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Five stores in two hours. This was the sixth.

She crossed the slushy parking lot. A few feet from the doors the plastic encased four leaf clover, usually kept washi taped to the sun-visor of her van, fluttered to the ground. Tape and all.

She swore.

Picking it up with mittened hands proved soggy and difficult.

Aurora wiped the clover off on her jeans as she approached the glass doors. A gust of frozen wind nearly swept the charm away again, but she tucked it into the elastic strap of the leather-bound journal in her left hand, then quickly stowed both in her butt pocket.

The doors closed behind her with a warm whoosh.

The warehouse sized store was practically empty of humans and full at every corner with donated furniture, appliances and housewares.

The volunteer at the checkout counter nodded his greeting and went back to flipping through a large loose leaf notebook. He knew Aurora. She thrifted a lot. She’d ask for help if she needed it.

Aurora pulled her mittens off with her teeth and instantly regretted it. The right one tasted of gravel and road salt. Blech!

Her jacket unzipped and mittens in their correlating pockets she dug the journal out again and grabbed the four leaf clover.

“There is no escape, you know,” she said to the little flower.

The piece of washi that’d held the charm had no stickiness left. She made a mental note to reattach it when she got home. The journal opened to her most recent scrawling. The list of stores she’d visited that day. She scribbled down “Fleastore” and tucked the gel pen and the clover back in the book.

“Stay!” she ordered.

She snapped the elastic closed. The sound part of the ritual.

From the back of the store someone shouted. “Oh my God! It's beautiful.”

Always a good sign when volunteers at Fleastore find something they like, given how many beautiful things they are exposed to daily. Aurora’s pulse quickened. She laughed at herself for being so easily amused.

Sofas and tables and desks galore lay displayed before her. Someone else's family ate at that table. Someone’s mom sat in that easy chair. Someone’s grandpa might have taken his last breath on that bed frame. Used furniture collected and kept the stories and energy of its owners. The exact reason Aurora remained so enamored of it. She could feel the love someone painstakingly put into cleaning hulking pieces of wood over decades. She could smell their faded cologne in the worn leather chairs they left as donations.

A rumble from the back of the store. A squeaky wheel. Aurora knew it was the sound of a platform truck straining under the weight of something rather heavy. The wheel squealed in protest and the volunteers maneuvered the piece down the wide aisle towards Aurora. She couldn’t see what was on the hand truck because the three struggling men moving it were blocking her view.

For some reason the hair stood up on the back of her neck. Something electric. Static maybe? She hurried past a vanity with Queen Anne legs and a full length mirror framed in white marble. The truck rumbled closer. The men tugging it stopped for a breather. Aurora caught up with them and walked an arc about the group.

From the back she couldn’t make out what she was looking at. Could be a dresser or a dining closet/hutch type of thing. That would have been strange though because the back of this hulking red oak piece was finished down to every detail. No particle board here. Raised panel quarters. The same solid oak wood as the rest of the piece. She walked around the thing and her hand flew to her mouth.

It was beautiful.

Warm, rich red oak slats curved up the face of the desk. Ornate carved handles invited Aurora to unveil what lay hidden beneath it.

Without thinking she said to the men, “I can't believe my eyes. This cannot even be real. Did it just come in?”

The man closest to her looked relieved that he wouldn’t have to lift the desk just yet. It was as tall as he was and four feet wide. “Yeah,” he answered. “Came in from a donated storage unit this morning. Owner passed away and their kids want nothing to do with this. Too outdated or something.”

“What lost souls...” Aurora sighed. Her hand finally fell to her side.

“You got room for something like this,” asked one of the other volunteers. He wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the store’s name and had smile lines that put Aurora at ease.

“I’d make room! But there is zero chance I could ever afford such a thing.”

“You forget where you are?’” asked the third man. He was much taller than the other two, but even he looked tiny next to this giant wooden secretary. He reached down and rolled the top of the desk up. Wooden thunder rumbled.

Aurora couldn’t hear what the men said after that. She was fixated on the brass knobs bedecking the at least 20 different drawers and cubbies. In seconds flat her mind had the desk home, set up, and all the nooks and crannies piled high with scrapbook paper, bullet journals, stickers, planners and pens. So many pens. Each type with their own drawer!

“M-m-ma’am?”

Aurora held up her finger, silently asking the gentlemen to wait a second. She pulled the journal from her pocket and flipped to the drawing she’d done a few weeks ago of her office. Her future dream office. A carefully drawn, very similar desk sat abeam a window looking out over a flowering treetop.

She held the book out for the men to see.

One let out a small breath. Closer to a muffled gasp.

“You know what, “ she said to them all, “I don’t even care how much it is. If it’s under $500 I will take it. I drew this desk right here a few weeks ago!” She tapped on the penciled image in emphasis.

