Thoughts before reading:
All I can say about this is, I only have a few mysteries left, finally! I won't be sorry to reach this particular ending milestone.
The basics:
Sharon's parents, (known to us mainly as Granny and Pop-Pop) leave on a cruise, and after they're gone there's a huge flood in their basement. Sharon wants to have it all fixed up before they return, so she hires the BSC to help her clean up. Mary Anne takes on most of the jobs herself, eager to help.
When she first arrives to start work, Mary Anne's sad to see how bad the damage actually was. The entire basement was flooded, over a foot deep in places, and they actually had a nice basement that Pop-Pop had done a lot of work on. Feeling even more determined, she dives right into clearing the shelves they kept their records on. While working there, she feels a panel give way behind the shelving. Behind it is a small cubby, containing a box that says "do not open or you will be cursed". She opens it anyway, of course, because she doesn't believe in curses, and is worried the contents might have water damage. (I'm extremely surprised that she wasn't too scared...) Inside is a beautifully carved wooden music box. Mary Anne shows it to Sharon, who says she's never seen it before.
After working on the basement all weekend, the Porters' plumber comes over to assess the damage. His name is Jim Prentice, and he tells them all about how he grew up across the street. He had a friend that lived in the Porter house back then, and Granny Porter actually grew up in the house right next door to her current home.
Sharon's able to save all her parents old letters, and she asks Mary Anne to help her make a scrapbook of them for an anniversary gift. She agrees, happy to help with another project. (Wow, in here we really see the old, nice, sweet, and helpful Mary Anne that's been gone since like... book #10?)
As more of the BSC members take turns pitching in on the basement, they become suspicious of several people they've seen snooping around: Jim Prentice, Eddie, the contractor, and Hank, an old friend of Pop-Pop's.
Mary Anne finds a secret compartment in the music box, with a picture inside. It's of a young man, with a woman who's cut out. The discovery chills her, because she's recently started having dreams about this same man following her, dressed in "sailor boy" garb. There's also a letter underneath, addressed to an L. S. from H. I. W., about him being on the other side of the world, but how he'll be thinking of her until they can be together again.
Sharon becomes overwhelmed by all the papers she has to sort for her scrapbook project, so she gives Mary Anne a stack of letters to read and go through. She thought (rightly) that they would interest Mary Anne because Granny wrote them to her friend June, when both girls were around Mary Anne's age.
When Mary Anne finally has time to read the letters, she learns that the Bailey family used to live in Granny and Pop-Pop's house, and they had a daughter named Lydia. She was dating Johnny Buckman, but her father didn't approve. He forbid them to see each other, but they kept doing so anyway. Mr. Bailey was also in his own trouble for stealing from the bank, and there's a mention of someone burying something in the Bailey yard in the middle of the night. All this gets Mary Anne thinking that the music box was a gift Johnny gave Lydia, and she'd had to hide it.
After hearing this story from Mary Anne, the BSC gets busy doing research, looking at old town records, searching old newspapers, etc, but they don't find anything helpful.
When Granny and Pop-Pop return, Sharon throws them a surprise anniversary party. Leading up to it, Mary Anne figures out that L. S. could be "little star", and H. I. W. could be "how I wonder": because the music box plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. She also sees a star bracelet that Granny gave to Sharon long ago, and wears it to the party. Granny sees it and tells her she was Little Star, and her first love, Frank, gave her both the bracelet and the music box. Then he went off to war and was killed, so she hid the music box to keep Frank a secret (it's left unclear exactly why, though). Granny also tells Mary Anne to keep the music box, and her secret about Frank. She also tells her that Johnny and Lydia eloped back in the day, and are still married now.
After the party, Mary Anne has one last dream about Frank, her sailor. He asks her how Little Star is doing, and she tells him she's happy.
Side plot: The Barrett-Dewitts are working on their house addition, and they have the same contractor, Eddie.
Timeline:
It's STILL August, but Dawn isn't in Stoneybrook anymore. She must have returned to California really early in the summer, following that road trip, because a lot has happened since then.
Misc. thoughts:
*It was interesting to hear so much about Granny, Pop-Pop, and their house. They've always been very peripheral characters before, so even this far into the series, we don't know much of anything. Yet they were supposed to have been a big reason why Sharon moved back to Stoneybrook.
*I was surprised that Mary Anne has grown so fond of them though, given how they once treated her dad. She usually gets really offended over that stuff, and can't let things go. I'm glad in this case she did though, because this seems like a sweet relationship, and she doesn't have a lot of family.
*This book had some potential for me as another family-history-mystery, my favorite kind, until this supernatural angle came up, in the form of Mary Anne's dreams about Frank before she ever saw his picture. Without that, this would have been a lot better.
*The Barrett-Dewitt kids are building themselves a playhouse, with some guidance from Eddie... but even with some help, these kids are pretty young to be using hammers and nails...
*Granny's first name is Grace.
*I wonder if this music box ends up being destroyed in the house fire? Kind of a sad thought.
*Ghostwritten by Ellen Miles.
*Knowing all of this now about Granny's past, it's more confusing and infuriating how she handled the situation with teenaged Sharon and Richard. Or was she just going along with her husband passively? Not sure which is worse, honestly.
*Was "the war" WW2? The book never actually says, one way or another.
Books mentioned:
None
My rating:
2 stars. This would've been way better without the dreams. It's too bad, because it had some potential, and the premise wasn't bad either. At least there was no criminal catching...
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