Inheritance Option Ab1: Stay

Inheritance Option Ab1: Stay  

“So if I leave, you stop talking to me,” you muse to your pack.

“Um,” it shifts on your shoulders, “true, I guess, but wouldn’t that be akin to killing me?”

“Not sure you’re truly alive,” you say.

“Oh, but I am. Would you like me to explain?”

“No,” you pick up the letter and flip it over. There’s nothing on the other side. “I need to find a candlestick to show me around.”

“Oh, yippee,” zip, zip, “you’re not going to perform a pack murder.”

Sheesh.

You open the office doors and study the bright halls lit by streaming sunlight, realizing that in all the dark halls requiring candlelight, the floors are bare. Here, there’s a long, red, green and brown rug running most of the hallway.

“Let’s find a candlestick,” you tell the pack. “Think this hallway’s safe since I’m coming from the inside?”

“No, probably not, but maybe if you walk along the side of the hallway and not on the rug, it’ll leave you be.”

You follow the pack’s advice but only a step in and the wall against your side bulges outward, hits your hip and sends you stumbling onto the rug.

You give an “argh!” of surprise and try to jump over to the other side. It doesn’t work as the wall on that side has bulged out as well.

The rug shudders and moves, offsetting your balance even more and you hit the floor. In a move so fast you have trouble recalling exactly how it happened, the rug curls around you and rolls up into a neat burrito. You go thud, thud, thud down the entire hallway until you’re so wrapped up that your arms are tight against your sides and it’s hard to breath.

Then there’s a deep, ringing laugh of glee from the thing.

“Well, this is lovely,” zip, zip high up on your shoulders. In the tussle, the pack shifted to sit almost even with the back of your head. It wriggles and the rug laughs like it’s being tickled.

“Can you get free?” you ask.

“Working on it,” zip, zip.

In moments, the pack flops to the floor beside your head. The rug tries to slap an end onto it but your pack scrunches and slides farther down the hall.

“Sorry good chap,” it tells the rug, “But you’re all caught up with someone else.” Then to you, “Be back in a jiff with one of those bright fellows.”

Since when did your pack have an English accent? You can’t say but you watch as it shuffles its way down the hall. It’s one of the oddest things you’ve ever seen.

Like the rug’s frustrated at losing part of its prey, it tightens even more around you.

“Hey,” you complain.

It squeezes and you shift your face right and left, trying to add wiggle room. It doesn’t work but you notice something when you turn left.

The edge of the rug by your shoulder is fraying. This gives you an idea.

“Let me go,” you tell the rug, “or I’ll unravel you.”

It laughs again, that deep, almost belly laugh of delight.

“Fine.”

You grab a few fibers with your teeth and pull. This is going to take forever but it’s not like you have anything else to do. You keep pulling until you get a good, solid strand that actually starts to pull more of the edge loose.

There’s a shudder and an odd gasp of what sounds like weeping.

“Let me go or I’ll continue,” you tell the rug.

It loosens and then, just as quickly as it captured you, the rug unravels and sends you sailing into the office door.

When you look up, you see a person-sized candlestick standing at the far end of the hallway. Your pack sits on the floor beside it, almost like it’s standing up.

“Well done, Boss,” it zips.

***

Hoping to start on good terms, you repair the carpet from the small sewing kit in your pack.

Then the candle shows you the castle, you get a steak and see the treasures of the place.

You end up moving that one carpet in particular because even with a candle, it always trips you on the way to the office.

Other than that, you end up great friends with all the flowers because you enjoy gardening. The pansies do try to burry your feet. They seem to think you need to be planted, but they never try to eat you. Your pack on the other hand, they love to try to eat. It turns into a game figuring out where the pack gets buried. It complains incessantly but it stays your trusty pack.

The End

Congratulations on surviving the Castle! The adventure will be back on 26th. Until then, have a wonderful week.

Blessings,

Jennifer