What This House Holds

The two story house seemed to loom of over them as they pulled into the driveway. Rose and Garrett looked at each other in the back seat, both of their faces filled with uncertainty.
“Well here it is!” Their dad bellowed from driver’s seat. He put the car in park and turned around to face them. “What do you guys think?” He asked. They looked from the mysterious house and back. Garrett was the first to speak his opinion. “It’s creepy dad.” He said. Rose kept quiet, her eyes stuck on the house in front of them. It was a nice old home with beautiful architecture. An old porch swing lay broken on the ground and some of the windows were broken as well. “It’s not creepy, it’s just a bit of a fixer upper. I promise you guys will love it!” Their dad said getting out of the car. Rose knew it was hard for him now that Mom was gone; it was hard for all of them. She didn’t want to move out of the house they grew up in, but she knew they could no longer live in a house that reminded them of her every single day.

They grabbed what they had brought with them in the car, while the rest of their things were on a uhaul truck headed this way. Their dad rumbled in his pocket for the new key. “Hm okay what did I do with that darn thing?” He said. Garrett looked at Rose with a scared expression. She knew he didn’t want to go inside, but they had no other choice. “It’s gonna be okay.” She whispered to him. Rose was fourteen while Garrett was only ten. He still slept with a night light and Rose had a feeling he was going to need a lot of them when living here.
                When their dad finally found his key, which happened to be in the same pocket he had already checked twice, they entered the new house. They were all taken aback as they entered the threshold.
“Oh my god.” Rose said with wide eyes. The house was the cutest and most quaint thing they had ever seen. Immediately their fears were replaced with a sense of calm. The walls were painted a light yellow color that brightened up the whole house and left them with happy feeling.
“It’s so cute.” Rose exclaimed beginning to look around. “See I told you guys you would like it.” Their dad said before setting down the luggage. “I’m going to go grab more stuff, but you guys are free to explore. Just be careful okay? This house is pretty old and like a said it’s a bit of a fixer upper so stay together please.” He said looking mostly at Rose. She knew the routine well of course, that’s what happens when you are the older sibling.

