Song of the Moth
A Katie. M. John Fairytale.
Song of The Moth
By
Katie M John
Copyright 2011 ©
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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*
High in the dome of St Pauls Cathedral a boy crouches. He is ordinary in every definable way, extraordinary in every other. There is something about him which ensures that when you meet the bottomless pools of his green eyes, you shrink back into your soul and desperately search for a key that might lock out the monster in front of you.
His name is Nemo: One without name. It was a name given in jest by a cruel man with a wicked wit; a requirement for any man appointed to govern a London Workhouse. Nemo holds his name dear, after all, it is has become the whole reason for his existence.
He had selected the dome of the cathedral as he vantage point earlier that morning; slipping in past the crowds of tourists and making his way up the stone stairs – hiding in a corner of shadows. He doesn’t know why he still feels the need to do this because he is, like his name, a thing of nothing; invisible to everyone who doesn’t care to look. But she had looked. She’d searched into the sunlight and saw him for what he was. A momentary flash of brilliance had passed across her face before the stain of horror spread like a dark cloud.
She was probably at home now, propped up against thick linen bound pillows, being spoon fed sips of beef broth by a concerned and kindly sister. A sister increasingly frustrated by her mother’s refusal to call for a doctor. By now, the girl would be half mad. Within the month there would be little choice but to relocate her somewhere safe, far from the house and polite society. She would no longer be the young women they knew – she too would become something monstrous.
The thing is, once you look upon a goblin, you’re doomed.
*
Nemo stood and stretched out his arms into the early evening gloom. His black velvet jacket and white cotton shirt were both pinchingly small; as he stretched, they rode high, exposing a pale white, almost translucent stomach beneath. The button of his trousers didn’t quite meet the hole it was planned for and the whole effect was of an awesome moth about to burst from its chrysalis.
As if irritated by tightness, he took of his jacket and slipped the shirt over his head, casting them carelessly aside. Blue light bled through the small holes that encircled the crown of the dome. It gave the startling effect a magician’s box pierced by the ghosts of blue blades.
Nemo turned on the spot, his arms outstretched. It was a fluid movement, the movement of a dancer. He lunged forward, pulling in one clenched fist to his chest and outstretching the other to the farthest point of his reach. He had learnt these movements as a child, watching the Chinese Sailors through the bars of his dormitory window. Nemo, fascinated by their strange dawn rituals, watched them morning after morning. Eventually echoing their movements, he found in them a deep sense of satisfaction and a connection with his body. They helped him focus; see things for what they were. Now in the gloom of the fading day, Nemo set about an intricate set of these movements, travelling deeply to face the demon within.
*
Francis had found most of the day tedious beyond measure. Her mother had insisted on all of the women of the household escorting Mr. Smithe -Williams on a tour about town in the pathetic attempt that maybe she could pimp one of her three daughters into engagement with a man who, in her mother’s words, was ‘One of the most dashingly rich and eligible bachelor’s in town.’
Unfortunately, Francis did not quite share the enthusiasm either her mother or her sisters held for the young rogue. More unfortunately, she did not share the interest he showed in her. In fact, Francis would actually go as far as to say that she found the ‘dashing, rich and eligible bachelor’, rather repugnant; not that her polite and well trained smiles showed such a thing. Instinctively Francis understood Mr Smithe-William’s was a whole bag of trouble; a sweet and sickly bonbon with a nut at the centre that would take relish in choking you.
Their visit started with a trip to see Buckingham Palace and concluded in a visit St Paul’s Cathedral. Mr Smithe-Williams or ‘call me Teddy’ as he lasciviously whispered in her ear, was a keen student of architecture, although to be specific, Call Me Teddy’s only interest was in structures of a female kind. He spent more time smiling and winking at blushing, respectable young ladies, than he did marvelling at the genius of Wren.
Several times during the day, Francis fought off the compulsion to suddenly break into a run and leave them all behind. But the current ladies fashion of crinolines made this somewhat impossible, and so she spent several hours mentally scribing rhetoric against such stupid contraptions, particularly liking the image of them being fabric cages.
