The Keeper's Curse Read Free

or the list of her favourite phobias, or her
collection of journals. Within no time (definitely less than five
minutes) her suitcase was bulging. She looked around, a cold
feeling of dread creeping into her. She didn’t know where she was
going. What if she had packed the wrong things?
    Out of
time, she flicked the light off and dragged her suitcase back to
the master bedroom where she found her parents on the edge of the
bed. Her mother was crying on her dad’s shoulder; he had his arm
around her.
    She
didn’t want to invade their privacy, but she must have not been
quiet enough because they both shot up at her presence.
    Annalise
wiped her eyes and tried to smile but ended up with a grimace that
could have broken glass.
    “ Alright, time to go now, sweetheart. Say goodbye to your
father.”
    Her jaw
dropped. He wasn’t coming?
    Her
father started crying again, taking Emmy’s head in his hands and
burying it in his chest. The old, musty smell of their house
permeated him, making her eyes burn. Why was she crying? They had
been robbed, what was the big deal? Nobody was hurt, or killed, no
matter how much her parents were acting like it. She knew something
else had happened, but...that couldn’t have been real.
    She felt
her mom’s firm hand on her shoulder. “We have to go
now.”
    She
didn’t want to know where they were going, so she didn’t ask. The
three of them walked out of the master bedroom, Emmy heading
towards the staircase to go downstairs.
    “ No, honey, not that way.”
    They were
heading in the opposite direction, towards her brother’s old
room.
    Alex. She
hadn’t seen Alex in five years.
    The room
was used as a storage closet now. They made their way through the
boxes until her mom stopped at the far end where the old dumbwaiter
was. It had been boarded up for so long Emmy had almost forgotten
its existence, being told that it had been broken since before she
was born.
    Without
hesitation Annalise clenched her fist and smashed right through the
boards that had closed it off. Emmy’s eyes widened. The splinters
clattered to the floor, the sound echoing as if for
emphasis.
    There was
not, as she had always been told, a dumbwaiter on the other side of
the boards. Instead there was a small corridor made out of
mouldy-smelling wood, and at the end of this corridor emanated a
milky, yellow, glowing light. She squinted to get a glimpse of what
was causing it, but it was too bright.
    Her
parents started to cry again. They lead her through the corridor.
She was morbidly curious as to what was at the end of this hall, so
she kept walking with only an occasional nudge from her mom. Her
heartbeat sped up the closer she got, her pupils contracting more
and more, and by the time she reached the end, she saw it
clearly.
    Against the wall a bright gold sceptre was positioned into
the ground at about her eye-level, and perched on top of this
sceptre was a glass ball. Extending from the sceptre was a collar
of gold encircling the ball, holding it still, and engraved on the
collar, all the way around, was the word Methelwood . Narrowing her eyes until
they were nearly shut, she was able to make out what was inside the
glass ball and gasped.
    It was
like a snow globe, in the sense that there was a little scene
inside, but unlike a snow globe, the scene was alive and moving. On
the brink of the glass wispy clouds visibly stirred, but never
quite left the perimeters of the ball. Most of the glass ball was
shrouded due to the clouds, but she was able to make out flecks of
mountains on the edges and a few treetops. She could just faintly
hear the noise of wind and bird calls.
    The
technology was impressive, but she didn’t quite understand. What
was this used for?
    “ Come, give your father another hug,” Annalise
commanded.
    Emmy
turned away from the globe and obeyed since she didn’t know when
she was going to see her father again. He squeezed her tightly only
for a moment, then pulled her back to look her in