The Last Will and Testament of Geralda Connors (Finish The Story)

Opening by @gwilberiol

My name is Elisha Crow and I hate my job.

I'm waiting in my office, a sealed envelope before me on the mahogany desk.

I glance at the potted plant, plastic since the real ones keep dying on me. Then at my Harvard's law degree nailed to the wall.

Geralda Heather, nee Connors, died last week, alone in her villa. Her husband left her with twelve million bucks, which she held very close, and a vast hatred towards humankind, which she spread passionately. She died with locked doors and closed windows; dogs and gardener outside on the lawn. No signs of a struggle. She had a weak heart.

I adjust my special glasses and examine my guests.

Sprawled on the sofa as if it belonged to her alone, Brigitta Connors scowls at me. She disapproves of any skin color but her own, and I'm black, wearing a suit that she decided I've stolen. She's the victim's sister, but they weren't on speaking terms. She has the only spare keys to the villa and an alibi.

Sitting rigidly on the small chair near the window, once-violin-prodigy Pearl Heather wilts under my scrutiny. She ran away from home in her teens. She's bald, wrestling with one of the bad cancers. Lost her flat and savings to the medical bills. She's the victim's estranged daughter. She has no friends, no prospects, a pair of lovely eyes and a motive.

Shuffling his feet and glancing at the armchair wondering if it's all right to sit down is John Cotter, the gardener. Employed by the Heathers for fifty years, and they weren't kind people. He's the key witness and a stubborn one, insisting nobody came to visit on that fateful day.
My cell phone vibrates and I glance at the screen. Finally!

Aconite. How did you know, you old fraud.

It's Francine. So bright, so full of life. I wish she'd let me date her, but she's too smart for my cheap lies.

I type: 'I had a hunch, Fran.'

Bull. And I'm Lieutenant Brown to you. Where are they now?

'They're all here. I'm about to start.'

We'll be there in thirty minutes. None of your theatrics, you read me?

'Can't promise that.'

I'm warning you, Crow!

I put down the phone. Sighing, I take off my special glasses, clean them with a handkerchief and leave them on the desk.

I blink as my vision clears. I see Brigitta, looking bored and haughty. Pearl, gazing dreamily at the sky outside. John, who settled for balancing uncomfortably on the armrest.

And the pale specter of Geralda Connors, my client, staring at her killer. She's livid.

I hate my job. I wish it was a job I could quit. You can stop an investigation; you can exit a tribunal. But anywhere I run, I'll still be a psychic. And the dead can tell.

"Ladies and gentleman; thank you for coming," I begin. "Before I read the will, there's a story you need to hear."

My Ending

Their disinterest is palpable, Brigitta rolls her eyes, following her nieces gaze out the window. Only John looks up, with the blank face of lip-service, as I begin to repeat the story Geralda recounts.

“It was once believed there were women living in the woods, who’d become the wild they inhabited. Ivy spread in the tresses of their hair, the velvet moss that clothed them - grew with them. Cracked bark thickened on the soles of their feet, and in the stray sunbeams, they absorbed the rays.”

I’ve lost John already. Brigitta glares at me with disdain, somehow managing to look down on me, as she sprawls over the couch. Pearl’s face, drained of color from her latest round of treatments, holds mine. Rage bubbles below her calm waters, possibly at hearing a story the mother Pearl cut out of her life, had loved.

“The town encroached further into the shrinking forest, devouring the ancient trees. Until they went too far, and the wild woman of the woods howled through the streets in fury. A dark storm cracked through the sky, silhouetting the figures as they cried out, on the stone where woods had once grown. With each passing night, the storm got worse, the howling louder, and the figures, loomed ever closer to the windows, the very panes shaking in terror of them.”

The gardener had reached into his pocket, touching the corner of a grubby handkerchief to his eye.

“During the day, the people gathered in the town square, demanding the forest be levelled to get rid of the wretched creatures. Word made it back to the manor houses, when none of the servants turned up for work, and searching for a way to appease their workforce, they decided to make the wild women who roamed the woods an offer. Lord Conners sent his eldest son into the forest as an envoy.”

Pearl crinkles her brow in puzzlement as Geralda gives me a sly smile. She had always omitted the family name in her previous tellings.

“Nearly a fortnight later he returned. During his absence, the town had been left in peace, although his mother had been at her wits end. When Eric Conners returned, he brought with him one of these wild women, as much the woods as the woods themselves, declaring he had married her, offering the forest on his estate to women, in return for their relocation there from the woodland.”

I feel a soft buzz in my pocket; the ten minute warning. Subtly trying to give Geralda the look, without being noticed, isn’t as easy as I’d hoped. The obstinate woman continues to stare angrily at her killer, not pausing in the flow of her story, not allowing me to either.

“The wild woman lived happily as his wife, bearing him three children, two sons, and a daughter she treasured. Before the daughter reached five, the wild woman became sick, and despite her husbands best efforts, she died. The family moved, but as the daughter turned twenty-five, she began to show the same signs as her mother, the mouth ulcers, the weight loss, the fatigue.”

Horror flits across Pearl’s face.

“She withdrew from the world at the old estate, wilting, and there, the wild women - her mother’s sisters, came for her, taking her with them into their woods. Two months later, when she emerged, she was fully recovered. She had the curse of a gift, passed through the blood, to the eldest daughter.”

Car tyres screech in the street.

“What you may not have been aware of, is that this gift, passed down through the generations, gives the holder a certain degree of immunity…”

Pearl can’t look at me, her face slipping into her hands. The ill ease radiating from John is strong enough to touch the spectral Geralda, and breaking her soul boring gaze she rests a hand on his shoulder - starting as it slips through.

“... to a selection of poisonous plants… including wolf’s bane...”

Pearl digs her fingers into her scalp, as Brigitta shifts in her seat; her bigoted certainty cracking before my eyes.

“So, although the police, who you may now be able to hear, hammering down the corridor, will be arresting you for poisoning…”

John begins to ring his hands, unsure how to behave. Sobs puff out of Pearl’s small frame, tears splattering from her cheeks as her aunt, turning to hug her, narrows her eyes in the closest face to flipping me off I’ve ever seen.

“...Geralda very much wanted you to know, it wasn’t the tea you gave her that killed her. It was knowing what you tried to do.”

The old woman’s glare burns so intensely, I can almost feel it myself.

Grabbing her lacquered handbag, and marching out of the room, Brigitta walks straight into Lieutenant Brown.

Word count? What word count? Yeah, well over on this one, somewhere a tad over 800, I had got it down to about 750 but couldn't get it any lower, so in the end, figured may as well be disqualified in style, and add in a few more little bits. Hopefully, the clues come together and this one makes sense. I really wanted to pick up on the solve it yourself sort of vibe in the first half, so not quite spelled it out explicitly who did it here, but fairly certain it still shows in the end.

This is my entry to the weekly Finish The Story contest, facilitated by the custard-coloured-oceanic deity @bananafish - this week we have been kicked off by @gwilberiol with this very intriguing first half. See where other entries went under #finishthestory and give it a go yourself!

Photo Credit by Pixabay User torsmedberg who currently has a total of 14 images, featuring a selection of trees and ivy, with a few other nature shots.

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