The Quill and the Quire (4)

Part four of a macabre tale of prognostication that asks, "What if one were to write about fictional tragedies of the future ... and they came to pass?" The discovery of an ancient artifact sends Vance Henderson on a terrifying race against time to save the present and all that he holds precious.

To read from the beginning click HERE.

The next thing I remembered was awakening to the siege of smelling salts beneath my nose. I was no longer outside but lying upon some hard surface. A ring of curious faces were hovering over me. Apparently I had fainted, and these men must have carried me inside and placed me upon a table.

"Not used to seeing death are we, Yank?" I'd heard the voice but was unable to detect which of the faces had spoken.

"Who ... Who was it?" I asked.

"Nobody of importance," replied the one above my head. "Her name was Agnes Lennon. She sold antiques up the street. The lightning struck her right in front of her shop." He and another man grabbed my arms and helped me into a sitting position. Making eye contact, I recognized some of the men as those who had been at the pub the night before.

Another man spoke, "This morning you became her first customer in nearly five years."

The other men turned to him in scorn and he lowered his head. His statement had struck me like a double-edged sword. Why would he have said that and what had he meant? All along I thought that I'd been the only soul out and about this morning. If it was known that I'd visited her shop, were these townspeople watching my every action?

"Oh, I see. She must have told you of my visit," I suggested.

"No," one of them countered, "Agnes neither spoke to anyone, nor did anyone speak to her for the sake of idle conversation. Like most of us in town, she tended to go her way as we went ours."

"Mighty friendly lot you people are," I said bitterly. "All along I thought it was me because I was a stranger."

"I supposed we deserve that," said the man who had apparently adopted the role as the spokesperson among the assembled men. "This is a small town, and as such everyone knows the business of everyone else simply by association. We menfolk do get together at the pub, but we choose to discuss sports and politics. We never talk about anyone unless that person is present and wishes to discuss his problems. Our womenfolk have their gatherings too, but there isn't a man among us who would dare ask what they speak about in their private hen parties."

There was a round of laughter from their ranks. I grinned and said, "That is a most wise position to take, sir."

"You must think us callous, especially where Agnes Lennon is concerned. I assure you that we all grieve at the loss of any human life. I never intended for you to think we detested her. It's just that she was ... well, different."

"How so?" I asked. Looking around, I noted that the others had drifted away from our conversation. It seemed apparent that they wanted to avoid discussing the late Agnes Lennon.

"She lived alone for a long time," the man said. "She was the last of the Lennons. Nearly all of her family had died under tragic circumstances over the years."

I listened intently as he chronicled from both memory and hearsay the tragic lives of the Lennon family. It seemed that the family had once prospered in fifteenth century France before eventually migrating to the British Isles. Her immediate family had once settled in Wales.

"Then there were all of their family heirlooms and so-called treasures," he said. "The family had been well known collectors and they set up shops everywhere they went. It seems that they gathered and collected things from all over Europe. It has been said that they at one time had even gotten a hold of the Holy Grail itself!"

I was fascinated by his narrative and the story it told about the unfortunate woman's family. Death however, followed the family like a shadow no matter where they may have relocated over the centuries. As he had said before, countless numbers of them had died violent deaths. In time, the family was assumed to be cursed and they were avoided by others. Hence, the family would pull up stakes and move elsewhere.

"As far as anyone has been able to learn, not one single descendant had ever died of natural causes," he remarked. He lowered his head and cleared his throat and added, "...And that includes the last of the lineage, one Agnes Lennon."

It had become obvious to me that Agnes Lennon had been an outcast, treated with superstitious caution by these locals. I could see how it was only natural for a legend of a family curse to rise above reason. It was no wonder, I mused, that the blood line of the family had come to an end. As for Agnes living alone, who would have risked marrying into a family that seemed destined for nothing but tragedy?

It had come as no surprise to me that there had also been a mystique as well as a stigma associated to the family heirlooms. At one time someone had attributed the family's tragedies to the relics they had collected. In order to survive, remaining family members had resorted to selling the treasures. Of course, local business had been nonexistent as locals feared their so-called treasures. As a result, the family had to depend on outside trade, forced to travel to peddle their goods.

The man concluded his narration by telling me about the fate of Agnes' father. "It was thirty years ago that he set out one morning with his mule hitched to his cart to ply his trade. He never returned. His body was found several weeks later buried beneath the rocks and earth of a landslide. Agnes had been living alone ever since."


Leaving the company of the townsmen, I set off on the slow walk back home. Along the way I came across a small general store and stepped inside. I was pleased that I was able to purchase a can of coffee and a small electric percolator.

I was being eaten alive by both a sense of dread and the pangs of guilt. I was not a superstitious person by any stretch of the imagination, and not at all given to fearing curses. My skin, however, was acrawl as I thought of the quill and the quire and what had been written using them.

Earlier I had been trying to recall the obvious missing three and a half hours. It had since occurred to me that there was another unaccounted half hour or so. When I had been confused earlier regarding the time, it had been three o'clock, and the lightning strike had taken place at four o'clock. From the time I'd entered the house to the moment I'd read from the quire, surely an entire hour had not passed.

I found myself once again running to the cottage. I was trembling and perspiring heavily. What was happening to me? The missing pieces of time could only mean one thing. I'd been blacking out! What else could explain the missing time? It was obvious I had written the account of Agnes' death, but why the loss of memory of doing so?

It was still there where I'd left it. The sheet describing the lightning victim was still lying off to the side of the case. I froze several feet short of the table and I am certain that my face must have paled to the color of the paper.

The next sheet bore writing!

(To be continued ... Part 5.)

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