                The first place they decided to explore was the upstairs. They ran up the old staircase hoping to claim rooms as soon as they could. The upstairs was painted robin’s egg blue which was one of Rose’s favorite colors. Again it filled them with a sense of calm.
“Okay you look in that room and I’ll look in this one!” Rose told Garrett. The two rooms were opposite each other. When Rose opened the door she was surprised to find that it was only an old broom closet.
“ROSE LOOK AT THIS!!” Garrett yelled with excitement. Rose shut the door and turned around. She entered the room and her jaw practically hit the floor. The whole room was filled with old toys. Trains and cars and teddy bears, old Barbie dolls and porcelain dolls lined the room. Above them was an old toy air balloon that hung from the ceiling. “This is amazing!” They said stepping inside. In the corner of the room was a small twin bed with a curious George blanket draped across it. Garrett plopped onto the bed. “Oooh comfy!” he said bouncing up and down. “I totally call this room! But you can have all the girly toys.” He said. Rose laughed as she looked at all the dolls. Some of them were newer than others. Her eyes landed on an old porcelain doll with a beautiful face and long blonde hair. Her dress reminded her of a princess dress. She grabbed the doll and smiled, remembering how her Mom had pretty long blonde hair.
“I’m going to keep exploring okay?” Rose said still holding onto the doll. Garrett had already begun to play with the old train set that was on the floor.
“Okay.” He said not looking up from the toy.
                Rose left the room with her new doll and walked down the hallway. Old picture frames hung on the walls, but no pictures were inside them. She opened a door to find a small bathroom and continued her search for a bedroom. The room at the end of the hallway had a big chalkboard sign that hung on it. ‘Belle’s Room’ was written on it in chalk but the M in room was almost completely faded away.
Rose took a deep breath, preparing herself just in case something creepy was on the other side.
She opened the door to find a violet colored room with a big bed in the center. It was a larger room than the one filled with toys. But the thing that caught Rose’s eye was the big vanity dresser that sat in the corner. It was covered with old stationary paper and plants in pots that were now dead. Pens and pencils and paint brushes sat in old vases. In the middle of the dresser, covering half the mirror was an old clock. It looked like someone had started to paint it then stopped halfway.
                Rose set the doll down on the bed and walked over to observe the clock up close. The face of the clock was scratched up, but she could still read the numbers. The two hands of the clocks were shaped like arrows on a compass. She turned the clock around to look at the back and noticed a small latch that opened up a small compartment. Rose began to feel giddy with excitement and couldn’t help but think of herself as Nancy Drew. She put her hand into the small compartment feeling around until her hand landed on a small metal object. She pulled it out to reveal a small key.
“Hm..now what do you go to?” She said as her curiosity only seemed to intensify. Holding the key closer she inspected its design. It was an old skeleton key, the kind you would find in an antique store nowadays. Rose began her search to find what the key went to. She walked around the room first trying the bedroom door itself, but the key was too small for the old lock. Next she tried the lock on the closet door, but it was more for decoration than actual use. Finally she noticed that the dresser itself had a lock on drawer under the desk.
                She slipped the key in and turned it, with a small click the drawer was open. Rose slid open the drawer to find an old journal. ‘Belle’s Journal’ it read on the front. Rose became more curious to find out who exactly the girl that used to live here was. She grabbed the journal, but hesitated on opening it. This was someone’s personal journal, and it must have been locked up for a reason. She wanted to know so badly, but she didn’t want to intrude on someone’s privacy, even if they didn’t live here anymore.
She decided to only open the journal to first page, and then she would put it back. The first page had a weird inscription and Rose began to read it out loud. “Magiae dabo tibi hæreditatem meam.” She had a tough time reading it, but as soon as she got to the last word something strange happened. Her body was filled with warmth, like when you step out of your cold house and into the warm afternoon sun. Her fingertips began to tingle and a white light encircled her. Rose was too stunned and confused to scream. The journal dropped from her hands and closed by itself, and the light was gone. Her fingertips still tingled some, but the warm feeling dissipated. “What the heck was that?!” She said to herself, her heart beating faster than before.
               

She picked the journal up from the floor and the front of it now read “Rose’s Journal.” Rose stared at it in shock, her eyes wide with fear and curiosity. The journal opened by itself this time and Rose dropped it to the ground in fear. Looking down, the first page now read something else.
“Please read this journal carefully. It will help you to understand and give you the knowledge you need. This power has been passed from one family to the next. You have been chosen to carry this power inside you and use it for good. Rose Hemstock, you are a witch.”

Time Shall Pass

            The final cardboard box filled with mumbo-jumbo was in the house. I thanked my friends with hot pizza and beer, they left, and I lay down in the empty house to hear my heart beat with its own.

            “Hello, old friend,” I sighed, closing my eyes with a smile. The upstairs master bedroom door creaked open a little in response, and I laughed. No one knew this house as well as I did, and no one was willing to live in it after finding out that it was haunted. But it wasn’t haunted by evil spirits or anything. It was haunted by memories. Memories of a child being beaten and scarred both mentally and physically, yes, this house remembered.

           

            “Elise!” Her father shouted from the bottom of the stairs, a broken orange crayon in his tightened fist. “Elise! Get the fuck down here!”

            Elise hid under her bed, tears streaming down her seven year old trembling chin. Her body tucked tightly into itself from fear of what her father was about to do to her. She heard him yell her name again before deciding to bolt from her room to his. He wouldn’t think she would be in his room, she had never dared to go in before, but she saw the door creak open from her hiding spot and hoped it was a sign from God.

            Her father saw her long blonde hair slip into his room, and his face went from an inferno like rage, to a demoniac glee. His favorite past time was beating his daughter, the only reminder of his slut of a wife that left him. He didn’t even want the little brat in the first place, and here he was, stuck with the little bitch.

