Page 63 of Scars Like Wings

It’syourfamily tree.The voice within me answered. It had been right. This book was clearly mine. I nodded to respond to Simone. But why was I seeing it only now? Where had it been before?

“Doe and Forrest named their baby Byrd?” Maisie asked with a smile and humor in her voice, interrupting my thoughts.

I smiled, too. “They had a thing, okay?”

I turned the page.

But there was nothing.

I flipped to another page.

Nothing still.

I continued, but I kept finding more of the same.

No magic swirling from the page.

No acrid, pungent air of a curse.

Just the smells of my old house and nothing on the pages.

Not a single word existed on any of them that I could see.

“Byrd? What’s the matter?” Simone asked, sensing my rising distress.

“They’re blank.”

“Blank? No text or writing?” Simone said, her bafflement apparent in her voice.

I shook my head and frowned. There was no ink or graphite. No text, not a single letter. Not even a stray mark. I could see indentations on the pages, but they were like when you pressed against a piece of cardboard while writing notes. They were imprints of writing on top of each other. It was a jumbled chaotic mess.

“How is there nothing?” Maisie asked, glancing over my shoulder with Simone.

This book had to havesomething. Why magic an empty book?

Wait.

I stopped flipping then and placed my hand on the page to feel the pressing of so many words under my fingertips, like multiple people talking over each other. Once my fingers made contact with the page, my necklace warmed again and words started to ink onto it on the same line where my fingers had caressed, making me snap my hand back. It was as if an imaginary hand was writing there. While surprised, I still felt excited and smiled wide in spite of myself at first.

Yet, that didn’t last long.

Do you want to know the truth, my baby Byrd?

Yellow Topaz

My knees threatened to buckle as all my strength went to gripping the book hard, tight, and close to me.

I read the line again and again, my mind fighting to understand what my heart already knew. I knew the writing without question. I recognized the swirls and curls and slant. I knew the timelessness of it as it appeared almost lackadaisically, as if it was a girl writing in her diary at night or doodling time away in class. She always used to write like that, like she had all the time in the world. I remembered all the times I would look over her shoulder to watch her write comments while grading papers or notes for me to take to school.

It was my mom.

It was my mother’s handwriting, her words.

It was written by mymothertome.

“Bee? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

My voice was barely above a whisper. “There’s writing on one of the pages… It-it’s my mom’s.”