The host is holding a framed painting in his hands, a painting that reaches both ends of his stretched arms. It displays a sunny piece of land, with houses on the island accompanied with a setting sun behind the horizon of the water.

"Paintings can always have a meaning to it, whether it's intentional or not. A painting of a desert cliff with a leaf perched at the edge of it can be signifying fragile hope. A drawing of a woman, hands in front of her with a diminutive smile at the corner of her mouth, could signify the mysterious and deceptive. And meanings can be interpreted in any way a person wants it to be. Perhaps the Mona Lisa is thought to have the meaning of hidden loneliness or forecasting revenge."

He puts the painting in his hands against the wall and hangs it.

"What does this picture imply to you? Nothing much could be said about it, except to mention words such as 'mellow' or 'tranquil'. However, the real copy of the painting had been owned by the Anwhistle family. According to Clear Anwhistle, it implies something beyond the picture, beyond the hatched huts on the island. It's gone so beyond that it has exited the edge of the golden frame border and into the very life of her family."

Curse of Hatched Huts

It wasn't until two days after Grandma had moved in with us when I had noticed something was different. She was an old lady almost seventy years old, and my grandfather had died three years ago, leaving her a widow for quite a while by herself. After the rent costs in her own apartment was raised too much for her to handle, she had moved in with us into our average house located on the outskirts of a nearby city.

I was only a sixteen year old paratroopa, helping my father as much as I could with the choirs around the house. He worked a full time job as an employee of this metal company, and this was the hardest month for him so far. His boss was losing success in his finance and was threatening to fire some of his workers. All I could do was do my best in school and try not to disappoint my father. He never expects me to become anything successful, but both he and I think that my future career might bring the chances of later optimism for our family.

"Clear," said Mr. Anwhistle, as his daughter and him were sitting on the city bus two years prior. "I know you're trying your best in school. In fact, too hard." Clear looked at him, her face ambiguous.

"Even when it's your free time and you're free to do whatever you want, you study instead of going out to have fun with your friends. I know that you're worried about not becoming anything when you grow up, but I don't expect you to be anything outstanding or over the top."

"I'm just worried about us," Clear said, looking up at her father. "About you, with your job. I'm making us ready for the future."

"My job is all in good hands," he replied. "The future is nothing to worry about. There are always opportunities along the way." He smiled at his daughter, who smiled back as she leaned against his shoulder on that rainy night.

When my grandmother moved in, I could only assume that my grandmother brought in a painting of hers from her apartment. I noticed it two days after, positioned on the wall in the living room. It was a large painting with a golden frame border that had an odd texture, about four feet long and two feet wide. It displayed a piece of green land with straw huts in a small village. It seemed to be that the huts were on an island because in the horizon, a line of water was present below the sun that was setting.

As grandma was just getting used to living with us for the first week, I didn't bother to ask her about it. The painting was a fabulous touch to our little living room, in fact, after I noticed it on the wall, I discovered that it was in fact the best part of our living room, aside from the piano we received from my great grandfather years ago.

And then one day, as I was doing my usual studying on the living room table, I heard a noise.

KATHUMP!

The sound startled me a lot as I turned around to see the painting face-up on the floor. I looked at the back of it and didn't see any marks or dents from the five foot plummet it had taken seconds before. But when I grabbed it into my hands, I felt some strange, unusual energy in me that seemed to control my very own hands. It was as if the painting was trying to absorb energy from me, and I put it back on the floor in confusion. As I attempted to pick the painting up again, everything felt normal as I proceeded to hang it back up. It was a heavy job for me, but I couldn't stop trembling as I placed the horizontal piece of wire on the back of the painting onto the hook in the wall.

That night, I couldn't stop thinking about the painting. Why was I so nervous about a painting on the wall that had dropped? The thing that bothered me the most was when I remembered that awkward feeling I felt in my hands as I grabbed it, and it had made me feel so weak.

Then the next Tuesday morning my father came to the breakfast table with an envelope, which had my name and school printed on the outside of it. The letter seemed too unreal.

"Excessive low grading score on AP exam?" Clear exclaimed in disbelief. "This can't be. And they're saying that I need to take a summer school class."

"Honey, that's what it says," her father pointed out, his eyes full of confusion at his daughter's grade test result. "It's what the results say right here."

"Clear, didn't you tell me that you studied all month for this big exam?" her grandmother questioned. "What had gone wrong?"

"I'm sure of how well I did," Clear stated. "Almost every single question seemed so easy and known to me. But getting only thirty percent of the test correct is beyond what I expected."

"Maybe you were just too tired that day," her father said. "And mistakes aren't impossible, honey."

