House of Turmoil and Ruin

So, this story was bore out of a simple curiosity, much like my other post (linked below). Plucked from all places obscure. I decided to go a different route, inspired by a faux Socialite in 1920’s Jacksonville mixed with a bit of intrigue and Gatsby. Here we go again:

“Oh, the things we do at night,” Fancy Crane whispered as she looked out her lavish balcony window. A small smidgen of regret peppered her face. She considered herself a small creature of lavish habit. Every day her life was routine—wake up, feed herself, feed her husband and spend money. All that changed three weeks ago when he died, leaving her desolate, destitute, and in rightful despair.

The yard had already started to wilt and wither away. Bold, heavy tire marks lined the courtyard below in jagged, long lines before crashing themselves into her stately fountain and disappearing from sight. The events from the night before hung heavy in her mind. All she could remember was letters in her soup. A bowl of soup. Maybe it was all a dream, a hazy, faultless dream. Yes, that was it, nothing less, nothing more. Maybe when she awoke again tomorrow, all would be right in the world.

It was entirely her fault. After-all, she had awoken with a deep hankering for soup. Not just any soup, the soup from the towns-spiritual advisor—Madam Ragidi—the soup lady. She was rumored to tell you about yourself, your soul and your long-lost love.

Maybe he is just haunting me—Fancy Crane hissed. Barely daring to bring the word up from the night before.

Madam Ragidi had been one of the best advisors in town, often known for making house calls at the last minute. Her family served the Cranes for dozens of generations, practically making her family in her own way.

Of course, Fancy Crane wasn’t above inviting half the town over for some soup.

“Why relish in misery if you can’t have a little company,” she boasted, beaming brightly as Madam Ragidi put a steaming bowl of soup in front of her. If she knew what was about to happen next, Madam Ragidi didn’t give anything away. Her expression remained just as stoic and bare-faced as ever. Politely smiling as she stepped back into the kitchen.

Fancy Crane paid for the entire party to have their own bowl of soup, with each their own word. Maybe this is where everything went wrong. Would each dinner guests word change their lives forever? They were all about to find out.

“Famous last words,” Phil Motley added, nodding in disapproval at his own bowl of soup. Apparently dismayed by the word floating up from the depths of julienned carrots, diced onions and pickled cabbage.

“All of this is likely horse-wash. I don’t believe a word of it.”

Shrieks and gasps went around the table, some anguished, some filled with glee—“Mine says ‘good-fortune’, mine says ‘shattering quakes’, mine says ‘death’.

Most of the guests, including Fancy and Phil had taken sips from their soup—as was customary for the fortune to take place—if one was so inclined. Some had barely even stirred their bowls, finding their words too upsetting.

A faint tremor rippled through each bowl of soup.

Perhaps the old estate was finally settling in for the night.

Another rippling tremor sent itself across the house, making itself known.

This wasn’t any regular run of the mill set of creaks and groans, no, this was the earth uprooting from itself. The chandelier shook, thousands of crystals peeping like an orchestra of tiny water bells. The china in the cabinets moved in unison with the rest of the room, same with the oiled portraits.

Fancy plopped the letters around, trying to stir them up—but it was no use, no bother—the words reformed the same way every time. Like magic.

Fancy Crane hadn’t uttered a word, a peep, nothing at the sight of her word winking back at her. She simply got up from the table, excused herself and dismissed the house guests one by one—those who hadn’t already fled the Crane Manor—that is.

Maybe this is what caused such an uproar in her yard. Maybe.

Now standing in the blinding sunlight. The world seemed a little less bright, a little more empty.

“You mean the things we get away with at night,” Phil Motley mused, ignoring her spacy thoughts as they both inspected the damage from the night before. Instead, his sharp blue eyes focused intently on the rolling, sea-sick clouds above— “even the birds are acting strangely. Have you noticed?”

Sure enough, hordes of tiny black birds dotted the skies, hopping in droves from one power-line to the next, as though spooked, summoned, or worse, compelled.

