The Stone Lions' Curse A Son's Deadly Secret

Three years and a million dollars later, I finally finished renovating the old family homestead back in my hometown. Even installed two stone lions at the entrance to guard the place.

Our whole family moved in for New Year, thrilledbut the trouble started immediately.

The old woman next door kept hanging her underwear to dry on the lions' heads. When it wasn't underwear, it was dead chickens and ducks left to rot on them. And in the middle of the night, she'd sneak over and splash manure water all over them.

We confronted her several times. She'd agree to stop, then do it again the next day.

Everyone in town said Old Madge was a foolimpossible to reason with. They advised me to just build a fence around the yard.

I took their advice and started construction immediately. But Madge came running over, face white with terror, and blocked the workers.

"Poor people can't keep lions! If you can't feed the lions until they're full, they'll bite their owner back"

"Hahahaha A fool's a fooleverything out of her mouth is nonsense!"

She stood there with her two braids sticking up like ox horns, face flushed and simple, blurting out that lineand honestly, it was so absurd my anger dissolved into laughter.

Looking at this crazy old womanfoolish her whole life, mocked her whole lifeI felt a pang of something. Pity, maybe.

I told her to stop making trouble. Kept my voice calm, tried not to get angry. But she just tensed up, braced her frail body in front of the stone lions, and repeated herself with dead seriousness.

"Poor people can't keep lions! If you can't feed them full, they'll bite their owner back I'm not joking. I'm warning you. Believe me. I don't have much time when I'm lucid. Master Orion told me to tell you. I'm a page boy at his side. I won't live long. I'm about to return to him."

I'd heard this speech a hundred times.

Madge wandered this town her whole life. Crazy and foolish, never married, no children. She survived on vegetables from her little garden and charity from neighbors. That's how she'd made it to this age.

She had lucid momentsrare ones. And every time, she'd repeat the same lines. Everyone in town knew them by heart.

She claimed she was a celestial page boy, punished and sent down to the mortal world for some mistake. That's why she was mad. Now she sensed her time was almost up, so she was using her last bit of clarity to warn metrying to earn blessings for herself by saving my family.

But the workers just spat and laughed.

"You said it yourselfpoor people can't keep lions. This is Mr. Lambert's grandson! He makes millions a year! Runs his own companyhow's he not rich?"

"Exactly! If you're gonna scare someone, pick the right target. The Lamberts are the richest family in the county. If they're poor, nobody's rich!"

They were cruel for fun. Mocking wasn't enoughthey grabbed her braids and yanked.

Madge yelped in pain, baring her teeth, wailing. They laughed harder.

"I'm not lying! I'm not lying! I'm a page boy at the Oracle's side. Everything I said is truedon't laugh at me!"

She cried, truly hurt, and it twisted something in my chest. She'd caused my family plenty of trouble, sure. But watching this I couldn't hate her.

"Alright, enough. She's ancientcan't you tell you're being too rough?"

I snapped at them, made them let go, and walked Madge back to her place.

At her doora house that looked more like a garbage heapshe told me to wait. She hopped inside, rummaged around, and came back with two walnuts.

"Alex Lambert, don't refuse to believe me. I already warned you, and you won't listen. When the time comes, you'll suffer for it." She pressed the walnuts into my palm. "Keep these. To protect yourself."

When the old lady said that, her tone was gentle, her voice clear, her eyes strangely lucidas if some proper immortal had suddenly possessed her. Mysterious. Uncanny.

A few seconds later, she went muddled again. She chased me off with a broom, told me to hurry up and get lost, said tonight she'd splash manure water on my family's Stone Lions again, and tomorrow she'd dry her underwear on their heads.

She spathawked phlegm right onto my shoes. I was so disgusted I stuffed the Walnuts into my pocket and left.

"A dog biting the hand that feeds it," I muttered, cursing under my breath.

