A Winter Weekend at the Jinkle Manor

The old Jinkle Manor Darion took care of was situated deep within a forest, across a small lake, quite far from the nearest village where he lived. That didn’t stop his fellow servants from going home to their families every weekend. He too, should have followed suit. But the need to provide for his family in money overrode his homesickness. The employer gave a bonus to those who worked overtime.

But judging by the blizzard outside of the manor, it seemed that he would be staying there for quite some time, way past his regular overtime. Darion didn’t fear the blizzard outside, but he’d rather not take the risk of going home. His fragile scribe’s fingers might get frost – bitten.

The young man heaved a sigh from his desk which was piled with papers upon papers detailing the running expenses of the mansion carefully scribed by himself. There was a lot to go through. Perhaps the paperwork would get him occupied enough to get busy until he fell asleep.

“Food supplies, candle wax, washing and cleaning solutions,” He muttered as he continued to check pages of different categories. Before they went home the other departments in running the household had given him the expenses prior to their return home. At least that was one thing that he didn’t have to do himself, running around and pestering people how much of the manor’s money they spent.

As Darion rifled through his papers, muttering to himself numbers and items of a list, the wind outside of his window howled disconcertingly loud. The secretary lifted his head and looked.

It was winter season, as it had been for a couple of weeks now. The expected dredges of snow piled up on top of one another, creating more jobs that needed people to do, and that made Darion extremely aware of the cold when he went out a couple of times to talk to Heiran, the chief gardener. The gardening apartment never ceased to amaze the young scribe. Even in the cold, the beauty and elegance of the pathways neatly sculpted to take advantage of the heavy snowfall and the serenity exhibited by the leafless orchard through stone and pebble patterns on the ground were a sign of the reasons why the gardening department received a higher pay than most of the others. But having to work in that cold…

Darion shuddered. Earning ten percent more wasn’t worth that. He preferred the warm interior of the Jinkle Manor. He had been given permission to use the private office of the head of the house, Master Julian Jinkle, provided that he kept things clean, neat, and in order. Darion certainly was a fan of being those.

His employment entailed, like his fellow employees, a few, strange restrictions. They weren’t allowed to venture into the private forest of the property and Darion was perfectly fine with that. But at the same time, he thought it a possible waste of useful resources. Instead of paying for meat back at the village and the expenses for delivery, perhaps traps could be set instead to procure game. Another set of rules entailed items that were to be touched under no circumstances.

One such item was a dusty, old, and possibly rotting, grandfather clock that was kept solitary inside a storage room. It was rather tall, seven feet in height, made from rough cedar wood. The clock itself was nothing out of the ordinary, and it didn’t seem to work. Except on some nights, Darion could swear he could hear something ticking in the direction of the grandfather clock’s room.

They were also forbidden to touch the centre of the circular driveway, a towering evergreen tree quite unlike any Darion had ever seen. It didn’t have the spiky, hard, and sharp leaves that differentiated evergreens from normal trees during the off – winter seasons. The huge tree, perhaps nearly an astonishing twenty meters in height, was canopied by small, but round droplet – shaped leaves shaded in various red, ranging from deep yellow to a furious red. It was named by the gardening department as the ‘Everred’ and was taken up by the other departments as well. It was never tended by them though, and that was a sore spot that nobody really touched upon.

Finally, there was a corridor on the third floor that featured five rooms, four with doors to the left side and one door at the end of the hall. They were expressly forbidden to venture there, as a result, the floor directly next to that corridor was subject to more cleaning, and that produced a stark difference in shine and dullness from that secluded part of the house to the rest.

It was nearing midday, and Darion was beginning to feel the tips of his fingers slowly becoming numb. He didn’t use gloves when writing; he couldn’t risk his accuracy being lessened by them. Perhaps a warm cup of coffee would be pleasant company.

Darion walked out of the office, his indoor boots shuffling against the smooth, oak floor of the third floor. The manor was totally silent, save for the howling and whistling of the blizzard outside. No one was there aside from Darion, a few guards taking shelter from the blizzard, and the chief maid, Pol.

Or so he thought, until he saw something move from the corner of his eyes.

Something had crawled across the forbidden corridor, which was just at the other side of where the office Darion worked at. It was just a moment, but he thought he saw something small, walking on all fours, quick, and jerky in movement.

“Something the matter Darion?” A voice behind him made him jump.

“Wha – Oh! Hi Pol!” He screeched his first half – word and spoke the rest normally.

The wizened old maid merely raised her eyebrow at his reaction. “Lost in thought, are we?”

“No, not at all Madame.” He shook his head vigorously. “I just thought I saw something crawl across over there.” He jerked his head over to the forbidden corridor.

“Mmm.” She hummed thoughtfully. “Perhaps the cold addled your mind, young man. Nothing stirs beyond that corner. Best get yourself some hot coffee. I’ll brew you on myself.”

Darion smiled lightly. “Thanks Madame Pol. I’ll catch up with you downstairs in a moment.”

She nodded in acknowledgement and proceeded to walk down the marble staircase of the manor.

Silence reined once more in the Jinkle Manor, and Darion’s curiosity was overpowering. Something was pushing him, urging him to look into the corridor, beyond the doors of that forbidden section. He knew he shouldn’t do that. The instructions were very clear.

The master doesn’t have to know, doesn’t he?

A voice in his head spoke to him greedily. Perhaps it was the darker half of his conscience.

The dark of the corridor was inviting, teasing his curiosity. He took a step towards it, and suddenly he was right at the edge of it, teetering on the border between the clean, polished floor and the dusty, cobweb – filled floor of the forbidden corridor.

Everything happened so fast he was disoriented for a moment. How had he gotten there? He really shouldn’t be doing this. He was going to get fired.

The voice spoke again. No one needs to know. A secret. Our secret. MY secret.

His indoor boots kicked up dust from the untrodden floor, something that perhaps that had never been touched for… Only the gods know how long.

Soon enough his hands were covered in dust and cobwebs, a few little spiders were circling his wrist. He didn’t mind them at all. All that existed was the overwhelming curiosity and the voice that was speaking.

OPEN IT.

He twisted the doorknob. It wasn’t locked. And as normally as a person walking into their own bedroom, Darion closed the first door of the forbidden corridor behind him. And the Jinkle manor was gone.

Within the door was a child. A child so adorable and helpless. Warbling at the sight of Darion and crawling towards him.

“Oh, you adorable little thing.” He cooed and scooped up the child in his cobweb filled arms, his mind still hazy and overwhelmed. He didn’t register the pungent smell the child exuded; the strange, sticky feeling that didn’t quite match how the child seemed.

Yes, yes, yes. The voice spoke gently. Now, bring me outside. Into the light.

The brainwashed human, so dutifully minding the manor earlier, went out into the world, far away from the forbidden corridor with a mass of grotesque tentacles and eyes crawling all over him, circling a giggling mouth dripping saliva all over Darion who carried it as if it were the most precious thing in the world.

“Resupplying meat, water needs to be refilled, a purchase for more polishing implements…” The dazed Darion muttered off a list of clerking duties as he carried off his lovely disaster into the world.