Four parts, it's ridiculous that I needed four parts to write this story, but I made the promise to finish it, and in this post: I promise you it's finished. I'm sur this has turned out longer than a short story,mbut coming from a background where I write full-length novels, I find it excruciatingly difficult to write shorter, more condensed stories, since I find a lot of the ideas I come up with are much longer than just a few pages.
Still, I've enjoyed this story so far, and I hope you've had a good time reading it, I've found it a tasking short story, but I've got some new stories coming up within the next few weeks, and yes, they will be completed within one post. This was just an inspiration that went further than it was expected, and I've had mixed, but predominantly good feelings towards this story. Thank you for staying in this journey for so long, and without further stifling, I bring you the grand finale of The Harrowing Inheritence.
I'd like to add that further complications of a very personal matter has not allowed me the ability to get this story out earlier than now. I know life always throws curveballs, but there is no real excuse for such blatant lack of professionalism. I'm thankful for my readers, and expect a great deal more of worthwhile reads here at the Malacast Editorial!
Most of the family knows the gist of the story: Finder sets out to find his friend, Frog. He travels to the edges of the earth in a fan static trek along the edges of space, time, and reality, hoping to traverse the Harkness of what his world has to offer. Kings and Queens of conquered regions, monstrous beasts of the likes Finder had only read about in stories. He defeats menacing floods, mummified ancestors that attempt to reclaim life from his young, vibrant body. His harrowing tales are infamous throughout the bloodline, but most fail to discover the true ending of the tale. Family know the tale has multiple branches, but the story always ends the same, and Jacob found the last of his uncle's words most frightening: because he knew that Finder dies at the end of the tale.
"Finder's Frog is life." Resonated with Jacob, because he wasn't surprised that his own end could be coming soon, he was expecting it,and knew the haphazardous manor was not necessarily dilapidated by time and disregard, but because his uncle had purposefully made it so thwt the house would be buried along with the last true heir to the Harrowing fortune: himself.
Jscob knew the family was worth more than he could count in ten lifetimes, it was of a discriminating wealth that made the most smug of smug guffaw. If he was to die tonight, what better reason to lose it all? He wanted the money, but his Uncle Meeples had made it personal: so he would finish the game of Finder's Frog, and reinforce his dignity, which was questioned all-too-often.
The last confrontation was at bay, just several door lengths ahead, and Jacob approached the inevitable death trap with no fear, but with the arrogance of a true Hsrrowing. The door was as ridiculously gold as it was large, it was the Grand Library, full of books, of course, some older than the country itself. Yet it also housed so many of his uncle's most prized possessions: a lute from the mid 1300s, said to have been plucked on the deathbed of a plague victim. He had knives, guns, coins, collectible figurines from all over time and sod, some pieces of an astoroid dating back before the time of man.
His collections are as random as the man himself. Jacob had not had the luxury of being inside the massive room, and of course, he knowing the drama of his deceased relative, was not to be toppled by any imagination: the room would be a glorious violence of the sharpest claw, and wickedest fang.
"Now Finder had made it to the Swamp, knowing that Frog must be there! He was always certain that his dearest friend would be alive and well. Finder was a smart, WB,eit naive boy, but he knew that his plight would not be chasing phantoms!" The words echoed in his grandfather's recollection of the story. Jscob knew the ending, and the beginning, it was always the oration of middle of the estranged story that led most family members to lose interest in Finder's misunderstood journey. It was supposed to be the facsimile of the family's standing: elusive, strong, and powerful. Yet, it was also a quirky story that nobody understood, even Jacob was barely able to comprehend his grwndfather's stoic explanation, as he was the eldest of the family at the time, he was to pass down the story to myself, and the handful of cousins who could barely sit still and listen to his guttural words.
The antiseptic stench of the bleached Grand Library brought him back to the cherrywood, drenched in stain to make it pop and glow, as his grandfather's words escaped to the back of his mind. The Library's teak columns stood in grandiose fashion, drawing the eyes in nearer,mlike a fly thwt buzzed around one's nose. Jacob was always fascinated by the peeks he snuck at the opening and closing door into the elusive room. The busts of Eros repeated around the immense shelves built into the structure of the manor.
