Lucid Waking

Archive for the ‘Realistic Fiction’ Category

Ghost of the Past (Part 4)

If you haven’t read the story thus far, please do so before reading this.

Later, he would apologize to Rachel and explain what he did and why. She managed to forgive him after a long time, but I still haven’t found it within myself to completely let go. I think about it from time to time: the choices he said he had to make, the compelling persuasion of survival, the rebelliousness of youth. No, I could never understand the horrors that took place in Auschwitz, but who’s to say that in the right circumstances I wouldn’t make the same choices he did. It’s a thought that occasionally haunts me to this day and a question I could never answer.

Author’s comments on post 412: The end! This is a really short segment, so I might publish something later today. If not, come back tomorrow and I’ll have something.

Ghost of the Past (Part 3)

Please read the story thus far (if you haven’t already), before continuing.

        Telling someone that you found out they were a murderer is harder than you might think. I knew I was in no danger, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to my grandfather. It was only after finding my mother’s photograph while cleaning my room one Sunday that I found the guts to say something to him. My mother’s lifeless visage and the rose-colored memories they evoked finally brought me to my senses. I never saw my mother as a person because of perfection and I felt fearful dislike for my grandfather because he wasn’t perfect. The irony motivated me to leave my room and seek him out.
        I found him in the living room sweeping. A pile of dust and dirt sat next to the door and in front of the dustpan. He looked much different from the young man in the photograph and yet, as Rachel had said about her father in Auschwitz, the connection was there.
        “Opa,” I started, quietly.
        He turned around and smiled. “Ah, Christel. It’s good to see you back to your lovely self again.”
        He meant this as a compliment, but it only made me feel slightly guilty.
        “Something’s been bothering me these last few weeks.”
        He sat down in a large plush armchair and I took the chair across from him. We sat in silence for a few moments before I found my voice again.
        “When I last cleaned the attic I found a trunk with…some of your old things. Opa, why didn’t you tell me you were in the SS?”
        My grandfather’s smile disappeared. “It’s not something I’m very proud of, Christel.”
        “You seemed pretty happy about it then.”
        My grandfather frowned, puzzled.
        “The photograph with you and the other officer in Auschwitz in front of all those—”
        “Maybe I was, at the time. It was an honor to fight for your country.”
        I shook my head. “But you didn’t fight for your country.”
        “Just because I wasn’t at the front lines—” He paused and took a deep breath. “I thought I was doing what was right. Now, before you get defensive, I never wanted that part of me to see the light of day again. I wasn’t happy with what I did by the time the camps were liberated and I did grow to love Rachel and her family, despite my secrets. I thought by letting you and Rachel be friends that it would make up for what I did in the past.
        “I know,” he continued, cutting off my next interjection, “that nothing I do will make up for the atrocities I helped commit. But in the beginning I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. You’ll never understand what it was like. I joined the Hitler Youth and then when I got old enough, the SS. I did it because I had faith that it was the right thing to do. I couldn’t stand the Germany I grew up in. We were on top of the world before The Great War and afterward, the scum of the Earth. We watched the West take revenge on us for nothing and we watched as our friends, family, and neighbors fall to abject poverty. There was never enough money and the government did nothing about it. At least, not until Hitler came along. Hitler brought us out of the hole into which we had sunk. He gave us answers to all the questions of why. He gave us hope and gave us something to be proud of. I wanted to help my country.
        “Even though I was obligated to join the Hitler Youth, it didn’t feel like an obligation. At first, it was just about leaving home for a while. School was never particularly enjoyable and home was even worse. The Hitler Youth gave me the freedom and the fun that I wanted—that I needed. I had good friends join with me and I made more while I was there. We all loved Germany and Hitler and we loved being part of the Youth and SS guard. For once, I had a direction in life. Surely, you understand the feeling of being lost in the vastness of your future. I had found my way out of the frightening unknown. Someday, you will know what that feels like.
        “Once I was assigned to Auschwitz, however, I began questioning my devotion. You cannot imagine the things that I saw each day, the things I was asked to do. It quickly became a matter of survival; I followed orders because if I didn’t, I would be labeled a traitor and put in the camps. I knew more than the prisoners about what went on in the camps. Call me a coward, if you want, but you have never had to live where there was nothing but survival. That feeling where free will seems only a figment of your imagination because the alternative is worse than your current predicament. I lived for each day, hoping that I would get reassigned. But I never was.
        “When the camps were finally liberated I couldn’t get rid of my uniform fast enough. I burned all the photographs that I owned and only kept my uniform out of fear that Germany would accuse me of deserting the army. Your grandmother kept all the letters and photographs in that trunk. I refused to look at what she put in there.
        “I’m not proud of what I did, Christel. Don’t think it doesn’t haunt me. Every day. But I have to move on with my life. I don’t expect you to understand. To understand is to experience and I would never wish that upon anyone. ”
        There were so many other questions going through my head, but for a while, none of them were able to voice themselves. He stood up slowly and resumed his sweeping while I continued to sit trying to organize my thoughts. I couldn’t and I had nothing to say. I stood up and left the room.

