Max Fischer

A matter of trust

"Thank you," she said when she received the precious vase.  “What luck,“ she thought. The junk dealer had quickly  accepted the little girl’s one-dollar bill. He had a twisted smile in his face. Overwhelmed with joy, Lilly ran across the street towards her home.
 
Lilly felt as if she was the happiest person in the world. But knowing very well that her  mother didn't allow her to buy things on her own at the flea market, she hoped that nobody was at home. She snuck through the door holding  the beautiful vase firmly in her hands. Luckily no one was there except for their black cat, which lay purring on the floor. When she put the vase on the table to take her shoes off a funny smell like burnt milk lay in the air.
 
Lilly took the vase, ran up the stairs to her room and set her new treasure on a small bookshelf next to her bed. Again, she smelled that strange scent. Maybe the smell was coming from the vase, she was thinking. She lifted up the small lid and a cloud of ash escaped. "Oh you little small vase, why do you have ash inside yourself?" she asked.
 
What Lilly didn’t know was that the vase was an urn. A beautiful golden inscription in Latin, with many Xs and Is was written on the side of the urn, but the girl didn’t know Latin. She gently touched the inscription with her fingertips when a strange sensation spread across her body just like the hot feeling one has in front of a fire coming out of the cold. The inscription changed for a short time and she could read: "You shall follow your mother’s rules." She winced, because it was quite mysterious what powers this urn had. The little girl was of a cheerful nature, with a certain fondness for pranks, but for the first time she felt an upcoming sense of doom.
 
In that moment the door opened and her mother came into the room. Lilly hadn’t heard her coming home. Her mother’s wide smile vanished as soon as she noticed the urn. "Where did you get that vase " she asked.” I found it in the woods." Lilly lied. She didn’t tell her mother she had bought it at the flea market nor that that the vase contained strange ash.
 
If she had told the truth at this point, things might have turned out differently, but the fear to admit breaking the rules was far greater than the fear of the strangeness of vase.
 
Her mother had the feeling, Lilly was lying. She also didn’t like the look of this vase and sensed something evil. What evil exactly? She didn’t know, but she was used to trust her instincts. She took the urn leaving Lilly no time to react and carried it downstairs into the kitchen. There, in one corner, the black cat was sharpening its claws on the wall. A sign? Maybe.
 
Meanwhile still in her room Lilly did not understand why her mother had reacted so impulsively. She had hoped for her to marvel the beauty of the vase. The little girl felt disappointed and anger began to rise in her.
 
When Lilly’s mother went back upstairs into her daughter’s room again, she saw the vase, which she had just left on the kitchen table a moment ago, standing again on the small bookshelf next to Lilly’s bed. When she looked at the vase in disbelief, Lilly did too. The golden letters had changed and read this time: "Thou shalt not lie to your mother.” Lilly did not seem to take in the meaning of the message. Instead she asked her mother angrily: "What did my vase do to you?”
 
Her mother didn’t answer her. She was overwhelmed by these mysterious events. The hammer in the kitchen, that will do it, she thought to herself, and while running down the stairs she shouted, "Oh my child, don’t you look at the vase, not once! Believe me! Please!” Instinctively Lilly took some steps towards the window and looked at the dense gray cloud that had formed close to the house. The temperature seemed to have dropped all of a sudden; a few hailstones cluttered at the window. But again Lilly’s childish defiance got a hold of her. "Why can’t I look at my vase?" she asked herself angrily, "Why not?" she cried in rage. She turned around towards the urn, which had changed its inscription again. "Thou shalt trust thy mother.” The hailstones got bigger and bigger, the window burst, the ground shook, the icy wind howled.
 
Her mother had found the hammer in the kitchen by now. But hurrying back up the stairs, she knew it was too late. When she entered Lilly’s room, it was flooded with water and broken glass. Lilly was gone. The urn stood on the small bookcase next to the bed in one piece. There was no inscription to be seen. The urn contained a little bit more ash than before.
 
A few moments later someone was knocking at the front door. A junk dealer was standing outside asking for second hand stuff like vases and urns to collect. Saying that, the man twisted his mouth into a strange smile.
 

All rights belong to its author. It was published on e-Stories.org by demand of Max Fischer.
Published on e-Stories.org on 12/20/2014.

 
 

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