Chapter 21
Wild Rose
Whispers in the Blood
“It is your carriage that will spur your coordination, so heed that ladies…”
I make light of Ballet Mistress Anoushka’s words with my mind a bayou of seas away, captured in a past I want to recreate. I’m caught between a night I desire to reminisce and a crestfallen reality.
Behind closed eyes, memories of his touch swam like moths over my head, like a dream coiled in bane. His rough hands were an occult rhapsody that passionately marked every part of my flesh. And with his tongue, he licked and lusted over the taste of my blood. He cut me open for his malign glee, and in baring myself to him, I fed him my tragic lies.
Behind closed eyes, my thumb traces over my lips, remembering the way his felt on mine. The softness, the wetness, and the possessiveness of our kiss felt like a reverie. He was not gentle, but a wild creature that had been left to starve for years. He tasted of sin dipped in the purest of gold. Like he walked through the gates of hell and brought heaven to his knees. He was once among the abode of angels, because under the belligerent edges creeps in wounded bitterness.
Behind closed eyes, his ambrette masculine scent with earthy notes left me in a trance. He oozed the brawniness and astute of a god. He reeked of Thoth’s wisdom and Coeus’ inquisitive mind.
The Sybactus Butcher or the dementedly deranged madman. Non compos mentis some call him, and how strange it is of them. They’ve seen his carnage but never the man himself. They’ve witnessed the massacre with their own eyes and tasted the smell of his victims’ dried blood, but not once have they seen the slaughterer. They have carried the mangled flesh of those killed, yet they haven’t seen the hands dripping their blood.
But I have, and not only did I allow him into my house, but I made him taste my wounds. Predators have a tendency to kill everything they touch, but I’m not his next glorified victim.
Neither am I a martyr. Call me raving mad , call me disturbed and delusional , I won’t plea, I promise. The internal viscous dilemma would be a waste, not when I regret nothing about last night. I could ponder until the vein on my head ludicrously pops, but the same way Sebastian’s mind is like a montage, mine is nothing less. The difference is I’m partially sane, and he is not.
“Your feet must be in third position…”
This town, with all its polished charm and proud prestige, wears a mask of grace over bones steeped in deception. The streets hum with stories too carefully crafted, of truths twisted and secrets stitched deep into the very blood that built these walls. Every brick feels like it carries the echoes of something unsaid, something buried beneath layers of time and lies. And though we chase the idea of answers, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re following shadows, not truths. Sometimes, in the quiet between steps, I wonder if it’s not clarity we’re hunting, but death itself, waiting patiently at the end of this winding path.
Callum is a whole other nauseating plight, a piece in this jumbled barbarity and one I won’t be straying away from. He’s simply a smaller piece in a motley of anarchy .
”Now change to fouette…”
Not everything done in the dark must come to light, the dead know that better.
It’s as if we’re trapped in a maze of horrors, a town where the very walls mourn for the lives that once were. Each stone is soaked with the remembrance of those long gone, and yet the ground beneath our feet never forgets their fall. We walk in the shadows of those lost, bound by the ties of their sorrow, cursed to repeat their struggles. How can a seed take root in soil so poisoned, how can we hope to rise when all that surrounds us is a web of broken dreams and memories that refuse to fade?
A flower, helpless in the grip of a storm, wilts without a second thought. It doesn’t choose the winds that tear it apart, nor the sand that turns sour beneath its roots. And so we too, with every breath, are at the mercy of forces that neither ask for permission nor offer reprieve. My uncle made a choice, one that left scars deeper than any wound could show, his hands stained with the blood of my parents. And in his twisted silence, I made my own choice—to take the soul that tainted my world .
For in a town where the light cannot reach, there is no escape from the darkness. Only vengeance can bring the balance we crave, for the scales of justice tip only when blood stains them anew.
I’m weaving a game, a wheedle he’ll fall into. One that’ll lead my knife against his throat. A blade so sharp it’ll cut too deep.
