1978

Rupert climbed out of the family minivan full of his sisters' screaming friends. Whew, the thought to himself after he closed the van door. His head was pounding from their high pitch singing on the ride to Granny Archim's home.

He walked up the sandstone driveway and knocked on the tall wooden door decorated with Granny Archim’s usual variety of fresh cut green and white eucalyptus, snowballs and lilies from her garden.

It was if Granny Archim was waiting behind the door because it opened just seconds after Rupert’s knock. There stood Granny Archim in all her glory, with her colorful yellow and rose sundress, big pink smile, glowing blue eyes, and big brown sunglasses on top of her odd off-white hair. Rupert expected that any day now her hair would make the final change to snow white.

“Why, Rupert…Good morning it’s so nice to see you! Come give me a hug!” she said in her usual delightful tone opening her arms for a warm embrace.

“It’s nice to see you too Granny! Are you ready to go? They’re waiting in the van,” Rupert said looking back. He noticed that all the girls were pre-occupied talking with each other.

“Yes, I’m just about ready but your grandmother needs to run to the restroom really quickly. How about you come inside…those girls can wait. Do you want something to drink? Water, Lemonade, Juice?”

“No, thank you,” Rupert said politely.

“Well, come on in then. Go rest your legs on the sofa or something. Your grandmother may take awhile,” she winked and headed off to the bathroom.

Rupert smiled to himself as he watched her white ball of hair follow her around the corner to the bathroom and disappear.

The home was clean as always, not a spot of dust anywhere to be found. If Rupert wanted he could have taken a white glove to her furniture and find no speck of dust.

Rupert roamed around the home looking for anything new. He looked quickly through most of the house knowing that he really had his mind set on visiting Granny’s library.

Upon entering the library he calmly took a deep breath in, looking up at the tall walls filled with books on a variety of subjects from history to fantasy. Granny had everything… He walked in looking to his left and to his right at all the nicely placed books inserted into the tall mahogany shelves, as he slowly brushed his fingers across each of their binds.

He had so many memories of being in the library with Granny when he was younger. One of their favorite pastimes was to read together and share stories of books they were reading.

Rupert looked around soaking in the memories. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to spend as much time with her nowadays because of school, extra-curricular activities and mostly his mother. For some reason their toleration of each other decreased over the years and they refused to stay in the same room together for long. Rupert blamed his mom for this. His dad said it had to do something with mother-daughter relationships. Luckily, because of Myra’s birthday the two of them would be able to handle their presences.

Rupert turned to leave but noticed a peculiar large book on the table centered in the middle of the library. Curious, Rupert picked up the heavy book and was startled to find a thick layer of dust on the cover. He was amazed that his dust-free grandmother hadn’t wiped the book. With his hand he slowly brushed off the dust finding a few additional surprises.

The brown book didn’t have a title inscribed on the front, back, or the bind. To investigate further Rupert carefully opened the ratted book and flipped through the first few pages. He found no words printed on them. Even in the middle of the book Rupert found nothing. It appeared that all the pages were blank except for the page numbers printed on the lower right hand corners.

“Maybe it’s some sort of journal that was never used… Hmm, but it’s too big for a journal,” he whispered to himself.

Quickly he flipped through the pages looking for written material in the book. Towards the back Rupert eyes caught something. He quickly skimmed the last pages again and stopped on page 1978. There rested a small silver necklace attached to a small silver coin.

“Well, that’s odd. Why would anyone place this in a book?”

Rupert placed the book back onto the table and picked up the heavy necklace to examine it closer. In the middle of the coined object were three circles interwoven facing outwards. Rupert wondered where the necklace came from and if the three circles on the coin symbolized anything.

Carefully Rupert placed the necklace around his neck and found to his surprise that the necklace didn’t feel as heavy on his neck. He gave it a good rub to shine the somewhat dirty coin and noticed a peculiar gleam of blue light flash off of the coin.

“That’s interesting.” Rupert said while bringing the coin up to his face. Suddenly he heard the door open behind him. He whirled around with the coin still in his fingers to face his grandmother who was standing at the door.

“I hope your aren’t getting into too much trouble,” she winked. “It’s time for us to go. We mustn’t keep your mother waiting too long. I don’t dare start off the day bad with her.”

Granny Archim was about to turn around when she did a double take at Rupert’s chest. “Ah, Rupert…found something?” she smiled.

“I’m sorry, I was just…” Rupert said as he stammered and began to take off the necklace.

“Oh, don’t take it off Rupert. I had taken out that book from storage, you were meant to have it. I just forgot to mention it to you,” Granny answered picking the coin up in her hand. Her blue eyes seemed to tear up but quickly went away as she tucked the necklace under his shirt.

“Do me a favor…don’t lose it ok? It’s special.”

“I won’t.” Rupert answered.

“I was waiting to give this to you at the right time. It was your mother’s.”

“Why were you holding on to it?” Rupert asked surprised.

“Oh, it’s an interesting story that maybe your mother will tell you when she’s ready,” she gave Rupert a hug looking at his face, noticing Rupert’s tired eyes. “How is my grandson doing, you look a bit tired,” Granny asked wrapping one arm around Rupert’s shoulders.

Rupert looked up at her and spilled out everything about his dreams, the bruises, and the hooded people at his bed this morning.

Granny Archim’s thin lips pushed up against each other as she looked out the library window listening to Rupert’s quickly told story. After a few quiet moments she finally spoke, “There is so much that we don’t know, dreams are a mystery to us. It seems to me that you are fully exploring yours Rupert, just as I had when I was your age. It seems like I don’t dream as much now or just can’t seem to remember them as well. But they can be wonderful…but also terrifying can’t they?” she smiled warmly at Rupert then looked back out the window.

“Stay courageous in your dreams and you will stay courageous in your waking life as you remember it. There is just so much mystery,” she paused and gave a little cough, “That necklace that you have. Hold it close to you. Alright?”

“Okay…but…. umm”

Granny Archim finally looked back at Rupert and grabbed his hand and walked out of the library with him, slowly closing the door behind them. Before shutting the door Granny glanced back at the old book resting on the table and smiled.