I try the second one, hoping it’s not a big blue blob, like the first. This one is mine, and thankfully, it’s perfectly and completely legible. It’s just like the day I wrote it.
My voice is deep and sure when I start reading while Elodie braces herself like she’s preparing for a monster to come out of the hole, also horror movie style.
“I, Taylen Cromwell, do solemnly swear that I sell my soul to Elodie Thompson. It is hers to do with as she sees fit. The price is one dollar. I agree to sign over my soul to her at the age of eighteen when I become an adult and am legally fully in charge of it. She will then own my soul until I shuffle off this mortal coil. Signed, Taylen Cromwell, age seven.”
“Holy shit,” Elodie whispers. Jeffers backs her up with a doggy snort. “What were we thinking? How could we have sold our souls? And why until death? Most soul contracts start at death. I remember we did it and buried it in the time capsule, but why did we ever think selling our souls was a good idea? We could have just promised we’d be best friends forever and signed that contract instead.”
“But selling souls was such a thing back then. Plus, it was highly dramatic, which is exciting for kids. Anyway, you’re technically off the hook. Your contract was all wet, and the ink had smudged. I couldn’t read a thing.”
“How did we even come up with the wording for that?” Elodie shakes her head in amazement. “It’s utterly ridiculous. If our parents ever found out about it, I’m sure they would have been pissed. We could have just done a blood brothers thing. Wasn’t that also popular?”
I think about the brooch as soon as she says that, and I shudder. The blood brothers thing was before our time, thank goodness, and due to health and safety concerns, it was abandoned long before we were born. I’m sure people still continue to do it, though. However, I don’t have time to respond before a cackly voice splits the air. “Hooooooo ha! What do we have here? A pair of burglars digging up my perfect lawn?”
I whirl to find Granny standing on the huge back deck that juts from the double sliding doors. She’s wearing a bright pink bathrobe and has curlers in her hair. Clearly, we woke her up. She’s grinning at me, though, like she’s pleased as ever-loving punch that I’m here. Or perhaps like she knew I’d show up eventually. Granny’s all about self-fulfilling prophecies.
I tuck the contract back into the box and snap it close. Elodie, on the other hand, releases Jeffers’ leash in surprise at seeing my granny standing there in a billowing pink robe with actual feathers around the edges. She looks like a bloody flamingo out here, and oh, those curlers make her look absolutely wild. She’s still got the body of a twenty-year-old, or so she likes to brag, and her robe is cinched tight enough to reveal some granny curves that I really don’t want to think about.
And my granny’s rather active love life is a dark, dark corner where I don’t let my mind wander. Thank god the robe is tied tightly, and there won’t be any wardrobe malfunctions.
Jeffers finds the hole I just dug and, in a fit of glee over the fresh dirt in the yard, goes to town, making the hole ten times larger in as many seconds. He nearly disappears altogether, except for his frantically wriggling back end.
“Would you look at that,” Granny chirps, shaking her head as if her precious, immaculate lawn isn’t getting obliterated. “It’s a canine excavator tornado.”
“I’m really sorry about the lawn,” Elodie whispers, but Granny just waves her hand, shushing her.
“Are you two cursed companions coming in for breakfast?” When I scowl darkly at Granny, she just throws her head back and cackles loud enough to wake up the whole neighborhood. She eyes the metal box in my hands. “What? Did you have a clause when you buried it that you wouldn’t dig it up until the event you were both cursed? Not just one or the other?”
“Granny…”
“I’d love breakfast!” Elodie’s forced cheer matches Granny’s genuine mirth.
She cuts me off before I can say something I’ll regret, mostly because my Granny is as tough as the toughest rusty nail, and she has a wit every bit as deadly as stepping on one without a tetanus shot. She wouldn’t need to make breakfast because she could serve me up with that deadly wit of hers.
I leave the box on the ground instead of taking it inside within Granny’s reach. She’d probably do something about the soul contract that I wouldn’t like, such as sell it on the internet or use it to blackmail me. Or worse, she could publish it in one of the papers or magazines that she owns just to humiliate me. It would serve as a warning for others, of course. I can just imagine it now.