“Cinquième Position.” Her cane clicks on the floor as her eyes gauge everyone’s posture. I lift both arms and raise them above my head, creating an oval shape as she circles around me in slow strides
“Rise attitude.” She instructs, and I lift my leg and stand on one.
“Perfect.” She circles me, the compliment hanging in the air. Disbelief .
Rodents must be flying. I almost want to gasp at the compliment. Anoushka has probably spewed more judgemental wisenheimer than flattering remarks.
“Has she finally come tumbling down from her high horse?” Naseria whispers once she walks away.
“Either that or her hip gave up, and she finally tumbled down a flight of stairs and hit her head.”
Naseria winces. “You’re the devil.”
Class is dismissed shortly and with the forty minutes of lunch I have before assisting Madgar I make my way to the library. Naseria’s father is in town, with a suitor he wants to introduce, and to her disfavor she has to leave. It’s been quite an ongoing game of charades. He brings men of caliber to a daughter who loathes the thought of marrying anyone resembling her father in the slightest. Daddy issues.
“The feminine urge I have to become a man’s walking nightmare – my father’s walking terror is unworldly, Essa” Naseria sighs.
“Maybe one of those suitors will be the one.”
“ Doubtedly, hence I shall be alone until a man lets the world know he can not breathe without me, I suppose”
“Forty minutes.” Madgar hands me a juice bottle and a wrapped sandwich. “I made you a lobster roll and that —” she points to the bottle “ — is cranberry juice, eat up and get to work.”
“Thank you”
Once seated in my corner, I place the meal aside and grab my iPad. It’s become a habit now, to have it within reach when the silence settles in. Some months back, Madgar made a passing comment about how I looked sick, and when I admitted I wasn’t eating well, she started making me meals. I didn’t question it then. Her kindness felt like something I didn’t deserve, but I accepted it anyway. The same went for the neatly wrapped iPad I found in the backroom, my name written on the tag. It was a gesture that, at the time, didn’t need explaining, and I never asked for one. Maybe there were things better left unspoken, things that only Madgar understood.
In a sea of thieves, she’s a charmer.
After we stole the book, I spent the night reading through it. Most of the pages were filled with verses and hymns, their words soft and familiar, like the remnants of a forgotten prayer. But one odd passage caught my attention, drawing me in like a moth to a flame. The words were different, darker, almost too sharp for the rest of the pages. At the bottom of the passage, in a neat, flowing script, was the name Lady Annbeth. It was the kind of name that seemed to hum with a strange energy, one that pulled at something deep inside me, urging me to know more. What did it mean? Who was she ?
“Souls trapped in a cage built by him la la la la, my sanity ripped to shreds la la their cries heard with in the tower la la la skeletons and broken bones collecting dust la la la”
So I did my research, she was a gambler turned cartomancer. Ann was into tarots and visions. She was referred to as lady theopálavos by the townspeople because she was known for speaking to herself in tongues and carrying an absurd amount of crosses in her bag. But one night something so sinister bloomed in the depths of her heart and she killed her husband and son. When the town came to know of this, they stoned her to death.
However, sightings of her started to be rumored a week after her death.
Glancing at the clock mounted on the wall, I tear the foil away and bite into my sandwich, its seasoned flavors flaring in my mouth. With a click, the glow from my iPad reflects across my face. While I had done some digging, sleep got the best of me before I could finish reading the article.
With a pen in one hand and a half-eaten sandwich in another, I read through the files, jotting down any piece of information that feels like a snake in the grass, because after all, not everything is what it seems. I flip through a couple more articles until I spot yet another odd passage.
“Three saved, two killed. It was not a murder, but a sacrifice. I knew her better than I knew myself, so take my words to heart. Ann saved lives.” — Bonnie Wic k
I sip the last bit of my cranberry juice before tucking it into my bag and throwing the wrap into the trash. I have five more minutes left so I do a little Google search on Bonnie Wick , and my oh my is the internet notorious.
Alongside her home address and government name, I also find out that she was a dear friend of Ann.