Algernon Black || The Rise of a God ||

(Chapter 144) Overused Brooding

Mrs. Black guided Lucy's tour of her home. The color scheme mainly ranged from dusted blacks to aged dark woods, with brushed brass for the wall sconces, a perfect fit to the houses namesake. Only a periodic few sconces burned at the moment, providing a scarce glow to the foyer's brick fireplace, grand piano. The main room was large enough to host at least a hundred or more if they were guest comfortable with close proximity. They ascended the staircase to the second floor. It reminded Lucy of the ones in Attwood, but this staircase was made of the darkest marble instead of the school's whitewashed stone. A two-ton chandelier hung from the ceiling and Lucy supposed a chandelier as big that could cast the entire room in a light like the sun on a clear day.

Lucy counted eight bedrooms, four on each end on the second floor.

"This is where you'll be staying," Mrs. Black said, gesturing to the only open door at the end of the hallways.

Lucy bobbed her head and peeked into the room where her luggage had already been placed inside by the butler or Algernon, who were both missing since her tour began half an hour ago. Lucy also noticed the portraits of family members lining the other side of the wall as she squinted to make out the painted faded faces. The only thing that had wholly preserved with time were the oiled black eyes. Lucy could tell exactly who had been born into the black household and who had married in by those eyes. She herself had been too often on the end of them to ever mistake them.

"The black family line," Mrs. Black clarified, detecting Lucy's interest. "Quite pervasive genetics I'm afraid," she quipped as Lucy read the many gold plaques beneath the portraits with dates of their births and deaths.

"So many children," Lucy thoughtlessly whispered out loud as countless children's death date were mere years after their births.

"Unfortunately, so," Mrs. Black replied, skimming over the myriad portraits of a family older than some kingdoms.

"As the legend goes," she started to explain, her voice switching to that of a practiced narrator's, "The Black family was so powerful that even the gods started to fear their strength, and to humble them, they cast a hereditary curse on the bloodline." She slowly started to move Lucy along the passage of time through the rows of pictures that went along with her story. "But the gods can't take away power, so instead they gave this bloodline even more of it, too much of it." She paused before the portrait of a boy who looked to be no more than five. "When ones emotions and mind start to run wild, like during a nightmare, their power brings to life their greatest fears into physical forms. It most often causes the children to go insane. If whatever they created doesn't kill them first." She grazed the painted face of the boy feeling this portrait in particular always reminded her of Algernon. It would have been her son's uncle if he had stayed alive long enough to see him born.

"Algernon has this," Lucy said, thinking back to the seemingly unexplainable monsters she saw that day in the greenhouse with him.

"Yes." Mrs. Black saddened. "A disorder of too much raw talent and imagination, that only grows worse the greater the mind."

Lucy bit her cheeks, imagining how terrible a thing it must be to live with. "How did you stop him from creating what he fears?"

"We didn't," Mrs. Balck said, turning to her. "We taught him to go towards it." She grinned knowingly, before carrying on with Lucy trailing behind until they came upon the hand-embroidered tapestry picturing battles, marriages, magic, and other stories Lucy couldn't understand through just snapshots.

"It tells the origins of the Black family, allegedly," Mrs. Black stated. "What do you think happened?"

Lucy examined the tapestry. "There were two brothers," she said, noting the similarities of their figures but opposite shades of clothes. They both had white hair except one was long and the other cropped short, which was odd as every portrait of anyone born into the family had black hair. "One brother ascended to a position of power." Lucy traced the gold coat of the man who sat next to a king. "And the other stayed back to work as a blacksmith."