“Isn’t it just glorious, Francis?” Her mother’s voice came screeching across the peace of the Nave.
“Yes, just …” Francis couldn’t be bothered to finish and it didn’t matter. Before she could respond, her mother took Call Me Teddy by the arm and used her parasol in a rather threatening way to point out the finer points of Wren’s craft.
Francis took her chance to steal off to the side and took a seat on one of the cool stone benches. The day was ridiculously close, the kind of day that presses down on you and labours your lungs. She reached behind her, worrying the laces of the over tight corset, hoping to work just a small fingers worth of slack that might take the pressure off.
All at once the floor rippled up in wave, the smoke from the candles caused a thin layer of softness like a veil and just as if plunged under water, the room went silent. Then, amongst all of this sliding, rippling chaos, something came into focus as sharp as the edge of a blade at your throat. A boy, almost a man; an exquisite figure, tall and defined with skin whitely iridescent as marble, hair black as the raven’s wing, stopped mid step and, in slow motion, turned to look at her, just as if she had called out his name.
Francis grabbed at her chest, pulled at the stiff boned fabric, desperately searching for air. Fear and desire mingled into a powerful toxin rushing through her veins, speeding towards her heart and she knew when it got there, there was a possibility it would kill her. Across the distance, she saw his eyes – like emeralds burning against snow. He was beauty and horror all at once, but she couldn’t get a grip on the image in front of her because it kept shifting. Her eyes and mind no longer seemed connected, for what her eyes saw, her mind refused to accept. Her thoughts raced. She had seen the thing in front of her before, seen it inked in the pages of her fairytale book, and seen it lurking in the nightmares of her childhood.
The boy was a goblin.
“Francis, oh Francis!” Her mother’s voice was pitching high in panic and the vile sulphurous reek of the smelling salts burnt her nostrils, pulling her back into the real.
“Mother, the boy…the boy.”
“Which boy darling?” Her mother turned, quickly scanning the nave for the boy in question. “There is no boy, Francis. You’ve just taken a little turn. We’ll get you home and into bed.”
Call Me Teddy pulled Francis to her feet, wrapped one arm around her waist and with the other, steadied her. She flinched at his over familiar touch and attempted to move out from under his far too eager arm, but rather than letting her go, he tightened his grip. Suddenly the horrible sensation of being trapped in an unfurling and inescapable destiny beat at her brain.
*
She’d been sitting, half obscured by the light when he had seen her. Even now, working through the movements, stretching out his lithe limbs, reaching into his own breath, he couldn’t shake her face from his mind. Memories of her looking at him, the sight of her face as she saw the monster beneath the surface, haunted him. He knew with that look she was undone. It was inevitable. It had never really bothered him before – but now it did. It bothered him greatly, and he couldn’t quite understand why.
That she should be here, sitting in the cathedral, was exactly as planned – she was his new prey after all. Edward, his master, grew impatient, pressing for events to take a quicker turn and, although he was convinced the mother had taken to him, he wasn’t entirely sure Francis was going to come to him as easily as expected.
Edward was an impetuous creature, damned right volatile when he didn’t get exactly what he wanted. Thankfully for everyone in The Kingdom, Edward not getting what he pleased was a rare situation.
Whilst hunting deer in the woods, Edward had seen Francis picking bluebells; her dress pinned up into her garters to stop it from getting dew drenched, her flaxen hair, escaping like strands of gold in the spring sunlight. He’d seen at once, how strong and vital her heart was; how full of passion and desire. He knew without doubt, that until her heart was beating in the palm of his hand, he’d be plagued by an unsatisfied desire.
So, why had he not killed her there and then? He’d been tempted, beyond reason. He’d felt the overwhelming urge to charge over and pin her against the tree before ripping her heart out through the cotton of her dress. But killing close up was never as exquisite as watching it happen in front of you; there was as more pleasure in watching another kill as watching one die. Edward liked to play with his food; in particular he liked to make sure the heart was seasoned with the peppering of pain, a pain that he liked to inflict himself. It wasn’t enough to ingest a pure heart, the heart had to carry part of him in it; the ultimate narcissist – the most frightening of all monsters.
