This week's SSWkly post is part one of the sequel to Heir to Confusion, but it's not necessary the same kind of story,it's more of its own towel but follows the twins born at the end of the story, I really wanted to do this in one post, but found the story is much deeper in many ways than the first, and would require more details, and I simply couldn't do that in ine whole post, so I've split the story to make sure it is better than a rush job, and comes out better than I anticipated. Despite working really hard to get this one done, I simply couldn't rush the middle, and the ending, but it will be completed by next week, and then the week after will have a full-length short story from beginning to end.
I've found the first story to be obscure, and uneasy, and this one will be the same, but in a totally different venture, I hope you enjoy it, and although I've been busy lately, and missed a week, I've been working on this story for some time, and I really want it to live up to the first. Thank you again for reading the Malacast Editorial, and please enjoy:
Janey and Jaffe Part 1
Janey sat across her brother Jaffe in the suffocating pine box of a shaded coffeehouse. She regularly sipped her espressos in short, exciting shots of heat, and then returned to a composure befitting of a hickory stump. Jaffe sat, almost prostrating with his green tea sitting cautiously sbove his lap, his jittering hands made it ever more dangerous to his nether regions. The whiny jazz saxophone played carkingly into sir, emoting it up like a gas-powered cigar. Stained brown walls of cheap pine and particle board filled with abestos surrounded them like a stopgapped coffin.
The sister was an aging crippled mess in a red, foil-plated dress. Her whiskey voice belted out to a Satchmo tune stuck in a meat grinder. Janey, glanced around with mantis eyes darting back and forth in double digits; then jolted another sip back into her mouth, returning to her standard composure.
Jaffe was the first to break the silence, he wasn't going to sit here for an eternity. If it was his decision, he'd had met up with his little sister at the Eats that was up the road.
"You really have a love for these old dives, sis. Tell me, wouldn't there be more light at the ass end of a blachole, I can barely manage this tea up to my lips without burning my eyeball."
"I felt this haunt was rather fitting for what I'm about to tell you, brother. It seems there's a monster in our midsts, a vile, dank beast that has ravaged our subtle lifestyle, and crept deep into our safe home."
Jaffe was puzzled by this arbitrary jumble of thought: a monster?! Whatever did Janey mean by this? Some spectre in our home? A boogeyman hell-bent on the destruction of our sanity? He surmised that his sister was but a tad timid, and perhaps one-too-many espressos into her evening to make sensible declarations.
"Sounds like Father's at it again, he and the Dutchess a always sneaking in to make sure we aren't playing naughty, such fiendish thoughts the elite have! Surely we aren't some masqueraded filth! I swear they're almost unbearable, dear sister." Jaffe took a sip, and scolded an iris in the process.
"I think it's more a threat, we are of great means, brother, and it's apparent to me that there is a beastly man watching us even now, a shadow over in the shaded section, barely a finger flinches to expose his presence, but he has been here ever since our arrival. I'd care to wager he shall leave along our departure." Jamey sipped moldy, looking out with stabbing eyes, cartoonishly pointing them the way of the specter that mired over their presence. Jaffe smiled, not necessarily moved by the idle threats of sitting voyuers.
"Be that as it may, sister, I'm not really sure I can muster the energy to give even a teeny bit of a shit about what others do, and if he is a threat, we shall deal with it promptly. Being citizens of a certain status does give us the benefit of striking first, and not the fear of incarceration if such first strike is deadly. Remember little sister, we are of wealth and dynasty."
Janey smirked, her espresso slowly shrinking down in fluid, she gently wiped her mouth in a lady-like fashion,her frail appearance did not crater the beauty that she once was, and under a certain light, still is; she was not unlike fine porcelain.
"I'm only the younger by fifteen minutes, Jaffe. We are both and old maid, and grey stag, respectively, but our kinship is beyond. You are my best friend, a companion from the womb, I'd think nothing less of you, and enjoy our forays out to this little hobby of ours. So tell me then, are you ready to depart, and perhaps see if my inclinations are correct? The dark amongst shadows over there seems as restless as I am, my cup grows empty."
Jaffe looked down at his own piping hot cup of tea, and saw it had drained to nearly a quarter. Alas, he was quenched, and he rather liked to see out of both eyes simultaneously, so he too nodded in agreement. They would depart, and see if their tail had lost interest, or meant to do them serious harm. Yet, the bergamot was flowing incessantly from every orifice of Jaffe, it was even more preposterous than Janey first believing that they wre the product of incest! Imagine, the heirs to the out sought-after fortune in all the world, they were of a grand pedigree, not some monstrous freaks of nature!
