Loss filled with gain
The drive was long and uneventful. Well, besides a homeless man who tried to get me to pay him to squeegee my car’s windows. Homeless people aside the trip consisted of me driving several hours to get to a house I hadn’t seen more than a few times in my life. My great-aunt Margaret had been eccentric to say the least, she lived alone in a big old house in the middle of the woods on the edge of town. Though she was a black sheep she always made it to the family reunions and once even hosted one, or so I’m told. She had held it long before I was born. Whenever I saw her at reunions she would be sitting in a chair in the corner of a dark room in the corner of the house. The first couple years I had just ignored her, but after a while I became interested in this quiet woman, curiosity outweighed the part of my brain that wanted to ignore her. I sat down next to her at my third reunion and just said nothing for the first ten minutes.
She didn’t say anything, she just wrote in a small notebook and read a book. She always had a book. After about half an hour I finally spoke, “um, what are you reading?” She looked up at me with a tight-lipped mouth, the wrinkles on her face brought out more by her pursed lips, “a book.” Her voice was old like stone, it was the voice of a librarian who had just always been there, just unseen and unspeaking.
“What’s it about?”
She sighed and closed the book, “you’re Paul and Sarah’s kid, aren’t you?”
“Uh yes?”
“Then why don’t you run off to your parents and leave an old woman to her solitude?”
My eleven-year-old-self thought for a moment before replying, “because you seem lonelier than them.”
She didn’t speak she just sat there in thought. When she replied it was with a hint of sadness in her tone, “a book about fantasy.”
“Like dragons?”
She let out a laugh, it was an odd ancient sound that just didn’t sound right coming from her lips and she ended it with a small coughing fit, “yes, like dragons and griffins.”
“What’s a griffin?”
It was a simple question, she looked down at me searching for the smallest hint of sarcasm, of insincerity. Apparently finding none she flipped through the book until she came to a page bearing the image of the fearsome creature, “the griffin is a creature with a body that appears to be a mix of a lion and an eagle. It has fur and claws, but it also has feathers and a beak.”
I looked at the picture in awe, the words on the page were written in a wavy cursive script, but I was too enamored in the picture to read them. My eyes were focused solely on the picture of this odd-looking creature, I reached out a hand towards the book, but the book was pulled back quickly, “no touching!” I jerked my hand back suddenly shocked. She appeared to have seen my confusion and looked down at the book, “you mustn’t touch it, it’s far to old to be touched by untrained hands.”
I furrowed my brow, “well why don’t you teach me then?”
She seemed surprised for a moment before a toothy smile crept across her face, “perhaps I will. Do you read often?”
“Yeah! All the time!”
“Then perhaps you will do. Tell me, do you ever read fantasy stories about dragons or monsters?”
“They’re my favorite, dragons are super cool!”
She laughed again, “yes, yes they are. I think perhaps you’ll do quite nice.”
She pushed herself up and walked out of the room I thought about following her for a moment before noticing the book sitting in her chair. I looked at the doorway, she wasn’t there. I reached out for the book before stopping myself, I shouldn’t. She had said not too. I pulled my hand away and looked up as she came back into the room. She looked down at the book and ran her hand over the cover, “restraint over curiosity. Interesting… I spoke with your parents, they agreed to let you come stay with me this summer. Would you still like to learn how to treat a book right and more?”
I sat surprised for a moment before the giddiness took over, “yeah!”
The memory was pleasant. She had indeed taught me much on how to treat books, how to bind them, and how to handle an old book. She had plenty of ancient leather-bound tomes that talked about creatures that I had never even dreamed of. She had been a nice woman under it all. Had been. I frowned at the thought. A stroke. It was such an… uneventful death. Boring, she didn’t die in a blaze trying to save her books. No, she had a stroke and died in her sleep. Peaceful I’d heard. She was such a nice woman, but it seemed odd for her to have such a normal death.
I pulled my car up to her house to see more cars parked nearby and a crowd of about two dozen gathered on and around the front porch of the ancient New England nineteenth-century house. I parked and walked up to a man standing on the porch holding an envelope. He was a tall well-dressed man of about sixty who was trying to assure everyone, “yes I know, I’m sorry but Ms. Aegis made it clear she wanted her will reading outside her house. I’m sorry I know it’s an inconvenience, but these were her wishes. Now if you would be so kind as to quiet down, I will begin the reading.”
