Jennifer Dutton rehearsed the exact words she wanted to say to Harry. They had to be carefully chosen and as effective as the words of a hypnotist or preacher. She, as matriarch of the family, was going to exercise her right to do the unthinkable.

How just a handful of coins⏤nine to be precise⏤could hold so much power and create so much misery is hard to understand, but every generation of the Dutton family fought over them the way royal families fight over the crown and wild animals fight over mates. Sometimes the injuries were physical, and sometimes, they were emotional, but they were always, on some level, spiritual injuries, the ones that diminish the soul’s capacity for faith in others. Even with all the troubles that came with the collection, no one stepped out of the ring and willingly divested themselves of their interest in it⏤the fortune was simply too great to walk away from without a fight. 

In the most technical sense of the word, the coins weren’t even coins at all. They had never been in circulation; weren’t backed by the ‘full faith and credit’ of any nation; and for the most part, were recognized as valid by only a very small network of scholars⏤yet each coin claimed to give its bearer sole control of a hundred acres of ancestral Dutton land, its woods, waters, and minerals. 

Two inches in diameter, an eighth of an inch thick, cast in pure Scottish gold, and adorned with the profile of William Wedderburn Dutton, III, each coin was unquestionably beautiful. For all the emotional warfare surrounding these coins, they were physically unscathed and unblemished, as though only handled by the imagination or in dreams.

After finishing her morning coffee, Jennifer Dutton removed the wooden tray from the safe, wrapped it in a white and gold linen tablecloth, and quietly carried it downstairs to her main dining room. She placed the tray at the bottom of a cheap plastic tote and covered it with hats and mittens headed for Goodwill. If her younger brother really did find the tenth coin⏤as he claimed⏤she had no choice but to take action today. 

This was, after all, the year that she chose the word sacrifice as her word of the year.

Copyright 2023 Kesel Wilson (entirely, 100% human-created)

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