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Embarrassed by his meltdown, Enda was happy enough to curl up in Giorgio’s arms when his mate suggested they should get some sleep before they investigated the contents of the box. Enda wasn’t worried about anything in the box except the notebook that still carried his grandmother’s scent. The random papers, the money, none of that seemed important.

Although Enda did wonder as he fell asleep if that was the money his grandmother had collected for him when he worked on the boat. It was unlikely, considering what happened more recently, but it was a thought.

His jumbled thoughts continued into the next day. He woke early, and after Giorgio kissed him senseless, Enda gently encouraged his mate to spend time with Lamont and Damon going over the other papers in the box while he focused on the notebook.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, holding up the notebook. “I’m not sure if anything in here will even be important, but I’d like the time to read it.”

He could hear Giorgio and his friends in the room next door as he curled up in a large armchair in a smaller sitting room. The sun was shining through large windows, and his view was of immaculate gardens that seemed to stretch as far as he could see. Pretty place, he thought as he rested his hand on the notebook cover, thinking about his grandmother.

I have no idea if she is alive or dead. When Enda had tried to call her – was that two years before or longer – he’d gotten a sinking feeling in his guts when a man answered the phone instead. The man had been abrupt but firm. Thinking back, Enda realized the man didn’t seem surprised that someone was calling for her. He’d just said that she was gone, and it was the finality in that man’s voice that had Enda assuming that “gone” didn’t mean she was just down the road at the shops.

How often had she visited the box after I was gone? Enda had no way of knowing. He lifted the notebook to his nose and sniffed hard, but the scent was faint.

Not for the first time, Enda wished he hadn’t been out running errands for her when the two men arrived. He had no way of knowing what was discussed before he got there or how long they’d been there. It’d been as he’d told Giorgio – his grandmother had been quiet and respectful in their presence and simply told Enda he had to pack a change of clothes as he was leaving with them to start a new job.

It was the men who said that my wages would go to my grandmother to be saved for me. They told me I didn’t need to take anything because everything would be taken care of. In the quiet of the room, Enda’s eyes widened. That’s what I got told before I got on the death plane.

That wasn’t encouraging. Maybe my mate and his friends will learn more about that with the papers they’re going through.

Enda forced himself to focus back on his grandmother – his brain was in danger of just going around in circles otherwise. Realistically, Enda only had his impressions from the one time he’d tried to call his grandmother, which led him to believe she was dead. It had been seven years since he’d seen her, and he knew she’d been an older crane shifter even then. Surely, if she was still alive, someone from the godly network would’ve mentioned it. Although, that wasn’t a given either. Enda didn’t trust them as much as Giorgio clearly did.

Focus on what you have at hand. That was sound advice – another thing his grandmother was fond of saying. As he opened the notebook, Enda saw the Japanese script and smiled. His grandmother had such an elegant hand, and she used to craft every symbol as though it was something special. He remembered how she used to scoff at his use of the computer, stating that if anything needed to be written down, it should be a work of art that helped convey the message of the words that were written. One of his happier memories.

Unfortunately, the book had not held up well, despite being in a tin trunk. The large rock had not protected the buried tin as well as it should’ve done, and dampness had seeped through. Some of the pages were stuck together, and in some places, the ink his grandmother had used had run, making it difficult to make out all the symbols.

Enda read what he could. The book had been started as a diary, commentary and descriptions of a life lived long ago. It was clear from the casual mentions of different seasons, that it wasn’t a book his grandmother wrote in every day. In fact, from what Enda could piece together, sometimes months would pass between entries.

My grandmother was a lot older than I thought. In an early passage, she wrote about her husband, and yet Enda could never remember her being married.

Ah, that’s why. Apparently, her husband had died although the details were sparse. Just a simple passage about the loss of someone who was her safe harbor.

He skimmed through various aspects of daily life. Issues with a neighbor, a problem with the roof. One particularly stark passage mentioned a fire. Enda shivered when he read that.