Author’s comments on post 411: I feel like I can do a little explaining at this point. This was done for a class about genocide, as I already mentioned. My final project was to research why people were driven to aid in genocide. The research was difficult because there was no reason as to "why" and I don’t think anyone will ever know. I did the best I could to justify the grandfather’s position based on my research. If you want to know my sources, I’d be happy to send them to you upon request.

I also want to mention that I do not want to justify genocide in general or the Holocaust, specifically. I feel that the whole situation is very complicated and worth studying, but I do not want my words to be used as some sort of fuel for an argument when taken superficially. Thank you.

Ghost of the Past (Part 2c)

Please read the story thus far (if you haven’t already) before continuing.

        If I knew Rachel’s mom, she didn’t take that as much of an answer, but she didn’t press us with the rest of the family waiting for our arrival. My grandparents gave us a bit of a puzzled look when we arrived to the table, but Rachel’s father started with the service before they could ask us any questions.
        The Seder went exactly like it was supposed to even through dinner. My grandparents were sitting on the other end of the table so it was easy to avoid them and I noticed Rachel being very careful to avoid contact with my grandfather. I only caught my grandfather’s eyes once and even though he smiled at me, still oblivious, I felt just as sick and fearful, especially of the possibility that I might have to confront him in front of Rachel’s entire family, some who had gone through Auschwitz and would not react nearly as quietly as Rachel had. I felt like what I knew was completely transparent and also that there was a possibility Rachel might let slip what she knew. It felt like I was stranded on thin ice.
        After dinner, while the adults continued to talk in the living room, Rachel pulled me aside and back into her room.
        “I think you should tell him what you found,” she said. “He needs to know what’s bothering you.”
        “What about your family?”
        “Well, you won’t tell him here, silly. My family shouldn’t know. They don’t need those horrible memories coming back and they don’t need a living reminder of the horrors they experienced. I’ll eventually forgive but you need to reconcile with him. At least I have an excuse to be mad after what he helped do with my family. You just have a horrible feeling on principal.”
        “Rach, it wasn’t right and even though he’s my dad, I can’t forgive him for killing people.”
        “If you love him, he has a right to know what’s got you so mad. You should let him explain and then decide whether you’ll forgive him or not.”
        “What about you?”
        Rachel shrugged. “I don’t live with him. Besides, he can confront me one day if he wants. Otherwise, I’ll work it out on my own.”
        My grandmother arrived just then and told me they were planning on leaving. I gave Rachel a final hug and she thanked my grandmother for coming. She stayed in her room while we left, probably to avoid my grandfather, while I left with my grandparents.

Author’s comments on post 410: End of part 2. The beginning of part 3 will start tomorrow. Hopefully this isn’t too heavy for some people, but if it is, there is just two more parts to the story, so in two days, you can come back for something different and skip the rest of this story all together. I’m sorry it’s not very happy, but not everything in life is and stories are more interesting with conflict, anyway.

Ghost of the Past (Part 2b)

Please read the story thus far (if you haven’t already) before continuing. 

