Author's Note: Thanks to Gekkou no Netsu and seelieprincess for following this story. Thanks to Jimli for favouriting and leaving a review and to AliceMina for the review, the following and the favouriting.
THE CASTLE IN THE SWAMP
Chapter 2
Michael gradually got up. Deep inside him a core of rage started to grow. He called his servants but not one of them came. He searched everywhere. While his anger grew, he called them, shouted for them, threatened them like he used to do, threw vases and statues to the ground, banged the doors but he found that all his servants had gone.
"I'm not staying here," he shouted. "I'm the lord of this land, the master. It all belongs to me. I'll get new servants and a girl to marry me. I'll get a dozen girls to marry me. Who would deny me? Nobody, that's who."
He opened the front door. A wall of mud and slime faced him; a putrid stink assaulted his senses. The rotting mass and funk of the swamp started to breach the enchantment. Quickly Michael closed the door but here and there it started to ooze through the walls. Everywhere he looked decay took possession of his home. The mirrors buckled from the dampness that pervaded the rooms, showing Michael a distorted image of his altered self. He tried to destroy them but failed. Every bronze object was thrown at the nearest mirror but they bounced back and he had to jump out of the way or get hit himself. In his rage he went on a destructive rampage, swiping statuettes, vases, candleholders, plates and bowls of tables and sideboards, turning over the furniture. Eventually the exertion was too much. He collapsed still raging and howling at Zinaïda's cruelty, until he cried in despair. Crying became whimpering, and he finally fell asleep.
When Michael woke up he felt hungry and thirsty. In the dining room he found a bottle of wine that had somehow survived his rage, and a few pieces of fruit that had been left untouched by the decay of the swamp. He took a big gulp of the wine and spat it out immediately. It tasted foul. The fruit he bit into made him retch.
"Are you going to let me die of hunger and thirst?" he cried out.
There was no reply.
Michael went to the kitchen in search of something he could eat and drink. He opened the kitchen tap but no pure water came out. Instead some foul-smelling, viscous goo slowly oozed from it. To his horror he felt his body bending forward to drink. His mind recoiled from the slush but the instincts of the swamp creature he'd become took over and he gulped it down. Then he started tearing down mould and fungus that had started to grow in the kitchen and ate it. They reeked as badly as the water but the creature ate them while the man inside cried in horror. The same thing happened again and again; the animal-like instinct took over every time Michael's hunger or thirst became too acute. The swamp-creature he had become lived of the filth of the swamp and the part of his mind that was still Michael could do nothing to stop it. In these feeding frenzies he became totally the beast. He dared not think about what he had become. He remembered how he had taunted the fairy, the witch, saying he was the dashing, good-looking Michael. Nothing was left of him. How could a woman, any woman, now or in hundred years' time want to live with this horrible, filth-eating, stinking thing?
Slowly, ever so slowly the beast became stronger and the core that was still Michael dwindled to not much more than a small flickering light. On the rare occasions that he was fully conscious there was only grief for him as every window and every mirror confronted him with what he had become. As the years passed these moments became rarer and rarer. Hardly anything was left of Michael by the time the first hundred years had passed.
Zinaïda arrived and her appearance made the creature run and hide in a dark and filthy corner where the swamp had most encroached on the building. She sought and eventually found her godson.
"Michael," she said and lightly shook the beast.
Michael felt as if he was waking up from a dark nightmare, but when he saw Zinaïda he remembered.
"Have you come to gloat? You said this punishment was so I could learn. Instead it felt as if I was slowly dying, as if I was trapped in a solid fog that squeezed the life out of me. This thing is too strong. I can't fight it."
"That thing IS you, Michael. Look," said Zinaïda and pointed at a mirror nearby.
The surface rippled and cleared to show the creature drinking the slimy liquid greedily, then slowly the picture changed and Michael saw his old self quaffing wine with the same insatiability, the red liquid dripping on his white shirt. Another ripple and he saw the swamp-thing stuffing its mouth ravenously. This image changed too to become Michael voraciously scoffing the most excellent food looking as disgusting as the creature.
"Nothing could come out that wasn't in you already, Michael. Remember that. Now follow me. I'll show you how to reach the surface."
Zinaïda, followed by Michael, went to the entrance hall. The signs of Michael's first anger at being turned into a beast were most obvious here. Furniture had been pushed over, smaller pieces seemed to have been thrown across the room, and the remnants of the breakables crunched underfoot. Through the glass at the top of the doors Michael could see the mud of the swamp.
Just then Zinaïda grabbed the door handle to open the front door and Michael jumped forward to stop her. He remembered how the stinking mud of the swamp had oozed into the castle when he had tried to get out.
"Don't worry," Zinaïda said. "Here, for just this year, is a way to the surface."
She opened the doors and revealed a solid wall with an alcove, large enough to hold two people. Zinaïda stepped inside the recess and motioned to Michael to follow her. As soon as he was inside, the front door of the castle closed.
Standing in a box with walls of solidified mud was claustrophobic, to say the least. Michael took a deep breath to calm his beating heart. If Zinaïda hadn't been there with him he would have panicked.
The fairy said, "UP!"
Instantly the cubicle rushed upwards past layer upon layer of mud and debris of the swamp. Michael noticed he was standing on a flagstone.
