Inborn (The Birthright Book 1)

Chapter 21

I left almost incomprehensible messages for my parents, hoping they weren't in trouble too, since I hadn't heard a word since the night before. I even tried Joss' parents, but nobody answered.

After sleeping on the basement couch for a few hours, I woke up alone. It was Friday, the killer's deadline. I ate from our food supply in the shed and showered, then tried calling everyone again. Still nada. I hung out in the basement for most of the day, where I felt safest, and looked up everything I could find on our computer about my family. Bryce had more info as it turned out.

I needed more, and Bryce's conviction that my family had secrets kept ringing in my head. What felt like ages ago, I'd seen Lachlan hanging around my parents' bedroom when he came over after school. I'd brushed it off then, but now I wondered if he was looking for something. I went up to their room, which still looked so normal, like there wasn't a giant hole in the side of our house, other than some disarray from the impact. I stood by the picture window, facing the bed in the middle of the room. What did he think he'd find in there?

And then the killer's words–with Mimi's face–came back to me. Look under the bed.

We were alien descendants with secrets. We had a hidden basement with a hidden tunnel and a hidden shed. I'd lived the past sixteen years believing that was the extent of our secrets. Well, really believing I knew all of our secrets. That we didn't keep things from each other, only the outside world. But obviously that was naïve. Maybe Lachlan looked in here in vain, but then I remembered how the passage into the mansion's tunnel was under the bed. He might have known about that already, or made a good guess. Or, maybe something he'd already found gave him the idea...

I got on my knees, peeking under the bed, aiming a flashlight around. There was a thin coat of dust on the wood floor, and my first pass produced nothing unusual. It might be a waste of time, but I passed over two more times, focusing carefully on individual floorboards. Finally, I saw one board right in the middle that looked a little higher than the ones surrounding it. I got up and forced the king-size bed to the side. Then, using a knife I salvaged from the kitchen, I pried it up, uncertain whether I was about to find another secret passage or something else completely.

It wasn't a secret passage. It was a hollowed out slot, the width of the board, but deep. And down in the slot was a book. Not exactly what I anticipated, but I pulled it out carefully since it looked old and worn. It was about the size of my lap, and when I opened the red bound cover, I discovered it was also handwritten–and illustrated. It was all written in a language I'd never seen before, a script that looked almost lyrical the way one letter flowed into another. The first half or so was meticulous and included full-page finished illustrations of stone structures and statues and landscapes. Because I couldn't read it, I had no idea if this was some kind of written history or just a story. But even without being able to read it, I could still tell something changed drastically after the first half.

The second half looked more like a scrapbook than an official manuscript. Instead of formal text, there was rushed handwriting, just like mine would look scribbling a note in a hurry. Instead of complete handcolored illustrations, there were sketches, sometimes several on one page, and mostly of faces and less formal places, including several wide and close-up views of some pink blossoming trees and a waterfall. There were several faces that appeared more than once, sometimes alone, sometimes in a group. And pages had been ripped out.

After some of the hurried business, it returned to a more controlled state. Not the way it looked at the start, but less frantic than it had become. There was more thought and time put into them.

One page stood out to me. At the center was a woven design, circular but like a vine, with four flowers connecting them in the corners. Rather than looking like a random sketch, it looked official with a word written above it. Six faces flanked the design. A woman and a man sat on top and were larger and slightly older looking than the other four men drawn along the sides. It almost looked like a family tree.

I traced the design with my finger. It might have looked so official because it was some type of family emblem, almost like a crest. I wasn't sure why, but I felt like this was important and that I needed a record of it, just in case. So I took the best pictures I could with my phone, trying to not only get full pages in per shot, but trying to get in close enough to read the script. Someone knew how to read this, I was sure of it.

I flipped back to the beginning, landing on a page with a full-color illustration of a man holding out his hand, a flash of light coming from his palm. Another word was written above him. I looked down at my own hand, stretching out my fingers, reminded of the killer's hint. She'd held out her hand. I glanced back at the man in the image, at his hand. This book held the answer, I knew it did, but I couldn't read it.

I replaced the book in its hiding spot and stepped on the board to get it fully in place again, and slid the bed back over top of it. Who had hidden it in the first place? My mom or dad? Or both of them? And what did all of this have to do with the killer?