            Kicking open the door to her room, he called out her name in anger, made a show of his attempts to find her by throwing her things everywhere, breaking things against the walls of the house and scarring them from his actions. Then he slowly turned to his room, pushed open the door, and sat on his bed.

            “Children always hide under beds. Fucking morons,” he thought to himself with a smirk. And as quickly as he had sat down, he had thrown his own bed over itself, to find nothing. He heard his closet door open and the pads of Elise’s feet run to the hall. Turning and snarling like a bull, he ran at her, but the door flung in his face.

            The house trembled, and groaned, and Elise could hear her father screaming. When the police had come, her father had been buried and stomped on by every piece of furniture in his room.

            Elise, now fully grown, stood at the master bedroom door, the room that had belonged to her father, and slid her hand against the wood frame. She had decided, when she was little, that she would thank this house for saving her life. And now she would, by taking care of every little need it had. Just like a parent should their child. 

Challenge #80

Hi! Hello!

The challenge for this week is to write a story that takes place after moving into a new home!

If you would like to write a story for Fan Friday, or share something artsy with us, please do! Just e-mail us at inkedfeathersfink@gmail.com!

Two Week Hiatus?

Hello all!

As you may have noticed, this week did not get an update. Unfortunately, that's because we suck at life. Anyways, the reason we did not post anything this week is because one of us is on vacation and the other had no internet for a little while. The one who is on vacation will be on vacation for next week as well, so we will not have a challenge next week either.

Hopefully we will be back and typing away soon!

Never Home Again

            Zane held his gun close. Four bullets left, and he was nowhere near home. The Greybacks were crawling all over the place, they had won. At least that’s what the word around the Redbelts hold. The Blue Kings, the Yellowbreasts, and the Greenheels had all been taken down. The Redbelts and Brownsleeves were all that were left to hold the land against the Greybacks.

            In seven hundred years, the Greybacks had never been able to take The Crossing at Meraksh. That was the only thing keeping the world from burning to ash. And then, four years ago, Ambassador Axsen blew up the blockade and allowed the Greybacks to come in. He had been promised all of the shiny jewels a man could ever need, only problem was that dead men have no needs, and a dead man was what Captain Holt, of the Greybacks, had made him.

            Zane had left his home, Astoria, to fight and protect it. He was under Redbelt Law, so of course that was the army he joined ranks with. The Redbelts believed in arson and martial arts. ‘Fists of Blood and Fire’ was their mantra, and Zane’s hands were scared from the use of his GPG’s, or gun powder gloves, as they were formally introduced as at the Armory Brigade’s Decade Brawl. The only place weapons were allowed to be tested on others with no repercussions. Prisoners on Death Row were used, and the survivors of the Brawl were automatically enlisted in their proper militaries.

             Maybe if they had had these brawls every year, instead of every ten years, there would be better weapons, at least that’s what Zane thought as he made his way from one burned building to one crumbled to almost sand building. Astoria was a sea city. Sand, glass, and stone were what the building were made of, and walking around in the city made it seem more like an industrial city, like a Greyback’s home city.

            Four bullets left. If Zane made it to his family, there would be one bullet left over, if he didn’t, he would at least have one left for himself so that a Greyback wouldn’t turn him into a mechanical walking corpse. That’s what the Greybacks did, that’s what they specialized in. ‘Bodies of Metal and Steel’ was their mantra. And they knew just how to use their tech to make the dead walk and fight for them. Zane had seen them at work, the night he had fled to find his family.

            That was two nights ago, and he knew the only way to get out of this war, was to get away from the Greybacks, and that death was the only answer. Getting onto Bastille Street, Zane saw what was left of his colored glass windows reflect the fires in the city. He saw his doors blown open by what looked like a cannon. He had stopped in the middle of the street, staring. He didn’t notice his dead robotic twelve year old daughter come up behind him, raise her saw blade arm, and come down towards his head. But he did see his dead robotic mother walking towards him, head split open and tilted toward the air, a howl-like alarm sounding from what had been her mouth, as her arms lifted in the air and her fingers extended with wires to draw him in, to become part of the Greyback army.

