The Riddle Legacy

By

Juno Malabre

3/12/2005

Strange images have been haunting my dreams over the last two nights. Last night for instance: a young woman huddled in a clearing in the Riddle forest, wearing very old fashioned clothes and waving a stick over something on the mossy floor. This is not the puzzling thing, for I have seen this, and many similar situations in my dreams as far back as I remember. However, in this particular dream, as the woman turned, the point at which I habitually awoke, the figure blurred and sharpened. Now the girl wore normal, albeit filthy clothes, and I recognised her as Gaunt's brat. She stood and stood there, and all at once, in that strange way that dreams have, a baby appeared in her arms. However this child was hideously deformed, as pale as milk with eyes of red, and slits in place of a nose. I awoke in a cold sweat, gasping my throat tightening with the knowledge that… Ah, how do I put this… In the dream, that monster was my son.

I feel restless today, still disturbed by that image. I thought, by setting it all down in black ink, I would feel less horrified. But no. Perhaps I shall take a ride over the valley, even visit the girl herself, if only to confirm that my horror of a dream could never become a reality.

O the tortures of love! I have been a misguided fool, and now I am a lost fool. This morning I wrote that having any sort of offspring with Merope would be impossible. Yet I want nothing more than that! O I love her, I love her! My beloved is an angel on earth!

And what changed my mind?

I barely know myself. Again, I labour under the delusion that if I set all this madness down on clean, fresh paper, the love-confused mess in my head will become clear.

I had my horse saddled and brought round to me by Bryce, the gardener's son, and I set off at high speed, following a path down into the valley itself, away from the tiny village of Little Hangleton. I soon descended into the calm that filled the valley, and my thoughts drifted off once again to my strange dream. The magic, (and I am almost certain it was magic, forgive me if it sounds foolish,) Merope had been performing before she turned unsettled me. And for good reason too; there is a rumour in these parts that some time during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a different village had stood in the place of Little Hangleton. It is certainly true that the village records only start in 1602, just before the death of that good queen, and anyone with a sharp stick and stout boots can turn the earth in certain fields and find blackened cornerstones and rotting wood. The tale goes on to tell how one day a great fire swept through the village, leaving nothing of the buildings once there but these blackened remains. Then this absurd fiction states that this was no ordinary fire, but a witch's spell started by the very residents of my house, the Riddle house. Complete rubbish, however it was rubbish that got the entire family killed after a distressed housemaid went to the authorities and pointed the finger. The sole survivor was the widowed Mrs. Riddle, who returned to live in the unscathed house with her young son. I am a direct descendant of that lucky woman, and there has not been any hint of magic in the ancient Riddle bloodline since then. But still, the notion of it makes me uneasy.

I let the horse have its head as we began to climb and my mind strayed with these thoughts, and it broke into a brisk trot, then a canter. I only remembered my original destination as I raced past Merope herself standing at the entrance to her squalid house. The sudden shock of seeing her seemingly waiting for me made me pull back sharp on the reins and the horse stopped abruptly. I however, did not, and carried on over the brute's head and crashed heavily onto the road. I heard a sickening crack and felt an unbearable pain in my left arm before the colours of the world swam away and I was left in blackness.

A/N: Well, here it is, the sequel to The Darkest Riddle. I think it will be able to stand alone, however there may be some references that Riddle virgins wont appreciate…

Reviews would be muchly appreciated. xx