Page 47 of Finders Keepers

We leave Catoctin at seven on Monday morning but don’t arrive at the address Emily Aaron gave us—an American foursquare-style single-family home scrunched in with its neighbors in the Museum District of Richmond, Virginia—until a little after ten thanks to a major accident shutting down a lane on the DC Beltway.

Things between Quentin and me are feeling slightly off since I got the email from Malbyrne inviting me back.

Nothing I can put my finger on exactly, just a sense that he’s retreating again, ever so subtly, as if he might think I’m not serious about still wanting to stay in Catoctin with him.

The fact that he’s trying so hard to pretend everything is fine and good only makes it more obvious.

It’s like we’re driving with an elephant in the back seat, a jacket thrown over its head as if that’s enough to convince me it disappeared.

However, not being an infant, I have object permanence and can’t quite forget about its presence.

A woman around our age with light brown skin, large brown eyes, and long, dark, curly hair answers the door, and I recognize her from the headshot on her website as Emily. She shows us to the living room and says, “My grandfather will be down in just a minute. Can I get you anything?”

“A glass of water would be great,” I answer as I lower myself onto the leather sofa. “Quentin?”

“Nothing for me, thank you.” He remains standing awkwardly, like he’s forgotten how to exist in someone else’s space.

Emily leaves to grab my drink, and I tug Quentin’s hand until he sits beside me.

Almost immediately, his knee starts bouncing with the frantic energy of a dog having a dream about chasing rabbits.

I’d hoped the elephant would stay in the car, give me a temporary reprieve from trying to ignore it, but it seems to have followed us into the Aaron residence.

I sigh as I lay a hand on his thigh and put a stop to the jiggling.

“Calm down,” I say. “You’re going to make them think we’re here to case their house or something.”

Quentin turns to face me, his eyes wide. “Nina. What if this is it? What if the Aarons know something that leads us to the treasure?”

“Then we find it. Yay.”

“But then what? Do you…Would you still stay?” he asks. “Because you said the other night that you’d stay until it was found, and—”

He stops talking as Emily returns. She sits the glass of water on a coaster in front of me, politely not acknowledging that her grandfather’s visitors appear to be having a tense discussion in his living room.

“I’ll go see what’s taking him so long,” she says with a smile and points in the direction of the staircase we passed when we came inside.

Instead of resuming our conversation, we both stare straight ahead, waiting for our first glimpse of Mr. Aaron.

Even though he’s the son of the man who interviewed Fountain, not the man himself, this feels like a significant moment.

Eugene may have been a baby at the time his father visited Sprangbur and diligently recorded everything the old seltzer magnate wanted to share with him, but he’s still the closest we’ve come to talking to someone with a direct connection to Julius Fountain.

And, according to the email Emily sent, Mr. Aaron has something he thinks may interest us. Something has to come of this.

“Stop,” I whisper, taking Quentin’s hand and giving it a squeeze.

“Stop what?”

“Worrying so much. The treasure isn’t what’s most important to me and you know it.”

“But it is important,” he says. “The treasure is still important even if it isn’t the most important.”

I give him a look like, What are you even talking about?

The sound of stairs creaking alerts us that our hosts are on their way.

Emily rounds the corner first, followed closely by an elderly white man that must be Eugene Aaron.

He walks hunched over slightly, as if the modest wisp of light gray hair swooping over the top of his head is some sort of antennae he uses to feel his way.

His granddaughter helps him into a wingback chair, and he lets out a heavy exhale as he lifts his legs so that she can shift the ottoman under his feet.

“Mr. Aaron,” I say, and lean forward with my hand extended. He takes it and gives it a stronger-than-expected shake. “So nice to meet you. I’m Nina Hunnicutt.”

“Quentin Bell,” Quentin says, that charming mask of his sliding back into place easily now that he’s speaking to someone else. “Thank you for inviting us.”

“Of course. I couldn’t help but be intrigued. It isn’t every day young folks reach out to me about my father’s work.”

“We’d love to hear all about it. But we’re primarily interested in anything you can tell us about his experience interviewing Julius James Fountain in 1937.

Especially anything you know about a place called Edlo?

