Short Stories

The needle was made of old dry bone, and the thread was a thin strong silk. The fabric had a pattern already sewn into it with the same white silk, and the paper — the paper was thin dry leather, skin from some animal. Holly struggled not to think about what kind of animal it might have been.

On the parchment, a strange and scratchy handwriting surrounded bizarre symbols. It was writing of some kind, possibly a language…diagrams? Were these instructions? Holly looked at the sewed pattern on the fabric; it certainly appeared incomplete to her.

She studied the needle carefully and observed the spool for markings. She flipped the fabric over, checking the stitching from both sides. She gave the strange language only a cursory glance — she knew she wouldn’t be able to decipher it — and focused on the ornate symbols.

“I don’t suppose you offer hints?” Holly couldn’t help herself. The cooing weaver shifted, the rustle of robes in the dark louder than thunder.

A sister would need none.

Holly’s bed was small, rickety, and at least a hundred years old. It had belonged to her grandfather, after it had been given to him by his grandfather, along with the tiny cabin. It had been the only piece of furnature in the cabin for years. Holly’s great great grandfather had been the chronically outdoors type, unwilling to do anything inside that could be done just as well outside. He cooked his food, mended his clothes, polished his rifle and sharpened his tools all outdoors. He only slept inside, and even then only when it was too cold, wet, or dangerous to sleep outside.

Holly’s grandfather was nowhere near as outdoorsy, so he had improved the cabin with some modern renovations. A sink, a fireplace, a few cupboards and shelves. It was nice and cosy, the perfect place to get away from it all.

Damn my fingers, I never thought I’d write a journal like this. Not one for writing, me. Spent my life doing a bit of this and a bit of that, as they say. Never caught. Was always proud of that, nothing could ever get pinned on me. Now, here I am in the middle of the desert. Nothing but sand and wind. Going to die here, so might as well put down my life on paper. Some fool thing to do before the sun cooks me alive.

My name was Robert Chickering, though I never used it much. Always a different name, me. Took what I needed when I could from those who had too much, and kept what I had from those who wanted it. Traveled around a lot, from the Americas to Europe and even further east. Managed to always stay one step ahead of the law, got while the getting was good.

Fitzwilliam G. Hastings sat up. At first, he was relieved. The sudden pain in his chest had lessened considerably. In fact, it was gone. Whatever it was, it had obviously passed, and he could get back to his usual Monday evening activity during Tax season, organising his stack of spreadsheets and ledgers that had been sent to him over the weekend by his panicked clients. It never failed. It didn’t matter how much money you had, or how familiar you were with it, everyone always put off working on their taxes until it was too late, and April 15th was staring them down, and desperation drove them to throw piles of paper at Fitzwilliam in the vein hope that he could make it all go away.

The rest of the day passed quickly, like a train speeding towards a broken rail. My heartbeat struck out the seconds like a countdown, echoing in my breastbone. I felt sick.

Some of my friends noticed, and gave me hugs between the last few classes. Lindsey found me in the parking lot after school, and offered to drive me home. I declined, and drove myself after getting another tender hug from her.

The walk up the driveway was the longest it had ever been.

I found the ring when I was sixteen.

It was buried deep in my grandmother’s things, in an old dusty chest in the closet. Everything in it belonged to my great grandmother, at least, that’s what my grandmother said.

I had spent the summer looking through old photographs and antique letters, curious about my past for the simple reason that I had no other part about myself with which to be curious.

Bally walked all the way through the castle to the other side. He had to turn around several times because the settling stonework had begun to sag into the doorways, jamming the solid wooden doors shut. It was becoming a process to work through the winding maze of hallways.

At last he reached a door to the outside walls. Clamering his way through the stonework, he slipped out of the castle and across the lumpy hills back to the cliff overlooking the sea. Was it a shorter walk than before? Had a large part of the cliff fallen away into the blood-dark waters? He didn’t know. He didn’t much care, either, come to that. He’d rather just sit back and watch as the Spot grew imperceptibly larger.

There was a crowd, or what counted as a crowd, these days. Almost thirty people.

They had tried their best. That fact alone made Bally more angry than anything else he had heard the entire evening. He watched as the small group of peasants sauntered their way up the hill towards the castle gates, waving their three torches and two pitchforks. A scythe was there too, which was a nice touch, but all in all, their heart wasn’t really in it.

Bally almost tripped over the mumbling monk. Teek had layed out on the stone hallway, his head ackwardly jammed against the wall as he muttered in his sleep. Bally let out a curse from his lips as he hopped over the recumbant penetant, catching himself expertly just as Teek snorted and coughed.

“Oh my,” he muttered as he opened his eyes. “Bally? Is that you?”

Climbing up the ragged ladder to the old sage’s tower was not easy. It was made easier, thankfully, by the sage having moved down several floors in his tower, after the top had blown off in a sudden and torrential wind. Now three floors sat open to the rain and winds, the sage’s laboratory protected only by a single trapdoor in the ceiling, where once the ladder continued beyond. It was a flimsy door, and it leaked fiercely in the rain, but it was the best the sage could manage.

“Good Sage Ranquin?” Bally called as he climed the rickety ladder, his hands and feet trembling as they tested every rung, ignoring the creaking and groaning of the wood. “Ranquin, are you there?”