Bea lay on her bed surrounded by letters and envelopes addressed to Mr. Evans. She flipped absently through a few looking for anything she might have missed. Some of the letters she had lost the night of the circus had been returned to her in the mailroom, some just thinking that it was lost mail and the Foxberry mailroom was the best place for it, others with questions, and one with an invitation. She wanted to see if anything in the new letters connected to the old letters.

"Stop!" Ackeridge cried, slapping himself over the letter Bea had been about to toss aside.

"Get your slimy Frog Fingers off the paper!"

"Look! It says rose!"

Bea squinted at the word that had been under Ackeridge's leg, "Maybe it said rose before you smudged it. Besides, why would that be any sort of clue? rose is a noun and a verb, it could really mean anything."

"No this was capitalized, like a name! That's why it stood out!"

"Well thanks to your slime, we'll never know."

"Let's look for other mentions of roses."

"Ok just yell of you see something, don't touch it this time."

Bea flipped through some of the letters she had originally discarded. Unfortunately it was difficult to pick out anything among the mentions of knives the Old Friend had collected. The more Bea read about his knives, the more creeped out she got. 

"Wait." Ackeridge said.

"What is it?" Bea asked scanning the letter again to see if she had missed something.

"Weren't you complaining about some guy who was mad about roses?"

"Why would anyone come to me about roses, I'm a mail clerk not a gardener."

"No, that Salimov guy thought you had delivered a package to the wrong person because it was kinda weird, had a rose printed on it, he hadn't ordered it et cetera? You were mad because he was questioning whether you could do your job properly"

"Oh yeah."

"What if that rose is connected to Evans and hid Old Friend? It was a strange package right?"

"Yeah, the return address was blacked out. Someone else got a package that day with a blacked out return. One of the Stephanie's, maybe we should talk to her about the package she got. I wonder if the rose on Salimov's gift is connected to the roses in the letters."

"We can at least have something to show at this mysterious meeting."

  Bea snorted, "What makes you think you're coming?"

"Maybe they'll be the next to die. You delivered packages to them, maybe the connection is that whatever was in those packages will cause them to die which will, of course, be your fault."

Bea pressed the heels of her hands harder against her eyes. She had finally dealt with the rest of the mail from a few weeks ago so she had more free time. Unfortunately that meant spending it with Ackeridge.

"Can't you think about nice things?" She asked loudly. 

Ackeridge just blinked.

"Fine," Bea sighed, "I'm going down to the circus," It was in town for a few days, if she liked it maybe she would go back a couple times. There wasn't much to do in St. Abel.

Ackeridge hopped to the door.

"And you're not invited!" She picked him up and dropped him into the sink, possibly rudely but she wasn't sure about what frogs considered etiquette.

"No wait!" his voice sounded amplified now, "Take me with you please! I'll say nice things! I'll say nothing!"

Bea considered this for a moment. If Ackeridge was going to shut up it might be nice to have some semblance of company, but then it was unlikely he would shut up.

"Fine." She scooped the frog out of the sink and grabbed her yellow raincoat. It wasn't raining but the pockets would fit Ackeridge best.

The circus was loud. There were animals, vendors, performers, and everything else Bea thought could be at a circus. It was all very overwhelming, so Bea decided to stick her head into one of the tents. 

It was dim, and Bea had the distinct feeling this was not somewhere she was supposed to be. However, she had done more snooping in the past few weeks than the whole rest of her life combined and she decided just a little more couldn't hurt. She moved toward the desk, almost in a trance. The dim lighting and dulled circus smell was making her sleepy.

The desk was messy. there were some pens and lots of paper, but also an old inkwell and what looked like a feather quill. Someone must have a flair for the dramatic, Bea thought. Ackeridge shoved his head out of the jacket pocket.

"Someone's got a flair for the dramatic," He said.

"So, I'm not the only one thinking it,"

Bea looked closer at the desk. She sucked her breath in, the letter was addressed to Evans! She flipped through the papers on the desk and found three more letters like the first. This was the Old Friend. He was releasing information to Bea, or whoever he thought was receiving the letters, on a timeline.

"Grab 'em and let's go!" Ackeridge hissed

"Since when are you the Devil on my shoulder?" Bea asked.

"The game's changed!"

        "Game!?"

Bea grabbed the letters and shoved them quickly in the pocket Ackeridge was not in. then she spun on her heel and made her way out of the circus as quickly as she could without looking suspicious. Once she was out of the gates she broke into a run, so anxious to get home and read the new letters that neither she or Ackeridge noticed when the flew out of her pocket into the night.