Family Heirloom Challenge: "Amelia Josephine and the Finding of Great-Grandpapa" -- by Abigail Leskey

Amelia Josephine and the Finding of Great-Grandpapa

By Abigail Leskey

            My name is Amelia Josephine Wilbanks, and I am seven years and four months old, and last March I found my great-grandpapa, who had disappeared.

            I didn’t know that I had a great-grandpapa who had disappeared, until last Christmas. Indeed, I didn’t know that I had one at all. But last Christmas, Papa gave me a pocketwatch that he said Great-Grandpapa had given Grandpapa on Christmas when Grandpapa was eight, and that Grandpapa had given Papa on Christmas when Papa was eight. I am Papa’s only child; Mamma went to Heaven when I was a baby. 

            The pocketwatch is golden, like my hair, and has purple velvet inside it, like my favorite muff, so I am immensely fond of it. The day after Christmas, I was trying to make it fit in the pockets of my dollies’ frocks when it occurred to me that I had never met my great-grandpapa. 

            I asked Papa at dinner, “Papa, is Great-Grandpapa in Heaven?”

            Papa drank out of the wrong side of his moustache cup. “I don’t know, my dear.”

            I also asked about Great-Grandpapa in January and in February, but in January Papa said he needed to balance his accounts, and in February he told me not to ask about Great-Grandpapa. 

In March, Papa told me that he wished to take me to visit his Aunt Maud. I had never met Aunt Maud, but I had heard that when she was fifteen she stole a diamond earring from Aunt Victoria and that when she was twenty-six she jilted her fiancé. I put Great-Grandpapa’s pocketwatch in my dolly Violet’s pocket and held her on my lap as we rode in our carriage for twenty-four miles. 

Twenty minutes after three, we trotted into Aunt Maud’s drive. Her house is stone and has three towers and pointed windows. I think it should have purple velvet curtains and purple pennants on the towers; when I grow up and marry and have a house, it will have purple curtains and pennants. But Aunt Maud’s house has no pennants, and its curtains are black brocade. She does not understand that everything ought to be purple. 

Aunt Maud wears black silk and frowns, and the hairpins in her bun look as if she is hoarding them there until she catches a butterfly. She told me to sit in the parlor and be good.  I took Violet into the parlor and showed her all of the portraits on the walls, naming them after the kings and queens of England since I did not know their names. Some of them looked like Papa; I named them after the Hanoverans, since Papa’s name is George. 

Then I eavesdropped. “You’ve asked me if I have a notion where he is before, George.” Aunt Maud said. “I do not!”

Papa said something I could not hear. 

“No, I will not help fund the search!”

The search? I wondered whom they were looking for (or rather, whom Papa was looking for and Aunt Maud was not looking for) while we had tea. Aunt Maud did not let me have sugar cubes. 

            When the sun began setting, making the sky purple and orange, Aunt Maud conducted me to a room with walls covered in black and grey wallpaper, which would have been prettier if it were purple wallpaper. The room had a bed with bedposts and a grey toile coverlet. “Your Papa will be in the room beside yours,” Aunt Maud enunciated. She patted my head and strode into the hallway and away. 

            I said my prayers and went to bed, where I told Violet a story about a beautiful lady with purple eyes who fell in love with a ghost. I fell asleep after he proposed to her while floating beside a lilac bush. 

And then I woke up. In the moonlight, I opened Great-Grandpapa’s pocketwatch and saw that it was midnight. I had always wanted to walk at midnight and see a ghost, but my house is not haunted, and I had never woken up at midnight in a different house before. 

            I put the pocketwatch into Violet’s pocket again, put on my purple satin slippers, and quietly walked out of my room and into the dark hallway. It had a dark, creaking floor, a dark ceiling, and hair-wreaths in frames on the walls. The glass that protected the hair reflected Violet and me.

            I saw no ghosts in the hallway, but when I opened the door at the end of the hallway and found a staircase, I climbed it because hope springs eternal: ghosts might be upstairs. I held tightly to the rail as I ascended, because one time I fell down the stairs and broke my favorite dolly before Violet, Hydrangea. 

            At the top of the stairs were two doors. I opened one of them and could not see what was inside; there was no moonlight in it. I reached in with my left hand and beside the door I felt a shelf with glass jars on it. I wondered why there was a pantry upstairs. Was the other room an upstairs kitchen? 

            I unlatched the other door and pushed it inward, and gasped. A ghost! In front of a fireplace stood an old gentleman who looked like Grandpapa. “Grandpapa?” I whispered. “Why are you haunting Aunt Maud’s upstairs?” I had wanted to see a ghost, but I hadn’t wanted the ghost to be my grandpapa. 

            Bald on top, and wearing his night-shirt backwards, the old gentleman looked at me and smiled. “Mary, you should be in bed.”

            I walked closer to him. “I’m not Mary, Grandpapa. I’m Amelia, and this is Violet.” 

            He reached out to pat my cheek, smiling affectionately at me. His hand was warm.

            “Oh!” I exclaimed. This old gentleman wasn’t Grandpapa’s ghost—he was Great-Grandpapa! “Papa will be overjoyed, Great-grandpapa! He’s been looking for you! I wonder why Aunt Maud didn’t know you were living—” 

            Great-Grandpapa shook his head. “Maudie is unkind. She says I mayn’t go for strolls.” 

            I gaped as I apprehended that Aunt Maud must have kidnapped him! I needed to take him to Papa, or take Papa to him! I was about to ask him to come with me to Papa’s room, but then I realized he might fall down the stairs. Before I could ask if I might fetch Papa, Great-Grandpapa bent and pulled the pocketwatch out of Violet’s pocket. 

            “Mary, I’ve told you not to play with this,” he said gently, reaching over his shoulder to put it in his backwards nightshirt’s pocket. I realized that he must not be in his right mind.

            “I’m sorry, Great-Grandpapa,” I apologized. “May I fetch Papa to see you? He misses you.”

            Great-Grandpa looked confused, but he said, “Of course, my dear.” 

            I handed Violet to him, and ran down the stairs and down the hallway and knocked on Papa’s door. “Papa! Papa! Papa! Wake up!”

            Papa thumped across the creaky floor, and then he opened the door, his moustache very disordered. “Amelia! Is there a mouse in your room?” 

            “No, Papa! I found Great-Great-Grandpapa living upstairs with a pantry and his night-shirt is on backwards!”

            Papa blinked. “You dreamt, Amelia.”

I shook my head. “Truly, Papa!  He took my pocketwatch, and says Aunt Maud won’t let him stroll, and he looks like Grandpapa!” 

