Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kolfina
There is something strange about Lord Macabre's house that I cannot put my finger on.
Something almost familiar, but not quite.
Like one of my piano concertos being played by a different artist on a different instrument.
All the same notes are there, but the sound is still off, the cadence changed, the tempo slowed.
The walls here are painted a deep maroon, a pleasant change from my floral wallpaper, but I swear I can see them bleeding when I stare at them too long.
Swear I can hear the drip drip drip as the blood spills over the crème wainscot and puddles on the wood floor.
It sinks through the cracks in the floorboards, spills down the stairs, trickles from the chandeliers.
It's as if the house is drenched in it, as if the stone itself is built on a sanguine foundation, haunted by a crimson ghost of its own making.
It makes it hard to focus as Azizi’s brother leads us around the room and introduces us to the various guests in attendance. I catch some of their names, but most flit by like moths in the night, nothing more than a quick movement in the corner of my eye.
None of them see the blood seeping through the rugs—or if they do, they make no show of it.
“Macabre? A relation to our host, I presume?” Azizi’s voice draws me back into the main parlor where most of the guests have gathered, the name drawing my interest moreso than her questioning tone.
“Forgive my rudeness, but I’ve met most of your family, and I feel I would remember making your acquaintance. ”
As would I, if I’d met the man before. He is hard to miss, and likely harder to forget, what with the strange skeletal tattoos across his face and the dark hair falling near to his waist. He certainly stands out, especially with the lovely redhead on his arm, the other man’s hair just as long and tied behind his head with a simple black ribbon.
“A cousin,” the tattooed man answers easily, plucking two glasses of dark liquid from a passing tray and handing one to his companion. “I am what you might call ‘estranged’ from the family business. Zagreus is the only family I willingly visit these days.”
The redheaded man—had Jonas introduced them already?
Are their names fluttering around me somewhere, searching for purchase?
—smirks with pride, leaning heavier into the first man’s steady grip.
“My fault, of course. Suffice it to say Mother Dearest wasn’t very happy with Daedalus giving me so much attention. ”
“Nor was she happy when I ran away with him,” Mr. Daedalus says with a hum.
“Dae is a rather passionate art collector,” Jonas jumps in, offering his sister a particular look that I do not understand. “He’s expressed an interest in your work before, but alas I only had a few to show him, and all of them your older pieces.”
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Blood falls from the ceiling onto my hand, splashing across the white surface of my silk glove. Just as it sinks into the fabric, another drop falls. Then another. I wonder how many it will take to dye the whole thing scarlet.
Mr. Daedalus nods, eyes growing sharp with interest. “Indeed. I was disappointed to miss your showing last year. I have heard interesting rumors.”
“Ah, yes, well—all true, I’m afraid,” Azizi answers politely, though I can see the tension lining her shoulders. “I suppose my more private subject matter does not sit well with the general public. The showing did not go as planned.”
“Lucky for us, we are not the general public,” Mr. Daedalus’ friend says. “Would it be possible to see some of your more recent work? We would be very interested in purchasing some. Our new home is rather bare right now, and Jonas boasts about your paintings any chance he gets.”
The conversation slowly fades as a dull roar takes its place—the sound of blood rushing through the veins in the wall.
A tear opens near the fireplace, and the drip drip drip echoes around me like puttering footsteps.
I watch as small, bloody footprints stain the rug and schlick across the wood floor.
It's not until I stop in front of a small portrait on the wall that I realize I’ve followed them.
A child stares back at me from within the frame, her eyes too wide and so green that I am sure they could be sold as emeralds. Brown curls frame a young face that has not quite lost all its baby fat yet, and the smile she bestows upon me is all teeth and innocence.
Unlike the rest of the house, she remains untouched by the sanguine flood, though plenty of it spills from beneath her frame—as if a mighty wound is hidden behind the canvas, leaving an ocean to pour onto the floor around my feet.
“Anet Carina Macabre.”
I jump in surprise at the low voice, turning to see our host standing at my side, his hands tucked politely behind his back and an apologetic smile on his face.
