Nephew's Inheritance

“Sheldon and I used to play all of the time in those days. We were even younger than you are. Pa kept a shotgun in the closet and Sheldon wanted to go play with it while our parents were away up in Omaha, but I said it was a bad idea. Your grandpa told me that if he ever found out that I was even in that closet without his permission, he’d take off his belt and beat my little ass until it turned cherry red.”

“Then how did you find the stone?” The boy held the odd-looking rock in his little hands and studied it carefully.

“Be patient, Levy. I’m getting there.”

“Okay, uncle.”

He admired its rough texture on some surfaces but smooth on others. It felt unusually cold for a rock as if it had been sitting in a refrigerator, but it had always been kept at room temperature. From a distance, one might mistake the stone for a very bright eggplant.

“How did you find out about what it does?”

“Well … “ The old man sighed. “We couldn't explore Pa’s closet and your grandma had nothing in hers except for women’s clothes.” He chuckles. "We decided to play a little hide and seek. Any place on the farm was fine as long as it wasn’t in Pa’s closet. That was the only rule.”

“Who was the first to hide?”

“Your dad was. I sat down on the living room couch and counted to 60. I closed my eyes, but it didn’t matter. I could hear that he went out the side door so he wasn’t in the house.”

“Where did he go?”

“There was only one place on the farm where he could hide if he had gone out the side door and that was the old, small barn where Pa used to keep Milly and Hutch, our two horses.”

“Wouldn’t it be easy to find him in there? You just said it was small, uncle.”

“Well … the barn was small but it was different from other barns. It was painted blue and not the traditional red. Also, there were several places to hide on the inside. There were also boxes and equipment to hide within and underneath.”

“Where was my father hiding?” Levy asked with excitement and curiosity in his eyes.

“I search everywhere in the barn. I looked behind the tractor. I opened up tool crates and underneath piles of hay. The animals in the place had an odor that I was used to, and it was quite strong. I certainly wasn’t going to be able to sniff him out.” He chuckles. “The animals were also used to your dad so they wouldn’t be spooked by him. After a while, I realized that he wasn’t in there. He couldn’t be. But he had to be nearby …”

“The roof!”

“Exactly…kiddo. I climbed up there using the ladder which extended up to the opening and sure nuff, there he was. Smiling and laughing at me just beyond the opening. It took me 10 minutes to find him. It was supposed to be my turn to hide but … something happened.”

“Did you argue about who was going to hide? I always like being the one to hide too.”

“No, it wasn’t that, Levy. As we were moving down the ladder, I was fine but … your father … well Sheldon was always a big boy, just like his son." He smiles at his nephew. “One of the ladder rungs broke under his weight and he fell. He even broke through the damn barn floor. We didn’t know that there was a small room underground.”

“What did you do?!”

“I was so scared. I thought your pa was dead after a fall like that. I was already on the ground so I climbed down into that dark and dusty room and removed as much broken wood and hay as I could. He was unconscious and by the way his right leg and left arm looked, he had broken a few bones for sure.”

“Did you apply a tourniquet?”

“That’s for bleeding wounds, Levy. Not breaks. No … I was just a kid myself, remember? I wasn’t sure what to do. I thought about running out to get help but what would be the point if the fall had killed him. Also, we were home alone. I was actually worried that your grandpa would blame me for not looking after my younger brother. I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared before. Just when I thought I couldn’t be more hopeless and frightened, I literally say the light.”

“The blue light … from this?” Levy held the stone up over his head with a huge smile.

“Yes … it was coming from the left side of the dark room as I sat over your pa’s body, which may or may not have been dead. I didn’t know how to check for a pulse. I crawled over towards the light and removed some of the hay covering it. I lifted it up and remember it feeling as cold as ice. It was even colder than it is right now in your hands. I thought that maybe I could apply it to his broken limbs to make it better the way ma used to do when I banged my head, but when it touched his skin, something miraculous happened. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

“That’s when you found out?!”

“His limbs seemed to correct themselves. The swelling and bruising didn’t just go away, it was more than that.”

“What more? What do you mean, uncle Steve?”

“When were even younger, Sheldon and I used to play sword fight with old kitchen knives. Used to drive your grandma crazy. Well one day, I cut him on the hand with a knife by accident. Ma was so mad at me. She stitched it up herself though and put a bandage on it. It left a nice little scar on your pa’s hand … but after rubbing the stone on his body even THAT scar had disappeared!”

“Wow! So it heals everything?”

“It heals based on the love that the wielder has in the moment. Took me years to figure that out but it also means something ominous too, Levy.”

“What’s ominous mean, uncle Steve?”

“Um…just think bad. It means that the stone responds to great anger as well. That’s also an emotion. It could be used to hurt people, which is why you must learn to control your own emotions, Levy. I will give this stone to you when you are old enough. I have no children of my own and I never told your pa about why he survived that fall. He just thought he was lucky ... and invincible.” Steve laughs.

“What should I do with it, uncle Steve?”

“That my nephew, when the time comes ... will be entirely up to you …”