PIPE
Father liked to smoke after his hunt. He had a special pipe. One day Theron grabbed the pipe and put it in his mouth. Bap! Father boxed Theron’s ear. No, no, no, smoking the pipe is for adults only!
The one day the pipe went missing completely. Father blamed Theron. Not only did he box Theron’s ear, but he made him sit and face the corner.
Theron was so mad that he wished he could just punch Father and show him that false accusations are what bullies do. He was so mad, tears filled his eyes. As he tried to see through the tears, the ground was distorted and he saw something. A little pipe.
He cleared his eyes. It wasn’t the pipe! But a little imprint of the pipe on the ground in the ash. He looked around the floor and saw that the trail led all over the room. Finally it lead to a hole in the wall. Theron boldly stuck his hand in the wall and pulled out the pipe. The mouse had stolen it!
Father was pleased with this, and apologized for the punishment. He rewarded Theron with some fresh honey for dinner.
Shara
Theron had come to realize what all hunters realize: everthing leaves a mark, everthing leaves a trace. Father, meanwhile, cut upon the wall with a saw and exposed a scared mouse, which he scolds, and sent scurrying out the house. Then he looked in the litte nest and found some old coin, some twine, some grass, and a curious thing. The curious thing was heart shaped pendant. Theron’s father opened it and saw a woman. Theron was too young to recognize the father’s express of love at first sight.
“I will find out who’s picture this is and return the necklace.” When the father asked the nearest human beings who the girl was, they affirmed that it was Shara. So the hunter came to her place in the village and knocked on the door. The girl was amazed to see such a handsome man, but when he had the necklace that had last been seen around the neck of her father, who was now missing, she was shocked and amazed.
It was written in the stars that Father and Shara should marry, so they waited little time in making it happen. As for Theron, he was told to call his step-mother, “mother” simply, and he had no prolbem with it. She had last her parent, he had lost his, so he identified with her. She was also strikingly beautiful.
You could say in fact she was flawless, except there was a scar on her back. She said she didn’t remember where it came from. Theron remembered that every event leaves its trace, so he tried to figure it out. It had the look of a monstrous pinch, as if something had pinched her. He vowed to figure it out.
The Spider
Another strange thing about Shara was that she was dealthy afraid of spiders. She would roll around at night in the bed calling out against the spiders. Theron’s dad thought that maybe she was just getting used to the idea of sharing bed with a new man.
Theron thought better of it. He pondered it out and decided to clearn the house of all spiders. He called them all. Then he went to the basement and found the culprit. Underneath her bed in the crawl space, was a spider. Its evil vibrations had magnified into Shara’s dreams. He promply killed the spider, and then rubbed honey around the edges of the crawl space, so any other spider coming there would get stuck. He also threw sugar in the crawl space, so that she would have sweet dreams.
He find a Poinsetta for her, and as it was cold outside it was a nice warm plant. On the plant was another spider. He caught it and put it in a jar, and put honey around the lid. He would use this pet spider, named Melkor, to make her feel better about her phobia.
The new spider whipsperd something. He listened. It told him the story about how Melkor had once caught a fairy in his hangs and bit her in the back. Theron realized that Shara was afraid of spiders because in a previous lifetime she had been a fairy. The scar was where she lost her wings.
Shara slept much better after this.
Ants
But then came the ants. The answers liked the sugar. Soon the house was overcome with ants, and as the father somehow knew Theron was to blame, and further warned Theron not to kill them, Theron got a broom and swept them up, every last one of them, and a lot of the sugar, and put them in a solid barrel. He filled up all the holes with cement his father made him, and then two holes: one on the top and on on the bottom. He put it in the garden.
Each day he swept up more ants this way and put them in the barrel, putting the top back on. He would watch them come out the holes. He knew he was not catching the queen, but she would perhaps be a bit more careful in how many ants she gave birth to.
The queen indeed learned her lesson. Meanwhile, Theron would press his ear to the barrel of ants and learned a lot of secrets about the underground through this.
Treasure
While Theron was was sweeping he came across a dull brass key. He wondered what it went to but didn’t know. He tried all the locks. Finally he asked the key to aim at its lock. He span around blindly and tripped and the key pointed downwards. Sad, he tried again, and this time from a differnet angle. Again he fell and it aimed downwards. He got the idea to triangulate the coordinates and realize that the treasure was buried in his backyard under the garden.
Father watched with patronizing curiosity as Theron dug for treasure. Of course Theron found the treasure box and brought it out. Father looked curiously. They cleaned out the lock and cleaned the key and found they were a perfect fit. Inside was the box was a letter and a pair of glasses. The langauge was indistinct, and even with the glasses, there was no reading it. So Theron took the glasses and looked around at what stood out when he work them.
What stood out was a certain green rock. He picked it up. His father confirmed it was jade, a big chunk of gemstone, and that they could sell it for money at the market. The father said Theron could keep the money since he earned it.
\ ~@M@~ /
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