Back home, the workers had already built half the fence around the Stone Lions. Another thirty minutes and they'd be done.

I went inside to get their wages ready and grabbed a box of fruit for each of themNew Year's and all, you still have to observe proper etiquette when people work for you.

Just as I walked over with the wages and fruit, the worker cutting steel pipe let out a scream and jumped back.

The cutting blade shot straight at me like it had eyes.

I hopped sideways. The blade shaved past my shoe tip, lodged into the leather, and the impact knocked me flat on my back.

Sharp pain flared through my foot. I thought my toe had been sliced clean off. The workers rushed over, faces pale.

When they pulled the blade out and removed my shoe, I found my toenail had been shaved offbut my toe was intact. And the spot where the blade had stuck? Exactly where the old lady had spit.

"My God, that was close! Another centimeter and your toe would've been gone, Mr. Lambert!"

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorryI don't know why the blade flew out. I just lost my grip for a second. Please, Mr. Lambert, I'm so sorry!"

The guilty worker was on the verge of tears, bowing repeatedly, terrified I'd blow up at him.

I didn't say a word. Handed them their wages. Fled back into the house.

I sat on the couch for a long time before my head cleared. My wife and parents found out and rushed back from relatives' place in the neighboring town, asking if I was hurt.

I shook my head. Fine. My parents sighed with relief and sent my wife to the Lambert Ancestral Hall to light incense on my behalfthanking the ancestors for their protection.

She left in a hurry. Came back in a hurry too.

And brought bad news.

"Alex, something was wrong when I offered incense. At first, I couldn't get it lit no matter what I tried. When I finally did, the middle stick justsnapped."

Two long, one short. The biggest taboo when offering incense. My parents taught me that as a kid; everyone around here knows the rule. Fiona understood it too after years of marriage. When that happens, it means something bad is coming.

My parents tensed. They grabbed offerings from the kitchen and headed to the ancestral hall themselves.

They came back just as fast, looking shaken.

"How is this possible? The same thing happened to usand the offerings we brought out of the hall had rotted!"

My heart sank.

If the offerings lose their fragrance, it means the ancestors accepted them. But if they rot? That means refusal. And refusal is a thorny matter.

That night I came down with a raging fever. My parents wanted to find Master Orionhave him take a look, figure out what was happening. After all, that's the local custom here: when bad omens pile up one after another, you start thinking supernatural.

But every household was reuniting for the New Year, and Master Orion had gone visiting too. There wasn't a single reliable master left in the village who could help me.

I checked into the ER, and it was useless. The fever still wouldn't break. My head felt heavy, my feet light, as if my body were caught between ice and firecold on the outside, burning insidemaking me utterly miserable.

I shivered, burning so badly my ears rang and I started hallucinating. In each ear, I heard two ferocious beasts roaring, attacking from both sides, constantly striking at me.

It was like laughter. Like roaring. Like something crawling up from the depths of hell.

I endured this for three days. The doctors and nurses sensed something was off, so they drew blood and ran a more comprehensive workup. When the results came back, I heard my parents arguing in hushed voices at the stairwell.

Staggering, I held onto the wall and crept closer. I heard my mom crying as she confronted my dad.

"What the hell is going on? Tell me! If Alex hadn't gotten sick and we hadn't found out, were you planning to hide this from me forever? Richard, you really are heartlessyou lied to me for over twenty years!"

Dad sighed repeatedly. He tried to take her hand, but she jerked away. He slammed his fist into the wall.

"I didn't have a choice. I was doing it for your own good."

"For my own good? You've got nerve. If you really cared about my own good, you wouldn't have let me raise a son for you and your mistress without a single complaint!"

"Margaret, don't be so harsh. What mistress? Diana isn't a mistress. I knew her before I knew you. She's always been a decent person. Don't talk about her like that."

"Decent? If she were decent, would she have swapped out my son? My poor baby died all those years ago. I never even held a memorial for himnot onceand instead I've been loving someone else's child. If my son could see this, what would he think?!"

