For Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo prompt
Another bit of fiction – another continuation of previous entries that I have decided to collate in one place – here.
Here Sue’s photo for this week.
Heirloom
By Scott Bailey © 2018
She had run from the stately home – from ghosts and strange blind men – both alive and dead.
But not far. She had very quickly got hold of herself. Now she sat outside a provincial coffee shop sipping the best she’d tasted for some time.
As she drunk she stared at the place in the distance. Turrets rising from the darkness like the beginning of some gothic horror movie.
Only now she knew the ghosts were real.
How she knew that she was not sure. It went against everything she had ever believed, against the grain of her fundamental seeking for truths.
But she did not doubt what she had seen.
So, that is how he found her, sipping coffee, staring at his home.
Vaguely, she wondered at that. Had she stumbled straight into his favourite place? Had he had her followed? Again, she noted that he seemed to need no guide. He must be familiar with this place as well.
He sat across the table from her and waited.
“Who are they,” she asked eventually.
He smiled wryly and lifted one shoulder and a strange shrug.
“That is the question. One there has been no answer to. All I can tell you is that through all the stories, down through the years – beyond history – they are there – along with the sword. With Northblood.”
“Stories? Do you have them all?”
“All, that are known of,” he replied. “There are gaps in time, and as I said, they go beyond written history.”
Again, for no apparent reason, she believed him.
“Will you tell me them?”
“I will,” he nodded. He signalled to a waiter and ordered himself a coffee. Then he resumed.
“But if you are seeking truths, stories will not suffice. You must take more, you must take responsibility.”
She cocked her head at that.
“What do you mean?”
“It is time Northblood was held by new hands.”
“You want me to have the sword?”
He nodded, then added more quietly.
“But there is a cost.”
#writephoto
Scott Andrew Bailey - Author 