51 C e n t r i p e ta l tains of cardboard and cobweb for anything out of the ordinary. “Just that he really needed it.” “I don’t like this, Baby,” Janet moaned. “I don’t like how creepy he’s gotten.” I lowered myself down again, so I could look her in the eye when I spoke. “The man’s had a stroke,” I told her. “He isn’t in his right mind.” I turned back to the hatch and pulled myself back in. “Then how do you know there even is a book?” “I don’t,” I said. “But if my grandfather wants some book by his side when he goes, then the least I can do is look.” The beam of my flashlight prodded at the corners of the attic until I found an odd chest. It was nothing too out of the ordinary in its appearance, but it stuck out to me immediately, if only because I’d never seen it before. I’d spent every summer of my childhood in the care of my grandparents, and had never seen either of them using it before. “Here’s something,” I said, pushing the rest of my body up with my arms and swinging a leg over the edge of the hatch. I then crawled on all fours, fearing a wound from some rusted nail or stray splinter sticking out of the exceptionally low attic ceiling if I should stand, until I had the thing in my hands. It was small, about the size of a bread box, and beautiful. Underneath a thick film of dust, it was a deep shade of mahogany, with tarnished gold hinges and an elaborately carved top. I undid the small latch at the front, and pulled the lid back. There was only a book inside. Its cover was thick black cloth, but at the edges of my flashlight’s beam, that same black seemed to shimmer purple. Its spine was brown leather, and its cover held no name or picture. “Find anything?” Janet called from the bedroom. “Something,” I answered. I opened the front cover and found the first page blank. I flipped through the pages, trying to find something of note, something Grandfather might be interested in, but found nothing. Each page was a yellowing sheet of blank paper. “What is it?” Janet asked, peeping her head in through the latch. She cast me in shadow with the beam of her own flashlight. I held the thing up as I turned to her. “Nothing,” I said. “It’s blank.” “Maybe it’s something special to him,” Janet offered. “We should take it to him, just in case.” I couldn’t help but run my hands across the spine. At a
F i ff i e l d