To me the incense and the Goddess were almost as one; I never felt her presence as strongly as when kneeling on the chapel floor, my entire being engulfed by the heavy smoke that drifted up from the incense burners by the altar.
The scent sank into the wooden pews and the dark stone walls; the swirls of smoke came to serpentine life as they floated by the stained glass window at the end of the chapel. There was Asmara, her body a mosaic in rainbow pieces, sitting with her knees folded under her, a delicate white flower held in hand. Below, upon the altar, a chalice filled with sacred Earth, once a part of her, once the soil that she danced upon, now a relic to grasp in your hands as you spoke your prayers - but I never dared to.
Yes, I knelt on the cracked tiles and murmured my prayers, and the incense was a shroud of comfort upon my body and soul. Like tides eroding the shore, it washed away all my thoughts of blood and death and beautiful dark eyes, and I was but an object among objects in the peace of the chapel.
But cool air was seeping in from between the stones - it was cold outside, miserable, the final retaliations of a dying winter fighting a losing war - and I could not suppress a shudder.
I had wondered, once, why chapels were so cold. Was it so that we would not fall into complete placidity, thinking ourselves more secure from our mortal toils than we truly were? Was it a reminder from the Goddess to not place our burdens in the hands of others, to not close our eyes to the reality of our lives?
One day I spoke these thoughts aloud and my sister said, quite simply, “Why? Because it’s a large, empty space built of stone. Of course it’s cold.”
My sister, always so straight-forward.
The day I left Valdemar in the fields, I snuck home consumed by conflicting emotions. I had no wish to face my family, or anyone else - I was certain that anyone who looked at me would see regret engraved in my eyes. They would see, and they would condemn.
So I went round the back of my house, and hoisted myself up through the window into my room. My feet had barely touched the ground when I heard my sister’s tinny voice. “You know, mama will have your head on a pike.”
She was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, red balls of yarn splayed out around her like guts after a carnage. She hadn’t even looked up from her knitting. “Where were you?”
“Asta…”
“One moment you were hanging back, staring at the Chaplain like he held your whole life in his hands, and the next - poof! Gone. Mama noticed and got all upset. You know how she is. I told her that you were probably nervous, thinking of all the blood, the meat, how it scared you and that you needed to go mentally prepare, etcetera. That calmed her somewhat. See? I even covered for you.” Asta looked up, as if to gauge the appreciation she expected from me. “Oh!” She gasped, “You look ghastly. So you really were afraid, then.”
“...I wasn’t afraid.” I muttered, closing the window behind me.
“No matter. But tell mama you were afraid.”
“And why would I do that? You don’t think she’ll let me off, do you?”
“She won’t.” Asta shrugged. “But at least it will reassure her.”
I watched as she stood up and gathered up her yarns, a thin smile plastered across her face. She left without another word and, as the door creaked shut behind her, I sank to my knees and prayed.
And so I prayed now.
It would have been so much easier if I was indeed afraid. If what I felt holding Valdemar’s wrist in my hand was only anxiety, if the blood running down the blade had only made me falter, made me fear.
If only I had stopped and told him, no, do it yourself. I am not the Chaplain and I am afraid to hurt you, just as I am afraid to hurt myself.
Blood flowed freely in my veins and it never touched the soil. Yet I had dreamed of a soil drenched in it, a flowing river of crimson that ran through the fields and down into the village. I held a knife in one hand, yet I could not tell you what it looked like, and a mutilated heart in another, chunks of it stuck between my teeth. A grave stood behind me, alone in its despair.
Oh Earthen Mother, I beg for your patience in this time of strife and tribulation. I seek refuge and peace within your presence, and ask that you guide me toward a future that ends in your embrace. I offer myself to you, willing to learn and grow from my troubles. I know that your wisdom will bring me strength, so that I may face the challenges ahead and prosper in your light.
“And may the world be as free as a cherry blossom flying through the air. Yes?” Said a voice behind me.
“No, that’s not it.”
I was too consumed in prayer - I had not heard him coming. Not the echoes of steps walking over the tiles, not even as much as a creak of the door. If I had, maybe I would have panicked and sought a refuge, some hiding place that surely did not even exist. Would I have embarrassed myself again? But instead he came to me undetected, and so I stayed kneeling and staring at the wooden figure of Asmara straight ahead, hoping that he did not sense my unease of facing him again, that he did not realise just how conscious I was of his closeness to me now.
