Roget's Spooky Story
| Roget's Spooky Story Worn Unique |
| Madam Roget's spooky story. |
| Used in "Spooky Stories of Solomon Island" |
Used for the mission Spooky Stories of Solomon Island, but given as a reward from the mission The Gypsy Curse
Transcript
Danny came by earlier, with Carter. I did a palm reading for her and the look on his face when I told Carter she would fall in love with a close friend...
Teenagers. Who needs cold reading when you can practically smell the hormones?
Anyways, Danny mentioned that he wanted to put together a book of stories, local ghost stories and urban legends. I'm not sure it is a good idea - this island has a lot of secrets and some of them are buried deeper than others.
Still, I can't say no to Danny and I have a story that I heard when I first decided to get into the palm reading business. It scares me because of the things that I can do, and lately, the truth of those things that I see. Especially the responsibility that comes with it.
You see, history is written by the victors. And if time is a circle, perhaps the future is as well. My visions could be road signs guiding people to the wrong places.
To Exodus.
- M Roget
In the beginning, the family wasn't sure that they wanted to settle on Solomon Island.
"It's cold" complained the youngest girl, Sinfoy. "Papa, it is too cold."
"It's lonely" complained the mother, Kezia. "Husband, it is too isolated."
"It's dark" complained the older brother, Onas. "Papa is too dark."
Abraham, who was a good father and did his best to make his family happy, considered their words carefully. His mother, Elderia, spoke quietly. "The roots of magic have grown deep on this island. We will find peace here."
Elderia was a seer and her predictions always came true. Abraham weighed his mothers words before making his decision.
"We are Romany, Sinfoy. Our fires drive away the cold. We are Romany, Kezia. Our family will drive away the loneliness. We are Romany, Onas, our hearts bring the light wherever we travel. Mother is right, there is a great future here for us all."
So they settled on the island and, in time, grew to love it as their home.
Elderia eventually fell sick and, on her deathbed, she called for the girl Sinfoy. Pulling the girl closer to her, she produced a thick leather diary from beneath the covers.
"This diary is distorted in time. Every morning of your life, when you check the diary, it will tell you the events of that day. Every night, the same page will be blank and you will need to write down exactly what happened."
Sinfoy took the diary, running her fingers over the leather in wonder.
"Should I read it? Should I know?" She asked. But Elderia was dead and the question went unanswered.
Time passed, and the diary came to be everything to Sinfoy. She read through the daily entry each morning and prepared herself for the events of the day. She knew what she was supposed to do and she followed the script of her life. Every night she dutifully wrote down everything that would happen.
When the diary told her that her brother woudl break his leg, she didn't warn him and she didn't flinch at the news when it happened. The diary told her that he didn't want to know.
But when she came home that day, she found her parents gathered around her brother. His leg was broken, and his pelvis and his hips. He had been beaten, and sodomized, by a group of ruffians from the town. Written across his chest in blood was the epithet "GYPSY SCUM".
"If you knew what was going to happen, would you have told yourself? Sent a letter to yourself in the past? Even if you couldn't change it?" Sinfoy asked her brother, tears streaming at his pain.
Onas shook his head.
"The man I was this morning was a happier man. Knowing this...this pain was coming would just have robbed him of his happiness. I would never tell."
That night, Sinfoy wrote only that her brother would break his leg and that he didn't want to know.
Sometime later, Onas met the love of his life while getting a medical checkup.
Life continued, until the day that Sinfoy was performing her regular ritual of reading the diary to prepare for the events of the day and she turned the page to the current date and gasped, shocked by the words written there.
"Today, mother and father died in the fire that burned down our house. This is the saddest day of my life."
Distraught, Sinfoy ran immediately to warn her father.
Confronted by his hysterical daughter, Abraham listened to her ramblings about his imminent death. Being a kind father, he humored her and spoke to his wife. Together, they made sure that no fire or spark was lit in the house that day or night. All the while, Sinfoy clung to them, convinced that they would somehow find a way to burn and die before her very eyes.
The night came and they both still lived. Relieved, Sinfoy returned to write in the diary. But she hesitated. What if she wrote that nothing had happened? Wouldn't the fire actually happen then? Had she prevented the fire by warning herself about it? Was the only way to prevent her parents from dying to, in fact, lie and write that they were going to die?
She filled in the entry exactly as she had seen it that morning.
But as time passed, Sinfoy began to lose trust in the diary. What was she leaving out at the end of each day? What were the things that she wasn't telling herself.?
These worries weighed on her and she began to live her days in constant fear of the details she didn't know. Any surprise was not to be trusted. She began to keep herself in the house, preferring to stay inside where it was safe.
She grew listless, only checking her diary in the morning and at night, filling it with the same safe phrase day after day.
You stayed home. All was well. You are safe and you are still beautiful.
A black depression seized her and her parents brought in several doctors to examine her. But there was nothing that could be done, Sinfoy had simply given up on living her life.
It was almost a relief for her, on the day she opened the diary and read the very last entry. Today you are going to die. You will walk to the cliffs near the Langmore Bridge and throw yourself off. You will always be beautiful.
Humming, she dressed herself in the best clothing she had that still fit, bade goodbye to her parents and walked along the road to the Langmore bridge.
And there, she threw herself off.
And as she fell, the last thought that passed through her mind was:
"Who wrote that?"
