The Grandchild Book

Tuesday -

Just like in every other abandoned building she had picked through, She couldn’t help feeling like a voyeur. The ghosts of a dead era soaked into the walls and succumbed without a fight. Towards the end of that era, before her own mother was born, people found some very creative places to hide what they held dear. All these years later, treasures were still being freed from their long concealed hiding places. Finding them was Daitra’s job. She liked to think of herself as an Archaeologist Scavenger Extraordinaire.

Things in WashD were getting better. After the battle for Tinkers had been won, scavenging, trading, and farming became less dangerous, which meant fresh food and goods were more accessible, resulting in a contented community. The building where Daitra was working had once been a small house with high ceilings and an open layout. A charming home before time and neglect tore it apart, she thought.

Daitra realized she had been staring into the darkness of her memories and squandering precious time. She would be late. As she snapped to the present and took a step, she heard a creak underfoot. As her weight shifted, her long braids fell over her shoulders and hit her chin leaving a small wisp of curly dark hair against her dry mouth. With a quiet crash, her foot fell through a wooden plank disappearing into a musty cavern. A gash of pain streaked up her leg and she let out a shriek. When she attempted to pull her leg out, something cut at her calf.

In one movement, she swung her backpack in front of her and pulled out a candle, a flint, a metal striker, and a charcloth. With the quickness and ease of a breath, Daitra had a lit candle. She was frugal with her candles since making them was laborious and procrastination had dwindled them down to two. But this was one of those times when her particularly good night vision wasn’t good enough and a candle was necessary.

She discovered the culprit. A nail held her pants hostage and as she maneuvered it free she could see that she had fallen through what looked like a small compartment or a false floor. Daitra brought the candle closer and was rewarded for it. There, a shimmering green metal box, fingertip to elbow length with a firm handle on top revealed itself. It opened with ease like a gaping mouth hungry to tell its story.

Inside were three hand sized black books wrapped in disintegrated plastic, each one looking older than the one beneath it. The top book was as a grandmother, well loved, bearing wrinkles and bent edges. The mother book, less so, and only showing her age in a well creased spine. And finally, the grandchild book, with its smooth unblemished skin, a fresh canvas. They were made from sleek leather-like material and the word “Moleskine” was stamped into each generation of books with the oldest stamp slightly faded. “What is that?” she whispered to herself, “It doesn’t look like the skin of any mole I’ve ever seen.” She shrugged.

Next to the books she found a pinky sized, metal tipped plastic contraption with “32 GB” embossed on it. She ripped the metal tip off and remembering the hole in her front pocket, she dropped it into her back pocket. They made great slingshot pellets. She threw the rest over her shoulder and continued excavating.

Under the family of little black notebooks was a small, thin blue book with the word Passport on it. She opened it and found a very pale but pretty young woman's eyes peering into her own. On the following pages, illustrations told a story of eagles, men on boats, horned beasts, and what looked like stamps with dates. On the stamps, she recognized some of the words to be long disintegrated border lines of dismantled countries she had seen on a plastic globe two summers past. Tunisia, Morocco, Italy and France along with others whose names she didn’t recognize.

Next she found a few photographs in surprisingly good condition. One held the image of the same young woman from the Passport and a tall striking man with golden skin like her own. A handsome pair. Another was of the same pair but accompanied by a short haired, plump older woman. Daitra presumed the two ladies were related as they had the same fair skin and green look in their eyes. Mother and daughter she decided.

She was drawn back to the family of books. She opened the Grandmother book and on its first page read, “In case of loss, please return to Amelia Stewart,” followed by a series of numbers. She turned the page and read aloud.

“January 2, 2016

This is me, Amelia, trying to keep a journal because that is what we are supposed to do, right? We leave behind ourselves in stories, memories in people's minds and love in people's hearts. And, it's a great way to get those not so nice thoughts out of our heads.”

Daitra shifted on the uneven ground and brushed away a troublesome pebble tormenting her bum. “Today, I found out …” As Daitra turned the page, she heard a noise too close not to be cautious. With saliva wet fingers, she extinguished the flame. While her eyes adjusted, she tucked the photos into the passport, placed it and the books into her bag, and returned the box into the hole she fell through. She then concealed it with the same rotting wood that led her to this find. After a full day of scavenging she didn’t have room in her bag for everything. She would come back for the rest tomorrow.

