Inheritance

Chapter 6

For as long as I've known Sofia I have only seen her apartment twice, once when I was about five years old and my parents had to go somewhere for the weekend which I can barely remember and when I was thirteen and asked Sofia if I could see one of her collections and now that's exactly what was going to happen, I'm finally going to see one of her coveted collections. 

The quick trip up Sofia's narrow staircase feels like a day in a sauna and I'm sweating like a pig in less than ten steps. The walls around the staircase are made out of a dark wood, Ebony maybe, but they are covered in so many pictures and paintings that you can barely see the dark walls between gold, silver and bronze frames. Some of the paintings capture battles fought and won long ago, back when soldiers wore metal breastplates and fought with swords and daggers some of the scenes are so vivid I swear they move, I can almost hear the battle cries of men fighting for their lives and livelihoods. Other paintings look like they were commissioned by royals. Portraits of men, woman and children decked out in formal clothes. Some have crowns on their heads, others have laurels or delicate chains sprinkled with fine gems. Every single person looks stern, but then again, it's probably easier to sit or stand with a serious face for hours than it is to smile. The photos are a stark contrast to the paintings, other than people the photos are of landscapes, mountains, oceans, fields, valleys, lakes and the sky. 

The higher we go the more modern paintings become and at the very top before we reach her door is three paintings, two of stern families clothed in quite modern formalwear and one of a battle obviously fought in the modern world if you take the city skyline in the distance as any indication, yet the soldiers wear breastplates instead of Kevlar and they fight with blades instead of bullets. I ignore the oddity of the battle and look at the paintings of the families again, there is a painting on either side of the staircase. 

The painting to my right is of a man in a golden crown with porcelain skin, light brown hair and emerald green eyes, all in all a very attractive man. The woman wearing a golden laurel standing next to him was even more striking, her skin was so white that it was nearly translucent, her hair is a gorgeous light blond and her eyes a translucent green with sharp features. Both the man and the woman have their hands on the shoulders of a guy about my age he is obviously their son, he has the man's eyes and porcelain skin and the woman's sharp features, his hair is a mixture between the woman's light blond and the man's light brown hair leaving him with golden blond hair topped off with a small golden crown. 

The painting to my left also has a man and a woman, but instead of a son they have a daughter. The woman wears a gleaming silver tiara on top of a head of ebony curls that frame a face with sharp brown eyes and a hero nose, her olive skin tone making her rosy lips seem so much redder than it probably is. The man holding her hand, standing next to her also has an olive-toned skin, but his hair is a shade or two lighter than her hair and his brown eyes looks more like honey where the woman's looks like molten chocolate. Their hands also rest on their heir's shoulders. The girl, who looked like she might be a year younger than me if not the same age is the spitting image of her parents. She has her mother's twisting pitch-black hair, her father's honey eyes and the exact same olive skin tone. If you don't look closely you might miss the thin silver chain adorned with emeralds running around her head, winding though her curly hair. 

Suddenly I feel eyes on me and look up to see Sofia standing in the open doorway, looking at me with a soft, curious look in her eyes. Something gives me the idea that I have been standing here, staring at the paintings for quite a while. I feel heat creeping up my cheeks as I take one last look at the paintings and follow her into her apartment. Her apartment is a treasure trove of antique furniture and paintings, a stark contrast to the jumbled mess of a second-hand clothing store downstairs. The living room has a minimum of three paintings on each wall, but these paintings aren't snapshots of battles or portraits of royals, they are of landscapes, more like the photos I saw in the stairway. They are obviously done by someone very talented. Each scene transports me to a world of utter tranquillity, a world so vivid and beautiful that I swear they are real. The living room itself seems larger from the inside than the whole building looks from the outside. The walls are painted in a light cream colour and the borders are done in an off-white, the combination probably adding to the appearance of space and making it look like someone put a vintage filter over the real-life scene. The couches and table are the same brown-beige colour and a dresser-type contraption stands on the other side of the room covered in knick-knacks. 

I want to take a closer look at that dresser, but Sofia starts to walk again opening a dark, heavy-looking door and disappearing through it. I hesitate for a moment, but she sticks her head out the doorway. "Keep up, Katei. You're moving slower than a rotten corpse!" She scolds me. I shake my head and follow the crazy lady through the doorway. The room we're standing in is one I've never seen before, it's a lot darker than the rest of her apartments and I'm not only talking about the poor lighting. Instead of the light walls like the rest of the apartment, this room's walls are a dark wood, not like ebony, more like a deep mahogany. There are six doors set in the reddish-brown wall, if you can call them doors that is. They look like the kind of doors you would encounter before entering a bank or museum's vault. The silver doors gleamed in the low light provided by what looks like a torch. Is it really that smart? To light your room made out of wood by fire? It doesn't really seem logical to me, but who knows maybe my crazy-ish pseudo-grandma knows something I don't. 

"You can choose one out of five collections, I'm only going to show you one collection today. The others I'll show you as I think you are ready." I want to ask to see all of them, but I'd rather not push my luck. "So Eklektόs, what shall I show you today? Blades, bullets, armour, books or artefacts?" She looks at me expectantly, awaiting my answer. I feel like there is only one correct answer. I look at the six doors. "If I only have five options, what is behind the sixth door?" I'm not sure whether my question is an answer, but Sofia smiles softly as she answers. "It is the room where I do my readings, curious girl, but that is for later. For now, choose one of my collections and you can explore it to your heart's content." I didn't really need to think about it for long, as interesting as armour, guns, artefacts and especially the books sound, I have been fascinated by knives, daggers and swords since I cut myself in middle school and I have wanted to see her blade collection ever since I heard about it all those years ago and Sofia told me I had to wait to see it. Guess what? This big girl is done waiting! "Blades please, my favourite not-really-that-old lady." She tries to scowl but she can't hide the laughter dancing in her eyes. "I had a feeling you'd go for them, you've always had an eye for shiny things and not the kind young girls usually like. No gems for you, only nice sharp and pointy metals. Am I correct my not-so-young friend?" A small chuckle escapes me. "You know me so well." 

Sofia walks over to the silver contraption on the far left and does something with the knobs and dials and puts her thumb on a little black pad next to the door. After a small peep the door clicks open and I see bright fluorescent filtering through the small gap between the door and the doorway. She opens the door wide enough, blinding white light illuminates the dimly lit room.