“Hey, don’t worry about it. Like I told you, I didn’t know them. I say we contact a realtor up there and put the property up for sale. Let’s see what kind of offers we can get on it. I want to be done with it. The way I see it, we should be able to make some good money off this whole deal. Real estate is worth a lot up there.”
Sarah clapped her hands again, back to being instantly excited.
“We don’t have anything planned this weekend. You should be able to take Friday off. Just tell ‘em that since there’s been a death in the family, you have to go to the funeral. I’ll take it off, too. We can go up there to see what the place looks like.”
Steve shook his head.
“You want to drive up there? Going through someone’s house is not my idea of fun. The place probably has orange shag carpeting. Lime green appliances. Formica countertops.” He chuckled at the mental picture this formed and returned his attention back to Sarah. “Did you know that when dad moved out of his parents’ house, I’ve never once heard of him returning to visit? Hmmm…” Steve's voice trailed off.
Sarah waited. Was there more to this story?
“They never attended family reunions,” Steve continued on, moments later. “No Christmases that I can remember. No phone calls to say hello, how are you? And for my birthday, they always sent three lousy bucks in my birthday card when I was a boy. And now I learn they have, er, had a mansion.” Steve paused, and looked at his wife. “I never knew these people. I always thought they were cheap and wanted nothing to do with me. Then I find out they’ve given me essentially everything they own. I don’t understand why. What’s the logic behind that? Sure, I’m flattered that they chose to give everything to me, but why should I bother with them?”
Sarah had remained quiet the whole time Steve had been rambling, nibbling on a bread-stick. Now that he appeared to be done, she took a breath. “I think that since they’ve named you in their will, they thought highly of you. You should at least go to their house up there and see for yourself what you were given. I think you owe them that.”
Steve wasn’t ready to commit to a day long drive. Not yet, anyway.
“I looked it up. MapQuest says that Coeur d’Alene is a twelve hour drive from here. Twelve hours!! Wouldn't it be a better idea just to call a local realtor and put the house and property up for sale? We could get some bids for cleaning the place up, tossing trash, etc. I’d be willing to pay for that provided I didn’t have to be involved. I wonder if Lynn has any contacts up there.”
Lynn was one of Sarah’s close friends that they periodically hung out with. She just happened to own her own real estate brokerage.
Sarah fixed him with a glare. “You can call her if you like. However, we’re going. This is important and you’ll feel terrible if you don’t go.”
Steve mentally scratched the remaining items off of his list of issues and resigned himself to the trip. A day-long drive up the northern Idaho panhandle.
****
Steve sighed. How much longer was this drive going to last? When he had looked at the map to plot their course, he still couldn't see how it could last twelve hours. The starting point and ending point were in the same state for crying out loud! They had passed Boise several hours earlier. Now they were on a straight stretch of SR-55, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to see. The steady humming of the SUV’s tires on the asphalt was beginning to make him drowsy.
Sarah had gone to the library to check out several audio books. Steve had to admit, it was a good way to pass the time. Provided that they were murder mysteries, and not romance novels. Although he’d deny it under the most heinous of tortures, some of them weren’t too bad.
This novel, however, was boring beyond belief. The story was very slow to start. He had believed (prayed!) that the pace would pick up, but after three cds, it was apparent that it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. And what was with the narrator? Flat, emotionless, unenthusiastic voice that could put even the most caffeinated person to sleep in just a few minutes. Which moron listened to her and thought, “Gentlemen, here’s an idea, let’s have her make an audio book”? How many accidents was this lady responsible for, anyway? **Groan**. Seven more CDs to go.
Steve glanced over at Sarah. She was staring idly out at the passing scenery. She clearly wasn’t paying attention to the book anymore, either. Time for Plan B. He reached behind his seat to pull out a bag of beef jerky, procured at the last gas stop they made. Knowing his wife could never resist her favorite road trip snack, he tore off the top and opened the bag. A split second later, Sarah's head snapped around.
“You sneak! When did you get that?” Sarah was trying to act insulted that he hadn't offered it to her the instant he had bought it, but she knew Steve liked to surprise her. If her playful tirade of insults would have lasted any longer, then she would have ended up spraying jerky everywhere. Happily chewing away, the boring audio book was promptly ignored, which might be due to the fact that Steve had surreptitiously turned the volume down.
“What do you think we'll find up there? Run-down house, trash everywhere, junk cars in the yard…” Steve was drawing himself a pretty good mental picture of this when Sarah finally swallowed.
“I don't think they were rednecks.” She stifled a giggle. “Maybe an outdated house in need of a new paint job, and a couple of pink flamingos in the front yard.” She grabbed another piece of jerky. “I'm curious about the land, though. According to your map, their tract of land extends well into the forest. The land is probably worth more than the house itself.” She bit off another piece of jerky.
“I wonder what type of people they were,” Steve mused, clearly not on the same page as she. “I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to have contact with their family.”
“Maybe they wanted to, but didn’t know how to.” Sarah was still chewing on her jerky. “Maybe your dad and his parents had an argument, and your dad decided to sever the relationship. That’s what I think happened.”
