A Flash of Words 2

A Complete Set J.R. Winn

A Complete Set

J.R. WinnI sank onto a neglected patch of brown grass, clutching a small box to my heart. A few paces over, my mother drifted from table to table like a bumblebee, dispensing little white stickers. She’d been laboring on collecting and tagging the home’s contents for nearly three days. Finally, everything sat ready and neatly compiled on the front drive.

My eyes drifted up to the early morning sky and a corner of my mouth stretched in appreciation of the overcast heavens sharing my mood.

“Mae?” My mother’s shadow fell over me and I focused on the tip of her finger, a patch of white stuck to the end of it.

“I have money.” I relinquished the box to my lap in order to pull a small change purse from my pocket. Before my mother could object, I dug out four dollars and held them at arm’s length.

She thinned her lips and again wagged the sticker at me. My eyes and arm drifted down like a discarded feather.

Placing a thin hand on my shoulder, she sweetly kissed the top of my head. “I’m sorry, Mae, but we need the money.” She sighed and stuck the white tag to the side of the box.

As she moved back to her task, I eyed the handwritten number staring back at me and gasped. Who would pay three-thousand dollars for this?

I straightened and surveyed the scene. When no one came to buy the box at her price, she would have to take my offer.

With reserved optimism, I shoved the four dollars into my pocket and flipped out the tiny legs built into the bottom of the box. Turning it over, I carefully placed it on the ground and opened the top at a split in the middle. The two sides unfolded like a book to reveal a set of chess pieces secured neatly on each side in sky-blue velvet. The outside of the box may have been as plain as a fresh cut piece of wood, but its contents were ornately carved with care.

Gingerly, I lifted a horse’s head made from black mahogany—my grandfather’s preferred choice in color—and my heart yearned for one more game with him. The smell of him wafted up, and I inhaled the fragrance of black licorice.

I set the horse on its square and methodically lifted each piece, inspecting and cleaning them in turn before lining them up across from me. I then readied the other half, a court carved from a white oak so pale it justified its name.

With my army in place, I stared down my grandfather’s minions and slid a pawn out two paces. Settling my chin into my hands, I studied the board to an indifferent strategy of one.

Not three breaths later, a round pillow thumped to the ground across from me. I coughed as a plume of dust hit my face. When the air cleared, a leathery man sat cross-legged before me. His haggard body made my four-day-dead grandfather look spry.

The man cursed, and with a surprisingly steady hand, he picked up a black pawn and blocked my own. I tilted my head and looked the old man over.

“Well?” the man asked in a gravelly voice. “Are you going to make a move or just sit there like a piss-ant on a log?”

I lifted my eyebrows and didn’t know whether to laugh or run. At the narrowing of the man’s eyes, I decided it would be best to take my turn. I pushed out another pawn, and he grumbled, countering me again with his own.

This process repeated itself for the length of the game. Of course, he won without much of a struggle, and before I could object, he had the pieces back in line.

We played well into the afternoon, each game consisting of more curses than any girl should hear in her lifetime and the occasional odd lesson.

Finally, I snuck in a win, using a tactic he’d previously played against me. He boiled over and I feared he would toss the board across the yard, but after a minute, he folded his arms, and humphed.

“Well, it serves me right for showing you the move in the first place.”

I raised a hand to reset the lines, but he stopped me with an outstretched palm.

“The time has come,” he said.

I opened my mouth to object, but found I had nothing to say.

Seeing me slack-jawed, the man cursed and turned the chessboard over.

“He never told you. Did he?” He held up the board like a proclamation, and there—etched across it’s back—a list of names filled the space. "Once you play…"

Scanning to the bottom, I read my name and gasped.

“You are a part of it, and it is a part of you.” The old man made a knowing nod and pointed out an odd mark next to my grandfather's name etched above mine.

I squinted to make it out. Was that an etching of a tiny chess bishop? A heaviness dropped in the pit of my stomach, and I glanced over to the still open box. Tenderly, I picked up the black bishop and scarcely held in a scream. The face and stature of the miniature figurine was an exact likeness of my grandfather. How had I not seen it before?

I turned back to the board in time to witness an etching next to my name being burned into the board by itself. A queen took shape before my eyes.

"He tried to hide it from me, but in the end”—the man hissed—“he’d given me the last piece to complete my set."

This time, I really did scream, but before the sound broke free, my body hardened in place. A cold hand gripped my soul, and the last thing I remembered was the man’s grimace as he closed the lid—his final word slipping in before the click of the latch.

“Checkmate.”