Your Five Clues

A red umbrella

A missing tooth

1984

A woman who hates birthdays

A bird that cannot fly

THE FIVE CLUES CHALLENGE

The Photograph from 1984

Evelyn hated birthdays.

Not disliked.

Hated.

Every year on October 2, she unplugged the telephone, closed the curtains and refused to answer the door.

No cake.

No candles.

No presents.

And absolutely no singing.

Her neighbours had learned not to ask why.

Then, on her fiftieth birthday, someone left a red umbrella outside her door.

Evelyn stared at it for a long time.

She hadn’t owned a red umbrella since 1984.

Attached to the handle was an old photograph.

Two little girls stood beneath that same umbrella, grinning at the camera.

One was Evelyn.

Eight years old.

Her front tooth was missing.

Beside her stood her younger sister, Elsie.

Evelyn turned the photograph over.

Someone had written only two things on the back.

1984

And beneath it:

Ask about the bird that couldn’t fly.

The photograph slipped from Evelyn’s fingers.

Elsie had disappeared that afternoon.

For forty-two years, everyone believed she had wandered away during Evelyn’s birthday picnic.

Search parties had found nothing.

No clothes.

No body.

No explanation.

Only Elsie’s little wooden bird beside the lake.

Its wings had been carved open as though it were soaring through the sky.

But, of course, it couldn’t fly.

Evelyn had kept it ever since.

With trembling hands, she retrieved the bird from the drawer beside her bed.

She turned it over.

Nothing.

She examined the tiny wooden body.

Still nothing.

Then a memory surfaced.

Elsie sitting cross-legged on the grass that morning, holding the bird between her small hands.

“Birds need wings to fly, Evelyn. But secrets need somewhere to hide.”

Evelyn stared at it.

Slowly, she touched one of the wooden wings.

It moved.

Hidden inside was a tiny roll of paper.

The handwriting belonged to their mother.

If anything happens, look beneath the red umbrella tree.

Evelyn stopped breathing.

There had been an enormous rowan tree beside the lake where the family held their picnics. Every autumn, its brilliant red canopy stretched above them.

The girls had called it the red umbrella.

The tree was still there.

For the first time in forty-two years, Evelyn returned to the lake on her birthday.

She stood beneath the rowan and began searching among its ancient roots.

Eventually, her fingers struck metal.

Buried beneath the earth was a small box.

Inside were letters.

Dozens of them.

Every one addressed to Evelyn.

Every one from Elsie.

The first had been written three weeks after she disappeared.

The last was dated only six months ago.

Evelyn sank to the ground.

Elsie hadn’t died.

Their mother had taken her away.

The letters revealed a story Evelyn had never known: a broken marriage, fear, an escape planned in secret—and two little girls who were supposed to leave together.

But something had gone wrong.

While Evelyn was at her birthday picnic, their mother had fled with only Elsie.

And somehow, through all the years that followed, every letter Elsie sent to her sister had been hidden.

At the bottom of the box was one final envelope.

On the front:

For Evelyn, when she finally finds me.

Inside was an address.

And beneath it, one sentence.

Bring the umbrella. I’ll bring the cake.

Evelyn laughed.

Then she cried.

One year later, for the first time since 1984, Evelyn celebrated her birthday.