment. “Watch out for the fountain in the center, though. Aim to land anywhere but that.”
A deep panic set in, and Kaitlin fought to calm her breathing. Part of her wanted to run for the elevator, ripping off the feathers as she went. The other part, despite the terror of free fall, wanted to witness the sensation. She had imagined this for weeks on end, and now it was happening.
“You’re sure these work?” Kaitlin half-hoped Chris would burst out laughing with a “fooled you!” response.
“Let me help you up.” Chris didn’t seem to have heard her. She stood at the rail, her hand out. “Remember to extend the wings fully, grip the supports firmly with each hand. Relax your hips and legs. Keep your head up so you can see where you’re going.”
Kaitlin took a deep breath and flexed her arms. “Got it.” Far below, the tiered fountain splashed and gurgled. A few tenants chatted at its periphery, unaware of the miracle poised to launch above them.
She stepped off and was airborne.
An Uneasy Out
April 30, 2024 by Dianna Sinovic in category Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic, Writing tagged as writing
The plane sat on the Philadelphia tarmac, waiting in line to take off. Steph blinked at the sunlight illuminating her face in the window seat; clear and sunny: a good omen for her trip to San Diego, to her former roommate’s wedding. Except, the journey was for the marital knot she’d hoped wouldn’t happen.
Then the person in the seat behind her threw up.
We haven’t even started rolling down the runway.
Steph’s fellow travelers in Row 23 shifted in their seats as the retching continued.
Several call lights switched on. The ill person murmured, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
When no flight attendant responded to the lights, a man across the aisle in Row 24 tried a verbal summons. “We’ve got a sick person back here,” he shouted. “She needs help.”
Steph calculated the time frames that would now shift. This flight had an hour layover in Denver, but if the plane returned to the terminal instead of heading aloft, she might miss the connecting flight. Which would make her late for the rehearsal. Which would push the rehearsal dinner later. Christi had urged her to fly out the day before, but Steph had limited vacay days. Besides, she wasn’t sure she could endure watching her friend marry the guy Steph had thought was hers.
A flight attendant finally walked back to Row 24. By this time, the woman behind Steph was moaning softly and was, from what Steph could see as she surreptitiously peeked over the seat back, slumped against the window.
After trying to rouse the passenger, the attendant hurried to the front of the plane.
Moments later, the overhead speakers crackled to life.
“Folks, we’re heading back to the terminal because of a medical emergency. We’ll do our best to get in the air as soon as possible after that’s resolved. Thank you for your understanding.”
The cabin burst into conversation, and Steph’s seatmates compared notes about their destinations and the delay. She pulled out her phone to text Christi the news but stopped. Was this her excuse to miss the ceremony? She could even float a tiny lie about exposure. After all, she was only a couple of feet away from an obviously ill person. Christi didn’t need to know that Steph’s “illness” was dread.
The jet snuggled against the skywalk, and a flight attendant announced, “Please remain in your seats while the medical crew helps the ill passenger. We are determining if we will need to move to a new plane.”
Two EMTs entered the plane with a stretcher between them. With quiet efficiency, they moved the unconscious woman onto the stretcher and quickly wheeled her away.
Another flight attendant cleaned and sterilized the area, and the two people who had been seated next to the ill passenger resumed their places. The window seat remained empty.
Steph weighed her message to Christi. The closer the time to the wedding, the less she wanted to go. Why had she ever agreed to be a bridesmaid?
Flight is delayed. I’ll be late.
Let Christi take her wrath out on those already there. When Steph finally showed up, she could plead a migraine, an aching back—anything that would allow her to skip the ceremony, or at least sit in the back row and pretend to watch.
OMG. I told you to take an earlier flight.
Steph smiled grimly at her friend’s response. Reeve just might deserve Christi. He’d ghosted Steph more than a year into their relationship, although the frequent unanswered texts and calls prior to that should have been clues. And when Christi shared the news of her engagement to Reeve—“I’m sorry, but crazy things like this happen”—Steph was surprised her friend wanted her in the wedding. Perhaps it was to gloat.
When the flight touched down in Denver, Steph’s connecting flight had already departed. The slight queasiness that started when they were still over Pennsylvania had grown in strength until she knew she would not be traveling westward from Colorado. She didn’t need a made-up excuse; she had the real thing. She just hoped it was short-lived.
Some of Dianna’s stories are in the following anthologies.
