Author's Note:- This story has been written for the 'Writers Anonymous Night Owl Challenge' where the challenge was to write a story with only night scenes. No daytime scenes.
Word Count: 3,106 (excluding Author's Note)
This story contains mention of Nancy's mother's death. If you are uncomfortable with it, please don't read.
Best Birthday Gift
"Go and stand in the middle of nowhere
Compile that on your right and add-on there
What is your prime job in school?
Look up at what you found, only look
Ten steps to the source of life mass
And get transported through the looking glass
Once on the other side, become Queen
Turn to the bark, five times ahead been
Offer a lift to the bug on the floor
Half done, rest won't be much more"
Nancy read the lines for the second time as she reclined on the chair in her room. The wall-clock read 22:07. Nancy's fourteenth birthday party had just got over.
Scarcely had she said goodbye to her best friends, Bess and George who had presumably been the last to leave, and walked back to the house along her favourite H-path when her Dad had called her for a word in the living room.
As she sat down on the sofa, her father, Carson Drew, had handed her a letter, saying, "Nancy, your mother wrote this letter to you in her last days. By that time, we had all lost hope to her recovery and she had been brought to the house as per her wishes," he stopped for a moment. It was painful for him to recall those days even after years, "She gave me this letter telling me that I was to give it to you once you turned fourteen," he adjusted his spectacles, "So, here it is. I had kept it safe all these years."
Nancy was about to read it right then. Carson, however, had interjected, "No Nancy. Not here. It is for your sole perusal. Open it only once you are in your room."
With barely contained curiosity, Nancy had practically run up the stairs. This was the first time she had heard of such a letter from her mother. She was eager to know what her mother could have written for her so long ago.
However, once she neatly tore away one end of the envelope and was about to take out the yellowed piece of paper, she had hesitated. Sadness gripped her as she realised that this had probably been her mother's last letter. She suddenly felt empty. Tears pricked her eyes. She couldn't fully explain why she had suddenly become so emotional.
Composing herself, she had taken out the paper and carefully unfolded it. What she saw left her surprised and maybe a little crestfallen. Nancy had expected a note from her mother, something that would be comforting. She hadn't expected a riddle.
She stared at the words written in black ink on a paper, yellowed with age but preserved with care and the words stared back at her.
Nancy moved closer to the window, towards the moonlight which was her only source of illumination. She could have turned on the light but something held her in place. Maybe, she was too transfixed or too absorbed or too sad.
But Nancy had made up her mind. She was going to solve this riddle. She didn't know what lay for her but she was willing to give it a try. A part of her smiled. Could her mother have possibly known all those years ago that Nancy would grow up to be so fond of mysteries?
This was another mystery in itself. However, unlike her previous endeavours, this time she would be benefitted by the success. She only hoped that she could solve it.
Pushing all other thoughts out of her head, Nancy focused on the first line, Go and stand in the middle of nowhere. How could someone stand in nowhere? Could it be referring to the empty terrace? Nancy discarded this idea. Though the terrace was quite empty, it would hardly classify as 'nowhere', given that there were houses on either side.
She skipped the first line for the time being and looked for something she could possibly gauge.
The third line was easier. Though in reality, Nancy would always be on the lookout for mysteries, she hardly thought her mother could have predicted that when she was a toddler. No, by, What is your prime job in school? Her mother must have meant learning or studying. But she still couldn't understand how that would fit in with anything else.
Then there was the part about 'source of life mass'. The most important source of life, according to Nancy, was air, but there wasn't that big a chance of walking towards air. That left her with two possibilities, the sun and water. Walking towards the sun would mean walking towards the east, and walking towards water...well, she could always figure that out eventually.
That was the problem, Nancy realised. She could go on speculating about different phrases but nothing would be concrete if the first line remained unsolved.
So, with a sudden burst of energy and determination, Nancy stood up and began pacing her room. What could 'nowhere' refer to?
Suddenly it clicked in her mind. How could she have forgotten? In solving riddles, phrases like 'middle of ...' and 'end of ...' often referred, not to places, but to letters in the words.
Nowhere. Middle of nowhere. The middle letter of the word nowhere would be 'h'. Go and stand in the 'h'. The H-path!
On reaching this conclusion, Nancy flew down the stairs and carefully crept out of the front door, taking care not to wake up anybody. The stones on the H-path glistened in the moonlight.
The reason it was called the 'H-path' was that it really did look like the letter H. Actually two separate paths, one from the front door to the main gate and the other from a disused fountain to the kitchen door, had been joined by a connector in the middle giving it its name.
The air outside was a little chilly. Had Nancy not been bubbling with excitement, she would have fetched a jacket but she really wasn't willing to wait much longer.
