Lily's POV

After laughing at Asher's ridiculousness and teaching him how to use the chopsticks, we ate the delicious food. I absolutely loved Chinese takeaway so it wasn't too long before it finished. After we were done, we sat back, just staring at the empty boxes. Suddenly, Asher interrupted the silence.

"By the way, I forgot to ask you when you first came here, but what was that book about? The one that was hidden in your floorboards?"

I stared at him, surprised by his question. I had never found it in me to read it. I could barely spray mom's perfume without bursting out into tears, let alone read the book that she used to read to me. It wasn't a children's book but my mom would read interesting excerpts from it to me. I had grown to love the book and would listen to her read it out loud right up until she died. Even though I had moved in with Carter, I would still spend most of my time with mom and dad. It was because I never exactly moved in to his house, I just kept some of my stuff there since I visited him frequently. Also because I was too close to my parents to be away from them. I replied,

"Well.... I never really read it. Until a few months ago, I wasn't able to go through any memories with my parents or Soph. I would end up crying for hours."

He nodded and said,

"Well then, are you ready to read it now? Or do you still want more time?"

I was confused by his curiosity so I said,

"Um yeah. I'm ready. But why do you wanna see it?"

His eyebrows furrowed and he said,

"Well, that day when you.... um....decided to practice your parkour skills, I was in your room and I saw the book on your desk. I thought I saw something weird inside it...... Anyways, let's go see it."

I shrugged, got up and grabbed the book before sitting down beside Asher on my bed. He moved closer towards me and I opened the book. It was just a copy of "Da Vinci Code" . The book that my mom would read me excerpts from. As I gave it to Asher, he turned the pages to the last one that showed a bunch of lines and dots. He showed me the page and said,

"See? I knew I saw something weird!"

I looked closely at the figures and immediately recognized what they were. I jumped up and told Asher exactly what I was thinking.

"It's Morse code! My parents made me learn it so that I would be able to use it in emergencies. I need to figure this out!"

After five minutes of wracking my brain to remember the symbols and cracking the code, with Asher anxiously pacing around in the room as if his wife was in labour, I had finally cracked the code. Asher rushed over, seeing what was on the paper. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. I couldn't say that I blamed him. The paper said,

"Garden, evidence."

It made no sense whatsoever. Asher looked at me and back at the paper. After staring at the piece of paper in confusion for a minute, he said,

"Are you sure that you have proper Morse code cracking skills and didn't just make this up?"

I rolled my eyes at him and nodded. He still seemed confused and so was I. Suddenly, the answer popped up in my head. I stood up on the bed, once again, and exclaimed,

"I know what it means!"

Asher looked up at me, motioning for me to tell him. I complied.

"Well, in my old house, where I used to live with mom and dad, we had a huge backyard. In the backyard, there was a fountain which had a lose tile at it's base. When it was moved aside, it revealed a little compartment. When I was young, I was obsessed with playing "spies" so I always wanted to use the secret compartment for hiding knives with cranberry juice on them so that I could imagine that it was blood and take a "d and a" test, as I called it. However, my parents said it was for emergency's only so I couldn't use it. I don't know if it was destroyed by Carter or if it wasn't. If it was, we won't be able to find out what this is about."

He just nodded and said,

"Ok then. Let's go right now. We can't wait."

I got up, grabbed my jacket and went downstairs as Asher grabbed his from his room. He came downstairs, threw the keys towards me and like the professional baseball player that I was, I caught them. He said,

"You know where your house is so you drive. Also, we're picking up the guys from Cole's house."

We went outside, got in his car and I started driving to Cole's house. Once we got there, the guys came running out, fumbling with their jackets. When they had successfully gotten inside the car without strangling each other, I continued the drive to the place where I had spent the happy portion of my life. It seemed that they already knew what was happening because they kept asking questions like, "How do you know Morse code?" or "Is your house big?". I honestly thought that I was in the car with a bunch of five year olds and ignored their questions, spending the ten minute drive in silence.

As we pulled up into the driveway of the burnt house, my heart instantly started to thud from anticipation of what was about to happen next and the nostalgia that filled my soul. Controlling my emotional self, I guided the guys to the huge backyard that dad had made such a fuss on keeping well groomed, which was now ruined. The seemingly magical flowers that were once planted there were no more. In their stead stood burnt grass and ashes. I walked over to the middle of the garden, spotting the thankfully still intact stone fountain, beckoning the guys over. As they came towards me, I crouched down and with shaky hands, I moved aside the tile that was the only veil to my questions regarding the note I had just found.

The tile was removed easily to reveal something which was completely unexpected. Jason shouted out,

"CD's?!"

Finito! I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. If you did PLEASE comment, vote and share. Tell me how you found the book so far. Love you guys! Peace out! <3

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