Arcane Antiques & Relics

A gut-wrenching scream tore through the store called Arcane Antiques and Relics. Six cats, made of stone, arched their backs and flattened their ears. Mr Angus Doyle paced along the corridor in the living quarters above the shop. While striving to match his speed, Cane did his utmost to pacify the agitated mortal. They would reach the stairs, make a sudden turn, and march back toward the bedroom.

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“Sir, I’m sure all is fine,” panted Cane.

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Mr Doyle did not answer, for pessimism burdened his heart with fear. His mind raced with horrid possibilities and sad memories. It felt like yesterday when his wife, Irene, lay in another room wailing. Her labour, long, painful and bloody, ended when the offspring gulped for its first breath. Elaine born with perfection, however Irene, Mrs Doyle, lay dead.

A tremor ran through Mr Doyle, a phantom echo of a past he tried to silence. The thought of it happening again, a fresh, fragile life in his care, sent a shiver down his spine. How callous can the gods be, he bemoaned?

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Sixty-odd years had etched lines of weariness onto his face, and he knew his hands, rough from years of labour, would not possess the youthful vigour to cradle another newborn. He also could not see himself ever forgiving the child. His grandchild.

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“Why?” he whispered. “Why?” he sobbed.

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The memory of Irene, his late wife, her vibrant presence a ghost in every corner, a wound that still dripped red. For years, even the sight of Elaine, his daughter, had been a painful reminder. Back then Elaine’s laughter, bright and clear, began to mirror Irene’s, a sound that both soothed and tormented him. As Elaine blossomed, she became a living echo of Irene; her features a perfect, unsettling replica. His dead wife’s effigy confronted him daily. A maelstrom of hatred and love churned within him, a constant battle over his feelings for the daughter, the living embodiment of his greatest joy and deepest sorrow.

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Often, he found himself wishing they had swapped places. His heart ached with a pain so intense that mere words could not define his loss. Irene had been his everything, and her absence bankrupted his heart.

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Elaine’s life itself perpetuated her father’s anger. His daily comments tormented her. On one such day, his heart leapt into his throat, a frantic drum against his ribs as he saw her from behind. The same cascade of long, dark hair, catching the sun’s rays. The familiar, almost unconscious flick of it off her shoulder. And then she turned. It was not his wife. It was her.

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“What are you wearing?” Angus had sneered.

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“A dress,” Elaine would say, running her hands on her hips, waiting expectantly for a word of praise or perhaps a compliment.

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“You look stupid,” he said.

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Elaine’s shoulders slumped as tears streamed down her face, hot and stinging against her skin. Her breath hitched in ragged sobs, each one a physical punch in her heart as she rushed to her room to change.

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Angus buried his head in his hands, his rough palms feeling the stubble. For a split second, a shimmer in the kitchen, Elaine looked exactly like his wife. The woman he adored, loved.

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Dead because of her...

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