“The journal and your last name make it all make sense.”
“What do you mean?” Lola asked as she stepped into the room.
“Come. Sit.” He frantically searched through the scrolls and pads of papers on his desk. “Here. Bamal Black.”
“Bamal Black?”
“Yes. My dear Lola, I believe he is an ancestor of yours.” Nolan handed her a slip of paper. It was a very old article about the disappearance of a pirate named Bamal Black. He was notorious for seizing ships, rape, murder, and had a vast amount of treasure.
“He and most of his crew disappeared a long time ago. They just vanished and so did his treasure. His ship was found but no one was on it. The treasure was gone but the journals from the crew were still there. The logs weren’t though so no one knows their last stop.”
“Wouldn’t their last stop have been the place the ship was found?” asked Lola as she examined the article further.
“The ship wasn’t found near any land. It was way out in the ocean drifting along. No one on it dead or alive.”
“No one was ever found?”
“Well, there was one man known to be a part of Bamal’s crew. He was hanged for crimes he committed when he was sailing with them. He was asked if he had any last words while people from the crowd screamed about the treasure and Bamal.”
“What were they? His last words.”
“‘They’re dead. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll never try to find them, or you’ll be dead too.’”
“My father told the man that the journal would lead him somewhere he wouldn’t want to go. I guess it did because when he came back, he looked different. Something happened to him. That’s why he did what he did to us. Whatever happened made him angry and he needed someone to blame.”
“What do you think it was?” asked Nolan. He took out a piece of parchment and a quill and wrote down her words. He preferred writing this way and often made notes of what Lola said and her experiences.
“When they would beat us, they talked about a cave. And screaming. He thought we knew something. That we let it happen, we did it on purpose.”
“What’s it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think my mother knew either.”
“Maybe looking for the treasure leads to a dangerous place. Would explain why no one has ever found it. It’s one of our greatest mysteries.”
“There are more?” She set the article on his desk.
“Mysteries. Why of course. How did we get here? What makes us special? What’s the meaning of life? One of mine, why is there only one phoenix born every few hundred years? I always thought that was strange. I mean every other species, vampires, wolves, dragon fairies, and so on, can multiply as much as they want. But there can only be one Phoenix at a time. It’s strange. Very strange. And it doesn’t seem fair. Talk about being completely alone. Species of one.”
When Lola turned eighteen, Nolan gave her the opportunity to buy her freedom. He had been giving her a small allowance for doing things around the house and running his errands. He was not only a historian but a collector. The rarer the item the happier he was. He would let her out into the world with a trained escort. A Sinth he rented from a friend. Lola set out to find something truly one of a kind with the money she had saved. She would trade or work for something she thought he would like. It took her four years, and, in that time, she found rare herbs, rare gemstones, rare books from the human world called Grimm Fairytales, and some wine that can only be found on Tarau, the water island. It’s made with fruit that can only be found in a small village. And they don’t give it to just anyone.
But the most valuable piece, the one that paid for her freedom, was a sword. When she was on Tarau she stopped by an antique shop and heard a group of men talking about a rare sword. The hilt was black and red, while the sheath was black on one side and red on the other.
“How much?” she asked the seller, an old woman named Yumi.
“Free. If you want it,” she chuckled.
“What’s wrong with it?” asked Lola. If it was really free, then why hadn’t someone bought it already?
“It’s evil. An evil spirit lives in there,” whispered Yumi as she pointed to the sword. “And she’s bloodthirsty. No one has been able to hold it. That’s why it’s still here.”
It was as if Yumi didn’t want the sword to hear what she was saying. Lola knew that Nolan wouldn’t wield the sword. He didn’t know how. It would just be on display. She touched it for a second and wrapped it in a thick blanket she bought from Yumi before tucking it into her bag.
“How did you?” asked Nolan after he stared at the sword for five minutes.
Lola had placed the sword on his desk in the library and slowly unwrapped it. Making sure to not let her skin encounter it. It had already burned her twice on the long journey back.
“An antique shop on the water island. It was free because apparently—"
“It’s cursed.”
“I guess.”
“You don’t believe?” Nolan inched closer to his desk.
“I don’t know. It did burn me and I'm still trying to figure out how that happened.”
“This is amazing.” Nolan’s face was a few inches from the sheathed sword. “It’s destiny.”
“Destiny?” asked Lola. She sat in the white chair by the door.
“Your ancestor Bamal hated the sword’s previous owner. Fin Lifton. They were arch enemies and fought. Bamal wanted his sword but no one outside of the Lifton bloodline can wield it. It’s the family curse. It’s funny, Bamal always wanted it and here you are hundreds of years later.”
“The Lifton’s are cursed? Why? And how do you know any of this?”
“I’ve told you before. I collect history. Journals, old articles. I’ve bought them from families who had no idea what they had. Family histories. It’s interesting to see how they all tie together. We are all connected. But anyway, I read in a journal, that’s probably around here somewhere, that the Lifton’s were cursed because of a witch in their family.”
“What did she do?”
“I believe she tried to make herself more powerful and instead she turned into a demon. She wreaked havoc everywhere she went. Destroying three villages and plunging a small island off the coast of Tarau deep into the sea. So many people died. When she was finally caught, if I remember correctly, she couldn’t be destroyed so they stuck her in that sword. And tasked the family with keeping it and keeping her at bay.”
“She’s in there?”
“Yes. And has been for a long time. The best gift you could ever get me. Truly one of a kind.”
“Glad you like.”
“Here,” said Nolan. He took a small slip of paper and slid it across his desk.
Lola picked it up and read it carefully. “I'm no longer a slave?”
“Free to do whatever you wish. You could stay or go out and explore more of the world you haven’t already seen.”
Lola sighed. She had wanted her freedom for so long. To be able to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. She never actually thought about what she wanted. Where would she go? How would she make a living? A million questions swirled around in her head.
“You don’t have to decide now dear. Take a few days to think about it.”
It was a week before Lola decided her path. She would become a bounty hunter. She was good at finding rare things so finding people couldn’t be much harder. During her travels, while she was looking for something rare to bring back for Nolan, she would take up odd jobs to pay for an item or in exchange for something. Most of those jobs were finding something or someone. A lost book. Or rare herbs. She was good at it and she enjoyed it.
Lola set out to live a life of her choosing a few weeks later. Her new adventure took her to all five main islands and some small ones. She would often write to Nolan about her adventures and he wrote her of places she should visit and sights to see. Until his death a year after she bought her freedom. He was
murdered. Stabbed in the heart by a sharp blade. They told her it was a robbery. He left everything to Lola in his will. When she went back to the house to go through everything, the only thing missing was the sword.
About Author
Marie Batiste loves writing dark and creepy stories that have a little bit of mystery. She also likes to crochet, cook, and read. She is a night owl and ferocious coffee drinker. So much so her blood is probably mostly coffee at this point and she’s okay with that. When she is not writing novels or doing freelance work, you can find her binge-watching shows on Netflix watching anime or reading a story about morally ambiguous characters that make her question her own morality.
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