Papa’s eyes became as big as saucers. He grabbed hold of the doorframe, and then ran past me and down the hallway towards the stairs. I followed him up the stairs, bouncing a little.          

Great-Grandpapa looked at Papa with a smile. “Benson!” (Grandpapa was named Benson.) Papa stared at him for a moment and then threw his arms around him, and Great-Grandpapa embraced him too. 

            Now Aunt Maud lives in Connecticut, and Great-Grandpapa lives with Papa and me. He gave me my pocketwatch as a present, a week after we brought him home, and he tells me stories about when he was a little boy pretending to be a general fighting American rebels and he pretended it was a snuff box, and about when he was a naval lieutenant and dropped it in the ocean and jumped overboard to regain it. He says that the ship he jumped from was purple, and the carpet he played on was purple too. 

Family Heirloom Challenge: "Ply Your Silver Hammer" -- by Benjamin Leskey

Ply Your Silver Hammer

By Benjamin Leskey

My old uncle scowled and scuffed his way up the gravel path, sending little stones flying all around. I am certain I got one in my shoe as I walked beside him, but what did he care about that? What did I care? I was getting paid, and he was paying me.

We came around a clump of tall, scraggly fir trees, ugly looking specimens that twisted around each other at the root but all spread out and bent further and further down as they tried going up. Most of them were dead, except one that was only nearly dead, and another one that had managed to stick its decrepit top above the others. There was an old ax buried in the base of the nearly dead fir; most of the ax-head and half the handle were being engulfed by the tree’s bulging wound.

“That’s been there a while,” I said, pointing.

My uncle didn’t turn his head. “Wasn’t there when I was last here.”

“When was that?”

“Not long enough.”

We could see the house from there. It was smaller than I expected; I had never seen it in person before. It was a disappointing shabby gray barn. Only the front door made it look like a house. There was a small, grimy electric light glowing by the knob that cast its glow into the growing darkness.

My uncle didn’t turn his head, but out of the corner of my eye I saw the corner of his eye change from white to black.

“Heh,” he said, instead of actual laughter. “Dreams are weird, right? I had a crazy one just the other night. I dreamed I was coming back here instead of you, and somehow it was you bringing me up the walk. Just remembered that. Also you were my dad.”

“That’s weird,” I said.

“I dream a lot,” he went on. “Jenny will sometimes try to tell me what they mean, but she doesn’t know anything.”

“Huh,” I said, instead of actual speech.

“Well, if you ever get a wife, I’m sure she’ll tell you the same thing: ‘Leslie, don’t give ‘em a thought. You’ll forget ‘em in a moment anyway.’”

“Not unlikely,” I said. My name was also Leslie, so he might have been quite literal.

We came up to the house. My uncle stabbed the lock with his key and swung open the door to the vicious smell of dust and must. He shoved the key into my hand and stepped away. “All yours.”

I shifted the key to my other hand and clenched where the sharp tip had left a mark. “Okay.”

“Hey,” he said slowly, “Uh… would you mind repairing some of the damage to the shed while you’re here?”

“I won’t be bothering with that,” I said. “I won’t have to look at this place again, after this week.”

He frowned and began crunching his way back down the path. “I’ll come for you in a week, Leslie,” he called. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Not that I could.” I watched him disappear around the dead firs, then I shut the door.

One week was all I had to stay. My great uncle Oscar left his house and fortune to his relatives when he died, but somehow all that was left of the Kirk family was me and my Uncle Leslie. His wife Jenny and my mother were still around too, but old Oscar had hated them. The worst part was, neither me nor my uncle would get anything until I died or spent seven nights alone in his old house. Thanks, Oscar. Uncle Leslie looked at his options and figured getting me up here would be the better option than killing me, so here I was.

There wasn’t much to speak of, either. Something had stripped the house of anything attractive or pleasing, so that only stiff, hard furniture and naked pipes plunging in and out of slightly decayed walls remained. Most of the light-bulbs were weirdly dark; I could easily imagine sour old Oscar Kirk sitting on his hard chair, staring at the hard table in front of him in the hot, dim glow that had been his only companion for thirty years.

After a meal of canned soup, I went poking around the house. The first floor was really unremarkable, perhaps at some point it could have been a home. I got hungry again and ate another meal of canned soup.

Lightning flashed outside through the growing wind, followed by a tremendous clap of thunder that rattled the entire house and echoed around the forest. The vibration left behind the sound of clinking from upstairs, and worse, the sound of a rocking chair rocking that simply would not stop.

I seized a heavy flashlight and marched upstairs to the attic, expecting to stumble my way through the dark to arrest the disturbance. However, the attic was far better lit than the first floor with bright electric lights giving a pleasing glow. There was even an aged Christmas garland across one of the beams, the first bit of decoration I’d seen in the place. A rocking chair sat at the far end of the attic rocking away in the draft of a window that had come slightly open during the thunder. Around the rocking chair was a library, shelves of books and papers, and hanging on the wall that the chair faced was a forearm-length, crooked, dented silver hammer that clicked softly against nails in the wood it hung from. I stalked over to the little library and shut and locked the offensive window. The rocking chair went still, and the clinking hammer hung silent.

The prospect of something to read was already cheering me up, and I bent down to see the titles on the shelves. They were all well-worn books on smithing and metalworking, worn like Oscar Kirk had been reading them religiously for thirty years. I guess he really had.

I picked up a paper from one of the stacks beside the books. It was hard to parse, an ancient handwritten note that read: Ian Doe does not accept free horse-shoes. I will visit his stables to-night. A second paper seemed less ancient, and read: Molly Graves seems uninterested in silver bowl. I will push her harder. Another, newer, paper caught my eye and I took it up; it said in typewritten letters: Grievance: Word is that Leslie is not favoring metalworking. I will have Gordon bring him to my house for a spell.

That had to be referring to my uncle Leslie, for though it was newer than most of the other notes, the paper was obviously older than me. Gordon was his father’s name, my grandfather. The rest of the notes that I rummaged through were all of similar tone and content, and many looked so old that Oscar Kirk couldn’t possibly have written them himself.

The attic didn’t feel bright anymore. Rain roared down outside, and the lights struggled to fight against the growing darkness as the smothered sun sank lower and lower. I went back down the stairs and turned off the lights. The furnace in the heart of the old house kicked on suddenly, and the hammer clinked one more time at the pulse that ran through the frame of the building.

I showered in lukewarm water and put on some of Uncle Oscar’s clothes that had been left for me. They fit well. I threw my towels and my own clothes into a basket.

“Les.”

