Page 15 of Her Alien Neighbor

Despite her frustrating behavior, she is too magnificent a creature to look as weary as she does.

“I will help,” I tell her when the silence becomes too heavy.

Her face lights up in pure, unbridled joy. “You will? Really?”

“Yes,” I reply, clearing my throat. Bracing myself for the fury she is bound to unleash upon me. “But there is a catch.”

As quickly as her expression lit up like fireworks across the night sky, Vanessa’s face falls into a vengeful, cunning expression. “What?” she demands through gritted teeth.

“You will give me something I want.”

“I’m not giving you any of the money. I need it. I ca–”

I hold up a hand, stopping her. “I do not want your money.” My brothers and I spent our entire first year on Earth swindling investment bankers and hedge fund managers out of their fortunes so we could build our own. We each have enough money that we never need to work, we simply choose to do so.

“Then,” she says, clearly shocked that I am turning down cash, “what do you want?”

I tilt my head, giving her a half-smile. “I have not decided yet. But I will let you know when I do.”

She folds the letter carefully, then crosses her arms. “Let’s see if you can solve the riddle first.”

I chuckle at that. Perhaps Vanessa is smarter than I thought. “Very well.”

Vanessa pulls the letter back out and reads from the bottom of the page.

It was here that my ankle did twist, a short tumble led to a sprained wrist. But oh, it could’ve been worse, had the good ones not gotten there first. Take a trip through faces and places and see if wistfulness blooms in traces.

“And she wrote ‘WHERE’ across the top, so this is the clue for that,” Vanessa adds. But the context she provided was not necessary, because as soon as I heard “twist,” I knew the answer.

“The basement. Lady Norton fell down the stairs when she was going to get a photo album she wanted to show us.”

“What? When did that happen?”

“Two years ago,” I tell Vanessa.

Her chin dips. “She never told me that.”

“I took her to the emergency room,” I say with a sigh. “It was just a sprained wrist.” Vanessa looks as if she is on the verge of tears, which I am not sure I can handle. “But the ‘faces and places’ is definitely the dozens of boxes filled with photos. I would start there.”

“Okay then,” she says, now focused on her task, “let’s go.” She tugs the sleeve of my flannel, but then stops after taking one step. “Just to be clear, I’m only letting you help so I can find the cash, fix this place up, and leave town the moment it sells.” She stares at me, her eyes blazing. “This isn’t a friendship.”

I have no idea what this is, but I agree that friendship is not the proper word to describe it. “Certainly. I understand.” I gesture for her to take the lead. “Shall we?”

She smiles, but then immediately tries to hide it. “We shall.”

CHAPTER 6

VANESSA

It takes three hours for us to dig through ten boxes of photos, and still, we’ve found nothing. Two boxes contained photo albums, which were much easier to inspect than loose photographs despite the occasional silverfish scuttling between pages and scaring the bejesus out of me. But at this point, I’m beat, hungry, and also slightly buzzed. I’ve been sucking down OJ and vodka since this morning when I should’ve been drinking water.

However, most of these photos are of my past here in Sudbury, so the booze is helping to numb the pain.

Where is the next clue? How did she manage to bury it among this mess?

I hear Axil laugh quietly from where he’s sitting on the bottom step, a stack of photos in his hands. “Is this you?” he asks, rising to his feet and taking large, careful steps into the narrow path we made through the basement. The photo is of me and Willa, both of our faces covered in whipped cream as we sat at Aunt Franny’s kitchen table, wearing dresses made out of trash bags, and playing a homemade version of the pie face game. The only part of our faces exposed is our smiles.

“Yep,” I say with a giggle. “That’s me on the left, with three missing teeth. And that’s Willa, my sister.”

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