Safe Amongst The Strangers

                They could feel the reverberation of the bombs hitting the ground. Shaking the tunnel so hard that dust and tiny pieces of rubble fell onto their heads. The sound of planes flying just over them filled the girls with fear. They sat together in hiding, two orphans in the middle of a war. They had nowhere to go without fearing for their lives. The rat-tat-tat of guns sounded closer and closer.
                “Penelope, I’m so scared.” Leslie whispered. Leslie was practically Penelope’s sister. They had already been through so much together and now they had to go through a war. Leslie had tears filling in her eyes making her green eyes look so vivid in the dark. Penelope grabbed Leslie’s hand and held it tight. “I am too Leslie.” Penelope said. They sat together with their hands intertwined; not knowing what would happen to them. They just wanted it all to stop, they didn’t want to die like this.
                In the distance they could hear another bomber plane. Penelope’s heart beat faster the closer the plane came. She had the sudden realization that this was it. The bomb from this plane would descend on them and they would be dead. It filled Penelope with so much fear that she began to shake violently. Leslie’s eyes became wide with the same realization and she began to cry even harder. Penelope kept shaking, closing her eyes hoping that it was close off the rest of the world. She wished she was somewhere else, anywhere but here.
                In a flash everything was quiet. She opened eyes to a small blue room, and panic filled within her.  “Leslie?!” She screamed, sitting up from the bed. She walked around the room wondering where she was. “LESLIE?!” She yelled again. Suddenly a women came bursting in through the door. She was dressed in odd clothes and her face was filled with concern. “Jenna sweetie are you okay?” She asked. But Penelope was frantic as she looked around. She had just lost her friend and she had no clue where she was. As she turned away, she caught her reflection in the mirror on the wall. A gasp escaped her as she stared at her reflection. She was wearing the same weird style of clothing as the women, but her body was not her own and neither the face staring back at her. She was not where she used to be, in the middle of a war in 1940, She was not who she was supposed to be. 

Challenge #79

Hello Everyone!

So the challenge for this week is to write a story that takes place during a war! The war can be fictional or nonfictional. It can be something, huge, or something small (like a war against worlds, or a war against friends). It's up to you!

If you would like to join us, by submitting some of your own work for Fan Friday, please do! Just send us your own creation (short story, art, poem, whatever) via e-mail to inkedfeathersfink@gmail.com.

See you all on Wednesday!

Fever

            The grocery store was closed by the time I reached it. Camila was craving something cold, and the store was closed. She had her tea cup clenched in her hands when I left, she had been begging me, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to return home without something cold for her to drink. The only thing I could think of was yerba mate, it was her favorite thing to drink now-a-days.

            Ever since she had bought the tea set at the market, she had cravings for that tea that made it almost impossible to stand being around her. I love her, I always will, but right now it is so hard to be around her. When she gets her cravings, it is like she has become possessed, especially because she always drinks it out of that one damned cup.

How do I know it’s the same cup? There is a small crack on the bottom of the cup. It looks like a small spider web moving from the bottom of the green cup to the small flower sculpted handle. And once, when I tried to take it away from her, she hit me over the head with it, hard. I bled a bit from the hit, but the cup stayed intact. And I was in shock, she still looked at me like I was being a bad excuse for a human being, and that she had done nothing wrong, but it frightened me.

And now I make sure to stock up on yerba mate. The house has always been filled, until today. Today, I did not realize that she had been drinking the tea non-stop. I did not realize she had devoured the build-up I had. So, at around midnight, when she asked, I was afraid. And with the stores closed, I fear going home. In the distance, I can hear the pops of the cars starting and driving off, and I wonder if I can catch a taxi and have it take me to the boarder. I wonder if I could flee to Chile, or Brazil, or maybe Mexico.