Oh! I jerked and glanced wildly around the empty room before darting back to the living room. No easy sleep for me that night, no relaxing in the evening. I kept one hand on my flashlight as I sat up in the living room with my back to a solid corner.

It was my name where nobody was there to speak it, and it had startled me. It was not the machinations of my own inner voice, because one cannot be startled by their own thoughts, only shocked by hearing them, like one who looks into a mirror and recoils or despises the sound of their own echo. Startling is when the reflection changes during the viewing or the echo returns with an original voice.

I slept despite it, eventually, because I couldn’t think about it forever. But I could, in dreaming; not even sleep can give a break from thinking, or at least one would not know if it did.

A thunderous morning came with clouded sunlight. I had been hoping that a bright day could drive off my evil imaginings. Still, daylight was daylight, and since I wasn’t scaring myself with imagined names I felt better about my situation. I determined to go back up into the attic and poke around a bit before lunch, just for fun.

I sat in the rocking chair and read some from Oscar Kirk’s old books. They were really dry and technical works, so I didn’t get nearly as much amusement out of them as I had intended. I thought about my great uncle sitting where I was sitting, reading the same book I was reading. 

He might have just finished reading, and then he might have taken up a note pad and scrawled out a few notes. Perhaps he was thinking about some discussion he might have about his passion. He could have mumbled a few words as he wrote, maybe he was someone who talked to himself. But wouldn’t he have to discuss with himself? Who else was there to talk with? There was nobody, few people he knew were even alive at all, and they were only two men named Leslie who didn’t like metalworking. What a disappointment, but there was still time for him to give them an interest, let them in on the family profession, show them what it was all about. But there was a shadow in the corner as he wrote, and he remembered that they had their own paths, and they had gone far from him. So very far from working with metal, and with tongs, and with a dented silver hammer.

I didn’t want to think about that anymore, it was too vivid an image. I put away the image, put away the book, went downstairs, and put the attic out of my mind. I ate soup instead.

In the afternoon it got darker as the clouds thickened. If someone had tried, they couldn’t have soured my mood more easily. The darker it grew, the darker I felt. The lights in the house felt dimmer than ever.

CLINK! went something in the attic as the furnace came on. CLINK! ROCK! CLINK! ROCK! and so forth, ad nauseum. I charged upstairs, slammed the reopened window shut, double-checked the lock and found it lacking quality, arrested the rocking chair, and grabbed the crooked silver hammer, putting an end to its quiet rattling. I stalked back down, fetched some tape, stalked back up, and taped the window’s lock so that it couldn’t shake loose again.

“Les.”

I jumped.

“Les… Les… Les...”

That wasn’t the wind or my imagination. Something was making a noise that sounded exactly like my name, and I was going to put an end to that as well. I listened this way and that until I caught the silver hammer scraping the wall in just the right way to pronounce my name. No more! I seized the hammer, pulled it off the wall, and stormed back out of the attic.

I put the hammer on a table in the living room and let it lie there, where no ill winds could blow it and it could not speak in dry, tongueless words. I was a little angry about being so startled, as was only natural, so I sat in the chair before the hammer and glowered for a solid hour. I would have glowered longer, but I fell asleep.

“Les… Les… Les…” I dreamed, at a forge situated in the living room. My uncle Leslie was there, cowering. Oscar Kirk was there too, but I couldn’t look up and meet his eyes. I was holding the crooked silver hammer like a weight dragging my mind and gaze down.

Oscar Kirk told me to strike the metal.

I brought down the hammer and obeyed.

Uncle Leslie stood up and came over. I swung down and struck the metal again.

Oscar Kirk reprimanded. Uncle Leslie pointed at the metal. I struck down.

Suddenly I realized I was dreaming and looked up at Oscar Kirk.

“Don’t you think it’s wrong that Leslie put you in front of himself?” said the withered man, and I brought my hammer forward. The jolt woke me up, and a good thing too, because I was about to smash the window with the hammer that I gripped painfully in a white-knuckled fist as I swung it.

My own father had mentioned his hammer before. He said it was old and wondered why none of our ancestors had sold it. It wasn’t actually of any use, someone had made it long ago to be decorative and since then it had been a symbol of the family, at least until Oscar Kirk had left it squeaking names on a wall. Now I didn’t really want to see it at all, and most definitely not in my hand. I put it carefully back on the table and sat down, shivering from the strange awakening.

Thinking on it, dream-Oscar was right. This should have been the other Leslie’s thing to deal with. It could have been calling either one of us. The silver hammer was fairly valuable, my uncle should have made off with it already. He really should have, I wouldn’t have missed it at all. I wished he would come back just so I could give it to him.

I muddled about the rest of the day and went to sleep worried.

In the middle of the night I half-woke and looked around the dark living room. Oscar Kirk stood there, pointing at the hammer on the table, barely visible in the billowing darkness.

“I will not be paid,” he said. “And you are not required to pay me. Take the hammer and work before your time falls short.”

Why me?

“You must take this gift,” he went on, as though he had not heard me.

Give it to my uncle instead, I don’t want it.

“Take the hammer, Leslie. Imitate me.”

The heavens split with a terrific bolt of lightning connecting the clouds, and the peal of thunder that resounded shook me to my senses and I jerked upright, looking around for an old man who wasn’t there. I stared at the hammer on the table, and remained staring for hours until morning brought new cloudy light.

I craved the mundane. I ran into the attic, seized an armload of dry technical books on metalworking, ran back down to my dusty corner and began reading as if my life depended on it. I read of forges, metal, tools, weapons, pots, and horse-shoes. I immersed myself in terms far beyond my own understanding. There were sometimes notes written in the margins, contending points or affirming practices. I tried to ignore these, they made it seem too personal; too much like the tradition it was. Maybe, if I understood it, it would stop bothering me. But that’s a fool’s hope.

What was I supposed to do? I had no answer, and the hammer had a clear thought that threatened to drag me to grip it once more. I spent an entire day reading, and that night I kept reading as long as I could before I slept at last. I had no dreams, there was no space of time between when I blinked and woke five hours later to dawn. That only made things worse. I felt silent oppression as if I were trying to hide from a giant who could see me the whole time but I could not tell if it had found me yet.

I went outside for the first time, and got wet. It was better than being stuck inside the house, but it was still fairly bad. I saw the shed, somewhat damaged, though there were materials inside that could be used to repair it. I went back inside and cleaned up and cowered for the rest of the day, reading again. And after that, I slept where I was.

I dreamed, and I saw Oscar Kirk swinging the crooked silver hammer from side to side, and it grew more crooked with every swing; it dented against the air and deformed and writhed; it was silver in his iron grip. “You could,” he said, “You really could.” I saw that he was not mastered by the hammer, but he was the master of the hammer in my dream.

