DISCLAIMER: Alas, I do not own anything related to Labyrinth, David Bowie or Jim Henson and Co.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Shattered orbs…
Ribbons and rubies…
Spoils and sin…
The Goblin King stared.
His reflection stared back, his mismatched eyes boring into his with the same intensity that terrified countless foes on bloody battlefields long since passed. His body hitched involuntarily as his spine hunched taut. He could feel his magic itching along his fingers, scratching along sinewy forearms, wrapping coarse tendrils into his thin, broad shoulders. His ire was a hurricane swirling beneath his skin as he ground his teeth against the storm.
You are dead.
His hands slammed against the long side table, the pitcher and basin quaking, as the king growled. "She believes me dead." His lungs strained to draw breath as his heart beat against his breastbone with shattering force. Each jagged rasp was agony and his eyes burned from the effort, "She believes me dead!"
He lifted his head, his shoulders set in fierce determination, the posture of a predator, and again met his reflection. Madness lurked in the depths of those unequal irises, flashing intermittently with onerous swivet and pain as moisture began to bead along his brow. His mind had laid the uneven brickwork of pessimism, preparing him for the inevitable eschewal of his Riddle; he had been prepared to let her go. Again. As each week bled into the next and his power returned, slower than a ship on a windless sea, the king— grudgingly— examined the notion that she would be finished with him and their midnight trysts.
The Goblin King never believed their lakeside rendezvous would last forever. Eventually, they would have parted ways, be it in tears or anger, solemnity or indifference, Sarah would cease to wish. How naive he had been— to think that such a thing would not disturb him so profoundly!
I have wished… night after night…
A far more disturbing thought crept into his brain, the black spider spinning webs of putrefied worry in the shadowy corners. Night after night… he was certain he had not heard Sarah's calling, he would have rushed to her side before the final words fell from her lips— wounds be damned!
Night after night…
A growl rose from deep within his chest, bursting free to become a feral roar that threatened to shake the very castle in which he stood. His fist slammed against the glass, splintering the pristine surface and tearing the unmarred ridges of his knuckles. The crisp bandages of his previous injury stained red. Over and over his hand cracked against the jagged, razored surface, the topography of his flesh shifting from the impact, blood soaking his hand. Radiating up his wrist, the pain did little to quiet the churning rage rumbling in his veins. With a final ululation, he snatched at the ruined glass and threw the heavy frame violently across the room before tossing the table along with it.
The Goblin King had not heard her wishes.
Louis Praet glanced down to the slumbering nymph ferreted beneath his heavy wool coat, his own lips stretched in a reserved smile. Above the upturned collar, her short tangle of curls covered most of her beauty, but he found he was not bothered. The contented sigh that slipped past her lips as he laid the warm garment over her trembling flesh had been more than enough to ease his yearning for the young beauty. If only for a few short hours.
The cockcrow was too near to be ignored any longer, the heavy piceous blanket hovering behind the stars had begun to fade into the louring slate of dawn. Beyond the stained glass windows, a pregnant fog clung to the lily-white snow blooming atop the frost-brittled grass. The day would be unforgivably cold.
He knew he must wake her, lest the torrent that was Sister Florence reign fire and ash upon his waifish charge, leaving her to spend another day in righteous prayer. Weak to a fault, the girl was fed barely enough to stave the most obvious signs of voracity. Another night in the chapel would be her undoing. Louis would not stand for it.
Whilst he knew the girl deserved to be courted properly, with countless bouquets of roses so fragrant she needn't bother with perfumes, and jewels sparkling to rival the brilliance of the sun, his circumstances prevented such fantasy. Louis wished he could provide her with extravagant frivolities day after day, as though she were, not royalty, but a goddess. A celestial being born for the express purpose of worship. He would be baptized in her love and his devotion boundless, but alas, his purse was too empty for religion.
In the world beyond the asylum, where decorum and propriety were akin to cleanliness, Sarah Williams would be lost to him. It was only here, amid the vagabonds, lunatics, and villains that he could entertain such preposterous thoughts of love and pleasure. Were she not broken, chipped and fractured like a mismatched set of bone china, she would never have crossed the threshold of this Godforsaken hole.
Silently, he had observed her through the red-stained glass of the ornate windows deep set in solid oak doors. Spine rigid, the girl knelt beneath the unseeing Christ, her head bowed in pious contrition. He had watched as she swayed atop her knees, his palm pressed flat against the door to quell his trembling limb. When she collapsed against the stone, her sibilated whimpers slipping beneath the gap in the threshold, it had taken all he possessed to remain fixed behind the wood slab.
More than once he had nearly lost himself, his hand hovering over the iron ring, his muscles tense, but he did not falter. The overwhelming desire to succor the girl was trumped by the garish luminescence of reality. For if she basked in the anodyne waters of healing, mending the myriad of fractures in her psyche, Sarah Williams would be free.
He would die first.
For nearly an hour he had watched her shiver in the dark, her body trembling on the unforgiving floor before he dared enter. Another five minutes passed before he surrendered his coat as a reprieve from the biting cold. For two hours she slept undisturbed, and he watched her vigilantly. Studying the subtle movements of her lips, and the gentle sounds purred into the darkness, Louis could not remember a time he felt more contented, even if he was left unsated.
Dropping to his knee beside her prone form, Louis smoothed a single digit over the line of flesh peeking between her curls and the borrowed coat. At the feel of her icy, porcelain skin beneath his coarse fingers, he sighed audibly, closing his eyes as his head tipped back. Pulse rampant, Louis fell into the simmering pool of his desire, succumbing to the urge he brushed the curls from her face.
Louis reared back as the girl stirred, a pained whimper sliced through the silence between them, the sound ripped him from his stupor. Her eyes flew open, boring into his own for a moment before fluttering closed once more, her exhaustion too heavy to fight. Casting a glance first to the high windows, still dark despite the encroaching dawn, then to the heavy doors which remained slightly ajar from his entrance.
God, how he wished he could linger and allow her to slumber! Had they more time he could have warmed her further, his body pressed tightly against her own, as she cocooned within the shelter of his arms. What sweet ambrosial scent would capture his senses holding her so near? Would she resist, or could he coax her into his embrace?
