The Snowflake Chronicles

The Paradox Stone

2008 NaNoWriMo Novel
Written in October 2008

Prologue: Excerpts from the Journal of Padrick Wilhelm Odette IV

December 20, 2012 at 11:11 UT

King James Bible Numbers 14:18 “… visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.”

In exactly 24-hours the sun will be furthest south and winter will begin. In exactly 24-hours, the curse on my family will end, if I follow the procedures out lined in Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grand Pappy Odette’s will.

I must be crazy! No sane person in the 21st century should believe in a curse lasting four generations because of one man’s sins, not that I know what the old bastard’s sins were. All the research I’ve did shows he was a God-fearing man, who went to church every Sunday and scripturally observed every religious holiday.

True, he was a bit odd. Perhaps crazy is a better word. Crazy Paddy, that’s what the folks around here called him. Especially after, he shipped this castle, mote and turrets, all the way from Ireland and put it in the center of this old growth forest. Perhaps that was his sin, wasting good money on this drafty eye sore.

Maybe the Native American’s were right; he pissed off the spirits of the land when he destroyed 100-year old trees and a burial ground to reconstruct his private castle keep. Whatever he did to attract this curse, it should end with me.

The weird thing about bringing the castle to America is that I can’t find any records of when he shipped the castle from Ireland. The only information about the arrival of Paddy’s Castle in the U.S. is the one that says it appeared after an unusually stormy winter solstice. According to that story, one minute there was an Indian burial ground on the land and in an instant the castle appeared out of nowhere, destroying the burial ground and a Native America village. Weirdest story I’ve ever heard.

I still don’t understand why anyone in the family never questioned Crazy Paddy’s sanity. The will, if not his journals, certainly suggest some type of mental illness. Perhaps they were afraid of the curse, I can’t blame them. Every male conceived and born in this castle wears it for all to see. Right there in the middle of his forehead; it’s a good thing the Odette’s are rich enough to dispense with working for a living, because no legal employer will hire us.

I wonder why my mother married my father. I remember her saying she never saw Pop outside the castle walls. When my brother, Harvey, killed himself because Jean Collins laughed when he asked her to marry him, Mom said he should never have taken her to the Solstice Dance or anywhere outside the castle.

You would think, that in the 21st century medical science could cure or at least explain this deformity, but all the doctors can say is that it’s tied to the Y chromosome. I know neither Crazy Paddy nor any of his sons conceived outside the castle had the curse only those conceived within the castle walls, but only a son conceived and born inside these walls inherit Paddy’s Castle. I wonder what happened to Paddy’s older sons.

December 20, 2012 at 13:11 UT

I wonder why my father installed that atomic clock in this dungeon. He said (and I remember his exact words): “This is my gift to the son that will break the curse.” How can you break a genetically inherited curse? A curse that even medical science can’t explain.

Well, it’s almost time to assemble the items Crazy Paddy listed in his will. What was it he required? A bottle of Irish whisky brewed in the year of my birth. A locked chest with a clear quartz crystal key and a parchment scroll containing a poem he wrote. I don’t see why I have to have the parchment, I memorized the poem when I was 13 years old.

Having the parchment is redundant; I know that dam poem by heart. However, I can’t leave this dungeon until the ceremony is complete. Pop made sure of that when he computerized and programmed the door. I’m locked in this room until after the solstice hour.

Everything I need is in this room, this prison cell. It only takes 13 minutes to get them on the table and ready for the ceremony. I’ll have time for another snack or bathroom break. All thought, I have to admit that doing my business in a bucked doesn’t appeal to me, still I suppose it is better then doing it the floor. I’d have to clean the floor up afterwards because once Patricia saw it, she’d make me clean it up anyway.

I wish I’d brought Patricia down here with me, but the will was explicate. I have to be alone when I perform the ceremony, besides Pop made her promise to remain locked in our bedroom until two hours after winter solstice. I still don’t understand why he did that, come to think of it I don’t understand my father’s motive for anything he did. I’d almost swear Pop was insane, of course with that … with that horn (I’m still not sure that is the right term, but that’s what the doctors call it) in the middle of his forehead insanity is a distinct possibility.