       We arrived at Rachel’s house early and I followed my grandparents at a short distance while they walked up the steps and rang the doorbell. The interior was strangely warm and friendly compared to my mood. Her family was already bustling around the house, most of them trying to get into the kitchen to help her mother. Her father was in a heated discussion in the living room about baseball with her uncle and some cousins. Rachel herself managed to escape the kitchen and skipped over to me when we arrived. My grandparents, used to us going off when we arrived, were not bothered when the two of us set off for her room. I, for one, wanted to get away from my grandfather as soon as I could. For the moment, being with Rachel was a welcome diversion.
        But it wasn’t long before I felt like leaving her, too. The cold fear came back when I realized that Rachel’s last name was Scheinburg. My next thought was whether I looked transparently afraid of what I knew. I tried to talk myself down. There were probably hundreds of Scheinbergs living in Germany and it felt like an odd coincidence that the person my grandfather vividly remembered from the camps would be related to my best friend. But the name sounded too familiar and I had a bad feeling that they were the same. The air felt frigid going into my lungs, but I tried to calm down by reminding myself of the probable facts.
        “Oh,” Rachel said plopping down on her bed with a fatigued sigh, “I love my relatives, but man, I’m glad to get away from them. That kitchen was crowded.”
        “Did you make anything for tonight?”
        “I always make the matzo balls and my mom actually let me make her kugel. We’ll see how it turns out,” she said with a wink.
        I mustered up a small smile.
        “What’s wrong?” Rachel asked.
        “Nothing,” I lied.
        “Yeah, right,” she said, snorting ever so slightly. “Come on, Chris. I can tell if something’s bothering you.”
        “I’m just tired.”
        “Well, all right. If you don’t want to talk about it.” Rachel lay down on her bed and stared at me, smiling. “Did you clean out the attic recently?”
        “Yeah.”
        “Did you find anything interesting? Any cool vintage clothes we could use as costumes?”
        I paused. “Do you have any connections with the Holocaust?”
        Rachel stiffened ever so slightly; anyone else who knew her less would have never caught it. She paused before saying, “Yeah, I had family who died. Why?”
        “Do you know who?”
        It was Rachel’s turn to pause. “My grandmother, my uncle and my aunt. Why are you asking me? What did you find in the attic?”
        Nausea filled me. I thought I was going to be sick. “Do you know your uncle’s serial number by any chance?”
        “What did you find in your attic, Christel?” she asked sitting up.
        “Nothing,” I said, the sickness getting stronger.
        “Like hell, it was nothing. What did you find about my family?”
        “A trunk. My grandfather had hidden away some papers and photographs from his youth.”
        Rachel looked at me critically. “I think you should just tell me. Get it out.”
        “I—I don’t want to find out that it really was…” I had to stop. The excuse weren’t working and she was right. I had to say it, even if it wasn’t to her. Even if it was just to the room in general; I had to get it out in the air.
        I took a deep breath. “I found a trunk with my grandfather’s old things from his time in the SS. He wrote several letters and I’ve been staying after school with Herr Andres to translate them. My grandfather mentioned a boy—Benjamin Scheinberg. I was just afraid…that he was…”
        Rachel remained silent. She was looking at the floor in front of her, perfectly still. Then she looked up at the ceiling and started walking around her room. The silence was much too heavy and I started crying. It was so simple a reaction that it felt like a rain after thunder and yet, I wanted to be able to stop and I couldn’t.
        I looked up briefly to see Rachel giving me a Kleenex, but her gaze was still past me. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet.
        “I had an uncle named Benjamin who died in Auschwitz but that doesn’t mean your grandfather knew him.”
        This statement didn’t bring any comfort to either of us. She sat back down on the bed and looked me in the eyes. Her eyes were red and glossy, but her stare was more intense than a bullet and it cut through me like paper. “Most of my family suffered in Auschwitz. My father worked in Auschwitz. He was thirteen when they were taken to the camp. He told me that was why he never had a Bar Mitzvah. That’s all I know about it, except that I shouldn’t ask anything else. I’ve read a lot, Chris. A lot about what life was like in the camps and I cannot connect my father to that place. And yet…the connection is there.” She stopped to grab a Kleenex for herself. “And now you’re telling me that the man who is practically a father to my best friend and who acted like the grandfather I never had growing up is responsible for the death of, not only my family, but hundreds, maybe thousands of other Jews? Other people, for God’s sake!”
        She let out a short half laugh smoldering with anger. “God damn.”
        Her mother called Rachel’s name sharply from the dining room making both of us slightly jump. Rachel looked at me a little panicked.
        “Do I look like I’ve been crying?” she asked.
        I had to laugh a bit at the sudden normality of the question. “A bit. How do I look?”
        “Awful,” she said, smiling. “Hopefully no one will ask any questions.” She paused at her bedroom door and turned to me. “I’m not mad at you, Chris. I know you’re pretty broken up about it, too. It’s just…really hard to take in. So…help me and I’ll help you, ok?”
        I reached out and hugged her hard. “Of course.”
        Rachel’s mom opened the door just as we were about to leave.
        “What is taking you so long?” she said, sharply. “We’re about to—Rachel, are you ok? Chris, what’s wrong?”
        “Nothing, mom,” Rachel said. “Let’s go.”

