3rd Place - Not So Good Natured by Tristan Davis, Lenexa, KS

The disappearance of Edwin Sebastian Lacey was not a puzzling circumstance to anyone. In fact, it had almost been expected.

The very eager, but amateur pilot, had spent several years campaigning and fantasizing out loud to anyone who would listen about his long-planned expedition to be one of the first men to fly solo around the world.

However, he had no flying experience of any kind to go off of. Just dreams, pride, and a lot of ambition.

Edwin Lacey had spent most of his days, and a good number of nights, down at the closest country club, luring in potential investors with his infatuating enthusiasm while rubbing elbows with the elite.

During these said outings, Edwin’s wife, the patient and good-natured Anabel Lacey, had stayed at home, doing her best to maintain the run-down Lacey Estate, which Edwin had neglectfully left entirely up to her.

For that is what any sensible and obliging wife in these days would have done. Especially when said wife was married to a man whose desires and ambitions exceeded well beyond his own capable abilities.

But to many others, Edwin Lacey was a visionary, and a rather charming fellow, and he eventually garnered enough admiration and support that in due course he was able to acquire enough funds to commission himself a brand new, single engine, one-seater aircraft.

After many years of relentlessly persuading and pursuing, Edwin Lacey’s time to fly high into the skies had finally been reached.

International glory would soon be spelt with his name.

But all that changed just less than a month after his scheduled departure. The newspapers began to report that Edwin Lacey’s plane had failed to arrive at one of the checkpoints along his planned, and rather long, global route.

The press seemed cautious at first to immediately suspect foul play, for there were plenty of civilized islands along the Pacific for a small plane to touch down on, especially if the pilot had unexpectedly needed petrol, food, or even some rest.

But as the days dragged by, then weeks, then months, and there were still no signs of Edwin Lacey’s survival, all search missions, as well as all hope, completely vanished.

Which now left the good-natured Anabel Lacey a widow, entirely on her own on the isolated grounds of the Lacey Estate.

Alone and forgotten.
Well, not entirely forgotten.
The investors that had so generously put in large sums towards Edwin wild

expedition would soon be turning their attention towards the depleted manor house, soon demanding to be repaid for what they were owed.

But since Edwin had used every penny the couple had towards his expedition, there was no money left to repay them with.

So what was good-natured Anabel Lacey to do?

Now, it was late summer, and the colors of rust and faded yellow had already begun to line the trees and the fields that surrounded the estate. The breeze that danced through the thinning leaves had the slightest of chills, and with the dark evening soon approaching, the grand, empty manor house would soon become cold.

Anabel Lacey now stood in front of the bare fireplace, shivering and hugging the sleeves of her outdated striped dress. “We need firewood,” she softly murmured to herself.

But there was no one to hear her. With staff no longer employed at the estate, for there was no money to pay their salaries, Anabel now slowly looked around the gloom of her silent imprisonment, and realized she would have to collect the firewood herself.

“A nice cup of tea will warm me up first,” she said to herself oddly cheerful, before heading down the hall that echoed eerily with her footsteps.

She reached the quiet kitchen and glided towards the pantry. She hummed to herself as she opened its door, and without a glance down, gently stepped over a pair of legs in black stockings laying out in front of the shelves.

Anabel reached for the tin where the tea bags were kept, and finally looked down at the young woman’s body, laid out in front of her like a lifeless rag doll.

“You know I never would've hurt you, dear Grace,” Anabel spoke to the young maid. “But eventually, you just would've been in the way.”

Anabel continued with her humming, took the metal tin, and shut the pantry doors, leaving the dead body still trapped inside.

“Regretful, but necessary,” Anabel hummed to herself, moving over to the stove.

After the water had boiled, and the tea had been drunk, Anabel Lacey sauntered out through the kitchen’s back door, heading towards the storage shed of the old grounds caretaker.

The heavy wooden doors opened with a loud creak, and her eyes immediately located the object she had come looking for. The smell of decay was more pungent in here, and she had to cover her nose before making her way towards the corner.

A shovel was lying in the middle of the shed’s floor, a dark stain of dried blood still visible on the blade.

Timothy, the old caretaker, was laid out a few feet away, his bright blue eyes forever frozen with a look of pure shock.

Anabel bit down on her lip, remembering the night she had snuck up behind him. “Also quite necessary,” Anabel murmured again, as crossed to the corner and picked up an axe.

She exited the shed and strolled around the outskirts of the manor, searching for fallen branches while dragging the axe.

When she reached the front of the house, she took a pause in front of the large tree that stood tall and strong, shading the whole house. A black and white sign stood right next to it, another creation the late Edwin Lacey had commissioned not too long before his departure.

Lacey Estate, the sign now read. Flying high on the wings of freedom.

Anabel Lacey could not help but smile as she reread the words for the hundredth time.

“You never could keep your feet on the ground, could you, my love?” She asked the sign, still humming and grinning. “You should be grateful I gave you exactly what you wanted: freedom.”

For six feet in the ground, right underneath her feet and the sign, was the final resting place for the amatuer pilot Edwin Sebastian Lacey.

Not a watery grave in the middle of the sea, or the sands of some lonesome, godforsaken shore.

But right here, buried in the earth of his own front yard.

For Edwin Lacey had never set foot off the estate towards his expedition in the first place, for Anabel Lacey had ensured that he never would.

For if she had let him go off on his silly, grand adventure, she knew for a fact he would never return. Not because of some accident or an unexpected malfunction, but because she knew a man with an ego like Edwin’s would never stop.

His ventures, his scheming, his tactless spending on a future that he could never sustain nor didn’t deserve, it was all doomed to be repeated over and over again, all part of one extreme and vicious cycle.

So Anabel Lacey did what any sensible woman would do. She had to put a stop to it.

The very night before his departure, the good-natured Anabel had pushed her husband right down a flight of stairs.

She stood there motionless as his body bumped and tumbled along each and every step, coming to a final thud on top of the cracked marble floor.

She had also watched without remorse as the old caretaker Timothy had crumbled to the ground, while the blood-stained shovel was still gripped tightly in her hands. For he had caught her red-handed you see, while she was searching for a shovel for which to bury her now dead husband with.

And then poor, lovely Grace. She had been the last. The maid had already been sleeping at the time of the men’s deaths, but with money running out anyway, and she was sure to suspect something was amiss sooner or later, what was to stop Anabel from severing off another loose end?

“It's all taken care of,” Anabel now said softly to herself, looking up to watch the breeze dance through the yellowing leaves. “It’s all finished.”

But just as she was about to turn away and search for more branches, she heard a soft rumble coming from the outskirts of the estate.

A large cloud of dust was coming closer, moving seamlessly along the winding road that led up to the house.

A car was approaching.
The investors were finally here.

Anabel stood stoic as the black car reached the boundaries of the sprawled out estate. She waited long enough to ensure that the occupants inside noticed her, before taking off towards the woods that surrounded the manor house.

She didn’t run, she didn’t rush, she just strolled, all the while humming the same humourous tune.

Behind her, the doors of the car opened and closed, and a few voices rang out, but she kept at a steady pace, leaving them no choice but to follow her.

“The trees are so thick, they won’t find me in here,” she mused out loud good-naturedly. “And if they do, I’m the one with the axe.”