It was about a third of the way through the notebook that his grandmother wrote of a visitor. She never named him, but Enda could tell from the symbols she had used that the man was special to her. There was something about the way she wrote about him, that got Enda thinking, what about my mother? And then, on the next page, the answer was clear. His grandmother mentioned carrying a child and, in the entry afterward, about delivering a baby girl. That could only have been Enda’s mother. The man was never mentioned again.

Enda sat and pondered that for a while because he had always assumed that his mother was the result of his grandmother and late grandfather, which would have made his mother at least eighty years old when she was murdered. But according to his grandmother, that wasn’t the case. His mother was a lot younger than Enda had thought, and by the time that same young baby was sixteen years old, she was pregnant with him.

Used. Abused. Abandoned.

Those symbols were stark on the page, and Enda realized his grandmother was seeing the pattern of her life being repeated in her daughter’s.

That was when the tone of the passages started to change. His grandmother started referring to a man she called the devil. Enda had been startled to see that word, but it appeared over and over as he flicked through the months. The devil referred to the man who’d taken her daughter’s heart and stamped on it. His grandmother’s hatred of the man grew when the man was told about the child – according to his grandmother, Enda’s father had laughed in his mother’s face and told her to get rid of it.

The next passage was smudged, and part of the page was missing. Even so, Enda quickly flipped the page. I’ll get Giorgio to read that one, he thought as another shiver ran down his spine. All he’d caught were symbols for a bird, and for flame, and one that Enda translated as vengeance. If he didn’t know better, he would think his grandmother had laid a curse on the man who defiled her daughter.

Two pages later and Enda got another surprise. There was a contract written in English, and on the facing page, a copy of the same contract in Japanese. Bringing the book closer to his nose, Enda tried to understand the legalese.

It appeared his parents had come to a financial agreement. In exchange for a monthly amount paid to Enda’s mother, Enda would be sent to the United States for six months of every year until his first shift.

Enda flicked to the page before and then the one after, but there was no explanation of why the contract had been written. On the contract itself, his mother had written her signature, there was a scrawl which Enda assumed was his father’s signature, and his grandmother had added her signature as a witness.

But why? The document was dated four months after Enda’s birth. I wasn’t even a year old, and my mother sent me off to another country.

That hurt more than Enda thought it would. Even as his logical brain reminded him that both his mother and likely his grandmother were dead, and the contract was signed a long time ago, the fact he’d been handed over for what was basically half of his childhood hurt him. There was nothing written about his father wanting to be with him. The document didn’t even mention his name. None of that was mentioned, and Enda knew from his own experience, his father barely spent time with him at all.

So, why did they pass me off to a man who didn’t even want me to be born in the first place? Did they really need the money?

In the previous passages, his grandmother’s disapproval of his father was evident in every line. She didn’t agree with her daughter going out with him in the first place. She had tried warning her young daughter that the man was basically a predator – especially given Enda’s mother’s age. In one of those passages, his grandmother had described her daughter being so merrily in love. His grandmother’s dire warnings were inked underneath it. Warnings his mother didn’t listen to.

It’s all in the past. Enda forced himself to move on. His need to have Giorgio’s arms around him increased. Nothing was making sense… I have to keep going. Enda had been the one who pushed to get the tin in the first place. He really wanted to prove to his mate that their brief excursion had been worth it.

There wasn’t much written after Enda’s mother died. There was just one last passage that was written in a shaky hand. With no date on it, there was no way of knowing when it was written. Enda read and reread it, trying to make sense of it all.

The price of the magic has been paid.

But as I breathe my last,

the flames grow stronger.

Evil cannot flourish

in the light of the yellows and orange.

Shine bright, Enda,

Shine bright.

I need Giorgio. Enda jumped up, running to the door as Giorgio opened it.

“Babe, what’s wrong?”

Unable to answer, Enda dropped his grandmother’s notebook on the floor and flung his arms around his mate’s waist. Giorgio was the only thing that made sense in his overwhelmed mind.