HIS BROOCH

                                               

"I fell in love with it the instance I laid my eyes on its structure." Beverly confided in her best friend Ellie. "So I did not think twice about shelling out my last pocket money." 

Beverly has just come back from her two-week trip to Puerto Rico where she mixed both business and pleasure. She is a noted collector of antique accessories and has an agent to help her get into the latest auctions of precious stones and pendants. 

Ellie volunteered to pin the brooch on her satin blouse. The moment she attached the brooch onto her peach blouse, she gasped and complained of a chest constriction. She also went terribly pale.

"What's wrong with you?" Beverly half-mockingly teased her bestie. "It's just a harmless brooch!". 

The next day and the following day after that, Ellie did not make her presence known. Beverly began to be frantically worried. So she called Ellie's pad. No answer. She tried again for about four or five times but to no avail. 

A few minutes later, three hard knocks were heard from her back door. It was Ellie's brother Gaston. He himself was paler than ash. "My sister was rushed to the ICU...she couldn't breathe...she's fighting for her life."

ASTHMA. Beverly has always been a witness to Ellie's ashmatic past. But this case was, by far, the most abrupt and the most bewildering. 

"Okay I will freshen up for a while and I'll go." She asked to be excused. 

Barely a month after she bought the brooch from an antique store in Puerto Rico, she contacted her agent and relayed the sad news of her bestie's sudden demise. Beverly hasn't recuperated from the tragedy and sought answers from healers and mystics about what has just happened to Ellie. Her agent gladly went back to Puerto Rico for a few days to investigate the origin of the PURPLE BROOCH. 

Beverly got the shock of her life when her agent explained to her how the darned brooch got into her hands. And it was no accident. 

"Beverly," her agent narrated, "the purple brooch was said to be originally owned by a very wealthy Sultan. He carried and wore his favorite brooch wherever he went specially on special occasions and public gatherings. The people admired his brooch each time it shone brightly. There was no other brooch in his Kingdom that could equal the glitter and grandeur of the brooch."

"And?" Beverly was wide eyed.

"Unfortunately," Her agent went on. "He got very ill and was bedridden for a year. Before he died, he asked his wife specifically to take care of his beloved brooch and instructed her to keep it aligned in their ancestry."

Beverly leapt from her bed excitedly for the next part of the story. "What did the wife do?".

"The wife was very materialistic and since she knew the exact value of the brooch..."

"SHE SOLD IT!" Beverly finished the thought.

"Yes, and for centuries, the brooch was passed on from multiple owners to the next ones...and there were always unexplained deaths left behind."

'How did the victims die?".

"Always by suffocation and dying in their sleep."

Beverly glanced at her agent in a very disconcerting manner. "But I've worn the brooch  myself a couple of times. Nothing severe happened to me!." 

Her agent said in a powerful tone, "YOU ARE A DEAD RINGER FOR HIS WIFE." He showed her an ancestral picture of the famed couple and couldn't believe what she saw. The former wife of the Sultan really did resemble her in every way. They were like sisters from different eras. 

"The Sultan will not harm you because probably his brooch is back to you.,..back to his wife's utmost care."

  

HER ARDENT ADMIRER

         Kata has always made a daily habit of saying hello to her jasmine tree right across her bedroom

window.This jasmine tree is literally of the same age as hers. A full twenty years and growing for tens of years more, the tree has been named as Kata's Armor. Since Kata was a baby, the faithful jasmine tree has served as her guardian which warded off any undesirable threats to her being..

One huge problem she had was the fact that her visitors would often feel creepy around the presence of Kata's Armor. One by one, they would bide Kata goodbye and would leave the pineapple juice unfinished on the serving table. When she pried why they always seemed in a hurry to go, they would simply shrug off the matter. 

One of her closest friends spilled one day that she felt she saw a terrifying entity behind Kata's Armor. When asked to describe fully the said entity, Emilia simply said that it was like a red ball of fire surrounded by very dark spots. 

One evening as Kata was knitting a pillow case on her bed, she was jolted on the sides of her station. She looked underneath her bed if her Yellow Labrador Max was on its naughty tricks again. But Max was nowhere to be seen. Or maybe it was her little brother Fido who sometimes turned the tables on her. But she just recalled Fido had a summer camp in the nearby hill point. 

In moments of speculation, her eyes caught a visible presence hovering around Kata's Armor. There were sprinkles of bright lights that followed but they were blurry. She also saw a shadow that jerked immediately. 

The next morning Kata went to talk to her grandmother about her disturbing experience about Kata's Armor. As she poured red tea on her granny Martha's cup, she cried when her granny squeezed her arm side. 

