Pale Golden Biscuits and a Summer Sunrise

June 5th.

It's been a month since Nanni died, and everyone in the family is still looking for her secret biscuit recipe.

Everyone but me. I guess it makes me sad to think that someone else will be baking her Pale Golden Biscuits, instead of Nanni. Those were her specialty. But it said in her will that no one got her biscuit recipe except for the ghosts.

I got her gold-pearl-obsidian-opal bracelet, the one she never took off and got for her wedding day. It's worth about a thousand dollars, but I'll never sell it. Ever. Mom said I could if I wanted to, to save up for all the books I'll be buying for the Julius Amsterdam School of Literature, where I'm going to learn how to be a writer, just like Nanni, but I'd sooner spend ever penny I've ever earned than sell the bracelet.

I'm wearing it now. I may never take it off, or it could get lost or stolen. About that writing school, I've been saving every dollar of my birthday money and allowance (which is five dollars a month, for some reason. Why a month?) for five years to afford tuition and books, because we have to read all the great writer's works and even the nearly-unknown writer's works. I need to go to this school to get in an Ivy League college, and I'll need a degree to be the next J. K. Rowling. I don't think she had to do all that stuff, but I don't want to take my chances. Besides, I write every day for practice. All I need is my own Boy who Lived.

Note to self: find out if you capitalize the "who" in that.

June 6th.

Well, I was not expecting that.

Today we were cleaning out Nanni's attic, which is as big as Buckingham Palace, nearly. (That's hyperbole, which sounds like Hermione, only it is not a girl's name but a way of exaggerating.)

As we were going through boxes, and I found a jewelry boy I liked, with a little anime-esque ballerina inside, and lots of strange charm bracelets, with charms like a prowling tiger, a leaping gymnast, and a single treble clef. As I was trying on a silver bracelet, trying to get it to fit around my left wrist so I could have Nanni's treasures on both hands, my uncle dropped a big wooden chest on his foot.

"What the--(CENSORED)?!" he exclaimed.

"Bryan!" my aunt Liza said. "Don't use such language around the children. It's not good for them."

I was a little annoyed about being called a child, but I walked over carefully. It wasn't the heavy chest falling on his foot that made him swear, though. It was what was inside of it.

The lid had fallen off, and inside the treasure-chest-looking box, were binders and binders made of leather, labels hand-stitched on their covers. The binders looked homemade, and as Dad picked one up, brushing away a layer of dust, he cracked the spine open.

"Oh Lordy," he said.

(Note to self: figure out if you capitalize "Lordy".)

Inside were dozens of photos: school photos, family photos, random selfies that Nanni got ahold of somehow, all printed out on glossy paper and tucked away into perfect pockets. There was paper too. Notes on everything: who was rude to who at the dinner table, which sports team everyone liked, etc, etc. Bit it wasn't just random. As dad flipped though, he found that some pages were for my older cousin Aalisha, who supported the Steelers in football and didn't talk a lot, others were for my little cousin Roe, who got teased because he was smarter than a seven-year-old should be, but teased lovingly, and still others were for my brother Liam. The book had almost all the cousins in it! Then there were others, holding second cousins and uncles, and a whole folder for great-aunts and regular aunts alike. Dad found one with him in it, and everything was spot-on, typed out on the typewriter that my cousin Lizabeth now owned, going down the pages in neat rows. I asked to see one, and found that it held me and the other cousins who hadn't came up yet. Here's what mine said:

Ginny Lucia

13 years old (as of 2022)

Likes the Patriots, even without Tom Brady

Reads Harry Potter books every time she comes over

Isn't very talkative

Likes to write down all my recipes when she helps me bake

Likes baking

Likes writing, a lot

Likes reading

Likes "Pokémon", whatever that is

Wants to be an author

Is really interested in my bracelet

Only talks a lot when we're alone

Keeps referencing someone called "Ginny Weasely". I don't know who that is. A movie star? A new singer? A You-tuber? Kids these days... You can never follow them.

Inheritance: My wedding bracelet, art books 4-10, documents for Ziva's Earth, The Man With Yellow Eyes, and Golden Sun.

And my biscuit recipe.

If she can find it.

So, y'know.

Sorry this was so long.

Oh, who am I kidding? No one's ever going to read this journal.

June 7th.

So, I now own Nanni's recipe. Well, not own it, really, but I have the rights to it. The house has been cleaned out almost completely, and no one's found anything. Nothing had been thrown out, also. It's just been distributed to my entire family. I find it kind of funny that Nanni didn't know who Ginny Weasely was. or what Pokémon was. At least I didn't mention Wings of Fire, because she'd never figure out that the characters were dragons. I makes me kind of sad think about this. But oh my gosh, I own the recipe! I can't believe this at all! Well, I can. But hey, I have to start looking now. Maybe tomorrow, when the house is finally clean.

June 9th.

I missed a day because I spend the whole time looking for the recipe. I guess I have Pale Golden Biscuit fever now, too,

I remember standing in the kitchen, bare and empty, appliances gone, along with the warm and cozy feeling I had whenever I made something with Nanni. The lime-green walls were lined with that weird white siding thing people put in bathrooms sometimes, and stopped by my chest. (Note to self: find out what that's called.)

There was a crack in the wall, right near where the stove had been, about head level, and I leaned against it, closing my eyes, like I was hugging Nanni. I know it sounds stupid and sentimental, but I creied and clung to the wall for hours. I remembered that crack. It looked the outline of a dragon, and I had doodled a princess riding it when I was little. Nanni called me her little artist.

So, yeah. My afternoon was crying on a wall.

Being a teenager is harder than it looks, even though I'm only thirteen.

I found a sticky note stuck to the wall of the room I used to sleep in, though, behind the dresser.

Stay strong Ginny. Go to the place where the pink petals fall above my bed.

I don't know what that means.

But I think...

I might know.

June 10th.

Went to the graveyard where Nanni's grave was today.

Right by her grave was a pink magnolia, the petals falling slowly onto the newly-turned earth. Tears came to my eyes. I was crying all over again.

I looked to the tree. It was small, only about ten feet, with a. five foot canopy, but the trunk was twisted to the side in a way that would make it easy to sit on. I did so, looking out over the smooth, gray headstones. (I think I'm becoming a better writer!)

Then I saw the knot in the trunk.

It was hollow, the kind of place that looked like it could be a fairies bedrooms dn right by my left hand. I was only three feet off the ground, but I felt nervous reaching towards it.

I stuck my hand in and pulled out a jam jar, with rolled-up scraps of paper inside. I opened it and pulled out the largest one.

Dear Ginny,

Congratulations! As my most responsible (and, don't tell the others, favorite) granddaughter, you have earned the biscuit recipe. Here it is:

And there was the recipe.

At the end, it said:

I love you. I'm watching over you.

How did you think the sticky note got there?

Status: freaked out.

I pulled the other papers out. They were dollar bills. Enough for me to go to the Julius Amsterdam School of Literature!

My dreams were fulfilled.

And I had found the recipe.

June 22nd.

Today I baked biscuits with Nanni's recipe. They taste like a summer sunrise. Wow, life is good.