“Hm. Must be Prentirose’s prayer then.” He said, casually.
“The Goddess of the Seasons?”
“Of Seasons - of Change. Woltair’s new King decreed her as the Kingdom’s reigning Goddess.”
I did not understand why he was saying all this. “I didn’t know they had a new King.”
“It’s only been a year. Do you know the first thing he changed after becoming King?”
I shook my head.
“He legalised brothels.”
“Pft-” I could not suppress a laugh.
“Ah!” Valdemar exclaimed, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “So you still have some happiness left in you. I was worried - you disappeared. Where were you these last few days?”
“...I was grounded.”
My mother was enraged. My father made it clear that my behaviour did not surprise him. They had always been a pairing brewing in conflict, and my actions sowed new seeds in fertile soil. My brother blamed me, my sister only sighed and went on knitting, and I was torn between guilt and that gnawing, helpless feeling of if not over me, there would be the same conflict over something, anything else.
The Chaplain did not reproach me, yet it was his disappointment that I sensed most keenly. He looked at me with such resignation that, as soon as I was able to leave my house again, I applied myself relentlessly to chores and prayer in the chapel. As if I felt sorry for him. As if I thought that he, of all people, had had some faith in me - but I knew better than to believe that. It was only assistance that he wanted, a rest for his weary bones and painful back. Was it not time for him to retire? Who will take his place? A new Chaplain from somewhere far away, a drop of fresh blood to mix and dissolve and become one with the village…
“ I considered going to your house,” said Valdemar. “To apologise to you.”
“…To me?”
“Aren’t you mad at me?”
“You’re the one who should be mad!” I pleaded, shocked that he would even think otherwise. I turned to face him, to scan his expression for any trace of irony, but there was none. Just that same clear and intelligent gaze. “After what I - after what happened.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “And what happened? You did what I asked…but it has shaken you!” He knelt down beside me. “I think I know what you are thinking now. I could dispel your fears, or at least some of them, if you are willing to listen.”
“How?”
“Something’s happened to me once.” He said softly, “and because of it I don’t believe all these superstitions surrounding you.”
My heart skipped a beat. I met his eyes - tiny rainbow reflections shimmered in their darkness, beautiful pupils dimmed by smoke - and I knew that he was speaking the truth. “Please,” I whispered, “Tell me.”
“I will. But isn't it cold down here? Let’s talk in the pews.”
I tried to stand, but my legs were more numb than I had thought. I swayed, almost stumbled, and Valdemar reached out to steady me. I found myself holding him by the hand and drew a breath when my fingers brushed a raised, red scar running down to his wrist. I looked up at him, imploring apologies about to spill from my lips. But he just smiled as he so often did, and said, “It’s really not that bad.”
We sat down together in one of the middle pews. Valdemar tapped his fingers on the worn wood, looking at me thoughtfully. "Do you know much about the West Region?" He asked.
I thought about it for a bit. “It’s the part of Woltair that borders Feryon... I’ve heard it’s very militarised.”
He nodded. “Yes. It is also rich in resources - my father made deals with local miners, weavers, and craftsmen, and sold the goods here, in Aquir. There’s not really anything more to it than that. What I am trying to say is that it is not a part of Woltair that people seek out for leisure, nor are the locals any more familiar with nobility than you are.
But a year ago, to the delight of every gossip in the vicinity, a few nobles did come. Nix, Callisto, Clement, Aria. They were siblings, children of some minor nobles from the capital. They told me their family name was De Ross, but it was the first and only time I’d ever heard it spoken.” He sighed. “They thought that it would be a splendid adventure to vacation out in the fringes of the West Region, so close to the border and so far from their usual commodities - and the girls so wanted to see the soldiers! They bought a remote cottage in the mountains. It seems they entertained themselves quite well for a bit, but they were nobles and they quickly felt what it meant to lack a servant.
Nix went down to the market in search of someone suitable, and it so happened that on that day I was there too. She saw me - she said I’m pretty. She said that, if I waited on them, she would pay me well.” Valdemar hesitated and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “To be honest, I needed that money badly, so I agreed without a thought.”