"Granny Martha, what's the matter?", she inquired quite alarmingly. 

"When was the last time one of your suitors dropped by this house?" she asked in a hoarse voice. 

"About six months ago..." 

"Have you ever wondered why not one of your suitors dropped by the second time here?".

Kata poured herself a half filled  cup of red tea. "Maybe they were all busy." 

Granny Martha's voice quivered. "Oh you're so naive. They have a competitor that is hard to beat." 

Kata frowned for a second. "Hard to  beat? Who?."

Granny Martha made her forewarning. "Kata, you have to get rid of the jasmine tree. A dark being lives there and has possessed that tree for twenty years. And this entity has virtually owned you and repossessed you."

Kata let loose of her granny's grip. "What do you mean? Granny, you're frightening me." 

"You have an invisible suitor that is a spirit being. You cannot see him but he sees you whatever you do and follows you where ever you go."

Kata began to pale. "So what do I do now?". 

"Cut the tree!".

"But I can't. It has been with me for twenty years.It's a part of me that I can't tear apart."

"Keep it and you'll end up a spinster. The entity will never allow you to marry. You are his for life."

"No! That is not true!".

"If you are not brave enough to get rid of the tree, I will do it myself. I want to see you properly married in the future. I want to see my grand kids." 

The greatest shock of Kata's life came a week after the initial discussion with her granny Martha. Apparently, she did not succeed in having the tree cut off. She hired a couple of burly men to do the cutting of Kata's Armor but all of them failed. 

In no time at all, her granny Martha passed away. The cause was a severe heart attack. 

At the unexpected death of her granny Martha, Kata courageously stepped forward and confronted the tree that gave her solace and hope for the last twenty years.

"What have you done?" she asked, remorseful and battered."What have I done to you?".

And out of nowhere, a mighty being in a swirl of fire appeared before her wet eyes. The image began to metamorphose into a full body and it emerged as a muscled man. He was stark naked in a dim light. The lower half of his body was covered with layers and layers of Jasmine buds.And he stretched his hands toward her. 

"What do you want from me?" Kata asked unnervingly, her voice shaking.

"IT'S YOU I WANT. I WILL MARRY YOU..." 

"Marry me? How can that be? You're a beast." 

Her spine felt like bursting. She felt his whole being envelop her until she ran out of breath.

"WE WILL HAVE CHILDREN AND YOU WILL STAY WITH ME FOREVER." 

  

   

Goddess of a Forest

                                

 

                   The Arsaguerra Clan was devastated by the doctor's pronouncement regarding their prized and

most precious kin, DELFIN. The medical team could not detect just yet what precisely the cause of Delfin's

severe and successive vomiting was. And he spewed a greenish liquid, coupled with lucid, brown specks.

                    Delfin's father, Marlon, immersed his distorted face onto his sweating palms. Like his wife,Evelyn, he too, was at a loss of words for the sudden turn of events in the history of the affluent Arsaguerra of Sao Paolo, Brazil.

                    "Doctor, If I pay you all my wealth, will you heal my son?", Marlon Arsaguerra pleaded in a hazy and delusional way.

                    "Rest assured Mr. Arsaguerra, our medical team is conniving for the best possible solution to your son's case." Dr. Rigaldo squeezed Marlon's back like he always did  whenever Marlon dropped by for his chest check up

                    "How can this be?", Cecilia,Delfin's mother threw her head in agony, while wiping big tears on her pale cheeks. "He's been healthy all his life."

                 

            

      

               "Delfin met a wonderful, amazing woman when he retreated in his villa." Felizzo,a family friend, volunteered an information,which to him, seemed to be the key to the Arsaguerra's dilemma. "He locked himself up for almost a month, never showing his naughty face to me."

                Delfin has been educated in an Ivy League School in the United States and has just recently graduated from his Entrepreneurial course. He has come home to Sao Paolo for a much needed hiatus. 

He hasn't embraced the winds of Brazil for four years. When he was based in the US, his parents visited him often.

                "What kind of woman and why would she be linked into a family matter?," Marissa crossed her legs, and peered through the glass window. She was Delfin's trusted, loving elder sister. 

                "Delfin told me once this woman would sneak into the back of his kitchen and joined him in his room." Felizzon narrated, fired up by his very active memory. "He even bragged that the woman lived in a forest nearby."

                 Marissa twisted her mouth in revulsion. "Forest? There's no visible forest in our beach resort.We

do have a neighboring hill."

