Читать книгу The Mystical Swagman - Gary Blinco - Страница 10

Postscript to John Greenway’s Story

One year later John Greenway was tragically killed while loading a ship. The rope supporting a huge cargo net broke, releasing its load on top of him as he stood on the dock below. Greenway died instantly, taking the secret of the boy’s beginnings and the location of the journal with him to his eternity.

Greenway’s brother moved quickly to claim most of his assets, carefully creating a false last will and testament to replace the original document left in his care by his brother. This false will transferred most of the estate into his own name, and ignored the instructions regarding the disbursement of the tin box and the journal. In his haste to cover his transgressions, Arthur burned the true will and the instructions in the fire, and they were lost forever.

Ede was left with a small income and the cottage in the city as her only inheritance.

She was pleased enough, however, and took comfort in the presence of the small boy who was now about four years old and her only companion. Her husband had told her little of the child’s history, only that he had a secret and wonderful past, that he would inherit strange and mystical powers as he grew, and that these powers would begin to emerge when his age reached double figures. He did not tell her of the journal, and she was unclear over what she might share with the boy in the future.

The cheerful presence of the bright child and the love they shared eventually enabled her to overcome her grief at the loss of her husband. The comfortable cottage and the small income from her husband’s estate gave her confidence and hope as she watched the child grow. She would smile as she tucked Brennan into his little bed while he stared up at her with his bright blue eyes; then, settling down beside him, she would take up the storybook and begin to read to him. The boy would watch her wrinkled finger as she pointed while she read, following the words on the page until his eyes became heavy and at last he fell asleep.