“But it’s not here,” Tessa sighed, slumping her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Ethan, I know you probably got your hopes up, even when you said you didn’t. I should’ve never suggested that it was here. I know better than that. I’ve gotten my own hopes up a few too many times chasing a good story, so I know how it feels.”
“It’s okay, it’s not your fault,” I assured her, shaking my head. “I got my own hopes up. And besides, it’s not like we haven’t found all kinds of stuff to help me find the Dragon’s Rogue. I’m closer than I’ve ever been before now. I can feel it. I just wish I was the only one looking for it. Now I’ll be worried that the Hollands are going to get ahead of me every step of the way. There wasn’t really a time constraint on things before. I could just look whenever something turned up or when I had some free time to spare on it. Now I feel like I’m in a race to the finish line that I didn’t even know I was running until now.”
“I know,” Tessa said, pursing her lips and leaning back against the table with me before shaking her head to clear it. “Alright, what about the rest of this stuff?”
We both turned our attention to the remaining contents of the table. There were lots of old papers, most of which I didn’t get the significance of right then.
“I can have my friend George look at some of this stuff if you want,” Tessa offered after we’d sifted through a good portion of the table’s contents. “He should be able to figure out what some of it is, at least.”
“I’d appreciate that,” I said, smiling at her as I turned to look through the last remaining pile, which had been obscured from view behind some other papers before.
My hand faltered as I reached for an old book, leather-bound with frayed yellow pages. It looked more than a little familiar to me.
I glanced over at Tessa and immediately knew that she had noticed it, too.
“Is that…?” she asked, her voice trailing off as she pointed at the book as if she didn’t dare suggest what she was thinking out loud.
“I think so,” I whispered as I grabbed for the book and gingerly opened it to a random page, my heart pounding in my chest so loud that I could feel the pulsing in my ears.
I opened the book toward the back, where nearly every word had been redacted in the fake version. I couldn’t help but breathe a long sigh of relief and close my eyes when I confirmed that yes, this was Grendel’s journal based on his handwriting, and no, nothing appeared to be redacted.
“It is, isn’t it?” Tessa breathed excitedly as I closed my eyes. “And it’s okay, right? Right?”
She peered over my shoulder again to see for herself, and I opened my eyes and smiled down at her.
“Right,” I confirmed, thumbing through the journal’s remaining pages just to make sure that there was nothing redacted there, either. “I’ll have to have Percy look at it just to make sure, but I’m pretty sure this is the real deal.”
“Amazing,” Tessa breathed, her eyes still peeled on the journal much like mine were. “How’s it feel?”
“Amazing,” I echoed, letting out a long, nervous laugh that released all of my anxious energy.
Having this journal in my possession at long last, after all that time, was really something else. I wasn’t sure how to describe it other than how I already had. I felt like all the tension that I had been holding about this for weeks was finally released, the tension that I didn’t even realize that I was carrying.
“We’re going to have to read through it together while we’re still here,” she suggested.
“You sure that’s what you want to do with the rest of your vacation?” I laughed, arching an eyebrow at her.
“Positive,” she confirmed, standing on her tip-toes and pecking me on the cheek.
I wasn’t sure that I had ever been so happy in my life, between finally finding the journal and having Tessa there beside me.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I told her, looking her in the eyes.
“I’m glad I’m here, too,” she grinned, looking back at me before her eyes drifted to the remainder of the pile in the corner. “Hold on, what’s this?”
She reached past me to grab another framed old yellow piece of paper, running her fingers along its front and narrowing her eyes at it. There was a familiar glint in her expression that told me she had found something else that might be important.
“What is it?” I asked excitedly, moving so that I was very close to her and to the paper.
“I… I think it’s a map,” she stammered, looking down at it with a mix of confusion and wonder. “And this handwriting… you would know better than I do, but isn’t that Grendel’s?”
I took the frame from her and examined the handwriting she was speaking of closely.
“Yeah, yeah, it is,” I said with a nod. “His original handwriting, before he went mad. Well, most of it anyway. Some of it looks a little slanted, like the later parts of the journal.”
It was a map of the United States from a very long time ago, with a focus on the eastern coast and some nearby islands. There was a path etched along it, with x’s in certain places and small notes corresponding to them written by Grendel.
“Do you think this is… I mean, could this be a map of the Dragon’s Rogue’s movements?” Tessa asked, her eyes widening at the thought.
“I don’t know,”
