Chapter 14
Fourteen
Weeks went by, and I stepped into a routine.
I’d wake to eat breakfast and exchange a few words with Ebony, who’d move objects to let me know she was there, listening to my thoughts.
In the afternoons, I spent time with Ayla at her cottage, making remedies and tending to the sick.
In the evenings, Silas would always greet me with a smirk and pose his nightly anticipated question.
Every night, without fail, he would disappear into the west wing, hiding his secrets and giving me little opportunities to snoop.
I’d stay awake hours after I had retired for the evening when he would leave the castle to be able to enter the wing.
But sleep was unavoidable, and so were the shadows lapping at the edge of the bed, ready to consume me alive as the dreams grew stranger, becoming more vivid and lucid as if it was my own memory.
Save him before it’s too late.
The sweet song voice called from beyond the soft scent of roses under a bloodred moon. The boy appeared in these dreams, crying and covered in blood, with shaky hands outstretched to the moon, pleading in hushed whispers.
The monotony kept me busy while awaiting the fateful opportunity. Only when the autumn winds began to roll did that day arrive.
I stared at the letter taped up onto Ayla’s door in beautiful, elegantly scrawled lines.
Went to take some medicine to the Grandulf family. Their babe is sick again. Odd thing it is, all these sick babes. Anywho, I will not be home most of today but stop back in tomorrow!
Shutting the wooden doors of the castle, I was struck by how quiet it was in the middle of the day.
Not even the ghosts, which I had become accustomed to darting in and out, were silent as a tomb.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor and found myself at a crossroad between the west and the east wing.
It was sudden. A chord struck in my body, and my feet were leading to the west wing’s hallway. I didn’t have time to second guess as I dove into the darkness. The hall wound, shifting with every corner I took. The wing expanded further into the decrepit depths.
The dirty carpet and stained, moth-eaten curtains filtered light through the giant holes of the ornate fabric. Cobweb and dust stretched on in the direction of the winding hallway as door upon door followed me along the way. Not a sound echoed, my footsteps muffled by the softness of the carpet.
The warmth of the fading sun broiled the stench of decay and rot, my hand flying to my face to block the awful scent. The farther I went, the stronger the smell and the knots forming in my stomach became.
Shadows lurked at the edges of my vision, sweeping in curiously close before retreating back into the dark corners. Turn after turn, the light faded away, and the lure of voices crept closer, hooking its claws in me. Darkness skittered past in malice and intrigue. I did not dare to gaze upon it.
Valeria, sweet, damned child. Trapped in endless cycles to taste but not understand. To dream and not know. Follow us, child. Come speak with us. We will show you.
The walls echoed with those voices, crude laughter, hissing riddles, and hushed whispers of a crowded room. Yet not a soul appeared. Living or dead.
I stopped in front of a black oval-point door, and shadows slipped under the threshold as whispers died away behind that door. I placed my ear to the wood, listening to the same tantalizing voices beyond reach.
Valeria. The crowd of voices gathered to a singular voice—a woman. Warm, familiar, and inviting sweetly sang from behind the ominous door, Valeria, help. I’m trapped here. That awful monster locked me in here in the dark. Help me. Please, open the door.
Loud bangs knock against the hard wood.
Help me. Please, open the door. Valeria, open the door.
Skeptical, I responded, “Who are you? How did you get in there.”
The door balked, slamming against the hinges.
“Help me! He’s got me. He’s got me.”
Without hesitating or with thought, I turned the knob and opened the door to the pitch black.
The darkness peered back with hungry eyes. Millions of them stared in cruel glee.
Feet glued to the spot with a hand still on the knob of the door, I froze, watching tendrils of blackness wrap around my limbs, drawing me in slowly. My heart pulsated against my ribs, and I dug my heels into the ground, stumbling back onto the half-eaten rug.
“No,” I howled. “No, no, no, no.”
Don’t be shy. We shall show you the truth of everything. Soon, you will know the game is played. It’s been awfully long since we’ve been let out.
I was slammed with flashing images, fire searing across skin.
The smell of death became stronger as the onslaught of my senses turned chaotic.
Laughter echoed in my head as the speed of the images intensified.
God, the searing, stinging hot became unbearable.
Inches of my skin sliced open, only to be seared back together with intensity, only to be renewed again.
Body lying bare to the shadows, my legs buckled underneath me, sprawled out onto the hard floor.
Nails scraped my throat, the inside rubbed raw.
I was screaming but couldn’t hear it. I was left in the dark, in pain, with blood and death pulsating in me.
Around me—killing me thrumming through my body—head—everywhere.
Make it stop.
Make it stop.
Make it stop.
Make it stop.
Dear gods, make it stop. I can’t take it—I can’t, I can’t.
“Valeria.” Silas shook me fiercely, nails biting deep into my shoulder. The tang of blood brought me too. “Valeria, come back to me.”
I marveled at Silas’s face in fine detail, bite-size features to focus on.
The curve of his lips speaking inaudible words.
