Unfortunate. That’s the word Ollie would use if he only had one to describe how his life had turned out. If it wasn’t the plant in his room dying, it was his grandmother. If it wasn’t his insomnia, it was his anxiety that never seemed to rest. If it wasn’t being able to make chicken soup properly, it was summoning a demon in his kitchen at five in the morning- but, we’ll get to that later. Ollie wished for normal and rarely got it, figuring he was just unlucky when it came to life.

Ollie had swallowed, fidgeting with his hands held together in front of him, looking at the thriving grass beneath his shoes. The wind had been as comforting as the family that stood around him, dressed the color of raven feathers, sending a shiver down his back from the chill. “It’s a lovely day for a funeral,” his mother had told him but he didn’t think there was ever a lovely day for a funeral, even if the sun was out, not even a cloud in the sky. The gleam of the sun felt more like a taunt and he half-wished it had rained instead. But rain would've been too cliche.

He’d always hated cemeteries just as any normal person would, given that they’d had at least one person buried there. This time, his grandmother would be buried there. Her ashes dropped into the ground in a box, not even six feet down as stories had told it. It was anticlimactic, silent, and unbearable for Ollie.

The lilac-furred dog had tugged at the collar of his black clothing, releasing himself from some of the pressure from the fitted suit that pressed against every inch of his body. It had been the first time in a while he’d used the dress clothes, the last time being the time his mother made him dress up for a family gathering (one that his grandmother had failed to show up to, mind you). He had been ready to leave the cemetery from the start, ready to leave when things were just beginning.

He couldn’t stand being on his feet for so long, couldn’t bear the quiet mourning among the people he didn’t quite recognize. He’d heard about some of them, talked to others as strangers for only moments, but most ‘knew’ him as a child, before he could even remember. Ollie didn’t believe that counted though. Sometimes he believed his immediate family was just as reserved as his grandmother had been during her life. Ollie hadn’t really known his grandmother very well and he knew most of the people he stood around had not either. Common courtesy demanded their presence; that was why they were there.

His grandmother was an odd one; always alone in her little house, but nonetheless, family. The canine had grown up taught that family came before anything else- anybody else- and Ollie felt that was a little too extreme in some circumstances, however, as he did not have any tears to shed over his grandmother and nor did his mother. Ollie had waited for the ceremony to wrap itself into a neatly bound little basket with as much patience as he could, not a single word uttered to anyone else and only looked up when someone approached him and his mother.

Ollie stepped into his grandmother’s house, not long after the ceremony had ended, with his mother to see if they could find anything worth keeping- worth remembering of her. He looked across the dust covered surfaces and floor and took in the musty smell as if the windows had been sealed shut for some time even before his grandmother’s death. The brown boxes that littered the floor made it almost impossible to get a feel for what type of person Ollie’s grandmother was. Trinkets shoved away into moving boxes, papers tossed in like another item found on the streets, and books stacking beyond the boxes’ holding limit. There was so much he could’ve learned about his relative by just stepping into her world, but it was all stripped away, any trace of her vanishing like her ashes into the ground.

Running his hand across the boxes as he moved through the cozy home, Ollie looked to the stuff that had yet to be packed away. Little of it was left and he let his mind wander to who had taken the time to pack it all up. These days, no one had that time, not even the ones who mourned the most. Maybe it was just some paid job done by random strangers who were just looking to make a little money.

Making his way to the kitchen that wasn’t far from the door, he let out a sigh, gazing across the glass cabinets to the plates and cups that were still held inside. Ollie dropped into a crouch off to the side of the kitchen island, as if he had all the time in the world, and looked into one of the glass panes, peering at the colorful array of cookbooks on the shelf inside. Ollie’s muzzle wrinkled as he looked at how messy the display of the books was and thanked himself for liking book series’ that looked uniform apart from cookbooks that were different sizes all the way across the shelf. He eyed a particular set of uniform books though- the only set of uniform books on the shelf.

“Hey, Mom?” Ollie called as he took interest in one older book in particular, pulling the top of the spine down towards him to remove it from the shelf, letting the other books fall into the empty space, “Where’s all this stuff going?” He asked, curious to who in his family would take the majority of the junk.