Author’s comments on post 409: A little more drama. Ok, a lot of drama. Here is the main problem of the story: forgiveness. You’ll see more later and whatnot.

Ghost of the Past (Part 2a)

Please read Part 1 (if you haven’t already) before continuing.

        A few weeks passed and my German was only slightly better than it had been before. But I was determined and I managed to translate most of the letters into English with the help of the German teacher at school. They told a narrative that I was too angry to identify with: my grandfather decided to leave his home, with the blessings of his parents, to become a soldier for Hitler’s army. He became an SS officer assigned to Auschwitz. I wasn’t too interested in any more details; his long praises of Hitler made me feel sicker and angrier and the nonchalant tone he adopted to talk about the camps was horrifying.
        I knew that most of my disgust was because of Rachel. She was Jewish and my best friend; we met in elementary school and had never been apart since. I went to church every Sunday and holiday mass, but some people thought I was just as Jewish as she because I knew when and what all the Jewish holidays were as we always celebrated with her family. It particularly hurt to imagine people like Rachel being tortured and killed like animals.
        The current letter I was translating, though, was different. It was a later letter to my grandmother describing one particular boy. My grandfather went to great lengths to find out the boy’s name; he claims he was obsessed with this child—no more than ten years old by my grandfather’s estimate. But, orders being orders, as my grandfather wrote, the boy was sent to the gas chamber with his younger sister and mother.
        “Christel, are you ready to go?” my grandmother called to me. “We’re going to be late if we don’t leave soon.”
        We were supposed to go to my Rachel’s house that evening for Passover. I had completely forgotten, I was so engrossed in the letters. I frantically gathered them and stuffed them under my bed. So far, no one had found them there.
        “I’m coming!”
        I picked up the translation, however and ran to stuff it into my desk before catching near the end of the letter that my grandfather had found out the boy’s name. I barely glanced at the page, afraid that my grandmother would come into the room to see what was taking me so long, before running out of the room and bounding down the stairs. My grandfather was already in the car outside while my grandmother gently escorted me to it.
        The ride felt longer than usual. Maybe it was my mind focusing on the letters I had just translated or maybe it was the tension of confrontation that I felt with my family. I tried to remember the boy’s name. Benjamin Scheinberg, that’s what it was. But something about it didn’t feel right, like it was familiar. The name fit together much too easily for comfort.
        “You’re awfully quiet, Chris. What’s wrong?” my grandfather asked from the driver’s seat. I couldn’t see his face and I was grateful.
        “Nothing.”
        I caught my grandmother glance at her husband with a worried look, but she stayed silent.
        “Did you get a lot of work done on your homework today?” he asked.
        “Some.”
        “What are you working on?”
        “I’ve got a couple of papers due. Some reading.”
        He glanced back at me in the rear view mirror. “Are you sure you’re ok?”
        “Yeah. Just tired.”
        He looked back at the road, though I could tell my grandmother did not buy that answer.
        “What papers do you have to do?” she asked.
        “Nothing much, Oma, just something for the Industrial Revolution and another one for English.”
        “What’s your English paper about?” she asked.
        “Nothing important.”
        The irritation in my voice was not intentional, but it was enough for her to stop asking questions. My grandfather opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it.

Author’s comments on post 408: Part 2 begins. I stopped here because this portion is the longest part of the story and I needed to split it up. More tomorrow.

Ghost of the Past (Part 1b)

Please read the story from the beginning, if you haven’t already.