He needed money? I thought back on how I imagined him before; attending balls, drinking absinthe, carefree and blessed by the lucky hand of fate. And his manner, subtly refined, only strengthened this image. I wanted to know, now, how it really had been and why. But his tale was far from over. I put my questions away for later.
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“I spent most of my days, then, going back and forth between their cottage and the city - I bought whatever they wanted, found amusements for them, called on soldiers’ doors with invitations in hand and escorted the girls whenever their brothers could not be bothered to accompany them. I was meant to go home in the evenings, but Nix often held me back.
The night would deepen and I would stand in the corner of their living room and listen to Aria playing the piano, Nix playing card games with Callisto, and Clement playing other games with the women he brought. That was the crux of it. Clement and his women. He gave off the air of a cold intellectual but he burned with an insatiable passion for romance and all the manipulations that, he insisted, went hand-in-hand.
He seduced women with no thought to their age or social standing and, within a day or two, tossed them out. Every one of these women was convinced that she was ‘the one’ and even after being brushed off by him, they would delude themselves into thinking that it was all just part of some elaborate courting ritual. Others would fall into a heartbroken despair. A few times I was cornered in the marketplace, and they pleaded with me - they were ruined, what were they to do? It disgusted me how Clement’s siblings found all this to be funny. Once, they suggested that he should expand his horizons with me.”
“Oh. Did he?” I asked.
“Of course not!” said Valdemar. “He only had eyes for girls. And if only you had seen the final one he brought back. I wouldn’t even need to explain; I’m sure you’d have felt the same as I did.”
“...Passion?” I ventured, and felt a twinge of jealousy at the thought.
He looked askance at me. “Foreboding.
The siblings…they did not feel the same way. This girl was the most petite, delicate little thing, much like those expensive dolls that kids play with. Clement, lacking in imagination, called her exactly that; his little doll. He meant it as a compliment but I saw it differently; she gestured with artificial grace, as if her every move was done in mimicry, and beside the naturally high-class bearing of Aria and Nyx she was stiff as a block of wood.
What drew Clement to her, however, was her strikingly white hair, and eyes red like apples. He introduced her to us like a collector would his proudest artefact. Even so, we all assumed that she would last no longer than the rest. He would dine with her, read her a book of poetry, employ all those insincere charms, and then he’d bed her and throw her away.
We did not expect her to be so difficult.
She smiled at his poetry - softly, politely - and she got excited over Clement’s skill at cards - like a child - and she let him twirl her in a waltz round the room, but all the while I got the sense that there was something else she sought. She slipped odd little questions into conversations, asking after our histories and religious inclinations, our health… She had lumped me in with the De Ross at first, often staring at me over her hand of cards, or catching my eye as Clement dipped her so low that her short hair brushed the floor. But one day Nix let slip that I was just a local boy, and her interest in me was gone just like that.
She drew clear boundaries.
She let Clement kiss her hand in gentlemanly greeting. She let him dance with her, to curl his arm around her waist. But when at dinner he reached under the table to stroke her thigh, she stood and complained of a mosquito crawling down her leg. When he tried to kiss her in the twilight, she turned her cheek and laughed. Clement, unused to rejection, was astonished, and his siblings joined the girl in laughter.
When she left, Clement sighed with some exasperation, and assured his audience that this was just a girl playing hard-to-get, and that she’d give in soon enough.
He redoubled his efforts. His voice dripped with saccharine, his lips lingered at her hand as if loathe to part, his gaze followed her and her alone. With every word and gesture Clement spoke - I love you, I adore you, I worship you. A siren calling a sailor to his demise.
Yet days passed, and she remained as resistant as ever.
"He's growing impatient." Remarked Callisto after one such visit, and we could tell it was true. A woman not falling into Clement's arms was something beyond his comprehension, and the merry mockery of his siblings only rubbed salt into the wound.
Aria sang at the piano - A broken-hearted jester, off to join the circus… and then the girls laughed at him some more.
Callisto didn't laugh with them. He watched his sisters with worry.
The following evening the girl called on us once more, and from the way that Clement immediately leapt up from the couch and rushed to the door, we knew that something had shifted in him. He fell to his knees and kissed her hand with such fervour that we thought him mad, or in love.
