1.1 Dead and Buried

LEO

The only thing they had left on the lot was the old piece of armor. It was standing at the edge of the empty field, akin to a stone angel guarding a graveyard: too little, too late. Whatever stood here was long dead and buried.

Oakenstead was the family home of the Oaksley family for generations, until the last of the Oaksleys, my mother, passed away when I was eight. My father hit the drink since, and he was long pickled and marinated before I moved out with nothing but spare cash in my pockets and no titles to my name.

Now I was back, once again broke for paying off my late father’s debt. The house had been stripped to the foundations to pay off most of it, and I filled in the rest- the condition to inheriting what was “left of” the “house”.

I looked at the suit of armor. It was not left here, I knew, for its lack of value. In fact, unbeknownst to everyone but me, it was probably more valuable than everything else combined. No, it was left here for a simple reason, and that was that no one had been able to move it past the boundary of the Oaksley land. Oh, they would have tried. I could imagine the effort, the groaning men, perhaps strong horses, all trying to lift the armour away from here, but ultimately, all had failed.

It’s just you and me now, it seems.

The first thing I did, after the wash of unwanted nostalgia had finished breaking over me, was to find myself a job. I got one, too, very easily and without an interview- an amateur entertainer to perform at obscure hours of the night with little pay, and most likely to, at best, an uninterested crowd.

Yes, just you and me.

A final look at the armor, and ignoring the grumbling of my stomach, I curled up in the grass next to the post-box and fell asleep. The entire lot was my bed, and I’d deal with the aftermath of the bedbugs in the morning.