The Finders Keepers

by R.G. Strike

  Almost all of the street lamps were dying now. The rain was pouring hard that waters collected on the pavement, and the drainages were not sufficient to accommodate exit. Silver lightning blasted every second or two, followed by startling, banging thunder that must have caused the glass windows to break unattended.

  Irvin hurried his steps, covering the baby, as more rain showered the village. Then a flummoxing galumphs erupted from the heaven. Irvin jolted as the baby still tucked against his chest began to cry for dear help. After not a long while, a branch of an acacia tree was whipped in front of him, splashing the waters.

  Irvin tried to avoid it, but it was too late. The branch hit his left thigh, and a bold straight line was pierced on his skin, the blood rushing fast stained on his lower cloth.

  He screamed in pain: His teeth clenching as his eyes narrowed. Nevertheless, as his tears rolled onto the white linen wrapping the baby, he grasped another stream of hope.

  Embracing the baby tightly against his chest, he struggled to run on the sidewalk, and curved at the end of the road.

  The dark features of the Turpin House stood surrounded by a cluster of tall trees, looking as if unaffected by the typhoon, although rain was likewise dropping from its heavens.

  Agitating, Irvin reached the house, where a soft yellow light was blazing through the curtains of the downstairs drawing room.

  He found the rusty knocker and immediately thumped it against the door. Glancing around, as though the hooded figure or the bald man had followed him, he waited, sipping the smell of the wet ground that was carried on by the night breeze. After half a minute, he heard footsteps behind the door, and a green pupil was magnified on the peep hole; then there was an immediate creaking, and the door cracked wide open.

  A blond-haired man was looking at him through his swollen and heavily lidded eyes. For a few seconds he stared at Irvin as if recognizing him. Then he sniffed on his crooked nose and brushed his untidy blond hairs.

  “Er – yeah, it’s me,” said Irvin, averting his eyes from him.

  Peter stared at him but did not speak. Then he scrambled behind the door and tried to close it shut, but Irvin barred the ledge hardly so that after a few more moments, Peter gave up and reopened the door and stared at Irvin again.

  “Are you not letting me in?” Irvin asked, tightening his hug on the baby. This turned apparently effective because Peter tried to look hard on what Irvin was holding, though he had difficulty recognizing it through his swollen eyes.

  “Enter then,” Peter mumbled softly.

  Irvin slowly scuttled the bright hallway, leaving wet traces of water and blood on the carpet. Peter hurried beside him after closing the door with a snap behind.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, Peter,” Irvin apologized, realizing that Peter had gone beside him.

  Peter tried to open his mouth, but a splitting pain seared from his jaw.

  “Ouch!”

  “Oh, you’re hurt,” said Irvin, smelling the odor of wound treatment from Peter’s nose. “Look, Peter I’m really sorry about what I did. If I have only remembered you’re my brother, then maybe I might not have done that to you in the first place.”

  Irvin stopped. He looked at his brother’s face and giggled a little bit.

  “Oh, you silly boy!” he said. “And – oh – would you mind to take this box for me, by the way?”

  Peter did not respond. Slipped on Irvin’s armpit, he pulled the box slowly and held it up in front of his green eyes, examining it closely.

  “I have a good news, brother. But let’s move on there just for now.”

  The two men continued walking on the hallway, then emerged into the same sitting room where they had quarreled. Irvin tried not to look on the broken glass table, but behind the strewn flowers sat Xhynia, her head bowed and talking, picking up the mess he had made.

  “. . . you’re so hard-headed, Peter. You ought not to stress yourself opening the door. And who was it, by the way?”

  Xhynia looked up. For a moment she could not believe to see Irvin return after the dramatic event. She frowned her eyebrows as she stood, whipped the flowers off her hands onto the floor. Peter raced beside her, though in a manner that his left foot seemed to be paralyzed. Clutching the box at hand, Peter looked at her eyes, appearing pitiful so as to catch Xhynia’s attention.

  “Let us not,” Peter mumbled, “take things hardly this time –”

  “But – but what is he doing in here?” said Xhynia anxiously. “Was he supposed to be taking things easily outside this vicinity?”