Nemo did not fully understand such desires. All he knew was that somewhere along the path they had travelled together, Edward had transformed into a monster and as such, this Dark Prince had changed from his once saviour to his now captor. Nemo’s only hope of freedom was completing this mission.
One more. Just one more – then I can stop. Then, I will be free.
Nemo took in a deep breath, pushing out his right arm against an invisible force, moving his right leg round, so that his whole body spun on its axis.
Free!
He lunged. But why does it have to be her? Why her? All at once, he pulled himself up sharp, staring into the darkness before speaking into the night,
“Surely, the question is – why not?” he asked aloud into the gloom.
“That is always the real question, Nemo.” Edward spoke as he stepped out from the darker shadows; the flame from his match cast a yellow light over his face as he lit his cigarette. As quickly as it flared, it extinguished, returning him once more to a disembodied voice. “I’m curious; what great philosophical musing are you undertaking?”
“Nothing, Sir, I was just thinking aloud.”
“A dangerous thing – thinking. Take my advice, a man should always try and let someone else do that for him: It’s safer that way.” The red tip of the cigarette bloomed bright, “So you the girl, Francis?”
“Yes, I saw her, and she…” Nemo paused, knowing if he revealed she’d also seen him, Edward would be far from happy.
“And she … what?” A plume of white smoke made the shape of a love-heart in the dark.
“She … nothing, I was just thinking…” Nemo’s voice petered out and he desperately hoped that something would pop into his mind and save him from himself.
“Like I said, best not to think about it.”
“Yes, probably.”
In the dark, the whiteness of Nemo’s body created a patch of light. He knew Edward could see him and it served to make him feel more vulnerable than he usually did in Edward’s presence. They often met like this, in the darkness. For Edward, this favouring of shadows was purely a choice; unlike many of their kind, his monstrous status was not exposed by the sunlight. It allowed him to move freely amongst the human world – a talent which created a mixture of awe and envy in his subjects. Similarly, for Nemo, sunlight was fine unless channelled into a shaft and then, if caught in it, like earlier in the cathedral, he was exposed for what he was – a monster.
From the movement of the small burning O, it was observable that Edward was now pacing, agitated, excited. “So, he plan, boy; I intend to marry Francis before the end of the summer. In the meantime, I’m going to make Francis love me, stirring in her a passion like her virgin soul has never dreamt possible. At the moment you rip it from her, I want her heart right on the edge of madness, desperate for the night of our honeymoon, her heart overflowing with love and desire. You understand?”
Nemo’s head bowed in response, “When this is done, I will be free?”
“Yes, then you will be free.”
Nemo watched the little red light lead away towards the door and then disappear completely. With a great sense of relief, he was once again alone.
*
Despite what everyone told her, Francis knew her eyes had not lied. Cold tendrils of dreadful anticipation crept over her heart; she knew from the tales of the old wives, anyone who looked upon a Goblin was cursed to pay with their mind.
When the party arrived home, she’d been transported straight to bed in Call me Teddy’s arms. There was no denying, he had behaved just like the perfect gentleman, even offering to call on the services of his very own physician. At the door, just before he left, he turned his head to check on her; a small gesture, but one which showed a hitherto undemonstrated tenderness.
“Thank you, Edward!” Francis’s voice came out in a whisper and she was convinced he did not hear her across such a distance. If she’d seen the cruel smile of triumph play on his lips she may have thought otherwise – about everything.
The day had been exhausting and she fell into a hot, unsettled sleep. All through the night her mind refused to leave the two sliding images of the beautiful youth and the foul beast that flashed through his skin. Each time she gripped onto his beauty, she once again caught a glimpse of the horror beneath it; skin, green and reptilian; teeth, yellowing and sharp; his raven wing hair replaced by a damp shimmering layer of sap. What filled her heart with more horror than all of what she saw was the sense of hunger, the desperate hunger that came from the boy.