So, the next day, I took the hammer and went outside. It felt right in my hand, cold, yet familiar. It belonged here, as it had belonged to Oscar Kirk, to his father, to his father’s father, all the way up. It had belonged to my own father, and it belonged to my uncle, but they had not taken it as they should.

I went to the shattered shed and began working. It is quite an experience, using a crooked, dented, silver hammer for repair work. But I went at it with preternatural prowess. I’m not sure what I learned from reading books on metal working, but I felt like a genius brandishing my hammer. Nails, wood, screws, glass; they were all suitable materials for my hammer, and I made glorious progress on the shed throughout the day. I retired in the evening and rested through the night with the hammer still in my belt. I never slept so well.

My great work was still lacking, so I went out again. I needed no food and little water throughout the day. Giving in felt very good. I found my purpose, at least for now. It’s hard to describe how much better I was making the shed, and the tool was really the best tool I could have had; the only tool I needed. It was perfect, and I worked the entire day away.

During the night I dreamed of horse-shoeing and of Oscar Kirk smiling broadly. “Look, Leslie, it’s Leslie,” he said. “You’ve got it, right?” I was happy that I could finish what Oscar Kirk couldn’t; I could fix the shed and, really, fix more than only a shed.

In the morning, as I waited for my uncle to come by, I put the finishing touches on the shed with my trusty gleaming hammer. The day was bright, and the house was cheery. I could almost imagine a smiling man up in the attic window looking down from above.

He came around the corner of the house, hearing the sound of my toil.

“What have you done here!?” he cried, seeing my masterpiece.

I turned toward him and showed him my tool, the perfect silver hammer. “I decided to fix the shed after all,” I told him. “I found a great hammer, so I figured I would.”

He stared at the windows and beams and planks, but he said nothing.

“You really should try it,” I said, coming closer to share my hammer. “There’s no obstacles, you must take the hammer and ply it.”

You should have seen the look on his face.

Really, you should.

Why don’t you find a crooked silver hammer of your own?

Family Heirloom Challenge: "We're Sorry. You have Reached a Number..." -- By Eve Nightingale

“We’re Sorry. You Have Reached a Number That Is No Longer In Service.”

by Eve Nightingale

            There was a house in a small city. In this house there lived a family of two. In this family, the father and daughter lived alone.

            As you entered the house, there was a long hallway before stairs to the second floor. Once you walked up these stairs and continued forward, look up. There was a string that, once you pulled, lowered a ladder to the attic. You walked up these steps and looked around the organized mess of the attic. Boxes on boxes, filled with items long forgotten. Dust covering items that have not been moved in years.

            Among these items, towards the back, stood an old rotatory phone, passed from generation to generation. The creator left an inscription on the bottom of the phone: D.D., the initials of the creator who made this phone shortly before his death. 

            You are not the only one whose attention has been caught by this phone. The daughter in this house noticed it as well. Darcy Dougherty saw it one warm afternoon; the person who this story concerns. Darcy saw the old phone and made a phone call that ruined her life.

            The phone appeared to have cost much back when it was made. A red, round, slim base with a golden trim. The dial was gold whereas the numbering was black against a white background. This phone had a golden ear piece and golden, curved speaking piece. The handle was a deep black and it laid upon the golden rest. It was a beautiful phone, untouched by time and her cruel decay. The golden trim extended to a small platform on the back of the phone. It was a stand for a figure: a woman of ivory wearing golden curls and a red dress. She stood with one knee bent and hands extended towards the phone as if to say “Make a call today!”

            Darcy screwed up her face in annoyance. Even phones make blonds look like ditzes, Darcy thought, painfully aware her own hair was blond. Her green eyes looked at the phone before she sighed.

            The phone’s surface sparkled in the waning sunlight. “Hmph,” Darcy said, unimpressed by the phone. She picked up the handle and looked at the dial. Darcy had to think a minute about what her father had said about how these phones worked before bringing the circle of the “1” all the way around to the small bar. She let it go and watched it spin back slowly. Darcy continued this with the three and then the zero, the nine, the six, and so on till she had dialed her mother’s phone number. Wonder who has this number now, Darcy thought as she put the phone to her ear. She resisted a giggle. It’s not even hooked up! “Anyone there?” she asked, finding it fun to talk to the open air.

            “Yes.”

            Darcy jumped and dropped the phone. She stumbled backwards and landed on her backside. She blinked, breathing heavily, as she stared at the receiver which now gently bumped against the boxes it stood on. The curled cord tried vainly to pull the receiver back up as the person on the other end waited. “Hello?” the person asked. “Did the line drop, Didi?”

            Darcy slowly moved forward, crawling on her hands and knees and picked up the receiver. With shaking hands, she lifted it to her face.  “M-m-mom?”

            “It’s me, Didi. Was there something you needed?”

            “No-o-o. I just—I found this old phone––”

            “Dear, you know I have bridge at this time,” her mother sighed. “Call in an hour if you want to talk. And tell your father I’ll be having supper at Karen’s house.”

            “But Mom–”

            The voice of an overly sweet woman interrupted Darcy, making her tense with the thought this ‘operator’ was most likely long dead. “We’re sorry. You have reached a number that is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.”

            Darcy stared at the base of the phone before she automatically hung up the phone and stared at it. “But Mom,” she repeated, “you died.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

            Darcy sat in the attic, staring at the phone, as the sun slowly set. She was not sure what to make of it. That had been her mother’s voice, there was no way to deny that, but her mother had been dead for a year. Darcy was certain someone else had to have that phone number now. Then there was also the problem that the phone was not hooked up to the landline. When Darcy examined the phone, there wasn’t even a place to plug in a wire! The phone seemed to have been made for show.

            Darcy was startled out of her thoughts when she heard her father call for her. “Darcy? Darcy? Where are you?”

            Darcy slowly pulled herself away from staring at the phone before opening the hatch to the attic. Rather than climb all the way down, she stuck her head out and her father jumped with surprise. “It’s time for supper. What are you doing in the attic?” he asked his daughter who looked rather pale.

            Darcy slowly shook her head. “Nothing.”

            Her father raised an eyebrow but only nodded. “Well, come down before the food gets cold,” he said as he turned and headed down the stairs to the dining room.

            Darcy nodded and looked over her shoulder one more time at the phone before heading to supper. I’ll call again after supper. There’s enough time before bed. . . as if I have anything to get up for tomorrow.