The man in the t-shirt ripped the price tag off the side of the desk he was standing on and handed Aurora the slip of paper.

$75.

It was only 75 dollars.

“You are kidding!” She successfully resisted the urge to hug them all.

Aurora’s brother Karl sat with his feet propped on their old desk - a build your own number made of particle board and sadness. The bell above the door jam announced her entering their shop and Karl looked up.

He nodded towards her mittened hands and the five tiny drawers they held.

“How are we going to resell those, Roar? They’re tiny.”

“These are mine. They belong inside the desk I’ve been searching for. I just found it in Fleastore.”

“Yours? Roar, we have no cash to be spending on anything we can sell, right now. You know this.”

“Dude, I get it. I was out sourcing and there it was,” she trailed off thinking of the giant beauty squeezed within inches of its life in her van.

“What did it set us back?”

“Just $75.”

“For a desk with drawers that small? The rest better be made of gold!”

Karl stood, locked the register and headed to the backdoor.

He gasped when he saw how close it was to the drawing she’d done.

“That’s a bit creepy, though, don’t you think? I mean...maybe it’s haunted.”

“Nah. If anything it’s lonely. Been locked up in storage away from its owner for a while.”

Karl joked, “You want me to leave you two alone? Should I help you move it? Or is no one else allowed to touch it?” He held his hands in mock surrender.

“Yeah… I’m not the jealous type. Silly. Now help me get this inside.”

Early the next morning Aurora rushed through her shop opening routine. Lights on, sign up, cash in register, phone messages answered, inventory checked, sales marked and featured items highlighted. Her and Karl had owned this tiny antique and thrift store since their mom had died 4 years before. They’d worked alongside their mom since they were kids. Always surrounded by old things with other people’s lives smeared on them. Aurora loved it. Loved trying to figure out what type of person owned each piece and how they came to give it up. The desk needed a good cleaning. Aurora was eager to get to rubbing the oil into each beveled panel.

When Karl got to work just before lunch he found his sister on the phone. He couldn’t figure what had happened from her end of the conversation.

“I know how well you guys take care of your donations. Yep. I did. So did they. They were all empty last night. Yep. Well I know it isn’t mine. I’ll swing by later and drop it off. Okay. Sure. You’re welcome.”

“What was that,” he asked. His vintage leather off and hung on the hook near the counter in one motion. He’d been doing it for years.

“I called Fleastore about this,” Aurora held a small stack of hundreds out in front of her, “I found these in the bottom drawer. I could have sworn they were empty last night. Did you put this in there?”

Karl swiped the money from his sister and quickly counted it. $1000.

“Dude! This is the answer to MY prayer! This is exactly how much I need to fix the Mustang’s exhaust!” Aurora swiped the money back.

“Nope. Not ours. I am taking it back to Fleastore later. Bad Karma to keep something that isn’t ours. Mom taught you that, too, bozo.”

Karl looked deflated but resigned.

Fleastore had no record of the donation. The donors hadn’t filed for a tax write off. Aurora handed over the thousand dollars to the volunteers. They could use the money to help a family in need buy some furniture. Aurora left thrilled. Such a great desk and she got to help people, too.

The desk? It wasn’t finished, though.

The next day as she started filling its drawers with ephemera and pens Aurora pulled one of the drawers out too far and it clattered to the floor. Two fat coils of hundreds rolled down behind it. Thunk, thunk!

“Holy shit! KARL!!!”

They counted the money three times.

18,857. Eighteen thousand eight hundred and fifty seven dollars!

Enough to pay the back rent on the shop. Enough to put the deposit on the florist shop she found downtown. Enough to fix Karl’s mustang all. The. Way. Up. Enough to pay off student loans. Enough to fix the heat in the van so she didn’t have to drive in her mittens. With plenty left over to donate back to Fleastore.

But it was such a weird number.

She and Karl had been in the business long enough not to question strange occurrences with older furniture. Sometimes items had a mind of their own. Mom had taught them to embrace rather than fear the coincidences.

The desk it seemed was indeed a good luck charm.

Aurora remembered the four leaf clover that her mom had given her when she passed her driver’s test.

“Driving, like life, is mostly about luck. Maybe this’ll help someday” mom had said. Aurora'd stored the clover taped to the visor of the van for years, convinced its luck had kept her safe more than a few times.

It was still stuck in her journal. She pulled the black book from her back pocket and opened to the last entry. Her gel pen, the list, the tattered clover and one hundred forty three dollars lay neatly stacked and secure within.

143.

That number wasn’t weird. That was code.

She and mom and Karl used 143 to say “I love you,” via text and on the phone.

Goosebumps covered her body.

“Karl! Mom says ‘Hi!”