Standing in the middle of the connector, and thus effectively in the 'middle of nowhere', Nancy read the second line of the riddle. Compile that on your right and add-on there
Initially the word 'Compile' had made Nancy think that it had something to do with computers but now that she had unravelled the first line, she felt that the word had to be taken literally as 'put together'.
That on your right. Nancy looked to her right. The cars were parked there. Okay, maybe the word 'cars' was to be noted. Add-on. The first thing that Nancy thought of was pizza. That was silly. Pizza didn't fit with cars. So, what else could be an add-on?
Add-on...Add-on...Add 'on'! Nancy slapped her forehead. She needed to take that instruction literally! So that left her with 'cars' and 'on' which would be Carson, her father.
She had already worked through the third line. Her prime job in school- study. She read the second and third lines again That gave her a place to look in: Carson's study.
She was about to go there but recalling the fourth line made her stay put. Look up at what you found, only look.
She looked up at the first floor at her father's study. The curtains were drawn and the windows were closed. The room was dark.
A swirl of cold wind bit into Nancy's flesh at that moment when she was not absorbed with the riddle. Nancy suddenly felt that the darkness had increased tenfold. She looked up and realised that the moon had been obscured by some clouds.
The rate of her heartbeat increased. The darkness increased her excitement and made her feel that the conclusion to this riddle had to be drawn that night itself.
She couldn't read the paper in the dark anymore but she didn't need to. Multiple readings had given her a fair idea of what the next line was.
Ten steps to the source of life mass. If she moved towards the east, which is towards the sun, she would be walking towards the house, but that would violate the initial instruction to keep looking at her Dad's study. So she started walking towards the disused fountain, a source of water.
She kept her eyes on her Dad's study's window, but as she walked diagonally left, she realised that another window was replacing it. The window of the next room. It was the room where...her mother had passed away.
Nancy stood next to the fountain and stared at the window. She hardly ever entered the room. It was usually opened only for cleaning.
And get transported through the looking glass. Nancy understood that instruction. The window had strange reflective qualities, just like a looking glass. She was to go and stand on the other side.
In a matter of minutes, Nancy was in the room, standing in front of the window. No light again. The clouds had moved and once the curtains had been shifted, the room was basking in the moonlight.
The next line went like this, Once on the other side, become Queen. Nancy smiled a little at this line. Queen was the name of Nancy's pet dog which had passed away quite some years ago.
By 'becoming Queen' Nancy realised that she was to crouch on the floor on her four limbs. Though this felt odd, she knew that it must be necessary.
Turn to the bark, five times ahead been. Bark meant wood. There was only one piece of furniture made of wood in the whole room. A wooden cupboard. Like everything else in the room, this was quite old.
When she moved 'five times ahead', she found herself right in front of the cupboard. Her nose was almost touching the door.
She re-read the next line, Offer a lift to the bug on the floor. Nancy wrinkled her nose. She wasn't particularly fond of bugs and she also didn't see any bugs on the floor. Had she mis-interpreted the riddle? Was she supposed to be somewhere else? Should she...start all over again?
Nancy stopped herself. She had come this far. She should try the last step before backing off. Imagining that there really was a bug on the floor, Nancy cupped her hand and placed it under the cupboard. There was barely an inch of space there.
Nancy's fingers scraped the bottom of the cupboard and she was shocked. There...was...a...packet...there. Carefully held in place by sellotape.
"Oh wow," Nancy softly muttered as she wrenched off the packet from its place. She hadn't been on the wrong track after all.
On carefully examining the packet, Nancy found a small box which had been wrapped in plastic. Owing to its covering, dust had never touched it.
Nancy opened the lid of the box. Inside was...a folded piece of paper. With hitched breathing, Nancy unfolded it. It contained six lines written on it in the same black ink as had been on the riddle. These six lines, were also a kind of riddle, but a little different from the previous one. They went like this,
I slide swiftly, once the south-east is explored.
I hide a treasure, immaterial to the world.
I am surrounded by things all fragile.
I stare all day at blue flecked yellow bright.
I am unnoticed by all who pass by.
Come and find me, you can, if you try.
Nancy could well understand that this riddle was written from the perspective of a personified object.
The first line barely conveyed anything to her. The second line was another thing. Nancy couldn't understand what the treasure could possibly be. There weren't all that precious objects in the house at any point of time. Plus, if it was a treasure, why would it be immaterial to the world? A treasure was a treasure, always valuable. She skipped that line too.
The third line said: I am surrounded by things all fragile. 'Fragile' immediately reminded Nancy of glass. Something that was surrounded by glass.
The kitchen cupboards all held numerous glassware. Nancy could look there, but the problem was that there were just too many fragile things there. It would be tantamount to searching for a needle in a haystack.
The next line, I stare all day at blue flecked yellow bright, caught Nancy's interest. It reminded her of the poem 'The Mirror' by Sylvia Plath, especially of the lines, "Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It was pink, with speckles".
