Page 4 of Blossoms of the Heart
“What else do I have?” I lifted my shoulders into a shrug.
“Heaps, you’ve just had a bad spell.”
Bad spell. I wish it could just be that. a bad spell. The last few years had been awful. Truly awful.
My divorce had been finalized two years ago but I was still working out the kinks.
Jason was a very powerful man with all manner of influences which he used to his every advantage.
God, he was even on the board of governors at the institute. So when there were any functions or anything like that, he was always there.
There like a fucking reoccurring nightmare.
“Where to now, boss?” I smiled.
He chuckled. “Japan. Akito needs you.”
I straightened up immediately.
Akito Maderame was an archaeologist too. Dad’s best friend who lived in Japan. They’d met at Yale when they were studying.
Akito had been in our lives from as far back as I could remember and from as far back as I could remember, we’d always spent our summers in Japan.
Things changed when I went to college and I found I couldn’t keep up the yearly tradition, but I was there as often as I could be.
Akito’s daughter Mitsuke was my best friend, more like a sister to me than Emma. We saw each other every chance we got.
I hadn’t been to Japan in two years. Not since the divorce. I’d seen both of them many times but Japan too was like family to me.
My second home.
“He needs me in Japan?” God, for the first time in a long time, hope sparked in my heart.
Interest rippled through me when Dad nodded.
Akito was the director at the Institute of Cultural Heritage. He also ran a research center alongside it, which took on the tasks of funding all the cultural preservation projects, digs, and other excursions.
This could be good for me.
Dad smiled. “Two weeks ago, Akito’s team were called to Akiyoshido Cave to
investigate after an earthquake. One of the tour guides found a tunnel that led deeper underground. They found the skeleton of a samurai, along with his sword.”
Now this was the stuff dreams were made of. At least for a few minutes I could forget my problems.
“Wow.”
“There was also a journal with him written in multiple dead languages.” He smiled wide, knowing that would catch my interest all the more.
This had my name written all over it.
I could read anything from Latin, Sanskrit, and Hebrew, to ancient Chinese by village location and clan. When last I checked, I counted my specialty to include over a hundred dead languages, and I could piece together some of the others.
“Dad, this is big.”
“It’s massive. The emperor wants Akito to arrange an exhibition at the museum during the Obon festival, to honor the fallen Samurai.”
“The emperor.”
