Keepers of the Tallath
By Chris Yarbrough
Copyright 2012 Chris Yarbrough
A pang of regret came over Darren as he stared at his grandfather's headstone. Darren always felt very close to his grandfather, but he had not visited his gravesite since the funeral. He never considered this before now and he was disappointed in himself for it. He wondered when he would ever have returned here if not for the call from his grandfather's lawyer a few days ago. A light rain moved in off the coast and began to cascade down. Darren was the only one in the cemetery and he barely noticed the shower as he contemplated all the ways he could have better honored his grandfather since his passing.
Darren brushed the hair from his eyes, knelt down on one knee and placed his left hand atop the headstone. You always used to say how proud of me you were. I hope you still are. Finally taking notice of his increasing dampness, Darren stood up slowly, wiped the dirt from his knee and made his way to his car parked nearby.
It was only a ten minute drive to the lawyer's office, but it felt much longer. Darren's ongoing self-reflection and the gloomy weather combined to put him in quite a somber mood. Slowly his thoughts turned to the appointment at hand. It had been over seven years since his grandfather's death and Darren could not imagine what would cause his lawyer to be summoning him now. Darren's grandfather was not a wealthy man, but he left him enough of an inheritance to complete college with minimal debt and still have enough left to make a down payment on a modest home in a quiet town about an hour up the coast. It was a shock to think that there could be anything else his grandfather had left him.
The sky was mostly cleared by the time Darren arrived at his destination. Darren had not been involved with any of the legal proceedings surrounding his grandfather's death so this was his first visit to the law offices of Werner and Strench. It was a plain office nestled in a business park just off the main highway. As Darren entered he was greeted by a woman who appeared old enough to be his mother. She sat behind a worn, wooden desk and busied herself entering notes into a computer that looked like it should have been put out of its misery years ago.
The woman noticed Darren as he moved to take a seat along the wall. "You must be Mr. Blake. I'll let Mr. Lerner know that you are here. It will be just one moment." She gave Darren a warm smile. "Can I get you something to drink while you wait? We have water, tea, and juice."
"No thank you. I'm fine." Darren was too anxious to notice his thirst. His thoughts were consumed with trying to figure out what reason there could possibly be for him to be here.
The woman got up from her chair and walked down the hall. Darren barely heard her knock on a door down the hall and she returned shortly after with the same friendly look on her face. "You can go on in, Mr. Blake. Mr. Werner's office is at the end of the hall on the right."
Darren nodded appreciatively. "Thank you."
The door to the office was open, but Darren knocked as he entered. "Ah Darren, come in. Have a seat, please." The man behind the desk welcomed him without even looking up. The office was small and dimly lit, with books and notepads scattered about. It looked quite similar to his office at home. There was no noticeable order to the way these items were arranged, but Darren guessed that Mr. Werner could find any object he desired within his office in a matter of seconds.
As Darren was in the process of sitting down Mr. Werner closed the notebook he was writing in and rose from his seat to shake Darren's hand. "So good to finally meet you, Darren. I've heard so much about you from your parents that it's hard to believe that we haven't met before now." This statement caught Darren a bit off guard, but he managed a polite smile. "They are quite proud of you, you know? Your parents I mean. They're always telling tales of their son the writer. That must make you happy I imagine."
"Of course," Darren replied. "What child doesn't want to make their parents proud?"
"I am sure you have questions as to why I needed to meet with you, so let me get to the purpose of our meeting. As executor of your grandfather's will I had many responsibilities to attend to, but since it has been several years since his passing I am left with only one task to complete." Mr. Werner swiveled in his chair and removed something from one of the drawers behind him. He turned back around and placed a wooden box about the size of a common shoebox on his desk. "This box was your grandfather's Darren, and he left me with very clear instructions on what to do with it. When you turned twenty five the box was to go to you, and since you celebrated your twenty fifth birthday last week I am now taking care of your grandfather's lone outstanding request. If you have any questions I'll do my best to answer them for you, but I am afraid you now know as much about this box as I do."
Darren struggled to find words as he sat there staring at the box. Nothing about it stood out as particularly unusual, but he could tell there was some history to it. The box was faded and most of the edges were worn. Darren was sure that it was handcrafted after looking it over. He could sense an air of importance about the box, but it had to apply to the contents as the exterior was quite plain. It looked to be very well constructed but there were no designs or symbols of any kind adorning it.
"Not much to look at is it?" Mr. Werner's question brought Darren's thoughts back to the here and now.
"No, not really. Do you know how old it is?" Darren did not expect an answer to his question.
"Unfortunately I don't. Like I said, you now know as much about this box as I do. Your grandfather's will had explicit instructions to keep it safe until you reached the age to receive it. The only other note relating to the box was that it was not to be opened by anyone but you. It has been kept in storage until I retrieved it earlier this week to give to you, and it has sat safely in that drawer ever since," Mr. Werner said pointing back at the drawer behind him.