        I knew the trunk was buried underneath boxes, I just wasn’t sure which ones. It wasn’t until I reached the bottom of the pile and opened up the rusted locks that I realized I had found the wrong one. I didn’t recognize it, either, which intrigued me even more. I found it odd that something I had never seen was the first one I opened; I would have thought a trunk I handled often would be in the front.
        The top layer was mostly papers strewn haphazardly and they had shifted to reveal a carefully folded tan uniform. I pulled it out, curious, and my heart skipped a small beat as the Swastika-decorated arm swung into my view. Surprise turned to anger; it didn’t belong in the house, the attic, to my grandparents or friends, and certainly not in my life.
        I folded the shirt up quickly and flung it into the trunk. The papers made a crackling sound underneath, reminding me of my initial task of organization, so I quickly swept up them to one pile. In my haste, however, I uncovered more and more documents until a black and white photograph came into view. Two men in uniform stood smiling and posing in front of a pile of chaotic large, long, white, floppy objects. Until I caught a distinct face of a short-haired woman near the bottom of the pile, I didn’t know they were humans. Suddenly, the limbs, hands, feet, and heads of thousands of corpses in the pile were so apparent I felt like I would be sick. They were so emaciated, it looked as if they had partially decomposed already and even worse was the tractor in the corner of the photograph shoveling more bodies into the pile.
        My gaze moved slowly to the two men.
        I didn’t recognize one; he looked like a healthy brown-haired, boisterous young man that in a different photograph I might have been attracted to. The other…the other man I recognized almost instantly. The photograph was not as clear as the other family portraits I had seen of my grandfather, but there was no denying that the second smiling man in the picture had to be him.
        I threw the papers down to the ground and ran towards the door, feeling everything in my stomach rise to the surface. It wasn’t until I reached the bottom of the stairs and stood panting in the middle of the hall on the second floor that I felt like I could breathe again. Thankfully, I was alone and for a few moments, I stood there staring at the family photographs on the adjacent wall as they stared disapprovingly back at me. Every single photograph looked like a murderer, looked Aryan, looked like me.
        “Christel, are you ok?” my grandmother called from downstairs. “I heard the attic door slam.”
        “I’m fine.”
        I went back up to the attic, seeing the room in a completely different way. It was no longer mysterious. It was frightening. I picked up the letters from where they fell after I threw them and gathered them into a pile once more. The trunk didn’t have much else in it besides the uniform and photo. There was one other photograph of my grandfather in his uniform, but there was nothing left in me to react. I turned to the letters, but I didn’t know German. I knew it was in my blood, but my grandparents never spoke the language. I felt angry at this and I resolved to learn it myself. I needed to know what secrets these words were hiding and I felt that there was nothing else that could be more shocking than the photograph. I closed the trunk and replaced the boxes on top of it, marking the place where I put it carefully in my head. Then I snuck the letters into my bedroom on the second floor before returning to the attic for a third time and resuming my reorganization of the new boxes.

Author’s comments on post 407: Yes, well. Hopefully this doesn’t freak too many people out, but if you haven’t figured it out by now, this story is not for children. Don’t worry, it doesn’t get worse, but it does get complicated.

Ghost of the Past (Part 1a)

        It started on a cold day sometime in April. It must have been a Sunday because I was told to spend the day cleaning the house, which usually only happened after church. I usually went up the attic at times like these, so that I could “clean” while spending most of the day searching through old trunks and looking at family heirlooms. You would think my grandmother would notice that I always reorganized the attic when she ordered cleaning days, but if she had, she never spoke up about it.
        I lived with my grandparents ever since my mother died when I was a baby. My father disappeared shortly after. He couldn’t handle raising a child alone, I suppose. All I know about my parents is the stories my grandparents told. Well, they would talk about my mother, anyway, their daughter, especially since any relative at a family gathering would say:
        “Look at you, all grown up! You look exactly like your mother. Especially your eyes.”
        But whenever I look at photographs of her, I never see myself. Yes, I see the same silver blond hair, the same blue eyes, but my face doesn’t look like hers. I’m not sure if its wisdom, love, or a sense of life’s hardship that shadows her face, but I can’t seem to find a likeness. Perhaps because she will always be to me a lifeless photograph with rose-colored memories and not very human at all. No one seemed to remember her mistakes or know her secrets and, to me, that’s what makes a person human. That’s what makes you able to love them—the chance to overlook their faults, even though you know they are there. To me, my mother is perfection and utterly cold.
        My father I have never seen, photograph or otherwise. I think I look for his photograph when I visit the attic just to find the other part of me. This potential for discovery is probably why I enjoy the attic so much. The space itself is not very inviting: dusty floorboards lie underneath dirty, peeling leather trunks and sagging cardboard boxes littered with insect corpses while spiders linger in the corner, their webs gently swaying in the drafts of my movement. There are two windows on either end of the house and a single, naked light bulb in the center of the ceiling. Every time I go into the attic I am both surprised by the amount of dust and mesmerized by the mystery of silent, static boxes.
        I noticed that there were a few other boxes thrown upstairs, most likely brought into the attic after my grandmother had finished packing them the last cleaning day and ordered my grandfather to bring them here. They were labeled in German, which I barely understood, and probably mislabeled as well, so I opened them and glanced at the old clothes and papers strewn inside. Somewhere in the attic was a trunk where I compiled all of my grandmother’s old clothes, so I set off to find it.

