She doesn’t look convinced, but she lets it drop.
Just before following Jet inside, I glance at the house next door. A tall hedge borders the property, obscuring everything but the top two floors. Despite all the time that’s passed, my eyes go straight to the second floor, to the second window on the left.
Riley’s window.
Aunt Jet is wrong: Montgomery House has changed in what feels like a hundred different ways. Some changes—like how the shelves in the cupboards and fridge are all labeled with people’s names or how the formal parlor has been transformed into a common area with a TV and mismatched sofas—would be impossible to miss; others—like the absence of a particular antique or painting—are so small that I find myself questioning my memory.
Despite all the changes, my room is still the same. Even though I’ve never lived in Montgomery House for more than a few months over various summers, the third bedroom on the second floor has always been mine. When Aunt Jet renovated, she left this room exactly as it was.
“You haven’t changed, either,” I murmur as Brisby—fat and fickle as ever—follows me inside. He nips my ankle and then promptly claims the bed.
Being in here is like being in a time warp. The bookcase is crammed full of paperbacks about magic boarding schools and faeries and little orphan girls with hair every bit as red as my own, the bedspread is the kind of pink floral monstrosity I loved when I was twelve, and my dad’s antique typewriter—an old Olympia he dragged down from the attic as a teen—is still on the desk.
A mobile of the solar system hangs from the ceiling. Riley and I made it from a kit. We both wanted it, but he insisted I take it home.
He was always like that. Kind. Until the day he wasn’t.
Brisby hops down and darts under the bed just as the door opens. I turn, expecting Jet, but a strange guy stands on the threshold.
Correction: a gorgeous strange guy stands on the threshold.
“Sorry,” he says, “I didn’t realize anyone was here.” There’s a soft edge to his words. An accent I can’t quite place. “So, are you in need of medical supplies, or are you just into Swedish folk music?”
“Huh?” It takes me a second to realize he’s talking about my shirt. I can count on one hand the number of people I know who have heard of First Aid Kit, let alone who know what country they’re from.
He glances at the bags on the floor and then back at me. He’s so tall that I have to look up to meet his gray gaze. “You must be the niece. Mary Catherine, right?”
He lifts his hand. For a horrible second, I think he expects me to shake it, but he just smiles and runs it through his sandy-colored hair.
“Cat,” I correct. “Only my dad and aunt call me Mary Catherine.”
“Cat.” He says my name slowly, rolling it over his tongue like it’s a flavor he’s trying out. “I’m Aidan. Aidan Porter.” He nods toward the desk. “I was wondering if I could borrow that.”
I glance over my shoulder and then back at him. “The typewriter?”
“The typewriter.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
Other than it’s not the 1970s, I don’t actually have a counterargument. Besides, it’s not like I’m planning on using the thing. I walk to the desk and lift the Olympia. It’s heavier than it looks, and I stumble as I turn back to him.
“Whoa.” He takes two long strides into the room and lifts the typewriter from my shaking arms before I drop it. As he does, I notice that his feet are bare. He has nice toes, I think, which is a ridiculous thing to notice.
“Thanks.” I feel a blush creep over my cheeks and down my neck. Unlike me, Aidan has no problem holding the typewriter, even though the thing must weigh forty pounds.
He turns and heads for the door, then pauses and glances back. “I don’t suppose I can borrow paper, too?” He raises one eyebrow in a manner that’s either charming or arrogant—I have a feeling I would have to know him better to figure out where the two diverge or overlap—and then turns and walks down the hall, just trusting that I’ll follow.
Telling myself I’m only trailing after him because I don’t have anything better to do, I grab a stack of paper from the top desk drawer and then follow him to a room at the very back of the house. It’s the room my dad always wrote in whenever we came to visit because it has the best view of the river.
The last time I was in this room, it was filled with sturdy antiques. Now it’s host to the kind of cheap white furniture that you buy in boxes and assemble at home. There’s a sleek flat-screen in the corner, but underneath it sits a huge, hulking machine and a stack of those big black tapes people used before DVD and Blu-ray. VHS tapes. I may have a room full of vinyl back home, but even my love of vintage has its limits.
Aidan sets the typewriter down next to a laptop while I hover a few steps over the threshold, clutching the paper, unsure what to do. “You know you need more than just paper, right? It takes these things called ribbons.” Even though my father does most of his work on his computer, he picked up an old typewriter last year. He occasionally drags it out to the dining room table, where he’ll use it for a day or two until he remembers how much he likes the ability to copy and paste.
Aidan opens one of the desk drawers and pulls out a typewriter ribbon, still in its original packaging. “Google is a marvelous thing.”
“Truly boundless,” I concur.
“You can find out anything. For instance, did you know this house has a Wikipedia entry?”
“I did not know that.” I try to keep my voice level, but inside, I’m wondering just what Aidan would find if he googled me right now.
Oblivious to my sudden discomfort, he says, “I looked up the house before I moved in. Figured anything this old might have an entry. There’s a photo of your father on the porch. I think it’s from one of his books.”
“The picture of him in the horrible tweed jacket with the elbow patches?”
Aidan nods.
“He loves that photo.” Personally, I’ve always thought it makes him look like a pretentious ass—which might not be that far off the mark. I love my father, but there are times when it feels like he’s trying to hit every Serious Male Author stereotype in the book.
Aidan turns and leans against the wall. “I heard he’s some kind of big-shot screenwriter.”
I shrug. “I guess.” My dad’s done well—really well by Montgomery Falls standards—but of my parents, my mom is the famous one. The one who gets spreads in Variety. The kind of screenwriter whose name gets mentioned almost as much as directors’. Dad almost never talks about her. Not unless he has to. I usually see her once or twice a year. She takes me out for dinner sometimes, when she’s in town for meetings. She’s tall and thin and elegant and very, very cold. It’s always weird and uncomfortable. I always feel like she’s staring at me, like she’s trying to figure out if some mistake had been made at the hospital.
“I found some of your father’s old drafts down in the study. Pretty cool stuff.”
“You’re a writer?”
Aidan laughs. “Nah. I just read everything.” His hair falls across his forehead, and he brushes it back distractedly. “I kind of admire it, though. The way writers get to create worlds and people. The way they can manipulate reality. It must be like playing God.”