Day 1: Discovering the Grain
For the next week, Julien threw himself into his work with an obsession teetering on madness. He sourced a rare mahogany rumored to grow only in cursed forests near Marseilles, its grain swirling unnaturally, almost hypnotic. He treated the fibers with chemicals—a concoction of his own devising—to harden the wood like tempered steel. By day, he solved the practicalities of the mechanisms, sketching and resketching the hidden tumblers and levers carved entirely from wooden components. By night, he dreamed of phoenixes devouring him in fire.
The box began to take shape.
Day 10: The Note
One evening, as Julien sanded the final piece, he noticed something tucked beneath the stack of unpaid bills on his bench—a note, unsigned, written in hurried script: “Beware the woman in blue. She serves no crown nor God.”
Julien scoffed but found himself bolting the door that night all the same.
Day 13: The Inheritance
The day of her return came, and Julien finished the box just as the church bells tolled midnight. It was a masterpiece—its carvings intricate, its mechanisms flawless, its surface gleaming like a dark lake under starlight. Yet unease gnawed at him, each minute stretching like hours as he waited for her arrival.
When she entered, her precision unnerved him. She ran her fingers over the box’s surface, her satisfaction evident. “Perfect,” she whispered.
“Your goods, as promised,” Julien said, handing over the contraption.
She paid him in full but lingered, her gaze heavy. “Open it.”
Julien bristled. “The box is yours now.”
“Open it,” she repeated, her tone carrying the weight of command.
Taking the key he had carved, Julien inserted it into the hidden slot and twisted. The mechanism clicked, and the lid fell open. What lay inside sapped the warmth from the room—a single shard of glass that shimmered, almost alive, catching the glow of the candlelight. It pulsed faintly, as though it had a heartbeat.
Julien recoiled. “What… what is that?”
“My inheritance,” she said cryptically, pulling the shard free with gloved hands. Her smile was cold, predatory. “Pray we do not meet again, Julien Vasseur.”
And then she was gone, leaving only the empty box and the lingering scent of smoke behind.
The Aftermath
That night, riots erupted in Paris, and whispers of a mysterious object passing through the hands of multiple powers spread like wildfire. Julien vowed to never craft anything so sinister again, but in the months that followed, rumors of him as the artisan of the impossible spread. Strange faces began appearing at his door, but he turned them all away, fearing what his hands could create if guided by greed or desperation.
His legend grew, but so did his isolation. And somewhere, far from Paris, the woman in blue watched the flames of revolution consume the city, the glass shard now glowing brighter in her possession.
Genre: Dark Historical Fantasy
The Source...check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: Is woodworking a high-income skill?
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