I stood up. My knees ached from the log, a completely mundane physical fact that I was grateful for. "What happened to the three who refused and survived?" I asked.
"Because the list says they died but you said there might be another way."
Oren looked at me.
"There were three who refused," he said slowly.
"Two died immediately. One didn't." He paused.
"That one was your grandmother. On your father's side. A woman named Sera Greymoor. She refused it in 1961, and she did not die, and she spent the next thirty years trying to understand why before she passed of old age at eighty-three." I stared at him.
"She survived it," I said.
"She survived it."
"How."
Oren reached into his coat and produced a small book. Worn leather, the kind that had been handled daily for decades. He held it o
