A plot bunny been demanding I write this before I continue with correction and update of my other stories.
Hope you enjoy it!
A Glass Half Full of Poison
By
juanafever
"… you precious little thing…"
The girl shuts her eyes tightly as she swallows another sob.
She is tired. She is so very tired.
The voice.
"…my little Sarah…"
It's nowhere and it's everywhere. In the shadows of the darkened room. In the wind outside the window. In the air around her.
Sarah rests her forehead against the blessedly cool glass. Her ragged breath leaving mist on the glass.
"I won…" her voice trembles as she speaks. So tired… Her skin burns underneath the damp cloth.
Somewhere a clock strikes three. The heavy sound goes thru the empty hallways like a ghost. Unpleasantly loud and it makes her shiver.
Maybe she should try going further? But behind every door all she ever found was an empty room, a deserted hallway. Dead end after dead end. It was like she was walking in circles.
"You can't do this to me. You can't… " her voice breaks and she can't speak anymore watching the red moon rise. A cold gust of wind caresses the pale face.
"Don't you like my castle, Sarah?" the disembodied voice was full of the mock hurt as it bounced off the walls making her skin crawl.
Sarah closed her eyes not being able to watch the sky. It looked like it was bleeding. Such beautiful sight such an eerie omen. The cold ghostly light sliding down her frame.
The crimson orb is fully up tainting the sky with its unnatural light, as if by its command a clock strikes thirteen. There is that weird gut twisting feeling again that takes a hold on her. The skin doesn't burn anymore it freezes now the sweat turning to frost before her eyes… and by gods it hurt! Like she was being torn in half. There was no air to breath it burned her lungs yet the tears were frozen rivers down her cheeks.
"Oh God I want to wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" she was so scared.
And always when she thought she couldn't take it anymore and it felt like it lasted for hours she woke up. Sweat rolling of her in buckets making the nightdress stick to the heated skin.
The air in her lungs is thick and heavy smelling like rust, cold stone and magic…
Sarah lays motionless in her bed breathing heavily. Eyes wide and full of fear as she watches the morning light slowly creep into the room.
"Dreams are not real…" she whispers and her voice sounds coarse and alien in the silent room. "Not real… not real… " the soft glow of morning sun was chasing the shadows away and Sarah's heart finally stopped trying to jump out her throat, but when she closed her eyes the world was still tainted red...
Karen puts the large bowl full of cool water on the nightstand besides Sarah's bed. The hour is growing late and she prefers to be ready. The girl, her stepdaughter, is laying in the bed breathing unevenly as if every gulp of air is an effort.
"Do you want to drink some water, Sarah?" 'God she's so white!' unnaturally pale skin seemed to glow in the semi dark room.
Sarah was ill. The kind of sickness that no doctor could find a cure for nor a cause. No medicine could make the child better. On the contrary it seemed to make matters worse until Karen couldn't take watching Sarah suffer even more.
"Yes, water. You don't have to stay with me tonight, Karen. I will be fine, honest." Sarah was such a poor liar. Karen breath hitched at the haunted look on her face.
"No worries, Sarah. I'll leave as soon as you fall asleep."
Sarah's hands tremble and the water spills on her night dress. Curse escapes her lips as she fails to hold the glass straight. The night is setting in and there are tears in the girl's eyes.
Karen moves quickly and is pressing a dry towel to the stain to absorb the moisture. What she wouldn't give for the night to disappear. To make time skip and darkness not to settle outside tonight.
"It's just water, Sarah. Just water…" The older woman is struggling with words as she sees small droplets of sweat form on her stepdaughter's forehead and her eyes dart to the window where behind the glass full moon is rising in the night sky.
She shouldn't believe in curses and bad omens, Karen reminds herself as she takes the glass from Sarah's hands that are shaking visibly now.
