As promised…I know it’s late. First installment of the writing challenge. Also, feel free to join in the challenge with me! It would be great to see stories from other people using the same prompt.

“Mom, I don’t know what you are talking about, what chest?” Ethan asked his mother over the phone. She had been calling him all day despite him being at work. He had to leave an important meeting to take her phone call. She didn’t call him often and the way she had been blowing up his phone, made him worried. What he didn’t expect was to get on the phone with her just for her to yell at him about a chest he needed to pick up before the movers came. 

“You would remember it if you just came home. Please, just come home before it’s not your home anymore.” His mother pleaded with him. Ethan was 32 and had not lived with his mother since he was 18. It had not been his home in a very long time, but his mother was struggling with the selling of the house.  

“Okay, mom.” He gives in. She had been hounding him for months to see her and he had just been busy. He realized it made him an awful son, but he was busy running a company he felt like he had no business running. He had lucked out and started a business with little money in his pocket and an idea that was better than he thought it was. “I will come over this weekend, help you finish packing, and check out this chest you are talking about.” 

“Thank you, sweetie.” His mother said with a sigh. He could almost hear her smile over the phone. “I will see you this weekend.” She said and the phone clicked. She hung up on him. No “bye” or “I love you.” Just a click. A reminder of why he didn’t go back home after high school. College had given Ethan a taste of freedom and he realized how awful his mother was to him. Now she was old and being forced to sell her home due to her being too old and frail to take care of herself. With Ethan being an only child, his mother had no option but to sell and move closer to him into an assisted living home.  

Ethan felt bad that he wouldn’t just take care of his mother in his own home, and move her in with him, but she had been cruel to him his whole life and it only got worse the older she got. He sighed looking at the phone now disconnected from the one person that could make him feel like a failure despite his success, he was already dreading the weekend.  

“We finished up the meeting, boss.” John, Ethan’s assistant, says. Ethan turned to look at the young boy, fresh out of college and eager to learn.  

“That’s great. Do you want some overtime?” Ethan asked. He knew John would say yes and it didn’t matter what Ethan asked him to do. The boy wanted to impress Ethan and move up the corporate ladder.  

“Of course, boss. What do you need from me?” John asked. 

“I need you to accompany me to my mother’s home this weekend and help finish packing her house.” Ethan said. John recoiled. He had already met Ethan’s mother and it had not gone well. Ethan watched as John took a slow gulp and nodded his head. 

“I can help out, sir.” Ethan clapped John’s shoulder and laughed.  

“John, you should not be so eager to please.” Ethan laughed. “I don’t need help with my mother, but I do need someone to stay at my condo and watch Susy Q.” Susy Q was Ethan’s Great Dane puppy. She was only 8 months old and still in training.  

“I will gladly take care of Susy Q.” John said, nodding his head vigorously, John and Susy Q loved each other, and Ethan was afraid if given too much time together, he would lose his dog to John. It came in hand when out-of-town errands came up.  

“Thanks,” Ethan said, handing the key to his condo to the kid. He wasn’t going to wait until the weekend. He was going to go to his mother’s today. “There is food in the fridge so, eat whatever you would like.” Ethan also handed the kid some money. “Or buy pizza. I will add the hours to your pay. I will see you Monday.” John nodded. 

Three hours later, Ethan was standing in his old bedroom staring at the chest his mother told him about. He had only been in the house for ten minutes before his mother dragged him to it. “It shocks me every time I touch it.” His mother says in a huff. “You must have done something to it so I couldn’t move it.”
“Mom, I wouldn’t do that.” He sighed.

“Of course you would, you would do anything to cause my life to be harder.”

“It must be so hard raising the one person you hate the most.” Ethan grumbled. His mother growled and walked out of the room. She stopped at the door and looked at him.

“You were a most difficult child to raise. I didn’t want kids, you know.”

“I know.” Ethan sighed. She had been telling him that his whole life. “You hate me for no good reason.”
“For no good reason, sure.” She huffed and walked away.

Ethan remembered the chest, but he didn’t remember what was in it. He had locked it 15 years ago. He remembered it being important, but he had no clue what it could be. He took a deep breath and put the key in the lock. He had found the key in his old desk drawer, in an envelope labeled “The Past” with a letter saying to open the chest when it was time. What better time than now, when his mother was moving, and all his childhood had already been sold or thrown away? The lock clicked as the key unlocked it. He took the lock off and pushed open the chest.

15 years ago, before he left this woman’s house, he had locked away the truth. He had locked away the past. The woman was not his mother and never had been. The memories started flooding back as quickly as they had left him when he locked them in this chest. The woman was just a lonely woman who had been perfect for what he needed. She hated him because she didn’t know him. Every memory he had of her had been placed in his memory by himself.

Ethan looked into the mirror propped in the corner of the bedroom and smiled as he recognized his face. He wasn’t even human, and he laughed as the glamour fell and his pointed ears returned. He had been slaving away at a boring human job to hide away from his uncle, who had set out to kill him. Yes, the same story humans tell their children. The power-hungry uncle set out to destroy the nephew who is the rightful owner of the throne his father left behind. Ethan had to hide away until his powers were fully his. Until he was of age and could take on his uncle fairly.

“We can go home now, right?” A voice from the bedroom door shocks Ethan back to the present. His assistant, John, stood in the doorway with a leash in his hand. Susy Q was already at Ethan’s feet, her tail wagging.

“Has it been hard to keep me safe all these years?” Ethan asked. John was never his assistant. John was Ethan’s cousin, his uncle’s son who had been disowned when he stood up against his father’s treason. In the world of the fae, only Ethan could stand up to his uncle, no one could fight the battle for him. No rules stopped Ethan from running away to grow stronger, and no laws prevented a son from siding against his father.

“My father has not tried very hard to look for you,” John said shaking his head. “Unfortunately, cousin, he does have your mother held prisoner. He awaits your return, and he believes he will defeat you.”
“What say you, cousin? Do you believe he will defeat me?” Ethan asks John. He pats Susy Q’s head when she licks his hand.

“No.” John nods. “There is great power in you. I felt it yesterday.” He leans against the door frame and crosses his arms. “Our kingdom has not seen a power like yours since your great-grandfather. My father is in for a very rude awakening.”

“We should be going,” Ethan says. John nods. They move to the corner of the room where a small door stands. It looks like a small storage space, but as Ethan opens it a bright light fills the room. A portal has been opened and Ethan’s uncle has already felt it. Ethan would be fighting for his right to the throne left unattended for 15 years.

“What is going on in here?” The woman who was not Ethan’s mother asks. She had heard a commotion upstairs and come to investigate. John stepped through the portal, Susy Q behind him. Ethan turned to look at the woman and nodded.

“Thank you for keeping me hidden.” He says. “You are free to continue living a fruitful life with riches beyond your wildest dreams.” He nods to the chest that he left in the middle of the room. What once was nothing but stored memories had been replaced with gold. More gold than Mary, Ethan’s not mother, had ever seen in her life. She would never want anything again. Ethan had also restored her youth, taking her body 15 years back. He felt bad for using her, but she was well compensated for her time. “I hope you find happiness.” Ethan says. He turned away from Mary who was now staring at the gold and disappeared into the light. The door closed and disappeared, severing the link between the human world and the fae world.