Somehow, I find my way home, and I can hear her screaming, and throwing things, and I wonder how this happened. I can only remember the young woman we bought the tea set from, telling us how her grandmother had gone crazy just before she had died. How she had refused to drink yerba mate out of a gourd or a more traditional form, because she was afraid that if she drank it out of anything else, that she would forget who she was.

I’m afraid for my wife, I’m afraid for myself. I walk away from the house, I start to run, and I don’t stop until I reach our church.

Bella Espía

                This wasn’t Caterina’s first time being tied to a chair. Except the last couple of times were more for pleasure than pain. Her arms were bound behind her, tied tightly with rope that dug into her wrists. Her ankles were bound as well along with her midsection. They were making sure that she wouldn’t be able to escape, or worse that she wouldn’t have a free hand to kill them with.
Her face was bruised some from the fight to contain her. But she smiled, knowing that her contender looked much worse than she did.
                “Caterina, here we are again.” Across the table from her stood her ex fiancé Adolfo. Caterina hated him more than anything, but she couldn’t help thinking how handsome he was.
“Ah the Noble Wolf is here to interrogate me huh?” She asked, using his code name. He grimaced before pulling out a chair and sitting down.
“Caterina, we are done playing games. I need to know what you know!” He slams his hand down on the metal table, but she doesn’t flinch. Caterina has seen and done many things as a spy, she is good at what she does. Out of all the things that scare her, Adolfo doesn’t even come close to being on her list.
“Vaffanculo.” She cusses at him in Italian. He scowls before standing up once more.
                He grabs a tray from the other end of the room and brings it back. A teapot and two cups sit on the tray. They are white with little blue flowers spread across them.
“Would you like some Tea?” He asks her, smiling. All pleasantries back in voice.
“No thank you.” She says glaring.
“Oh no my darling, I insist.” He says pouring tea into the cup. He slides it in front of her.
“And how you expect me to drink it?” She asks.
“Oh I don’t expect you to drink it.” He says before grabbing the cup and throwing the hot tea on her face. She screams out in pain, thrashing in her chair. Her face feels like it’s about to melt off and she can already feel welts forming.
“Now tell me what I need to, or I will pour you another cup of tea!” He says. Caterina fights the tears that form in her eyes. “Figlio di Mignotta!” She once again cusses at him in Italian. He tisks at her before once again pouring another cup of tea. She braces herself for the pain that’s about to come.
                The tea burns her cheeks and she again thrashes in her chair, screaming out. The pain is only more intensified. “Caterina, you don’t have to do this to yourself. You can stop all this nonsense now if you just tell me what you know.” He says blowing on his own tea before taking a sip.
“You know Adolfo, you are right. I don’t have to put up with this nonsense.” She says smiling up at him. She grinds her teeth to help stop herself from once again crying out in pain.
“So the great Caterina just gives up like that then eh? Alright spill it darling.” He says.
She waits a minute before speaking. “Oh but I don’t have to.” She says. Suddenly Adolfo starts coughing, grabbing at his throat. His teacup falls to the ground and shatters. His eyes are wide and his veins are bulging as his face slowly starts to turn blue.
“How-How-“ He gasps as he falls to his knees. Caterina breaks free from the rope that she had been cutting with her nail.
“I have friends in many places Adolfo.” She says looking down at him. “Burn in hell darling.” She says watching him take his last breath.
                She works quickly removing the rest of the ropes that bind her. She only has a couple minutes before they come to do a checkup. She grabs the gun that resides on Adolfo’s hip and looks at the broken teacup on the floor. A smile forms on her lips as she thinks of the Arsenic that lines the teacup. A wave of Adrenaline fills her as she thinks that she could have gotten either cup, but she was lucky enough to get the one with poison. So is the life of being a spy in Argentina in the year 1932.