Darren leaned in to take a closer look at the box. He had a list of questions in his mind about this mystery box that continued to grow. Darren wanted answers to his questions, but he knew Mr. Werner's office was not the place to seek them. Whatever the story behind the box was, he could wait until he got home to figure it out.
"Thank you very much for your time Mr. Werner. I'm sure you must be busy and I don't want to keep you from your work any longer."
"I have as much time for you as you need. Your grandfather was a great man and a friend, and if caring for this box helped to bring his soul even a small amount of peace than I could not have been happier to do it." There was a kind look in Mr. Werner's eyes and Darren was grateful for his words.
"I appreciate what you've done, and I know my grandpa would have appreciated your service to our family." Darren stood up to shake Mr. Werner's hand.
"You are too kind son. You actually remind me a great deal of him. Maybe that's why he wanted you to have this." Mr. Werner patted Darren's arm and handed him the box. "Be sure to tell your mother I said 'Hello.'"
"I definitely will. Thanks again." Darren placed the box under his arm and exited the office. He gave a wave to the woman at the front desk with his free hand as he passed by.
"Have a nice day Mr. Blake." The woman smiled kindly as he opened the door to leave.
Darren gave her a nod and a returning grin as he exited the building. "You too."
Darren slid into his car and placed the box gently on the passenger seat. For a moment he just sat there staring at the box, debating on whether or not to open it right then and there. He ultimately decided that anything his grandfather had gone through such care to make sure he received was too important to open in the parking lot of a small business park by the highway. Satisfied this was the correct decision Darren started his car and began the drive home.
Darren could not have offered a single detail about the drive back to hi
s house if asked. With his thoughts almost completely focused on the box and what it could possibly contain he was on auto-pilot the entire time. The one memory he had was slowing down and taking one last look at his grandfather's grave as he passed the cemetery. He was unsure when he would visit his resting place again, but he knew it would not take him another seven years to do it.
As Darren entered his house he stepped over the pile of mail lying just inside the front door and headed straight for his office. Clearing a stack of notes and books off of the coffee table at the side of the room he set the box down and sat in the recliner next to it, the recliner that had once been his grandfather's. For a moment Darren just sat and thought back to when he was young and would sit on his grandfather's lap, in this very chair, listening to all of his grandfather's old stories. When his grandfather ran out of stories of his own he would grab a book off a shelf and read to Darren. It was in this chair, sitting with his grandfather, that Darren Blake found his love for storytelling and started down the path to becoming a writer. That was probably the greatest gift Darren had ever gotten from his grandfather. As it turned out there was still one more gift to be had.
Darren rocked forward in his chair and gave the box one last inspection. He was beyond anxious to find out what was in the box, but something still gave him pause. He glanced over towards his desk at the picture of his grandfather and laughed. It's just a box Darren. Open the darned thing already!
There were no visible hinges on the box so Darren tried lifting the top straight off, but to no avail. He then tried to open the lid from the front, guessing that there were hidden hinges built into the interior of the box, but he was again unsuccessful. Darren felt around the edges of the box and found a slight protrusion on either side. He pushed on them simultaneously and the lid popped up. Darren lifted the top of the box the rest of the way off with ease.
With the contents of the box now exposed, Darren found himself staring at a folded note sitting on top of an object wrapped in heavy, grey cloth. First things first, Darren told himself as he removed and unfolded the note. The paper simply read:
"Dear Darren,
Please keep this item near to you whenever possible, and more importantly please keep it safe. When the time comes you will know what to do.
Love,
Grandpa Donald"
Darren sat and gazed at the note. It was so short and yet it had a tone of such importance that Darren could not wait any longer to solve the mystery of what was in the box. He reached to grab the piece of cloth and found it to be a pouch made of the softest velvet he had ever felt. Sticking his hand into the pouch he pulled out a metallic cube unlike anything he had ever seen. The cube looked almost silver, or even platinum, except it had a slight golden hue. It was perfectly smooth and did not have a scratch or blemish of any kind on its surface. The most noticeable quality of the cube was its weight. As near as Darren could tell the item was a perfect cube with sides between three and four inches in length, yet despite clearly being made of some type of metal and feeling completely solid it weighed next to nothing. Darren was dumbfounded by this strange item left to him by his grandfather. For more than an hour he sat in his grandfather's chair examining the cube, trying to learn anything he could about what it did or why it was given to him.
Darren would spend many more fruitless hours like this in the coming months. Most time spent studying the cube left him with as many questions as he started with, if not more. Darren did as his grandfather asked though, he kept it safe. Since he worked at home and rarely went out this was not hard to do. On the odd occasion that he did have visitors he made sure to hide the cube on a bookshelf. Darren did not like knowing so little about his grandfather's gift, but he knew that he must keep it to himself. As time went by Darren found a single thought to give him comfort; when the time comes I will know what to do.