He invited her to play cards. Usually, he took this game with good humour. The girl was not good at cards. He let her win to see her smile and to snake his way into her affections. But there was a strange passion in him that night; he did not let her win a single game, swiftly taking victory in every match, and his teasing remarks swayed dangerously on the line of insult. Aria was giggling where she sat on the sofa. Nix shook her head and sighed. The girl, meanwhile, kept her expression well-hidden behind a mask of indifference.
After an excruciating hour of this, Clement rose from his chair and invited the girl to dance. Aria, obediently, sat down at her piano and began to play. Clement led the girl slowly round the room, as if it were a stage and we were the audience to his game (and so we were). Then he pulled her in, put his hand upon her waist, and they fell into the familiar steps of a waltz.
I turned away, and busied myself with tidying the table - empty plates, a stain on the cloth - the routine actions and familiar music letting me sink into the depths of my own inward thoughts. I was often preoccupied in those days. Sometimes I still am.
I brought in a bottle of wine and poured it into Callisto’s glass, then Aria’s, then Nix’s. As I filled her glass, she leaned in and whispered, “Just don’t get distracted, now…” she looked away, and I followed her gaze back to the dancers.
Instantly I saw that it was going very wrong.
They danced as always, following Clement’s naturally elegant lead, the girl’s skirts whirling round them at a mesmerising pace. But I saw the slightest strain in the girl’s carefully arranged expression, and thought that I heard her let out a wince that was lost in the backdrop of piano music. Clement’s fingers gripped her waist tight. His knuckles were white.
He took her around the room, invading her space with his steps, almost tripping her as he forced them closer together - she stumbled a little, and spread her legs wider apart so that she would not step on his shoes. Another whirl and he dipped her down to the floor, their bodies crushed together, her spine curved obscenely like a bowstring pulled taut.
Her knees buckled under him and they collapsed to the floor.
Aria paused her playing and we all watched them with a dreadful curiosity. Clement had fallen atop the girl, who lay splayed out under him like a doll with cut strings. They were still for a long and horrible moment. Then he took her by the jaw and kissed her.
The girl pushed at his chest, but Clement grabbed her wrists with one hand and pinned them to the ground. She twisted and struggled in his grip but she was so small compared to him. He barely even felt it.
He ran his hand along her waist and up her skirts - and I know you don’t want to hear this.”
I shook my head slowly, stunned. Why was Valdemar telling me all this in the chapel, where the Goddess’s glass eyes bore into us, where a stray breeze from the outside world ruffled his golden hair? What had this to do with me? “I don’t - I don’t want to hear it.” I repeated after him. Shook my head again.
“You don’t have to. He didn’t get very far. Got too caught up in it, loosened his hold. She kicked him off and ran into another room, locked herself in. Aria and Nix were laughing again and Clement was trying to kick the door down. That is when Callisto, who sat quiet through it all, told me simply to go get some help.” He shrugged. “So I went. I called out to the first men I saw, and together we ran back to the cottage. We were confident that we knew what we were going to see on opening the door. It required no stretch of the imagination. But, of course, we were wrong.
The candles were extinguished, and someone had closed the curtains and sunk the cottage into a claustrophobic gloom. The place was silent. We stood in the threshold for an uncertain moment until one of the braver soldiers took it upon himself to walk across the room and light a candle.
And in the rays of a flickering fire we saw walls streaked with blood.
It was as though someone had taken a brush and rolled paint across the walls in feverish, abstract madness. There was blood on the floor too, a thick trail of crimson that ran along into the next room, the room where the girl had locked herself in. The door stood wide open, and within we could just about make out the dark shape of a male figure.
I called out to it, called it by Callisto’s name. It did not move, and I hadn’t truly expected it to. I think I just couldn’t take the silence.
After casting weary looks at one another, the soldiers and I tread onwards.
Right opposite the door, pushed against the wall, was a bed. On the bed sat the figure, a sad, hunched over lump of shadows. It leaned against the wall and did not react to our proximity. There was something strange about it, its huddled form. I stepped closer and reached out to take it by the shoulder when the soldier, the devoted seeker of light, brought in a candle.
I jumped back and the other soldier drew his sword. The torso - for that’s what it was, not a body, but a trunk of a thing - was headless, armless, legless. Its chest had been ripped open, the cavity a gaping maw curtained by carelessly torn flaps of clothing and flesh. The rib cage was cracked wide open and turned outwards. Guts spilled down the bed and to the floor, a waterfall of intestines, glimmering wetly in the candlelight. Playing cards were arranged on the bed in a game of solitaire.