A sudden urgency to see her wake fluttered deep within his gut like the dead leaves in autumn. The way the rabbit is aware of the prowling wolf at the edge of the forest, so too was Louis aware that the austere nuns were soon to disturb the quiet chapel. While he could not deny the temptation to leave her to the mercy of the sisters where she would be punished for her otioseness, even the finest china would leak if too broken.
Moving to stand by her feet, and with wanton slowness he dragged the heavy wool from her person, revealing her lithe frame for his scrutiny. If only he had more time! Pulling the coat onto his shoulders, her lingering redolence encompassed him in the sweetest delicacy he had ever known. It was the same scent- buried beneath the pungent fumes of rodents, sweat, and blood- that had drawn him into the mouth of obsession.
With a deep, slow inhale he pulled her perfume into his lungs, imprinting her into his memory forevermore. Once the evidence of his interference was firmly around his shoulders, Louis begrudgingly shook the girl awake, watching as her eyes blinked apart.
"Miss…" he grumbled, shaking her gently again. "Miss, please, you must wake." Tossing a glance over his shoulder, Louis began pulling the girl to her knees. "The sisters are coming… please."
Humming, the girl slumped in his arms. Her chin dropped and she fell forward, her momentum halted by the hands firmly clamped around her shoulders. She was thin, her weight so slight she could hardly crease his waistcoat as she leaned fully into him, her head nuzzling his chest as sleep pulled her under. Her closeness was richer than the most luxurious wine. Even her hair, matted and tangled as it was, felt soft as lamb's fleece against his cheek.
He was loathe to move her, but move her he must.
With almost violent force, he shoved her upright with a low growl. As before, she teetered and fell, her breath tickling the at his ear as she loosed a light snore. His body responded immediately, his nerves on fire as he allowed himself one forbidden moment to savor the feel of her against his chest. It was only when his heart became restless, and his skin prickled with want, begging him to press her nearer did he release her.
He could not trust his body in such proximity to her own.
With almost violent force he removed her from his person, shoving her upright with a low, lustrous growl. Shifting awkwardly, he moved to kneel before her, shaking her hard enough to make her teeth chatter and her eyes flutter. Still she did not fully wake.
Desperate, Louis cuffed the side of her face.
Her lip split beneath his hand and her eyes shot open, tears soaking the edge of her lashes as she looked frantically about the space. Fear, crisp and palpable, darkened her green irises as she locked her gaze with his. Trembling, her lips tried to form the words swimming about the murky waters of her brain, but she was helpless to speak.
"You must continue your prayers… they are coming." Louis rose abruptly and stalked to the doors, not looking back at the temptress kneeling, wide eyed beneath the crucified Christ. He hadn't wanted to hurt her, but a stinging cheek was far better than whatever the women-of-God would do to her if they knew she had slept.
The girl would forgive him.
He reminded her of the Goblin King.
Not in appearance, but the way in which he stalked about, circling her like a vulture to the dead. She did not meet his charcoal-silver stare, much to his disappointment. He had not spoken a single word, nor opened his mouth in the fifteen minutes since she was dragged to his office and dropped unceremoniously into the worn, plush chair.
Instead, Harold Elswick paced, each step slow and calculated as he made a circle around the whole of the room. The guff of pipe tobacco swirled unseen above them, burning her eyes and leaving a bitter tang in her mouth.
Exhaustion still clung to her like the fog along the moors. Periodically, her head tipped forward, her eyes sliding closed of their own volition as sleep beckoned. In the beginning she had taken to driving her nails into the cuticle of her thumb, the ache strong enough to take the barbarous edge off her growing tiredness. Yet as time dragged on, and her dosage of laudanum varied daily, the pain had become nothing more than excess pressure.
She took to biting her cheek instead.
The office was strangely ornate, filled with luxurious furnishings that were in stark contrast with the dank rooms where she was often confined. Near the heavy-draped window, clouded from both fog and beading condensation, were two large, overstuffed chairs in dark velvet, perched atop an expensive Persian rug.
Not for the first time, she wondered how an asylum physician could afford such exorbitant decor… though she was fairly certain she already knew the answer.
"Twelve weeks you have been here," the doctor chimed. "Twelve."
Turning, he continued his route, walking behind his desk and along the wall to her left. "My brother claims your soul is no longer in jeopardy," his voice hung heavy with skepticism as he circled the room. The gentle click of his shoes muffled with each step upon the plush carpet. "It would appear your Cleansing has proved fruitful…" his words trailed away briefly before he added, with distinct choler, he footsteps halting at her back. "Whilst you have reclaimed possession over your soul, the stain- tar upon snow- will never abate. Because of your foolishness you have been marked, kissed by darkness, your candle nearly snuffed." Clearing his throat, he pressed on, "I merely seek to guide your mind to peace- but you know this. Week after week you have heard my odious speech of healing and freedom, and time and time again you have remained steadfast in your silence. We cannot hope for progress if you will not speak."
Harold stepped closer, his fingers wrapping around the top edge of the chair, digging into the faded material. "Silence cannot grant your freedom."
Neither will compliance. Biting her cheek with ripping force, she kept her retort locked away, her eyes drifting back to the opaque window.
"I very much believe in my brother's work, though I admit to a great degree of skepticism at first, the results are irrefutable." His tone lifted, a matter-of-factness diluting his words. "The soul is of little interest to me, I have found the most fascinating are often devoid of theirs."
Abruptly he moved from behind her, to resume his monotonous dance. "While those who have cleansed themselves are more apt to my treatments, I am still able to tend to the ...less fortunate." A dark, secretive joke curled his lip and he chuckled ominously. "My fondest wish is to see what is lurking in the minds of the vilest, cruelest, most insidious beings to ever walk the earth… but alas as it stands such things are impossible. Nevertheless, I am getting closer. With every failure there is a grain of progress-a beacon if you will- that illuminates another fraction of the dark."
Again he stopped directly at her back, his hands taking their position once more. He remained silent for an inordinate amount of time, the sound of this fingers tapping the chair counted the passing minutes.
At long last, when her eyes had become lead and her cheek a decocted, bloodied mess, did he finally speak. His voice changed from that of a scholar mid recitation, to the deep, gravelly timbre of vaingloriousness. "A cleansed soul is only the beginning. I must scour your mind of its rabid impurities and licentious imaginings. Your perfidy has been found out, and you are at a crossroads."
