Flash Fiction Spooktacular

Skein, Part Two - Sylvaine 8

Veronika was locked up in a tower, with the only way in and out was the window. The king’s mother made Veronika’s hair strong like ropes, using it to get in and out of the chamber. Meanwhile, the king only needed to take his crow form to enter. He left clothes in the tower room because he’d always shift into his naked human form as he set foot in it.

The princess prayed and hoped that her father would realize that she was only in the nearby kingdom of Edgefield, which she thought should be called Deep Forest or Edgeforest because of its location but that was the least of her worries.

To her surprise, the king didn’t touch her, not in the way he did Flora. He merely visited her in her tower, made sure she had all she needed. With magic, he provided her with food, wine, and bath water. He had birds carry her clothes to wear. With his beak, he brought her jewelry. It felt like he was wooing her, and yet, she knew it was wrong. He had her locked up, an even worse prison than having her placed in one of the well-guarded rooms. When she requested books, he eagerly brought her tomes to wile her dreary days away. Soon, the best hours of the day or night were his visits.

After the first full cycle of the moon, Corbett began to tell her tales. The tales were dark, but she felt that there were messages in each of them. Some of them were true stories, of how her family had ransacked forests and destroyed the habitats of birds to become who they were now. The king didn’t hold back when he described every detail of the slaughters. His red, full lips would smile but his eyes, pale grey, were hard.

“Are you telling me that this whole thing is revenge?” she asked. She needed to know his motivations, if he wasn’t cruel for the sake of cruelty because up in the tower, he only showed her kindness. No, it couldn’t be kindness. Perhaps she was confusing reprieve for kindness.

“I would be lying if I say yes, Veronika,” he said. “It’s now also about possession. You are mine.”

The words brought her delicious shivers, followed by internal self-flagellation, but the next moon cycle showed her the falseness of that feeling, especially when his dead first wife came to visit. She was still wearing at tattered gown, as if she was murdered on her wedding night.

“Leave this place, Veronika of Gooseberry!” the specter moaned, appearing just when the princess was about to sleep. Her face, half-beautiful and half torn, as rotten flesh peeled off the bone, twisted in pain.

“H-how? I ‘m high up in a tower with no doors. There’s only one window, but I could fall to my death.”

The woman came closer, showing more of her rotten flesh. The smell made Veronika flinch even though she didn’t think of herself as squeamish. Bile rose, but she managed to keep herself from vomiting.

“You must find a way to leave this place, Princess. You may be the highest born yet, but you also came from a place of murdered birds and sorrow.”

“Lies! I lived my whole life in happiness!”

Veronika couldn’t believe that a ghost would be questioning her childhood, vilifying it. She just might be jealous! As soon as the thought came over here, she rolled to the floor as if something pushed her.

When she looked down, she saw three women standing by her feet. Their eyes were empty sockets and their limbs grey against the moonlight streaming through the lone window. They were pulling her feet, dragging her toward the only exit.

“Stop it! Stop!”

The three ghostly women seemed to be calling on supernatural forces to pull her right to the window sill. They kept pushing while Veronika tried to hold on. A squawk was heard. With it, the ghosts disappeared into black smoke.

Her savior had arrived.

The king immediately transformed into his naked human form, and it was in this form that he declared their impending marriage.

“We are to wed in a week,” he said, his voice revealing more emotion that it had before.

**

After Veronika and Corbett were wed, she thought she wouldn’t be back to the tower but she was wrong. Her new husband flew her up the tower, where she would remain.

Feeling foolish, the new bride still managed to feel desire for the king. It must be an incantation, she thought, but a part of her believed it was something else. After all, he didn’t force her when he kissed her lips. She didn’t fight him when he stripped her clothes and opened her to himself. It wasn’t a cry for help that came out of her mouth when he thrust into her. Instead, it was a moan of desire. Even with the blood and pain between her legs, Veronika forgot everything else but the lust that pumped into her veins as her husband pushed into and filled her.

“They said I would have to bear it,” she whispered.

“Oh, wife, you didn’t have to bear anything with me,” he said smugly.

The days and nights were like a dream amid the nightmare. Veronika found herself confused about her situation. She was stripped off her freedom and locked up by this man. Why would she want him? Why would she long for his nightly visits? One important thing that changed after she married him was that his witch mother didn’t visit anymore.

The days turned into weeks, the weeks into months. Then, she realized that she hadn’t have her monthly courses. She might be young and naive, but she knew what it could mean. She had no choice but to tell the king.

“What will happen if I have a child here?”

“Are you truly with child, Veronika?”

“I believe I am,” she said in wonder. She was surprised at the happiness on his face. “Who would help me give birth to the child? Would it be your mother?”

“No,” he replied a little angrily, further confusing her. “It will be someone else. A physician who know better.”

