Chapter 16 #2
I paced the room, furious and half out of my mind as blood raced through tired limbs.
The clock tilling the midnight hour, and all was quiet in the castle.
Silas left early that night after our uneventful supper.
It was either this or not at all to find the truth hidden in forbidden depths of the west wing.
He could have been back at any moment, and if I did not seize this opportunity, there would be no other chance—not like this one for who knows how long.
I stormed out of the room wearing nothing but my thin nightgown.
I retraced my steps to through the wing, getting closer to the whispering voices growing louder in the winding halls.
The corridors had shifted, and even with guidance from the light of the moon, it was eerily dark.
I clung to the wall, shuffling step by step past the ominous door, body aching to open it once more to learn of what those voices had been trying to show me.
The foggy memory of the burning pain and my own gut told me to keep going deeper into the bowls.
Compared to the other wing and much of the rest of the castle, the west wing was a labyrinth.
Twisting and turning in different directions, appearing to not adhere to any structural part of the castle.
The walls crumbled in sections, with several bricks missing, shattered below onto the rotting wood and giving way to the moonlight.
Moths made their home on the shredded curtains, weaving themselves between the sporadic holes.
I batted away the creatures as the rafters overhead creaked.
I crept farther, masking the sound of my steps with the groaning rafters and floorboards. When I rattled the knob of a door, I found it was locked. In fact, they were all locked with the entirety of the dead silent space, the castle holding a bated breath.
The farther I went, the more dismayed I became.
I counted thirty doors, and they were all locked.
Doubt came in at the thought of finding what it was he was hiding.
I didn’t even know what I was looking for, but with doors being locked, it was becoming more and more difficult, turning into a fruitless expedition.
I stopped in the middle of the hallway, the corridor split into complete darkness lit by a single flame of a burning candelabra.
A ghostly arm held the brass with tender fingers, their face obscured and their pale limbs visible, a glowing beacon into the growing expanse of the dark.
I cautiously stepped toward the apparition, and the creaking of a door opening cut through the silence.
“Come,” the ghost beckoned.
I followed them into the foreboding room, swallowed whole by it.
In the wandering dark, images bloomed as a bud does into a fetching rose.
The moon, hitting its peak, illuminated the space in soft light to a scene right out of fleeting memory.
Ghosts, swathed in harrowing translucent fabric, waltzed across the ballroom floor.
Upon the balcony, two figures stood peering down at their glittering guests.
The woman from the other day was dressed in crimson, with copper curls adorning her head nestled among a crown of gold.
She held the hand and tender gaze of the boy from the visions and dreams. A crown of silver adorned sweeping raven-hair-framed eyes of clear midnight blue, happy and unabashed straying soft fingers against hers.
The ball twirled around me as I stepped closer to the shadows of the past.
Soft voices rang out, “For our alliance and to the peace of our great nations.”
The woman and the man strode down the steps of the balcony, happiness written not on the pale blank faces of death but of ones of sweet adoring memories, cherished after all these times.
The man twirled her around, sweeping her into a dance, their bodies melding.
Their forms shifted and wavered under the faint light, the crowd fading to the echoes of the orchestra strumming their tune.
Love and happiness shattered into beautiful, striking chords.
The colors of gowns swathed the dance floor in hues of merrymaking all to the familiar harsh tones of delicate fingers crescendoing in glorious faith.
One I knew and yearned to hear and play again.
The lovers twined their way across the ballroom, slowing to a stop to be framed by the catching light.
Touching their foreheads against one another, whispering low to each other as the man tucked a single strand of red among the spooling fire of the woman’s hair.
One could argue they were the only ones in the room despite the faraway cheers.
The scene clipped itself, winding itself to further on in that night as I rose higher into the air, climbing my way to the balcony.
The ghosts around the ballroom appeared lax, their vacant eyes chattering among one another in conversations long forgotten to time.
The lovers embraced in the dark space, tucked away from prying eyes, unaware of the approaching shadow clutching a knife of silver.
The man’s gaze flickered up to the shadow only for it to be too late.