Prowling, he moved to tower before her. His cold, unflinching eyes daring her defiance as he looked down his long, crooked nose. The air turned cold. The blazing fire, unable to burn the frost from her bones at the man's villainous glare, roared at the other end of the room.
"I can heal you, Sarah Williams. I can mend the crooked, broken cogs in your brain, refitting new and better ones so that you will not fall victim to such depravity again. I can make you whole, reborn as the woman you once were before weakness overcame you. It will be painless, if you but submit to my will. Let me heal you."
Slowly, he knelt, reaching for her hands knotted atop her lap. Softly, his thumb caressed her skin, the touch offering a strange, but not altogether unwanted moment of comfort. Her hands grew warm, and her mind drifted.
You must wish me back…
The burning sands of her memory sank beneath her feet as she tried to remain grounded. Tell me where you are… The dream had lingered fresh on her mind in the days that followed. Never fading. She could recall the feel of his words as they wrapped around her, the hum if his baritone as he whispered her name. Make your wish.
A growl was her only warning. Pulled from her lucid dreaming, Sarah yelped as his hand slowly crushed her own. Her bones popped audibly in his vice grip, shifting under the immense pressure forcing her to cry out. Still he did not relent. Sarah screamed. Struggling, she attempted to pry her hand free, the pain mounting as the bound of her self-inflicted silence were tested.
"Wrong choice."
Shards glittered across the floor, shattered in the storm of terrified madness. Reflecting the candlelight in the hundreds of pieces sprawling over the stone, the fragments lay in a tangle of snow white powder and porcelain bits. Each bearing witness to the tempestuous fray of panic and loss. Droplets of crimson rubies dotted a trail along the wreckage leading to the man kneeling atop the glass, his shoulders rounded, his hands splayed, helpless.
The sonorous carnage of the adjoining room had not woken Emere from his dreamless slumber, where the pains of his excursions were easily forgotten as he lingered in the black abyss. It was not a sound that ripped him violently from the bowels of sleep, but a fluttering over his skin. He had not been touched, yet his senses became alert as something intangible drifted out of reach.
Jolting with such violence he nearly toppled from his seat, Emere clutched at his heart dragging deep gulps into his lungs. Sweat dampened his brow, molding his linen shirt to his chest. Disoriented, his eyes darted about, the blazing fire reflecting off the gold filigree blinding him as he searched for the source of his distress.
He was alone.
How long had he slept? Ticking softly on the mantle, the clock stretched its hands wide, each pointing to opposite sides of its face. No doubt the king had long since gone to bed. There was no reason for his distress, and as the quiet settled around him, Emere felt the frantic drumming of his heart ease into its usual rhythm.
Fluttering feathers of auspice brushed along his nerves, dusting his skin in the iridescent powder of tenebrose worry. Rising from his chair, the bones in his aged knees creaked as he stepped forward heedless of the broken tumbler beside him. The room was much too warm, in the hours he'd slept, the air had become stifling and viscid.
The charred logs snapped in the hearth, the sound creeping along his neck, prickling his awareness and rolling the bile in his gut. Each breath was strained as he turned about, noting with keen displeasure that the room remained entirely unchanged. With the exception of the monarch, there was nothing missing and yet…
Scrubbing a hand down his face, the adviser growled through his exhaustion. It was far too late- or perhaps too early- for such childish anxieties. Whatever ghost sought to haunt him could certainly wait until morning. Striding purposefully to the door, Emere snatched the handle, his grip almost enough to crush the iron beneath his hand.
Fainter than leaves twinkling on the breeze, the sensation returned, kindling the glowing embers of his worry until thick, orange ribbons singed his flesh.
Where was the king?
Cursing repeatedly as a soldier in the throws of war, his own foolishness grated against his nerves. His eyes rolled audibly as he released his hold on the door, spinning to re-enter the quiet room. Emere ground his teeth, his nostrils flared as he stormed to the adjoining door waiting at the far side of the room.
Leaning closer against the wood, he waited, but heard nothing beyond the sound of his own slow, exhausted breath. Shaking his head, looked to the ceiling as though it could provide an explanation for his newfound beadledom. Pinching the bridge of his nose to relieve the swelling tension behind his over-tired eyes, the adviser schooled his insouciance as he opened the door the barest fraction.
The dressing room was dark, the fire beyond gasped on the final threads of the black, withered logs resting in the hearth. The fading light reflected along the floor, highlighting the pogrom with glaring clarity. Presage slowed his actions as he pushed the door open wide, taking a cautious step into the broken room.
Frowning deeply, Emere tiptoed into the room, his eyes drinking in the details of the ruined space. Shifting beneath his feet, the splinters of glass crunched like fresh-fallen snow. Crouching low, he slid his finger through the dark splatters painted upon the floor, the cold, sticky liquid clung to his skin. Blood. The fine hairs at the nape of his neck rose, like that of a wolf poised for a fight, his haunched braced for combat. Instantly he rose, turning about the room, but he was alone.
Another door stood ajar.
The Goblin King had not been easy to find.
Two hours Emere had searched, quietly stalking the private corridors and passageways, sneaking glances into empty rooms trying to discern man from shadow. As the dawn chorus began and the clouds burned amber, lighting the Labyrinth in shimmering gold, the adviser happened upon the king. Perhaps he should have known to search the private study tucked within the vast, towering library— he did possess the key, after all— but his mind was weary, and exhaustion, a living breathing entity, possessed his soul.
As demon exorcised by a mortal priest, Emere was purged of his languor the moment he laid eyes on his quarry. He was feral. The mismatched eyes burned with unbridled fire above dark, heavy circles of sleeplessness as he hunched over the large desk littered with the haphazard towers of books. Each were stacked with tottering otioseness as a figure leaned, with hunched shoulders over an open tome, whispering feverishly under his breath. "NO!" he bellowed, slamming his fist against the innocent pages. "There must be…" his voice trailed away as he tossed the heavy book to the floor. Snatching another from an unsteady rickle, he frantically leafed through the pages nearly tearing them from the spine. His desultory enthusiasm was an endangerment to the ancient volumes littering the floor.
Wisely, Emere had not immediately made his presence known. Spellbound by the obstreperous man and his aberrant behavior, he lingered at the open doorway, watching as he tossed another rare and aged text aside.
"My Lord?"
