Requiem [COMPLETED]

Dear Diary

The first clue about our family I had found long before I was actively looking; I'd forgotten about it, because it seemed like an outlier without any context. There were times when I was in the way—when grandpa wanted to load or dehorn cattle, the type of tasks where I was more likely to get hurt than be of any use—and I'd be sent back to the house where it was presumed I couldn't get into trouble. I used those times to play sardines with myself, looking for forgotten nooks and gaps that I could make my own and enjoy the temporary feeling of being hidden from all knowledge. Other times I'd wander around snooping, turning over pictures hung from the walls to see if they had inscriptions, testing if little boxes on tables were unlocked, if anything lay forgotten in chests of drawers in the other bedrooms.

In the attic once I had found several trunks with no key. They were hidden behind a wall of boxes deep at the far end of the crawl space and I got the feeling they had been deliberately put out of reach. Of course, I felt that way about a lot of stuff with grandpa always forbidding us things. It only added allure, though after calculating the degree of risk involved in pursuing the forbidden I generally left it alone, unlike Sven. He always seemed to need to see if he could get away with something, testing the sometimes unspoken limits to grandpa's patience. Usually I shared everything with Sven but he'd been avoiding me of late, hiding around the farm reading something he wouldn't let me see, so I spitefully omitted sharing my own discovery. I used the trunks' corner as my hiding place, something I took solace in knowing as another secret spot of my own.

One of them was unlocked; it had been left ajar after having been pried open at some point. The trunk creaked as I opened it. I froze. I held my breath, waiting to here grandpa's steps coming up the stairs; he had an uncanny sense of if we were up to something, and ridiculously good hearing for someone his age. I couldn't hear any sound though but the wind outside. They were busy in the cattle yard; he couldn't possibly know, or hear.

There was a pile of diaries. They were covered in brown cloth and had grainy paper, cheap looking. They were so small that one could fit comfortably in my hand wide open. They were lined in a row along the back part of the chest, standing up on top of tightly packed books. I picked up one, about a third of the way along the row. Silverfish darted over my hand and dove back to the darkness of other bound volumes in the trunk. The handwriting wasn't elegant, but it was legible and old-fashioned looking. I flipped through carefully, as some of the pages were loose, reading a few random entries. The binding kept making cracking protests, regardless of how gentle I tried to be.

July 3rd Celia got it today, poor thing. Per had told her how to kill a chicken before and told her to go get one for supper. Cee wrung its neck but then it kept running around the yard, so she thought she hadn't done it right. Per found her with five chickens in various stages of death throes, trying to catch another. I started to imitate Roosevelt's "this day will live in infamy as an unprovoked attack on chicken civilization," and he left off. She feels bad enough. Prep chickens for smoking.

Sept. 1st Had a baby boy. Per finally bought me a washing machine the cheapskate! Had to get up and make coffee for neighbor who helped unload it. Now laundry won't take the day anymore and I don't have to worry about the kids falling in and drowning when I'm not looking. It's general electric and so beautiful!

Sept. 3rd Late tornado this season, our first real threat. Knocked out electricity to several farms but didn't touch us or immediate neighbors—hail damage to crops. Thom Jensen's (farm east of ours) wife was killed—was trying to harvest apples with Mrs. Warren Ohe, who survived. What an extreme to risk just to save apples from being no good for canning. Damn damn damn. If our corn is ruined Per will be hell. Named boy Clifford.

Nov. 24th Mrs. Warren Ohe sent me a pork haunch as a thank you for my help when she was laid up, so was able to have decent thanksgiving. Sven wouldn't eat the pumpkin pie—Cee put too much cinnamon in it—said mom, it looks like poop in a pan! Needless to say I laughed, but Per still mad at him. All else went smoothly; only a ripple when Per asked where all the store-boughts came from. Glad I was able to reply one of the widows in town couldn't afford meat so I bartered with her for some of the fixings.