12 - The Inheritance

"Of course, the story of Andrew and Andrea isn't a closed book," Latoya said, as she picked up her own candle. "Quite the opposite. While Andrea was busy with the baby, Andrew just couldn't help himself. A new chapter was opened in their life, after all. It was time to turn the page and see...

THE INHERITANCE

Andrew did not burn his grandfather's black book. Nor did he open it, during the whole length of Andrea's pregnancy. He was the picture of the considerate cousin, the two as close as brother and sister, and if some of the neighbors thought they were closer than that—well, the baby's complexion was dark where theirs was fair, and some defect of the yellow eyes struck them very queerly and made them leave child and mother alone.

The recovery from the birth took time, both physically and mentally. Their grandfather's old room became the nursery, and Andrew kept up the business, leaving his sister to nurse or play with the baby, cooing to the boy with strange, wordless songs.

Their grandfather's book Andrew kept in the studio, well out of reach of any prying eyes or hands. Yet in his few idle moments, Andrew's mind rolled over the problem. How to see photos that had such a profound impact on mind and body? Certainly, their grandfather had managed it, though the old man had taken that secret with him to his grave. The thought came to Andrew that perhaps the rest of the book wasn't like that—the first photo might have been a kind of trap, designed to incapacitate the unwary who dared to pry into the old man's ultimate secret.

One night, Andrew locked the door to the studio. The windows had long ago been blacked out, and now he slipped on a pair of latex gloves, set the book on the table, and turned out the light. To stand in absolute darkness. He walked back and forth from the light switch to the table. Ten paces exactly.

Confident in this, able to navigate the darkness by touch, Andrew opened the black book once again. For a moment, nothing happened, and then Andrew realized that despite the darkness he had shut his eyes tight. Now, hesitantly, he opened them.

There was no difference. It was as though he had been struck blind. His gloved hands moved over the paper, and found the photo where he had hastily stuffed it back after that time, nearly a year ago, when Andrew and Andrea had looked on it together. Now, working by touch, he carefully put it back into the little fasteners that held each corner. With it back in place, he took a deep breath—and turned the page.

Again, only darkness. Andrew's hands played over the new page, and he found the outlines of another photo, about A4 size. With careful solemnity but growing confidence, Andrew turned the pages. There were about fifty of them—he had not made an exact count—but each contained exactly one photo, centered in the middle of the page. Some tension drained out of Andrew as he opened the book to the inside rear cover. Then excitement, as his gloved hands touched something else. An envelope, glued in place. He fumbled for it for a moment, then felt the small, thin edges inside, and understood.

The negatives. Of course. That's what they had to be.

Andrew leaned back in the chair, musing over the mystery in the safety of the dark. What had the old man gotten into? How and why had he photographed at least one thing whose image was able to affect himself and Andrea so profoundly? All of his lilfe, Andrew had worked around photos. Glass and light, chemical development, digital cameras and editing—these were things he knew and understood; they held little mystery for him. And yet...somehow the old man had found something, or some way, to capture something more than just an image on paper.

The book had fallen open to a place the spine had cracked. Andrew paid it no mind.

Until he perceived the glow.

At first, he took it only for a swirl of color, the kind of closed-eye hallucinations that he saw whenever he shut his eyes, or stared up from the bed at night toward the darkened ceiling, Andrea's warm body next to him in their shared bed. But this was different. Pale white against the dark. He closed his eyes, and it left afterimages, but when he opened them again.

The photo on the page was limned with a faint phosphorescence. Andrew swallowed hard, though he might slam the book shut, race for the light switch—and then he paused. It wasn't the photo itself glowing. It was something inside of it.

In low light, the human eye will adjust. In perfect darkness, that is not possible. There is no light to adjust to. For a moment, Andrew stared uneasily as the image of the photo became more clear. He reasoned to himself that there might be some light-leak from somewhere in the room, tiny enough to not be immediately noticed, but as his eyes slowly adjusted which were illuminating the photo on the page.

Only he knew that wasn't it. Andrew stared, breathless, as the square of deeper darkness on the page seemed to gain depth and texture. Revealing a book or parchment. It was the letters on the page that glowed, whose strange, spectral light illuminated the photograph and nothing else. Andrew couldn't see the book, or the table top. Curious, he reached out with one gloved hand and waved it in front of his face. A sense of relief went through him as he saw the shadow of his slender hands interrupt those lines of irregular characters, written in no language that he knew, though they had a vague resemblance to cuneiform, and had apparently been carved in neat lines on a fertility figure, the rounded hips and breasts clearly discernible by where the writing curved then cut off.

A part of Andrew wondered whether the letters would still appear under normal light. Was it possible his grandfather had known of the property of this text, and that was why he shot it? Or was it some clever effect, a layering of phosphorescent pigments that only showed themselves in darkness? But no, such chemical reactions often lost potency over time, and needed light to work with—

A sudden cramp struck Andrew. He doubled over, his chest banging against the table. That brought a yowl of pain. He clutched at his chest as he fell to the floor, feeling unfamiliar masses beneath his shirt—and stranger than that, he could feel his own hands on his chest. The cramp intensified and spread, and Andrew gave an **** howl of agony as bones shifted beneath his skin. Using his hands, he half-crawled, half-dragged himself across the floor, hips popping wetly, pants suddenly too tight at the waist, too loose elsewhere. The pain in his stomach was like a knife twisting between his legs, yet when he placed a hand there was nothing, no sensation at all.

Finally, one hand hit the wall, panting and crying, something hot and wet spilled down his pants and with a scrabble Andrew found the switch and hit the light.

To see only his normal studio. The chair he had been sitting in knocked over. A trail of blood, and some other liquids, led from where he had hit the floor his soaked pants, the legs wet. With sudden desperation, he unbuckled his pants and pulled them free...

To see the soft stomach swell in a dark, hairy slit between his legs.

Andrea unlocked the door. There was a blindfold on her eyes. Andrew watched his sister, in her panties and a white nursing brastep forward, hands in front of her. By touch, she closed the book, and locked it. Then, and only then, did she turn and remove the blindfold.

There was no sadness in Andrea's eyes, nor surprise. It was the look Andrew had seen a thousand times, growing up together, when she realized she would have to clean up his mess. He lay there on the floor, pants around his now thicker thighs. She dropped into a squat beside him, and unbuttoned his shirt.

His hairy chest, flat and muscular, was gone. The torso was narrower, and the soft, swollen breasts with the pink nipples looked like Andrea's had, before the pregnancy, when they had swelled and drooped, the nipples growing thicker and darker. She gave a little sigh, and brushed a hair out of his face.

"Your face isn't too girly," she said at last. "If you want to pass for a man."

Andrew couldn't even sob. She helped him to his feet, and as they went to the bedroom, he saw the baby in its crib, standing up, its strange eyes fixed on his uncle—or perhaps now, his aunt—with an odd look of expectation.

As if in a few months, he might have a cousin to play with.

Latoya licked her fingertips as the story ended, and held them above the little flame. Then a pinch, and the tale was done.