Starting at the uninvited sound, the king looked up sharply. Mismatched eyes bristled with fervid rancor as his nostrils tost above snarling lips. "What?!" He barked before diving back into his work, the chorus of pages whispering in the quiet room.
Three more met the same fate.
Growling, the king slammed his fist against the desk, the obtunding sound crashed against the thick stone walls. Leaning onto his hands, he sagged under harrowing avoirdupois as his head dolorously fell forward. A melancholic sigh pushed through his thin and weary lips, "What?" he asked in a gruff, desperate whisper.
"What, indeed." Emere frowned, tipping his head to the hunched man, before smoothing his features and strolling idly into the room with his hands clasped lightly against his back. Casually, as not to alarm the tetchy, irascible man propped over his desk, the adviser brushed his gaze over the spines of the mountain. Unknowingly his peppered brow arched as the titles made themselves known as he completed his perusal of the now-crowded office, his lips twitching to regain the austere frown left at the door. "You were never so engrossed with these books as a boy; as I recall you claimed them dull, and utterly useless." Sentimentality overtook him, replaying memories of a young prince with the shimmering, golden hues of ameliorating fondness. "Twice you drove a tutor to near-madness with your bored antics…" the memory drifted between them like plump, feathering snowflakes. How he missed those days of roguery and meretricious delight! How much easier things had seemed so long ago, before the crown and the Labyrinth.
Before her.
"Thrice." The King corrected with a purr of palliation, "three tutors fled their duties, refusing to further my education on the claim that I was unteachable."
A low, pleasant chuckle rumbled from Emere as he moved to the edge of the desk, tracing his fingers along the spines resting there. "Your humor was rather solipsistic and dry, even as a young boy. I always did appreciate your gaiety; it is no wonder they did not."
"Yes." Mismatched eyes lifted to meet with those of his companion, all trace of humor had fled, "and my father had me whipped for my puerility."
The adviser, having learnt the preponderancy of silence, bit his tongue; for there was nothing he could say against the truth. After a time however, the festering whispers of his emotions began to sing their chorus once more and he was helpless but to beg his questions.
"With your father dead and your tutors gone, what drives your curiosity thusly?" Plucking the book from the table he read the spine aloud. "Passage and Mortar; Brick and Blood," his eyes flashed, as his spoke with a thin, dark voice. "Why would you bring this from the vaults?" Dropping his voice to the quietest sibilation, as though the walls might gossip in his absence of the crowns greatest secrets, Emere pressed on. "Whatever it is you seek, I beg you do not find your answers here. It is a fool's errand to find solace in the accursed texts."
Seemingly unaffected by the adviser's blatant objections to his choice of cull, the king straightened and moved around the edge of the desk. Linking his hands behind his back, he strolled languidly to the window, a mollifying smirk stretching his thin lips. The King stood motionless, honeyed-beams of sunlight streamed through the glass highlighting the muscles of his angular face as they drew taut beneath his tawny, untrimmed beard. His eyes fixated on an invisible point out beyond the glass amid the sprawling scenery of the glacial, snow-dusted Labyrinth.
Glancing over his shoulder, he offered his friend a peculiar smirk. "You fret too much, Emere." The change in his voice was notable, the lilt too faineant as he studied his companion, and the heavy volume in his hands. "That book…" his mercurial eyes nearly rolled out of his head, as he spun with practiced grace to fully face the other man, his finger aimed at the offending tome. Stalking nearer he growled, snatching the item with a thief's eagerness, his nostrils flaring. "That damned book has proved to be as useful as fire to a drought!"
Without warning the book slammed against the stones, the sound barreling off the walls a moment before a dozen crystals exploded against the worn, embossed cover. Again and again the perfect spheres rent the air shattering into millions of glittering fragments of iridescent dust. All at once the tirade ended, and the room was drenched in a tidal wave of silence, broken only by the heaving, panting breaths of the King, and the erratic popping in the hearth.
Not a shard nor spec marred the cover.
Thick as tar, the cumbrous silence pressed stone by stone against their lungs as the minutes ticked on. A permanent scowl cut lines across the King's brow, twitching as he ground his teeth in agitation.
Anger and fear and regret had ruled him weeks since his faculties returned, stealing his sleep and concentration. Emere noted the changes, but chose to maintain his own counsel, bearing silent witness as the King's wiry frame twitched at the faintest click of boots, or knock upon his door.
Like a starving man awaits his next meal, the king awaited his Riddle's call.
Mordant, like gravel underfoot, the desperate man's whisper slashed the air like a dull blade ripping through skin, dragging Emere back to the present. To his king.
"She believes me dead."
"Wh- the girl?"
"She is convinced her wish killed me!" Raking a hand through his disheveled locks, he hissed loudly, grinding his teeth. "She refused to wish me back!"
Blinking at the sudden admission, Emere stuttered, his brows rising to his hairline. "I suppose it is a plausible explanation. However, until she makes her wish it is merely… theoretical."
"She has wished," casting a crystal into the roaring hearth, the man roared his frustrations into the dancing flames. "She never stopped."
"I don't unders-"
"Sarah never stopped wishing! Never!" Sad, grief-laden eyes lifted to his, their mismatched depths blackened with worry. Defeated, the blonde sighed, his shoulders sagging from the effort. "All this time... I have heard nothing." After a beat, he strode to the mantle, his arms bracing against the ornate molding as his fingers wrapped along the edge. "Nothing!"
"How…" the adviser began, his tone choked with caution. In much the same manner a man tames a lion, Emere pressed his ruler, demanding an answer to the question he was certain he did not want. "How do you know this?"
Silence.
"How…?" Slowly, his eyes narrowed, cresting into thin, disbelieving slits. "What have you done?"
Louis Praet pulled his pocket watch from the thin pocket of his waistcoat and glared at the cracked face. It was nearing five o'clock, and still there was no sign of his fragile beauty. The open hall of the asylum was crowded, as it was every day at this hour, and he glanced about looking over the oddities and loons with a frown. He recognized most of the faces and the ones he didn't were of little concern.
He knew that the hoard would soon thin, as the charges were returned to their cells for their evening slop and rest. The fortunate few with enough family coin to line the Estate's coffers were sent for their refined treatments, where they would receive personalized care. Often, he or another of the many guards of the Estate were called upon to offer their assistance with unruly patients, using any manner of force to subdue the unwilling.
