InkStains January

by John Urbancik

her nightmare, they are already beginning to be real.

  In the end, the humans will destroy her mother, her sisters, and her. There’s no escaping it, unless maybe she and her kin, the elements, can turn their hearts against humankind.

  But she cannot find her sisters.

  16 January

  The letter arrived without a return address and without a postmark, though it did have Air Mail stamped prominently on it. Don took his time opening it. There were other things in the mail – a book he’d ordered, the phone bill – and he didn’t think he knew anyone overseas. He felt no real urge to tear into the letter, but shortly after dinner he got around to reading it.

  Donny,

  Your presence is requested. Please don’t respond by post, but in person.

  It was written in a neat, looping style, feminine though he couldn’t be sure. An airline ticket was enclosed, and several few hundred dollars – almost a week’s pay. It wasn’t a lot of money, but the destination, Paris, was far away and a place he’d never been.

  He didn’t simply take time off from work and go. First, he verified that the ticket was real; it was, though the airline refused to say who had paid for it. He checked the money, too, with one of those anti-counterfeit pens from the office supply store.

  Whoever had written the letter had him intrigued. He got the time off, fished out his passport from its barely-seen hiding place, and crossed the Atlantic.

  He didn’t know what to do or where to go when he landed at Charles de Gaulle, but he didn’t have to worry. A chauffer in a crisp suit and sunglasses carried a placard with his name on it.

  The chauffer either didn’t speak English or pretended not to, and Don’s knowledge of French language didn’t go far past croissant. They drove mostly in silence, Don in the backseat watching the scenery.

  After a while, they reached the city, which was bigger than Don expected, but just as French. He saw many postcard-ready side streets but nothing he recognized – no tower, no church – before stopping in front of a rather regular looking building.

  A woman greeted Don at the door. She was dressed very businesslike and wore her hair in a tight bun, but she was young and spoke English smoothly, albeit with a gorgeous accent. “Jean will handle your bags, if you’d like to come with me.”

  “Did you send me the letter?” he asked.

  “No.” She held open the door for him. “If you please.”

  Don entered the lobby, in which there were couches, a rack of pamphlets and maps, and a counter. The girl at the counter didn’t look up, and Don’s guide walked right by her.

  “In Paris,” she said, “we have the best food in the world, and you have dinner reservations already made, but you didn’t come all this way for escargot, did you?”

  “Actually,” Don admitted, “I’m not sure why I came all this way.”

  In a tiny alcove, there was a single elevator door. They got on and went down to the basement, to a long hall with insufficient lights, but Don’s guide seemed not to notice. They passed several opens doors revealing laundry facilities, storage, and canned goods, as well as several closed doors. At one of these, she took a key from her pocket, pulled the door open, and motioned Don inside.

  She didn’t follow. Rather, she shut and locked the door, leaving Don in a conference room. A dozen chairs surrounded the table, but only one was occupied.

  The woman there was older, matronly, with something of a scowl permanently etched onto her features. She got to her feet and tried to smile. “Sit.”

  Don sat. He purposefully passed the nearest chair, but didn’t quite travel half the table’s length.

  “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

  Don didn’t respond, but she seemed to wait for him to do so. He said, “Thank you.”

  She shook her head. “You won’t be thanking me when we are done. Call me Isador.”

  “Is that not your name?” Don asked.

  “No.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, then, Isador. You got me here. What for?”

  She tried to smile again. Someone should tell her not to bother. She said, “You’re the last descendant, since my husband died. It’s all yours.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “My daughter – you’ve already met her, Jolene – she is my daughter, not his. I have no other children. He had no other, except one.”

  “Not me.”

  “No. Your mother.”

  Don didn’t know what to say, so he said, “Oh.”

  “You see what I mean, then?”

  “I think so.”

  “It all goes to you, then.”

  Don’t stomach twisted. He wasn’t sure of what to expect, though of course he’d always wished for a rich uncle. “What goes to me?”

  “The piano. The wine. What’s left of the money. The key.” This, she placed on the conference table before her, on top of a manila envelope that had already been there. “And of course,” she added, pushing her chair back and standing again, “what it unlocks.”

