So you followed Missie to the kitchen,where she prepared a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk for you.
Then she fished about in a big old iron box full of coal and handed you a big
old fashioned brass key.
She didn't know what it was for,just that your grandfather had given it to her for safekeeping.
You vaguely remembered seeing that key before.
Its purpose was obvious,since it had
<Wells Fargo Safe Mfg.> stamped on it.
Obviously there was a safe around the castle somewhere.
So you followed her back to the Study and whilst you pondered the key and the contracts,Missie dusted a little and headed off to bed.
Now,there'd been enough rumours in the family about grampa's line of work,so you
figured right off that the contracts were to tun humans into animals.
Slavery
But why would any human want to be a short lived sheep or sow or hamster?
Nobody throws away their human life just to help the spoiled next-of-kin or
some filthy rich charity's stuffy board of directors.
Nobody.
You began to daydream and started remembering
your visit to grampa two decades earlier,the last time you'd been here.
When you were a five year old boy.
Which didn't make sence,since you were a twentyfive year old woman.
However you let the memories and daydreams unroll as they pleased.
It had been at night and you'd tiptoed up to the Study door and peered through the keyhole.
Thered been three figures inside.
a young woman was pleading for her life.
She didn't want to give her soul to the goat headed man standing in front of the fireplace
"Please,I didn't know ten years ago I was signing a contract with the Devil.
How was I supposed to know
"Nick Scratch' was another name for the Devil.
I'd thought I was just signing a contract to get money to save the rare Siberian Tigers.
How was I supposed to know that I was signing a contract to give away my soul in ten years.
The goat headed guy just gave a bleating laugh and turned to
your grampa.
Devil" well Lazarus,what do you have to offer me in exchange for her contract?"
Grampa and the goat headed man whispered quietly for a while,then
nodded their heads in agreement.
Your grampa had taken the contract the goat headed man had given him,walked to the large painting on the wall and slid it
aside,revealing a large safe hididen behind it.
He'd inserted the large brass key you now held,and
openned the
safe door and inserted the Devil's Contract.
Then after closing the safe again
he returned to his desk and rolled out a new contract and
after conferring with Nick Scratch,
filled in some lines,then
turned to the young woman.
"Its either this contract,or the one Nick just gave me for safekeeping"
your grampa had told the young woman.