I called Grandma Margaret from the car. The phone rang. And rang. And rang.
I tried again. Same thing. Voicemail.
I pressed the gas pedal harder. The road blurred. My hands were still bandaged. The white gauze was dirty now. Gray at the edges.
I turned onto her street. Her house was at the end. The blue one with the garden she tended every morning. I used to sit on the porch steps and watch her pull weeds. She'd hum while she worked. Old songs I didn't know the names of.
I parked. Got out. The garden gate was open. Swinging in the wind.
That was wrong. Grandma always latched it. Always. She said the rabbits would get in otherwise.
I walked up the path. The front door was ajar.
'Grandma?' I pushed it open.
The living room looked like someone had shaken it. The couch cushions were on the floor. Her bookshelf was tipped over. Books everywhere. Her teacups—the ones she collected for forty years—were shattered across the kitchen tile. Pieces of porcelain crunched under my shoes.
I couldn't breathe right. My chest was too tight.
'Grandma!'
No answer.
I checked every room. Bedroom. Bathroom. The small office where she kept her sewing machine. Empty. All of them.
I went back outside. Mrs. Chen from next door was standing on her porch. She was holding a broom but not sweeping. Just holding it.
'Mrs. Chen,' I called out. 'Have you seen my grandmother?'
She looked at me. Her face was strange. Sad and scared at the same time.
'They came two nights ago,' she said quietly. 'Men in dark cars. Three of them. They went inside. I heard shouting. Your grandmother's voice. She was telling them to leave.'
'What men? Who were they?'
Mrs. Chen shook her head. 'I don't know. But they stayed for hours. When they left, an ambulance came.'
The world tilted.
I got back in my car. I drove to the hospital. The same hospital where I'd bled myself empty. Where Lachlan had ripped my mother's ring off my finger.
I walked to the front desk. The woman there looked up.
'Margaret Clark,' I said. 'Where is she?'
The woman typed something. Her face changed. 'I'm sorry. Are you family?'
'I'm her granddaughter.'
She stood up. 'Come with me.'
I followed her down a hallway. She stopped outside a door and turned to face me.
'I'm very sorry,' she said. 'Mrs. Clark passed away yesterday evening. Cardiac arrest. The doctor said it was brought on by extreme emotional distress.'
I didn't move. Couldn't.
'Would you like to see her?' the woman asked.
I shook my head. I didn't want to see her like that. Cold and still. I wanted to see her in her garden. Humming.
'Her personal effects are at the nurses' station,' the woman said. 'I'll take you.'
I followed her again. She handed me a small plastic bag. Inside were Grandma's pearl earrings. The ones she wore every single day.
I took them out. Held them in my palm. They were still warm.
I sat down in the waiting room. People moved around me. Nurses. Doctors. Families waiting for news about people they loved.
I sat there holding the earrings.
I didn't cry.
Something inside me had gone quiet. Not broken. Not shattered. Just finished.
Finished grieving. Finished hoping. Finished believing that love was enough.
I stood up. I drove to Grandma's house. Mrs. Chen was gone. The street was empty.
I went inside. Stepped over the broken teacups. I needed to find something. Anything that would tell me what those men wanted. Why they came. Why my grandmother was dead.
I started in her bedroom. I opened drawers. Checked under the bed. Nothing.
Then I remembered.
The wooden chest.
Grandma gave it to me years ago. I was twenty. She'd called it a keepsake chest. Told me to keep special things in it. 'Open it when you truly need to understand where you come from,' she'd said.
I'd thought it was just Grandma being sentimental. I'd put a few photos in it. Some old letters. I kept it in my closet at home.
But I wasn't at home now. I was here.
I went to her office. The room was a mess but the desk was still standing. I opened the bottom drawer.
There it was. Another chest. Identical to mine.
I pulled it out. Set it on the desk. The wood was smooth. Worn. I lifted the lid.
Inside were papers. Letters. Photographs of women I didn't recognize.
I picked up the chest. Turned it over. Felt along the bottom.
There. A small groove.
I pressed it. The bottom panel popped loose.
Underneath were journals. Five of them. Leather-bound. Old.
I opened the first one. Grandma's handwriting. Neat and careful.
The first entry was dated forty years ago.
*They came for me today. The Henderson family. They said it was time. That I had to marry Victor's younger brother. I said no. My mother said I had no choice. The covenant is older than any of us.*
I turned the page.
*The curse is not what they think it is. It's not magic. It's us. Our blood. When we're betrayed—truly betrayed—our bodies fight back. The stress hormones change something in our blood. Make it poison to them. They call it a curse. I call it justice.*
I sat down. My hands were shaking.
I read every page. Every entry. Forty years of truth.
Grandma knew. She knew everything.
And now she was dead.
I closed the last journal. I put them all back in the chest. I held it against my chest.
I walked out of the house. I didn't lock the door. There was nothing left to protect.
I got in my car. I set the chest on the passenger seat.
I looked at my hands. At the bandages. At the pale line where my ring used to be.
I thought about Lachlan. About Emerald. About Ethan calling her 'real mommy.'
I thought about the men who came to Grandma's house. Who shouted at her. Who killed her.
I started the car.
I wasn't finished anymore.
I was just beginning.