” On the way here, Quentin and I briefly discussed how much detail we wanted to give about the motivations behind our research.

Mentioning that it had to do with a treasure hunt, we thought (or I thought, and Quentin sort of half-heartedly nodded in concurrence) might needlessly complicate matters.

So we decided to be as vague as possible while still being honest.

Mr. Aaron smiles. “Ah, Edlo. Yes. Figured it might have something to do with that.”

“Is this for a book or a podcast or something?” Emily asks from where she stands with her arms folded atop the back of the chair where Eugene Aaron sits.

Her voice is light and breezy, the same as her emails inviting us to Richmond and then confirming the date and time, but there’s an unmistakable undercurrent of protectiveness there too.

“I’m not sure where our research will—” I start, but Quentin cuts me off.

“It’s more of a personal quest,” he says.

“Well, now,” Mr. Aaron says, raising his bushy eyebrows. “That sounds like a story of its own.” His expression makes it clear that he now expects to hear all about it.

Quentin looks at me for a few seconds, searching for something.

Finally, he turns back to Mr. Aaron and Emily.

“Nina and I go way back,” he explains. “Her family and mine shared a duplex, so we were next-door neighbors growing up. I wound up moving away when we were fifteen, but that last summer we lived beside each other, we spent a bunch of time exploring Julius Fountain’s estate together.

Which made us also want to know more about the man who built it.

That’s how we learned about your father’s oral history interviews. ”

“Ah,” Mr. Aaron says. “I never did get to go there, you know. But my father spoke of it often.” He glances up at Emily. “Maybe we’ll visit when it isn’t so hot out.”

“I don’t know if you’ve read the interviews,” Quentin continues.

Mr. Aaron nods. “Some time ago.”

“In them, Fountain talks about this whole other side to Sprangbur, the fantasy world where he claimed to spend so much of his time. He called it Edlo. Seemed like a place where you could lose yourself in pretending, which was something I understood the appeal of. My parents were going through a divorce, and it was decided I would live with my mom in Michigan, where she’d gotten a new job.

I was going to have to join her there at the end of that summer.

I dreaded leaving the only home I really remembered having.

My school, my friends. The pressures on me back then were very different from those on Fountain, but I could definitely empathize with wanting to get lost in a fantasy for a while.

” He glances at me again, that serious look on his face instead of the smile I’m expecting.

“That was also the summer I realized I was in love with Nina. And spending time with her was the closest thing I’d ever found to how Fountain described Edlo—magical, delightful, a respite from everything that weighs on me. It’s still the closest thing.”

“Oh my god, that’s so romantic,” Emily says, then covers her mouth with her hand sheepishly. “Sorry.”

Quentin simply smiles at her before returning his attention to Mr. Aaron.

“There’s an intellectual curiosity as well, of course.

But Edlo and love have this inseparable connection in my mind, and I can’t help but think that understanding Fountain’s world better will also help me love better.

” He glances at me before taking my hand and, lowering his voice so I’m the only one who can hear his next words, says, “Love you better.”

I cannot conjure even a single thought except Quentin loves me .

He said the other night that he love d me.

Back then. Past tense. Present tense is not something that’s entered the conversation yet.

And here he is, professing his love for me to this elderly man and his granddaughter as if it’s a basic fact about him.

His middle name is Foster. He went to the University of Michigan for undergrad.

He doesn’t like olives. And he loves me.

He loves me.

“Ah! Nothing quite like young love!” Mr. Aaron exclaims with a chuckle. “Let’s get you the book, then.”

Book? What book? My eyes go wide as Quentin whispers, “?‘Stiff of spine, body pale…’?” and it all suddenly makes sense. The riddle was about a book. Maybe this book.

Eugene looks up at Emily, still leaning on the chair’s back. “Sheyfele, it’s on my bed. Get it, would you?” His granddaughter dutifully heads back upstairs.

“Did your father ever talk about Julius Fountain?” Quentin asks. I don’t know how he’s managing to carry on normal conversation when my heart is thudding so hard in my chest I’m worried it’s visible on the outside, like a cartoon character’s.

“Oh, yes. Even though they only spent that one day together, for the interview, Papa spoke of Mr. Fountain often and with great respect and affection.”