                 Felizzo reconsidered his thoughts in split seconds. "Whatever. He was entranced by this woman and frequently followed her to her abode.Possibly...THE FOREST. 

                  

                      "Mother, Felizzo mentioned a woman from the villa...", Marissa said softly, barely above a whisper."We must find her."

                      "Your brother kept calling a name. He kept saying DIOSA...DIOSA..."

                      " Felizzo said Delfin has carried with him something that belonged to the woman."

"Your brother told me about a majestic crown. He said it's hidden and it's buried in a specific location."

                       Marissa led her mother to the side of the ICU Room where Delfin was fighting for his life.

                       "Mother, tell me about the forest near our villa. In all my years there, I never saw it. Never went there." Marissa was intent on hearing the bold truth.

                       "Our forefathers warned us about resisting a voice from this woman. Her voice emanated from deep woods but we didn't exactly where. They said if we ever welcomed her voice, she would materialiaze and ensnare us into oblivion."

   

              It was way past midnight and Delfin's recurring  nightmare  enveloped him once more,caging him in half-madness and creepy sensation. 

              "Oh my Delfin", the voice of a woman awakened him from a confusing slumber."WHERE IS THINE CROWN? DELFIN...DELFIN...THY CROWN!". The voice reverberated from a cold tomb, out from a palatial milieu. 

               "You! You destroyed my life!" His own voice was hoarse and bitter. "What have you done?"

               "DELFIN...WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? MY CROWN...IT WAS MINE. The dark tanned woman drew closer to the delirious patient who was once hers. "WHOEVER TOUCHES THE CROWN DIES...WHOEVER STEALS IT SUFFERS GREATLY."

                "I sold your crown.I'm sorry but I can get it back to you. Just give me back my life.Please!" He cried in debilitating gasps and reached for her lustrous hair-the very same spot of the DOOMED CROWN.

                "IT'S TOO LATE. YOU ARE JUST LIKE MY OTHER LOVERS FROM CENTURIES PAST  DELFIN. GREEDY AND SELFISH.YOU TAKE AND TAKE.AND LEAVE ME BRUISED.

                 The woman's facade was very bright now. A crown dripping with jewels adorned her face.

                  She was naked...and FIERCE.

                 

                  

             

                       

GREEN FLASH AT SUNSET

OPAL JESSICA...that was her rel, full name for reasons she alone could fathom.

"It's a frivolous name," she would fret and later on would justify the essence behind it.

"According to the dictionary, OPAL had varying hues of red, green, and blue..." But despite

the complexities of the origin of her not so romantic name, she lauded that it was flattering

to be called after "a mineral consisting chiefly of hydrous silica."

"JESSICA would have been more serviceable!" she heaved a regretful sigh and pondered the history of their ancestors.

Her grandmother always thought of the BETTER DAYS. "Once Oakland Hall

belonged to us," she mused and reminisced those memories that could never be forgotten.

Because of this, Jessica was forbidden to go near the grounds of Oakland Hall even if she was mesmerized by the gigantic place.

But one dreary day, Jessica could not help her curiosity and indeed went to the grounds of the Oakland.There, she accidentally met Ben Honniker, the new owner of the place. It was

her mother who oriented her about the HONNIKERS having bought Oakland from their family.

Sizing up Ben closely, Jessica knew he represented anything but utmost luxury.

While they, the Claverlings, had a remorseless theme of poverty in their household.

Jessica stepped an inch forward and asked the fervent man, "What is your profession?".

"My dear, I'm an opal miner... he said lovingly and reached for her hand.

"What is that?!" she snapped, seeming uninterested.

"Every miner dreams he's going to find the most beautiful stones in the world.And there's nothing more beautiful than an opal."

"Where are the best opals?"Jessica queried with renewed energy.

"Australian opals are the best,they're harder and lucky stones..Long ago, people

used to believe opals brought good fortune.Another story was that they cured blindness."

"Oh...",Jessica seemed to blurt, apparently overwhelmed by the power of the stone.

"There sometimes comes a stone that no matter what it can bring you, you just can't sell. You get a sort of feeling for it.It belongs to you and you'd rather have it than all the money

in the world."

"Do you know anything about our old, ancestral home?" Jessica switched topics,and pined for hints about her forefathers."I think in very family there is one who is different , the one in the litter who doesn't bear much resemblance to the rest."

"I can tell you something about your mother," he guided her in her walk and tilted his

proud chin."She was found in the stream. She was lying face downwards..The water was quite shallow.It just washed over her."

Tears welled up in her eyes and she brimmed with angst and repressed anger. "They

let her die in the wasteland?".

