As she opened the cover, it came as a surprise that the pages weren’t filled with a story. This was a diary, of sorts. A shaky, hand-written scrawl filled each sheet from top to bottom. She flipped them over in rapid succession and grew more puzzled. The notes made no sense at all.

What was this book? What was the big secret? It looked dull if she was honest with herself.

She ran a finger over the short sentences but saw no connection to each one. They were random. So possibly not a diary. Names were interspersed with the words but she recognized none.

“Hmm, you are a boring book,” she said, placing the diary, journal, whatever it was, in her bedside drawer. She thought about throwing it away but then remembered how much it seemed to mean to her mother.

The strange little diary remained in her bedside drawer for another week until one night, as Nem lay in bed, a memory attack pounced. Tonight was bad; her mind filled with hate for Alan and sorrow for what he’d done. She saw herself taking the scissors and stabbing him and saving her mom. Many times she had imagined this, she sometimes wondered which was life and which was a dream.

An idea popped into her head.

Perhaps the diary notes were taken down from dreams.

Curious, she sat up in bed, turned on her bedside lamp and pulled the book from the drawer. As her hand touched the cover, she felt a tingle, like a gentle caress of her fingertips. Instinctively, she pulled back and stared down at her palm.

Hmm, what a weird thing.

Static electricity?

They’d been learning about forms of electric currents at school and how static was harmless.

Still, she was careful as she reached for the cover again. This time there was no effect. She opened the book and began reading. Inside though, were only short sentences and names. The first pages seemed written in fountain pen ink from a hundred years ago, smudged with flowery curves.

The more pages she turned, the more her curiosity grew. The writing style and ink changed to pen and modern print as if many people had previously owned the book and the object journeyed through many hands.

What the entries were about though looked similar. People’s names and other details she didn’t quite understand. A plus or minus inside a circle had been inscribed next to the entries. These alternated for each person. If one entry was a plus, the next contained a minus.

What did that mean?

When she came to the last page, Nem gasped. There was her mom’s name and beside it the plus symbol. Possibly good, she thought. Plus seemed good, right? The funny thing was the date. Nem’s birthday.

Patricia Stratton. September 21, 1982 Gift

Then she noticed the name written before this and she stopped, puzzled.

Miller Stratton. August 14, 1982 Betrayal.

Next to this one was the minus in a circle. Sounded like that meant a bad thing based on the word Betrayal written next to his name. Betrayal was a bad thing to do, wasn’t it?