Bloom

Prologue

Somehow, I ended up being the one cleaning the attic and looking through all the dusty old things that nobody wanted. It's infuriating that I always get dragged into these types of things. My brother, Jonas, never wants to do anything family-related now that he's turned fifteen, and my sister would rather paint her nails and watch Love Island. I have no time for that show or anybody on it, absolutely none.

"Darcy, mum wants you to finish the attic today," Reign says, poking her head into my room. She's blowing on her nails like she just put a fresh set on.

"Why don't you help me?" I say pushing my Mac off my lap and swinging my legs over my bed to the floor.

"Gross," she rolls her eyes and turns to leave.

"Come on, Reign, there's only a few more boxes and a trunk to go through," I beg. The stuffy old attic is insanely lonely, and I can't handle another hour going through the ghost of lives past by myself. "Please?"

Reign groans and slumps. "Fine, let's get this over with,"

I hop out of bed and lead her up to the attic. It's musty and old and covered in cobwebs. Reign and I would rather be anywhere else, but I promised mum it'd get done. Reign picks at the old brown boxes that are falling apart and smell like mildew. All I find is an old jewelry box that belonged to our grandmother, Grammy, with a few pieces of costume jewelry in it. Nothing sentimental, really.

I find a string of pearls, fake of course, our grandfather would never let a real set sit in a box for so long. He loved her and my mum, that much has always been obvious, but beyond that, we don't know much about him. Mum always told us that they were never the lovey type. They slept in separate rooms since before she could remember, and she was their only child. She thinks that they had her as an obligation to society, or maybe an obligation to Grammy. She never felt that they didn't want her, but she always wondered if they would be different if she wasn't in the picture.

I never got to meet my grandfather. He died before I was born. Mum was pregnant with me and Reign when it happened, she's vague when I ask about him. She says that she hadn't seen him in a few months before it happened. He was very excited to be a grandfather, but when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, Grammy sent him off to God knows where to God knows who and he passed away there. Grammy assures us he was happy and exactly where he wanted, and needed, to be. I always wondered why that wasn't with Grammy and mum. Like I said, I never knew him, maybe they didn't either.

"Reign, where do you think Grammy wore these pearls?" I ask holding them up to my neck to show her.

She shrugs and pulls up a white dress from a box she's working on. "Maybe her wedding,"

"I wonder if she has pictures," I say dreamily. I bring the pearls over to her and put them on the wedding dress.

"I've never seen pictures of her when she was young," Reign says. It's the first time she seems somewhat interested in our family.

"I've seen some," I say. "She has a few with mum. I've never seen any of grandad though,"

"Me either, just a few that mum has from his sixtieth birthday. They had that huge party for him, remember? She tells us about it every year,"

"I think she was proud of it. She says it's one of the few times she can remember him happy," I tell her.

We don't question mum too much about her dad. She always gets sad and distant. Grammy just doesn't talk about him, and when she does it's more like she's remembering a friend from a million years ago.

I leave Reign to her own boxes while I finish mine, all that's left is the big trunk in the middle of the attic. A struggle I haven't wanted to tackle, but now it's all that's left, and I have to.