Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

‘This place is a shit heap.'

As usual, Ashley let herself into my room without knocking, giving me just enough time to close my dad's laptop and cover it with a blanket. I really did not want to discuss anything of his with her. After Lydia left, I'd gone straight upstairs and doubled down on my efforts to figure out the password. Days had passed since I'd even looked at the laptop, too caught up in everything else, and I hoped fresh eyes might help.

‘Can I help you with something?' I asked as Ashley surveyed the room. Shit heap was harsh but even I had to admit, it was kind of a mess.

‘You might want to clean this place up before my mother sees it.' She picked up a long-sleeved shirt from a pile of clean laundry on the floor and folded it over her arm. ‘Catherine will flip.'

‘I'll add it to my to-do list,' I assured her in a voice that promised I'd do anything but. ‘What's wrong, what do you want?'

‘An aunt can't visit her only niece without having an agenda?'

I stared at her from the window seat.

‘Yeah, even I'm not buying that,' she admitted, tossing the folded shirt back onto the pile of clothes. ‘You've been too quiet. I came to make sure you didn't sneak out again because the last time that happened, I was in a world of trouble I don't care to revisit. But here you are.'

‘So you can leave,' I pointed out, gesturing to the door.

‘Could,' she confirmed without moving. ‘Not gonna.'

‘Fine.' I slid my laptop all the way under the blanket and gave her my full attention. ‘What would you like to talk about?'

‘You excited about your birthday?' she replied, her eyes flashing dangerously. ‘The big Becoming?'

‘How much do you know about that?' I asked. ‘Catherine really hasn't told me any of the details.'

She picked up an empty soda can and dropped it in the trash bin under my desk.

‘No idea.'

‘None at all?' I pushed. ‘You don't know anything about what happens at a Becoming ceremony?'

‘If I say I don't know, I don't know,' Ashley snapped. ‘Clearly I was not here when Catherine had hers and I didn't even get a sweet sixteen, let alone a big ol' ritual ceremony. Once again, I am forced to remind you, you can thank your asshole daddy for all of this.'

I picked up the blanket-wrapped laptop and held it close, the warmth of it radiating through the densely knitted fabric like a hug. Knowing why she was so mad at him didn't make it any easier to listen to her vitriol.

‘Don't you have any good memories of him?' I asked as she flicked through my bag of hair clips and ties.

‘Not really. I've told you, he was too busy with his buddies to worry much about me.'

‘Was one of those buddies Alexandra Powell?' I clutched my locket as she sat down on the edge of my bed.

‘You could say that,' she replied with a smirk. ‘I never could understand how come they all stayed such good friends. Alex had been in love with Paul since they were little kids, but then your mom came around and all three of them were as thick as thieves. What's got you asking all these questions?'

‘Just something Lydia said.' I tapped my fingers against the bundled-up computer. ‘She wants to throw me a birthday party.'

‘Must be nice.'

‘I could throw you a party,' I offered. ‘But I don't even know when your birthday is.'

‘Born bright and early on the morning of ninth of November 1996,' my aunt replied. ‘What else do you want to know, my blood type? My social security number?'

She didn't wait for a response before standing up and storming out, leaving the door wide open. A variation on a classic Ashley combo. At least she didn't slam it this time. Only when I was certain she wasn't coming back, I unwrapped my laptop and brought up the lock screen. It had to be worth a go, I'd tried everything else.

11091996. His little sister's date of birth.

The screen flashed blue and then all of my dad's files and folders appeared, neatly organized on the desktop. I stared at the array of icons in total shock. It worked. My dad, who had never once in my life mentioned his little sister, used her birthday as his computer password. Ashley was so convinced he never even thought about her but he had typed that specific date into his laptop every single day of his life.

‘Nice work, Dad,' I muttered, scanning the confusing stack of icons. ‘Super helpful filing system you've got here.'

There were dozens of folders filled with hundreds of files, all labelled with a numerical system that made no sense. Little blue icons lined up in neat columns and rows, and when I clicked on one at random, a window opened containing an endless scroll of documents, images, and spreadsheets. I opened the first document in the first folder. No better place to start than at the beginning.

It was a Word doc, full of rough notes about some historical event in France in the nineteenth century and no use to me whatsoever, but seeing his words, following his cadence, I could hear him reading aloud in my head. It was like he was right there with me.

I kept clicking through, searching for his journals. Dad had spent years digitizing them as part of his ongoing quest to get rid of unnecessary physical objects, and I knew they had to be on here somewhere. He had a theory that the more stuff you owned, the more stuff you could lose, and when you lost things you cared about, the more it hurt. It was only now I realized he wasn't really talking about journals.

Twenty minutes later, I was no closer to finding the journals. There were just so many files. He'd kept digital copies of everything; bills, receipts, invoices. I would never find them at this rate. Closing another Word doc, I swirled my finger around in circles on the touchpad when a spark of inspiration hit. I flicked the cursor over the View tab and reordered the folders by date created. Every single icon switched places, sliding across the screen like they were part of a card trick. I opened the most recent document.

When we moved to Wales, he told me we were going there to research people from local communities who moved to America in the eighteenth century but according to this, he wasn't telling me the whole truth. It was a list of historical events in England and Wales blamed on supernatural occurrences; floods, crop failures, solar and lunar eclipses, and an equally long corresponding list of people who had been blamed for them. Almost all women, almost all of them executed. But according to his notes, one woman managed to escape and smuggle herself across the country, ending up in a place called Gravesend where she met and married a man who took her with him to the New World. The next document was a scan of something so old it was almost illegible and if I hadn't already known what I was looking for, I wouldn't have been able to work it out at all. A passenger manifest. A list of names of everyone who travelled from Gravesend to Savannah on the good ship Anne in 1732.

Dad wasn't researching random families that emigrated to the US.

He was researching the first Emma Catherine Bell.