Chapter 9 Isabeau #2
Too red, too perfect, too alive in this place where everything else had withered and died. Their scent reached me. Sweet and cloying, with an underlying note that reminded me of copper. Of blood.
Movement caught my eye, jarring me into a fright. It was subtle at first, then unmistakable. One of the vines shifted, not swaying in a breeze but moving with purpose, curling and uncurling like a finger beckoning me closer. I froze, certain I must be hallucinating from cold and exhaustion.
But no. Another vine moved, then another, writhing like snakes in a pit, their movements almost hypnotic. The roses themselves remained perfectly still, their blooms unwavering, but the vines on which they grew twisted and turned with impossible animation.
I should have run. Any sane person would have fled at the sight of plants moving with conscious intent. But exhaustion, curiosity, and the strange pull of the roses themselves kept me rooted to the spot, watching in horrified fascination as the vines continued their unnatural dance.
They seemed to be converging, I realized, climbing the crumbling remains of what had once been a garden wall.
The vines wound together, thickening as they joined, forming something that looked disturbingly like a throat.
A gullet, swallowing something long and thin that thickly protruded from the mass of vegetation.
My curiosity overcame my caution. I moved closer, peering at the strange formation. The thing being consumed by the vine-throat was pale, almost white in the moonlight. Too regular to be a branch, too smooth to be stone. It looked almost like—
“No,” I breathed, horror dawning as recognition hit me. “No, no, no.”
An arm. A human arm, protruding from the writhing mass of vines. And not just any arm, but one I recognized the scar on from a mishap at his work bench.
“Papa?” My voice broke on the word.
I lurched forward, no longer feeling the cold or my injuries. The vines had parted just enough for me to see his face. Nearly peaceful in death, as if sleeping, but unmistakably my father. I heard him inhale, seeing proof of life, but for how long? He couldn’t hear me or wake up.
The vines wrapped around his body, piercing his flesh in dozens of places, the thorns digging deep. Where they pierced him, the roses bloomed their brightest, fed by what could only be his blood. No wonder I smelled it, they were feeding off him.
A scream tore from my throat, primal and raw. I lunged for him, hands outstretched to tear away the vines, to free him from this grotesque fate.
“Papa! I’ll get you out, I’ll—”
One of the vines whipped forward with the speed of a striking snake, slashing across my palm.
I jerked back with a hiss of pain, blood welling from the deep cut.
The vine that had struck me curled back protectively around my father’s body, joined by others that tightened their grip, thorns digging deeper.
“Let him go!” I demanded, clutching my bleeding hand to my chest. “He’s my father!”
The roses seemed to pulse brighter in response, as if my blood—or perhaps my pain—had somehow fed them too. I stared in horror and helpless rage, realizing that I had no way to free him from this monstrous consumption. The vines were too numerous, too quick, too eager to defend their feast.
Blood dripped from my cut palm, landing on the dead grass at my feet. Wherever the drops fell, the withered blades seemed to straighten slightly, as if drawing sustenance from my essence. The same way the roses drew sustenance from Papa.
“Is this what happened to the others?” I asked aloud, though I expected no answer. “To all the sacrifices the village sent into the forest? You... feed on them?”
The vines continued their rhythmic pulsing, neither confirming nor denying. Above me, the raven cawed once, drawing my attention back to the castle looming behind the rose garden.
I stared at the structure with new eyes. If the rose vines had taken Papa like they had taken all the sacrifices over the years, then perhaps there were answers inside. Some explanation for this horror. Some way to understand what had happened to him, and what was happening to me.
And practical concerns asserted themselves as well.
I was still soaking wet, still freezing, still in danger of hypothermia if I didn’t find shelter and warmth soon.
The castle, abandoned though it was, offered the promise of walls to block the wind, perhaps even a hearth where I could light a fire.
With one last, agonized look at my father.
Slumbering peaceful in death despite the grotesque manner of his consumption, I turned toward the castle.
The raven took flight, leading the way to the enormous front gates that waited like the maw of some stone beast, ready to swallow me just as the vines had swallowed Papa.
“I’ll come back for you,” I promised my father’s corpse. “I’ll find a way to free you from... whatever this imprisonment is.”
The roses pulsed once more, as if acknowledging my vow. Then I turned my back on them, forcing one foot in front of the other, following the raven toward the dark promise of the abandoned castle.
Whatever answers awaited me inside, they couldn’t possibly be more horrifying than what I’d already endured. Or so I told myself as I approached the looming gates, my bleeding hand extended to push the metal open, my heart a battlefield where fear and determination waged their endless war.