  “You’re talking like I’m not your husband, Xhynia,” said Irvin dolefully.

  “Yes, I dare it, Irvin!” barked Xhynia in return. “Oh, and in what demeanor do you expect me to talk to you if you left me all alone rather uninterested?”

  “Well, sorry, then!”

  Irvin bowed. His head shadowed.

  “I can’t take that seriously –” said Xhynia.

  “Then what do you want?” demanded Irvin impatiently. “For your information, I nearly got killed! And this is how you’re treating me? Grow up, Xhynia!”

  For a few seconds no one talked. Xhynia sighed and looked at Irvin’s sharp ears, then onto his wet cloths. And his long, bleeding wound somehow convinced Xhynia he was telling the truth. She gasped upon seeing it, though not in an exaggerated manner that she used to do.

  “Where did you get that?” she asked.

  “From getting whipped by a branch, actually,” said Irvin. He looked at her and grinned.

  “Oh, it’s serious!” said Xhynia in an unpleasant tone.

  She moved closer to Irvin, but before she managed to examine the wound on his left thigh, her eyes fell upon the wrapped creature on Irvin’s hands. She stood straight and looked up at Irvin’s eyes, appearing disappointed at what she saw.

  “What does this mean?”

  Irvin was sure that ‘this’ meant nothing but the baby he was holding.

  “This is why I had the guts to return,” he said. “And if you would permit me to sit, perhaps I could explain everything.”

  “I ain’t permitting anyone to sit unless you tell me that baby’s from your foreign wife!” she shouted.

  “What foreign wife are you talking about?” said Irvin curiously. “Oh, I get it. Right. So you’re suspecting me I brought home a baby of a foreign wife that never existed?”

  Xhynia did not respond. Irvin shook his head angrily. He went past her, and turned to collapse on the threadbare sofa as he laid the baby to his side. On the other hand, Xhynia followed him without any word, expecting a lengthy explanation of what had just occurred.

  Peter sat on the opposite chair, carefully assisting himself with his box-free hand.

  “Tell us about your baby,” said Xhynia quickly.

  Irvin turned his head to Xhynia in a snap of a second. “It isn’t my baby –”

  “Well, then you ought to tell us whose!”

  He sighed and looked at Peter, who was not paying attention to the conversation but was lost in scrutinizing the book-sized box on his lap.

  “When I left, I was sure to be wandering the streets and an old man ushered me to dry in his shop. I realized that I could pawn my ring, but before I could offer any business he was looking at me maliciously and invited me to spend the night with him. ‘Course I refused, but he insists! What other things could I do? So I smacked his face –”

  “Did it work as much as it worked on me?” snapped Peter quickly.

  Irvin tried to laugh as he turned to face Peter.

  “How I wish, but I’m afraid it didn’t. He knows my move and he caught my hand, locked me. I kicked him on the groin and he surged with pain from his onto the floor, giving me the opportunity to run away from him.”

  “He can follow you.” Peter faced down at the box again.

  “He can’t, Peter. I left so much injury on him,” said Irvin. “Then I hid into the hut at Ladvick’s. I saw a hooded lady sitting there, so I decided to go, but he to
ld me something. Told me to take the baby she was holding. I’m terrified of wondering what she was rather than who she was, so I took the baby. Then she said something like I deserved this box – Peter’s holding it – but I thought no ‘cause it was too much to bear. Nevertheless, I took also took it in the end, and she just vanished like a smoke –”

  “Like a what?” Xhynia asked, astonished.

  “Like a smoke,” said Irvin. “She vanished into a smoke. That’s what I’ve been wondering for all the while. But I don’t want to bother about it now. I found what we were searching for.”

  “Goodness, we’re searching so many things! What was it that you found?” said Xhynia.

  “The box, Xhynia!” Irvin exclaimed. “The box!”

  “Where is it –”

  “I’ve got it here,” said Peter. He raised wet box, tapes wrapping around it, and on the edge was the piece that Irvin tore. This time, the content could not be clearly seen.

  “Mind to open it, brother,” said Irvin, nodding.

