This story was written for the
750 Word Project 2024
. Below this line are exactly 750 words:
What else do you do when you're sixteen, precocious, bored to tears, and stuck at your grandparents' house? You go explore the basement or attic, anything to not have to listen to another story of, 'when I was your age,' or 'back when I met your grandmother.' It was only my sanity at stake.
Knowing my grandfather, he would have been livid if he knew I'd taken it, the box with the pendant and the small book full of gibberish. I guess they were someone's notes. His maybe.
That had been ten years ago. Now I treasured those old stories, let them feed my imagination, drive my ambition. Perhaps my grandparents knew what they were doing. I was following in their footsteps, after all. My grandfathers, anyway.
The book full of gibberish was the basis for the doctoral thesis I had presented three weeks ago.
I couldn't believe it when Dr. Brody said yes. I didn't even bother to tell my grandfather. Instead, I stole his hat, satchel, and whip, and left for the jungles of South America.
Carson padded the canoe as I read the maps and reviewed my notes on Xochipilli. It was his idol I was after, after all. My grandfather had found his twin sister Xochiquetzal's all those years ago, only to have lost it and then stolen it back. It sat in the university's collection. Hopefully, my find will sit next to it.
"Over there. That massive, warped tree." I nudged Carson. The first landmark. I don't know why I even looked at the map. I knew every mark, every nuance by heart. It just made it real, I guess.