They trotted onward, yet the feeling of being followed did not leave them, even when they entered the safety of their horse drawn carriage. The carriage ride was bumpy and filled with brown mud spools, as the cobblestone turned to the dirt and sumac of the wooded path. Their driver, Thomas, a family friend who had known their mother, was drawing the carriage at a festive trot. The bitterness of the autumn chill, a pre frost before the cold, dank snowy air entrapt them all in a wintry fright, came out on the wisps of ghosts, all-the-while t carriage veered towards the mansion they called home. It was a broken down palace of shambles.
They sat across from one-another in the leather upholstery, which at one point had been the glamor of the era, costly and deep purple, now it was rugged, and faded brown. Janey shifted morer comfortably in her seat, and caught a crevice that ran up her bodice, but left her more content than disturbed. Jaffe was just fine to lay down and fake the whole of the rust-springer seating. Jaffe liked the age in everything he was brought up around, he was always fascinated with everything he had been given, though Janey prefered the finer, more expensive, modern chic thwt came with changing world.
The two of them have aged well, both in their mid-thirties, they had seemed to stay childlike, and porcelain-made. Forever frozen by Old Money. Both have grown the massive fortune of their family , into an empirical amount if cash flow, that had touched all seven continents, doubling, if-not tripling each time. They were economic geniuses, feared in the market, and ruthless with growing their already massive bank accounts. There was almost a sense of pride that grew in their search for more money. Yet, there was also a feeling of dread, that peeping eyes were stabbing right through them. Perhaps it was Old Money paranoia, everyone was out to get you, but this seemed different, it seemed....metaphysical in nature.
Back at the mansion, there was a welcoming silence, an emptiness that has melted deep into the creaking old mansion. The lights were dim, rich dim, almost like reflections off the beaming surface of the moon, refracting the heat of the solar flaring sun. It was dark and dismal, as though those words were coupled for this precise abode. The two fraternal twins moved inward to the home, and emasticsted the staff that found them to be god-like, and of a goddesses' enchantments. They smiled, and moved like frail figures more valuable than life itself, up into their adjacent rooms, both of which were a quarter of the mansion's size. Jaffe's room was eccentric, removed of mirrors, or any catalyst what to view his reflection he wasn't disgusting in profile, but believed narcissism started in that first morning trip to the bathroom. His den had an immaculate typewriter, which was his love-and-joy, he was exhilarated by the snapping of keys atop one-another, a rhythmic clicking that gave him far-more zen than any preist, or monk ever could. His expositions came at the last click of the lowercase d in the couplet of a "The End" of every manuscript he typed.
His sister, who was more eccentric with flowing garments, and a dazzilong array of porcelain tea pots and designer bonnets, filled up closets that scotched over half the room. She was dainty, but exuberant in her daintiness. Janey had always admired the taste of real, honest-to-goodness tea. She found solace in solidarity, admiring sparrows from afar through her enormous windows, as their plumage filled with snow. She laid in her bed, a spot of tea in her tiny cup, and the chamomile hit her like a pound of sand, placing her I to a deep sleep that only the most confident of beings sleep.
Hours went by, the night turned into the earliest peaks of morning, where even the sun knows it's still too early to rise. A scratching sound came from outside of Janey's window, startling her with a milk white gasp thwt was as silent and as conditioned as her entire life. It turned out not to be a scratching, but a clinking noise, almost as rhythmic as Jaffe's typing.
Clink! Clink! Clink-clink! Clnk! Clink-clink-clink!
She soon realized it just be coming from the lower level garden, which was both mystical and terrifying to her as a child. It was goregeous, almost too much with its statues and tombstones of past pets, which have been too loyal for just some unmarked hole. It glowed blue of sapphires in the winter, as though snow itself was a twinkling diamond dust that showered over them. She had always been fond, but respectfully reproachful of that area, but the clinking didn't stop, it increased, almost at an inhuman, rapidity.
Clink-clink-clink-clink-clink-clink-clink-clank! Clink!clink-clink!
She was beginning to turn from petrified fear, to loathing annoyance, as she realized the sound wasn't going to stop. She thought to call one of the many butlers that seemed to vanish after a particular time at night, slowly vaporizing off to wherever the help slept, by two AM, the last of them would've vanished to rooms that seemed to almost appear as they vanished. She thought against it, not wanting to bother those who were off for the night, she instead decided to go and fetch her brother, knowing full-well thwt he was a more terrifying brute than any Jeeves on the clock. She fetched her brother, who was still awake, typing away like a madman, she knew to approach him slowly, and gently rapped on his shoulder. Jaffe quickly spun around to see his sister, mortified with a pale complexion of a beautiful corpse.
