Leonard opened the door to his grandfather’s cottage, filling the room with light for the first time in months. His grandfather had died in April, collapsing in the middle of Sunday service, a heart attack. Now it was September, and Leonard had finally found the time to travel back down from the city to take inventory of the stone cottage for the rest of his family, each of them too busy or not interested enough to come. The village was miles into mostly empty country, what seemed like an impossibly long distance into a relatively small area, but perhaps this was just because the roads were so old and neglected, which made the journey difficult and slow. All around him were fields, as far as the eye could see in every direction, only broken by the dirt road leading to the cottage.
Leonard put his bags on the dusty kitchen table, and opened the shutters on all of the windows, letting more dull light into each room. It was an old man’s house, undoubtedly, a much older style than anything he was used to seeing in the city. There was a lonely atmosphere to the place, and standing there he suddenly felt strong pity for his grandfather, and guilt for not having spoken to him or visited for many years. He wondered if he had been happy, if he had known people in the village, perhaps even had friends there, or if he had spent every day in this house, except for Sunday service. He thought of visiting the church, speaking to the people there and asking about his grandfather, but he feared that they would judge him for his distance, and how long it had taken to come after his passing.
He began to take inventory, making note of what was valuable and what the family had already laid claim to. The china plates and silver cutlery, which his aunt had told him were promised to her, and of great sentimental value, were not in the house. The kitchen cupboards were stocked with plain and cheap plates, and the cutlery was simple steel. His brother had asked for a collection of wooden figurines modelled after roman soldiers, that he had remembered playing with in his youth. Again, these figurines were not in the house, nor was the beautiful eight foot rug that his sister had laid down on, as her grandfather read her stories by the fire, nor his grandmother’s dressing table, which his mother had so desperately wanted. One might think, in fact, that this may be the wrong house entirely, as so much that was supposed to be there was not. The thought crossed Leonard’s mind, but he of course remembered having been here before, happily in his childhood, and more awkwardly in his late teenage years.
One thing that his grandfather did have in abundance, however, was books. There was a bookshelf in every room but the bathroom, each covered with a hundred books. There were novels and history books, cooking books and collections of philosophical essays, scientific journals and biographies. Books written in English, Italian, French and Latin, about far away lands and long gone civilisations. There were volumes about ancient peoples, their practices and religions, and stories of people who lived terrific lives and died horrible deaths. In his bedroom, there were old books, perhaps centuries old, many of them in languages that Leonard could not confidently identify. He took one from the shelf, a copy of Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid, and wiped the dust from the top of the pages with his finger. There was a sharp pain in his fingertip, and he dropped the book suddenly, crying out. He looked at his finger; a paper cut only, although a deep one that began to bleed eagerly. Hurriedly, he went into the bathroom to clean it, but when he turned the tap there was no water, only a distant low gurgling. Fearing some sort of infection from the thick dust around the cut, he hesitantly sucked his finger, then spat the dust out of his mouth in disgust. He walked through to the kitchen, and picked up a bottle of wine that sat by the window, opening it and drinking some from the bottle to get the bad taste out of his mouth.
After finding some bandages and wrapping his finger, he returned to the bedroom with a sigh, and crouched down to pick up the book. It was then that he noticed something under the bed — the corner of a box. He knelt down to look, and saw, tucked against the wall, the box of wooden soldiers that his brother had asked for. Leonard reached excitedly for the box, grabbing the rim and pulling it towards him, but found that it caught on something. Frustrated, he pulled harder, and there was a crack as the floorboard below dislodged. Leonard stood up, and lifted the foot of the bed, straining as he walked it across the room, rotating the bed and revealing the box underneath.
Sure enough, the box was full of the wooden soldiers, but he realised now that they had been broken. What was strange, was that every single solider was broken, and most of them had both legs and arms removed, almost as if it had been done deliberately rather than in some accident over the years. Then his attention was drawn to the floorboard, which he saw was not broken, but simply loose. He pushed the box away, and lifted the floorboard out, unveiling another book, wrapped in cloth and nestled in a dug out section of the foundations. He knelt down to pick it up, and unwrapped it. It was bound in dark leather, and there was no sort of design on the cover, aside from the embossed title: The Dracean Positions.
The pages inside appeared to be significantly older, and the text was written in Latin, for the most part, except for occasional inserts, printed in English, which had been stitched in neatly between certain pages. Leonard had briefly taken some Latin at school, but never had much of an interest, and therefore could now only understand the occasional word. As he flicked through, he found that the main part of the book consisted of pictures; strange drawings of the human body in various positions. The positions were numbered, and each had an insert translating the description. The drawings themselves were simple, sketched out from various angles, but the positions themselves were somewhat frightening and grotesque. Each looked painful and unnatural, almost or fully impossible to achieve. He read the descriptions for a few.
Positione I.
The subject’s knees are upon the ground, and the feet are elevated behind them. The elbows are hooked around the feet, with the hands on the rib cage. The subject comes to rest upon the elbows and knees.
The image was complimented by a few smaller drawings, showing the process of how one might adopt the position. Leonard stared at it for a little while, wondering how anyone could bear that pose, much less achieve it. He turned a few pages.
Positione III.
The subject’s right foot is placed firmly upon the left, and the legs kept straight. The subject bends backwards from the waist up, and the backs of the wrists rest upon the ground.
How this could be done without breaking one’s back or wrists, Leonard could not imagine. Even the most slender acrobat would surely suffer some injury attempting such a strange stance.
Positione IX.
The elbow of the right arm is placed upon the chest, over the heart, and the forearm held forward with the palm facing up. The left fist is placed upon the back, level with the right elbow, and the left elbow elevated. The knees slightly bent, the right leg should be forward while the left leg is back, and the subject should be resting upon the upsides of the feet.
Leonard read this entry again, perplexed. He studied the image, which did indeed seem to show the figure with his feet bent backwards, standing on the tops of his feet. There is no way that this pose could be achieved without breaking one’s feet, he thought, and closed the book with that disturbing realisation. He stood for a minute or so in the pale light of the afternoon, staring at the cover of the book. What on earth was it he was holding, and why did his grandfather possess it? Perhaps more importantly, why did his grandfather keep it hidden?
The next day, when Leonard had finished his full inventory, he gathered the things that he would take back to the city to distribute among his family, and left his grandfather’s cottage. He looked back at the lonely stone cottage as the rain started to fall, and then glanced down at The Dracean Positions, wrapped in cloth, on the passenger seat of his car.