“I’m pretty sure most of it is getting donated,” his mother called from one of the other rooms, sounding preoccupied. Ollie just hummed at that answer as he stood and leaned on the countertop, opening the old cookbook while resting his chin on his hand. Skimming through the delicate pages with fear of ripping them, he took a moment to appreciate the book’s aesthetic. The author’s appreciation for the small details made all the difference; making simple dishes seem like such masterpieces through grand drawn pictures and cursive black ink. It reminded him of a book displayed in fantasy movies, the one a mage would carry around.

Ollie smiled and huffed as he closed the book, he knew his sister would enjoy it more than any of the other crap that had collected in the small house. Pushing off the kitchen island, Ollie lingered through the rest of the home to find his mother with the book in hand. He found his mother sitting on the living room carpet amid the towering, cardboard packing boxes, probably due to be shipped off to the nearest storage unit to be auctioned off.

“Find anything interesting?” His mother asked him, looking up to him as she continued to shuffle through one of the boxes, peering at the book in his hand with a passing glance.

“Ah, a book for Ashland,” he said, looking at the leather-bound book again and moving to watch his mom continue with her sorting.

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“That’s nice,” his mother said, then chuckled, “If you insist on feeding your sister’s baking obsession, that is,” she said with a smile, the first real one he felt like he’d seen on her since the day started. The old memories of the possessions around her most likely weighing her down more than she realized. Ollie couldn’t relate, the items meant nothing to him. He doubted any of the items was significant among the masses of them.

“Why didn’t you talk about her more?” Ollie asked suddenly and his mother looked up to him, studying him for a moment before giving him a bittersweet smile.

“I should’ve,” she said with a sigh but didn’t elaborate. Ollie didn’t push it, he knew how sensitive his mother could be at times. The beginning of the conversation slowly fell into silence again and Ollie attempted to bring the dying thing back to life as he looked around the living room.

“Grandma sure did like keeping a lot of… stuff,” he mused, huffing at the thought of the people who put the majority of it into boxes first entering the cluttered filled rooms. Or, frankly, any one entering the cluttered filled rooms.

“I don’t know why she was fond of most of these things,” his mother sighed, “She never seemed like the type to hoard when I lived with her,” she explained.

Ollie picked up a vase that was shaped in all the wrong ways, looking like it was made by someone who had just walked into a pottery class for the first time, “I highly doubt that,” he said before turning to the front door as it sounded it’s movement with a squeak.

The animal that entered was dressed in a black suit, similar to Ollie’s own, and carried himself as he always had; confident and rigid. Ollie didn’t think he’d ever seen his father without the poise he always carried, even when he fell asleep. The marbled white fox gave a sad smile to him, standing on the opposite side of the archway into the living room to him and looked at his wife sitting on the floor, who looked back at him.

“Take all the time you need here,” he started and then looked to Ollie for a moment, “But I need to take Ollie now for him to get to his next class on time- That is, if you still want to go,” his father said to him and Ollie nodded. He wasn’t about to have a pile of makeup work because he was sitting in an old house that brought no sentiment all day.

“Alright, I’ll be home in an hour or so,” his mother replied and Ollie started a slow saunter back to the front door as he ran his fingers over the studded-covered cookbook. His father followed behind his freckled faced boy after he said his goodbyes, catching up with him by the time Ollie reached the door.

“My school stuff is still at the house,” Ollie said and his dad nodded. Ollie had never been the one to talk a lot, never felt the need to talk as often as some of his friends and peers did. He’d become known for letting others assume what he was thinking instead of straight out saying something. It had been something he thought he inherited from his father for the most part, the marble fox saying nothing but what he needed to. The drive to the house was quiet as usual when it was only them, not his mother or sister there to invoke conversation in the quieter lot. Ollie spent most of the drive looking out the window, holding the big cookbook on his lap so the cover wouldn’t be damaged when corners were taken a little too abruptly.

Ollie’s father stayed in the car as he hopped out with the book and made his way to the door, opening it with the key under the mat. Placing the book on the kitchen island for his sister to find without a second thought, he made his way up the carpeted stairs, not bothering to take his shoes off like his mother always told him to- a habit from getting new carpet that never seemed to fade now.

