An Inheritance

LJI Week 1, Open Topic
The morning after Gran's funeral was mild and sunny, with a gentle breeze blowing through the window Ally had left open the night before. Sitting up, she rubbed at her face with both hands, and considered whether it'd be worth going downstairs and finding some coffee to drink. Craig had mentioned catching an early flight home today, so she might be able to say goodbye to him as well, always assuming he hadn't left yet.

The sun's warmth on her upper body flickered, as though a cloud had temporarily obscured it, but when she dropped her hands and looked, the sky visible through the bedroom window was cloudless.

The wooden floor creaked as she got out of bed, and Ally smiled to herself at the familiar sound. The old house had always had a personality of its very own, much more vivid than any modern building she had ever lived in. Late nights, tiptoeing downstairs, learning which boards would give you away and which ones wouldn't.

"It feels alive," she told Gran once.

"Alive?" Gran had paused, in that way she had of seeming to seriously consider every idea Ally brought to her. "I think what you're probably feeling is the land the house is built on, not the house itself, child. The land has always been alive, and passes that energy to everything that touches it."

When they had learned about Gran's death, Craig had gone on for what felt like hours about how the house and surrounding property would be a financial millstone around both their necks, and it would really be best if they packed up everything they wanted and got it on the market as soon as possible.

"Sure," she had said, once he paused for a moment to breathe, "but we should actually bury Gran first, yeah?"

Ally knew he didn't mean to be unfeeling, and to be fair, he hadn't spent several years of his childhood living here the way she had after they lost mom and dad. Gran had sent him off to junior boarding school shortly after his tenth birthday. Still, in her memories, he had been home far more often than not, and she was always surprised when his attitude towards the place didn't match her own.

A summer day, Craig standing with river water around his feet, her small body grasped in both hands while she wriggled above his head.

"I shall throw you like a tennis ball," he had growled in his pretend frightening voice. "Throw you as hard as I can, but will you reach the far bank?"

She had screamed in mock fear as he spun, building momentum for the massive throw, while Gran stood laughing on the bank. How could he not love this house and the land around it as much as she did?

In her will, Gran had left the house and the twenty acres of land surrounding it to both of them. For a time, Ally had spun out fantasies in her mind of buying Craig out and moving into the house herself, but even in this pretend future, hadn't ever figured out exactly how she had managed to buy him out or could afford to live here. After yesterday's funeral, they had agreed that she would spend a day or two packing up the stuff she wanted to keep, let him know when she was done so that the remaining items could be auctioned off, and the house and property could be put on the market. She had agreed; she was barely out of college, of course she had agreed, but it didn't change how she felt.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard noises coming from the kitchen, but instead of walking that way to say good morning and find out when Craig would be leaving, she turned left into the living room. The piano she had practiced on for hours was there, the bookcase overflowing with novels and magazines, the grandfather clock, and in pride of place at the center of one wall, Gran's collection of glass animals.

"There are so many of them," she had exclaimed the day she had helped unwrap each animal and arrange it for ideal viewing. The display shelf's height had been much taller than she was, and Ally had to use a foot stool to reach it.

"Be careful, child," Gran had cautioned, steadying her while she clambered on to the stool to place a prickly hedgehog. "I collected these while traveling across Europe after my senior year in high school."

"Was that where you met Gramps?"

"No," she chuckled, ruffling Ally's hair, "he didn't come around until long after that."

"Ally?"

She was holding the hedgehog, absorbed by the light reflecting off its multitude of spines.

"Ally?"

Craig's voice. He had been there that day as well.

Shards of glass covered the floor, and Gran stood with her arms outstretched as though she might be able to gather each animal in before it struck the ground and exploded into oblivion. Craig was dancing. As light splintered off each fallen shard, he danced through the beams, his hands a blur of motion, hurling one animal after another to its destruction. Gran's wail was the worst noise Ally had heard in her entire young life; sadness, loss, and betrayal captured in a single keening note.

"Ally?"

"These were all shattered," she whispered. "How can they be here if they were all broken?"

She heard Craig behind her, walking further into the living room, and then he touched her shoulder.

"Ally," he said calmly, "nothing is broken. All the glass animals are there, just like they were yesterday when we got here."

"But, I remember," she insisted, shaking free of his hand and turning to face him, "we were setting up the animals, you fought with Gran, and then all of them got broken!"

A bit of sophistry there of course. The animals hadn't just gotten broken, he had broken them.

"No, Ally," he said patiently, with the underlying tone of someone who had explained this many times before, "I was away at boarding school when Gran put up this shelf. It was one of the things you showed me when I came home over summer vacation, remember?"

The memory of him dancing and of Gran's terrible grief felt etched in crystal to her, but there was … another memory overlayed as well, faded and more difficult to recall. Gran's voice, explaining something …

"Are you all right now?" Craig slipped the hedgehog from her hand, and reaching past her, set it back in its place on the shelf. "I need to talk with you for a minute before I go to the airport."

