"Well," he said softly. "Well, well. She gave it to you."
"She said your name. It's one of the only words she said all week."
He seemed to have to sit down for that. He lowered himself onto the stool behind his counter and turned the hat around in his hands, once, twice.
"Thirty-two years," he said. "I always figured when this day came, she'd be the one to bring the key over. Hand it to me herself and say, Wendell, I'm done, go find yourself another partner." He laughed, a small sound. "Didn't figure on the partner being in pigtails."
"I don't have pigtails."
"No, ma'am. You surely don't." He put the hat back on. "Go on and open it. I'll come over."
The tackle box was dented green steel, the kind men took to the river for catfish, and it lived on the lowest shelf under the counter behind the sugar sacks. The padlock was stiff. Inside, under the lift-out tray, June found:
A wooden spool, no bigger than a thread spool from her mother's sewing basket, wound with something so fine she could not see it until she tilted the spool toward the light and saw a faint glimmer, like a spider's line at dawn.
A ring. Plain brass, too big for any of her fingers but her thumb, with a tiny eye soldered to the side of it.
A stack of twelve paper cups that were not like the cups they sold. They were the same waxed paper, with the same printed lemon, but lighter, somehow, and when June held one up she saw two pinholes punched through the sides of it, just below the rim, exactly opposite one another.
A notebook. Black, with a cracked cover, held shut by a rubber band that broke the moment June touched it. On the first page, in pencil, in handwriting June didn't know, someone had written: Property of The Great Valentin. Traveling Wonders. 1946. And underneath, in Grandma Dot's blocky capitals, added later: AND DOROTHEA. AND W.T.
June looked up. Wendell was standing at the end of the counter with his hands in his pockets.
"Who's the Great Valentin?"