This poem had been written from the perspective of a mirror, which had been facing a wall. As for bright yellow, flecked with blue, Nancy smiled, she was standing in the very room which had walls coloured like this.
It also made the previous line clear. Nancy turned to look at the wall cabinet in the room which was filled with decorative pieces which were made of glass and were hence...fragile.
Nancy was also a little sad on recalling the next line; I am unnoticed by all who pass by. She went and stood in front of the cabinet after days. For some reason, her Dad would always prevent her from spending time in front of it unnecessarily. Each of these pieces, from the statue of the dancing ballerina to that of the snow globe had been bought by her mother over years, yet they had been forgotten with time. It pained her to think that her mother had foreseen this all those years ago, that her room would be nearly forgotten with time. Was this general human character, after all? Her heart gave a sad wrench and her face gradually fell at her own negligence and insensitiveness.
It took her a few minutes of staring into blank space to console herself. With a deep breath, she turned her attention to the very first line. A deep furrow formed between her brows. slide swiftly, once the south-east is explored. She tilted her head and looked at the cabinet. Then she read the full riddle again. Her eyes widened in understanding and realisation.
The cabinet was not surrounded by fragile things. The interior walls of the cabinet were. This meant that she needed to empty it and now. Just as she was about to open the cabinet, the tolling of a bell surprised her and made her jump.
As the twelfth gong of the bell faded, Nancy's heartbeat also decreased. She had become so used to the quiet and the dark that the sudden sound had been startling.
She slowly resumed her work. One by one, the articles piled up on the bed next to her. Things which weren't recalled anymore with the passage of time. Things with memories attached to it. Nancy made a mental note to set aside a day for browsing through them patiently, but right now her excitement was reaching its peak.
Finally, there came a time, when the cabinet was indeed empty. It looked so bare and forlorn that Nancy almost felt sorry for it.
Nancy could pretty well understand that the wall in question was the one right in front of her. The other two on either side weren't facing 'blue flecked yellow bright' after all.
The south-east is explored. That would be the bottom-right corner. Nancy's thin fingers probed that part as a chill ran down her spine knowing that it was the final frontier. Eventually her fingers found a dent on the otherwise smooth surface. Instinct told Nancy that she was to press it.
On pressing it, she immediately felt a change. When she shifted it to the left, it did move! It slid swiftly all the way. Nancy felt the spines of many hard-bound books.
Now, she had no option. She had to switch on the light. The glare hit her eyes and she blinked a couple of times before she could see anything. Another thing she did was to dismantle all the glass slabs of the cabinet, so that she could easily access what was behind it.
What she saw confirmed her initial guesses. About a dozen notebooks were there, neatly arranged in two piles. To think that such a hiding chamber existed in her house and she didn't know about it. Nancy wondered how nobody had told her of its existence.
But curiosity got the better of her and she picked up a notebook at random. She flipped through the pages. What she saw was quite unexpected. It was a collection of poems. Another notebook revealed a series of short stories. All of them were penned by her mother.
"A treasure immaterial to the world," Nancy found herself repeating the phrase. This was more valuable to her than any form of material wealth could ever be.
Suddenly her eyes fell on an envelope addressed to her. She picked it up wondering about the possibility of another riddle. It, however, turned out to be a letter. Just what Nancy had been subconsciously regretting the entire night. The letter went like this,
Dear Nancy,
If you are reading this letter, it means that I am no more. I have not been with you for at least the last ten years. If you have actually found this letter then you are indeed worthy of praise. I congratulate you.
I know that there isn't any chance of anybody accidentally coming across this because I ensured that this glass cabinet would not be messed with unnecessarily after my demise.
I hope that you are well and I am really, really sorry for not being able to be there for you. Our relationship has been too short-lived. I have been taken away from you too early.
I know that you are wondering about all these notebooks which you have just found. I will tell you a secret: I have had a passion for writing for ages. It has always been my wish to see my writing in print. Will you fulfil this wish Nancy?
You know, I can also ask your father now, when I am still alive, but there is a reason I am not doing so. You see, I will be gone any day. If, by chance, your father fails to fulfil my wish, I know this will torment him forever. I don't want to leave behind somebody in such a state. Hence, I am asking you.
Stay well, Nancy. I love you a lot. Remember that I will always be watching over you.
Your loving Mom.
Tears streamed down Nancy's cheeks. A gust of cold wind blew in through one window. Nancy felt that the wind was trying to dry her tears with soft, loving hands.
The End
Author's Note: I hope that you liked the story. I really enjoyed writing it.
Edit(as of 5th November, 2021): The cover photo is my own handwritten riddle. I had always wanted to do it, so I finally just got around to doing it.
