by Amber Kalkes
She was interrupted by a delicate snort from Denise. "Miss, this is stupid! When is it going to get good?" Her voice took a keening sound from the whine in her voice. It made both Wendy and Jamie cringe.
"Patience. Now let me finish. Ah, where were we? Oh! Here we go… nearly a month later, the mysterious man came back into town and started to converse with the townspeople! They soon learned he was building his home in the far woods. It was a home grander than anything anyone in town had ever seen! They now knew why he brought all those men with him, they were to help him build such a place."
Wendy's mind drifted to the mansion that was in ruins, deep within the woods. She had stumbled across it as a small child and sometimes went there to think, sitting on the once grand steps to draw what her heart urged her to. The mansion looked like it had seen better days. Walls were missing and the steps she sat on have all but crumbled. She had never even shown Jamie her special place – the place where she feels carefree and light.
"Parties were held there through the months and the townsfolk now knew just how wealthy this man was. His name was Vincent Gilmore and he had women lined up by his door vying for his attention." The guys broke off in chuckles and fist bumped each other, "Swag!" A jock laughed, making everyone else chuckle. Even Mrs. Rush let a little laugh spill out. "Yes, he indeed had 'swag' as you called it. Back to the story… he paid them all no mind and life within the small community went back to normal. One cold night though, the town awoke because of a scream. Lighting their lanterns, all gasped when they saw that there on the street lay a young girl, dead with eyes wide open with fright. Her skin was paler than the moon and two puncture wounds graced her neck.
“The people grew scared and knew it had to be a monster that did it. A young girl came forward, out of the crowd gathered around the body, and said she saw who had done it. Immediately, they began to question her. She told everyone it was Lord Vincent she saw attacking the young girl just moments before. People grew angry and lit their torches to confront the man in question."
Wendy's heart began to beat just a little faster and noticed everyone's eyes were trained on their teacher in apprehension and devoted attention.
"They barged into his home without invitation and saw him standing there looking confused, but they saw the blood on his clothing and wasted no time in binding him. The father of the dead girl grew so angry he grabbed the first thing he saw, which was a silver candle holder, and struck Lord Vincent. The crowd gasped as they saw how it burned him. At that, people rushed into their own homes to find all the silver needed to detain Lord Vincent. He pleaded with everyone to let him explain, but they wouldn't listen. Soon he grew too angry and let them see his true form.
“Black eyes gazed back at them with hatred and fangs protruded from his mouth that made the lesser of the brave scream. They bound him with rope, and with it they attached various silver items to his body, which had him screaming in agony. A carpenter quickly made a coffin and some other people tossed in their best silverware and any jewelry that had silver in it into the coffin. Lord Vincent tried to fight them off, but he was too weak from all the silver that were bound to him and he screamed out once more when they placed him in the coffin. His skin sizzled and he couldn't move. All the townsfolk began to spit on him and cursed him to hell before closing the lid and digging him a grave. It is said that the grave is still here, in our town near his old home. A monster’s resting place filled with the purest of silver that are worth millions. The townsfolk marked it with a rock that had 'Evil shall perish in the depths of hell' engraved on it." Mrs. Rush then closed the book and looked at her class with a smile.
"Whoa! Do you think it's true?" a boy asked from the middle of the room with wide eyes.
Mrs. Rush smiled at him and shrugged. "I can't say. No one has ever found his home. Now the assignment today is to come up with a treasure story of your own. I want creativity and I don't want to hear any whining. Understood?"
The class nodded and she told them all to get to work. Wendy's heart was in overdrive. She knew where his old home was! She went there a few times every month! Her eyes glanced at her best friend and wondered if she should show her? Something in her told her not to and that confused her. That place was the only one left, she felt belonged solely to her. It felt almost wrong to tell someone else about it.
Everyone got to their own stories, but Wendy was still too caught up on whether or not this story Mrs. Rush read had some truth in it. Was there treasure near where she sat constantly? She felt bad for the man in the story, if that part alone was true. Back in those times, they killed a lot of innocent people due to suspicion, and it was unfortunate that he was another victim.
"Mrs. Rush? She's not doing her work!" Denise pointed to Wendy with a smirk on her upturned face. Jamie scowled at her, but remained quiet since all eyes were now on the two girls in the back row.
