THREE

It's been almost a week, now, since he passed. I think we're all getting to the point where it's becoming a bit more real, something that has practical courses of action to take. More than just loss, more than just overcoming or moving past it; there are rooms with his things, and those things should go somewhere where they'll be appreciated, or used again, or...

Every time I think I'm walking tall and headstrong again, grief strikes like lightning. I breathe deeply, counting, waiting for the thunder to rumble through my chest. Some memory flits by me eventually, strong and sobering, something that makes me laugh, remembering him, and my hands are mine to move again, cutting open another box, flipping through another stack of envelopes. 

They finally left me alone in here long enough to really have a good look through everything, sprawled on the Turkish rug with all the books and papers that were piled on his desk, back resting against the shelves that stretch from floor to ceiling. They made me feel so small as a kid. In some ways, they tower even taller, now, now that I know who those books belonged to, who wrote them. 

I take refuge when I need it in the brass inlaid leather desk chair, ancient casters somehow never squeaking so much as purring across the floor, spinning slowly to face his desk... and this last time, this last retreat, is when I felt it.

Something old, with a strong smell, like earth and wine. A fragment of...something, somewhere. I rooted around looking for it for the better part of an hour, and finally found it tucked into the seam of the arm of the chair. It was a smaller piece of leather, darker than the rest of the chair and stamped with a small symbol, something I didn't recognize. Even now, running my finger over it, it feels electric under my touch, as if it could snag my thumb and hold it in place there like a ring caught in a loose thread. 

I had reached for my journal at the time, imagining it some scrap that had fallen out of his coat, tossing it on the desk as I marked down the symbol as best I could. As it touched the surface of the desk, something in the wood rippled and changed, as if reacting to a soundwave that saw its inception in that scrap of leather. I rolled the chair away, gathering my bearings, and blinked.

Where there had been two drawers on the right side of the desk before, a third one had appeared, closer to the floor. How the gap had never been obvious to me must have been some other form of magic. I reached for the handle, fingers shaking, and in spite of the certainty that I had slipped into some half-dozed dream there in his study it yielded as I tugged it open. Inside, a stack of papers cushioned a small leather journal not dissimilar from my own, the one he had given me for my tenth birthday. Even without the initials embossed in the lower corner I'd have known it at a glance, having seen it hundreds of times throughout the summers grandfather spent with us.

His personal records, his most private thoughts, were but a small padlock away from me. 

So that's how I wound up here, scribbling down my feelings in my own journal. They're numerous: inspiration, curiosity, frenetic excitement, and frustration.

Frustration, that one of the wisest men in the world would lock his journal twofold and not leave anyone any kind of note on how to unlock it. There's no keyhole on the damn thing, no combination, no puzzle to work out. It's a solid piece of metal joining the leather together, and short of cutting it open I'm not sure what I should do.

Part of me wants to cry, but I can't help laughing. Another quiz from the supposedly retired professor. Another test of my intuition, of my aptitude, of... 

I keep looking over at the scrap of leather, then holding it close enough to see the worn and frayed corners in detail. The symbol looks familiar, but I can't place it. Maybe somewhere in the study, in one of these books, there's an answer, but I could spend years going through everything and never find it. 

Touching it to the lock does nothing to open it, but the metal does ripple a little, as if in recognition. Whatever unsealed the drawer can't work here, maybe, but I'm on the right track, I think. 

Maybe a drive, and something to eat. Something to clear my head. The world around me's practically sepia, from how long I've sat surrounded by yellowing pages and artifacts wrapped in canvas and tied with worn waxed cord. 

Let me be in technicolor again, then, if only for a few hours.