Beams of golden light sliced through the dark room, forming pools of sun on the ancient wooden floor. Bonnie looked with wonder at the furniture covered in a thick layer of dust. "It doesn't look haunted."
Matt looked down at her and grinned. "Wait 'till night. You'll see."
Bonnie had never been very good at waiting. She ran through the abandoned house licking (figuratively) through the boxes and boxes old photos in a closet and poking (literally) through the deteriorating curtains. They had all afternoon. They wouldn't be missed until supper. But Bonnie felt certain she couldn't wait that long.
Until she found the Thing.
"Maa-att!" came Bonnie's sing-song little voice from a small room at the end of a hall on the second floor.
"Yup?" Matt answered, dutifully dropping everything (he'd been re-organizing the photos Bonnie had thrown all over the floor into their boxes by date) and obeying her summons.
"What's this thing?"
Matt's eyes lit up as he entered the room and found her examining a heavy black box-y object about the length of his forearm with a slightly shorter width.
"Ahh, so they haven't shown you these in Records yet, have they?"
Bonnie scowled. She hated not knowing something, if it was to be known— especially if it was in her favourite class, Records of the Ages.
"This, my friend, is called a typewriter."
Bonnie studied the mechanical box a moment then gasped as realization dawned on her. "Writer? You mean this is what they used to . . .?"
Matt grinned knowingly and nodded. Bonnie's eyes stretched wide as an owl's as she began to examine the contraption with a fury.
"Watch," Matt said suddenly. Taking an extremely thin white rectangle of something that was somewhere between a bed sheet and a wooden board, he stuck it in the black box and turned a knob on the side until the white thing showed up behind a thin bar on the front of the black box. Then he pushed a button on the box and a tiny little hammer rose and struck the white sheet with a satisfying click! When the hammer fell back, there was a peculiar little black mark left on the white. Bonnie was breathless. "Is . . . is that . . .?"
"That's a letter. They called it 'b'. It's the first letter of 'Bonnie' if you write it out."
Bonnie was too little to be disturbed by the fact that Matt wasn't supposed to know this. It's likely that had she been older, she still wouldn't have cared.
She spent the next few hours experimenting with the delightful "typewriter" and kept calling Matt back to demand that he show her how to make a certain word. She was so engrossed in her project that she didn't notice the sun settle below the horizon.
"Bonnie!" Matt called a while later, "Don't you want to see them?
The ghosts! Bonnie snapped at herself for forgetting.
Bonnie raced down the hall and had only made it halfway down the stairs when she saw him and froze.
A man stood in the middle of the dusty room in a way that Bonnie felt he was inexplicably untouched by the grime and dirt around him. He had silver hair that kind of pillowed around his head, cloud-like, and a beard of the same nature. His eyes were ancient in a way that surpassed the elderly quality of the rest of him. He seemed ethereal. But also very much alive.
Both Matt and the man watched her, waiting for her to say something. Her mouth hung open, and her eyes wouldn't even blink, but she didn't look scared. She looked like she was finally seeing the thing she'd waited her whole life to see.
Sensing some part of this, the man inquired, "Do you know who I am, child?"
She nodded but couldn't speak. I know exactly who you are. She'd seen his face only once before, in Records of the Ages class, but Bonnie had tried so hard to memorize his face that she knew without a doubt that she was seeing a ghost.
At that moment, two more white-haired people came in, a man and a woman. She knew their faces, too.
They were all supposed to be dead.
Matt, jubilant, made a dramatic gesture toward the three. "Bonnie McMillan, allow me to present you to—"
"The Heroes of Old," Bonnie interrupted breathlessly, transfixed by the group of people before her. "The Writers. You're the Writers."
After a long moment, Matt commanded, "Come here, Bonnie."
The two men and woman all shook her hand and addressed her in the proper cordiality as Matt introduced her to them, but Bonnie was too amazed to do much but stare.
"L-look!" she exclaimed, suddenly, remembering. She held her creation proudly in front of her. "I made words! I— writed!" she exclaimed, trying out the mysterious word, "Written? Write . . .?"
The woman beamed at her, and corrected gently, "Wrote."
"Ah! So you found the typewriter, then?" laughed the taller man, who had come in with the woman.
After a pause, the first man said softly, "Would you like to have it, Bonnie?"
Her awe-stricken face was confirmation enough. "You may keep it here, and come and use it whenever you like."
Bonnie looked a little frantic for a moment and then thrust out her creation toward the man. "Here! For you."
The man smiled and took it. He studied it silently for a moment. It read:
"bonnie bonnie bonnie write write write bonnie write bonnie write bonnie write bonnie write words words words beautiful beautiful bonnie write beautiful words"
When the man looked up, Bonnie believed there were tears in his eyes. It was as if his eyes were trying to speak memories, good and bad, and altogether ancient. The man took her by the hand and whispered, "Yes, Bonnie. Write beautiful words."
