She had covered it with a cloth.
But when she returned, there was only a faint dark smear along the bottom.
Gideon was standing by the window.
He looked exhausted.
Rosalie approached with the notebook.
Where did it go?
He wrote:
Outside.
She stared.
You let it go?
It was dead.
Rosalie frowned.
It was moving.
Gideon looked at her.
Then wrote:
It was trying to move.
The distinction chilled her.
She sat down.
Tell me everything.
Gideon remained silent.
Finally, he opened an old wooden chest beneath the stairs.
Inside were dozens of notebooks.
Medical reports.
Letters.
Newspaper clippings.
Rosalie sat beside him.
The oldest document was dated twenty-seven years earlier.
Gideon was eleven.
A doctor had written that the boy had suffered a severe injury to his right ear after falling from a horse.
But there was something else.
A second note.
Foreign material removed.
Rosalie looked at Gideon.