"They don't bring suicides in consecrated grounds."

She began to wipe her hot tears. "She was good and meant no harm to anyone."

Still in tremor, she declared fitfully. "I shall clear her grave and grow plants on it and keep them watered."

After saying her hastened excuse to the visiting old man from Australia, she scurried to the Dower House and threw her ailments at her supposed mother.

"First, I should like you to explain why you have pretended to be my mother all these years and why why you made her life miserable that she drowned herself."

"The one she loved! cried my mother,"A thief,a seducer, and stupid girl."

"So you're my mother's sister...tell me, what happened to my father?"

"Your father had gambled away the family fortune.He stole a very precious opal!",

she said in hysteria,"And your lovelorn mother let him get away!".

"Show me her grave...where can I find the remains of my mother? Please, tell me..."

And so Jessica rushed to the towering bushes hidden from which was her mother's

godforsaken tomb.

"There, there she lies at last..."her aunt pronounced with indefinable mourning.

"Whoever lay in that grave not only bore my name but had died at the time of my birth."

"She never would fallen in love
love with the thief,"Jessica mumbled to herself in consternation.

Ben Honniker met again with Jessica not so long after and this time she was more adamant to dig into the heart of the matter.

"Who had stolen it?" she posed the precarious inquiry.

"Someone who knew the combination of the safe."

"Do you think he sold it?".

"Queen of Opals...there'll never be another one like her.Your family lost it forever."

"What do you mean?'

"She had a terrible fascination for everyone who saw her.In spite of all the talks of bad luck, everyone who laid eyes on her wanted her. GREEN FLASH MEANT DEATH."

"You talk about Green Flash as though she were a woman."

"I don't man the opal...the other green flash. They say there's a precise moment when

the sun goes down-just before it disappears-that there is a green flash on the sea.It's a rare

phenomenon.It's there and it's gone and you hardly know it's been.You've got to be in the right spot at the right moment."

"First, the stolen Queen of Opal.And now it's the Green Flash. It's all insane!".

"Why don't you confront your aunt about it.The fact that she's bitter about the past,

then she must know a lot."

Jessica goes to her aunt in an upfront manner and barraged her with incessant questions. Her aunt did not complain and instead served her feisty niece a heartwarming cup

of tea.

Out of frenzy, Jessica was shown a jewelry box and there in all its splendor lay the

the Queen of Opals.

"I can't believe it! It's you! It was you all along. Not my father, not my father...!"she managed to say in short breaths.She was in a dizzying state.

"This stone ruined my mother's life and now I may well die because of it. I have seen it

and that is enough for I understand what it can do. There is evil in it and it has taken possession of this woman." Jessica narrated, quavering from the slight touch of the opal.

The most magnificent opal of all time, the stone which had shaped her destiny,the unlucky one, the most beautiful jewel she had ever or would ever see in her life was right there in front of her stunned eyes. It was impossible to put into words the qualities of that stone, there was the deep blue of the tropical sea and the brighter blue of the cloudless sky.

"I thought you should see it before you died", her Aunt suggested,staring at her niece with cold-blooded fury.

"Before I died...?"

"It was something I put in your tea, nice, peaceful sleep,that's all."

"It seems strange to be sitting here discussing my burial."

"You too, will die just like your stupid mother."

"My willpower is stronger than your drug."

"I'll never give her up!" her aunt wailed.

"It is mine by right. I share it with jointly with my mother.Perhaps it knows that."

Jessica saw the real fear in her aunt's eyes. "See how it shines for me. The Flash won't

hurt me because I'm the true owner.It's mine."

"No! Never!" she shrieked imperiously.

"It's only a piece of opal...silica deposited at some time in the rock. How can you attach

special powers to that?".

"How dare you call it just a rock!".

"YOU'VE BECOME OBSESSED WITH A STONE, BY A LEGEND. YOU'VE BUILT

ALL THIS UP IN YOUR MIND, BUT IT DOESN'T REALLY EXIST."

"You haven't lived with it.You haven't held it in your hands. Look now..."

"Yes, let me see it. Let me hold it in my hands."

In an instant, Ben Honniker appeared in the scene and glowered at the mad woman.

"Give me what you're holding in your hand..." he implored Jessica's aunt.

Before they could stop her, she had dashed onto the terrace.When they picked her up

from the stairs below, she was dead, but still clutching the Green Flash in her hands.

"We're taking the Green Flash to Melbourne and we're presenting it to a geological museum there."Ben Honniker pronounced authoritatively.