Rows upon rows of books were enough to blow out the heart of any bibliophile, and Jacob really head to avert his eyes to stay focused on the prize. He searched the grounds for trip wires, he looked around for any motion detectors, all-the-time observing a small shrubbery sitting on a stool in the center of the rotunda-shaped library.
He didn't even question the shrubbery centered on the stool; it all made sense, it was the last puzzle until he had time to reach his prize. The problem is: this is where Finder died in his family's story. The words that escaped him returned with a loud boom of his grandfather's deafening voice.
"Finder looked upon the vast flora, but all that he could draw power from came form an ample bush placed delicately in the middle of the swamplands. He didn't know what this plant was, not at first, because he was too excited to be but feet from Frog. He could hear him whimpering behind the weeping willows. The evil forces surrounding him. Frog had dumbfoundely want dared off and was grabbed in treachery from the evils on the outskirts of the world."
That evil was the phantoms of the lost children, the ones whose parents gave up searching, and relied on spirits and posturing in-hopes of having those younglings return. The irony is that thwt the same evil that swept the children away from the villages, was the same one that gave the spirits of the the children strength to grow and seek out revenge on any who dared to walk into the swamps.
The shrubbery was a representation of the natural tether of the Black a swamps which kept the children's souls lassoed to the Earth, it was also the very thing thwt killed Finder Jacob knew all-too-well thwt no plant on Earth could completely kill a full-grown man, let-alone a child with just a touch. A bad rash, absolutely, even a bad reaction, but not instantaneous death. Yet, Jacob knew his Uncle, and Jacob knew his family's amicable reputation for the absurd. He took wise not to avoid the plant, even if it was probably a plastic prop for a value store.
He moved forward, and bumped a table, which in-turn started up the scratchy sound that he so truly hoped to avoid:
"So ends your journey, young Jacob. I know you always had a soft spot for my collection, it was your earliest, and most forbidden peep show. A true chip off the old block, just like your mother. She was always intrigued by my desire to collect the obscure and macabre, and now I share with you every last thing I own."
Jacob's draw dropped, a querying look crossed the horizon of his face. What did he mean but 'every last thing'? Was thwt some figurative speech? Some mournful yawp to the last of his personal affects? Or was this truly all that stemmed from the great Harrowing fortune? Did Jacob risk life and limb for just a bunch of dusty old books, and a few gag items in the world's most obscene collection?!
"I'm sure you're puzzling over what I mean. Well, hear's the joke: the is not one authentic piece of the family fortune still in-tact. I spent thwt years ago. Yes, we were rich, bloody rich! Riches beyond all one could imagine, and it was all tied up in a debt of equal greatness. I paid it off, and was left with the few personal items I had left in my collection. The mummified cats you have had to destroy we're probably the last great expense in the home. Oh p, you could hock all the things I the library, even the doors, which are solid gold, not plated, and you'd barely get a fifth of the true Inheritence I've received. But, as promised,dear Jscob: you will be rewarded, and that is with being crowned an official Harrowing. You've proven to me, and the rest of our brethren that you are worthy of the name.
"Do you remember what happened to Finder, when he found Frog? Surely you do, it'd be impossible for you to have made it this far without knowing even the basic rumination of the family tale! Surely you know what comes next. Take your gift that I've bestowed upon you! Join your family in Hell, it's the best reward for such a dubious task! Forget about the material riches, theyre're long gone, and a Harrowing without a fortune is just another rambling nutcase without a padded room to fill! So touch the plant, find your own Frog, and I'll see you on the other side.
Jacob count believe it! He risked his like for mere pennies on what he was deserved! How could his insane uncle do such a. Thing? Then again, you can truly trust family that is willing to feed you to giant lizards, blow you up,more even drown you in a decrepit basement with awarding you a fortune.
"What the hell?! All this, and you basically tell me to go to Hell? Not while I'm this close you dead prick!" Jscob screamed on the top of his lungs, his diaphragm nearly bursting from strain. Then, as if the cording heard his cries and retorted, he heard his uncle's meaning voice pickup once again:
"A bit anticlimactic you say? Then you truly do not know the real value of Finder's Frog! I'm not hear to make you live happily ever after, boy! I'm hear to make sure you see a Harrowing, and deserving of the name. You have shown great talent, son! Now you will join us, and leave this world behind you! Look deeply into your soul, you are Finder! Like so many before, you were always Finder, and I am your Frog!"