            Darcy slowly walked down and lifted the ladder back up. She put her hands into her pockets and walked what seemed like a long trip to the dining room. Darcy moved the chair back by the leg with her foot before sitting down and scooting closer to the table. Her father soon entered and placed a plate of roasted chicken breast and mashed potatoes in front of her and his seat. He left once more before returning and placing the bowl of microwaved broccoli in front of her. “There you go,” he breathed as he took a seat.

            He looked over at Darcy who started to quietly eat. “So. . . How was your day? Haven’t seen you since breakfast.”

            “A perk of having a big house,” she muttered as she ate.

            “What was that?”

            “Nothing.”

            “Darcy, I’m trying to have a conversation,” he said tiredly.

            “And I’m not. That’s probably why you’re failing,” Darcy replied back evenly. 

            Her father looked at her for a long moment, slowly smiling before Darcy started to snicker. The snicker soon turned into laughter and her father laughed as well. The food laid forgotten till the family quieted down and started to eat once more. They did not speak when they ate, for neither had anything to say since the day was (almost) uneventful as the day before, but there was no longer the heavy atmosphere. 

            Darcy finished first and sat back, her mind wandering to the phone upstairs. 

            “Do you want to play a game?” her father asked and Darcy slowly shook her head before shaking it firmly.

            “No, I was in the middle of something when you called,” Darcy said as she stood and brought her plate into the kitchen to rinse it off.

            “In the attic?” her father questioned as he followed her and Darcy nodded.

            “Yeah. If you don’t mind,” Darcy said and her father shook his head. “Not at all. Have fun.”

            Darcy smiled and walked back to the attic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

            Darcy sat in front of the phone and took a deep breath. Let’s just see how this goes. She picked the receiver up and dialed her mother’s phone number once more. Darcy waited as the tones of the phone ringing sounded in her ear and soon the other end was picked up. “Darcy, I was wondering if you would call back. Didn’t you get my texts?” her mother answered.

            Tears came to Darcy’s eyes and she shook her head. “N-no. I didn’t get them.”

            “Hmm. Well, what is it you wanted?”

            “I just wanted to, uh, talk to you for a bit. Tell you what’s been going on. Like I would when you went off on your retreats.”

            “Well, everyone’s decided to go to the town for drinks but someone needed to make sure Karen wasn’t robbed. I’ve got time.”

            Darcy smiled and soon launched into the tale of how things have been so weird lately. She started her story a year ago, what happened soon after her mother died, and was about to talk about the quarantine when her mother had to interrupt her: “Sorry dear, but Karen and the others have arrived. Tell me the rest tomorrow, okay?”

            Darcy’s heart skipped a beat. What if the phone doesn’t work then? “O-okay. Promise you’ll answer?”

            Her mother laughed softly. “Of course dear. Good night.”

            Her mother hung up.

            “We’re sorry. You have reached a number that is no longer in–”

            Darcy slowly hung up the phone and stared at it. She rubbed the tears from her eyes and took a deep breath. “Who else can I call?” Darcy whispered as her shoulders dropped. Heard a rumor that Bell’s number was one. . . Darcy picked up the receiver and dialed one, putting the receiver to her head. I wonder if someone even HAD the number one.

            “Ahoy-hoy, Bell speaking.” came an older man’s voice.

            “Holy jjjjjj!” Darcy exclaimed and she heard a ‘tsk’ on the other end.

            “Do not use such foul language! Now who has decided to call me?” Bell demanded. 

            Darcy was silent for a moment before clearing her throat. “Darcy, sir. I just wanted to congratulate you on your great success sir.”

            Bell humphed but Darcy could tell he nodded. “Thank you but I must return to my work. Good-bye.”

            Darcy blinked when she heard the click of the phone connection ending and was followed by a low hum. What happened to the sweet operator? She hung the phone back up and thought a moment. Darcy soon picked it up again and dialed another number. Some conversations were short while others spanned about an hour. Some were angry, some were happy, and some were sad. Darcy did not retire to bed, spending the entire night on the phone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

            That morning, her father got up and started breakfast. “Darcy! Breakfast!” he called from the kitchen before putting the food on the plates. He called once more as he placed the plates on the table. He stood straight, looking through the doorway for a moment before heading out to the hall. “Darcy?” he called as he made his way to the stairs, walking up them. “Darcy, time to get up.”

            He opened the door to her bedroom but saw her bed was messy and without Darcy laying on it. He checked the bathrooms before he caught sight of the attic. He slowly walked to it, reaching up and taking the string, pulling the ladder down. He walked up the ladder to the attic and saw Darcy in front of him. She was slumped over, head on the box beside the old phone, arms on the boxes beside her head as well. The receiver of the phone dangled over the opposite side as if she slumped over and let the receiver drop.

            The father took a sharp breath, eyes widening. For a moment, he saw his wife in front of him, slumped just like Darcy was. He blinked, seeing his daughter now, and he closed his eyes.

            How could I forget?! I really thought it was a sickness—I should have gotten rid of that phone. . . But I did. Who. Brought. It. Back?

            The father sighed, head lowering for a moment before he climbed the rest of the way up. He slowly lifted the receiver, the operator’s voice sounded from the earpiece, saying: “The number you have reached has been disconnected and is no longer in service”, and placed it back on the rest before he carefully picked his daughter up and lowered her downstairs. It was lucky there was a virus circling around so he set his daughter up in her bedroom, pretending she had died from the sickness, before calling the local funeral home. This was almost exactly what he had done when his wife died. 

            It had been after the funeral and as he walked alone in the house, the phone rang. He paused, having been making his way to bed, and looked up. Ringing, the classic ring that was the bane of modern phones, came from the attic.

            “Why not go give it an answer?” a voice from the shadows asked and the father shook his head. “Why not, elder one? Your family has answered it for generations, comforting those who have passed on before us.”

            “No. . . no, tempting but no. I have no wish to join those who have departed,” he sighed with a sad smile. He looked over at the shadows where the shape of a man could be seen. “Besides, that phone’s a bit outdated. It can’t receive calls anymore.” With that final word, he went to bed as the man in the shadows simply smiled.

            Time always aided the man in the shadows for time was like water. It never ceased flowing, nothing could ever stop its flow, and it eroded even the strongest of materials. Yes, the father was wise not to answer the phone but one day he will . . . . and when that day came, the man of shadows would take the phone to the next member of the family. A family heirloom, made by a man who could not live without his wife, passed from generation to generation by the man in shadows.

Mixed Media Challenge: "World Ender" -- by Hazel West

World Ender

By Hazel B. West

(Based on the song “The World Ender” by Lord Huron)

The sun set over the desert.