Drusilla Delaney and the Unlucky Fan

Why would someone be obsessed with a fan? Because that fan can be a source of trouble or a symbol of bad luck. The great aunt in the Framling House,Ms Lucille, believes so with all her emotion intact.Because of the peacock-feather fan,her ardent lover is caught dead and she is forever deprived of the right to live fully and love tremendously.
But where does the ill-possessed fan come from? Ah, the answer is a preview to the meat of the story.
Drusilla Delaney has always been a loyal servant and trustee of the FRAMLING HOUSEHOLD.And the Framlings are originally from India. And they interact with the East India Company. Drusilla worships Lavinia Framling,an arrogant,selfish, and domineering heiress ho is so haughty with the servants. Because she fails academically she decides that learning is for those who lack physical charms. Lavinia is more of a tigress than a spoiled kitten.
People flock to Lavinia for her beauty.And since she is very impulsive, Lady Harriet,the mother, entrusts her daughter ,Lavinia, to the care of Drusilla. The two ladies go to the Meridian House to study together. In contrast,Drusilla is the bright child while Lavinia is the slow learner. While Drusilla is an asset in school, LavInia is a deterrent.A moody student, Lavinia would contemptuously chastise Drusilla,"YOU ....VIRGIN!".
Afterwards they go to a finishing school in Chateau Lamason where they study social graces.They are going to be polished so they can marry into high-society. But Drusilla is aware that she is very plain and therefore might not at all marry.
The big trouble sets in when Lavinia gets impregnated by a good-for-nothing Joe.Drusilla takes Lavinia to her Aunt's Fletcher's Nursing Home. After giving birth to her lovechild, Lavinia arranges for her newborn to be adopted by a capable couple somewhere. The secret is not closed because Janine, a Chateau inmate, discovers every folishness Lavinia falls into and traps her into an unsuccessful blackmail.
After sometime, Lavinia retreats to India and marries into a reputable family. Naturally, Lady Harriet sends Lavinia to guide her daughter. But more troubles await them there. For INDIA is a land of strange spices and unsolved mysteries.
A born flirt that Lavinia is, she mistakingly plays around the Great Khansama. The erudite man brings Lavinia closely to her death when she refuses his sexual advances. Unknown to the Framlings, the Great Khansama is connected to thuggery. This group is associated with a barabaric custom-they worship the goddess,KALI, the most bloodthirsty of all gods and godesses ver thought of. She demands perpetual blood. Those who take oath to her are by profession murderers. So to placate thier goddess,the thuggery group kill foreigners by strangulation and a leave datura or thorn apple as an awful remembrance to the victims.
At frst, the first impression of Drusilla about India is "INTERESTING,STIMULATING,and INTENSELY EXCITING. But towards the end, she is brought to a cruel realization that nationalism is very much alive in India. And that Indians are for Indians.Thus, they shun away anything or any foreign element to disrupt their old customs.They are such an inscrutable race.
Lavinia is severely murdered in the enclave of her own bedroom. The walls of her room are splashed with blood. Her nude body is spread-eagled across the bed.The posture is obscene and it is deliberately done so. Her eyes are wide, staring with horror.Her once glorous hair is splattered with blood.
Spread out at Lavinia's feet is the blood-spattered PEACOCK-FEATHER FAN.
"I told you so," Aunt Lucille half-whispers to Drusilla. That fan cast its spell on me once."
Drusila remembers holdng the fan once and taking it in her possession, which makes the Aunt conclude about the continuation of the bad fortune.
"BECAUSE YOU HAVE HAD THE FAN IN OUR POSSESSION.YOU HAVE BEEN ITS OWNER.THE ILL LUCK COULD TOUCH YOU.I WANT YOU TO TAKE CARE."
In the end, Drusilla sticks to common sense and lets practicality rules her life."A BUNDLE OF FEATHERS IS A BUNDLE OF FEATHERS. I'M FROM PLAIN ,SENSIBLE ENGLAND,WHERE FANS ARE JUST FANS AND NOTHING ELSE."
Aunt Lucille opens the fan very carefully and discloses a brilliant emerald surrounded by smaller diamonds ."Strange things happen in India. England is too materialistic and not in tune with the mystic."
Drusilla is appalled momentarily at the sight of the bejewelled fan. Nevertheless, she goes to the fire and puts the dreaded fan into the heat.'WE MAKE OUR OWN LIVES NOW. YOU KNOW,IT'S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH A FAN," she sighs dreamily."WE MAKE OUR OWN LUCK.IF YOU BELIEVE IN ILL LUCK, IT WILL SURELY COME."