"Oh dear," Clear's grandmother remembered. "If you have to go to summer school, then you can't help us in the volunteer work in Rougeport this summer."

"No, dad," Clear said, her voice becoming filled with fear. "This can't be possible. I know I didn't fail this test."

On Wednesday, my father and I went early to my high school and talked with the assistant principal. My skeptics and disbelief was right. There was a record mistake with twenty other students during the grade scoring, and the percentages were decreased by sixty percent. However, it was lucky my father had come with me that day. The sad part was that the grades would count for the twelve other students that failed to recognize the grade mistake before June 2. We had just met the deadline that Monday, and my accurate grade was saved at the last minute. We were lucky then with the fact that I could help my family on their trip to help Rougeport, but it wouldn't be soon till the more shadowy things would occur.

It wasn't until the next day during the afternoon, as my father and I were walking to the kitchen for dinner, when the painting fell again.

KATHUMP!

"What on Earth was that?" Clear's father asked in alarm, looking around him to see anything that might have fallen. Clear immediately looked at the painting in the living room, and just as she expected, it was on the floor.

"That painting," Clear said, as the two of them made their way behind the couch to the painting on the floor. It was facing up, the painting looking as new as ever.

"I've never seen this before in our house," Mr. Anwhistle said in surprise. "Did you put this painting on the wall?"

"No, I thought it was either you who put it here," Clear replied. "Or grandma."

"Then it's most likely Grandma," her father said. "Please do me a favor and put it back up, because Grandma needs her medications right now."

As my father darted out of the room to give Grandma her medications she had missed at noontime, I looked back at the painting. I had a strange feeling going through me, with the fact that two days prior the exact same thing had happened with the painting falling. As I picked up the painting from the ground, there was that weakening feeling again that seemed to drain the blood from my hands. I grabbed onto the bronze border of the painting on both sides, and lifted it into the air, but then suddenly my bones seemed to collapse as I dropped the painting again. I couldn't help but let out a small shriek as I fell backwards onto my back.

"Clear, are you okay?" Mr. Anwhistle said in concern as he ran out from the kitchen.

"Yeah, Dad," she said, getting back up to her feet as she looked at the painting on the ground. "I just dropped it carelessly."

"Well, don't be so careless," her father told her. "Go off to do your homework as I'll just put this up real quick…" He bent down to get the painting into his hands, but Clear immediately stopped him from doing so as she grabbed the large painting into her own hands.

"No, it's fine," said Clear, trying to on a straight face as she felt the odd feeling go through her hands. "I think Grandma needs you." Her father gave her a look of slight confusion before he nodded and headed off. Clear turned around and hung the painting onto the hook on the wall. It was a common hanging technique, with a piece of wire going horizontally across the back of the painting that was hooked into the hook placed into the wall, hanging the painting in the air.

If the painting fell, I thought, then how could the hook be so securely fastened into the wall? Why wouldn't the wire have snapped off? There was now way the painting would have fallen off without the breaking of the wire or the hook.

That night, there was more than usual talking from the living room. It was my father, but it wasn't possible for him to be talking so expansively to my grandma. As I went down to get my usual glass of water for bed, I saw my father having a great deal of talking on the phone, his voice getting louder and louder each minute. As he hung up after a time that seemed like half an hour, he turned to face me, a look of misery on his face that I wouldn't forget.

"The boss at the Metal Factory," he said. "He fired me."

I fell asleep almost immediately from disbelief, and woke up the next morning for school. I felt so sad and miserable for my father as I walked to school on the Friday morning. He couldn't be fired, because there was no reason for him to. But he was, and I was looking ahead into the future we would be facing. I prayed that my father would find a new job as soon as possible. A part of me didn't want to go back home and see him again in his depressed mood.

Luckily for me, I had to walk Grandma to the bus station right after school was finished. My mind raced with the questions I wanted to ask her about the painting she had hung up. Strange things seemed to be going on with it since the day I had discovered it.

"It's on the eight stop, on a street called Montrose Street," Clear reminded her as the two of them were sitting on the bus station bench.

"Thank you for reminding me," her grandma said, "But I think I've got it engraved into my brain already. I've been repeating it so many times in my head over and over again."

"Hey," Clear started, "I really like that painting in the living room you hanged up."

"The…painting?" her grandmother said, looking at her while she went up to rub the middle of her neck.

"Yes, the painting in the living room," said Clear, "The one with the island with the huts on it, and it has a bronze-like frame around it."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she replied. "I haven't done anything to the house since Sunday."

"But it has to be yours," Clear pointed out. "Neither Dad or I had ever seen it before, and two days after you arrived I spotted it.

