Word Count: 96,047
Summary of Events:
Keeleigh enjoyed Thanksgiving with her mom's side of the family, which involved some discussion about the Village and all that'd happened to it in the last two weeks. Olga learned of the establishment of the Judenrat by the Germans, as well as that the Germans were being rude and unkind to nonJewish Poles. Keeleigh's Thanksgiving with her dad's side of the family was a bit more uncomfortable, mostly because of her grandpa . . .
Excerpt of the Day:
"She glanced over at Grandpa and found his gaze was fixed on her, sharp and keen light blue eyes with a twinge of grey to them. His expression was serious as he looked at her, and Keeleigh felt like he was looking through her, right at her brain, and seeing all her knowledge on the trunk that was hiding in the garage at home.
"You are quiet Keeleigh," Grandpa said, a bit of an accent to his moderately deep voice, even though he'd left Poland at the age of four or five.
She nodded in reply.
"Have you been in the company of any cats lately?" he asked.
"No," she replied, offering bit of a smile.
"Then what keeps you so quiet?" he asked.
"I don't feel like I have all that much to say," Keeleigh replied.
Grandpa nodded, keeping his gaze fixed on her as if his eyes had suddenly lost the ability to rotate in their sockets. It was unnerving how fixed his gaze was.
"You were helping Diane and Beverly with Malwina's things, were you not?" he asked, pronouncing his late sister's name with a V sound, instead of a W, as most everyone else pronounced it. He and his sibling did the same thing with Aunt Jadwiga's name, but everyone pronounced Gustaw like Gustav.
"Yes," Keeleigh replied quietly; there was no point in lying.
"Jadwiga tells me that they lost something," he said. "Something awfully big to lose."
Keeleigh nodded.
"It is also something that is very important," Grandpa said.
"I thought it was just a trunk," Keeleigh said, hoping she sounded innocent.
"It was your great grandmother's trunk," he said. "It came with us from Poland."
"Oh," Keeleigh said. "I recall seeing it, but I don't know where it went."
"It was foolish of them," he said. "They should have read the will before starting through the things, and then it wouldn't have bene lost."
But yet, too, Keeleigh wouldn't have been able to get her hands on it — but she wasn't going to say that out loud.
"Not that Malwina herself cared much for history," he continued. "She didn't even teach her children how to speak Polish. But in some things that is for the better."
"What do you mean?" Keeleigh asked.
"Knowing Polish would mean they would realise the importance of the trunk — which I very much believe that they have lost, as they have ceased to look for it — but knowing Polish might also make them too curious about the trunk," he replied.
"There's secrets in it?" Keeleigh asked.
Grandpa's thin lips got thinner and, even with his slight jowls, Keeleigh could tell his jaw had tightened.
She wanted to press Grandpa for more, but Keeleigh got the distinct sense from the bitter frigidity of his gaze that pressure would not be welcome."
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