She took her father to their shed every night and worked on a blueprint of Cadence, telling him it was a map for the Albany kids. She told Bigs it was a secret project.

It wasn’t either of those things, I began to realize.

One by one, the other Albany kids came closer to me. Where my arms were useless and weighted, incapable of letting go of the middle section of Marley’s journal, theirs picked up the letters and other parts of the journal, investigating and comparing, constructing a symphony of solving around me.

Harrison held his Marley letter like the prize he wished it was. His hands trembled but his eyes held no malice. In spite of himself, he wanted for it all to be directly from Marley herself. “Did she ever actually say any of this?”

Ruby held the last third of Marley’s journal. “She talks about all of us in this,” she told Harrison. “But it bounces around a lot. It’s like Olivia took the suggestion of what Marley said and turned it into something more concrete.”

Harrison came near her to read over her shoulder. Ruby turned back a few pages to find the excerpt she wanted. “‘I wish I could be as still as Harrison,’” she read. “‘He’s there, doing his thing, living his life. Minding his business. Everyone notices everything I do. I can’t walk to the park without it being a whole event. Dad telling me my shorts are too short and I shouldn’t wear them because I’m better than that. As if that’s a thing. As if my clothing determines my worth. Mom telling me I shouldn’t wear them because they show off my cellulite. Little does she know, I like my cellulite.’”

“Can I see?” I interrupted, so eager to figure out if the last section had the most answers that I couldn’t endure a single second more of not knowing. I’d read it before, but not since Aidy had planted the idea that Marley knew what she was doing the day she died. Ruby handed the journal over, another choice to let me have the moment.

The first few pages were drafts of riddles and rhymes. The town holds the answers, Marley wrote over and over, testing out fonts, hunting for the pressure and size that best conveyed her intentions.

Lists of potential items to hide, crossed out and written over so much the ink had turned smudgy. What if I give them a picture of myself and one of my trophies? Like I’m a human, not a trophy. Does that make sense? Everything is Something.

I was her and she was me, trying to make sense of the important and the mundane, wondering how it all threaded together.