"Oh, what is it Janey dear? Can't you see I'm working out a solution right now? I want to go to sleep, but the keys...the keys say to keep typing! The sound, it is an obsession to me! P" he turned, mournful of his late-night masquerade, hoping sleep would come shortly.
"dearest brother, there is but a clinking coming from the lower garden, I cannot shake the feelings I've had all night, I felt like I was being watched...do you not sense it too?"
"Oh sister, please do not fret over things thwt go bump in the night, they are not the true terrors....the dead know well-enough to stay dead, for it must be so treacherous once, they dare not test faire again! The pets are all a slumber, as should be, the clinking, it is all in your head, a starling from too much caffiene, now please go make some warm milk, and be off! I want to finish this passage before the dawn."
He continued to hit keys in glorious zen, but Janey had yet to move from his side.
"Jaffe, I swear to you, it is not a dream, it is stone, or pebble, or shale of some sort, richoeting off my portraited window, the one of mother adorned, and it continues with a morbid delight! Please brother, come with me quick, for you know I shan't stand foot in thwt garden alone."
"I swear, dear child, you are not anywhere near the adult you should be! Over thirty years, and still scared of what not even worms fear to tread! Spineless coward, I've got the lion's share of courage it seems, but I will appease you, my sibling, for I fear without this testament of tapping you claim to hear, I fear I'll. it see rest until the brightness of the sun forces my eyes to squint in heaviness. Let us go then to your window, and peer out to the garden floor, but I'm sure there will be nothing there now,for it was nothing the whole time!"
Janey cowrd behind her brother, as he crossed the hallway into her room, and ran to the window, thrusting it open, a beacon shining downward onto the landing of the garden floor. The plants were buried underneath snow, covered in the dying frost, reawakening as the moon rose, hiding once the sun rises. There was nothing below, but some footprints, which were almost invisible, but just slightly covered up with a light dusting of flurry.
"Whomever this ghost of yours be, dear sister, he had best be just that, for that many hours without shelter isn't much protection, and would kill anything non-human. But there does seem to be something down there, perhaps a passing vulpine in the night, searching down some quail eggs for a late snack. I cannot tell if the tracks are best, nor man's, they seem too close together to be anything but mythical, still, rest-assured, if it is anything, even man; they will not be coming into the home tonight. So go rest, let your imagination relax, and your liver filter out that caffeine, and we shall enjoy a blissful winter morning with some hot cocoa, and pancakes, just like when we were kids, alright?"
Jaffe always had a way of making every circumstance as simple as being nothing. No fear, no worries, no mind to care, everything would work out justly, nothing could touch him, and even if it could, he'd make sure to bite back.
Janey wasn't as Brwve, or so assured, even by her brother's masculine panache, there was soemthing out there, she didn't just hear tapping, she knew it was real. Regardless, she talked him into going down to the garden to investigate, just in-case it was soemthing sinister, neither would be able to sleep if they didn't at least try to discover the origin of the noise. So with their overcoats on, they ventured down into the lower garden, as the morning darkness crept over the shadowed mansion.
The garden was shimmering bright with a moon-filled sonata escalating over the foresty of the sleeping flora. It was with great strength that Janey had been able to put herself I to such a precarious position, as her spine shivered more for the thought of being in this sacred place, rather than from the jutting cold.
"Hello?! Any psychopathic killers about?! Or perhaps you're just a malicious ghost! If so please, come hither! I want to have a word with you!" Janey cradled up against her dear brothers back, afar wine of the chill, the garden, and whatever monster, be it man or beast thwt must be awaiting them at the end of the hedge. She knew something evil was always lurking,mbut what was it that kept her so cold, so calloused? She didn't know,mbut she had a fear of whatever was around the bend. Her brother, perhaps, was more exhilarated by the idea of something evil lurking about, he may just want there to be a trespasser, so to clean his claws.
There was a rustle in the bushes, and with a thrust, came a charging figure, knocking Jaffe over, sending Janey back into the snow-covered ground. She looked up, and terror entered her eyes....the figure was beating Jaffe to a pulp, and with red, beady eyes, turned her way. She saw it wasn't a best, it was a man, a demonic, selfish man. She turned to see someone who she thought dead for years....her father.
Next week will be the conclusion of Janey and Jaffe, and then I'll be doing another original short story for the week after's post. I am certain that this story's second post will be at least equal length to this one, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out. This is technically the first sequel to a story, and seeing as I've not had much luck lately with doing these stories because I've been dealing with many person issues. Still, I will make sure part two is up next week. I'm also doing several posts that will be up in the upcoming weeks, and we are literally one month away from the last SSWkly post, so I may just start working on that very soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment