Do you like stories with mystery and suspense? Strange and “wyrd” ones? Well, if you do, keeping reading and enjoy Eggcentricsagas.
Enjoying the solitude, I chose the shortcut through the graveyard to pass by the dead each day. What made me stop that early morning? It was the flower, a single iris, that drew me off the gravel lane that I was accustomed to walking as I made my way through the resting place. A light breeze buffeted my back as I stepped onto the spongy turf, however, as I wended my way through the grave markers the zephyr picked up and nudged me towards my flowery detour.
The weather-worn gravestone on that plot sat on a crooked angle, drooping ever so slightly away from the burial site. How had the flower come to be at that particular spot? Had someone planted it? Why only one? Unable to solve the mystery, I shifted my gaze from the iris to the headstone. A hand pointing upward contained within a circle and a skull were inscribed on the marker as well as a few words chiseled into the granite below. Here Lies Araña. No date delineated birth or death; nothing to mark the passage of time except the deterioration of the ancient slab.
Standing near the grave of the unknown, I surveyed my surroundings. I stood alone among the rows and rows of stones set into the ground commemorating the lives that had gone before. Ominous steel-grey clouds loomed in the distance. Glancing up, I saw fluffy white clouds. Careening by, they were pushed through the brilliant blue sky by the prevailing wind. My eyes fell again to the terra firma and, from the corner of one, a glitter caught my attention. Crouching down, I saw the origin of this sparkle.
Almost the size of half of my index finger, a small gold leaf lay nestled in the grass. A delicate thing with undulating, curling edges. Carefully molded veins adorned its finely textured surface. At one time it had been covered in small pearls. Only two remained in the impressions that had been made to hold them.
As puzzling as the iris, the gold leaf sparked my imagination. Had someone dropped it? Had it been left? Was it for the ferryman? A payment bequeathed to Charon of Hades, who carried the newly dead across the river Styx? I reached over and picked it up. Turning the brooch over, I studied the back of it. There was a tiny, engraved stamp underneath the pin stem but I was unable to read the script.
Was this real gold? Real pearls? Should I take it? However, it had come to this place, surely the inhabitant of the grave no longer coveted such earthly treasures. Araña was no more. Debating my conundrum and wrestling with my inner demon of greed, a large drop of rain fell on my nose bringing me back to the present. I looked heavenward and somehow the blue skies had disappeared. As a grey pall settled over the landscape, a deep rumbling issued from the thunderclouds above. A blast of cold wind ruffled my hair and lifted my hat brim as a few more drops fell on me.
Not wanting to get caught in a rainstorm, I dropped my newly found prize into the pocket of my overcoat and pressed my bowler down. Then hurried off to my real destination not knowing the grave mistake that I had just made.
Next: Part 2-Mr. Fu
