The Cursed Blood

and made a HARUMPH noise as he slumped over onto the thick carpet by the couch. Tags and such jingled from his spiked collar as he made himself comfortable and was quickly asleep. It’s kind of his thing—letting you think he’s asleep but in actuality the crafty old hound is listening to everything as carefully as can be as he snores belly up on his favorite spot by the fire. His paws twitching like he’s dreaming of chasing a rabbit or squirrel through the woods.
“I’m sorry, boy.” Gramps shook his head and tisked as he tugged at his flannel, looking for all the world as uncomfortable with all this as I felt. From there we talked, meaning he told the tale of the Darklings (in far more detail than I did for you earlier) and let me know that this would now be my home as I trained with him as an apprentice. It was honestly a bit much for my thirteen-year-old self to swallow on top of everything else rattling around in my head.
“So, I can never go back?” I almost sobbed as everything he laid on me about our bloodline sank in, half of which I still didn’t believe (and really, who could blame me right?) and the other half just sounded like excuses as to why my parents didn’t want me in their home any more. Stupid thought now that I’ve got a little more life under my belt, but I was a child—albeit a bit of a thick one if I don’t say so myself.
“I’m sorry, but no… Our kind live apart.” Gramps sighed, as if looking back to his own childhood, his dark eyes full of regret. “It’s the cost of our gifts.”
“What if I don’t want these stupid gifts?” I snapped, and he eyed me sharply as if I’d ripped open an old wound and then took a heavy and obvious effort to stem a tirade of his own that seemed to be brewing as he stared at me as if Id spontaneously sprouted a big toe from my forehead.
“Trust me, Ben,” he finally answered in a voice barely more than a whisper. “You have them, you’re stuck with them, so buck up, boy. It’s a part of who you are—like an arm or a leg. Tell me, would you cut of your arm to go back home?”
“Maybe…” I replied though I really thought that was a bit of an extreme example as I refused to look at him as we sat in silence for a long movement. I took up my brooding again as I sulked into the fire’s dancing flames and just tried to breathe as bit by bit everything I knew or wanted to be before then crumbled to ash around me.
Gramps studied me almost pityingly (mumbling something about how I was just like my father), then went on a little more about our kind’s history and responsibilities and what was expected of me, stressing the honor of it and the adventure while I thought how little I cared about any of that lunacy and wondered if he was slightly mad or not for thinking I should, and believing it himself.
After our talk I was walked down the hall to my room. It wasn’t large, but it had a nice view of the forest from the curtained window. Pushed against the center of my new room’s far wall was a modest twin sized log bed made over with sheets and a colorful, warm looking quilt waited.
On the wall over the bed’s headboard was a crookedly hung but fine, ornate gold framed painting of a pristine forested mountain lake where a festive looking trio picnicked and celebrated at the shore beneath a huge tree. Something about it was melancholy, but it was a lovely picture that seemed to suit my mood just fine.
One of those wooden, loudly ticking clocks with swaying pendulums and roman numerals and moon phases you wind with a key was mounted on the far wall above the dresser. An empty bookshelf and a pair of nightstands, both set with a moose patterned shaded lamp, were the room’s only other bits of furniture.
It was nice, and for some reason I felt at home, even though I found the strange patterns carved into the doorframe, door, and window (in my room and all over the house) to be a bit odd.
I suppose I must have just reasoned that it was an “Adirondack thing” at the time. It wasn’t until a few weeks or so later that I found out what they really were and it was a thrilling and frightening experience, I assure you. But we’ll get to that nightmare a little later. And I apologize in advance, as it’s not a tale that’s conducive to pleasant dreams.
That night we had savory beef stew. I’d never had stew before. McDonald’s happy meals, pizza, burgers, hot dogs, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, spaghetti, sure, but never stew. Both Manx and I enjoyed the thick, rich, gravy, chopped beef, and vegetables at the table.
Despite being warned not to overfeed him, I snuck the hound more than a few mouthfuls whenever I thought I could get away with it, and Gramps tactfully pretended not to notice. This pretty much became the norm at Craggmore from then on. Gramps often complained about how fat and lazy his old companion was becoming. Which was an unfair exaggeration at best that Manx seemed to take deep offence to whenever it was brought up.
At times Manx would take out his displeasure on Gramps’ possessions. More than once after loudly admonishing the unnervingly vindictive dog on his begging, idleness, and gluttony one of Gramps’ boots, a sock or glove was discovered by the fireplace sopping with slobber and terribly mangled.
We mopped up the gravy from our bowls with fresh baked bread as Gramps went on about when he had found out about his curse and had been brought to a castle in a horse and