  She walked around the table, away from Don, and went to the door, where she paused. “Take your time,” she said, knocking twice on the door. It opened immediately. “Jolene will be here when you’re ready. You’ll be wanting to sample our dining.”

  They locked Don in, alone with an envelope and a key.

  He waited a respectable amount of time before going to the end of the table and opening the envelope. The papers inside included a picture of a two hundred year old piano and details about its heritage; a listing of forty-two bottles of wine; and financial papers indicating a balance of almost five thousand Euros – which was not a substantial sum. He saw where his airline ticket and cash had been withdrawn, and a room paid for, presumably upstairs from here.

  That left only the key, for which there was no paperwork, no deed, no indication of what it unlocked. It was old and heavy, not like any key Don has ever used. He returned all the papers to the envelope and pocketed the key.

  When he knocked on the door, there was a brief delay before Jolene opened it. Isador, whoever she was, had gone.

  “Dinner?” Jolene asked.

  “What does the key open?” he asked.

  “Trust me,” she said, “you’ll want to eat first.”

  They left the hotel and walked to a cozy little restaurant where the staff ignored him and conversed only with Jolene, but the food was incredibly delicious, the best Don had ever had. The sauce was impossible, the wine a perfect compliment.

  He tried several times to learn either the name of his grandfather or the purpose of the key, but Jolene kept the conversation light and utterly meaningless. She paid with a card. He wondered, albeit briefly, if shed used his money.

  “Now,” Jolene said, standing, “shall we reveal your kingdom?”

  They took a taxi to a grungy part of the city, where the shops had already closed and were protected by cages and gates, where the graffiti was crude and rarely artistic. The streets were mostly barren and mostly dark, and the streetlights virtually useless.

  They stopped at a doorway tucked quietly between two shops that weren’t closed just for the night. The paint was peeling off the door and the jamb, but it looked solid and heavy. An old padlock held it shut.

  Don didn’t need any prompting. He took a deep breath of air, uncertain if the quality inside would be even worse, and used the key.

  He pushed the door open onto a dark, narrow set of stairs. Jolene came up behind him. At the top, to one side, there was another door, this one unlocked.

  He fumbled for a light switch but didn’t find it. Jolene stepped in behind him and flipped the switch. A single bare bulb struggled to bring shadows into the room. It failed to provide much by way of light; it just made the gloom easier to see.

  The gloom – and the dolls. Dozens. No – hundreds, with porcelain faces and glass eyes and dresses from which all the color had drained. Don scanned the room, seeing nothing else. The dolls sat on shelves and on tables and
on the floor. Many were stacked tightly against each other, while others seemed to have been given more space. Many had human hair, or something near enough.

  They stared vacantly, all of them, at Don and the door. They were quiet. Unnaturally still. The shadows blanketed them. There was a window, but it had been blacked out.

  Don stared for a long time, though he didn’t move. Jolene, beside him, said nothing. In the harsh absence of light, the dolls seemed to be in a constant state of motion just outside his peripheral vision.

  Some were newer than others. A few seemed incredibly old. Some stood stiffly against the wall. Others sat quietly. Some had fallen over or flopped to one side.

  “My grandfather was a doll maker,” Don said.

  “From a long line of doll makers,” Jolene told him.

  “You couldn’t tell me this?”

  “It seemed important to show you the vastness of your empire.”

  “It’s not much of an empire,” Don said.

  “No,” Jolene admitted. “But it’s all yours.” She left the room, descended the stairs, not waiting for Don to follow. She went out the door, leaving Don alone in a cramped room stuffed with oddly life-like effigies in a dark, abandoned corner of Paris. He walked through the room, picking up a doll here or there, marveling at the bits that made them appear unreal.

  Eventually, he sat in the middle of his empire of dolls and cried. He cried for the grandfather he never knew, for the dreams he’d lost, childhood fantasies, the life he’d wanted and the life he had, and he cried because his grand Parisian inheritance would change none of that.

  When he left the room, Jolene was waiting outside