Good Monday morning to everyone. I hope you had a fabulous weekend. I am very stiff and sore. This weekend we finally managed to get a lot of the planting done. we are passed (hopefully) the last frost and it was time. The problem was all of it had to go in. I start plants from seeds and they really were ready to transfer into the garden. As with every spring, muscles I didn’t know I had make their presence known by their aches. So I am moving slow, but I feel pretty good about why. So shall we ease into the morning prompt? I don’t think I’ll be jumping anywhere for a bit. So prompt’s away.
This one was interesting. It feels like it wants to be a horror story. I don’t tend to write a lot of those so I find it interesting. I definitely think Uncle Vincent had some secrets.
Monday, April 25th: Inside, they found a collection of rubber masks.
Inside, they found a collection of rubber masks. It was so out of place that for the moment all they could do was stare. Slowly Joseph looked up, eyes scanning the room. The study was well appointed and looked like a proper gentlemen’s study from decades past. The chairs were dark leather, comfortably worn but not in a state of disrepair. There were books on the shelves all with matching covers to form a uniform backdrop. The prints on the wall were all of hunting scenes. Foxes being pursued by horsemen, a dog bring a duck in from the water.
The desk was large and made of rare hardwoods, the blotter green leather. The fountain pen had its own stand. It was utterly respectable and very traditional. Yet here, hidden in the bottom drawer of the secretary was a collection of rubber masks. The were piled in, compressed down so they filled the drawer. There was something about them that Jacob didn’t like.
It was less that they were such an anomaly and more an old memory teasing the back of his brain. Corey reached forward but Joseph stopped him. “I don’t think we should touch them.” Joseph said. His cousin laughed.
“Still scared of Uncle Vincent even after he’s dead and buried?” Corey teased. He tore away from joseph and deliberately bent down to the drawer. He took the top mask and Joseph felt relieved that it wasn’t the one next to it. That one bothered him. Again he couldn’t put his finger on it, but he knew he had seen that mask before. He backed up a step, not wanting to be as close as he was.
Corey continued rifling through the drawer. “Ha,” he said after a minute. “There’s something else in there. I knew there’d be. I know these masks had to be here to hide something important.”
Joseph took another step back. A feeling of dread snaked through him. Corey tugged.
“It’s stuck,” he said. He gave a few more tugs. “Ah there I’ve got it.”
Corey lifted his hand out of the drawer and the both gasped. Corry was gripping the round handle of a long dagger. The handle was wrapped with some sort of cord. Jacob swallowed hard. For a second his mind flashed on a memory of seeing the knife held high in the darkness, moonlight glinting off of the metal. The image faded and he shook it way, not entirely certain where it came from.
“Cool,” Corry said. He examined the blade. “He look, I think is still has blood on it.” He studied the blade. “Do you think Uncle Vincent took this hunting?”
“Probably,” Joseph said. His voice felt like it was coming from far away. Corey didn’t seem to notice any difference. He twisted the blade this way and that inspecting it. “I bet it was a wild boar,” Corey said. “Or a deer.” He slashed the blade through the air. “Yeah I bet he used it to cut out the hearts of the stags, maybe even eating it raw.” Corry looked over his shoulder at Joseph.
“Didn’t he take you on some of his hunting trips?”
“A few,” Joseph replied.
Ten til Midnight 