"I'm telling you, the rabbits said they'd help us find it," Isby said, kneeling over the garden fence.
Her sister Penny rolled her eyes. "Right. The rabbits!!"
"They did! They said there's something buried under the Delaneys' old house. Something valuable."
Penny kicked at the dirt. She'd been tolerating Isby's weird animal conversations for three years now, ever since their mom died. The thing is; or at least it seemed like Isby only had animal conversations when she was lying. When she was telling the truth, she was just regular boring Isby who worked at the hardware store restocking shelves and ate cereal for dinner.
"What kind of valuable?" Penny asked.
"Money, they said. Plenty of it."
There it was. The lie detector was working.
They'd been getting those odd recipe cards in the mail for months now. Several Instructions for making things that didn't make sense. 'Steep disappointment in three tears and a forgotten birthday.' 'Mix regret with yesterday's coffee grounds.' Stuff like that. Penny threw them away, but Isby still collected them in a shoebox.
"The recipes were brought up by the rabbits too," Isby continued. "They said they're connected to whatever's under the floorboards."
"Isbyyyy-"
"I know how it sounds, alright? But what if... Just what if there really is something there?"
The Delaney house had been empty for two years. The old man is late and his kids lived in California. Nobody looked after the house anymore. The grass had grown long and the mailbox tilted to one side like it was tired.
"We'd be breaking and entering," Penny said.
"Or we'd be investigating?"
Penny looked over at her sister. Isby had that expression she usually has whenever she made a decision she wouldn't back down from. Same expression she had when she quit college and stayed home after our mom got sick.
"Okay. But if we get arrested, I'm blaming the rabbits."
The Delaney house was so old.. it smelled like termite-bitten wood and dust... You know that smell, that comes from abandoned buildings. They navigated around the furniture shrouded in drop cloths with the light of Penny's phone.
"The animals said to search the living room," Isby whispered.
"Sure they did."
The floorboards were original hardwood, probably from the 1940s. Some of them were loose, and when Penny stepped on one part near the fireplace, it creaked differently from the others.
"Here," she said.
They pried up three boards with a crowbar Isby had gone to get. Underneath was a metal box wrapped in oilcloth. Inside the box was a suitcase.
"Holy shit," Penny yelled in surprise.
The suitcase was full of money. Bundles and bundles of twenties and fifties. But when Penny held one up to the light, she nearly dropped it.
"Isby. Come see this."
The face on the twenty-dollar bill was Penny's face. Not a face that resembled her face, but her own actual face. Right down to the scar on her chin from falling off her bike when she was seven.
"What the hell?" Isby took another bill. Andrew Jackson had been replaced with Isby's own face, mole over her left eyebrow and everything.
They sat on the dirty floor, counterfeit cash with their own faces on it in their hands, and Penny felt as if the entire world was sideways.
"The recipes," Isby said suddenly as she remembers. "Get the recipes."
"They're at home.."
"No, wait." Isby was gesturing to the bottom of the suitcase. A manila envelope was tucked beneath the last bundle of money.
There were dozens of recipe cards inside. Originals, written in the same hand as the ones they'd been getting in their mailbox.
"To remember what was forgotten: Combine silence with the sound of your own name, spoken by someone not present.
'To find out what was stolen: Mix salt with the tears of someone who loved you, and three drops of rain from a storm yet to arrive.'
"This is insane," Penny said.
"Read that one." Isby pointed to a card that seemed newer than the others.
'To the sisters who will find this: You already know the truth. The money isn't real but the choice is. Keep lying to yourselves or start listening to what you already know.'
A shiver ran down Penny's spine. "How did-"
"The rabbits," Isby said quietly. "They really did tell me about this place."
"That's impossible."
"Is it? I mean, we're sitting here with counterfeit money that has our faces on it, reading recipes for brewing magic potions. Maybe impossible isn't the right word anymore."
Penny turned to her sister and gave her that look of realization. "You can really talk to animals."
"Yeah."
"And you've been lying about lying."
"Yeah."
"Why?
Isby picked up one of the bills featuring her face. "Because this is crazy. People won't believe crazy things. And because I didn't want you to think I was broken."
They sat for a moment, the counterfeit money piled around them like evidence of something they couldn't quite get their minds around yet.
"What do we do with all this?" Penny asked.
"I don't know. But the rabbits said something else."
"What?"
"They said the one who left the recipes is alive. Still in town. And they've been waiting for us to figure this out."
Penny felt like they were standing on the edge of something huge. Something that would be everything or nothing, depending on if they stepped forward or turned and walked away.
"Did they mention who it was?"
"No. But they said we'd know when we met them."
There was a sound from somewhere under the floorboards. Soft, like breathing. More like something calling.
"Do you hear that?" Isby asked.
Penny did hear it. It was practically a voice, begging for something. Begging for its name back.
"Give back my name," they heard again after a few seconds.
"We need to get out of here. Let's go." Penny said.
"Yeah."
They left the money but took the recipes. As they returned to their car, Penny felt different. Like she'd been carrying around a lie for three years and had finally set it down.
"Hey Isby?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time the rabbits tell you something, just tell me straight up, okay?"
"Okay."
"And Isby?"
"What?"
"I'm sorry I didn't believe you before."
Her sister smiled. "The rabbits say you're forgiven."
This time, Penny knew she wasn't lying.
This post is in response to 
I went with Method #1: “Put all of the cards in the deck together in one stack and draw the top 4 cards.”
I drew no Jokers.
I drew the cards and got this
3 of Spades – A whisper comes from beneath the floorboards, asking for its name back.
Queen of Hearts – She can speak to animals but only when lying.
8 of Diamonds – A suitcase full of counterfeit money—but the faces on the bills are yours.
10 of Clubs – Someone keeps leaving you cryptic recipes for potions in your mailbox.
_image generated by Meta AI _
