The Rivening

Flaming Sword & Pixie House

FLAMING SWORD

The boxes from Findley's house that Connie had identified as likely easy-to-sort didn't hold anymore big surprises. There was one photo album and lots of bedding, towels, tablecloths, mismatched dishes. Most items could go to a second-hand store. A few bagsful were pure garbage.

All that was left were the three boxes of potentially harder to deal with items. Connie emptied and sorted the contents on the basement floor. There was the stack of old photo albums. In another pile were a bunch of sport trophies, soccer and hockey, all for girls' sports. That made sense. Eunice's daughter, Ainsley, was athletic. Her son, James, was not. The trophies were mostly for team participation, no top athlete or best sportsperson of the season. Not surprising. Ainsley was a nasty girl who turned into a nasty woman.

Connie carried a small scar over her right eye from the time Ainsley pushed her out of a tree, breaking her arm. That was what finally convinced Findley that Connie might be better off going to live with her grandparents.

Eunice's son, James, was hardly better, always whiny and snooping around in Connie's room.

What to do with this stuff? It was highly unlikely Ainsley would want the trophies. They were cheap little things, but Connie didn't want to risk Ainsley suddenly deciding they meant something to her.

The last pile contained miscellaneous memorabilia from Ainsley and James' childhood. Things that probably could be tossed except for Connie's irrational fear that Eunice would ask for them some day, knowing they had been left in the house. The lawyer Connie hired after Findley died said she'd witnessed plenty of truly ugly family dynamics in her years of practicing law, but never anyone to match Eunice.

Connie rifled through everything one more time before packing it away. The album she found in the old linens contained photos of the years her mother was still alive. On the first page there was a picture of a much younger Findley and her perhaps seven-year-old self standing beside the skeleton of the long extinct Giant Irish Deer at Trinity College in Dublin. Megaloceros giganteus. She murmured the rhyme Findley made up to help her memorize its Latin name.

Me-ga-LO-cer-os – Preposterous!

Gi-GAN-te-us – No ant to us

The reminder of Findley's occasional whimsy made Connie smile as she slowly turned the pages of the album. This one she'd keep.

Later that evening, Grayson called, "Listen, I have a favor to ask of you."

Which gave her an idea, "And I have a favor to ask of you."

"Okay. You go first. That way if I help you, you'll feel indebted to me."

"Very funny, Grayson. I'm wondering if you would pick up a bunch of these boxes and drop them off at a second-hand store. There's one on the Danforth near me. And, part two, do you have any contact at all with Eunice or her children?"

"Ooo, that sounds like a trick question."

"Oh stop it. It's not. It's just that a few boxes that came from Findley's have personal things that belong to them. It may not be anything they want anymore but I can't make that judgment call. I'd like to get it to them with as little trouble as possible. Meaning, no contact whatsoever."

"Ah yes. I understand. I think I can manage that. James and I have a few mutual friends."

"Lucky you."

"Now Connie. It's not James' fault he ended up with a harpy for a mother."

"Oh please"

"Right, I know. I'll make no apologies for James. Though he's always had a thing for you, you know." Connie shuddered and Grayson laughed. "I'll happily deliver the goods to him. And drop off the other stuff. Now as to my favor?"