“Dad never talked about his parents,” Steve said. “Every time I tried to bring the subject up, and wonder why we never went to visit, or why they never visited us, he always said he had no desire to see them. Never said what he had against them. I wish I knew. Sad way to live, if you ask me.”
Sarah nodded. She bit off another piece of jerky. “Let’s listen to some music, ‘k?”
Two bags of jerky, four music CDs, and a hasty overnight stay at a run-down motel later, they pulled in to a Coeur d’Alene gas station just off of I-90 to verify the directions they were given. Steve got out of their Santa Fe and headed inside. Sarah decided the station looked nice enough to get out and use the restroom. She passed her husband and headed to the back of the store. The attendant was studying the map.
“Holt Lane. Hmmm. Your map says it’s off of French Gulch St. Haven’t heard of that one, but if your map is correct, then go out to that stop sign and hang a right. Keep going until you hit Harrison. Turn right. Harrison will turn into French Gulch. It should be on your left.”
Steve thanked the attendant and got back in their car. Sarah returned several minutes later with a fresh, cold bottle of water and they were on their way.
They found Holt Lane without any problems. The street ended in a cul-de-sac, backing up against the forest in all directions but the east. There were three houses that met their gaze. All of them, Steve thought joyfully, were large manors with well kept grounds. A fourth driveway could be seen, only it had locked gates securing the entrance, with the private road disappearing off into the woods Steve looked at the first house on the left.
“439 Holt Lane. Look at the size of that sucker! It’s gorgeous!! That’s gotta be worth at least a half mil, easy!”
Sarah looked at the large, Tudor-style manor. “That’s a beautiful house. They all are. Great neighborhood. Lots of land around. Forest for a backyard.”
Steve had unfastened his seat belt and was reaching for the ignition when Sarah grabbed his hand.
“Umm, wrong house. We’re looking for 419 Holt Lane.”
Steve looked over at the next house on the right. “Hey, fine by me! That one is even bigger.”
Sarah, however, was looking at the gated driveway. She pointed to it. “I think that’s ours.”
“Huh? How can you tell? I don’t see an address.”
Sarah unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the SUV. Walking over to the gates, she moved some of the brush aside, revealing a tarnished brass plaque set into the brick wall.
“See? 419. This is it.”
The gates were old, thick, and very formidable. They were set into solid brick foundations and, Steve was willing to bet, would be able to withstand any attempts of forced entry. A large, weathered lock kept the gates chained securely together.
Steve got out of the car and started trying the various keys he was given. After a couple of attempts, he found the correct one and pushed the gates open. Belying their rusty appearance, the gates effortlessly opened, smacking into the brick wall with a resounding clang. Ahead of them, the driveway stretched on for about a hundred yards before disappearing into the forest, curving off to the right. It looked as though someone had cut a swath right through the middle of the trees, clearing just enough room for a car to squeeze by. Steve glanced at the other driveways. The houses at the end of each were situated about fifty feet away. He looked back at the gate and chuckled.
“What's so funny?” asked Sarah, once he was back in the car.
“I keep expecting to see a green van with a great big dog in the back seat.”
Sarah stared blankly at him.
“You know, like Scooby Doo. Are we going to find some type of mystery that needs to be solved? This is how they always seem to…” He trailed off after noticing his wife’s look, which clearly said, ‘You’re a dork.’ in any language. “Right. On we go.”
Steve nudged the Hyundai through the gates and drove slowly down the lane. After they rounded the bend, it took a full ten minutes of driving (at ten mph - for some reason Steve couldn't bring himself to drive any faster) before they passed what could only be referred to as an authentic fruit orchard. They slowly drove by apple trees, pear trees, apricot trees, and several Sarah couldn’t identify. At last, the trees cleared and their newly acquired house came into view. And what a house it was!
The manor was roughly 12,500 square feet, three stories high, and built in the early 1900's (by none other than Steve's great-grandfather, Luther, which he would not discover until much later). The house sat on a huge tract of land, with the forest encroaching from the north and west. Steve was not an architect, so couldn’t pinpoint what style the house was built to conform to, but it did look part Victorian, part Mediterranean, and it even had a medieval feel about the place. That turret on the western side of the house, for example. He blinked. No, that wasn't a turret. More like a round anteroom off of another room. The second and third stories also incorporated the same design as the first floor, so it certainly could be mistaken for a turret.
Flagstone decorated the base of the house, extending halfway up the second floor. Situated on the northern side of the house was a detached garage with enough room for four full-sized RVs with room to spare. The southern side of the house contained the beginnings of an immense Victorian garden that wrapped around the western side of the mansion, stretching all the way up to the edge of the forest. A small, gurgling creek wound through the gardens before returning to the forest at the northwestern perimeter of the property.
“You know, I would prefer it if you could pull all the way up to the house. I really don’t want to walk the rest of the way in.” Sarah was smiling, shaking her head. She was anxious to check out their new-found fortune. Steve had stepped on the brakes the moment their new house had come into view as they were still a good hundred yards away.
