We finished our meal and washed the plates before reading the journal further. As she stashed the last pot into her backpack, I sat by the fire with the journal in my lap. My feet tapped as I waited.

"I can feel your eyes on me." Kambili wiped her hands dry with the rag.

"Then, hurry up." As she folded the rag into a perfect square, I bit my lips to keep myself from yelling at her.

Kambili relaxed onto a tree stump and took the journal from me. "You're more impatient than Chika, and he's four." She held the journal in front of her but made no move to read it. "Why are you so interested in the journal?"

Her question took me aback, and I thought for a moment before slowly saying, "I want to know who Onyeka Ezike was. What kind of person was she? What were her thoughts, what were her fears? This journal," I said, taking it from her. "It's history, a part of the past we can never reclaim, but we can learn from it. That makes it valuable."

As Kambili regarded me, I read the surprise in her expression before she cleared her face. Repossessing the journal from me, she translated the Igbo into English as she read. "Property of Onyeka Ezike. March 12, 3034." As she turned the page, I edged closer.

I should have started this journal months ago, but then again, there were many things I should have done. Now, I am pressed for time. Classic, Onyeka, my sister would say. Always procrastinating. But maybe if she were more like me, our people wouldn't be on the verge of destruction.

I apologize in advance for how inconvenient it is to open this journal. I can only tell you whatever pain you might feel pales in comparison to the treasures that you'll discover.

Long after I'm gone, there will be people searching for my journal. They will lie, cheat, steal, and kill. My most fervent wish is that whomever is reading my words right now is not that type of person. I can't control this, or course, but I do pray that you are worthy of the gift that you are now receiving.

Signed,

Onyeka Ezike

Kambili would have turned the page, but I stayed her with my hand. She raised her brows, but kept silent while I spoke. "Why is it that my blood opens the clasp?"

"We've already discussed this. Your time in the Shallows must have altered your body chemistry."

"I know that's what we've agreed upon, but look at this." I pointed to the journal and quoted the last paragraph from memory. "She's writing about the type of person she wants to read her words, as though she has an important message to pass down to them." I brought my eyes to the second paragraph and asked Kambili to translate it again. "Do you see that part where she apologizes for the inconveniences? Onyeka encrypted the journal on purpose. She meant for blood to be the only way to access it. The question is why my blood is the one that reveals the journal's truth. Why not yours? Why not Nathaniel's? Why me?"

Kambili frowned. "I don't know. Even her language is familiar, confidential." She glanced at me. "As if she were conversing with a relative, or her descendent. But that's impossible. Onyeka had no children."

"Of course not," I said, remembering the excerpt. "She was too young."

"What do you mean too young? Onyeka was murdered when she was twenty-five in 3044."

"3044..." I said. "The journal is dated 3043, a year before her death. She began writing to preserve her life. But who could've killed her—and for what reason?"

I looked to Kambili for an answer, but she stared back at me with narrowed eyes. "Why did you think Onyeka was too young to have children?"

"I don't know," I hedged. "The writing style is youthful, and I assumed from the tone that she was closer to my age."

Kambili cocked her head to the side. "Are you lying to me?"

I shook my head. "No. Why would you think so?"

"Because you're running your hands through your hair, a gesture you make when you're either frustrated or extremely guilty.

"There was an excerpt," I admitted, inwardly cursing at myself as I dropped my hand from my hair. "It was supposedly written by an unknown fourteen-year-old girl. She was in danger from a man her family considered a friend."

"I've never heard of this excerpt."

"It's a forgery. Someone somewhere had written the lie and sent it out into the world."

"How did you know that it's fake?"

"The first time I opened the journal was when you used the key. Before then, I didn't even know that it could open." She narrowed her eyes as though she doubted the veracity of my words, so I took the journal and snapped it shut. "Without the key, the pages glue together." I tried to pry them apart, moving my head so that she could see. "They won't move, do you see? Jack told me that the excerpt was supposed to have come from the journal, like someone tore out the page, but it's not physically possible. We thought that since the excerpt was a forgery, that the journal was as well."

