Bonjour!
Voilà une petite nouvelle que j'ai écrite en anglais, commentaires et corrections sont bienvenus!
At the end of the path, a wooden hut appears. The planks are all rotting and covered in moss, but still, the hut stands. It has been there for years, even survived the Great War. The windows are covered in dust and one of them is broken. Inside the shed there isn’t much. Robbers have long ago taken any valuables. They didn’t bother with the flea infested couch, now half eaten up by moths. A painting of a beautiful young lady sitting on a marble bench used to hang on the left wall, but of course, it isn’t there anymore. It wasn’t worth much. What the thieves never found was the tiny iron box buried deep underneath the heavy Carpathian couch. The iron box has lasted through many attacks and earthquakes, and is still intact. The boy who safely put it underground is now an old man and he remembers this particular day as if it was yesterday, just as the old worn couch that witnessed all those events…
I was the only one left in there. Well, not exactly, the carpet still covered the floor with its long faded colors, but it never said much. People had come and gone over time, sometimes bringing new friends, at other times taking away old acquaintances, but they never took me. And so I stayed, forever witness to all that happened in the shed. Now I am its keeper. Deep under me, the box is buried. The boy who buried it many years ago was called Oliver. He used to come here every day in summer and lay on me for hours, reading books of poetry or playing cards. Sometimes, when a cat had shared its fleas with me, the boy would be scratching himself all over but he never gave up his reading. How diligent. When he grew older, he discovered women and like many others before him, he invited them to spend the night on me. These were feverish nights and I can still feel the warmth of their naked bodies on my old worn wool. One day though, much before that, when he was just a young boy barely over ten years old, Oliver rushed in here carrying a tiny iron box. He sat down on his knees and put the box in front of him. The weight of it on my scraggly hair was discomforting. Oliver shuffled, messing my carefully woven patterns. He wanted to open the box but something was keeping him from doing it. What exactly? I couldn’t tell, but I felt it was something ominous. Finally, in a quick, irrevocable gesture, he broke the lid and opened the box.
It had been terrible and beautiful at the same time. A silver string had come out of the box, swirling around him in a hypnotizing movement. He had followed its movement with his eyes, fascinated, willing this moment to never end. Then the string had turned into mist, making it impossible to see anything in the shed. It had been thick and moist, almost oily, and he had gotten scared. He had felt that something was utterly wrong, but he couldn’t move. The mist had then resolved into a human shape standing in the middle of the room. He had tried to stand up but his legs wouldn’t support his weight. The mist had been gaining consistency, becoming more of an actual man than a creature made of water and air. It had started walking towards him, its hand reaching out as if it had wanted to help him up. The air had gone cold, almost freezing. He remembered seeing his breath coming out in white puffs in front of him. When the man had come to his level, he had just stood there, smirking.
- What a sight, he had said after a few minutes. So you are my new master. Now, now, let me explain the rules to you. There are only two, really, that matter. The first one is that I shall do all you tell me to do. The only thing you cannot ask from me is to break the contract. The second rule is that, by the end of the contract, you will have to give me what I want. Now, now, do we have an agreement?
He had not answered immediately. His mouth had run dry and his tongue heavy and he hadn’t quite understood what this was all about.
- Now, now, I see we have quite a shy boy here. Shall I give you back your words? The man had asked in a soft, velvety voice.
He had known there was a catch to his question, but still he had nodded. Suddenly he had felt a shiver in his spine and his voice and legs came back to life. He had stood up, trembling, and the man had grabbed his arm to prevent him from falling.
- Now, now, young master, what can I do for you?
It had been the first of many more questions.
Oliver was taken in by that monster man, or whatever it was. I always thought of him as the devil but he called himself Blue. He was a haughty creature, full of contempt for the ones he was serving and trapped in that tiny box by some superior power that didn’t want him free. Alas, the curse could be broken by young boys bold enough to open the box. I never knew what the contract was about, and although Oliver asked about it, Blue would never tell him what he wanted once it ended. It was part of the questions the contract didn’t allow him to answer, or so he said. At first, past the initial fright, Oliver discovered a new, exciting world where everything was possible. He was innocent, asking Blue to give him wings to fly, turn him into a wolf to hunt, teach him warfare, allow him to breath under water or see in the dark, but soon he discovered the darker side of Blue’s powers. He couldn’t ask for peace in the world as that was impossible, but he could ask Blue to kill criminals.
He had never dared. When he had ask Blue if he could make the world a better place, he had been told that this was not possible, but that something else could be done instead.
- What is it? He had asked naively.
- I can kill, Blue had said in his deep voice.
He had immediately understood what Blue meant by that. Kill all thieves, killers, rapists, criminals in this world. It had scared him. He had been just a boy but he somehow had grasped that he couldn’t ask this. Something deep in his heart had told him that it was wrong, very, very wrong, that he couldn’t ask for people to die. He had gotten scared. He had run down the path in the forest, to the shed where he had left the tiny iron box. It had still been there, resting on the couch. He had opened it with trembling fingers and had turned towards Blue, who had followed him.
- You cannot lie to me, he had whispered, you cannot lie to me…
Blue hadn’t answered. He had kept looking at him disdainfully.
- I want you to go back into the box.
The shriek that came out from the monster’s throat was inhuman. It was like nothing I had ever heard before and I could feel poor Oliver quake from fear against me. Blue was changing into red, angry mist, swirling around the room, knocking down the painting, tearing curtains, breaking gardening tools and windows. He stopped in mid air, right in front of Oliver and two enormous eyes appeared in his midst.
- Are you certain that this is what you want? Came out from him in a loud and grave voice.
Oliver was too scared to answer but he managed a small nod. The monster howled and suddenly, he was gone. Oliver hastily closed the box and replaced the lid before throwing it away from him. It was only days later that he came back to the shed to bury the box deep in the ground under me, never to be dug out again.
Many years later, he came back to the shed as an old man. The forest had grown all around it, making it almost impossible to find the path that led to the tiny hut. The wooden planks were still the same, albeit older, just like he was. Someone had broken a window. “Kids”, he thought and laughed. He himself had broken the same window countless times to enter the place, driving Old Barrow crazy. He reached for the doorknob, careful not to trip over any of the tree roots. He wasn’t that young anymore, not so easily recovering from a fall. The lock gave way immediately, and he pushed the door ajar, just enough so that he could enter. It was dark inside, and empty. There wasn’t much left of the couch where he and Jamie had spent so many hours playing cards. He looked around and noticed that the Duchess was gone; how he had fantasized about that beautiful woman in the painting! Memories came rushing back and tears swelled in his eyes. What he had to do tore him apart, but he had already waited far too long. He walked back outside, crying. Silently, he poured the contents of a jug all over the walls. He then lit a match and threw it. The wooden hut burst into flames, turning into ashes and burying its secret. No one would be able to find the iron box again. The old man didn’t watch until the end. He was long gone when the last plank fell apart.
- Now, now …