“Sorry. Just taking it all in.” He drove to the front of the house and parked their car. Look at that garage! Room for all of your toys. That’d be an apt description for a real estate listing, he mused. Sarah was out of the car first.
“This thing is a mansion! Omigod! It's enormous!!” Sarah was slowly turning in place, trying to take in as much as possible. It was then that she looked to the south of the gigantic manor and saw the gardens. Her gardens. “Look at that! Do you see the gardens? Let’s go check it out! Please??”
“Knowing you and gardens, that could take a while.” Steve immediately sidestepped to his left about three feet in order to avoid the imminent hit. “Tell you what, as soon as we’re done checking out the inside, we’ll look around the outside. Okay?”
“As long as you promise to not rush me.”
Steve smiled. “Deal.”
They both approached the front entry. Steve dug out the keys again and started going through them.
“Got it. Shall we?”
Sarah smiled as her husband held the door open. However, Steve had a change of mind when, instead, he decided to be the first one in. Sarah nodded, saying nothing. She was rather glad he had gone first. What if something jumped out at her? Besides, it was best to let him walk through any cobwebs first.
Steve and Sarah Miller stood in a foyer the size of their first apartment. The first thing he noted was how everything inside looked as though it belonged in a museum. There were several cast iron coat racks to the left of the main doors; a huge mirror with a carved, mahogany frame was directly on the right. Two sets of staircases, one on the left and the other on the right spiraled up and joined together on the second floor, and then continued as one up to the third floor. A fireplace was just visible through a set of double doors on the left side of the room. It was so big that the two of them could have stood in it without hitting their heads. The right side of the room also contained a set of double doors, but those were closed.
Both of them hadn’t moved more than a few feet from the front door.
“How in the hell did they keep a house this big clean?” Steve wondered, looking around.
Sarah didn’t have to think of the answer. “Easy. If you can afford a house this size, you hire maids.”
“You have a point.” Steve walked over to a narrow table that was just below the mirror. He ran his finger along it. “Do they still have maids coming to take care of this place? No dust.”
“Do you usually go into someone’s house and check for dust?”
“Hey, I’m just saying that this room isn’t dusty.”
“Well, you don’t know how long it’s been since your grandparents were here, do you?”
Steve admitted that he did not.
Together, they walked through the ground floor, going from room-to-room. Steve started a mental list to keep tabs of everything they had come across so far: foyer, kitchen, dining room, formal dining room, sitting room (Sarah’s term for the round anteroom), two rooms that could pass for studies or offices, three bathrooms and a laundry room. There was no way they were going to be able to remember everything they had found. Ascending to the second floor, they started looking around. They found a well-stocked library, three guest rooms, two more bathrooms, another sitting room and a hobby room (Sarah discovered several sewing machines, an actual spinning wheel that looked as though it would still work, large stores of fabric and yarn, and great quantities of blank parchment).
The third story had enormous vaulted ceilings spanning the entire floor. This level yielded what could be described as an observatory (a large, powerful telescope had been set up in the “round room”), a huge sitting area with numerous bookcases lining the walls, an enormous bathroom, and a massive set of carved doors leading into the late Simon and Grace’s personal bedroom. The vast doors were wide open.
Steve moved closer to inspect the unusual doors. The door frames stood at least twelve feet tall with carved figurines and symbols covering every square inch of the surface. The doors also had carvings covering the entire surface area. Whereas the frames had what appeared to be unknown symbols carved onto them, the doors themselves depicted
one carved relief that spanned both doors. It was a scene of a valley, with mountains to the north, a sea to the east, with a multi-turreted castle to the northeast bordering the coastline.
“Someone sure had plenty of time on their hands when they carved this.” Steve ran his hands along the unknown symbols. “What are these? Hieroglyphs?”
“I’m no expert, but I’d say that they weren’t. I’ve seen actual hieroglyphs on documentaries. These don’t look like them.” She leaned forward and peered closer. “We could do some research online when we get a chance. Remind me to take a couple of digital pics for later.”
Steve and Sarah walked through the doors into the master bedroom. This room, along with every other room they had explored thus far, conformed perfectly to the antique motif of the rest of the house. Paintings, tapestries, bookcase-lined walls, large comfortable-looking armchairs, and even a fireplace a shade smaller than the one on the first floor met their eyes. Everything seemed to be in its place.
Sarah walked over to the nightstand on the right side of the bed and picked up a small, leather-bound book.
“What do you have there?” Steve inquired.
“Looks like some type of diary. A journal, maybe.” She flipped it open and read the inscription on the inside cover. Or at least tried to.
“I can’t make this out. Take a look.” She offered him the book.
Retouk e R’Tal dedonde lu manis er’ fasim olande djeren – Kri’Entu er’ Ny’Callé
Steve was perplexed. “What language is that? It’s not Spanish.”
“It’s not French either. I can’t make out any words at all.” Sarah looked as stumped as he was.
He started to flip through the book, fearing it was all written in this unknown language, when he chose a random spot near the middle of the book and stopped. It was clearly written in English. He read aloud to Sarah.
Bakkian Chronicles, Book I - The Prophecy Page 2