Tonight he was free and so was his flightless bird.
The dinner tray had not come that night. Nor the two before.
Waiting atop the dirty pile of weeks-old straw mattress, lumped and matted and stained from use, Sarah drifted from the world of oblivion and peace to wakefulness and pain. Drawn protectively against her breast, her injured hand pulsed, the fingers had curled as the skin swelled and purpled. When the sun had set she was left in perfect darkness as sleep teased at her senses. Her eyes were raw, crusted with the salt of her long-dried tears.
Surrendering to the tenebrose void of slumber, Sarah closed her eyes as exhaustion dulled her senses. Her dreams came quickly, but alas they offered no reprieve from her torment; her mind conjuring horrible visions of broken wings and charred flesh.
Sarah jolted violently, pulling herself from the depths of her nightmares with a gasp on her lips. Panic welled in her breast, itching along her spine as she trembled in fear. The room had fallen to pitch, her hand barely visible at the end of her nose. Thudding wildly in her chest, her pulse galloped, and her stomach churned. The room was too small. The air too close.
Seized by a sudden fit of dread, Sarah darted to the door, clawing wildly at the barricade. "Please! Please! Let me go!" She banged on the heavy wood, whimpering, tearing at the seams, but it did not move. Crazed, her tears threatened to drown her as she begged hoarsely for release, her fingers attacking the hinges and pins as if she might pull them free. "Please!" Her screams crashed against her ears, pounding against her skull as she slammed her hands against the wood, heedless of her broken fingers. Digging into the coarse metal, she did not notice the fire racing up her arm, nor the warm, slick blood dripping from her nails.
Finally, she gave up and collapsed against the door, exhausted and spent. Her hands twitched in her lap, crimson and dripping as her breath came in shuddering sobs. She could feel the inflammation puffing her throbbing, mangled hands to the point of agonized paralysis. White-hot pain lit the nerves in her fingers as she tried to push off the floor, falling back onto her rump with a sharp cry. She stayed that way, pressed against the unyielding door, sobbing into the dark.
The locket glinted in the torchlight, dull and tarnished as it was. The little rose, once white, was now tinged black from the constant caress of soot and grime stained fingers. Sighing, his head fell back against the uneven stone as his eyes fell closed listening for any sound of the girl on the other side of the wall.
For weeks he had remained posted beside her door, not by order, but rather by choice. Guarding the fragile creature had become his unspoken duty that he was loathe to ignore. With each sunrise his need for her grew, and with it, the ever-beckoning aria swelled, enticing him with images of what might be… His eyes lifted, caressing the latch, knowing the operose groan that would follow as he slid the pin free.
She would know the moment he entered.
As not to frighten her further, he would bring a torch, though admittedly it would be more for his benefit than her own. He wanted to see her; sitting perched at the edge of the bed, her nightgown askew, hair mussed from sleep. She would pull the blanket closer, not for warmth, but to preserve her modesty as a blush tinged her cheeks, her green eyes sparkling with innocent fire. He would watch the lift of her hand, palm open, inviting his own to take refuge.
He would not deny her.
She would draw him nearer, pulling him lightly onto the open, waiting space beside her, a coquettish smile pulling at her lips. Enticing him to taste— and taste he would, savoring the feel of her full lips beneath his own. Bringing his hand to her cheek, bending her back, pressing her further into the mattress, trapping her in his embrace. His hands would slide between the thin fabric of her nightgown coaxing the sound of her desire to echo about the room, growing louder with every moment until her final shout of ecstasy would fade into a sated sigh.
He could wait no longer. He had been patient, so very patient. Rising to his feet, he stowed the necklace in his breast pocket, tapping it once for luck. Smoothing his hair back, he tugged at the hem of his worn waistcoat, and cleared his throat. It was time. Reaching for the bolt hold, he was stopped short as a cry rent the placid night air, rooting him to the spot.
Cold washed through his veins like a winter storm, purging the heat of passion, leaving only presage and fear. Pulling his hand from the bolt as if burnt, he staggered back, clutching a hand to his pocket and the souvenir within. He had nearly ruined everything— acting on his lust like a virgin schoolboy! Fool! He chastised, Reckless! Thoughtless fool! Turning his back to the door, Louis took a steadying breath, calming the hurricane of his mind. Shaking his head, Praet lifted his chin, squaring his shoulders he took a step down the narrow hall.
"Please!" the wailing all but blended with the hellacious chorus of deviants. "Please!" Banging followed the wretched sound, frantic drumming tattooing in the torch lit corridor.
Spinning to the door with breakneck speed, Louis pressed his palms against the rough, dark wood scratching his calloused skin. His pulse quickened with the desire to comply, the tremulous crack of her voice was nearly his undoing as he screwed his eyes shut.
That voice!
Euphoric and melodious, the sound- even desperate as it was- pressed upon his need, like a kiss on a pulse; warm and maddening. Too long he had yearned to hear her speak and make real that which was merely fantasy. Thirteen weeks he had waited, thirteen weeks hoping that she would gift him a single word.
At long last here was his reward! The first notes of a tuning violin, a single drop of rain in a vast desert: he wanted more.
So much more.
Teetering on the edge of witless impulsivity, his fingers tapped the rhythm of his pulse against the barricade he so wished to destroy. "Speak." He commanded in a breathless whisper, as a single digit caressed a dark vein in the wood.
Silence greeted him.
The longer his demand went ignored the harder his blood raged and his anger roared. Turning his head, Louis listened with rapt intent for more, the shell of his ear just brushing the door.
Her whimpers assaulted his senses, just loud enough to seep through the minuscule seams of the wood, driving their hooked talons with fatal precision into his flesh.
An agonized whimper seeped through the seams of the door, followed by her frayed hum. "I-I wish…" her voice caught, "I w-wish…he... w-were here." Two heartbeats echoed, "Now! Please, please come back…please!" Her sobs grew louder, the words nearly unintelligible as she blubbered desperately. "I w-wish y-you… NOW! I wish…"
White sparks flashed behind his eyes as his draconian control snapped in twain. In his thirty four years, Louis Praet had never been appellated a particularly brilliant man, but even he knew the girl did not mean him. The revelation should not have churned the bile in his gut, nor sent the blood pulsing to this ears, and yet it had. Who could his little bird be wishing for?