“Did you happen to see what your other guests had written in their bowls of soup?” He inquired, curious to see if Fancy had also paid attention to what could be their future, too.

“We all partook in the bowl reading ceremony so that means each word summoned affects us all in some way or another, right?” he paused, irritated that he had even allowed this to happen, as though he had a choice or a say in the matter.

“Fancy, if you weren’t so desperate we wouldn’t be in this mess,” he continued, an air of annoyance biting into his words as more birds populated themselves on a singular slabbed stone, just adjacent the courtyard. “You shouldn’t have called that lady in for soup. Never ever have I ever, in all my years seen anything like what happened last night. The entire world is in right disarray now and it’s all your fault. How are you going to make this better?”

It was true, this whole thing was her fault. She had paid for them to have a fortune pulled from the earth, plucked from the bowels of fate herself. The world and life she knew had completely turned upside down, amuck. She was the reason for those stagnant reminders glaring back at her from her otherwise pristine yard. If she had just left well enough alone and let her husband rest peacefully, none of this would have happened. She wouldn’t be in this mess. But alas, that is what she was, what she thrived on—being messy—and now it seemed her husband was the only one who truly knew how to handle her. Shame he was gone, and by no other fault than her own.

"Damned soup..."

Fancy sighed, unsure of what to do next—haplessly tapping her hand on the edge of the balcony, surprised it hadn’t caved in along with the better side of her house. One of the house guests James Boyle had driven his latest hunk of metal into and all through her yard, absolutely ravaging what was left of her estate. Fancy wondered what his word “collapse” meant.

“Too many drinks, too many men…and not enough common sense…or money…” she fussed, pulling her ruffled robes in tight defiance as though that was the least of her problems. Her oversized diamond still clung for dear-life on her slender finger. A reminder of a love lost and long forgotten—or at least that is how Fancy preferred it. Her husband had left her after all, not the other way around. How dare he, the nerve. The idea of heartbreak and being placed on a shelf was devastating. She needed someone to swoop in and save her. After-all, that is how she got here, to this place in life. Being a widow’s wife.

“Tremulous…Tremulous…Tremulous…”

“Such a dreadful word,” Phil Motley muttered, the tip of his slicked mustache curled with his own devious smile. He had yet to reveal his word— “wonder what he meant by that…”

Fancy Crane bit her cheek. It was the last thing her husband had said to her three weeks before. Standing in this very spot, and it was the very word written in her soup. Madam Ragidi had to know how to make this go away, make it better, right?

“He promised he’d turn this around by the end of the month…” Fancy moaned. Thinking back to her husband’s last words. “Though I didn’t think it would be like this…if I would have known he was actually dying…” she paused.

“I was desperate…”

Fancy had only called Madam Ragidi because she thought the soup would give her answers.

“It only tells you what you need to know. It is up to you with how you make it happen, if anything happens at all. This is not a fortune or a favor, this is a reminder of how fickle life can be. So, chose wisely before you take your first sip. Your life and the next twenty-four hours rely on it.”

Madam Ragidi’s words hung heavy as the first set of rabid, angry phone calls broke through the silence of Crane Manor. The dinner guests were starting to complain. If they were lucky, the cursed words would only affect them for a single day. Phil Motley could be heard stammering on the latest call— “Marge, Marge, Marge, Ms. Parker, listen to me. I promise you, all will be well. Just get yourself a big drink of something strong, take a nap, settle in for the night. Come Monday this will all just be a bad dream.”

Fancy Crane pursed her lips, wondering if this was in fact, true.

Link to the main page as reference for others: https://shopping-feedback.today/writers/james-and-oneg-s-summer-writing-extrav-again-again-za

Link another creator’s entry: https://shopping-feedback.today/poets/twixt-and-tween-seems-mean

as well as the other story I posted for the “All Night Long” challenge: https://shopping-feedback.today/fiction/the-outer-perimeter-society