“Chill, little Lulu. I’m a master at this kind of thing.” She pulls a bobby pin out of her hair and strips the end off with her teeth. She bends it until it’s one long, thin piece of metal before jiggling it into the lock. “The trick is to get it sharp enough and feel for the little thingy to click.”

I wait while she fiddles with it, her hair falling over her face and hiding the book from me. She makes a sound of triumph and holds the open book up in the air. “Ta-da! I’m a genius, y’all.”

“You are!” I laugh with relief. “Hand it over.”

“I wanna look,” she says, sitting on an overturned bucket. “I did all the hard work.”

I try to tamp down the impulse to rip it out of her hand, and I pull another bucket over. She tilts the book in my direction and hesitates before opening it. Even Olivia seems to feel the weight of the moment.

She flips to the first page, revealing what at first looks to be a bunch of scribbles. A jumble of curved letters swoop across the thin paper.

“What is this?” I mumble. Is it in code?

“I think it’s the Cyrillic alphabet,” Olivia says. “My cousins are from Serbia, and that’s what their language looks like.”

Why would Gram’s book be in another language? I’ve never even heard of Cyrillic. I clutch the book so tight, the tips of my fingers turn white.

“Thanks for opening it.” I close it and slip it into my backpack. Remy blows out air softly through his nostrils, drawing my attention back to him. He sniffs, wondering where his treat is.

Olivia pouts. “I wanted to read what was in it. Now we’ll never know what it says.”

“I’ll have to find out what language it is,” I say.

“I know what you can do!” She holds up her phone. “You can totally change the keyboard on your phone and compare the different Cyrillic ones. See which one looks the closest. I can help, if you want.”

“How do I change it?” I ask.

“Go to Settings, General, and then Keyboard.” She leans over my shoulder as I follow her directions. “Try Serbian first.”

I pick Serbian and examine the symbols. “It’s hard to tell if it’s the right one. I bet I can use Google Translate.”

“Try it,” she urges.

“We need to finish with the horses.” I tuck my phone in my pocket. “I’ll try again later and let you know what I find out.”

“I love solving stuff,” Olivia says, pulling a carrot out of her satchel and feeding it to her horse, Brandy. “A book written in another language abandoned at your house. Why don’t things like that ever happen to me?”