"I would focus more on your work if I were you, Denise, and stop trying to tattle like a five-year-old," Mrs. Rush reprimanded her, making her face flush with barely contained anger. The teacher then walked to Wendy with a slight frown, but then turned to see the class watching her every move. "Back to work!" she instructed, making everyone reluctantly turn back to their own writing. Squatting down to look at the girl who had nothing on her blank page, her frown deepened. "Is something wrong, Wendy? You've never not done your work before."
Wendy looked down at her hands and let a small sigh escape her. Her thoughts were swirling with possibilities. If she were to somehow find this grave, she could answer her parents’ prayers. With her sick older brother in the hospital, her parents had to take out a second mortgage to pay the bills that were stacking up.
With a start, she realized her teacher was still waiting for an answer. "Um, I don't feel too well." Her lie was pitiful at best, but with the thoughts that consumed her, it left a paleness on her that made the lie believable.
Mrs. Rush nodded at her and quickly wrote out a pass. "Go on to the nurse then. I hope you feel better."
Wendy felt bad for lying, but she needed to see if she could somehow find this grave, and staying in school wouldn't put her curiosity to rest. She never thought about skipping and knew the school calls if you do, but she also knew her parents were at the hospital, and would be all day, with her brother, Markus.
"Text me later, okay?" Jamie whispered and looked at her with worry. The thought probably never crossed her mind that her petite friend would lie to a teacher, let alone do so to skip class. It made Wendy that much more sickened with guilt, but she pressed on. She needed to do this for her own sanity and possibly save her brother and her parents from the never-ending pile of debt. To anyone else, this would seem like a fool’s hunt, but it was the last bit of hope she had. Wendy nodded at her worried friend, gathered up her stuff, and carefully placed them in her bag. After a few minutes, she was out of the stuffy classroom and into the cooler hallway. The difference in temperature made goose bumps rise on her arms. She cursed herself for not wearing a jacket, forgetting that this old school had a faulty air conditioner and heater.
With hurried footsteps, she pushed the excuse note into the pocket of her worn-down jeans, making it crinkle in the silent hallway. Not wanting to be caught, she all but ran outside and didn't stop until she was in the outline of trees, all the while thinking someone must have seen her. Her heart was pounding in her chest and a voice whispered for her to turn back, this wasn't right. It was the voice that had always labeled her a ‘goody-two-shoes’. Not today, she thought with a determined nod and continued to her sanctuary.
She knew exactly how to get there from the school, or from anywhere in this small town. Her scuffed shoes brushed against dense ferns, and water from leftover rain on the plants soaked the bottom of her jeans. Her nose began to turn pink from the biting cold since it was still morning. Her ears picked up birds chirping up above the canopy and the rustle of leaves from the gentle wind.
Almost an hour of walking was done before she arrived at he
r destination. Her jeans were wet along with her shoes and her blonde hair turned frizzy from the humidity, even though it wasn't that hot. She worked up a small sweat from walking uphill to this place. Even though her body was small, she was by no means fit. So every time she came here it gave her a good workout, but that was the only workout she ever got. Even in her P.E. class she barely participated, if at all.
Her eyes took in the crumbling building and it brought a smile to her face. The blocks that once held up grand walls were now in piles on the ground and there was a large, thick oak door that still stood proud and tall before her at the top of the unstable stone stairs. She shook her head and reprimanded herself. She was not here for another of her daydreaming days. No, she was here to find the treasure. A delicate snort sounded from her at the silly thought. The whole idea sounded juvenile even to her! However, she was already here, so might as well try.
For the next two hours, her eyes scanned tirelessly to find the grave, but came up with nothing. She remembered Mrs. Rush said it was near his home, but she couldn't seem to find it. Maybe it was just a story after all, she thought with a bitter frown. Wiping away the sweat that had accumulated on her forehead, she kicked a small stray rock and began to walk home… only to trip over a medium-sized boulder. A small yelp pierced the forest's dead calm as she landed in a heap on the dirt-covered floor. She hissed through her teeth as a stabbing pain began to radiate in her ankle. Tears sprang up in her eyes as the feeling of pain and the burden of failure resonated within her. She looked through squinted eyes, ready to yell at the rock that hurt her when her breathing stopped short.
"Evil shall perish in the depths of hell," she whispered to herself as she read the barely visible engraving on the stone. Her heart thudded irregularly when she realized she might have found it. With clammy palms, she brushed away some debris and stray leaves, and her eyes got bigger when she confirmed that she’d indeed found what she was looking for. Looking around wildly, she cursed herself again when she realized she hadn't thought to bring any tools with her.
