It is the color of blood. Bright red. A petal blooming in the seep of light from the shutter's closed attic slats. It's been years since Louise discovered the book in her grandfather's dark retreat. Years since she could look at the world with the luminous glow of childhood and innocence, since she had turned the first crinkled page, ponytail scraping her cheek like a beloved hand, only to empty her screams into tightly woven fists.

The attic door is open. A breeze from the hall carries in the whoosh and scramble of her grandfather's respirator, the faint ping of the rattling humidifier. The sounds are grounded in reality, unlike the leather bound book, its cover shrouded in layers of dust. Louise lifts it from its attic grave. Its lightness is like the trip of air being forced into grandfather's collapsing lungs. Funny how the years had given the book a weight that didn't exist.

Grandfather's eyes open when she enters his room. The whites hold rivens of red, like jagged scribbles at the end of a needle on a lie detector machine.

She pulls up a chair and sits, laying the book gently on her lap.

Grandfather's eyes swerve downward like a drunk. They clear in an instant, almost crippling her resolve with their eloquence. His hand convulses on the bed sheet, stitching a pattern of fear, of discovery.

"I found it in the attic long ago," she says.

Grandfather is breathing hard, lungs expanding, swelling like a tightly blown balloon, contracting in a hurried rush. The respirator pumps, a ghastly sound.

"Pages and pages of notes, written in his hand." She opens the cover, lets the pages rifle slightly. "The one with Bright's disease, the other with five children, the widow found in her room mutilated beyond recognition. He's been a shadow, with me all these years, beside me when I walk down the street at night, in the grocery store as I check out, in my own bathroom when I shower. I can't forget him. The monster they called The Whitechapel murderer." Grandfather is motionless. The respirator gushes. "Grandpa, is it true?" Beads of sweat drip like a broken necklace from her brow. "I need to know, before you die and leave me with this legacy. Is it true?"

Unable to speak, Grandfather only nods. The room seems to collapse, walls faltering, the sun pouring in like hot needles through the window's glass panes. She'd already known the truth, of course, all these years, living with the shadow in her mind. He'd been there, crouching benevolently, the first time she'd made love at 15, heated and aroused in some boy's dank basement. He'd peered over her shoulder during her first incision as a resident surgeon at Stag County Hospital when she felt her heart freed somehow, the cage opening and releasing. He'd beckoned her from beneath the cross when she walked the aisle at St. Catherine's and married Tim Hoffman seven years ago, then buried him five years later under a blustery, winter sky. And now he is here again, at the deathbed of her grandfather, their blood lines twining with ruthless precision.

Grandfather reaches out, his hand hovering in mid-air. She draws back.

"I want you to know what this book has done for me," she says, and turns it to the first page. Grandfather's eyes widen, his hand falling. "At first I was devastated. Imagine, me a thirteen year old, discovering I was related to the most infamous murderer in history."

Grandfather tries to speak, lips opening and closing desperately over the tube.

"But after years of nightmares, I began to see the truth, the sheer brilliance of The Ripper's motives. It wasn't out of rage that he did what he did, grandfather, though history tries to make us think so. He was an intelligent man. A man who suffered for his beliefs." Her finger traces a passage in the book.

Grandfather's breathing accelerates, the wheezing a locked sound in the room.

"Let me read you what he says, and maybe you'd understand too:

'That I and the others can endure the carnage of life's lessons
reminds me of humanity's strength. We are creatures of survival.
We are hard grains to endure the bloody sands of time.' "

Louise sighs. "He freed those women from their lives of suffering. Through their deaths, he brought together a society torn apart by their narrow, selfish ways. Grandfather, our bloodline is one of strength, something to be proud of. The people of London were the monsters. Jack The Ripper made a city care again, humanized them in a way no other actions could've."

The pupils of grandfather's eyes roll away, sliding backward in his head. The room is filled with the terrible sound of dying. Louise lays a hand on his arm.

"There was a reason I was meant to discover this book, grandfather. We live in an age where we've become the very monsters The Ripper wanted to free us from. Our people stink of neglect: drug cartels, prostitution, guns in our schools, even the silence of one neighbor to the next. He would've wept at what we are today."

The old man's chest rises as if to pull him from the bed, his entire torso heaving upwards. Louise watches, blank-eyed, as breath is ripped from the body. The respirator stutters, slows.

Silence.

As the day wears on, the corpse begins to stiffen. The eyes remain open, fixed to the ceiling, forever contemplating the peeling paint, the hint of mildew collecting in tiny, black dots.

The sun is setting when Louise places the book reverently on the nightstand in her bedroom. On the floor by the bed is a black medical bag, a gift from her grandfather when she graduated med school. She checks the contents, satisfied that nothing is missing, then leaves the house.

The night is cool. She welcomes the stir of leaves in the trees, the chill in the air. Unlike her grandfather, she understands the meaning of her ancestral roots. She bears the burden of her legacy with pride. Darkness moves around her fading figure, swallows her. She is a creature of survival, made to endure the bloody sands of time.