"But it isn't a forgery," she reaffirmed. "It's real, and Enyi, you, and I are the only ones who know."

"Us and the person who wrote the false excerpt," I reminded her. "We don't know who they are, do you?"

Kambili shook her head. "Onyeka's journal has been an Igbo legend since its creation. My people have clung to its existence like we cling to religion, but no one has seen it. I didn't even fully believe it until I saw her signature when it first opened."

"This person must have known what trouble they'd cause. They did this on purpose, but how and why?" I asked. "They couldn't have foreseen Jack stealing the journal and giving it to me."

Kambili unfurled her blanket then lounged on top of the soft fleece. I saw her mind working through all we'd discussed. "No, because the smugglers were supposed to deliver the journal to someone else." She rested her chin on her arm as she stared up at the stars. "I wonder who it was."

"I found the key in my father's study." The night of the ball, it laid scattered on his desk, destroying the clean and orderly aesthetic of his office. It was unlike my father to leave a mess. It was unlike Nathaniel as well, but it was just like Jack.

"You think it was your father who was supposed to receive the journal?"

"I think Navarie was the one who Onyeka feared. She died in 3044, and my great-great-grandfather created Verium in 3046." I recounted my family's history. "My father is a hard man. He likes order, and he likes to be in control." I reiterated the words of earlier, marveling at how much I'd changed since then. "He would want the journal to destroy it and the hope it symbolizes to your people." I was cold inside, even as I basked in the fire's heat.

Kambili was silent. She held herself in that graceful stillness, but I felt her anger. "So many lies. So much greed." As I beheld the journal in her hands, I recognized the tinge of anguish in her eyes before she closed them. Her lips silently moved, and I wondered if she was praying. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open, and she peered at me.

"Do you think your father can access the real journal with his blood?"

"I thought we agreed that my body was different because of my time in the Shallows."

Shrugging, she said, "Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. We can't know that for sure, but we do know that the real journal is useless with the key."

"That would mean that Onyeka deliberately encoded the journal so that it would only open for the descendants of Navarie, the man who destroyed everything that she loved." I shook my head. "I don't believe she would do that."

"What do you believe?"

"It's as Nathaniel said. I must've consumed something in the Shallows to make me the way I am." Why else did my sister evade my touch? Why else did my mother favor Analiese over me? They knew I was different, and now I know why, but I didn't want to think about that.

"Let's finish the journal tonight." Grabbing my blanket, I unrolled it onto the grass. "We can read through it, skimming, of course. When we reach our destination, we can study it in full." I reached for the journal, but she snatched it away before I could fully grasp it.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Celeste."

"Why not? Onyeka wrote her words for people to read," I said. "What do you think she would want?"

"I can't trust you with this information. I wish I could, but I can't." She stared at me, at the tilted eyes and sharp cheekbones that I inherited from my father.

"I'm not like him," I told her because I wasn't sure she remembered the distinction between him and me.

"He still controls you and that's enough."

"I would never tell him about you or Nathaniel or Chika. I wouldn't do that."

"What if you didn't have a choice?" Kambili sighed. "You've only truly seen one side of your father. You don't understand."

"Enlighten me, then. Give me a chance to prove myself."

"Let's say that you've returned to your palace. It's the middle of the night. You're at the cusp of deep sleep when you're shaken awake. In front of you is your sister, and a gun is held to her head. Your father speaks from behind, surprising you.

He demands that you tell him who kidnapped you. He wants the truth, no prevarication. If you refuse, your sister will die. What do you do?"

"I—" I didn't know what to say. I shrugged my shoulders, spreading my hands wide. "I don't know."

"No, you don't know. No one knows what they would do in that situation, and I can't take a leap of faith and believe that you would value my life over your sister's."

"That's not fair, Kambili. My father would never harm us. If anything, we're too valuable to him."

"Replace your sister with Jack. A friend, an acquaintance. Or a little girl you've never met. Can you swear to me that you'll keep my secrets?"

She waited.

"Your silence tells me everything I need to know." As she turned around so that her back faced me, I heard her say, "We will arrive at our destination by the end of tomorrow."