"Idiot!" she hissed to herself. Then her eyes spotted a long piece of wood that seemed perfect, so she started digging with it. The ground in her town was always soft from the constant rain and she knew it wouldn't be too difficult. She just didn't know how deep it was. After thirty minutes of constant digging, Wendy found herself out of breath and her clothes and skin caked with mud. The hole was now about three feet deep. She gave a small laugh, thinking what her mother would say. Her arms burned from the strenuous activity and she was close to giving up and coming back tomorrow, with a shovel this time. But she knew she wouldn't sleep tonight if she did that. Looking up, she knew it had to be around twelve or so since her stomach had been rumbling non-stop. She lifted the piece of wood once more and struck the earth.
Thud.
Her pulse quickened at the sound. ‘This must be it!’ she thought with a huge smile. To anyone else she must have looked like a crazy person, with how she was now dressed and the fact that she was digging up a grave. She could imagine Jamie trying to talk her out of it now.
With the wood, she scraped around the large boxlike coffin so she could have enough room to open it and not stand on top of it. It took another thirty minutes, but she eventually succeeded when her feet were no longer on the wooden top. Her eyes widened when she saw a cross engraved on it and traced the carving with her dirt-caked fingernails.
Her guilt began to come back full force. This was someone's grave, not her way to help her family out of debt. At the thought of her family, her mind drifted to her sick brother. He has a heart defect that the doctors had only detected this past year. It was fatal unless treated with the right surgery – one that costs more than a four-year tuition to Harvard, which is exactly what her parents were trying to pay with only a community college graduate kind of salary. With that thought in mind, she pushed away her guilt and started to pry open the lid.
She pulled too hard at first and sliced her index finger on a loose splinter. She cried out and stuck the bleeding finger in her mouth, but not before drops of it landed on the coffin and seemed to seep into it. The taste of iron and earth flooded her taste buds as she tried to suck the pain away. She shuddered from the taste, but it did help with the sting. Heaving a big sigh, she thought of how beat up she'll look tomorrow at school. With her limping from a bad ankle and probably bruises from the fall, it won't be long before rumors start to fly about. She tried to open it again, with her heart sprinting at the thought of what lies beneath, but she had to shove her fears aside for the time being. Finally, she pried the lid open with a loud creaking sound, which she thought only happened in horror movies.
She gasped and screamed as she scrambled to not get so close to the rotting corpse before her. There was still flesh on the bones, remarkable, but it was spotty as most of it was gone. The smell made Wendy gag and she gasped again when she saw what looked like fingernail markings on the inside of the lid. It was then that she came to a startling realization, that it truly was Lord Vincent, and that he was really buried alive! His clothes were tattered and torn but still looked to be in semi-decent shape, almost as if it was a zombie costume for Halloween, with its few holes. With a shudder, she realized there was dried blood on them as well. Her conscience came to the fore and she cursed herself for thinking this could possibly be justified!
Her eyes caught something shiny, and it was then that she saw what was left of the body was lying on a small mound of silver, just like in the story. Wendy bit her lip at the temptation. This could help solve her family's problem. Help save her brother's life.
With shaky hands, she reached in and grabbed a hold of a very old looking necklace that had a red ruby ensnared in the center. Her heart did reach out to the poor man with the rope still wound around his body. Since she ignored her conscience from the time she started to walk here, she decided the least she could do was untie him as an 'I'm sorry' of sorts.
Black hair that could rival the color of a raven lay in a heap behind the head and had cobwebs and various bugs crawling through it. It disgusted her, but she was also disgusted with herself, grave robbing this poor soul. His eyes were long gone and that image will forever be burned in her memory. With eyes shut, she forced herself to untie him, if only to appease her guilty conscience a little. Without her knowledge, her bleeding finger dripped ever so lightly into the open jaw of the lying corpse. If Wendy had opened her eyes, she would've seen the two very pointy canine teeth that lay behind the rotting lips.
After that was done, she felt a little better despite taking the treasure back to her home. She wasn't sure how she was going to explain it. Maybe the truth, she wasn't sure. All she knew now was that this was the ticket to save her family. Gathering up all the silver that lay behind the body, she heaved it up and out of the hole before climbing out. Wendy knew she shouldn’t just leave the grave open so she shoved the rest of the dirt back in. She carried as much of the new treasure as she could in the gym bag she had the forethought to bring, stuffed the rest in her school bag, and walked back home.
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