Good Evening, everyone! I am back home today after a tiring, but overall really good training in Seattle. I am glad to be back at my normal desk and will be heading to my usual bed in a few hours.
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Prompt: A young woman inherits a cursed ring from her grandmother and must decide whether to keep it and its power or destroy it and break the curse.
Genre: Fantasy/supernatural
Source: 121 Short Story Prompts to Help You Write Unforgettable Stories
Time Spent: 35 minutes
Word Count: 1216
Prompt: A young woman inherits a cursed ring from her grandmother and must decide whether to keep it and its power or destroy it and break the curse.]
Velodia Gerrone had always been close to her grandmother, who lived in a well-maintained cottage in a small wood about half a day’s journey from her parents’ house. She had been going there to visit her grandmother every weekend for as long as she could remember, with her parents at first, and then on her own when she was old enough to make the journey on her own. They had sat together and talked, cooked, baked, gardened, and at night her grandmother told her stories. To Velodia, her grandmother had seemed ageless and permanent, so it had come as something of a shock to her to hear of her death.
It was at the funeral that she started to realize that she really knew very little about her grandmother. Hundreds of people had turned up to pay their respects, some expressing genuine sadness, and others seeming to have turned up to confirm that she was actually dead. She recognized some of them who had come to see her grandmother during various of her visits. Usually, they went into a side room, talked in hushed whispers, and then left quickly afterward. At least, that was her memory. She began to ask questions but generally received either puzzled looks or vague answers. Her own mother had passed a few years before and her father confessed he knew little of his mother-in-law and had always viewed her with a mixture of respect, awe, and a little apprehension that he could not explain.
Velodia was not terribly surprised to find herself name in her grandmother’s will as the inheritor of her cottage and all of her possessions, after all to the best of her knowledge she was her grandmother’s only living relative. She signed and notarized what she needed to and got the keys, but avoided going for nearly a month.
On a sunny and breezy Friday afternoon in autumn, her favorite weather and season and the day of the week she usually made the trip, she steeled herself and made the trip. She found herself sad to see the still beautiful garden going overgrown and wild and the cottage dim and unused. She found herself apprehensive to open the door, and stood with the key in the lock, gripping the door handle, for nearly five minutes before she turned the knob and walked in.
The Cottage was exactly as she remembered it, except for the layer of dust and wholly unnerving feeling of emptiness and lifelessness. Thinking of nothing else to do, she began to clean and straighten up the place, stopping occasionally to reminisce about the things she was finding. She could not bring herself to even step foot into her grandmother’s room yet, so made up the bed she had always slept in and slept fitfully.
Saturday progressed in much the same way, although her heart lightened as slowly the dust and lifelessness was removed from the space and things once more seemed more well maintained and vibrant. By the early afternoon, she had done much of the house aside from her grandmother’s room. After a light lunch of the food she had the foresight to bring with her, Velodia at last took the step into her grandmother’s room.
The four-postered bed, which still seemed massive even as an adult, was the same, but there was an odd look of clutter with various book and papers. Many of them including strange symbols and languages she did not even recognize, let alone know how to read. She had most of these picked up and put back on the shelf when she noticed a slip of paper under one of the pillows on the bed. Going to take it out, she found a note, addressed to her.
The notes was, without question, in her grandmother’s handwriting, although the meaning of the message was lost on her. “My dearest Velodia, I hope I would have had more time to explain, but time seems to have run out for more sooner than I expected. He will come on Saturday, in the early evening. It is a hard choice to make, and whatever you choose, I love you endlessly.”
Velodia was not sure how long she spent staring at the note but she nearly jumped out of her own skin when a knock came at the door. Putting the note away, she approached the front door with a renewed sense of apprehension, and puzzlement. She opened the door to find a tall woman in a long dress. Golden hair cascaded down her back, over what looked like a cloak of some kind which was tossed back. Beyond that, and a sense of indescribable beauty, and also a vague aura of terror, it was hard to really focus on specific details of the woman, who she invited in wordless, too stunned to speak.
The tall strange her to duck a little to enter the doorway, and even though the front room of the cottage was fairly sizeable she absolutely dominated the space with her very presence. Golden eyes fixed her in place after she closed the door.
The woman spoke in a deep, melodic, and almost hypnotic voice. “Velodia Gerrone, I have come in honor of a pact made between myself and one of your foremothers, a great many of your years ago. The eldest living woman in your family have the option to receive the ability of seeing into the future to the outcome of any situation she is involved in. This allows them to see the solution to virtually any problem of themselves or others. Such power, however, has its own drawback. Attempting to change or alter any vision of the future could prove fatal to you, and you will see the death of anyone you spend any time with. This is the choice before you, decide.”
Velodia reflected to herself, “well, I guess that explains why she always lived so far from people, and she inspired awe and fear. Also, why she was frequently sought out for advice.”
Velodia cleared her throat and addressed the stranger before her, “Are there any other drawbacks to this?”
“A wise question, young human, but the boon granted your bloodline is as I have told you. It is up to each individual of it what they will, if they choose to take it.”
“And if I refuse the boon?”
The woman shrugged, “your life will proceed as it has, but the boon shall not be offered to you again, though your future descendants will be given the choice as well.”
“Has anyone ever refused it?”
“A few have, most do not.”
Velodia reflected on her grandmother, the respect and awe that everyone had of her, and also the number of people she clearly seems to have helped. Between her mother and grandmother, plus a few other friends and relatives, and she had seen about all the death she could stomach, but if she could help people prepare. . .
It was a hard choice, made harder by the impassive stare of the stranger, but in the end, she was much like her grandmother.
“Okay, I’ll take the boon.”
A fun little story today, that I deliberately kept vague in some details, but another fun one to write.
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I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day; you get the chance to do or experience something creative, and I’ll catch you all on the next one!
– Jon
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