When the time came, Corbett used the same magic he used to lock his wife up to whisk her away from the tower. Relief coursed through Veronika. She wondered if she would see her father and mother this time.

“In time,” Corbett reassured her, and she realized then that she had never uttered the words aloud. Unease prickled her skin. How much did she not know about her husband? All they shared were their bodies and their tales. Everything was a riddle. There was nothing clear about the world she had been thrust into.

By the time she was on labor, there was nothing else but herself and the pain. Veronika’s vision blurred as each new burst of pain zipped through her belly and between her legs. Corbett held her hands while a maid placed a wet sponge on her forehead.

By the foot of the bloody bed, she saw something pass. It was like a dark shadow or someone in a black cloak. The movement was too quick, though, to be that of a mere human. More pain racked her body. So, she squeezed her eyes shut, but was aware she couldn’t escape this pain.

When her eyes opened, a pale face hang over her own. She screamed. The worst thing about it was that everyone thought she was screaming because of the pain of childbirth. The sunken eyes seemed to see more of her soul.

“Abomination,” it said, with a voice from the grave.

Seconds after, a strong cry could be heard. Having closed her eyes to escape the apparition, Veronika reluctantly opened them again to take a look at her child. Her shoulders shook as she saw black feathers coming out of its back. When the physician turned the baby to face her, she saw a beak and sharp yellow eyes. She sobbed hysterically, but they continued to grin at her. After all, what was she but an overwhelmed new, young mother?

“It’s a boy, Your Majesties,” the physician proudly announced. After a blink and a sniffle, Veronika saw that it was, indeed, a boy. Her son was beautiful. Perfect. He was pink and healthy, and smooth.

“He’s beautiful,” agreed Corbett, and she thought that he must have heard her thoughts again.

“A crow,” she said listlessly.

‘But my darling, what else could he be? He’s the son of a crow and a goose.”

Veronika thought she heard him wrong. Didn’t he accuse her father to be the murderer of crows and enslaver of geese?

“Where’s your mother?” Veronika asked the question that had been bothering her for so long.

“She’s gone, Veronika. She wouldn’t bother us again.”

“Bother us?”

“Kill him, Veronika, before it’s too late.” It seemed that Corbett’s mother was gone but the trio of ghost brides remained.

**

Killing the man you had learned to love was a difficult thing. Killing her father’s child, one doted upon and cared for, was even harder. Father and son seemed to have developed a bond that even Veronika couldn’t breach. Her son Rodor, meaning sky, loved her and she loved him, but there were terrifying nights when she saw those little feathers peek through his back, as if they were taking over him.

By the time Rodor was five, she understood that Corbett’s mother was dead. Even the ghosts had somehow been bearable, especially since she now slept in the same room as her husband, and not in the tower.

When her son was about to turn six, though, an unexpected visitor came with terrible news. It was David, Flora’s older brother.

“We searched high and low for you, Princess. Your father is dead and I’m guessing my sister is, too?”

“W-what happened to them?”

“Knights carrying black flags with the crow emblem came.”

A chill ran down Veronika’s spine.

“When did this happen?”

“Seven years ago, Princess.”

But if her husband had her father killed by his men, how did David easily get past the guards? Why did they let him in?

“I’m a goose,” he said, seeing the confusion on her face. He placed a black envelope in the palm of her hand. “When you’re ready, open this and read the letter inside. I’m leaving.”

To her wonder, her husband’s men let David leave the grounds with no issue. But there was a feeling within her that was growing strong. Anger.

**

“Are you not feeling well today, Veronika?” her husband asked. There was a half-smile on his face, but she could tell that he knew something was wrong.

“Just tired,” she muttered. The only thing that made the dinner bearable was her son hugging her her waist.

Forgive me, my son.

“There you are, Princess. Kill him. Kill him.”

The brides of doom were back. Veronika wondered if they were all birds like her husband, or if they were human women who just happened to be in the wrong path at the wrong time. They must have felt fortunate at first, seeing that a handsome, powerful man like him noticed them.

Even though her heart felt wretched, Veronika knew that she must kill him. It wouldn’t be in their bedroom, or even within the castle walls. In fact, she even let him make love to her that night. It was full of emotion – not just of love and desire this time, but of anger and frustration. He praised her for that night, not knowing that what stirred her was something darker. She planned to kill him when he take his bird form and fly about in the forest, which was his real lair. The castle might have been his abode as human king, but she knew that he gathered strength within the trees.

“It’s where I belong,” he had once told her. “It’s where you belong.”

It had seemed sweet then, but now she was ready to break through his lair, one she couldn’t take as her own. No, never. She and her son would leave this place or overtake it, rule it with his corpse under her feet.

Then, she would make the call – to attract the bird, get it close. Close enough to kill.

