It was Grandma Jo’s idea to turn the old backyard into a garden.
After her last hospital stay, the doctors told them she’d need to rest, stay warm, and take her medicine without fail. But Jo — sharp as ever at eighty-three — had different ideas. She didn't want to spend her days on the couch watching TV and counting pill bottles.
"I’ve sat still long enough," she said, tapping her cane like a command. "If I’m going to get better, I want dirt under my nails and sunshine on my cheeks."
The day started with a low tide and a cooler full of snacks.
Isla’s father had promised her a special outing: just the two of them, a boat, and their little island a mile off the coast. It was barely more than a sandbar with a few stubborn shrubs and a ring of driftwood, but to Isla, it was magic.
Elena didn’t want to go.
Her mother had been planning the trip to Pine Hollow for weeks — a weekend cabin stay “just like old times,” she said. But old times were hard to think about without her father in them. He’d passed away eight months earlier after a long battle with cancer, and nothing about the world felt the same since. Least of all the woods.
Every Sunday morning, without fail, Nora stood at the kitchen counter assembling the picnic basket. She placed two turkey sandwiches with pickles on the side for her brother Max, egg salad on rye for her mother, and chicken salad — no celery, just how he liked it — for her father. A thermos of chamomile tea, a jar of honey, fresh fruit, and always, his medicine, carefully stored in a small velvet pouch.
Chapter 1: The Key Under the Mat
Part 1: Returning to Grandma June’s House
The house smelled like old wood, lavender, and time.
I stood on the porch with the key in my palm, its edges worn down from years of use and silence. It had lived at the back of my kitchen drawer for five years, ever since Grandma June passed and left everything to us—“the grandkids,” as her will simply stated.
There were five of us in total. Me, my sister Rhea, our cousin Marcus, and the twins—Kenny and Liv. We hadn’t all been under one roof since her funeral. The house had sat untouched, the mail stopped, the power shut off, and the garden left to go wild.
The attic was the final frontier.
No one had touched it since we moved in five years ago, and even back then, we just tossed boxes in and slammed the door shut. But on that sunny Saturday, with nothing but lemonade and ambition, Mom declared it was time.
“If it’s got dust on it, we clean it. If it’s broken, we toss it. And if it still fits...” she raised a brow, “we model it.”
That last part? Not a joke.
It was so hot I could feel my eyelashes sweating.
The AC was broken. Again. The repair guy said he “might” show up tomorrow, which in our neighborhood meant next week. So we opened the windows, turned on every fan we owned, and prayed for a breeze.
“Don’t just sit there melting,” my aunt called out. “If we’re gonna sweat, we might as well make the house sparkle.”
And just like that, heatwave cleaning day was born.
The first light of dawn barely touched the edges of the Whispering Woods as my family—my sister Kaela, my younger brother Rami, and our cous...