A flapping of wings, close enough to her to cause a disturbance of air, pulled her from her dreams and suffered her to wake in that awful heart hammering way of the terrified. Her hand flew out for the matches and striking one, she fell back in fear as she looked upon a large moth. At other times she might have considered beautiful but now, settled on her coverlet, it stirred in her a deep and irrational fear. Fumbling for the lost matches and grabbing for the candlestick, she managed at last to get the candle lit and look upon her attacker. The moth was the size of two hands, fingers spread wide; pale white with black markings that disturbed its otherwise stunning beauty – for those markings made up the image of a pair of grinning skulls.
Instinct screamed at her to destroy the creature, to smash it to pieces or else take the candle and set light to it and watch it burn. Before she could make a decision on a mode of extermination, it turned itself around and took flight across the room, leaving by the open window. Francis stumbled out of bed, slamming the window shut behind the horrible harbinger of death.
She leant back against the wall, calming herself and trying to deny the nagging sensation of there being something still in the house – something possibly like the ‘thing’ in the cathedral. Behind the fear, there was another stirring emotion, a feeling at once natural and alien; for as much as horror wormed its way into her mind, beauty filled her heart.
Insane as it sounded, she knew she had fallen in love.
Francis turned to look out onto the moonlit grounds. Summer was coming. The birds were making their early morning dawn chorus and a fox, followed by her cubs, loped across the garden. The beauty of it all distracted her attention away from the red glowing O hovering between the Rhododendron bushes.
*
Most goblin and fae unions are not made in love, and the offspring of these unions are usually so deformed that they are unable to live past infanthood. Nemo was different; maybe because his mother was not full fae but half human, but whatever the reason, the result of all this species confusion was Nemo.
Until he hit puberty, Nemo was an ‘ordinary’ boy with ‘funny’ ideas; destined, according to the workhouse warden, to leave this institution only to find himself incarcerated in another – a lunatic asylum, just like his mother. In a funny way, the warden’s prophesy had come true.
It had taken several miserable months working as a scrub boy in Bethlem Hospital for the Insane, known to the locals as Bedlam; cleaning out the filth and squalor from the cells of the lunatics, before he had been promoted to Doctor’s boy. It was a role which required him to basically follow behind the eminent Psychiatrist like a shadow, running errands and carrying his bag. It was because of this privileged position, that Nemo found himself in the hospital’s ballroom, caught up in a dance for the lunatics.
As the music played the dancing bodies of the patients created the disturbing parody of a society party. Nemo watched fascinated, becoming captivated by the beauty of a woman dancing to her own private tune.
Her golden hair fell below her waist; her emerald eyes flashed brilliance in the candlelight. The whole effect gave the impression that she was a creature otherworldly; trapped and terrified to the point of insanity. Nemo saw how he wasn’t the only one captivated by her stunning beauty. The Doctor looked on her with a lust that almost made him salivate. Nemo was disgusted by it; felt a defensive rage stir – because Nemo had known as soon as he saw her, that the woman was his mother.
When the music stopped, the woman froze mid move, like a statue. Her eyes fixed onto the eyes of the boy and he felt the certainty of the world give way; heard the splintering crack of his heart. Never had he felt such pain.
The music struck up again and bewitched, Nemo made his way to her through the sea of spontaneously erupting, jigging, swirling bodies. She was still, her hand reaching out to his, he mirrored her. But just as if a pane of glass were between them, they both let their hand fall before they could touch. She tilted her head to one side and looked at his face as if she were drinking him in.
“I knew you would come, Oren.” She smiled.
Nemo tripped over the name she offered out to him, “Mother?”
“Here, take this.” She reached into the long tresses of her hair, recovering a silver handled dagger, “There will come a time you will need it. Carry it always.”
Nemo reached out his hand, grasping a tight palm around the handle. It was as cold as ice and burnt his flesh. All at once, the music changed key and as if she had been dowsed in acid, she started to scream. Within moments, several orderlies burst through the crowds and seized her brutally by the arms, causing her to fall to the ground before being dragged off. The disturbance set a ripple effect through the party and like a set of falling dominoes, each lunatic released his madness.
Nemo ran, fearful that amongst the confusion, he would be mistaken for a patient and locked up. He did not look back. As he fled from the chaos of Bedlam, he bumped into Edward; He was stood as if he had been waiting for him.