"That stone will take you in and out of the castle this year," Zinaïda said when she noticed what Michael was looking at. "It's the last stone of the path that led to the front door. Step on it and say 'up!' in a loud voice and it will take you to the surface where it will wait until you're ready to return. To go back to the castle you step on it, say 'down!' as loud as possible, and it will descend. As soon as you have arrived the front door will open."
"This year? And what will happen if I open the door once this year is over?" Michael asked, even though he already guessed the answer.
"A mudslide will happen, Michael, as you already know."
Just then they had reached the surface, appearing out of the depths of the swamp like the genii rising out of the theatre trap door.
When Michael saw the area that had once been a beautiful garden, he shuddered. It was a desolate place, covered by a yellow mist, in some places quite dense. From bubbling pools, putrid gasses rose to the surface.
"How far … How much …"
He couldn't finish his sentence but Zinaïda knew what he wanted to ask.
"The village is doing fine, so is the North farm. The South farm is hanging on. Of course they are no longer your property. There hasn't been a Lord of Altena Castle for hundred years. I gave the two farms to the farmers. In the village the people now own their houses, and the vineyards are now the property of the people who did the most work caring for the vines and making the wine."
"You had no right. The farms, the houses, the fields, they were all mine."
"Yours? You never cared for them. All you wanted was the profit. Well, it's all gone now. All you have is your swamp and two wetlands that were once the West farm and the East farm. They're impossible to work, so I paid the families and helped them settle somewhere else."
"Wetlands, a swamp and a beast of the swamp. You really went all-out in your revenge didn't you? You destroyed what was once fertile and beautiful."
"No, Michael. You did that. You never fought the creature because you never believed that's what you really are. The swamp is linked to its strength; give in to it and the swamp grows, beat it and it will diminish."
"This is the year in which I'm to find a girl, isn't it? How am I to do that in this place? Who in their right mind would come this way? Going to the village is equally impossible. I doubt I'd be invited with open arms considering what I look like."
"No doubt they would chase you away. Probably they would kill you straight away. But that's theoretical anyway; you can't leave the swamp. And I mean that literally. It's impossible for you to go beyond its boundaries."
"That'll make it easy for me to find someone."
His voice dripped with sarcasm. If she didn't like it, tough. What more could she do to him?
Zinaïda smiled with a smile so sweet he knew there was deadly poison in it.
"The swamp is a reflection of you. This place could have been nicer if you had been nicer. Good luck, anyway."
Before he could say or ask anything else she was gone.
He had a year to find a girl, a woman who would want to share his life, in the middle of a stinking swamp. Surely that was an impossible task.
Michael reckoned that he might have more of a chance near the edge of the swamp. He roamed the borders of his domain and naturally was seen. Just as naturally there was a hunt for the thing that had been spotted. They did not find him but he was seen a few more times that year.
Only once did he actually see a girl. Near the edge of a meadow that belonged to the South farm was a small patch in the marsh where a few flowers grew. They were strange but beautiful and the farmer's daughter wanted them. Michael had seen her and silently crept to where she was.
He didn't know what to do so he whispered "Hello."
The girl looked up, saw the slimy beast, screamed and ran. In her fear she didn't think about the direction and ran further into the swamp. Moments later Michael heard another scream. He rushed towards the area the scream had come from, realising the girl must have gotten into trouble. He saw her struggling in the quicksand and sinking faster because of it. She was sobbing and crying for help. Seeing the swamp creature coming towards her didn't help. The girl fainted and was in danger of drowning.
Without hesitation Michael jumped into the foul-smelling muddy substance. He'd been drinking the stinking stuff like water, so why wouldn't he be able to swim in it? What did he have to lose? His life? What kind of life did he have now? Anyway, technically he was over a hundred years old. That was a fair run by any standard.
He found he could indeed swim in the sticky mud. A moment later he reached the girl and dragged her out of the mire. She was unconscious but alive, so he carried her as near her home as he could. He picked the flowers she had wanted so much, wrapped the stems in damp moss and laid them next to the girl. He couldn't say why he had done this except that he had felt like doing it. The girl had nearly died because of him. She deserved a recompense. He sat next to her for a while; looking at her gentle breathing. After a while he left her side to hide nearby where he could see her without being seen. When she was regaining consciousness he left. There was no point in waiting and asking her to share his life. Her screams were still ringing in his ears.
The last person who saw the creature was a hunter. Michael had happened upon the man unexpectedly. The arrow meant for an unsuspecting duck had glanced off his shoulder. His cry of pain and anger reverberated across the area. The hunter ran even faster than the girl, and in the right direction. Years later he still told the story of the terrible, roaring beast that he had seen in the swamp, a beast that became more terrible with each telling of the tale.
And so the year was gone and Michael, the creature of the swamp was again confined to his house, sunk deep under the surface.
Zinaïda appeared in the castle at midnight on the last day of the year.
"No luck this time," she said. "There is always next time, and you only have to wait hundred years."
"Get lost," he answered. "You call this an opportunity? A chance to find someone to share my life with? Who would want to share their life with a filthy stinking beast? Admit that there is no such chance. Admit it. I am doomed for eternity and your promise is as hollow as an empty nutshell."
"Oh, I admit freely that my promise won't work for the Michael I needed to punish. He might have been good-looking but he was a vile creature. I want you to be the Michael you could have been and for him my promise will prove to be as solid as a rock."
Before he could answer the fairy was gone.
ooOOoo