  Peter placed the box back on his lap as he laced out the tapes around it, grabbing the hole so that the box tore away. All three of them were panting as they waited, hearing the sound of tearing paper and expecting something to burst from it. But after a few seconds, Peter looked at them and smiled.

  Xhynia got impatient and screamed.

  “What is it?”

  Peter smiled.

  “Well – just a bundle of maybe a thousand Meeks –”

  “A thou – a – a,” Xhynia screamed as she scuttled quickly beside Peter and verified if he was telling the truth. After a moment or two, she wailed in happiness as she took the money from Peter and dropped it on the sofa. “You’re a life saver, Irvin!”

  Irvin grinned and took the baby on his hands, massaging the little face. “Not just money, Xhynia. We’ve got an instant baby.”

  “Baby?” she said. “Did I hear it right?”

  “Yes,” said Irvin. “It’s so cute.”

  Xhynia slowly looked up at Irvin who was holding the baby, then she frowned in disappointment.

  “I’m not taking the baby. Hide it, lock it away.”

  Irvin stared at her in disbelief.

  “We should be thankful having the baby ‘cause it was the reason I got the box –”

  Peter raised his hands.

  “Wait. There’s a letter in here –”

  “A letter?” Xhynia demanded, shocked.

  Peter and Irvin turned to look at her impassively.

  “Come on, read it then,” she said.

  Peter unfolded a parchment before his swollen eyes and began to read the content, with so much adversity that his pupils seemed almost in contact with the paper:

  The dragons seeks to revolutionize

  In the Switzarnel Empire war shall rise

  To demise King Alfonso, knights will call

  To oppose the odd lord, the child must fall

  “Has anyone of you,” said Xhynia, “ever heard about the names –”

  “The names that were mentioned in the letter, and the situations and warnings?” said Peter quickly. “Of course not! And for your information we are living in an entirely democratic country. There are no kings here.”

  “I know, but,” said Irvin, “it all fits, see. It’s absolutely mysterious. We’re already grown-ups to believe on dragons and kings.”

  Peter looked at them with his mouth pouting.

  “Mysterious, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” agreed Irvin, nodding. “Maybe it’s a threat –”

  “I knew it! I knew it in the first place, but you just don’t believe me!” said Xhynia, her face terrorized by the content of the letter. “Well, I told you to get rid of the baby!.”

  “Yeah, let’s get rid of the baby, Irvin,” said Peter, convincing his brother. “We might even get ourselves into a more serious trouble than this if we continue keeping that baby.”

  “But,” Irvin began, “where?”

  “Give it away to neighbors,” said Peter.

  “Peter, we don’t have neighbors,” Irvin reminded.

  “Just what I told you,” said Xhynia. “Hide the baby, lock it away – oh, it’d be a hard job. To make it easier, just kill it!”

  “No!” said Irvin, eyeing Xhynia widely. “We can’t kill the baby, or else there’s a link with the hooded lady that might – well, that monitors it’s growth.”

  “Orphanage, maybe?” Peter suggested.

  “Brilliant! You’re a genius, Peter,” said Irvin, moving beside his brother and hugging him joyously. “Great we share the same brains.”

  “Okay, but let me off!” mumbled Peter, and Irvin released him immediately. “Got those bruises hurting.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Irvin once again. “You’re just genius.”

  “Well, let’s not take the baby here for another day,” said Xhynia, holding the money tightly. “Let’s get rid of that baby tomorrow after we pay the bank. For now, I’m under the impression of sleeping with the baby for better courses. Until we return to our house in Eltoche, you two sleep in the other room –”

  “I wonder why you won’t sleep with me, your husband. We’re taking the guest room for the fifth time,” said Irvin, “it’s where we used to sleep when we were kids. Can’t let go of that memory of a ghost there, but I found out that it was just the dresser after all.”

  Xhynia yawned and took the baby from the sofa, holding it against her hands. She bade the two men goodnight and went into an upstairs room. Not a few seconds later, the two men went into their childhood room.

  CHAPTER FOUR:

  THE THREE WOMEN