An unfamiliar heat singed each vertebrae, the heat at the base of his skull almost unbearable. Had she a white knight, his armor blinding under the noonday sun, coming to whisk her away from his limited reach?
No! No, that would not do! Sarah Williams was the brightest star in the heavens, her beauty incomparable even in such a place as this! Now she wished to leave- to be rescued by some unnamed swine? He would not allow it!
Neither would Father Elswick.
The halls were silent and the night still.
The bed was never warm. The wool blanket was too thin, too moth-eaten to provide heat behind the icy stone. Shaking beneath the coarse cloth, she cradled her fingers, tacked with blood and splinters from her sudden hysterical furor. She could not sleep. Her mind mercilessly tortured her with rippling memories of the mercurial man slain with naught but her words. A knife blade stabbed behind her eyes, the pressure building to a catalytic swelling that, once burst, would leave her blind.
Screaming upon its hinges, the heavy wooden door swung open, the flickering torchlight flooding the room with a weak orange glow. The pain flared, and she shut her eyes against the luminescence, burying her face beneath the harsh blanket with a groan. She knew better than to hide, but her limbs were too weak, her mind too tired to do otherwise.
The cold splashed over her skin as the covering was ripped from her body, leaving her trembling atop the straw mattress in only her issued nightdress. Curling into the tightest ball she could manage, Sarah whimpered, lifting her arms to shield her grimacing face.
Fingers dug into the flesh of her arm, the bruises forming almost instantly beneath her sleeve, as she was tugged crudely to her feet where she swayed on the spot. Her hand found purchase as she attempted to steady herself, her palm lying flat against the chest of the intruder, but try as she might she could not force her eyes to fully open as another hand grabbed her. Mewling pathetically, she fought against the vice-grip of her captor, but her efforts were in vain. Wrenched from her feet, she collided with the blunt, rounded edge of a shoulder, the sharp ache grating against the pleats of her ribs. Gasping to reclaim her stolen breath, her struggling died instantly as bile rose in her throat. Blinking at the wall of tears swelling along the edge of her lashes, her heart hammered in her throat. Where were they taking her? What had she done?
Despite the nausea pooling in her stomach with each jarring step, exhaustion was the greater foe, and she could not strike down. Time seemed to blur, fading into a pool of swirling onyx, teasing the frayed edges of her nerves. The arm locked over the back of her thighs shifted, and before her mind could consider a protest, she was dropped to the floor as a grocer drops a sack of grain. Her wrist took the weight of her fall, sending a sharp, needling pain through the joint.
She was given no time to mourn as the same guard who had tossed her into the room, dove his hand into her matted, unclean curls to drag her across the frozen stones. Sarah screamed. Both hands shot to scratch and claw at the appendage tangled in her hair heedless of her crooked, raw fingers, and quickly swelling wrist. Kicking wildly about, her feet struggled to find purchase, as she was trawled across the long, narrow room. The pressure on her scalp dissipated the moment she was released from the unforgiving hold, and deposited facing the farthest wall, rolling onto her hands as if she might run. The chaotic drumming of her agony eased into its usual chorus of pulsing dolor, as Sarah looked over her shoulder, taking in the unassumingly bare room. A large flaming hearth at the opposite end consumed most of the wall, flanked on either side by tall, iron candelabras, each sparsely filled. A single chair waited in the corner, and nothing else. Her blood ran cold.
She knew this room.
Louis moved swiftly, reaching her side before she could skitter out of reach. His little bird gaped with wide, tearful eyes, silently pleading for mercy. Crouching to her level, he offered a crooked smile, "You will thank me for this." He reached a hand to her, and she flinched, trembling under his piercing gaze. "It is better this way… you will see." He snatched at her wrists ensnaring both with ease, the sound of her tears cracked the misshapen fragments of his heart. He ignored the pitiful cry as he knelt behind her, raising her hands high above her head to the shackles dangling from the ring bolted to the wall, Louis locked her wrists in the cold iron shackles.
In a stolen moment, before rising to his feet, the guard leaned close, pressing his nose into the mess of her curls. With a deep, slow inhale, Louis savored the scent, buried beneath the dirt and grime, of her unique essence.
Her perfume lingered about him as he reclaimed his post by the door. His eyes never leaving her as she struggled against her restraints, her knees scratching against the unforgiving floor. Rattling loudly from her efforts, the chains rolled against one another as she tried to saw her hands free.
A splash against her cheek jolted her mercilessly from the fog of her efforts, careening her back into the room with breakneck force. Red and turgid, her eyes lifted to the over-sized crucifix, inlaid with gold filigree and precious stones, demanding her devout contrition. Three more beads dropped from her tattered wrists, landing on her forehead and chin.
The door swung open suddenly, the hinges sighed but said little else as two persons entered the small space. The Elswick brothers marched into the room, their faces locked in austere consternation. While the physician, Harold, was disheveled and mussed; his hair haphazardly tied at the base of his neck, with a dark blue dressing gown tossed over wrinkled bedclothes. The priest was the picture of decorum, not a thread nor hair was out of place and his dark frock was perfectly pressed despite the midnight hour. His face appeared freshly washed, and his face newly shaved as he strolled to the large chest beside the dancing fire.
A moment before the door closed, the slight figure of a woman rushed in, her arms laden with fresh linen fabric which she placed on the empty chair. Like the doctor, she too appeared bedraggled, the shadows of sleep hanging beneath her slate colored eyes. Her gaze flitted to Louis, a faint rosebud blooming on her cheeks before collapsing into a morose lour as he pushed past her, his calloused hand brushed accidentally with hers. The mounting anger that had been simmering like a bone-stew for nigh on a week, threatened to bubble over the kettle of her control as she looked at the pathetic, trembling creature. Her vows dictated she was to be a Samaritan, but her wicked heart refused to comply.
Admittedly, her heart had bled for the girl, as it did for every wretched soul locked within the bowels of the madhouse. Edith Milburn pitied the accused bride-to-be and her star-crossed nuptials, sensing deep in her heart that the poor thing was— as most were— innocent. The girl seemed too fragile, too logical to stray from her fiancé and the shelter of his extensive wealth… that was until the night of the girl's prayers.
