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Legacy II
Mental Mastrubation and Other Musings |
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I looked around as much as I could move to see what direction the sound was coming from and wasn’t until I looked into the direction of the attic window with the moon shining on it that I realized it was coming from there. The situation was frightening already but the soft cry I heard took my mind off my problems and made me focus on the attic window. Whom was that baby crying? Why did I never see it in the house? Terror escalated when the tiny voice shifted direction and whispered behind the tree. I squirmed against the ropes that held me and the shrieks that left my mouth joined the baby’s cries and eerie duet evolved in the moonlight. When the ropes loosened and my five-year-old mind knew the baby crying was too young to unfasten them so who was the unseen person freeing me? The ropes fell limp and so did I. My limbs are numb. I landed face forward in my own waste. Cold hands that lifted me up. “How’d you get loose?” grandmother said with honest surprise. “She’s just foul turn on the hose Agnes”, she turned to Aunt Brandy who complied. Despite the coldness of the water it cleansed away the horror of the entire day and jolted my muscle back to sense of normalcy. “My grandmother asked again while stripping the filthy gown from my wet body and my reply was “Who was the baby crying in the attic?” You thought the cold water hit them as they all became prone with eyes darting back and forth across each other’s face like fire flies. “Ain’t no baby in the attic sugar,” Aunt Brandi saw sounding sugary. “Yeah it is. I heard it cry.” The three women shared a silent moment then my grandmother yank me close, got in my face and said, “There ain’t no baby.” Those words snapped me out of memory and I was shocked when I realized the hellish events of the night made my hour long drive to the manor seem like minute. The ancient wisteria lining the drive held their secrets as I approached the house and the real secret keepers, my aunt sat perched on the porch in their rockers. I knew those evil old crowns would have more to say after the reading of the will.
They’ll used their ancient tactics of verbally double team me but they’ll find I’m no longer a frightened five year old. “You know this ain’t over,” Aunt Brandi hissed. “Not by a long shot.” her twin echoed.
“No it isn’t and I know you two hags will spend your dying days fighting me over this house and grandmother’s money and when your high priced lawyer informs you that her will was impenetrable you'll squandered your inheritances fighting a loosing battle. Please go take your creaking evil butts off my porch and go talk about me at your cottage.” I always marvel at their synchronicity so when their jaws dropped at the same time as their left hand clutched their pearls it was almost beautiful.” I know they wanted to cuss me out but the Haberdasher women held their trump card against those clutched pearls and a sly smile worked it way onto their faces. “We’ll talk real soon,” Aunt Brandi said in her sugary sweet voice. “Real soon,” Aunt Agnes repeated. They slowly moved from the porch never taking their eyes of me as they’d roved back to their lair strategizing how they’d get my inheritance. I cautiously pulled out the key and opened the door to a place I hadn’t set foot in for ten years. I stood on the polished mahogany floor of the foyer and soon memories of me at various ages scurried past from every angle. No matter the age the sense of unhappiness overshadowed every thought.
The weight of each agonizing moment spent with my grandmother and aunts, and them treating me like a mix breed mistake not worthy of love . . . and the hardest part of the grief felt was the loss of my grandmother. As cruel as she was she was the only parental figure I had. I dropped my bag and felt the heaviness pull me to the floor where I cried for a long time. After the needed cry I got up and surveyed how all the furniture covered in white sheets looked like the grand old homes in the movies. I went around the house pulling sheets from table chairs, even paintings and soon the rooms where restored to their pristine condition. I sat on the couch trying to figure out why my grandmother would leave the money and this house to me? I was struggling unemployed writer a week ago so it will take some time to get used to playing “lady of the manor.”’ I’m not going to let my aunts’ protest stop me from going ahead with changing the five bed room house into something more suited to my tastes. I decided to explore the house, inspecting each room to asses their needs. Starting at the top the decision to check the attic was an uneasy one. The old stairs creaked louder each time I got near the door and the classic horror moment was in full effect. Grandmother never answered my question about the crying baby in the attic but that night I heard her try tiptoeing up these same stairs and now I hold the skeleton key she used that night to open the door and I’d bet that no one had been up there since then. My hand turned the lock and I push my fear back with the twist of the knob. A warm breeze escaped as I made the last dusty steps into the massive room. Everything was covered pulled back the sheets and was pleasantly surprised by the potpourri of objects I’d never saw all the time I’d lived in the house. Stacks of records old, beautifully carved dark wooden furniture, innumerable books and a pile of photo albums. I opened the one on the top and there was my grandmother dressed for church and looking like an adorably happy, child. There’s an identical photograph of me sitting on the baby grand and I never realized how much we resembled. There were photographs of my twin aunts as babies with one sneering and the other in classic scowl. I see that their evil started early. Aside from a few people I didn’t recognize the majority of the people but I saw we all were related. She never spoke much about our family so I was shocked by all the new faces especially the ones that looked white but seem to have some features of black people peeking threw. “Who were these people and how are they connected to the white side of my family?”
When my parents died in the bus accident I saw my maternal grandmother a few times but my grandmother said they were bad influences and they disappeared from my life. Despite my obvious mulatto features my grandmother refused to acknowledge anything other than the side of me that connected me to my dead white father. Looks like I have a family mystery to solve. I moved on from the album and moved on to the massive wooden trunk that sat under the same window I heard the baby crying from all those years ago. The hair on my neck stood up with that thought and I moved tentatively over to the trunk. I sense something strange but I couldn’t tell why? It was hard at first to open the top so I took a nearby fireplace poker and pried it open. The smell had an unrecognizable foul undertone but also a hint of eucalyptus and Brilliantine. “What in the hell?” I said to myself. There was a pristine satin cloth followed by another and with each reveal the smell got worse but my curiosity had the better of me. After pulling away fifty of these small satin cloths a beautiful shiny wooden box appeared with the inside of the trunk exposing a satin down cushion where the box rested. My chest tighten. I saw that this box had a tiny skeleton lock and looking on the key chain where I got the door key was a tiny gold key I hadn’t noticed at first. Logically I put it in but sensed that opened that box would change my like forever. The goose bumps rose and the need to pee suddenly hit but I had to know. OH MY GOD!! (To be continued . . .)