Karen really shouldn't believe in many more things, but Sarah is sick so often now and somehow it is always worse when the moon is full. She turns and trashes with fever in delusional dreams that never brings rest. Sometimes she is burning sometimes her hands feels freezing. Sleeping pills makes her vomit, medicine to bring down the fever give her nose bleed, antidepressant to easy her into sleep give her rash that lasts for weeks.
'But that is not the worse'. Karen thought bitterly as she tucked Sarah in. It's the fear and the tears that follow once the night is gone and that Sarah never speaks about the dreams.
So now they just wait it out. Karen sits with her when the sun sets and the shadows grow long. Karen hates night now. Sarah's silent desperate tears, in those nightmares that wouldn't end until the sun is up, breaks her heart anew every night.
Slowly patiently Karen puts a damp cloth on Sarah's forehead as the girl closes her eyes. It will be a long night.
"Do you think I'm a bad person, Karen?" The woman jumps up slightly from surprise. Sarah never speaks once the sunlight disappears from the room, especially on the nights of full moon.
"What? No, of course not." Karen smiles. Maybe she was getting better, even if just a bit.
"And before?"
"Never. I never thought you to be a bad person. Spoiled sometimes, but never bad." There is a smile on Sarah's face as she is looking at Karen.
"Sometimes spoiled?" A weak and fragile hope settles in Karen's heart and she allows herself that indulgence. It has been a six months and this little smile and a joke was the first coherent response she have received after endless sunsets. "I was so terrified when you brought him home… he was so small and he was always crying… like… like he really didn't like me." Sarah is not looking at her anymore and looks guilty. The surprise at the honest statement is brief and Karen is left open mouthed for barely a sec. So that was it. Such a simple reason for so much grief. Why haven't she thought of that?
"Oh Sarah… Babies are like that. It is not personal. He loves you a great deal. He truly does." The woman gently brushes the hair from Sarah's damp forehead and could feel the shivers that were under her stepdaughter's skin.
"Do you mind if I tell you a story? No… I want you to hear a story. I…" Sarah was rocking back and forth with hands on her knees staring at the wrinkled sheets. "Yes …I will tell you a story, Karen."
"Sarah…" Karen didn't know what to do. This have never happened before, but the look on Sarah's face it was determination mixed with fear and covered in sweat and just a glint, a spark of delusion in those beautiful emerald eyes. "Of course, tell me."
The foreboding came over Karen like a fine rain and she could taste it in her mouth all of a sudden like sand and ash. She did not want to hear the story. It was somehow frightening. For why one should be afraid to hear a child's tale?
"Once upon a time lived a girl… she was spoiled and childish and selfish… and lonely and didn't want the world around her to change." Sarah was looking at her gain, confusion on the pale face as if she was uncertain of her own words. "I mean… isn't it better when the things don't change? "
Karen wanted to object, but something in the girl's voice told her that Sarah wasn't speaking to her.
"So when her father remarried and she got a stepmother and a baby brother. The things changed! How stupid!" it was as if Karen caught a glimpse of Sarah as she was a year ago, so angry and resentful. "And they wanted her to look after a baby one evening. The baby…" Just as Sarah's voice turned angry it turned soft and tender as if she was about to cry. "It was so tiny and it cried for no reason. She was scared. What did she do wrong? The baby shouldn't cry if all was right? Right? But it did when ever she looked after him… Wouldn't have it been better if the things haven't changed? So… she was there… alone with the crying baby… and… and…" it was harder to speak but Sarah pushed forward in a whisper and Karen leaned forward to hear her. "She wished."
After uttering the word Sarah clasped both hands over her mouth and looked alarmed as if the floor was about to swallow her.
"Sarah, maybe…" Karen didn't like it.
"She said the words, Karen. The Right Words. Just to make him stop crying. She didn't mean it." Her voice was small. "She truly didn't, she read them in the book and was spellbound. A fairytale to make all troubles go away. Who wouldn't be enchanted? She put the baby to the crib… and she heard it. The rustle, the creek, the scrapping, the tapping. The goblins moving around and the baby was gone! Gone… but she didn't mean it! … He came dressed in armor made of shadows and thunder sung him praise in the violence of the storm. And he held the words spoken against her like cold steel."