“Apologies, I did not mean to frighten you. I saw you wandering this way and thought it might be an opportune moment to speak.”
He does not sound angry at my nosy wanderings, so I nod in return and gesture to the painting before us. Curious about the name he offered a moment ago.
His lips press into a tight smile when he glances at the child, sadness lingering in the wrinkles around his eyes.
Longing, tinged with a strange desperation I do not understand.
“My daughter,” he clarifies a moment later.
“Anet Carina—a name her mother insisted on, mind you. Still, it suited her well, smart little thing she was. She passed many years ago.”
No wonder he is heavy with languish. No wonder the pool of blood stretches out for him, crawling up his legs and arms like my vines.
Can he feel it like I can? Does the blood in his walls call to him the way my flowers do?
Does he lose himself in this house-shaped artery, fighting against the muscle and sinew as they try to pull him under?
Is Jonas there to drag him to shore before it’s too late, the way Azizi and Theodore pry me from my hedges?
Curious, I press my fingers to the wall just beneath the painting, glancing up at him as the blood trips over my fingers. I hold my hand out to him in question, but judging by the furrow in his brow, he does not understand.
It is frustrating, my lack of voice. The more my lovers foist me upon company and society, the more annoyed I grow at my own inability to communicate.
I dare not interrupt Azizi and her gathered crowd, not when this is the first time in my knowing her that she has willingly spoken of her work with others.
And Theodore has absconded to the smoking lounge with a lovely person in a red dress who introduced themself as “Alistair, or Allie, if I’m feeling sweet. ”
Lord Macabre must understand, as a moment later he leads me to a small table and urges me to sit. Taking the seat across from me, he pulls a small silver tube and a pocket-sized book from his inner jacket pocket and holds them out. “Perhaps it would be easier for you to write it down.”
Grateful for the opportunity, I take the offered items, flipping through pages and pages of strange symbols and unfamiliar languages before finding a blank one to use.
I fumble with the odd tube until Mr. Macabre has pity on me and plucks it from my fingers.
He twists the top off to reveal a pointed nib and hands it back.
"A fairly new invention," he says when I stare at it in curious wonder. "No need for an ink well, as there is a small glass cartridge inside that holds the ink for you. You simply write with it as you normally would, and the ink comes out from the tip."
Fascinating. It is a strange newness that takes a moment for me to get used to, but the gentleman is patient as I carefully pen my concerns across the page.
I do hesitate before sliding the book back to him, a sudden uncertainty bubbling up in my stomach at the possibility of him thinking me mad. It is only the thick ring on his finger, stamped with the same moth as my own pendant, that has me finally passing the book over.
Perhaps he will think me mad, but if what Azizi said is true, maybe that is not such a bad thing to be in a place such as this.
“There is blood that leaks from your walls,” I have written, the first few words shaky with decades of disuse. “Can you see it?”
Lord Macabre hums in consideration, eyes locking onto the walls with a glint of insatiable curiosity. “Regrettably, I cannot. Is this something you see everywhere? Or is it just my home that bleeds?”
I am shaking my head before I even begin writing.
“Only yours, though I was unable to leave my home until recently due to my condition,” I write quickly.
“Your home is soaked in blood. Mine is consumed by flora. I am constantly fighting it, or else it will pull me into the emptiness.” I pause as a thin stream of blood dribbles out from the lamp on the wall, splitting off into vein-like rivers once it reaches the tabletop.
I consider it for a long moment before taking to the paper again.
“Your blood feels different. It does not feel dangerous like my vines do. Not to me, at least.”
“Fascinating.” The man leans back in his chair, tapping his fingers on the table with a quiet thunk thunk thunk.
“I admit, I find myself incredibly curious about your situation. I wonder if this is an unusual byproduct of your connection to the spirit world, or perhaps something else entirely. It is possible you had some similar ability when still alive. What was your given name, if you do not mind me asking? From before you were married.”
My hand freezes above the page where I’d automatically gone to write an answer, and it is with sudden terror that I realize I do not know.