            Wyatt Conners, the newly-minted marshal leaned against his shovel as he stared at the three freshly dug graves in the ground. The light of the setting sun caused the three wooden crosses to cast ominous shadows across the turned dirt. He reached up and rubbed his face with a dirty hand.

            “D— shame,” he muttered to his deputy. The words meant nothing, they couldn’t express what he felt about the death of his former partner and Morgan’s family. 

            The other man nodded and took the shovel from Conners, giving his shoulder a brief pat in solidarity before heading off back to the wagon. There wasn’t even a house left, only smoldering wreckage. The smoke was still cloying and heavy in the air.

            Conners took off his hat and glanced at the graves again.

            “I’ll get him, Matt. That’s my vow to you.” It was all he could do, and it wasn’t enough.

            He turned around and headed for his horse.

            Night fell on the three graves.

*

He woke to darkness.

            Matthew Morgan pulled air into his lungs, no more smoke there to choke him. His hand grasped at his chest, feeling the dry, tacky blood and the hole where the bullet had struck him, ending his life as memories flashed behind his eyelids…

Morgan and Conners watched as the man dropped through the gallows. Thomas Mayhew. They’d spent the better part of a month tracking down the Mayhew gang, and finally caught the younger of the two brothers. It was a good day seeing him on the gallows. 

            “I don’t usually say this, but I’m not at all sorry to see him go,” Conners said quietly to the marshal. 

            Morgan nodded in agreement.

            “After the murders…what he did to those women…” Conners shook his head, trailing off as the two solemnly remembered the horrors they had seen during their investigation.

            As the hanged man’s struggling ceased to twitches, Morgan’s eyes shifted over to where Cyrus Mayhew was standing off to one side with the rest of his crew. It was only technicality that they weren’t all hanging for the crimes of the boss’s younger brother.

            “You think he’ll make trouble,” Conners said. It was not a question.

            Morgan’s jaw was set. “Wouldn’t you if it was your brother with a necktie like that?”

            Conners shook his head. “I hope I never see the day I have a brother like that.”

            Mayhew’s eyes met Morgan’s across the square and there was darkness there, a promise. 

            Yes, Morgan was certain he would make trouble. It was only a matter of when and where.

Morgan’s eyes were blurry at first, but he blinked to clear them, trying to see his surroundings, make sense of them. Stars swirled unnaturally overhead, a dizzying vortex. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. 

            He slowly sat up, hands pressing into the ground, fingers digging into the sand underneath of him, finding some comfort in something solid.

            Where was he?

Morgan parted with Conners and rode back to his farm for the night. He put his horse away and entered the house through the kitchen. 

            Madeline stood at the stove, not having heard him come in. Morgan smiled and crept up behind her, snagging her around the waist.

            She startled before she realized it was him and giggled. “Matt, don’t scare me like that!”

            “Sorry, couldn’t resist,” he said and leaned over to kiss her jaw tenderly.

            She smiled but extricated herself from his arms gently. “Supper will burn if you keep that up. Go clean up, it’s almost ready.”

            “Where’s Sarah?”

            “In the parlor. Can you tell her to get ready for supper?”

            Matthew left the kitchen and entered the parlor to see a beautiful blond girl sitting on the floor playing with her dolls. She looked up when he came in and shot to her feet.

            “Papa! You’re home!”

            He caught her and swung her up into his arms. “That’s right, and it’s time for supper. Let’s both go get washed up, or your mama will be mad at us.”

            She giggled and Morgan forgot for a moment about the hanging and the trouble that Cyrus Mayhew was planning.

Morgan continued to stare around the strange place, until he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. He spun back around to see what it was.

            A figure stood about ten yards off, back turned. It was a man, dressed in black, long coat billowing in a breeze that Morgan couldn’t feel, dark hair tossing, giving him a wild and eerie look.

            Morgan scrambled to his feet.

            “Who are you?” he demanded, his voice trembling.

            “Who am I?” the dark figure answered. His voice was low, gravely and monotone.

            A chill went through Morgan, only heightened as the figure continued to speak, his back still turned.

            “My friends call me Wrath.” The voice carried easily through the night and though there was a steady wind, it made no sound, yet somehow its silence fit with this strange place out of time.

            “My enemies,” the figure continued. “They call me, ‘no, stop, please have mercy’.” The figure began to turn, head low. “But they all agree that I am Vengeance.”

            He turned fully and lifted his head.

            Morgan staggered back with a cry caught in his throat. The figure’s eyes glowed with an unnatural light. 

            This was no man.

They came at dawn. Morgan had only just gotten up, leaving Madeline sleeping in bed with a soft kiss to her cheek before he dressed and went to the stables.

            His horse nickered, the only warning his got before the barrel of a gun pressed into his ribs.

            “Don’t move.”

            He thought about reaching for his own gun, but this close, there was no way he would get out without taking a bullet. So instead, he raised his hands.

            Another man came up and grabbed his gun from its holster. They were both Mayhew’s, Morgan recognized them. 

            “What is this? What do you wan—”

            He was hit over the head and fell unconscious into a pile of hay.

*

He came to to the smell of smoke on the wind. 

            Morgan crawled to his feet and rushed out of the barn, staggering and catching himself on the doorframe as he caught sight of his house.

            “No. NO!” he screamed.

            He ran toward the blaze. “Madeline! Sarah!”

            Someone intercepted him, and he recognized the figure as one of Cyrus’ men. He fought, but he was caught from behind by another and before he could fight them off again, the butt of a rifle planted itself in his stomach, folding him over.

            They dragged him to where Cyrus Mayhew was standing off to one side, watching the house burn. Morgan could only stare at him in helpless fury.

            “We got him, sir.”

            Mayhew finally looked up at Morgan, holding a gun in his hand.

            “Why are you doing this, Cyrus?” Morgan demanded. “They did nothing to you! Where is my family?!”

            “You know why,” Mayhew said.

            “Revenge?” Morgan cried. “Your brother was a bad man and he died for his crimes. He was a loose cannon that would have given you trouble in the long run. You know that.”

            “He was still kin,” Mayhew said simply. “And you know how it works, Marshal. An eye for an eye.”

            The other men were adding more torches to the fire even though it was already blazing. Morgan saw the doors and windows boarded up. Anyone in that house would have no chance of escaping.

            He fought the grip the men had on him.

            “Mayhew! Don’t do this! Not like this! You want satisfaction? I’ll give it to you.”

            Mayhew simply smiled. “No. It’s easier to do it like this. And really, as you can see, it’s too late for your precious wife and daughter.”

            “Madeline! Sarah!” Morgan screamed before he was hit across the back of the head again.