The wide terror in his eyes, flecks of gold shimmering in the faint light.
Silver hair twisted back into a braid framed sharp angles hidden behind scars and mask unto the shadows. A shaking hand grasped my cheek.
“Valeria. Jesus, I told you to stay the hell out of the west wing.”
Outside of the door, I was closed off from the shadows that had nearly consumed me. Their touch still danced on my skin, invading every inch.
I was in Silas’s arms.
Outside the door.
I was outside of that door and in Silas’s arms—more importantly, intact and not shredded into flesh and blood.
“What was that?” I croaked, fingers at my throat rubbing in soft strokes, fingers that should’ve been mine but were not.
Wrestling out of his arms, I crawled across the floor, staggering to my feet. Leaning against the wall, I breathed in a shaky, ragged gasp. Skin raw from the fire of a dying ember, digging my nails into bare arms.
I needed to know I was here—I was in my body and not hers.
I was not her.
The images died, and the cool walls of the castle anchored the chilling fire burning deep inside.
I trembled at the faint lines of the shadows tracing my skin, etching their being into my soul.
Their whispers caressed my ears, and I could still hear them, though their words were trapped behind a closed door.
We can show you the truth.
“They are the children of darkness, the collector of humanity’s worst nightmares. I had sealed the door a long time ago to curb their reign of terror. As you can see, they can be quite terrifying when left to wreak havoc on the mind of humans.”
We shall show you how the game is played.
“They spoke to me. Something about a game and the truth.”
The words tumbled out, yet they did not materialize, a phantom among the plane in which I was not adrift.
I was trapped in this body and still felt I had traveled through time to try to solve the mystery.
It was there, on my tongue, a way to save us both from the walls closing in as the days went by.
How long before it was too late? How long until there was nothing left of—
Silas’s hand was on my shoulder, clove and spice a home to bury myself in. It was in a memory, lost, out of reach of what I had hoped to be the truth. He held it at his damn fingertips, yet there were still riddles.
“You heard their voices?”
“You can’t hear them?”
“No, I can’t. What did they say?”
“They wanted to show me something, I think. The truth of a game they said they were playing.”
Silas paled, his gold eyes widening as his hands chased away the fire from my skin, bringing his forehead to mine, melding his being into mine. In that tender moment, my fears melted away, and I huddled closer upon that floor.
Right then, I needed to be sure I was safe. Even if it was with him, somehow, I felt protected there on the floor with him.
Fingers grazed my cheeks, twisting a singular strand between his index fingers, contemplative and possessive. Silas whispered, “Are you trying to get yourself killed here?”
He scooped me up and hauled me through the twists and turns of the west wing.
The dark leaped back from him, as if they were scared or if they were a part of him in some manner or form.
Waiting to be controlled, to be beckoned to their great master, carrying their prey to safety.
By the time we reached the main hallway, they retreated as Silas stepped into the east wing.
Silas opened the door to my bedroom and deposited me onto the soft mattress and tucked me in. A stray touch lingered across my skin, stoking flames through a torn body.
“I want you to stay here, and please listen this time.”
“Then, you should tell me what you are hiding in the west wing,” I shot back.
“I can’t.”
“Why not? You are obviously hiding something from me. You have me guess your name night after night. Your castle is filled with ghosts, the village is plagued by death that, supposedly, you are not responsible for. And now you have shadows beyond a locked door that state you are hiding something. I am not as naive as you think I am.”
Silas stilled at the door, muscles tense as he pried it open to the indecision and anguish written upon his face. The numbness of my legs were pins and needles as I fought the blankets wrapped around my body.
“No, you’re not,” he said.
“Then, tell me!”
“I can’t.”
“So, now what, you are to go back into the dark recesses of that wing and not give me the answers I desperately want no—need to know all things considering?”
“It’s better this way.”
“Better!” I scoffed, driving my feet down to the floor and driving myself to him.
“Nights on end, you ask me the same bloody question. You come back from gods know where in the dead of night covered in blood yet claim you only drink from the willing. You disappear into the west wing that I am not to go anywhere near with a door of shadows that nearly killed me. I have more questions than answers and you are either avoiding it or hiding them from me.”
I beat his chest, my fists balled against the fabric of his shirt. I rested my head on him, and there was not a single heartbeat. Not one.
Silas raised a hand, resting on the back of my head, taking a few hard exhales. His other hand shook at his side, and I did not dare to gaze upward. A beast—a man struggling against the inner demons inside his own mind.
I closed my eyes. The thumbing in my chest grew louder as the terrible decisions I had made pushed me further into danger. My head was muddled and confused by not the man in front of me but of the strangeness of it all.
There was much in this muchness drowning out sanity in which madness had brought me to.
“Say something,” I said, my own heart ravished inside my chest.
“You called me a beast, and you choose to believe what others have to say. I also hurt you and I do not want you to get hurt because of me, so this is simply the best I can do.” Silas pushed me away, retreating behind the door. “Stay out of the west wing.”
Silas swept the door closed, leaving me alone in silence.