She laughs, but it comes out all wrong. Strained. “Now, dear?—”
“Government trouble…” He stares at his hands. “The worst kind.”
He rises, chair scraping against wood. I hear his footsteps pound up the squeaking stairs. He returns determined, placing an old scrapbook in front of me.
“Didn’t want this,” he grumbles. “Public record.”
The leather is old and worn, and the pages crack as I turn them. Dust, old glue, and the smell of musty newsprint thread the air.
Grandpa stands over me, licking his finger before he turns each page. “I know it’s here,” he says, growing impatient, flipping too fast.
Then, he starts from the back, moving forward. Finally, his finger lands on a yellowed article with a hollow sound.
Space Debris Hysteria Ruled Hoax
My eyes scrape over a black-and-white photo of Grandpa, holding a homemade rocket, face a grimace like he was staring into the sun. Then, dates and words. Nineteen sixty-nine. Crash site. Strange debris.
He crosses his arms across his chest, jaw tightening. “It was a mistake. Never should have happened.”
“What, Grandpa?” I stare up at him, registering the way he won’t make eye contact.
“Found something… metallic. Compact. Strange symbols on it like—” He stops short, shaking his head.
“Like what?”
He pauses for a long moment, eyes still not meeting mine. Now Grandma stares at him, too, face tight, as if she’s bracing for something.
“Hurt Ash bad.” He exhales long and low. “But not me. Not at all.”
I turn toward him. “How did it hurt him?”
“Like lightning,” he says too fast. “Only way to describe it.”
“When?”
“When I handed it to him.”
Silence settles. Thick and guilty.
“You couldn’t have known,” Grandma says, but Grandpa glares at her.
“Still hurt him. Nearly killed him.”
“But what does any of this mean?” I ask, hands trembling.
Grandpa shrugs. “Have to ask him. Not sure how much he knows, though. Never liked to talk about… the difference. I just covered for him and the others. Chalked it up to one of my rockets gone rogue.”
My heart races. His words remind me of things my mom warned me about. That there were places and things not up for discussion in Raven Ridge.
People, too, it seems.
“Had to take the blame for it. Couldn’t let them focus on Ash… or the others.”
“Others?” I ask.
His eyes trail far away. “The ranchers. The ones who meet at the Grange.”
Silence ripens the air.
