Chapter 740

Chapter 0740

Nina

I flipped to the next page of the ancestry book, humming to myself as I took notes in a separate notebook.

"Interesting..." I muttered under my breath. I traced the text on the page with my other finger, thoroughly fascinated by the information I was uncovering.

Of course I knew that my father's family tree had roots that ran far and deep, but this sort of information was so much unlike the type of information one would typically find in an ancestry evaluation. I was uncovering old secrets, love affairs, hatreds and friendships.

Finally, though, I finished the book; or at least, I finished the current volume. It ended with my great- grandmother, but I was certain that there had to be other tomes elsewhere that depicted my family tree both before and after the generations outlined in this book.

Snapping the book shut, I leaned back in my chair with a sigh and clasped my hands behind my head. I glanced up at the towers upon towers of books all over this massive library.

It was going to be quite the journey to hunt down more of these books.

Over the next few hours, while the others were training outside, I pored over that library. The occasional sound of whistles and shouting caught my attention during their training, but for the first time in days, I was so fully enthralled with my research that I hardly felt left out at all.

It was when I was climbing the ladder to the top of a shelf, however, when something caught my eye.

I was muttering to myself, pushing books aside in search of another volume of the ancestry tome, when I saw it: a shape hidden in the back of the shelf.

Furrowing my brow, I stuck my arm in and groped around until my fingers made contact with smooth, dust covered leather. I grunted a bit as I pulled out the item, and what came out a moment later was a small, leather- bound journal.

"Huh," I muttered, turning the book over in my hands as I slowly made my way down from the ladder. "I wonder what this is."

When I was on the floor again, I carefully wiped away the thick layer of dust covering the leather. There was a faint embossment of a tree on the cover, but nothing else. I knit my eyebrows together and flipped open the pages, coughing as a plume of dust puffed up around me.

"What the..."

wondering for a moment if my mind was playing tricks on me. I

written in the journal were hardly

all.

symbols. But there seemed to be some sort of rhyme or reason to them, because they didn't appear random-rather, some of them were repeated, and there were spaces between 'words' as well as punctuation, as though these were intended

curiosity fully piqued by now, I flipped through the

Every. Single. Page.

expected some sort of cipher, but there was none. The book

"C."

my head around what I had just seen, I heard the library door creak open. For some reason, out of instinct, I hid the journal

you in here?" my

yes, Mom," I replied. "Need

for lunch soon. Will

amongst the stacks of books. "Yeah. I'll.. I'll

been holding and pulled the book out from behind my back. I stared down at it for a few moments, confused as to why I had felt it necessary to hide

thing was for certain: I was intrigued by this book And now I wanted

overhead as I picked at the grass, listening to the distant sounds of my father's training regimen. He

warm blue sky, though, the sound of approaching footsteps caught my attention. I cracked my eyes open to see none other than Lori approaching, covered in sweat

said. "I thought you were

next to me on the blanket with a

"What happened?"

just can't keep up," she sighed. "I really wanted to challenge myself, but being

then grimaced and wiped the sweat off on my skirt. "It's

as she looked over at

no."

The Novel will be updated daily. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

Comments ()

0/255