Consumed by the piteous melody plucked against her heartstrings, Edith offered two shillings to Hugo, the night guard, begging that he allow the girl a few hours rest. Gladly he accepted the offer. When the dawn began to break, an hour or so before the others rose from their beds, the nun rushed to the chapel, to relieve the guard and wake the broken girl. Her heart was light with the warmth that only divine charity can provide, threatening to burst along seems from her joviality as she skipped along the corridors, bounding down the steps like a child.
Peering through the stained glass windows, Edith frowned as she observed the two figures locked in a long, intimate embrace beneath the cross. Glancing over her shoulder around the empty hall, she listened for the sound of others, she heard nothing. After a moment of blaring silence, she peeked at the pair again.
Shattering like glass upon the very stones on which she stood, her heart crashed into the pit of her stomach, the force nearly knocking her from her feet. Sarah Williams was not wrapped in the embrace of Hugo, but Louis. Her Louis! His face was nestled in the mess of her hair, his hand running languidly along her spine— there was no mistake.
Sarah Williams was a tart who deserved to be punished.
"Could this not have waited until morning?" Harold asked, his gazed looking tiredly to his brother. "What has she done now?" Scrubbing the tiredness from his face, his dark eyes rimmed with red as he looked to Sarah frowning deeply at the sight of her. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he motioned for his brother to proceed. "Let us begin."
Simon twirled the smooth leather grip in his palms, trying to quell his rising excitement behind a frostbitten glare. The answering whine of the creaking hide beneath his fingers was the balm to his grossly agitated sense of rightness. Over a week had passed since the Cat brandished her claws, and he was itching see her scratch.
Sarah Williams deserved the lash, of that he had no doubt.
All the fragrances of Versailles could not mask the stench of her rotting soul. He had expected an innocent when the arrangements were made, a hapless obstacle obstructing the path of another's ambition. The day of her Cleansing proved otherwise. Her cries, bellowed in the chaos of her suffering, should have been for her father- her God. Instead, she wished her demon return.
It was then he understood the depths of her depravity.
"You disappoint me, Sarah." He strolled forward, clasping his hands at the base of his spine, prowling the room like a jungle cat. "I prayed it would not come to this. I pleaded with the Almighty that you would see the error of your ways and repent." Sighing heavily, he stopped, lifting his chin to the ornate cross hanging above the terrified girl. "Your Cleansing has failed. Your soul is lost." His eyes darkened, filled with enraged regret, "The devil has found you, Sarah Williams, and you will burn." The whip purred in his hands, thirsting for another taste of fresh, warm curor. "If a baptism by water and fire were insufficient to free you from the clutches of Evil… then perhaps a baptism by blood will save you."
It was Harold who spoke next, gone was the tired, yawning drone to his voice, replaced with a newfound brightness. "Sister Milburn, if you please."
Each patient, be it male or female, wore the same muslin nightgown, not unlike those folded in the trunks of families across Europe: high necklines fastened with four small buttons, long, wide sleeves with a simple ruffle at the cuff, and modest hemlines. The only difference between the clothes within the asylum and those beyond was the neat row of ties along the back of the gown.
Edith reached down and with clinical detachment separated the ties exposing Sarah's pale back to the chilly room. The girl shivered, and she could not help but smile.
Maintaining the dark, insidious whisper that had so easily stolen her attention, Father Elswick purred. "The cat o'nine tails is a delicate instrument. In the hands of an inexperienced wielder, the chances of survival are rather low. It is a pity the world is full of sinners who require a firm hand…I have become a master of the cat o'nine tails." His voice stopped as the scratching of the tails dancing along the floor rang about the room.
Lifting his face to the Heavens he began the scourging. "Let the saints be joyful in glory; let them sing aloud in their homes! Let the high praises of God linger on their lips, a double-edged sword clutched firm in their hands; to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishment upon the people!"
Like the first note struck before a symphony, the initial strike of his whip would be a single pitch meant to tune the others. Shifting on his feet, Simon adjusted his stance in much the same manner a violinist moved to cradle the instrument. He turned his hips just so, shaking the tension from his arm watching, the tails as they flitted along the floor. A liberating hum echoed into the chamber as he snapped his wrist just enough to score the skin without drawing blood. The girl twitched against her restraints whimpering, though she did not cry out- just as he'd hoped. He was creating an aria, a blend of pain and punishment that would linger like the final notes of an orchestration, her cries would be the libretto, each note perfectly sung.
Sarah felt the sweat begin to bead between her shoulder blades, trickling down her spine as fear claimed her senses. The pain had been little more than a sting, the tails teased but did not bite. It had been a promise, a testament of what was to come.
Tears collected along her lashes, weighing the fine hairs but not quite spilling over. The vow of imminent pain terrified her, but it was not the omnipresent cloud hanging above her. Sin and loss ruled her thoughts, the hellish sounds of cracking bone and twisting flesh played repeatedly in the back of her mind.
Blinking away the living nightmare, her tears finally poured over her cheeks as the image of his wretched corpse flashed behind her eyes. Foolishly, she welcomed the lash to strip her mind of that sound— if only for a moment.
"You were branded to walk in the ways of the Lord, and still your forget Him!" Elswick slapped the whip against the stones, the small crowd flinched. "Do you know why you are here, why you must be scourged?" His arms spread wide to encompass the room, his brows lifting in chastisement. Tightening his hold, his mouth broadened with a scurrilous grin. "The secrets you keep will only add to the chains that bind your soul." He waited a moment, but the girl did not speak. The charge in the room pulsed, pregnant with apprehension. "You have made a mockery of God, wishing your beast return! He will stand it no more!"
The pain came before the sound.
Her back arched. Bloodied hands clenched, her mouth falling open in a deafening shriek as the judgment of God split her spine.
Louis turned away.
Edith took a step forward. A holy passion, ripe with vendetta swelled in her breast as she watched enraptured, as the wound bled. Pearls of blood sprayed in an arc, dripping along the floor as the wild tails wrapped around the priest in a strange embrace, painting ribbons of red along his crisp linen shirt. As the man straightened, biding his time until the next strike, he allowed the whip to hang lax at his side, the wet leather sparkling in the firelight. Silently Edith studied him and then his weapon, marveling at the simplicity of such a barbaric instrument: loose leather adorned with iron crosses woven along the knots and plaiting. Glancing from the viscous implement to the target only a few feet away, Edith could not stop her sharp inhale at the sight of the lachrymose woman hanging beneath the cross. Eight ribbons, of varying length painted her back in a horrific mess of crisscrossing stripes. A single laceration, near the base of her neck, stood in stark contrast to the others. This wound was deeper, the edges wide and jagged where the skin had been ripped free.