Ally realized she did feel slightly better, as though she had just awakened from a trance. Craig's hand was back on her shoulder now, gently guiding her towards a set of chairs opposite the piano. As they walked across the living room, she registered that he looked terrible. Both of them had been exhausted and emotionally drained the night before, but now he had huge circles under his eyes as though he hadn't slept at all.

"I realized yesterday," he said while they were sitting down, "just how unfair I've been to you about all of this." Ally started to object, but he waved a hand at her. "It's okay," he insisted, "I just didn't consider how important this place would be to you after growing up here."

"You said it was a millstone," she mumbled, knowing she sounded surly, but unable to stop herself.

"I did," he agreed, actually blushing, "but I'm not saying that anymore." He pulled out a piece of paper from his shirt pocket, and offered it to her.

"What's …" She took the paper.

I renounce all ownership of the house and property bequeathed to me by Alicia Harding.

Ally stared at the paper, at his signature following the statement.

"I know that's probably not legally binding," he said in a rush, "but I wanted you to have something as a guaranty before we can have a lawyer write up something formal."

"Craig," she was whispering again. "I don't know what to say!"

He smiled at her, reached towards her as though considering a hug, and then abruptly stood.

"I have to go," he said so quickly that the words almost blurred together. "I don't want to miss my flight." Ally tried to stand, but he was already across the living room, briefcase in his hand, waving at her. "Goodbye," he said over his shoulder while turning to leave.

Dumbfounded, she stared at his retreating back, and heard the front door slam shut after him before belatedly realizing she hadn't said goodbye.

Ally sat for several minutes, listening as the grandfather clock ticked away each individual second. She had finally remembered Gran's words, overlayed on that horrible memory etched in Crystal.

"Craig isn't always going to remember the time he spends with us, the things we do together. It would only hurt him if we tried to make him remember, so we have to keep those special times with him a secret. Understand?"

She hadn't understood of course, but she had known how to keep a secret, and after a while, had also come to know the differences between Craig and Not-Craig. Craig was her brother, a quiet boy who loved books and was only interested in tangible things that could be proven by science. Not-Craig was wild and had a mercurial temper, celebrating life with joy and abandon one minute, raging and prone to violent outbursts the next.

Standing, she walked across the living room and retrieved the hedgehog from the shelf of glass animals. When she turned, Not-Craig was standing in the living room doorway.

"You!" she groaned, resisting the urge to hurl the glass animal she held. "Stop hurting my brother."

"Stop hurting my brother!" His voice was a high falsetto, a mocking parody of her own words. As he moved towards her, every step he took was an expression of supreme confidence. "Don't be like that, my love," he said. It was Craig's voice now, but somehow deeper, more resonant. "He's renounced his claim and left my land. I couldn't touch him now even if I wanted to."

He was standing a few scant inches away from her now, his eyes devouring her body with malevolent intent. She didn't have much time left, perhaps none at all.

"Why did she hide you from me?"

He sighed and flung out his arms to either side, as though her question was the greatest imposition he had ever had to deal with.

"She wanted you to have 'a normal life!'" that mocking falsetto again. "Whatever that meant." He leaned forward, "I'm bound to the women of your bloodline, just as the matriarchs who own this land are bound to me. Together we prosper here, and the outside world cannot touch us." He was so close to her that the breath from his next words tickled her ear. "Your blood sings in my veins!"

Ally tried to recoil, but her back was against the living room wall, the shelf of glass animals pressing painfully into her neck.

"You made her send Craig away?"

"That noxious little shit?" he spat, pulling back from her. "Of course I did. The women are mine, but the boys all must go, eventually." His expression grew pensive, and he leaned forward again. "You care about your brother?" He sounded genuinely curious, as though human caring and love were totally alien emotions.

"Yes."

"Well," he crowed, pirouetting before her, "here he is!"

Ally audibly gulped, choking down the bile in her throat. Not-Craig, the creature before her, must have planned this. While she was still a child, he had begun subverting the Craig she knew, attempting to supplant her brother, create false memories with himself at the center of her universe. And her Gran, her lovely supportive Gran had been part of it, although perhaps not so willingly at the very end. Why else leave all of this to both Craig and her, instead of a soul bequest in only her name?

"You're not my brother!"

Not-Craig threw his head back and roared with laughter. "True, so true!" Suddenly, his hands were grasping her shoulders, and his lips were next to her ear again. "And you, little girl, knew I wasn't! You lied to your Gran, pretending you believed her little fiction about me. You lied to Craig when he came home to visit. But most of all you lied to yourself! Whatever monster you see in me is looking back at you in the mirror!"

Ally stared back into his eyes with cold resolve, and spoke the words her brother had gifted to her so recently. "I renounce all ownership of the house and property bequeathed to me by Alicia Harding!"

***

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Dan