"Finder heard Frog's echoing voice, begging him, pleading him not to touch the shrubbery that consisted of so many ghosts. The poison from their venomous souls covering the blades of the supernatural plant. The great evil was not some caricature entity now, but it was watching, omnipresent of this hero out to save his friend. Frog could only beg, but Finder knew that the sacrifice was what the task had built him up for, it was all a test to set his own soul amongst the crying children, lost without a guide to release them from their eternal misery.
"Finder relied on the powers of observation, pure old, gut-thumping inginuity, and he knew that this meant he had to do what felt right. Frog was his best friend, and he loved a frog dearly, so by touching thenpoison on the blade, he too succumbed to it's evil intent, and he joined the ranks of hundres of souls caught in the deepest, darkest roots. Frog was released, but Finder died,and Frog never forgave himself. frog died of guilt upon returning to the village, seeing Finder's mother weeping by the pool of the lagoon was enough to send him over the edge.
"Frog was a good man, but even the guilt of knowing his lapse of judgment and misfortune was what got his friend killed, was enough to make him commit the ultimate betrayl, and allowed him the mindset to lay damaging hands upon his own being. It was the ultimate sin,the most royal of taboos in the village. The moral abjection to what a Frog did was enough to send his corpse far off from the Villsge, and thwt is how the story of Finder and his friend a Frog, left the Earth the best of friends, despite so much hardship." His grandfather's words rolled around inside his skull, as the options seemed to be weighed in him to finish the game.
Jacob knew he was never the eccentric intellectual he was sought to be for the family. He was smart, and brave, but rather guile, and bashful, so he never realized just how much manipulation had come for within friendly walls. This was his inevitable downfall, and why; without even the least amour of hesitation, he walked over,mnot even with a sign, and touched the shrubbery.
Jacob felt the sharp twinge of the blades as microbes bit and booke his skin, releasing toxins into his body, along with the poison his uncle so dutifully laid on the outer exterior of the plastic shrub. He felt the instant tightening of his chest, blockage upon blockage filling him with a touch of grief, and a bit of relief, though it felt more like the worst pain imaginable.
"And so, my dearest Jacob, your story ends. Finder's Frog is not about redemption, or finding the lost love one had! It's a story for petulant children of a discriminating family forged on the backs of our nations' greatest era. Old Money such as we know there is no golden pot at the end of the rainbow, no happy ending, because we are alone in our inheritance, and we all die by the hands of fate, or by the cousin we played croquet with just a few summers back.
"Do not ear seeing our faces again in a hell, Jacob, because I had warned you throughout the nightthat your death would come. Now: find us in the abyss."
With a longing grimace of sorrow and his heart pumping like an old rusty well, Jwcob laid down in the floor, amongst the golden palace of knowledge kept so well-hidden by his uncle, and now within sight, he had fallen flat, like viewing the face of God. An explosion rocked the manor, as he. Fell deeper into the coming pit of despair, the house crumbling around him, the ultimate joke played on him, but in those last moments he knew the real inheritance was his for keepsake: he would die a Harrowing, and be damned to eternity with the rest of his cloven-footed clan
So ends the pitiful story of Jacob Hsrrowing, and this ends a life of worthless revulsion for the painstaking plight for money that was never his, and a mass grave fit for just one; and an entire eccentric clan's memories to topple him with a harrowing thud!
And so this concludes the not-so-short story of The Harrowing Inheritence. I sincerely apologize to all of those out there thwt were waiting patiently for this to be finished, but as they say, sometimes, for the worst part, life gets in the way, and you are reminded once again as to what is truly important. Yes, my readers are very important to me, I cherish them far more than even they must realize. However, as much as I wanted to finish this story as soon as possible, the complications became almost as absurd as to what I was writing. Fiction truly reflects life, and for me, the story is no different. For those who have stuck through to the end, I hope the anticipation did not hurt the ending of this story. I'd like to thank you all for spending your time reading this story, and yes, Short Story Weekly will resume next week, and I assure you it will be short, and it will be completed. Monday Blogs will also resume next week. Thank you for your patience, and have a great day!
No comments:
Post a Comment