All of it was too late.
I watched as the woman’s soft voice shuddered upon the bloodied entrance of the knife, her words lost to time.
With the slick release of the knife, the perpetrator dashed into the dark, never followed into the depths of the castle.
The man’s horror-stricken figure faltered a step or two before catching her falling body and failing against the bodice of the dress to staunch the bleeding.
He called out to someone—anyone for help, speaking fervently to his bride.
“Shush, hold on. Please, Cecilia, don’t leave me,” the man said with a quivering voice as ash tears fell upon his opaque features. “Someone! Help us!”
His pleas were drowned out by the merriment of his guests. Blood pooled at her feet, and the light in her eyes was slow to fade until nothing remained.
In a space lost to the absence of time, he was alone, and I was unable to stop the scene before me. I was removed from the pain, the sheer agony laid upon his feet. His torment appeared to be his to bear. I only watched as the past unfolded on itself.
Midnight eyes pierced through body and soul, cutting into decades—no, centuries—in a blink of an eye.
The man was slow to form his words.
“I am begging you, help me. I’ll do anything. I’ll bargain with any God, even if it means my own soul.”
Throat bobbing, I answered him, tears swimming, knowing I can not change any outcome. “I can’t. I can’t.”
“Why not! You are a witch, are you not?” he asked.
I held my tongue. This was a vision of the past. What matter did my own answer have on this poor man’s soul to the anguish which lay bare at his feet.
He held the woman, cradling her head to his chest, as a heart wrenching sob let loose into the crowded space. I stretched out a hand only for it to pass through his iridescent form.
I clutched my chest with the only comfort of the building ache to keep me company.
From the body of the woman, her soul rose, watching with evergreen tears to the man’s frustrated cries, calling to her longing soul once more to come back to him.
She, with loving eyes, stared at her corpse before flickering upwards from heavy lashes. “Are you the Angel of Death?” she said softly as if in a daze. “Have you come to take me away?”
With the words caught in my throat, I watched as she floated down the grand staircase. Her expression was solemn and wary, and when those evergreen eyes turned upwards to the landing, they rang with familiarity of the present rather than the past.
“No, perhaps you are merely a watcher of past events. I’ve been so long dead I almost forgot. I always forget, but sometimes, it is better to forget.” She offered a sad smile, her form light and free dancing, no longer restricted by the convention of the living.
I followed her down the steps as the ballroom shifted. “What do you mean by that? Does that mean you can see me?”
She nodded. “I am of a past notion. I am the reason events played out as they did and why they persist. I am an echo, one that exists in this space as punishment for sin.”
“If you exist in this space, how did you get to the main part of the castle, and why did you strangle me!” I taunted.
“The more I am stuck in the castle, the more I am dragged into hell for the sake of people I hardly know stating they need my help. I am tired of being pushed around, so tell me, what is it that you want from me?”
I chased her to the edge of the ballroom, floating into the next memory without cause or warning.
The scene collided in floating, scrambled images, the ghost of partygoers past in endless loops, donning masks among the shifting shapes. The room restructured itself, expanding and collapsing in a blink of the eye.
The woman danced without care in front of my wandering eyes as I struggled to cling to the one sense of the expanding realities, only to come to a halting stop.
The man—the prince—stood atop of the balcony.
Weary midnight eyes surveyed the crowd below with a sorrowful, twisted expression.
The prince was accompanied by a woman in a tight crimson dress.
From the ballroom, I was only able to make out the basics of details, the sweep of blonde hair and the shadowy smirk of plump ruby lips.
How long had it been since Cecilia’s death? Who was the woman on the balcony?
Cecilia floated to the pair, taking a hand to stroke the man’s cheek as his expression grew more irritated from the unheard words. The mystery woman held a glass of sparkling champagne, and he readily accepted.
“For you see, Valeria, it was I who condemned him,” Cecilia confessed. “I condemned him to hell, and there was nothing I could do but watch.”
The prince shoved the glass back into the palm of the woman, taking to the stairs.