He walked to his room, changing into clothes that weren’t attention seeking before looping his backpack over his shoulder on the way out, grabbing the cookbook from his dresser and throwing it into his sister’s bed from across the room before heading downstairs. It had never occurred to him that he’d never even brought the book upstairs as he made his way through the house like a drone; one that he usually was when he passed from class to class at school.

“Shit,” Ollie muttered to himself when he reached the front door, feeling his pockets as he came to a stop, trying to find his phone. Figuring he’d left it in his dress clothing he left on the ground of his messy room, with a sigh and a few angry words aimed at himself, Ollie made his way all the way back to the second floor of their house as quick as he could, not wanting to keep his dad waiting. Prying his phone from one of the smaller pockets of the suit, he turned and started to leave for the second time.

The grand mystery book that was, more or less, stolen from his grandmother’s shelves gave him pause, even stopping Ollie in his tracks as he looked at the thing placed open on his dresser, pages laid out with perfection on the smooth surface, not even a wrinkle. The canine’s brows furrowed as he looked at the opened book, judging his head out to get a better look at the book before daring to move closer to the, perhaps, cursed thing. Ollie finally found the nerve to take slow steps towards the cookbook, flipping one of the pages before shutting the book entirely. Did he just put the book in his sister’s room or was he just going mad?

“Ashland?” He called to his sister with an echo reaching back at him. No answer came for a moment, a ringing sensation filling his ears.

“Huh?” He heard the voice follow a few moments late, on the second floor of the house, but not in her room.

“Did you put the book back in my room?” he asked, “It was for you.”

“What book?” She called back, her voice reaching across the house.

“The cookbook, the really old one,” Ollie clarified and Ashland just repeated the same words with an edge of annoyance on her tongue. “Nevermind,” he said after letting his thoughts try and piece themselves together, picking the book up and sliding it on his sister’s dresser next to her door as he walked past, looking over his shoulder one time to make sure the book hadn’t left. It hadn’t. Maybe he was just going crazy. He shook his head, clearing his confused thoughts before leaving the house again and hopping in the car with his backpack beside him, trying to forget the book for now.

“Get everything?” His dad asked and Ollie hummed a ‘yes’ as he looked back up to the window to his room, leaning on the side of the car as they drove away from the curb. The dog wished he hadn’t jumped into the car the moment it started to drive away, knowing he was due to have to explain himself over and over of where he’d been and why he’d missed his first class. He wasn’t looking forward to the school portion of school either, to be fair- but the explaining he would have to do? He could do without that too.

The drive was relatively short, few words spoken between the father and son, both left to their own thoughts and the radio music in the background that was more static than music. He exhaled when his school came into view. As Ollie exited the car when they reached the school parking lot, he almost dropped his backpack as he lifted it off the seat of the car, grunting in surprise. He opened the heavy pack as his dad peered over with mild curiosity.

“The heck?” Ollie said as he scrambled to open up his backpack, horrified to see an all too familiar leather-bound book inside. He pulled it out and there was no doubt it was the same one he remembered putting in his sister’s room more than one time.

“I put this in Ashland’s room?” He said, sounding more like a question than anything else. Was another copy of the book slid into his backpack by a family member looking for a prank to pull? His family didn’t seem above it, but they did seem above doing that much work just to put a confused look on Ollie’s face.

His father took the book from his hands and placed it on the passenger seat, “Well, obviously, you didn’t. You gotta get going, though,” he said, “I’ll take this home.” he said and Ollie nodded at him, uncertain and suspicious of who was behind the moving book. Backing away as he zipped his grey backpack up, he shut the door and watched his father and the book drive off. When the little car was far enough away that Ollie struggled to see it’s black shine, he turned with a shake of his head and walked to the doors to the office, not having the care in the world to try and explain the unexplainable book.

Unfortunately, Ollie didn’t believe the book he’d just taken from his grandmother’s house was done trying to bring him into its curse- whatever that curse might’ve been. All he knew was a car driving off with it wasn’t going to be enough to stop the cookbook with the recipe for chicken soup dog-eared from coming back to him.

Unfortunately.