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Mum glances at me. “That would be great. Eden and I will be there.” Mum gives Thomas a hug, and we say our goodbyes.
“You and I should both be there,” she whispers. “Before your father has a breakdown if the photos are of Dawn.”
* * *
Photos of Kaikare as a toddler fan out over the kitchen table.
There are patches of red where the images have faded, yet it doesn’t take away from the enormity of seeing these for the first time. Gran captured moments of her crawling with the jungle as a backdrop and another of her sitting on the hammock, with her smile lighting up her little face framed by dark hair.
Ivyis written in cursive on the back of each image.
Mum places a picture of her as a baby, maybe a few months old, on the table, and she keeps staring at it.
“What is it?”
Mum glances up. “I can see features that remind me of you as a child.”
“Really?”
She nods yet doesn’t say anything.
I pick up the image of the shaman—Weju. He didn’t know she was taking a shot. He was a handsome man—a sculpted jaw, high cheekbones, and dark hair to his shoulders, wearing a short, woven skirt hanging from his hips, his bare muscular chest and arms on display. He was looking up, which gave Gran time to take the picture from, I assume, her hut, yet I can see a gentleness in his eyes.
One image confused me as it was a group photograph. Gran held Kaikare in her arms, the shaman beside her, and other Ularans stood next to them.
“They don’t like objects from our world, yet someone took the group photo.” I show Mum the image. “I guess they didn’t know what it did, so it was like a hard box to them that made clicky sounds.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because they wanted to burn her journal and pen, believing the pen was bad magic.”
“I see.” She holds the photograph closer. “This is like the one she left for you.”
In my beautiful engraved wooden box, the images included herself and a similar group one, only it was taken further back and hard to identify anyone. This picture is closer so she must have asked the person to come forward. Thankfully, whoever peered through the lens wasn’t spooked.
I pick up another image. “We’re lucky to have these.”
“We are,” Mum murmurs, still engrossed in the photograph she’s holding.
“Do you think Pop found them? Or is it why Gran gave them to Brenda for safekeeping?”
“If Gran had lived longer, I believe she’d have told us about Dawn. Only at the time of her sudden death, your father wasn’t ready.”
“Is he ready now?”
“It’s hard for him as he feels a sense of responsibility to help Dawn now he knows Samuel tried to keep them safe.”
“He can’t,” I emphasize. “He’d never find her, and she’s with the only family she knows.”
“He said he regrets not meeting his sister, and if given a chance, he’d do it.”
Wow.
“That’s a beautiful thing,” I say gently. “But it might never happen.”
“No. I’ll sit with him while he goes through the photos and then keep them somewhere safe.”
“Has he had a chance to look at his box?”