We watched together as he doubled over, clutching his abdomen in sheer pain, sweat beading across his brow.
Onlookers stopped in the middle of their dance, gasping at the sight in horror.
Screams erupted, and guards rushed to attempt to keep him upright as he twisted and stumbled farther down the stairs.
White knuckles held the banister, and his crown skittered to a halting stop at the bottom of the steps. A leering silence fell.
Sputtering coughs erupted from the prince, dripping from his mouth into a pool of blood and staining the granite inlays. He clutched at his chest, struggling to rise only for his strength to fail him, his body coming to rest upon a crimson mirror reflecting back soft, vacant midnight eyes.
The ballroom was still. Not a soul dared to breathe a word, inching closer to the body of the man they once called their ruler.
The woman at the top of the balcony sipped from her flute, disappearing into the expanse of the upper floor.
The guards ushered in to the body, with one checking the pulse and shaking his head.
“It’s no use. He’s gone,” the guard said.
With a perplexity, I turned to Cecilia, who all but paled at the sight of the prince’s lifeless body. “Tell me who did you condemn? Can you tell me their name?”
The buzzing of cicadas trilled in my ear. She watches as the guard turned the body over, laying him onto his back.
The beauty of her translucent form melted away.
Soft, tender eyes shifted to vacant, dark pits I was accustomed to from the ghosts of the castles.
Her dress aged rapidly, the once bright crimson fabric in a blink of an eye becoming tattered and worn.
Moth-eaten holes and smears of blood and dirt stained the once vivid fabric.
The train of the dress dragged behind her, the echoes of long-forgotten steps ushered in unwelcomed dread.
“I cannot. It’s not time yet for you to know. It’s too soon. Too soon to learn the truth of what once was,” she forewarned.
“Then why show me all of this?” Again, the scene shifted, collapsing in on itself as the walls caved in around us. “You brought me here to see something. What is it that you want from me!”
The candles lit the ballroom so brightly it began to dim. Then flickered. And then there was darkness. The faint glow of the woman’s form was the only light within the expanse of the dark, accompanied by the shrilled agony of bloodied screams.
Dying wails were missing dire information desperately needed to understand this place—to understand the purpose of why I was here. The answer, the only answer I received, was the bloodstained hand outstretched to me.
With a shaky hand, I took it eagerly, letting her guide me in the shadowy depths. Dark wisps curled undertow, the screams echoing from stone walls. The dank air smelled of decay and rot and mingled with the soft scent of the first blooms of sweet, delicious roses.
We stopped at a door cracked a hair, giving way to the brightness and warmth of fire burning within.
She curled her hand in mine, kissing it gently. The cold burned before she released it, departing on cryptic riddles. “You will know when it is time when the hour strikes midnight under the eye of the past.”
“And Silas? Your cryptic answers and riddles are not helping me come any closer to saving him as you urged me to. So, I ask again, you unhelpful ghost, you, what do you want with me?” I repeated.
Her dark gaze softened, stroking my face as my mother had once done when I awoke from a bad dream. Perhaps this was all this was. A crude bad dream. And I’d awake in my bed to the sun streaming in the window and Miriam bounding into the room in greeting.
The burning cold reminded me it wasn’t that simple.
“You have a gift, one that often is a burden to bear. You are not so different from him.” She smiled, her body a faint whisper among dancing candlelight. The space around us cracked, fissured formed with the screaming of the crown blossoming louder, cramming itself into my skull.
Cecilia turned to me, solemn solitude her vow to keep. “Save him. Time is short.”
The fissures shattered, the inky black scattering at my feet, and I was back in the hallway of the west wing as if I had never left.
I turned to the expanse and discovered an alcove.
On the wall, a mural depicted the scene that I’d witnessed.
The lovers swooned at the top of the grand balcony only to meet a tragic end.
Eeriness stayed with me there, imprinted upon my skin just as the mural was upon my mind.
Just as the blood and icy hand held mine in tender care.
I shook my head, leaning against the doorframe, and peered into the room to the scene before my eyes.