"Well," her grandma said, "I believe you're either wrong or mistaken. I did not bring a painting with me or hang anything up anywhere. Perhaps your father did it without telling you."

"But he said---" Clear stopped talking as her grandmother gave her strange look. Her look seemed to have confusion in it, but at the same time it seemed as if she was telling Clear to stop telling her about the painting in the living room. The bus appeared in front of them in rapid timing as Clear's grandmother stepped on.

"I'll see you later," she said, blowing a kiss before turning to pay the driver. Clear sighed in disappointment as the bus made its way slowly to the city.

It was obvious that Grandma had brought the painting in with her when she moved in, but I was wondering the fact of why she was so bothered with the mentioning of it. I wanted to tell you father all about it and tell him about the strange things that had been happening with the painting, but I didn't expect to see what I saw when I entered the house.

"Dad?" Clear called out. She walked slowly into the living room, but then ran in panic towards the figure of her father lying down on the ground. The painting was on the wall, still and unmoving.

"Dad!" Clear said in a panicked voice. "Dad! Get up!" Almost immediately, his eyes started to open as Clear pulled him up to his feet. She didn't keep her eyes off from the painting as her father dusted the lint off from his jacket.

"What happened?"

"I don't know," he said, "But I remember going to the painting again which had fallen. I remember hanging it back up, and then…there was such a bizarre feeling in my hands when I held it in the air…"

"I felt that bizarre feeling too!" Clear told him. "There's something really wrong with this painting. It keeps on falling, and bad things happen to us!"

"Clear," his father said in a confused tone, "What are you talking about?"

"On Monday the painting fell," she started, "Then the next day, the failed grades appeared in the mail, but we fixed that. The second time it fell was when I was with you yesterday, and then that night, you were…were fired from your job."

"Listen," her father said, not convinced by what she had explained to him. "It's just a coincidence. If you think that every time the painting falls then something bad happens, then I think you're getting too much into this kind of stuff."

"But Grandma is denying she put it there!" Clear pointed out. "I know she knows something about it, but she pretended not to know anything when I asked her. It's as if she's hiding some sort of secret."

"Clear," her father said. "I'll take care of this now, while you go study for the test you have for tomorrow."

"I won't go," she said firmly, "Unless you remove that painting from our house.

"There's nothing---"

KATHUMP!

The father and daughter jumped and held onto each other deadly as the painting besides them fell to the wooden flooring, facing up. Clear looked at her father and saw his face, surprised with an agape mouth. She stepped back away from the picture on the ground.

"I told you, there's something wrong!" Clear said, almost to herself as if she was confirming the supernatural fact. "Dad, call Grandma now and demand an answer." She said it as if she were ordering her father a command. Clear's father immediately went to the phone and dialed for his mother, as Clear looked at the painting in shock. She was convinced there was something living in it that couldn't be seen.

"Hello?" her father said, talking on the phone as his face went puzzled. "I'm the son of her, yes. Isn't this her phone? Oh…Dr. Andres? …What? Oh…okay. I'll wait here when you come back…" He turned to look at Clear, who looked back at him in fear and worry.

"Who did you call?" Clear asked, stricken with fear as she looked at him, baffled. "Was that Grandma?"

"It was a doctor," he told her. "He told me that Grandma was sent to the hospital after she suffered from a sudden heart failure."

We were going to visit Grandma the next morning. But before heading off, we brought the painting with us, which was still flat on the ground from yesterday afternoon. My father literally shoveled it up with a broom into a wagon, and we put the wagon into the trunk of the car. Neither he or I wanted to feel the draining feeling in our hands again. I was sure that the painting was causing our bad luck. We wanted to get it removed from us or destroyed as soon as possible, before anything else could occur.

On the way to the hospital we stopped by an artist expert's office. He owned a small art gallery across from the street, so Dad expected him to know about the painting of Grandma's we had with us. I wanted know everything about the origin of the drawing, and what it was called and who the artist was. I knew Grandma's heart failure wasn't just a simple coincidence, along with the other misfortunes we had during the week, and by the end of the day, I would understand everything about the painting's history. It would be closer to us then we ever thought it would be.

"And this had no name?" Mr. Hera questioned curiously.

"All we know is that my grandmother brought it in with us," Clear explained. "Some…stuff had been happening with us during this week, but we never thought of looking at the name."

"Well, it doesn't have a name," the artist said. "But you said 'Stuff'. What do you mean by stuff?"

"Some strange stuff happens with the painting," Mr. Anwhistle explained. "It keeps on falling, but we always put it in properly and hang it on the hook every time. And my daughter and I observe some bad stuff happening after every time it falls. When we touch it, we feel unusually weak. I just don't know what to say."

