Roses Are Red
Prologue
"Where are we going?" he laughed. Jovial, deep. He had grown up among these trees; he knew the forest better than he knew the lines and freckles on the back of his hand. He had climbed them hundreds of times, to the very top, gazing out upon the world with wide eyes. As a child he believed they sang to him when he was asleep. He named them – regal, mystical names like the ones in the books Mother read to him. Tonight the trees reached their leafy branches up to the night sky, casting shadows on his honey-tanned skin from the pale moonlight.
"It's a secret," she teased. But there was no place in the forest secret from him. She led him deeper and deeper into the brush, down twisting paths where there were no trails. Her feet were lithe and sure, and he was surprised. Had she been to the forest before? Her creamy skin was bleached in the moonlight, whiter than fresh snow and just as cold. Her hand was freezing. The night darkened her hair, but he could still see its extraordinary color, contrasted against her flesh, the elegant curve of her ivory neck and the tip of her spine peeking out of her swoop-backed dress. He had the sudden sensation that he was being led by a ghost, and he laughed. She didn't ask what was funny, but looked back at him once to smile fondly with her wine-colored lips. Her eyes were deep pools in the darkness he wished to dive into and drown.
She stopped in front of a large tree. The oldest in the forest, almost five hundred years old. The elders believed it was a sacred tree, the resting place of the ancient spirits that had come before them. He didn't believe such things, but he loved that old tree. His father had brought him here often as a child, and taught him his ways. It was here he first learned to be one with nature. He called this tree Your Majesty; he called it the King of the Forest. Majesty was his favorite.
"Come," the phantom said, and he allowed her to lead him to the base of the tree. She settled him down in the curve of the trunk, and kissed him. He ran his hand through her hair and returned her passionate kiss. She entangled her body against his, but while his temperature rose as their embrace intensified, radiating off his skin, he flesh remained as smooth and cool as marble. Flawless.
He needed air. She pulled back and smiled. Her hair had come loose from its elastic, and tumbled around her face in a thick curtain. She stroked his face with her hand, and began to hum a quiet song. The night was silent. No animals scurried, no twigs snapped. There was no sound. None, except for the girl's murmured song.
A breeze blew gently across his chest, drifting down one leaf as soft as a feather, and in his ear he thought he heard the whisper of his name. "Run! Run!"
The girl sang softly, her fingers stroking down the line of his jaw and neck, tugging at the collar of his shirt. He could make out the words faintly as she sang: "Oh my love is like a red, red rose blooming the spring. She grew along the riverbank, and I picked her on my way. But my red, red rose has hidden thorns and she pricked me when I touched. And as I laying dying my red, red rose, so beautiful and fair, drank my blood into the earth and the color of her hair."
It was a strange little ditty. One he was sure he had never heard before, but the tune was vaguely familiar – as though it had once come to him in a dream or faded from memory, like the last traces of dusk and magic.
She spread her fingers on his chest, and he shivered. He wanted to kiss her again, but she shushed him patiently. She bent her fingers, and he felt the little pricks of her fingernails on his skin. But she didn't stop. Her long fingers dug into his chest, igniting a burning pain. Blood stained his loose shirt. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound emerged. In one swift motion her eyes flared, red and demonic in the darkness, and she ripped the beating heart from his chest. It pulsed quickly in her hand, like the heart of a little bird: thump thump, thump thump. "Shh," she quieted, stroking her fingers over the beating heart.
She raised the heart to the moonlight, inspecting it, and sighed. Not right. This one wasn't right. She placed the heart in a jewel-encrusted box hidden in her satchel. "What a waste." She gave the boy one final parting kiss on his head and left him. She faded into the darkness.