The crowd gradually got silent and I walked up behind one of my cousins, Bryan, I had never gotten along well with him, but he nodded at me in acknowledgement before looking back at my great-aunt’s lawyer. The man adjusted his tie before opening the envelope and unfolded a piece of paper before clearing his throat and beginning, “I, Margaret Faust Aegis, being of sound mind and body hereby bequeath my last will and testament. In all my years on this earth I have known many people and as of this being written I have outlived many of them, but to those that remain I leave my possessions. To my great-nephew, Jacob, I leave my house, property, and all the possessions inside and out. I also leave all my monetary wealth, physical or otherwise to Jacob. I also leave my various intellectual properties, patents, or anything else I owned or created to Jacob.”
I felt four dozen eyes turn to look at me before one of my uncles pushed up onto the porch and grabbed the will before looking it over. The fight left him, and his hands dropped to his side, “it’s right.” The lawyer grabbed the paper back and stepped down off the porch before walking through the crowd and up to me, “here you are, call me if you need anything. My greatest condolences about Margaret, she was a terrific woman.” He handed me a ring of keys and a business card.
My family seemed shocked, all of them tried to talk to me and I just pushed past them and chose the key on the ring labelled front door, before unlocking the door and going in, shutting it behind me and locking it. Things were off to an interesting start.
The rest of the day was more uneventful. After my family finally got off the porch, I got to work going around the house looking at it. Should I move here, or should I sell it? I had no obligation; the will hadn’t said I had to stay here or even keep the house. I resolved to cleaning up some of the dust tat had piled in the last few hard years of Margaret’s life. Her house was filled with every bizarre collectable she had gotten her hands on in her life. An African fetish doll here, a Tibetan tapestry there, and even a few skulls from the Paris catacombs on a shelf. But it wasn’t those things that interested me. Ok, I’ll admit the skulls were cool, but what had always drawn my interest were the relics.
Ancient pieces of Mayan knives sat in cushioned cases next to Greek vases in identical cases, death masks, parchment, and ancient texts sat in the dimly lit cases waiting for the chance to show off their secrets. I fiddled with he keys in my hand and sighed, there was no time to get nostalgic, work had to be done. I counted the keys on the rings, there were seven, most of them were labelled to parts of the house, but two weren’t, an elaborately fine key, and a plain iron one that looked like it opened a castle door or a dungeon cell rather than a door in a house.
There was only one room that this key could belong to. I entered the library and walked towards the heavy reinforced door placed in the opposite wall, it was the only room in the house I’d never been allowed into. My great-aunt’s private collection. I had asked her more than once about the room and she had only ever told me that there were some items in the room, that only she’d ever see.
I pushed the iron key into the door and turned it, the tumblers catching and clicking as the lock was disabled. I put a hand on the handle ant turned it before pulling open the door. The door revealed a dark room, I could barely see the floor in front of me as I felt for a light switch and flicked it on. The lights came on revealing a beautiful room decorated with cases, pedestals, and shelve filled with artifacts, relics, and pieces of art. A plush chair was set against the back wall, the only real piece of furniture in the windowless room.
I paced by the cases, before noticing a peculiar sculpture that caught my interest. It was of a jet black unicorn with wings wearing in an elaborate set of silver armor holding up the moon, set in the middle of the moon was a beautiful dark uncut, blue crystal. A plaque labelled the statue as, “Nightmare Moon, the third terror of Equestria.” I reached out and with a bit of manipulation easily pulled the stone from the disk-like moon, examining it. It was beautiful, the light shone through it, illuminating dark veins inside it.
A loud ringing interrupted my thoughts, the doorbell was going off. I slipped the rock into my pocket before shutting the door to the room and walking to the front door and opening it. An older woman with fiery red hair and pale skin in a pantsuit stood on the front porch holding a briefcase. I blinked and opened the door wider, “can I help you ma’am?”
The woman smiled at me showing a row of bright white teeth as she stuck out a hand, “hi I’m Mary with the local historical society and a member of the town council.”