Drenched
March 30, 2024 by Dianna Sinovic in category Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic, Writing tagged as blog fiction, short fiction, writing
A day of never-ending rain. Pounding on the roof, dripping off overflowing eaves, collecting in pools and puddles on the lawn. Hour after hour, by the quarter- and the half-inch, the water climbing the sides of the rain gauge in the small yard until it reached a full three inches.
The broad Delaware flowed brown with the mud it had picked up farther upstream. And like the water in the rain gauge, the river crept up its banks until it swirled only steps from Cara’s back porch.
Flood stage was sixteen feet, and according to the gauge at Frenchtown, the river stood at fourteen feet and rising.
It was the price she paid for living in a house perched on the riverbank. When it rained, she risked being flooded out.
And, unbelievably, the rain drove even harder against the roof. The plastic bucket she set under an intermittent leak in the living room splatted with a steady rhythm—Thunk-thunk, Thunk-thunk.
Jasper, her beagle, trotted back and forth across the kitchen tile, keyed up because of the downpour. He hated storms and only barely tolerated steady rain. Just like her ex, hating their stormy relationship and only barely putting up with their daily life. It was no surprise when Todd bailed three years into their marriage.
At two o’clock, Cara put on her rain jacket and boots, and drove slowly through the slosh of water that ran across her road, the new stream seeking the river, on the downslope. Her mother would be waiting at the door, ready for her doctor appointment.
Sitting in the waiting room, Cara felt her phone buzz. Kimm, her neighbor. They R evacuating us. Closing road. I’ll be at my sister’s.
But Jasper. She texted back: Can u take Jasper? I’ll get him from u later.
Several beats later Kimm responded. Water 2 high. Sorry.
“Mom, I can’t stay,” Cara said, as she dropped off her mother after the appointment. “My dog …”
“Oh, he’ll be fine.” Her mother shuffled slowly beneath Cara’s umbrella. “Todd is there, and it’s just a little rain.”
Her mother routinely forgot Cara was divorced, had been for a year and a half. He’d wanted them to move to higher ground, but she refused. The river was her life blood.
Zipping back to her neighborhood along the river, Cara splashed through standing water, her wipers on high, and cursed the car’s defrost, which couldn’t clear the fog from the front window.
A flashing Road Closed sign a quarter mile from her turnoff stopped her momentarily. But no one official was monitoring the road, and she maneuvered her car around the barrier to continue up the road.
She was about a thousand feet from her destination when she could go no farther in her car. The water stretched ahead of her, swirling and frothing. Pulling well off the shoulder, she parked and waded into the flood. The water reached her ankles and then her knees, but she could see her house, the brown roof, the thirty-foot pine near the south wall. The house itself was up a slight rise, so that by the time she reached it, the water had retreated to her ankles.
Jasper’s barking welcomed her onto the porch. She unlocked the door, and the dog pranced around her legs.
“Yes, I’m home.” She wrestled playfully with the beagle, but the rising water lapping at the porch steps caught her eye. It was a major torrent; this time the house might not survive.
She had to. To prove to Todd she was right.
With a calmness she didn’t feel, she found her backpack and a duffel bag, placing within them essentials she wanted to save. Jasper followed her from room to room, whining softly. She knew what he meant: Stop the rain.
“Wish I could, buddy,” she said, pausing briefly to give him a pat.
She checked the house one last time and locked the front door. The river churned in a muddy eddy, like a mug of pale chocolate. The water was now at the bottom porch step, knee deep—too deep for Jasper. But if she didn’t leave now, the combination of rising water and current might overwhelm her.
She hauled the stuffed pack onto her back, looped the duffel over her right shoulder, and picked up Jasper. He let her hold him, without a wiggle or squirm.
One foot into the water, then the other. The current tugged at her. Step by step, careful to position each foot solidly on the path, Cara traveled several hundred feet. Then a misstep let the current spin her and she started to fall. Releasing Jasper, she caught herself and gasped.
The dog. He’d disappeared beneath the surface.
“Help!” she called, although no one was there to hear. “Jasper!”
After she battled a moment of frozen panic, the dog’s head popped up. He was swimming beside her.
Pushing ahead, Cara reached the shallower water and then the gravel; Jasper now trotted on solid ground.
She bent and hugged him, his wet fur wiping the tears from her face. They’d made it.
These Anthologies Contain Some of Dianna’s Short Stories
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THE PRINCESS OF BOORAY
You would expect the life of a princess to be full of delight . . .
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