Later, when we found in ourselves the spirits to do so, we explored the rest of the cottage. Every newly lit candle exposed some fresh, grotesque scene. We found two more torsos, belonging to Nix and Aria no doubt, similarly limbless. The limbs were scattered across the cottage, some hidden, some in plain sight. Under the table or affixed to the wall, or as in one instance just a little finger shoved brutally into a keyhole. In all cases, however, in contrast to the stained walls, the appendages were completely bloodless. As if they had been wrung dry.
What we didn’t find was the girl. Or Callisto. I was not certain if the soldiers knew the siblings personally, if they even knew to miss Callisto. I did not tell them.
What we saw before us was an art gallery of imaginative cruelty that required considerable strength to carry out. The soldiers were confused when I described the girl to them. They could not wrap their minds around it. Who else could have done this, if not her, the one missing variable? Who else? Maybe I could have - I know they entertained the idea for at least a while, as contradictory as it might have been.
If I told them about Callisto they would have thought it was him; but I knew that was impossible.
We left the scene and, well, that was that. They did suspect me, but suspicions were soon cleared and I did not risk involving myself any further in the proceedings. I don’t think that they ever caught her, though. Do you see?”
“No, how do you know it was her?” I asked, “You said so yourself. She was small. She got easily overpowered by Clement. I don’t…” he was staring at me. “I don’t see.” A half-hearted lie.
He continued slowly. “Before we came here, when my mother and I were at the port for a ship to Aquir, I saw Callisto again. He stood a distance away, his clothes different from the noble attire I remembered him in - luxurious, but in a way that implied employment rather than entitlement. I knew that it was him, but his hair was white and his eyes were red and he stood alone. He was a masculine mirror of that doll-like girl. He did not see me. Instantly I understood it, Gustav, he is - he became just like her.
Maybe that is why, all along, she questioned our health and locality and all else. She was seeking a worthy candidate and, clearly, found it in him.”
“And you think she…I…”
“Point is - she is one of those creatures that you think you are doomed to become. But think about it. It was not her loved ones that she rose to kill - she acted in retaliation to a horrid attack against her. She did not look like a corpse, either, and I doubt that she sleeps in her grave at night. And will it rest your heart if I add that all the livers were left intact? See, she is nothing like what you and the village expects.”
“But she was all too cruel.”
“No, it was only just. She played with their bodies as they would have played with hers. Why do you shudder? It was not cruel.”
“I was cruel to you.”
“You only did what I had asked.”
“I hurt you.” and I felt such pleasure in it.
Valdemar leaned in and softly, unhesitatingly, he ran his finger down the length of my jaw. “Ah, but I told you; I expected nothing less.”
That feeling, again, of my heart constricting in my chest. Of my world narrowing down to the depths of his eyes, the reflections of glass mosaics in his pupils and myself, myself in all my bare-faced surprise staring back at me. The sensation of his scar burned on my fingertips, as if I held his hand still.
I was lightheaded, I realised, from kneeling for hours, from his story that had only just barely started sinking in, from the incense that shrouded the tiny chapel and soaked into my clothes. From the way he smiled at me, a smile that hinted at truths that evaded me but were known to him.
Heavy steps on the tiled floor. The chaplain’s voice; “So, like this you pray, Gustav? And you!”
Slowly, Valdemar retracted his hand. He stood, and bowed with a flourish. “Chaplain, I am glad you have come. We were discussing the chapel, and got stuck on the point of incense. Such heavy use of it in this enclosed space makes one quite delirious and overwhelmed. I presume that is an effect beneficial to your services?”
“Ask your grandfather, and see if he does not slap that fake smile off your face! Off with you, go!” I did not need to look at the Chaplain to know how red-faced he was already, how easily taunted.
“Of course, Chaplain, though I didn't mean to upset you so.” said Valdemar with barely disguised amusement. To me, he said in a low tone, “Think. Let those superstitions go and believe in me.”
I watched him go. In his wake he left me an offering, an audacious trade - to exchange the village’s superstitions for those of his own. I raised a hand to my face. I wanted to believe him.
To be saved.