**

Veronika was a smart woman. People only noticed her beauty, but discounted that fact. She also discovered her resilience and patience. This time, she unearthed something else – the strength to kill someone she learned to love.

“It was all wrong,” a voice rasped in her ear.

“All wrong,” she agreed.

“He forced you into this. He doesn’t love you. He would have taken your maid.”

“You are right.”

Bitterness clouded her vision as she made the call her lips had learned from one of the tomes he gave her to read. Ironic. Calling the crow in the middle of the night was a risk. What if it was someone else? What if she called upon something darker? What if her husband ended up guessing her motives even before he landed close enough?

Then, he came. The crow flapped its wings, the full moon behind it. Veronika gripped her dagger, ready to attack. She made the sound with her lips again and then it went for her. It hovered a few inches over her face as she tilted her head to gaze upon it.

Love. Hate. Fear. Anger.

It overwhelmed.

Her father’s death.

The trio of dead brides.

Their son born in his likeness.

She screamed and slashed at the bird. It was startled, a little frozen from her incantation. She stabbed at him again, the sharp point digging into his little heart. It squawked, shuddered, and shifted. She felt the heavy weight at the end of the tip. Felt his body fall to the ground.

Laughter filled the forest.

Mocking.

Rejoicing.

Veronika stumbled on her black velvet dress, right on her naked dead husband. Blood pooled from his chest. He shook a little, his body racking in pain and disbelief as he struggled to hold on to what was left of his life.

“W-why?”

“You killed my father, Corbett. Now, you’re dying from the wound I gave you. I have won. I’ll leave with my son.”

“Ah-our s-son,” he groaned.

“My son. You have lost, you evil man.”

“N-no. I killed the witch. N-not m-my mother. T-the duke? N-not your father.”

“What do you mean?” she screamed at him, kneeling by his side as his eyes rolled into their sockets.

“H-he killed b-birds, my goose girl.”

Before she could ask more questions, her husband expired. In a few minutes, he transformed back into his crow form.

It didn’t feel like victory to Veronika as she walked toward the castle, unease swirling inside her. It was easy to make up a story that her husband had been killed by hunters in the forest. She could point at David, who had just visited.

In the morning, she ate her breakfast with Rodor, now fatherless and restless. He whined to see his father not knowing how his mother continued to list all the justifications for her husband’s death.

“Fool.”

The voice rang in her head so clearly, it startled her.

“Katherine,” she called her maid, suddenly wanting to ask questions.

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“What did the Duke of Helm in Gooseberry do to the birds?”

“To us, birds, you mean?

Veronika simply nodded.

“Murder. Slavery.”

She had heard it all before, of course, but something was missing.

“What about the geese of Gooseberry? They seemed treated well?”

“Spies, the lot of them, b-but -.”

“But?”

“Have you ever looked yourself in the mirror lately, Your Majesty? Have you ever thought -? Remembered?” The maid stammered and paled.

For some reason, Veronika fumbled for the black envelope she had been carrying around in her skirt pockets. She didn’t want to leave it in her room for anyone to discover.

She opened it and read.

“Dear sister,

I’m happy to see you are well, but saddened that Flora is dead. She has been jealous of the fact that the duke had chosen you to claim as his child. As geese, we never have the rights that the humans fully have but you have it.

You are fortunate to have been chosen as King Corbett’s wife. He is the defender of birds. Our father may have been angry about how the king killed our sister, but he now understands that the witch controlled his actions for a time. After your marriage, the king had tried his best to get rid of her influence, but the ghosts of her presence still remains there as the king’s former spy brides.

Between you and me, though, I believe that the king believed Flora was a spy. He is known to hate liars and he had always wanted you. The witch kept on sending him false brides, blondes who only looked like you from afar. He might have thought Flora a fourth attempt.

The murder of the duke is necessary. You may not believe it, but it’s true. Stay with your husband. He will protect you. But if something happens to him, you’ll have to take the role of our defender. The woman you thought to be your mother will soon hunt you down. She may have loved you in her own way, but she wouldn’t forgive your husband and your son.

I can’t blame you if you can’t believe anything I’ve said so far. You can ignore me, or you can go to the forest when the moon is full. Pluck three strands of your golden hair in quick succession and say, “surge sursus” three times.”

David

With trembling hands, Veronika folded the letter. She could see pity in Katherine’s eyes. She turned to her son, her heart tearing apart.

What had she done?

The moon would be full tonight. She would have to find out.

**

Veronika stood in a forest clearing. She let her hair loose on her shoulders. She pulled three strands of golden hair and uttered “surge sursus” three times. Something bubbled inside of her.

It became a scream.

Then, it became a squawk.

**

Skein:

1. a length of thread or yarn, loosely coiled and knotted.

2.a flock of wild geese or swans in flight, typically in a V-shaped formation.

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