The Ink Chase Serial appears below, after The Unforseen
The Unforeseen
by Lisa Scuderi-Burkimsher
Back from her fiancé Rob’s funeral, Lizzy sat exhausted and doleful at the kitchen table, staring out the backyard window. She sobbed until her energy drained, falling asleep.
When Lizzy awakened at half past midnight, only the glow of the full moon against the picture window filtered through the room. Lizzy, half asleep, knocked over the cup of coffee. Black coffee covered the white tiled floor. She pushed herself up and turned on the light switch. When she bent down to clean up the spilled mess, she fell backwards, slipped, and knocked into the kitchen chair.
“Rob?” Lizzy rubbed her eyes. “Is it really you?”
“Yes, it’s me, Lizzy. I never had a chance to tell you before I died, but I have something important in the basement that you must open. It’s a lockbox, but I haven’t time to explain what’s in it. Get yourself together, find love and be happy. I have to go. Take care. I love you.”
Lizzy, speechless, tried to grab hold of Rob, but his shadowy figure backed up into a white cloud of glowing light and faded away. Other than the ticking of the cuckoo clock, the room was silent once more.
“I must be dreaming! Did I really see Rob? I think I need more coffee.” Lizzy poured herself a hot cup and drank it down slowly, thoughts reeling around in her head. “I must be insane or exhausted. That couldn’t have been Rob.” There was only one way to know for sure. She dumped the rest of her coffee down the kitchen sink drain and headed for the basement door.
Lizzy hurried down the basement stairs, every step creaking with her movement. The basement was dark, dingy and smelled of mold. She stumbled over the mess in the dim moonlight searching for the overhead light chord. She felt chilled and rubbed her hands together. She needed to find that box quickly and head back upstairs to the warmth of the fireplace. She looked around, stacks of boxes everywhere. She searched several hours until she came across something covered with a black blanket in the far corner. She pulled it off and it was the lockbox. Lizzy needed something to break it open. She found a toolbox and pulled out a hammer. She hammered the lock swinging erratically until it released. When Lizzy opened it, she found bearer bonds worth one million dollars. Overwhelmed, Lizzy put her hands to her face and cried. After she pulled herself together, she took the lockbox and started up the stairs. After a few steps she lost her footing, fell and landed unconscious on the concrete.
Lizzy awakened confused and not sure of her surroundings. She blinked several times, focused and then realized she was on the basement floor.
“Oh my God!” Lizzy screamed and froze where she sat, at the sound of a familiar voice.
“Lizzy, you fell and died of a broken neck. I want you to take my hand and come with me.”
“Rob, no. I’m scared. I don’t want to go. I’m not ready.”
“Don’t be afraid. I’ll guide you.”
Lizzy reluctantly slipped her hand into Rob’s and disappeared, leaving behind the bonds and the new life she could’ve had.
◊ ◊ ◊
Lisa Scuderi-Burkimsher
—«»-«»-«»—
The Ink Chase
A Serial in eight parts
Nidhi Singh
Previous Episode 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Final Episode
“Scrota Deek,” I repeated in disbelief. Who didn’t know him? He was the most notorious prisoner on the isles—a miscreant, a radical, and a suspected sympathizer of the freedom fighters. To free him would be high treason. And even then, I was not going to trade in another man, howsoever debased, for my life. “Never – upon my life, and honor,” I exclaimed.
“There—that settles it,” Chedipe said, smiling wickedly.
“Look,” Harlow whispered to me. “ We’re just gaining time—I don’t really need him. I’ll figure out a way to help him escape, later. And worse, if I can’t, then you know the British Empire will only be one rogue short.”
He made sense. If I had time, even I could find a way out of this. “Alright then,” I moved away and addressed Chedipe. “But on one condition then—I go out only with the permanent cure for the spell you have cast on Diane. And don’t tell me I have your word—I have obvious reason to believe you will not keep it. ‘Tis better we end this now, than prolong her misery.”
“You’re hardly in a position to dictate terms to me, Mr. Barry,” she said, scorn flashing in her eyes.
“Have it your way then. As I see it, I’m only getting in the way of a lover’s tiff; it were better I was gone, and you could get back to your nitpicking.”
“You promise to bring this man to us?” she relented finally. She longed to be alone with her mad scientist, her savior, of that I was sure. And she was keen to make a good impression, for all she might deny.
“Upon my word.”
She threw another vial at me. “Let her stand barefoot in a wet bed of barley sprouts, face the moon and swallow it in one go. The spell will go. And now leave, I must account for this man’s deeds,” she said and turned to Harlow who’d walked up the steps to her throne and kneeled by her side. As I was leaving, her hand had slowly and hesitatingly moved to Harlow’s head, and begun to caress his tousled locks.
* * *
After I’d administered the dose to a panic-stricken and sleepless Diane, who’d dashed search parties after me, we sat out in the verandah, once the lights had been put out on the grounds, and calm had set in once more over the large house.
“Give me a minute,” I squeezed Diane’s hand and walked into my study. The head clerk usually sent over the day’s unfinished Dak for me to go over at home. I searched among the pile of papers and found Scrota Deek’s parole prayer.
My hands were firm when I picked out a ‘REJECTED’ stamp from the drawer, and wetting it on the inkpad, firmly put it on his application. I poured a stiff scotch for myself and walked back out.
“How would you like to settle down on the islands for a while,” I asked. Chedipe had said her ink didn’t work on water.
“Really?” Diane squealed and hugged me tightly. “Oh my god, I was really terribly lonely here. And I hated the idea of my baby growing up among servants only, with no one of its own age to play with!”
“I have arranged for the first ferry to take us out at dawn. You may send for your stuff later.”
* * *
Life on the islands was indeed happening, as Diane had said, surrounded as she always was by a doting drove of friends and flibbertigibbets. Three months later, she gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby girl.
A week later we had a visitor, standing nervously at the jetty. The small boat on which he’d rowed over was tethered to a rock close by. It was Harlow, all spruced up, and clean behind the ears, shyly clutching a huge bouquet of brilliant swamp flowers.
“ I see you still keep at the same address. Well, how are things?” I thumped him on his back and we strolled along the craggy shoreline.
“They’re getting better. She steps out in the sun now, only briefly though.”
“Has she taken it badly—my not sending your apprentice over?”
“No. She says she always knew it was a trick. We never needed anyone else in our life anyway. She sends her greetings.”
“Oh, really,” I said, relieved. “Are you happy?”
He grinned from ear to ear. “Never more,” he said. We walked some more and then it was time for him to leave, before the tide got nasty.
He paused just as he was about to shove off the boat. “ I was wondering…do you have the powers to officiate weddings,” he asked, blushing crimson. “I guess no church would have us—for obvious reasons. It was her idea.”
“Gladly,” I said, as he rowed away, happily. Anything was possible on the colonies.
The End
Nidhi Singh
Nidhi studied English Literature at Delhi University. She has a number of novels and miscellany published in India. Her short stories have appeared in various magazines such as, Fabula Argentea, Romance Magazine, Under the Bed and Nebula Rift. She lives near the sea in Kutch, India.