Author’s comments on post 406: I wrote this last year, actually, for a class studying genocide. I won’t say anymore so I don’t spoil the story, but I will be publishing this in parts for the next several days. I also won’t have a computer for a while, so after this story, I probably won’t have anything for a little while.

The Cake at the Fork

        Adam Berkley, 17 year old runaway, stopped at the fork in the road. But it wasn’t which path to choose that caught his eye, it was the smashed white cardboard box in the middle of the two paths that had his attention. He bent down, careful not to touch the orange mud with anything but his feet and poked it. It didn’t move.
        It was wrapped carefully in gold elastic, which probably formed a bow on the bottom as the single string was being pulled on the top to create an even cross. He gingerly flipped the box over so that the bow was on top and proceeded to untie the knot.
        Inside was a very smashed cake. If it was decorated in any special way, it was impossible to tell that now. All of the top frosting and most of the top layer of cake was stuck to the top of the box. The rest of the white frosting and cake were demolished. Both halves of the cake were crawling with ants and other insects, but Adam’s stomach growled at the smell of butter cream all the same.
        He wasn’t sure how long this cake had been sitting there, though he imagined it couldn’t have been long. Wagon ruts continued to the right path whereas the left diminished into grass worn by falling feet. Adam stood up and looked back down at the cake. He closed the box and noticed as he did so the insignia of the bakery downtown that specialized in wedding cakes. It was a small wedding cake, to be sure, but someone was going to be upset to find it missing. Just like someone would be upset at finding their 17 year old son missing. The thought sobered and sickened him. The sour memories came back but instead of feeling angry, he felt numb and a little guilty. His mother’s weathered face and teary eyes came back to him from that argument.
        He looked at the footpath and took a step forward. His stomach growled, but he refused to entertain the idea of eating the cake. The cake that someone would miss. He turned back along the main path and went back to town towards home.

Author’s comments on post 405: An interlude! Just a very short one and I am very happy with this one. It’s short, but I think the symbolism is pretty apparent and endless. Tomorrow I will start publishing a story I already wrote for a class but today, a little story I love. Thanks to http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/writingexercises/qt/feb2010writingprompt.htm for the prompt.

Secrets of the Blue House (10)

        The sight through the door made Nick froze. The tree in the fountain cast a silver glow stronger than moonlight, but with the same sentiment. The water no longer flowed and pooled in the basin at the tree’s roots. The boobrie was sitting among its branches while the satyr and nymph sat at the edge of the fountain with their feet resting in the water, both laughing quietly. The nymph was the first to notice him and her warm smile was inviting enough to get Nick to step forward and allow the door to shut behind him.
        “Come, join us,” she said, though her lips did not move. “Don’t worry, they can’t hear us,” she answered to Nick’s unspoken anxiety. Cautiously, but not wishing to be rude, he made his way to the fountain and then sat down on the edge, his feet still planted on the tile floor.
        “I’m sorry we had to wake you,” she continued, “but it was imperative that we talk.”
        “What do you mean, wake me?”
        “I sent our messenger to get you from upstairs.”
        As if on cue, the boobrie flew down from its perch and quickly landed into the pond, splashing a little water from its great wings onto Nick’s back. “That is my purpose; to retrieve those whom the castle wishes to speak to.”
        “The castle?” Nick wished he could sound more intelligent than he was, but nothing else seemed to form in his mind. The adrenaline of the dream had worn off enough that he was getting sleepier, but not enough for him to nod off entirely.
        The nymph smiled. “He means the house. The Blue House, of course, where you are currently a guest. I am the voice of the house, and my friend here,” she indicated the satyr, who waved, “is the voice of the grounds. We were just discussing what to tell you when you arrived.”
        “Look, I know this isn’t real and that I’m dreaming, but could you at least try to make sense?”
        The nymph smiled condescendingly. “Unfortunately, this is real. Magic is a lost art to humans, but it still resides in objects deeply connected to a bloodline. This house is just a copy of the Fontaine Château, but it is connected because of spirit—love to be exact—and thus, holds some of the same magical properties as the castle in France. But all of this is technical and has nothing to do with you, my dear boy.
        “We don’t have much time to talk, so I am going to try to be as brief as possible. I’m sure you are aware of your connection to the Fontaines in France, but there are a few old households in other places in Europe where pieces of the Great Water Spirit resided. Millions of years before humans, the gods lived on Earth and then the wizards. During the time of the wizards, the gods started losing their connection to this planet. When the humans—completely magic-less creatures who worships wizards and gods alike—finally came around, the Great Water Spirit decided to split herself and spread the pieces far and wide to random humans throughout the land. Eventually these humans built households and manors around these pieces and each family called themselves “The Fountains” because they were protectors of the water spirit.
        “Somehow the piece that remains in what is now Spain was lost, but the family line remained. You, as you can probably guess, are the product of a merge between two Fountain lines, which means that you have a greater connection to the magic of the house. It enables me to talk to you and it also enables you to use a bit of the magic from the house for yourself.
        “But I did not call you down here to give you a brief history lesson nor to teach you how to control magic, I wanted to warn you about your role in the story of this house. Mr. Fontaine, Sr. doesn’t know this, but anyone involved in the inheritance of this house is in danger. As one of the strongest links on the Fountain bloodline, we feel that you are the best one to own this house and will do all we can to aid in your welfare.”