...

While they argued, I silently opened the hospital app on my phone. After logging in, I pulled up my latest test results and genetic analysis.

In the blood type section, I immediately spotted the problem. Both my parents were type O. I was type A. No matter how you looked at it, that was impossible.

Combining that with their argument, the truth was clear: I wasn't their biological child. Mom's baby died before he was even a month old. To soothe her grief, Dad brought over the child of his first love, Diana Henson, as a replacement.

I wasn't a Lambert at all. Not even half.

Dad loved his first love down to his bones. Even though she'd had me with another man, he still loved me as an extension of herenough to bring me home and raise me as his own.

Now the truth was completely exposed. The one chilled to the bone wasn't just my mom. It was me too, standing there defending her all these years.

I finally understood what Old Madge meant about "poor folks can't raise lions." Turns out she was smarter than anyone. She'd seen through it long agoknew that I was, through and through, a "poor person."

After the argument, Mom left, heartbroken beyond comfort. Dad returned to my hospital room with a heavy face. Before he could speak, I spoke first.

"Dad, I know who can cure me."

"Who? A friend? A classmate?"

"No. The one who can cure me is Old Madge from our village."

"That's ridiculous. She's a foolwhat does she know?"

"She knows. She saw it a long time ago. I'm not a Lambert."

My words startled him. He stared at me in shock, tears suddenly falling. Neither of us said anything more. One look, and we both choked up.

My dad was afraid I'd see him cry. He turned around, saying he'd go find Old Madge.

Not long after, my wife calledsobbing, screaming, demanding to know what the hell was going on. She said my mom had snapped. She'd grabbed every bottle of liquor in the house and doused The Lambert Ancestral Hall, swearing she'd burn it to the ground.

And after that? She was going to hang herself from the rafters. Let every Lambert ancestor witness her grievance.

The moment I heard that, tears filled my eyes. I told my wife to put it on speaker.

"Mom! Don't do anything stupid. Even if you never acknowledge me again, even if you hate meyou're still my only mom. I know you're in pain. I know this is destroying you. But you shouldn't have to bear this. Live. Think it through. Whether you want me or not, I'll do whatever you say. As long as you're okay."

"Without you, I'd be nothing. Your patience, your gentlenessthat's what made me who I am. Mom, I know how hard it's been. I understand your grievance. Please don't throw everything away like this."

My son's small voice drifted closer, high and frightened. The little guy was crying too, running toward her.

"Grandma! Grandma, what's wrong? I want Grandma to hug me"

I was crying now too, begging her not to leave, trying to calm her down.

"Mom, can you hear him? Because of you, I have this family. We all love you. You're the only grandma he knows. Pleasedon't punish yourself like this. We need you."

She waileda raw, broken soundthen slowly crumpled to the floor and pulled my son into her arms. She cried for a long, long time before finally going quiet.

Over an hour later, my wife brought her to the hospital. Mom had cried herself unconscious. By then, I was burning up so badly I couldn't stop vomiting. The thermometer shot past 104 degrees almost instantly.

The violent retching was agony. Every cough felt like needles stabbing my lungs.

Mom still loved me. Even hoarse and shattered, she kept asking the doctor what to do, over and over, until he was at a loss too.

I managed to call my dad. Fifteen minutes later, he rushed inand delivered the news I'd been dreading.

"I went back to the village. Searched everywhere for Old Madge. Couldn't find her." He swallowed hard. "Finally checked her house. Found her in the trash heap out back."

"And? Did she come with you?"

"She can't come." His voice dropped. "She's dead. Body was still warm when I found her, but she wasn't breathing. A rat crawled down her throat. She choked on it." He shuddered. "Horrible way to go. I already told the village secretary to send people."

My heart turned to ash. My arm dropped limp. A hollow ringing filled my ears.

"Then it's over"