The physician studied the scene with keen eyes. Sarah Williams had never been truly lashed. Her previous experience was little more that a stinging scrape, a warning meant to quell her disobedience. As with her Cleansing, it too failed. Her volitional silence had grated against his nerves, peeking his ire too monumental heights. He wanted her to suffer.
Harold Elswick was a man of science, of logic, unlike his brother. Both viewed the helpless, bleeding girl through vastly different lenses. Simon saw her as a lost soul, a prodigal child in desperate need of redemption, one who would bend beneath the rod. Pain was a means of repentance; as Christ hung in agony on the cross, his wrists and feet dripping from the bite of the nail, his back flayed, and his brow torn in the name of salvation, so too would the stubborn suffer. While Harold did believe in the maxim of suffering, his interests lay in the aftermath of agony.
Though he did enjoy the spectacle.
Silence crawled across the floor, skirting the bloodied stones, slithering under the skin of the onlookers, daring them speak. Simon watched with rapt attention, his pupils wide, his pulse wild. This had always been his favorite part: the choked gasps trailing weakly behind the first howl of pain as the arching back slowly sagged, forcing the wounds to weep a dark crimson. The words too, were precious— windows into the soul of the condemned. Deeper than the darkest oceans, baring more truth than mere confession.
What would her words be, he wondered? A sibilated prayer, a plea for mercy, or a vehement troth of vengeance? Would she would hiss and spit like a feral cat in heat, or would her voice tremble from the weight of her anguish? His eyes rolled back, a simmering heat boiling in his belly as the anticipation grew to fever pitch, trapping his breath in his lungs. He wanted her words.
Silence.
A nostril twitched.
Teeth gnashed.
The girl did not speak.
The second lashing came unbidden. The priest felt his arm move beyond his control. Whether guided by blackened rage or the brilliant glow of an angel's hand, he knew not. Nor did he care. Anger seeped through his pounding heart, a raging fire purer and hotter than lust or zealotry.
Sarah's body rocked forward, her head smarting against the stone wall as she cried out once more. Her vision swam, the edges fluttering in an out of focus as her back poured her life elixir in copious drops.
Sarah wanted to die.
"You dare defiance now, with your back flayed?" Simon barked, freckles of her blood coating his face. "Beg forgiveness, you brazen Jezebel!"
The whip belted against her flesh, the sonorous crack rippling through the air as her neck wrenched back from the force. Brighter than the noonday sun in the stifling heat of August, the gnawing, naked pain devoured her with its gaping maw of Hell. Her scream was silent. Her body shook, her knees slipping in the growing pool beneath her.
Had he felt this way, her murdered lord, as his bones splintered and shattered, and lacerations spread like wildfire across his flesh? Had he wished for death as the foul, blinding agony overwhelmed each and every faculty? Had each feather been a blade sawing through his pores as they reached the surface? Had he begged for death as she did now?
The image of the Goblin King standing in the midst of her pathetic garden shone brilliantly behind her eyes. Fresh as a spring bloom, and just as fragile, the memory of his mismatched eyes smiling shimmered behind her eyes. He stood staring down on her, leaning close, asking if she had missed him with a quirked brow. His lips lingering mere inches from her own as she withheld her answer, afraid of what the admittance would mean.
The memory vanished as pain ripped through her.
"P—p-plea…" the sound did not touch the stones before her, her voice too weak to carry. The priest was talking, but she could not understand the muffled lecture. Her vision was nearly black, her mind swimming, her stomach rolling, her body swayed as a weighty numbness settled deep in her limbs, paralyzing her movements, but doing nothing to stilt the excruciating burn of her back nor the throbbing ache in her shoulders as she hung from her chains.
Say the words… It was a hum at the ridge of her ear, a sound only she could hear. A dream. You must wish… The words felt familiar, like the smell of mint leaves or honey, it was calming and filled with warmth. Make your wish…
A burning seared her chest, the memory of his words a brand upon her heart, summoning the scent of charred flesh, puckering and spitting under the hot iron. Madness overtook her, loosing her tongue as she formed the verboten words.
"I w-w-w-wis…" she gasped, fighting for the air between the thunderous storm of pain. "Wi—wish… h-here…"
The priest was speaking again, his voice filled with lacerating rancor as he bellowed his unintelligible demands. Leather scraped along the floor, her fear forcing the sound through her decaying senses, as the man teased before the fourth lash landed.
Sarah broke. Her mouth filled with copper, a thin stream leaking from the corner of her lips. She coughed, a spray of blood and spit staining the stone wall. "
MAKE YOUR WISH!
"Stop! Stop, you can't learn anything from a dead body!" The doctor shrieked.
WISH ME BACK!
She jumped at the bellowed command ringing as if from a nearby mountain. Warmth flooded her breast, and she dared to try once more. "W-w-wi…sh…I…w—wish…" Her mouth opened of its own accord, trembling as she tried to form more than her plangent, gurgled whimpering. "Y-you… y-you… h-h…" Sounds drifted away to the pulsing rhythm of her heart, echoing the waterfall of her back.
Simon did not hear his brother, too lost in his determination to see reason. He ignored the pale Louis, who stood with his back turned, nor did he notice Sister Edith Milburn with her eyes glowing in satisfied horror. His vision was locked in the deepest tunnel, his gaze fixated on the harlot who would bring the devil himself to sup their feet. "Do you not hear her, dear brother? Even still she calls to the beast! Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft…" the priest spat venomously. "And thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
ENOUGH!
Oblivion bid her welcome.
The room trembled as a deafening blast rent the air. A raging tempest filled the narrow space, the sudden wind wrapping invisible fingers around the occupants with dedicated slowness. The whip cracked and a bellowing cry followed, accompanied fear-sodden screams and muttered pleadings.
A voice she could not hear whispered brokenly above her, "…Sarah…"
End of Act 1
A/N: I know it took forever to post this chapter, so I made up for it with 10k words! Please, PLEASE review! I love hearing what you all think and what you anticipate for the next chapter. Sorry for the cliffhanger...