As per end of day usual, Daitra met up with friends for a grog at the River Tavern. “Did anyone find their spaceship off this rock today?” Jano joked. “Yeah, if you consider a length of rotting rope, two questionable mystery jars of food and a nail file a jackpot,” belted Quinton. Shay quickly interjected, “I’ll trade you something for that file”. And so ensued their nightly routine before the rest went to the morning market to be bartered for goods or coin.

“I’m gonna head home,” Daitra said as she stood up. “I’ll join you,” said Jano. They lived in the same building and although they were close, Daitra omitted mentioning the day's gifts to Jano. She wanted to read them first. She wanted something for herself.

Books were rare. If they hadn’t been used for kindling in the early days, they were likely to disintegrate in your hands if found in the wild. Only one Book Keeper was left in the region and she protected the small library of books she hoarded as if they were blood in her veins. Books of fantastical stories of queens and dragons, spaceships, strange creatures, and other mysteries. For the mind of the Keeper was a capsule of imagination from times past, the time that books belonged to.

Reading and writing were taught by the elders. Their minds were their greatest asset in a trade society and children longed to learn as if it were a gift of survival. Families were a mix of chosen and blood and those settled families with elders benefited greatly. They often collectively had a few books. Instructional books, how-to manuals, gardening, survival, and herbal medicine books made up typical family collections. Somewhere along the way, the art of fiction storytelling had been lost.

Wednesday -

Daitra rose with the sun, filled her canteen, pocketed some dried fruit and walked to the river where the banter of flowing waters welcomed her. She sat against a tree and smiled as the wind snowed white petals over her. It was a perfect morning, she thought.

She opened up the Grandmother book and continued where she left off. “Today I found out that my children's book will be published! I’m ecstatic! I can’t wait to tell Franklin.” And it continued like this, on and on. Daitra found it odd that this woman, Amelia, wrote to herself. She also found her day to day incredibly unproductive of necessary tasks.

She put the Grandmother book down and picked up the Mother book. Inside were pairs of printed boxes on each page. These boxes held simple yet poignant pictures that Amelia had drawn above the text. Daitra read all three short stories in the book but she liked the last one called “Believe” best.

“Believe” was the story of a young boy, an old man and a wind instrument. Daitra herself played a harmonica. She could change the sound by covering holes while blowing through the mouthpiece. The one in the story was different, it was a flute made of wood that had come from a place called Peru and she wondered what it sounded like.

In the story, the orphaned boy stumbled upon an old man playing music and begging. Because they were both alone in the world, the man took the boy under his wing and taught him how to play the flute. But this was no ordinary instrument, it was a magical, world-making flute. Every changing sound created a world to escape into. Through the music, they became the dancing current on the wings of a bird. With a change in tune, they transformed into great beasts as fast as rushing waterfalls. Then crashing into a primordial soup of weightlessness they were born into long legged insects capable of walking on water. The story continued this way until reality came rushing back to the man and boy. The ending implied that their journey together continued with more adventures.

This was a peculiar story but Daitra realized just how mesmerized and lost in it she had become. Her world had disappeared and a new one had sprouted. She was now curious about the smooth skinned Grandchild book. She opened it to find closely stacked rows of lines and strange unfamiliar squiggles. The only thing she understood was written at the top, “Frank’s song.” After flipping through six pages, she found the rest empty.

Daitra walked back to the building where she had left the discovery of the previous night. Everything was where she had left it. She pushed the wood aside and pulled the box out. She was excited for what other stories she might unearth. Under a pile of uninteresting papers she found two stacks of hundred dollar bills. Each stack had “$10,000” printed on paper bands holding the money together. Daitra knew that $20,000 had great worth at one time, a small fortune. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around why paper money was so important that people fought over it. She felt that food, fresh water, seeds, and family were more reasonable things to fight for.

When she was a child, she and her friends had found paper money in drawers in a large building. They played with the money and pretended they lived in a time where one could buy trips around the world, working cars or a warm sweater. They played until they were bored and moved on.

She lifted the money to find nothing more underneath. No more black books and with that, her heart sank a little. Then she remembered the empty Grandchild book. She decided then that she would write her own fantastical stories. Maybe she would even be brave enough to read them to her friends fireside.

On her walk to the River Bar, Daitra handed paper money to all the children she saw playing in the streets, saving enough bills to give one to each of her friends.

She and her friends joked and laughed about how strange those days must have been and although life was challenging, it was simple and real and they were happy. On Daitra’s walk home, she decided on, and daydreamed about her first story. She would write it in the little black notebook behind Frank’s song.