            Dazed, he was shoved to his knees by the lackeys and could only watch helplessly, struggling, as his house burned down before his eyes. The roof caved in with a huge crack and plume of flame. He could feel the heat from where he sat, desolate.

            Cyrus reached down and yanked the marshal star off of Morgan’s vest, throwing it away in the dirt.

            “I’m the only law in this town, son. Too bad it took you this long to realize that.”

            Morgan fought, but Cyrus pointed the gun at him coldly and squeezed the trigger.

            A shot rang out and Morgan was slammed back into the dirt. Everything was numb and stained red. He gasped, but only choked on blood that bubbled up from his lungs. Smoke filled the air and he could only watch through tear-filled eyes as his house burned to the ground.

            Then it was only darkness.

“What is your name, boy?”

            Morgan tried to find his voice, his heart beating quickly in his chest…or, no…it wasn’t. It should have been, but there was nothing there after all.

            And it was then he finally realized that he was dead.

            “What is your name?” the dark figure asked again.

            Morgan wet his lips. “Matthew Morgan,” he finally managed. “Are—what are you? Some sort of devil?”

            The man—thing—smiled as if amused but didn’t answer his question. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is why you are standing here right now instead of moving on. You have unfinished business, Matthew Morgan. And I mean to help you finish it.”

            “Cyrus Mayhew,” Morgan said, a growl in his voice.

            The being inclined his head in acknowledgement. “What happened to you and your family was not right. He must be taken down.”

            “How do I do it?” Morgan asked. “I mean…I’m—I’m dead, aren’t I?”

            The man-shaped thing cocked his head to one side. “You are in between. That is what this place is. Between time and space. Life and death.”

            Morgan glanced up at the swirling stars again and shivered. “Send me back.”

            “I can do that. I can send you back to get your revenge. But you have to understand that there will be conditions.”

            “What conditions?” Matthew demanded.

            “You will live, but it will not be a mortal life. If I send you back, you will be my earthly messenger. You will do work in my name—Vengeance.” His eyes glowed again as he said it. “You will never bleed. You will never age, and you will never again feel the embrace of the grave. Your purpose will be to see that everyone who was involved with killing your family pays their dues.”

            Morgan straightened his shoulders. “And what happens then?”

            The being cocked his head. “When you finish your calling, I will come to you again and I will have a question to ask. It is up to you what you say then.”

            Morgan remembered Mayhew’s face as he watched his men set fire to his house. How the man had coldly put a bullet into Morgan’s chest.

            “I’ll do it,” he said.

            The being nodded, as if having expected the answer all along. “Then go back, Matthew Morgan.”

            He reached out and grabbed Morgan’s wrist. His grip burned white hot, the same as the being’s eyes, and Morgan cried out as he felt an unnatural sensation tugging him forward…

            His fist punched through the dirt as if yanked upright by a terrific force and he shoved his way through the loose soil, gasping for breath.

            He squeezed through the dirt and collapsed onto the ground, rolling over onto his back to look up at the sky, panting.

            Moonlight beamed down on him, and the stars were overhead, no longer swirling.

            He was back.

            He sat up, and looked at the grave he had crawled out of. There were two others beside it. 

            He pulled himself to his feet and stood in front of them.

            “He’ll pay for what he did,” he whispered to Madeleine and Sarah. “I’ll be sure of that.”

            His wrist stung in the cool night breeze and Morgan glanced down, yanking his sleeve up to see a burn mark in the shape of a handprint wrapped around his wrist. A shiver went down his spine, but one of anticipation, not fear. 

            He touched his fingers to his lips and then pressed the tips to each of the crosses before he turned around and strode off through the desert.

*

There was one light on in the house when Morgan rapped on the door. He heard the sound of feet striding across the floor before the door was opened.

            Conners’s figure was silhouetted in the dim light from further in the house, the outline of a gun in his hand at his side, but even in the shadows, Morgan could see his face was white as a sheet.

            “Holy—” Conners choked out then stopped as if realizing there was nothing at all holy about the man standing in front of him.

            “Hello, Wyatt,” Morgan said, stepping forward.

            Conners’s gun went up, hand shaking in a way Morgan had never seen before from his stoic partner. 

            “Y-you’re dead.”

            “Not anymore.”

            “I buried you!”

            “Yeah, and I came back,” Morgan said, reaching out and gripping the other man’s wrist, pushing the gun down. “And I need your help.”

*

Conners was still pale as they sat at the table, cups of coffee in front of them. Morgan didn’t drink his, but he wrapped his hands around it, using the warmth to remind himself that he could feel something.

            Conners ran a hand over his face as Morgan finished explaining what had happened.

            “I don’t even know what to say. You know how crazy that sounds right? And yet, you were dead. I buried you myself.”

            Morgan nodded and rolled up his sleeve, showing the strange handprint burn there. “It was real, far as I can tell. Trust me, I’m just as much in shock as you are.”

            Conners took a deep breath. “So it’s all on you then? Taking out Cyrus?”

            “Not yet,” Morgan said darkly. He’d thought about it on the way here and had decided exactly how he was going to go about this. “I want him scared. I want him to know what’s coming. I’m gonna take out his men one by one until he’s the only one left. Then I’ll come for him.”

            Conners shuddered as if he saw something in Morgan’s face that scared him. And he probably did. 

            “Then when do we start?”

            “Right now,” Morgan said and stood up from the table. “I’m gonna need some guns and ammo.”

            Conners nodded and went to his own gun cabinet. He returned with the weapons and bullets, then reached up for the star on his vest, unpinning it. “Here, this is yours…”

            “Keep it,” Morgan said. “I don’t operate by that law anymore. I’ve been sworn in by another.”

            Conners swallowed hard and repined the star. “Matt. I’m sorry.”

            Morgan’s jaw clenched, but he nodded, and picked up a Colt Lightning from the table, shucking a bullet into the action with a swift, one-handed, practiced jerk. “Someone’s gonna be sorry.”

            Then he walked out the door, leaving his partner behind with an unreadable expression on his face.

*

The saloon wasn’t very full this time of night but there were still a few men in there.

            Among them, several of Mayhew’s men.

            Morgan and Conners stood outside, watching through the window as the sound of rowdy speech echoed out into the night.

            “What’s the plan, Matt?” Conners asked, taking his pistol from his belt.

            Morgan simply walked forward the kicked the door in.

            As the door crashed off its hinges, the saloon became silent, and everyone looked up to see Morgan standing there, Conners appearing behind him a second later.

            It took only a second for the occupants to recognize him.

            “M-Marshall Morgan,” the bartender breathed. “I—I thought you were dead…Mr. Conners said…”

            The men from Mayhew’s gang were already getting up, reaching for weapons.