Author’s comments on post 398: Part one of what I finished writing yesterday. This was a lot harder to write than I thought it would be, not because I didn’t know what was going to happen, but because I can’t seem to find enough motivation to sit down and finish it. The conversation will conclude tomorrow and then we’ll have a very interesting climax and "le fin." I started another story which I have a hunch will probably turn into a novel/novella, but I don’t really want to publish it until I have a good idea how long it might be. Also, I am working on something good to celebrate the 400th post on Friday. All in all, I’m super busy so I will go and finish what I need to do now and stop writing commentary

Secrets of the Blue House (9)

If you are starting here, please read the story thus far before continuing. Edits have been made to the story after the posts, so it might be a good idea to refresh yourself of the details.

        There was a tapping at the guest room window, even though it was nowhere near a balcony and on the second floor. Trying to ignore it, Nick continued surveying the closet where the guest set of clothes that Gervais had lent him were hanging. The tapping became more persistent, but when he finally looked towards the window, there was nothing there. After turning away again, the tapping continued, so Nick walked over to the window and opened it, sticking his head out and surveying the house and grounds.
        “You really shouldn’t do that,” a voice said behind him. He turned around and faced a rather horrifying bird, much like a heron but with feathers that seemed like spikes. Its eyes were dark and voluminous; they seemed to swallow the light and comfort from the room all the while masking emotion, although, Nick assumed, a bird could not hold such complicated emotions that could need masking.
        “You might fall,” it continued. “It would be so easy to push you.”
The bird flew right at him and though Nick never felt the impact of the great bird hitting him with incredible speed, he found himself falling. Panic gripped his limbs as the world started fading.
        Nick woke up with a gasp. His heart was beating loudly and the darkness suddenly seemed menacing. He propped himself on his elbow and tried to scan the room for any activity, lingering on the shadows longer as if they would become clearer the longer he looked. Suddenly there was a brush of wind across his bare arm, though the room did not seem particularly drafty. In the stillness afterwards, Nick could have sworn he heard feathers beat against the door, but there was no other movement to suggest a winged visitor and, after a quick glance, the window was closed. Nick moved quickly to the light switch but after finding nothing in the room, grabbed his clothes from where they were draped against the desk chair and dressed quickly. He shut off the light again and cautiously peered into the dark hallway, feeling foolish for expecting something that he logically knew should not be there. This time, though, he saw a shape go down the stairs. After the first initial bit of panic, he made his way as quietly as he could towards the staircase.
        The servants had left candles burning, for some reason, in the hall and it cast a meager, haunting glow to the bottom of the stairs. Nick couldn’t see anyone or anything at the base of them, though he did catch a thin line of silver light coming from under the door to the main hall. Just as Nick made up his mind that he had no reason to go and investigate, he found himself descending the steps towards the door and then gently and silently going through.

Author’s comments on post 397: Things are slowly picking up. What or who is behind the door? You shall have to wait and see.