Karen wanted to speak, but couldn't. She was bound by Sarah's eyes again so full of fear and anger.
'This is mad. She believes it… No… maybe it is just the night and sickness coming over her.'
"And she said 'You are him…' and he laughed… and it was like needles on her skin, but she begged 'please give the baby back to me if that is all the same' and he said 'what is said is said' and his voice was like the edge of the blade as he said 'I brought you a gift'…. So tempting. So very tempting. 'What is it?' the foolish girl asked. He smiled thus the wider 'If you turn it this way it will show you your dreams. But it is not a gift for an ordinary girl that takes care of a crying baby.'" Sarah's voice grew grave.
"A trick a catch a price for a gift. But his eyes… oh, Karen, his eyes were lying and shone like stars so bright and cold… and the baby was crying somewhere.
'Give me back the baby' she said. 'Please.' The crystal turned into a snake and he tossed… tossed! It at the girl and she thought her heart would stop but it turned to a scarf and she was scared and he was angry. 'Very well' he said and gave 13 hours to reach the very heart of the Labyrinth and she ran… and ran… and he kept cheating! What kind of king was he?" Sarah nearly choked on a sob.
"The Trickster, the Liar, The Deceiver, horrible things wrapped in pretty words. The King of Goblins he is. He holds unwise words against you. Have you ever heard of the Labyrinth?" Karen nearly jumped out of her skin as Sarah turned sharply to her again and just shook her head.
"It is vast. When she stood there On the hill before the first wall she was terrified and then all those turns and dead end and passages that disappear as soon as you turn away!"
"Sarah, please…" Karen's voice was small. One should not fear a tale. She kept telling herself. But all she felt was cold and all she could see was emerald green. The fear was so pure that you could smell it. But Sarah did not hear her.
"And friends, Karen! The girl made friends! A dwarf, a rock calling beast and a fox knight! Such strange things and they helped her get to the Castle." Sarah's voice dropped. " They helped her against the wishes of the Goblin King. The King… The King… The Cheat. He made one of them give her a poisoned fruit and she dreamed of a grand ball and dances and masks of many colors… all that just to make her forget about the baby… She broke the spell into million pieces and all of it was gone, but she reached the City at the Center of the Labyrinth. The City of Goblins… and there she had a battle. For every grand tale has to have at least one, right? And after it she found him… in a room of ups and downs and endless stairs. His words were such pretty pretty lies… such beautiful liar. But just his eyes… so cold like dead stars, like sudden frost on apple blossoms. So cold they burned… the eyes of a Liar King. Such pretty words he spoke to sway her. To steal the time that she had left, yet it was not to be. The girl won, Karen. "
Sarah sat there on the bed still like a statue just the sweat was rolling down her temples.
"Thru hardships unnumbered and dangers untold she won the child back and took him home... Home. A trick a catch a price for a gift. Always the Deceiver, the King of Goblins. Every unwise wish has a price… a penance… "
"But?"
"She was told… not all things are as they seem. Sometimes… But she won! Won, Karen! She came back. They should not…. No. there should not be a way in-between. Not If she won…"
"They who?"
"The Goblins of course. Karen, do you believe in goblins?"
"Goblins?" the woman was at the loss what to say to that.
"Yes, Karen, goblins. They are a weird bunch. Strange little things. Fierce and terribly loyal. But the funny thing is… they are as you think of them… I… her…" Sarah finally slipped and bit her tongue but there was nothing to be done." I thought they were childish. Child like little monsters. Very stupid to think that, very lucky that I did for that is how I managed to get to the Castle. How strange… How very strange… I sometimes hear them around in the house but…"
"Goblins are not real, Sarah. You are not well, and this old house can make some strange noises that make even my skin crawl. It is the wooden structure."
"No… a house doesn't snicker or laugh. I am sure…" The room was spinning.
"Sarah? My goodness, Sarah, lay down…"
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