The Bookkeeper's Daughter

Gold was such a funny element. It was precious, coveted, a symbol of status and power. People fought over it, died for it, killed for it. Some people lived for it. No greater gift could be given or taken away. It was cool at first touch yet warmed quickly on the skin. For many it could mean the start of a new life. Tonight, it marked the end of mine.

Today was the first of April, the day marked for the annual Spring Festival. It was the greatest event in the North. Twelve tribes, spread out across the land that was once called Canada, would gather into one place. The host for the festival changed every year. This year it was the Kelowna’s turn to host the other tribes. Father was grateful that we wouldn’t have to travel. His health was declining and spending hours in a wagon would have been the end of him. There would be no question in his having to attend. He played a vital role in the Festival, in our culture.

Father was the Bookkeeper. It might not sound like the most important job in the world, but it was vital to our survival. Chiefs, Medicine Men, Law Makers- they could all be replaced. The Bookkeeper could only be succeeded by one. It was a role one had to be trained for from birth, and the successor had to be a direct descendant of the Original. I had been training my entire life to fill my father’s shoes when he passed, which could be very soon.

The Bookkeeper was special, irreplaceable, even revered. He or she was the guardian of a sacred store of knowledge: a giant library that contained the records of our past and taught us how to safeguard our future. Rows upon rows of books lined the shelved walls. Books on every subject from philosophy to fairy tales. As a child I spent hours in the library, curled up on the leather chair. I loved how words written on a piece of paper a thousand years ago could transport me to another time, another place. I could be whoever I wanted to be- the princess in the tower, the dragon guarding treasures and secrets, or the prince on a noble quest. I could be a secret agent on a mission to save my country, a cowboy beginning a new life in the west, or an English lady whose sole purpose was to marry well. In that library I lived a thousand lives, died a thousand deaths, fell in love each morning and back out of it by lunchtime. I experienced great sorrow and even greater joy.

When I was older, the library became my classroom. Father taught me math, science, philosophy, physics, medicine. I learned about giant machines called airplanes that could carry a hundred people into the sky and transport them across the world. There were trains, miracles of engineering that transported thousands of tons of materials. They could transport people, too. There were buildings that reached the clouds, boats that could dive deep into the ocean, and hand-held devices that allowed two people on opposite sides of the globe to have a conversation.

All this knowledge used to be stored in one great database called the Internet. Technology made the internet available to everyone. It didn’t discriminate. It could be used for great good and even greater evil. Father taught me that this was the very thing that had nearly brought us to extinction.

“Knowledge left unchecked kills more than any weapon ever could. That is the most important lesson you will ever learn, Lily.”

It was such unchecked knowledge that allowed men to form groups of terror, their sole purpose in life to destroy as many people as they could. Knowledge led these men to build weapons of mass destruction. Nations stole designs for weapons and combined them to create bombs and missiles. For hundreds of years all the human race ever did was fight. They fought over materials and wealth, surely, but the greatest source of conflict was information.

The wrong information fell into the hands of one belligerent nation in particular. They used it to construct a bomb to end all wars and set it off in the planet’s core. No words written on paper could describe the devastation that followed. That’s what my father always told me. It was a phrase that had been passed down by my great-great-great-grandfather, the Original, who had witnessed the events firsthand.

I always wished I could share my books with my friends. I yearned for them to be able to feel the raw emotions that could only come through reading. I wanted them to know the things I knew. I wanted them to join me on my fairy tale adventures, to help me build a model of an airplane, and to dream of driving something so fast as a car. It was strictly forbidden. Only the Bookkeeper and his heir ever learned to read and write. Everyone else learned a trade. Their knowledge was limited and passed only through word of mouth.

Oh, how I used to pity them. Now I envied them. Knowledge was such a heavy burden to bear. How I longed to be innocent and carefree like the other members of my tribe. There was a beauty to ignorance that I never truly appreciated until I grew into adulthood. No one else knew what they were missing, while I was guardian to a store of knowledge that taught me of a world I would never get to see. The only other person to share my burden was my father, and he would soon be gone. It was a rather lonely existence.

I let out a heavy sigh. My thoughts often led me to the same depressing place if I allowed myself to think long enough. A book sat open in my lap. I looked at it with unseeing eyes, the words nothing more than blurry black lines on the cream-colored paper. My hands found their way to the locket at my throat. It was all I had left of my mother, her most prized possession. Heaven only knows how she came by such a precious piece of jewelry. I studied the tiny gold heart. It was a simple shape, lacking in embellishment, dangling from a delicate golden chain. Still, it was beautiful in its simplicity. A small clasp on the side allowed it to unfold into two separate pieces, linked together by a single hinge. The inside was blank aside from a scratch near the hinge. Other than the scratch it was perfect. Like my mother had been.

Normally the tiny imperfection didn’t bother me much. The fact that my otherwise perfect locket was marred by a simple scratch could be annoying, but it was easy to brush off. There was something about it, though. I squinted at it, commanding my eyes to see better in the firelight. It was such an odd scratch in such an odd place. It was almost shaped like a “v” except one side was much longer than the other and the two lines met at an almost ninety degree angle. If I rotated the locket so that the longer line was on top…

The answer came to me like a slap in the face. An ‘L’. It was an ‘L’. For me, Lily. I brushed my finger over the tiny letter. What other secrets did this locket hold? The nail of my pointer finger caught on the hinge. As I pulled it back, the hinge gave way. I gasped out loud. It was a secret compartment! What had Mother left for me?

Heart pounding with excitement, I opened the locket further until it became three hearts. Now I wished I hadn’t. I should have thrown the locket away long ago. No, I should have never learned to read. If I hadn’t been able to read, I wouldn’t have been able to understand the message so clearly intended for me. What had Mother been thinking? Why entrust me with such a task?

Father entered the library, frowning down at me. He was already dressed for the Festival. “Are you alright, Lily?”

No, I wasn’t. I was far from alright. Words failed so I simply shook my head.

“No need to be nervous, my dear. I will do the Re-telling this year. Come now. It is time to start the fire.”

Fire.

My eyes found the fireplace, sparking ominously as it consumed the stack of logs. It was time to start the fire. Mother had made that abundantly clear. Didn’t she know? Didn’t she realize? Father’s heart could not take another heartbreak. But if I didn’t do it now it would never be done. It had to be now.

I stood, the flames drawing me toward them. It was time to start the fire.

Fire wasn’t always bad. After the devastation came rebirth.

“Okay, Father. Let’s start the fire.”

Gold was such a funny element.

Knowledge was such a heavy burden.