48 Hour Short Story Contest

White Lightning

         Find the letter by the singer, and be careful of, the white lightning.

         Aunt Terri’s last words rang in their ears with each clap of thunder as the twins fumbled the heavy door open and entered the old parlor, damp and musty from weeks of sealed disuse. Aunt Terri had lived there, alone, for over sixty years, after old Uncle Max had passed on of either an accident or a disease, aging with grace in company of family memorabilia and the occasional long-term visit from a relative in need of a place to stay.

         ”Blast it! There’s no power! What idiot shut the electric off?” Mark exclaimed.

         ”Most likely the storm. Didn’t you notice there were no streetlights on? Julie responded.

         ”I must have just thought they shut them off when they roll up the street after midnight,” Mark retorted.

         ”Well, we can make our way to the great room and set a fire. It’ll give us some warmth and enough light to find some of Aunt Terri’s antique lanterns. Don’t worry, we’ll find the letter,” Julie replied. Taking her twin’s hand, she led him through the familiar house, having been one of the long-term visitors while she attended grad school.

         The crackle of the dried wood igniting seemed to echo along the walls as the flames framed a slide show of decades of antiques and vintage memorabilia. Mark, the historian, understood the value of the vintage dressmaker dummies, sewing notions, and memorabilia, but he didn’t care to sleep with them any more than he would desire a night’s rest in the museum where he was assistant curator.

         That’s also why he didn’t want Julie here alone, digging about long-unopened drawers and boxes. Well, it was one reason. Though he believed his twin’s intent was to share whatever she found with him, he just wanted to be he was getting his fair share. Especially after the estate lawyer, hired by the hospital who wanted their blood money for giving the old woman pneumonia, determined he could sell off all her stuff and pay her bills, then split the rest among all living descendants. He would certainly get himself a will once this little adventure was done.

         ”Are you sure she said to look for the singer? She didn’t say which singer?” Mark queried as he examined what felt like his hundredth vinyl record.

         ”Yes, I’ve told you a hundred times. And you can still leave if you don’t want to find her treasure,” Julie replied, doing likewise with eight-track tapes. “Maybe you’d rather look for a fuse, see if we can get the power back on and play some of these old LPs?”

         ”That would be so morbid, with all these manikins standing about. Besides, the street lights are still off, so a fuse will do as much good as a chipmunk running a treatmill.”

         ”Yes, Aunt Tillie did say there were critters in the walls, but deemed them harmless spider catchers,” Julie replied, as another volley of scurrying feet overhead responded to a vibrating boom of thunder.

         ”Well, she did seem a bit loopy at the hospital, maybe a wall critter ran up her back like this,” Mark whispered to her ear as he ran his fingers up Julie’s back, eliciting a screech.

         ”Oh, quit it, already, she was always there when somebody needed a hand, and she did have some splendid stories to tell about her travels around the world, and her vacation place in the Florida Keys,” Julie replied, slapping at his hand as she started checking another box of tapes.

         ”I guess she had to have a fortune stashed somewhere, else, how would an unemployed unmarried woman have the means for those trips, and to host a passel of needy relatives?”

         ”She did a lot of sewing; she was an accomplished dressmaker.”

         ”But that doesn’t pay for a world cruise, or a summer place, or…”

         ”I guess you’re right. She really enjoyed creating outfits, gave a lot to charities, homeless folk, and such. When I stayed with her, she had that old Singer humming into the night.”

         ”What did you say?”

         ”I said she had the old sewing machine running all the time.”

         ”No, you said singer.”

         ”Yes, that’s the name of her antique sewing machine. You pump a pedal with your foot and it runs, and it’s called…} Julie paused for just a moment, realizing where Mark had led her. “Come with me!” She commanded, rising up off the floor, pulling her brother by the arm alongside. She raced him up the creaking stairs, accompanied by the now familiar scurrying sound, and slammed open the door to Aunt Tillie’s workroom. The vintage sewing machine stood next to the window, illuminated by a flash of lightning as they rushed in, lantern at the fore.

         Julie handed Mark the lantern and pulled open the drawer at the side of the machine. Without a pause, she reached in and fingered through an assortment of bobbins and rolls of thread until her hand reached around something that crinkled. She pulled it out slowly. It was paper, folded around a hard object.

         She opened the folded letter and began to read, her voice cracking with emotion, My dearest daughter, I know if you read this I am no longer with you, and I want you to know that your mother and I always loved you and wished you well. After the war,…

         ”We don’t have all night to read some epistle, cut to the chase!” Mark grabbed the letter from Julie’s hand, tearing only a small corner as he read silently with moving lips. “It’s in the storm cellar, the key opens the storm cellar, now where’s the storm cellar?”

         ”It must be under that old shed that was torn down years ago. I remember a locked board that Aunt Tillie said was from the Cold War. It has to be! She wasn’t loopy!” Julie exclaimed, and Mark could only follow as she dashed out the back door with key in hand.

         They stopped when Julie stumbled over the lip of the door, and Mark took the oversized iron key and placed it in the oversized iron keyhole and it turned. With only a slight tug, the flap opened and revealed a stairway into the packed earth. Mark took the lead with the lantern and he and Julie descended the staircase to a packed earth floor, surrounded by thick concrete bricks and walls of shelves holding bottles of alcohol. From the aroma, it was definitely alcohol. Julie grabbed one of the bottles and unscrewed the cork, then sniffed, then tasted.

         ”Tastes like that cherry cough medicine we used to get as kids. She wasn’t loopy, Aunt Tillie was tipsy. This is a still. And the critters she shared her house with, look at that chipmunk, it’s not running about, it’s staggering drunk.”

She handed Mark a bottle and they each toasted the chipmunk, and Aunt Tillie, for her ingenuious gift.

WORD COUNT - 1162