            “Matt—”

            Conners’s warning came a second after Morgan started moving. He spun, bringing the Colt up and firing off a shot, hitting one of the men directly in the chest, sending him falling backwards over a table. 

            Two more came up, launching themselves at him, and Morgan turned to slam the butt of the gun into one of their heads, while the other came at him with a knife.

            The knife struck Morgan between the ribs and stuck there as he staggered backward from the blow.

            Everyone in the saloon stopped what they were doing. Mayhew’s man stared at the knife, for a long second, then his eyes slowly turned upward to Morgan’s face, confused at the fact that he hadn’t fallen over yet.

            Morgan felt the blow, but the pain was minimal. He simply smiled and reached down to yank the blade from his body. No blood spilled out. He didn’t have a beating heart. How could he bleed?

            Mayhew’s man turned white as a ghost. He took a staggering step back, his knees buckling in fear, as Morgan thrust the knife into the man’s chest. He choked, and collapsed, twitching slightly.

            Morgan then turned to the man he had knocked down and dragged the terrified human to his feet.

            “W-what are you?” he trembled.

            “I am Vengeance,” Morgan said and, though he didn’t know it at the time, his face turned to a grotesque visage of a skull, eyes deep and dark and empty. “Tell Cyrus Mayhew I’m coming for him.”

            The man fainted dead away, and Morgan dropped him to the ground with a thud. He turned to the bartender, tipped his hat. “Sorry for the mess.” Then he walked out of the saloon into the night, leaving behind the stunned patrons and his rattled partner.

*

The next night, Matthew Morgan once again took his gun and went hunting. 

            He found more of Cyrus’s men in town. He shot all but one, leaving him to send the warning to Mayhew.

            Conners didn’t come with him that night, and Morgan didn’t ask him to. This was his mission. This was his vendetta.

            And he was getting closer every day to his final target.

*

Cyrus Mayhew was terrified. 

            He would never show it, but he was. Over the last few days, he had woken up to news of more and more of his men dead, but always one left to tell some horrifying tale that Marshall Morgan had climbed out of his grave and was out for vengeance.

            A rational part of Cyrus told him not to believe that, but another part, the part that told him something was not at all natural about this, reminded him that he shouldn’t be so quick to judge.

            He was waiting for his right-hand man, Smollett, to come back from the bank. He was leaving town—it seemed like the smartest thing to do considering the circumstances—but it was already dark, and Smollett had yet to return.

            That was when he heard a hue and cry from the town. 

            Cyrus raced out to see what was going on, and saw the townsfolk gathered around a skittish horse that they were trying to stop. He pushed forward just as someone caught hold of the beast, and hauled a body off of it.

            It fell at Cyrus’s feet.

            It was Smollett.

            His eyes were open and staring in some unseen terror and a knife was stabbed through his chest, pinning a note to him.

            You can’t run from me, Cyrus. 

            Cyrus Mayhew felt a chill go down his spine as if someone had walked on his grave. 

            “Look!” someone shouted.

            Everyone turned to look at the hills outside the town, where a fire had burst into life. A fire in the shape of the letter M.

            Cyrus didn’t know if it was for Morgan or Mayhew, but it didn’t really matter. The meaning was still the same.

            His knees felt weak as he raced back to his house to pack.

*

Cyrus Mayhew came in the door to see the dark figure standing in the corner.

            He cried out, as Morgan appeared from the shadows, eyes flat and dark, a knife held casually in his hand.

            “Please…no…” Cyrus said, cowering backward.

            “You didn’t give my family that mercy,” Morgan said in a dark tone. “Why should I give it to you?”

            Cyrus was shaking, but he still managed to snatch the revolver from his holster and empty all six bullets into Morgan’s chest.

            The man—or whatever he was now—barely took a step back. In fact, he took a step forward. Toward Cyrus.

            The man fell backwards, throwing his gun in desperation as terror washed over him like a cold rain.

            Morgan grabbed his outstretched arm and snapped his wrist in one swift, inhuman move. Cyrus screamed as he was wrenched around and slammed against the wall. Morgan’s other hand was around his throat, raising him up until his feet no longer touched the ground. 

            Cyrus choked, grasping at the clenched fist with his good hand, vision darkening.

            And that was when Morgan released him, letting him drop to his feet and slamming him back against the wall with a hand to his chest.

            “Please,” Cyrus gasped. “Just let me go. I’ll…I’ll give you anything.”

            “You already took the only thing I ever wanted,” Morgan snarled and his face contorted into the image of a skull. Cyrus screamed and then cried out again in shock as Morgan slammed the knife he had been carrying into the palm of Cyrus’s good hand, pinning him to the wall.

            “I’ve come to make you pay for what you took,” Morgan said, and reached into his pocket.

            Cyrus watched in eye-widening terror as Morgan lit a match and threw it onto a pile of kindling he had left in the darkness of Cyrus’s house. It lit with a whoomp and Morgan watched it for several seconds before he turned back to Cyrus.

            “You had better hope I don’t see you again the other side of hell,” he said then strode out the door.

            The last thing Cyrus heard was the sound of nails being driven into the doorjamb and then the pounding of horse hooves leaving the property.

            After that it was just flames.

*

Matthew Morgan stood beside the graves in his backyard. Two still occupied, one not.

            He thought of crawling back into it. Perhaps that was what he was supposed to do, now that his vengeance had been realized. 

            An unnatural silence stole across the night and Morgan felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. He turned and saw the dark figure who had sent him back.

            “I finished,” Morgan said. “He’s dead. They’re all dead.”

            “I know,” the being said, looking up with his eerie eyes, seeming to be cast in more shadow than was normal, the tails of his coat playing around his ankles in a nonexistent breeze. “I came to offer you a deal.”

            “I thought you already offered me one?”

            “An opportunity then,” the dark man said, cocking his head. “To continue your work. Vengeance does not reach everyone it should. It has been a long time since I’ve had a messenger to do my work for me. This world is full of pain and suffering and people who cannot help themselves.”

            “And I can help them?” Morgan asked.

            A small smile quirked the being’s lips. “Yes. Is that what you would like to do?”

            Morgan thought, staring back at his empty grave. He could take peace in death, or he could help others in the same position he had been in. 

            He turned to the dark figure beside him and gave one small nod. “I will do it.”

            The figure inclined his head. “Then go, Bringer of Vengeance, Ender of Worlds. Do my work.”

            And Morgan tipped his hat, and climbed into his saddle and as the sun rose, he rode off into the desert, the Bringer of Vengeance and Ender of Worlds.