Page 56

EPILOGUE

“ H ey, Grant.”

I look up from the table, where I’ve been sketching a skull, using a real model that sits in the center.

This place is so cool.

John Richards, a senior lab tech, stands in the doorway of Dad’s office. “I’ve got that last run of DNA results you asked for.”

My father spins away from the computer, looking over the top of his glasses. “An email would have sufficed. You didn’t need to come all the way up here from the basement.”

“I was on my way out. Besides, I see you brought our favorite future scientist.” John waves at me. “Heard you had an ordeal. Glad you’re okay.”

I smile back. This sling is a pain, but I’d go through it again just to be able to skip school and hang out here.

While Dad looks over the printout, John slips a latex glove over his hand, turning the now-empty hourglass over on the desk, giving it a cursory examination. “The ashes came out of this?”

Ashes?

Dad hums a confirmation, rubbing his chin. Then he turns back to the computer and compares the results to a page on his screen. I’ve been trying to let him work, but I’m dying to know.

“Looks old. Where did you get it?” John holds it up to the light, looking through the glass. “Crime scene?”

Dad gestures to me. “Aiden fell on top of it. It was out in the back of our property, buried in an old cellar where the original house once stood. No one’s gone digging through there in years. I thought everything had been cleared out.”

“Interesting heirloom. Ashes in place of sand, huh?”

He didn’t tell me that.

“Indeed,” my father replies. “Dates back a hundred years or so.”

“And your property…it’s been passed down through your family for several generations, right?”

“Long time, yeah.”

John sets the hourglass down carefully. “So, it could be cremated ancestors, or a family dog?”

“Neither. They’re human, but I ran them against my DNA and it’s not a family member.”

Human ashes?

Practically vibrating, I jump out of my chair and rush to look over his shoulder. “You can tell that for sure?”

“Back when these ashes were bottled up, it would have been hard to get concrete results. But technology has come a long way. I’m ninety-nine percent sure the deceased isn’t anyone related to us.”

“Who do they belong to, then?”

Dad slides his chair over so I can see his screen. “Well, I had a suspicion based on some stories passed down through our family, so I’ve been digging through police archives and found a DNA match to some blood from a case a century ago. A guy who committed some terrible crimes. Black-market stuff. He was presumed dead, but the body was never recovered.”

My eyes feel enormous, like I’m trying to take every bit of information in through them all at once. “So, does this mean we’ve recovered it? On our property?”

My heart races.

I found it. Me. I did that.

“Looks like a possibility. A small part of it, at least.”

“Are we going to be famous?”

He chuckles. “I don’t know about that. But it’s kind of cool, huh?”

“Really cool.”

John leans back on the desk, looking at all the evidence like he still can’t quite figure it out. “So, just so I’m following this: there’s an old cellar that used to be part of a house at the back of your family property, that contained the remains of a very bad man lost to history a century ago?”

“Yeah.” Dad pulls up some pictures from another website. Old case files. “My great-grandfather made a name for himself by bringing down some notorious criminals. From what I’ve been told, he was a little, uh… different. Finding something like this on our property isn’t the most shocking thing I’ve heard.”

A laugh bursts from my dad’s co-worker. “You spend your days talking to bones. Most people would call you different.”

Dad smiles. “Right, so it means something coming from me.”

I like that he’s different. Most kids’ parents are boring.

“You think there are more bodies back there?” I hop from foot to foot. “Can we dig around?”

“Wow, the apple really didn’t fall far from the tree, did it?” John looks between the two of us, clearly amused, and heads for the door. “See you next time, Aiden.” Then he peers over my head and nods at Dad. “Good luck with this kid. He’s going to keep you on your toes.”

My attention is back on the hourglass. I knew it held a mystery. “Can we keep this, too? Since it was on our property?”

“We’ll see. With the remains found in it, and the DNA they were connected to, it’s going to stay here for now.” He angles his chin toward the box we found it in. “I’ll let you bring that home, though. You did a great job cleaning it up.”

Sliding it off the desk, he places it in the crook of my arm.

Dad hangs his lab coat by the door and unrolls his sleeves. “Ready to head out? Your mom will have dinner waiting. I’ll let you tell her everything we discovered.”

Nodding, I cradle the box carefully. It’s in much better shape now, but it’s still old.

He even located the manufacturer: a long-closed store out of San Francisco that once specialized in custom jewelry and gifts. They made the hourglass necklace, too; I really hope we can bring that home someday. It would make the perfect centerpiece in the collection of artifacts found on our property.

Oh well. At least I have this.

Dad locks the door behind us. Since he’s in charge of this department, he’s lucky enough to have his own office. Maybe, when he retires, I’ll get to take it over.

As he walks ahead down the hall, stopping in a doorway to say goodnight to some techs working late, I glance at the silver nameplate on his door, imagining my first name in place of his: Aiden Porter, PhD.

Turning to give me one of his half smiles, his eyes glimmer. He knows exactly what’s in my head. This work has been in our family for generations, in one way or another, and I know he had the same dreams when he was my age. That’s why he doesn’t bother hiding the gruesome stuff from me.

With my good arm, I hold the box to my chest, just like I did the night I found it in that deep, dark hole. Thanks to Dad’s tools, decades of crusted mud have been cleaned, the intricate engravings now as clear as I imagine they were the day they were carved.

Turns out, it doesn’t say FOREVER .

It says:

FOR EVERLY.