Any man or woman would go insane living with something like that all their lives. Maybe I’ve gone mad. Perhaps that’s why I’m sitting naked in a cold dungeon waiting for winter solstice. Why, on earth or any other planet, did Crazy Paddy insist on nudity for this ceremony? I’ve read all his journals, with the exception of the two missing volumes, none of them explains anything. They just ramble on and on about his guilt over his sons’ deformities. He doesn’t even refer to the horn as a deformity; he refers to it as THE FAMILY CURSE.

December 20, 2012 at 15:11 UT

Bless Patricia that is if any male in this family can bless anyone. She is the best wife a man could have. She fixed me meatloaf with Jalapeño peppers and cornbread for supper. I’ll be glad to see her again, it’s been only a few hours since she kissed me good luck and already I miss her. Still it’s all worth it if our first son is born without a horn.

I’ve noticed something odd about this room, even though the floor is made of stone and I’m wearing neither shoes nor sock. The floor is warm, it’s almost as if there were central air unit heating the stone. I know that’s not true. The only part of this castle that we haven’t been able to heat is the dungeon. Of course, I haven’t been in this room since I was 13 and Pop has worked on it everyday since. He wanted to get it ready for me when the time came for me to perform the ceremony.

Maybe Pop figured out a way to heat the room. I know he found a way to put an atomic clock in here and a computer. I never thought those technological objects would work in this dungeon. The only place I’ve ever been able to put technology is on the first and second floors. I still can’t get computers or electricity to work in some of the turrets and guard houses. I wonder how Pop did it?

I think I’ll take a short nap, I still have a bit of time before I have to assemble the ceremonial objects on the table. I want to be at my best when I perform the ceremony. I still think I must be crazy for going through with this silly ceremony. I can’t see what good it will do or how it will affect my genetic problem.

Perhaps Patricia’s father was right. I should have a vasectomy and take Patricia to a sperm bank to conceive our children. The only problem with that is I’d have to take her out of the castle and she would see me outside it’s walls. Pop said that’s why Grandma Sara killed Grandpa Odette, he took her outside the walls of the castle. She went mad and run him over with the Mar cadies, eight times. The family lawyers got her committed to a private “nursing home” where she could live out her days in luxury.

December 20, 2012 at 19:11 UT

It’s precisely 13 hours before winter solstice. Sitting on the table in front of me on the table is a small treasure chest with a quartz crystal key lying on top of it. On the right side is a bottle of Irish whiskey, the date on the label is my birth year. Left of the treasure chest is the parchment scroll, with a quartz crystal ring holding it closed. According to the instructions, drilled into my head since the age of 13, I began the ceremony to draw the power which will lift the curse from my descendants and myself.

I started the ceremony by reciting Crazy Paddy’s poem as I followed its instructions.

Open the scroll and look inside,
The secret of our family curse it hides.

Remove the ring around the scroll
As you, hold the ring in your left hand
You now slowly unroll the scroll.

Open the scroll and look inside,
The secret of our family curse it hides.

Once you lay the scroll out flat,
Like an exquisitely woven reed mat,
Take the key of the top of the chest,
Turn it right and then turn it left,
Open the chest and you will find,
The paradox that both blessed and cursed our family line.

When I unrolled the scroll, I saw that it didn’t contain the poem. Rather it showed a schematic of some type of control panel. Next, I opened the chest and what I found in there was even more mystifying. Inside the lid of the chest was a panel identical to the one shown in the scroll and in the stomach of the chest, rested a 13-facited clear quartz crystal.

I turned the largest dial on the control panel, first to the right and then to the left. After about 13 seconds, a humming began, all most inaudible at first, but increasing with every passing second until it sounding like buzz saw echoing through the forest at night.

NaNoWriMo Day 1 word count: 1,737