I shook her hand with a no doubt confused look on my face, “uh ok… How can I help you Mary?”
“Well, you’re Mr. Vail correct? I’ve come because I heard about the unfortunate departure of Ms. Aegis… my deepest condolences of course.”
I nodded, “thank you, but that doesn’t really answer the question does it?”
Her smile only seemed to grow, “right you are sir. I would like to present you with the society’s offer regarding the house. You see, Ms. Aegis’ house is of great historical importance, not to mention her vast collection and we at the historical society would like to see the house protected and perhaps even turned into a museum… thus we would like to offer to buy the house and all the contents within.”
I frowned and blinked, “you want to buy the house? I’m not sure I’m going to sell actually.”
“That’s no problem at all, the society has already composed an offer for you.”
She opened her briefcase and pulled out a manilla envelope with a few papers inside. “You see Mr. Vail the society is quite ready to buy at this very moment. You can sign right now and well even set you up in a hotel for a few days until the transaction is finalized.” I could hear it in her words even if I couldn’t see it on her face, she wanted this house. I looked down at the contract and scanned it. It said that I agreed to sell the house, everything inside, and anything on the property for a sum of… my eyes went wide as I saw the number.
Mary only smiled back at my wide eyes, “as you can see Mr. Vain, we have considered not only the value of the property, but of the collection included inside. The society, in my opinion, was a bit generous in their offer.”
I bit my lip, “can I have some time to think it over?”
“Of course! Take my card and when you decide to sell just give me a call.”
She handed me a business card with her name, number, and email on it. I just stuffed it into my pocket next to the stone I’d pulled from the lunar statue and gave her a half-hearted smile, “thanks. I’ll make sure to call you when I decide.” I shut the door before she could try and spin more silver thread with her tongue. I hated the whole used car salesman vibe she had given off, I was no idiot.
Though the offer was tempting… millions… for an old house and a dusty collection. What did I honestly have to lose by selling? Yes, it had been my great-aunts house, but she was gone and it’s not like I was planning to become a collector… but still… I had a nagging feeling that I shouldn’t sell. My hand drifted down to the stone in my pocket and I absentmindedly rubbed my thumb across it.
Decisions… decisions…
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Not bad, so far. It's only the first chapter, but you've already piqued my curiosity; I'm always a fan of Luna and Nightmare Moon stories. A couple of spelling errors here and there, but it doesn't lessen my enjoyment. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to the rest of the story.
You've caught my interest...
What does that mean?
I don’t know what any of those are. Also, those don’t count as relics?
10514117
im glad to hear that your interested, as for those errors, id be happy to fix them if you point them out. I hope you enjoy further!
Interesting start. Enough so to earn a track but not enough content to earn anything else.
10515241
well, I'm glad you like it. Even if it only gets a track that still means a lot, so thanks!
I'm rather liking this. Well put together, flows well, realistic characterization, good grammar- nicely done. The dialogue with the elderly woman feels a bit stiff, but overall, the effort' s definitely there. There's a glimmer of potential here, and I'd like to see where it goes.
10515365
I'm very happy to see that you enjoyed so thoroughly. My main goal with this story wasn't to write something i'd like to see, but rather something that others would enjoy. If you have any suggestions feel free!
This sounds fun
Nice work! Luna's my favorite too!
Their interactions are so very cute, you got my attention, dear. :3
Earth. Places are usually written with an uppercase. I dunno if it has something to do with names or whatnot, I'd have to look it up again. It's been a while when that was brought up in my English class. >.>
Seems to me like he doesn't have that great a relationship with his family. I could be wrong, though. I wonder what the story is behind that.
Also: labeled. Only one l in the middle there. I'm not going to be nitpicky with you, lest I start being annoying. You do have a good grasp of the English language, so I'm not too worried about that. :)
I'm getting some Lara Croft vibes from her tastes, would be kinda neat if she was secretly a tomb raider. xD
Ah... the vultures already arrive. I'm curious, they already sent a representative as soon as he inherited the house, they surely can't be the bad guys. Right? *winks conspiratorially*
I'm going to keep an eye on this story, it has potential. Don't disappoint me, dear! ;)