"Do you know anything about this painting to tell us about?" Clear asked hopefully.

"I'm surprised you're not telling me something about this drawing," he replied.

"What do you mean?" asked Clear, baffled.

"Perhaps you're not into the artistic works, but almost every artist or person in an art museum will recognize this painting, always in pictures. The painting is called Hatched Huts by an Island."

"Hatched huts by an island," Clear's father repeated. "Can you tell us about it?"

"Well, not much is known," Mr. Hera said, "But people still question whether it exists or not, and you've answered the question right in my office. It's an unfinished piece of work, and was guarded and kept preciously by the artist who never got to finish his last touches to the painting. He committed suicide later on."

"Committed suicide," Clear said, and then something was suddenly remembered in her mind that she had learned about in school the previous day. "That, that painting! It's drawn by Ludweg Van Gough!"

"I believe this is the genuine copy," said Mr. Hera in an amazed voice. "Since that day it was stolen by Skinner 'Skipper' Anwhistle over a hundred years ago, I can't believe you actually found it! It's probably worth hundreds of thousands of coins!"

"Wait, did you say Anwhistle?" Clear asked in a surprised tone.

"Yes, Skipper Anwhistle was the known theft who fled with it after the death of Van Gough. Some say that Ludweg's spirit still hides in the unfinished piece of work, putting a curse on him for the rest of the life. I'm not really into that superstitious stuff, and can gladly take this off your hands at an auction."

We left Mr. Hera's office and told him to keep it for the auction scheduled tomorrow. Skipper Anwhistle? Could he possibly be some relative of ours? As my father and I stared in stunned silence at each other as we exited the building, we got the horrifying news that marked the end of our family curse.

Grandma's life support system had failed, and had died just minutes after we left the office. Mr. Hera had hung the painting on the wall when we had left, only for it to fall seconds later. It shattered into pieces, and the curse was gone.

"Was the Anwhistle family really cursed by the unfinished painting of Van Gough's? Van Gough's last words to his family was reported as, 'My works are yours only, and for yours only to have.' What was the reason for Clear and her dad to feel a sort of draining power every time they touched it? How do you explain the painting falling off from the wall numerous times, even though it was hanged correctly? If it wasn't, then why did misfortune occur every time it fell? Could it have been just a simple coincidence? But then when tracking down the family tree of Clear, it was discovered that her great great grandfather had indeed stolen the unfinished piece of work from Van Gough. The Anwhistles believed that once Grandma, the last member of their family who knew the truth and trickery of the painting passing through the generations, had died, the curse was finally lifted, however, not before making its final blow. Is this story of the family who was cursed by the legendary artist true or false? Take your choice, but don't fall for the wrong answer."

The counterfeit painting of Hatched Huts by an Island suddenly drops from the wall; a part of the frame chips off as it impacts with the flooring.

---------------------------------------

Flurrie: I don't believe in curses!

Luigi: Or maybe the whole a thing could have been a coincidence, with the painting falling and bad stuff happening right a after, and with their relative being the stealer of Van Gough's painting, and a...oh. It's pretty much too much of a coincidence then.

Klepto: I think it's real, because curses exist all around the world.

Wario: Wah! My ass! FICTION

Flurrie: That was rather random, sweetums.

Klepto: FACT

Peach: Hmm, I'm skeptical about this. Could this have really happened to a family?

Luigi: Well, I think this is a real. Just one of my a beliefs that it happened. So I say…

Wario: Hurry! Put fiction!

Klepto: Believe its fact!

Luigi: Ayayaya…FACT

Flurrie: Let's see you be wrong at the end. FICTION

Peach: I'll go with first instincts. Yes, I thought it was fact. FACT

Host: Sorry VIP members. Did I mention that whoever gets the most incorrect predictions at the end of the show also gets a "reward"?

All: Huh??

Host: It's called the "Skeptic's Sentence". Or if they got more false stories wrong, it's "Truster's Torture". They vary every episode.

Flurrie: Hmm, then I should have been extra careful in my previous submissions.

Peach: Are we allowed to go back and change one of our choices? Cause I thought story 2 was true, and I---

Host: Sorry for not telling about this earlier, and no, it's already in.

Peach: Sigh...

Luigi: Okie dokie, waiting for our last tale.

We'll tell you the truth about this story at the end of tonight. Next to come, a friend comes up from the dead to play another game of pawns and knights, on Beyond Belief, Fact or Fiction.

What did you think of this story? As you decide, the next story will come soon...make your move!