Secrets of the Great Oak

Chapter 15

"Alright, where do you want to start?" Jake asked when he made it to Maggie's boxes at last.

"I guess we start from the top and move down until we find something." Anna shrugged.

Jake grabbed a heavy, cardboard box on top of the pile and passed it to her. He watched as she ran a hand over the label of Maggie's name on the side. She sat on the dusty floor and opened the neatly folded flaps.

He turned back to the pile and pulled down a box himself. Following Anna's lead, he sat on the floor with her and opened his box as well.

Inside he found a bunch of Maggie's old clothes. A wide array of colors on dresses and tops, never t-shirts for maggie. Always something nicer. Her jeans only had the holes she paid for in them and were well kept, not worn like Anna's normally were. Jake always thought that Stella and Maggie would've had a lot in common if they ever met. Part of him wondered if that's what drew Anna to her unlikely friendship.

Anna's box contained the same: clothes, clothes, and more clothes. Maggie had an extensive wardrobe. Anna was holding up a particular dress, one of Maggie's more casual pieces. It was a simple deep blue cotton dress with short sleeves that had buttons down the front. It tapered in at the waist and fell mid-thigh, Jake guessed by looking at the length.

"I bought her this dress, one year for her birthday," Anna explained quietly. "She wore it twice." She smiled at the memory. "It's more my style than hers, anyway." Folding the dress in her lap she continued to look through the box before her.

"I don't know if we're going to find much out by looking through her clothes," Jake said after a minute.

"Yeah, you're right." Anna gently put everything except for that dress back in the box and folded the flaps closed. Jake did the same and stood, looking for more boxes.

"Let's see. More clothes, shoes," He mumbled as he rearranged the boxes. "Okay, here's her school stuff and some other books." He passed a box to Anna and grabbed one for himself.

Anna's box contained Maggie's old backpack, textbooks, and notebooks. Anna peeled through.

"Maybe there are some notes to her friends or something in here." She said, rifling through the bag.

"That's a good idea."

Jake opened his next box and found several books. He didn't remember Maggie being much of a reader. But, as he read through the titles, he realized they were all fantasy books, with magic and secret worlds. That sounded like Maggie. Always had her heads in the clouds.

At the bottom of the box, he found an apple red book with no outside markings on it. Interested, he picked it up and released the elastic band holding it's covers closed. He opened it and saw Maggie's exquisite penmanship. Realizing what he held, he turned to Anna.

"I think I found her journal," Jake said. Anna's eyes shone in the light as she met his gaze.

Pulling her hair up into a ponytail, she responded, "I forgot about her journaling! I guess writing runs in the family." She shifted herself closer to Jake, looking over his shoulder. "What year is it from?"

He read the dates of the first and last entries. "2008-2010 it looks like."

"That's a really old one then. Let's keep looking in the boxes, there might be more."

And as she said it, Jake stood to look for more boxes that contained any kind of books. He quickly found another one, three boxes down in the closest pile. He moved each box, one by one until he arrived at the box labeled "more books".