The time line of the two women fit, when he counted the years back from the time a young Nem began to use the book. Why Aggie gave the book to her sister before her death was a mystery, but there followed an entry regarding the father, which must have been the revenge via Patricia.

William peered into the foreboding dull-gray sky and wondered if the patriarch knew. If he saw the consequence of his daughter’s use of the book, maybe conscience forced him to commit an unspeakable crime. Imagine a choice between hell and purgatory?

The other thing he’d noticed too, was that only women had owned it, or they seemed the only ones to use the power.

A droplet fell from the sky, followed by another. The sky had looked ominous before he made the call, but he couldn’t help that. He realized he hadn’t planned this whole thing so well. Not because of the storm; he needed the storm. At least, he hoped he would need it.

No, he hadn’t left a farewell note in case this didn’t go as he hoped. A warning is what he should have conveyed to someone. Or he should have found someone trustworthy as an ally. In the past year though, he’d abandoned the few relationships he’d enjoyed with friends. He tried to not think about family. That was a mess he didn’t need in his head. So for him there was no-one. Alone and isolated was the description of his life, and he’d been good with that, until he found himself standing in a cemetery with storm clouds overhead.

At the least, he should have thought to bring an umbrella. The rain had begun to come down. It wasn’t raining cats and dogs, but by the dark angry black and brown hues of the sky, someone was about to let them out. He pulled up the collar of his jacket and shivered. Not from the cold and wet, but from his imminent future.

Two hundred yards in the distance, headlights signaled a car heading along the private stretch of road leading to this section of the graveyard. It must be her. Who else dared venture here on a terrible night like this?

Now that the moment was near, his mind fled back to the notes in the book, focusing his attention away so he didn’t think too hard about what might happen. Thinking about her written comments about him, he would admit the traits described were reasonably accurate.

He hadn’t seen it of course, because you gradually slip into that hole of giving in to what is easy and feels good at the time. He had grown arrogant and careless, taking for granted the luck associated with his success. Nothing like losing everything to appreciate the precariousness of serendipity.

His hope was she would see this too. The solution of righting wrongs to create a clean slate and write a new story seemed to fit with the ethos of the book. If he never reclaimed his career, he could live with that.