Continuation Chosen by Random Numbers – Three Glass Beads, Peacock-Blue

A continuation/extrapolation/etc. of Estate.


Rhoda Burks – three beads from a fringe, glass, peacock blue (in wine glass) – October 27th, 1929

The note was handwritten on an index card – no, the back of a library card, the old style – yellowed, the ink faded. The card was clipped to an even older-seeming ledger book, the book itself tied about thrice with silk ribbon.

Three-times tied with silk meant do not touch in every lexicon of the family; Lilyah knew she ought to put the book and its card back where they’d come from – in a glass box, on a bed of obsidian, covered in a virgin’s handkerchief, deep in the archival layers of the family house – but she was not really known for a lack of curiosity.

Besides, she reassured herself, it couldn’t be that old. The family had only branched off three generations ago. It wasn’t like the Root Family, where the stuff in the Aunt house went back to pre-emigration England.

But Lilyah had only had the house for a week… and she didn’t really have it; Aunt Kelly wasn’t dead yet, no matter what the Grannies kept saying.

She settled for copying every piece of information she could into a nice, safe, Staples-brand spiral notebook. The name, the three beads from a fringe, the type of ledger book & the company that had made them. Everything she could get, including the type of knot.

Finally, she thought to turn the library card over.

Protective Burke, Rhoda
Sciences Limits on and Protections from
299.99 Witch-Craft, New York, NY, 1928

Suddenly in a hurry, Lilyah locked the book back into the glass case. She wrapped her notes in a ziplock bag, shoving a few sprigs of rue in there for good measure, and put the case back in the chest it had come in.

She failed to notice the small envelope that had, impossibly, fallen out of the ledger book. If she had, she might have noticed that it held three peacock blue glass beads.

Hidden History, Misplaced Beads

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0 thoughts on “Continuation Chosen by Random Numbers – Three Glass Beads, Peacock-Blue

  1. Oh dear. Lilyah — or Kelly? or someone — is going to have a mess to deal with. And also, wow, been a while. How did this come up as a random extension?

    • I went “pick random date from the beginning of my journal to the beginning of April 2014” in Random.org’s date picker. And then the other story on that date was part of what had become Year 9. Sooo… Figured doing that one out of every 15 or so writing-bits was a good way to pull up stuff I’ve forgotten about and refresh it.

  2. I see no possible way this can become a probl– yeah, can’t even type that with a straight face. 🙂 Someone it about to have interesting times.

  3. Oh dear. I liked the library card. I can help format that if you like. I also liked the descriptions of the items. Very good!

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