He began scanning the journal’s pages, reading carefully, taking his time. He turned the worn sheets one by one, and with each Railing waited to hear that the answer they sought had been found. But Wooster just kept reading, shaking his head, muttering to himself, pausing now and then to decipher something that was unfamiliar to him.
“Some of this language is obscure, even to me,” he said finally, looking up. “Most of it I can translate. She talks about how she will reform the order. She sets out the parameters and goals she intends to adopt. She mentions Grianne frequently, drawing strength from her example, repeating how she will …”
He was still scanning as he was talking, and suddenly he stopped doing both. He held up one hand to silence Railing and read the page he was on carefully. Then he went back and read it again.
He looked up, distraught. “Listen.”
After much consideration, after weeks of delay, I have decided to keep my promise to Grianne. She asked it of me when she departed with Penderrin Ohmsford and confided that she would not be returning. She gave her journal into my keeping and told me that if I wished to read it, I could do so. Only yesterday, I did so. It explained in detail what she intended to do. It revealed the immensity of her heart and courage. It revealed, as well, the depth of the suffering she has endured and what it has brought her to.
I am to give the journal to Penderrin and his descendants to keep safe. I am to tell him that he must read it and remember her story and pass it on to those Ohmsfords who come after so that they will understand the nature and importance of their history. I wonder if they would not understand that anyway, but perhaps she is afraid it will all be seen a different way if her writings are lost. Why she chooses that it be kept within her family rather than by the Druids, I don’t pretend to understand.
At first I did not intend to honor my promise. I thought instead to keep the journal here, safe at Paranor, safe in the hands of the Druid order. Better that I fail her than allow the journal to be lost. It belongs with the others, here in the place where she was most at home.
But I have changed my mind. I will honor her wishes and give the journal over to Penderrin on my next visit to his home in Patch Run.
I thought it odd, before reading the journal’s last entries, that she wished it given to her nephew rather than to his father, her brother. But I know now she shares something with her nephew that is different from what she shares with Bek. Something that transcends all other considerations. Something that dictates her decision regarding the fate of the journal.
Something that requires I do my part for her.
“So the journal isn’t even here?” Railing asked in disbelief.
“I would guess that it is somewhere in your home,” Woostra answered. “If it hasn’t been destroyed.”
Railing thought a moment. “We have a trunk in which writings made by Ohmsfords since the time of my great-grandfather have been kept. Everything before that was lost during a period when it seemed all of the Ohmsfords had died out. The trunk came to us and my father took it into the attic of our home and left it there, bound and locked. We have been careful to preserve everything in it ever since.”
“But you must have looked in it?”
“I don’t think anyone has. Not since my grandfather died.” Then he paused suddenly, and a startled look crossed his face. “Except for …”
Realization flooded his eyes. “My mother.”
24
He explained his mother’s involvement to Woostra after they had returned Khyber Elessedil’s journal to its hiding place in the bedchamber wall and sealed it up again.
“I saw her looking through the trunk once, not long after my grandfather died and it was delivered to us by my grandmother. I was by myself; I don’t remember what Redden was doing. I do remember I was still pretty young and didn’t know the history. I only knew that it had come from Grandfather, and that Father considered it very valuable.”
“You never looked inside it yourself?” Woostra was leading him back through the empty corridors of the Keep and out into the courtyard past the desiccated bodies and piles of debris. “Or maybe your brother?”
“If Redden had looked, he would have told me. We tell each other everything.” He did not mention Mirai. “I didn’t look because I just didn’t have any real interest. After a while, I sort of forgot about it.”
“But you saw your mother?”
“She was kneeling by the trunk, and the lid was raised. She was holding papers and had others stacked beside her. Maybe there was a book or two, as well. Maybe even the missing journal. I can’t remember. I almost said something, but the look on her face—I remember it so well. She was very upset. I didn’t know why but I knew enough not to disturb her. I watched for a minute more and then left. I told Redden, and later on when Mother wasn’t around we went into the attic where the trunk was stored for a look. But it was locked again, and we didn’t know where the key was. We thought about breaking the lock, but if we did Mother would know what we’d been up to and we decided it wasn’t worth it. Just a bunch of old papers and books, we told ourselves.”
He shook his head. “We never went back. Mostly, we didn’t think it was important enough.”
They crossed the courtyard and retraced their steps down into the tunnels. They might have found a way through the gates or over the walls, but Woostra never seemed to consider going another way. He was silent for a time after Railing finished his story, and it was only as they reached the far end of the tunnel and the hidden entry they had passed through coming in that he turned once more to the boy.
“Your mother is no friend to the Druids. Especially not to the Ard Rhys. She still blames the order for your father’s death. You know all this, so you know we can’t just go to her and ask to look in the trunk.”
“We can’t go to her at all,” Railing declared. “She thinks Redden is safe. She can’t be allowed to find out he isn’t. If she sees me without him, she’ll know something is wrong.”
Back outside in the open air, the entrance to the tunnels sealed anew, Woostra turned to him again. The woods were dark save for where shards of moonlight sprinkled the forest floor in strange patterns.
“We have to go to Patch Run if we want to know what happened to the journal,” he said quietly. His scarecrow form was hunched over as he bent close to Railing. “It may be that your mother has destroyed it. We can’t discount that possibility. She was angry and distraught after your father died, and she might have done it out of spite. Whatever the case, we can’t discover the truth unless we get a look in that trunk. Do you know where she keeps the key?”
Railing shook his head. “I’ve never seen it. It could be anywhere, I guess. Probably it’s in her bedroom somewhere. What’s the difference? I can’t ask her to tell me. I can’t let her even see me. I can’t go back without Redden.”
Woostra rocked back on his haunches. “I don’t see that you have a choice. If you want to find out what’s become of Grianne Ohmsford, we have to look in that trunk. It’s up to you. Better make up your mind here and now, before you have to face the others.”
Railing stared at him a moment and then looked away. The scribe was right. They didn’t have any other option. They didn’t have time to find another option even if there was one. He wondered if his mother had destroyed the journal. If she had, none of this mattered. Even if she hadn’t, there was nothing to say it contained anything they needed to know. But this had always been a long shot, right from the first. He had known that. There had never been anything better than a small chance that they could find Grianne Ohmsford and return her to the Forbidding.
“You already know my answer,” he said. “I don’t want to give up. But we have to find a way to do this that won’t let Mother know that anything has happened to Redden.”