The Number 7 (33 page)

In the top tray of the box lay a handful of rusty nails. I picked up the tray and placed it aside. I finally found the screwdriver underneath an oily rag, but my hand knocked against something else when I moved to pick up the screwdriver. I slowly pulled the object out of the ancient toolbox: an old tin container for Cherrydale Farms Peanut Crunch.

I shook the tin and the contents that rattled inside. The lid was rusted onto the base, but I tried working it, and it popped off without much trouble. Inside the container, I found Dad's boyhood treasures—the ones he'd described to me in the woods on Thanksgiving morning. I dumped the contents onto the workbench: a pinecone, a chestnut, stones of various shapes, sizes, and colors, an old harmonica, a few wooden spools of thread, a snakeskin, a small, whittled, wooden horse, and one long mallard feather. But there was something else inside, wrapped in an old handkerchief.

I slowly unfolded the cloth. There, gleaming dully under the faint cellar light was Grandfather's pocket watch. I recognized it at once. Its face was cracked, just as Grandma had said it would be. I lifted the timepiece out of its temporary casket and turned it over in my hands in disbelief. I wound the stem, hoping to hear it run, but it remained silent. Maybe it was too old. Maybe it'd been too long. I polished the gold case on the end of my shirt and held it up to the light. I read the faint inscription:

Grandpa had added to Leif's inscription. What message had he left behind? What did he want us to know?

In my bedroom, I held the timepiece closed in my palm as I leafed through the Swedish-English dictionary I'd bought at the used bookstore with Chris. The first part of the inscription I knew.
Till min son
, to my son. But what was
med hjältens själ
? I looked up each word and scratched them down in pencil on a loose scrap of paper. And then I saw it—the translation complete. Of course.

To my son with the hero's soul.

I held the watch near my ear.
Silence
.

I had to try it again. Just once more. I hesitantly popped the winding stem, and twisted it between my thumb and forefinger. It spun to the right, and I wound it until it clicked into place. Incredibly, the watch started to tick. The sound was so beautiful, so simple. It was both soft and deafening. It reminded me of Grandma's phone. Whispers of sounds of lives long gone.
Tick, tick, tick, tick.
This was my grandfather's voice, his spirit echoing from the folds of time, that space between earth and the grave. He was telling me he needed his son to know the truth. He was telling me to finish the story.

I sat alone on our front steps with the watch, staring blankly into the yard until Dad pulled into the driveway. He whistled as he unloaded his briefcase from the car.

He took a seat next to me on the stoop, moving the watch to make room and handing it to me without a second glance. He had no idea what he'd just held.

“Those buckets—” Dad pointed across the street to the galvanized containers clinging to the sugar maples. “We need to tap them again. My dad taught me how to do it once, but I thought maybe you and I could get them going again. I think he would like that.”

“Dad, I—” My face felt flushed.

“Hey, you okay?” He finally looked at me. Really looked at me. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close to him.

“I need to tell you something,” my voice trembled.

I was stalling. This was harder than I thought. I felt guilty for keeping Grandma's calls from him. It had already been too long. It wasn't my gift to keep. Since we'd arrived, Dad had tried catching up with the life he'd once had when he lived with his parents on October Hill Road. With my help, he was about to meet the Gerhard Magnusson he never knew, to know
his
story, to know his heart. I was going to introduce him to the Gerhard who loved and laughed and lived; the Gerhard who died with his brother. I was finally able to give Dad what he never had: the truth about his father, the hero
and
the coward. This wasn't only Gerhard's story. This was Dad's story. This was my story.

I took my seat at the head of the table and gently placed the old man's newspaper clipping and Grandpa's stopwatch on the surface next to Grandma's antique telephone. Its rotary and letters were no longer foreign to me. I knew its weight and the way it felt against my ear. I knew its shape on the attic desk, the shadows it sent against the wall, and the sound it made when it rang. This phone was the direct line to my grandmother and grandfather. In it, I'd heard of all the events that led me here.

I looked around the table at the faces of my family: Dad, Greta, Rosemary, and Gabe. Somewhere near—I could feel them close—Mom and Grandma watched over us. They stood as anxiously as the rest, each wanting to hear this, too. It felt good to have them there. The narrative was complete, and yet it was just starting.

I took a deep breath and let the story begin: “The problem with hiding secrets is they run a lot faster than we do. They're bound to catch up with us sometime or another.”

Jessica Lidh pulls inspiration from her Swedish heritage and experiences as a high-school teacher in suburban Maryland. In encouraging young minds to suck the marrow out of life, Jessica often uncovers the fascinating and hilariously horrifying insights of the twenty-first century teenager. When Jessica isn't fervently teaching or writing, she loves to watch old musicals, bake Swedish cinnamon buns, and go on imaginary bear hunts with her daughter, Elsa.

This book would never have happened if not for a handful of invaluable people in my life. Mom, Dad, and April, thank you for believing in and encouraging me from the time I first learned to pick up a pencil. Todd, thank you for convincing me I could
actually
write this story, for being my constant sounding board for ideas, and for loving me endlessly. The Nilssons (young and old) and the Wilhelmssons, thank you for showing me
your
Sweden and welcoming me into your families. My wonderful agent, Kimiko Nakamura with Dee Mura Literary, there aren't enough thank yous to fit on this page to adequately express my appreciation for all you've done with this novel. To the good people at Merit Press, thank you for wanting to share my story with the world. I hope I've made you all proud.

Copyright © 2015 by Jessica Lidh.

All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by

Merit Press

an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.

www.meritpressbooks.com

ISBN 10: 1-4405-8306-4

ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8306-3

eISBN 10: 1-4405-8307-2

eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-8307-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lidh, Jessica.

The number 7 / Jessica Lidh.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-4405-8306-3 (hc) -- ISBN 1-4405-8306-4 (hc) -- ISBN 978-1-4405-8307-0 (ebook) -- ISBN 1-4405-8307-2 (ebook)

[1. Families--Fiction. 2. Secrets--Fiction. 3. Swedish Americans--Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Number seven.

PZ7.1.L53Nu 2014

[Fic]--dc23

2014026764

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and F+W Media, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

Cover design by Frank Rivera.

Cover images © Igor Stevanovic/Victor Zastolskiy/123RF.