When Nemo shape-shifted for the first time, changing from his human form to his familiar, Edward was there; reassuring him, caring for him. He was like the father he’d never had. It was amazing how the shifting from one form to another so quickly become a natural part of him; there was no pain or discomfort, no struggle, just a wonderfully freeing movement, a lightness that came with his moth self. At first, the changes were a little unstable and there were practical issues that needed to be considered. It wouldn’t do in polite Victorian society to just suddenly emerge naked.
Edward organised lodgings and a trunk of clothes for Nemo; then the paternal relationship turned into a business partnership, which to Edward, it had been all along. The defining moment came when Edward offered to have Nemo’s mother freed and placed in a cottage in the country where she could live out her natural existence. All Nemo had to do in return, was to become Edward’s private assassin. An easy exchange in light of the nightmares Nemo suffered since the incident at Bedlam.
The first killing had been much easier than he’d feared, and although he experienced no relish for it, it strangely didn’t repulse him either. Nemo reasoned the life of one girl was a small price to pay for his mother’s freedom and the patronage of Edward. But of course, it was never really a one girl deal and so when six months later, his patron returned, he knew he was trapped in a terrible snare and his only chance was to try and negotiate his way out of it.
In the end, Edward took it surprisingly well and agreed the killing of Francis would be the dramatic finale to their relationship. He had Edward’s word for it. But things were playing out strangely. Never before had Edward encouraged Nemo to get close to the victim before the allocated time and these new patterns led Nemo to understand somehow the rules of the game were changing but it had been felt unnecessary to inform him as to how.
Thoughts of Francis plagued him. Ever since his moth-shape had visited her room to watch her sleeping, he’d been unable to shake thoughts of her away. Edward had attended Francis through her illness, taking her out in an attempt to ‘improve her health and make her merry.’ When Edward returned, he would take great delight in telling Nemo all about how they’d been to the opera, or strolled in the park – how she had reached out her hand for his and so on. Each time Nemo was forced to listen to the list of intimate interactions, he found his heart twinge with a tight pang. He’d taken to tracking his patron and Francis in their activities, watching them in secret, disguised by his moth form, as they sat in the park or walked by the Thames. Each time he did this, he found himself feeling wearier of the coming events.
She was like a drug; every time he saw her smile or blush, he found himself mirroring her actions. He loved the way she constantly fiddled with her corset laces as if she longed to break free, or how, when she thought she was unobserved, she would lift her skirts and splash in the puddles with childlike mischievousness. He worried she looked paler, thinner somehow, slightly frailer each time he saw her and he wondered what it was that should ail her so.
*
Francis sat on the edge of her bed, unpinning her hair and thinking on the day. Her papa had taken refuge his library and her mother played efficient matron, placing her under the constant supervision of one of her sisters and flapping around the house like a mother hen. In the space of six weeks, things had unravelled beyond recognition.
Francis’ episodes were becoming ever more frequent, and her outbursts increasingly feared. She knew she wasn’t mad but she understood why the others might think she was. She’d overheard her mother talking to papa about calling in the local priest; she believed her daughter to have been possessed by some form of spirit. Papa, more gravely thought that his favourite daughter was rapidly going insane, and it seemed the burden of this was greater than if he thought she were dying.
The only person to reassure her against an escalating insanity was Edward. Each morning, to her mother’s greatly overbearing gratitude; he called for her to walk her around the park or to take a stroll by the river. Francis looked forward to these visits with a great sense of relief for they were the only time she felt safe from the creatures which now riddled her imagination.
The goblins were increasingly with her. At first, they were fleeting shadows moving behind her reflection in the mirror, or the silverware when she poured the tea. After she went around the house, covering all the mirrors with dust sheets and hiding all the silverware in the boathouse, they became increasingly bold. Now without reflections to hide in, they ran about the house like rapscallion children; the sound of their scampering footsteps and coarse laughter rang continually. They were vile creatures which left a trail of dampness and a smell like death. Francis could not fathom why others in the house failed to see these invaders, but in the end she gave up trying to point them out; they always hid before other eyes could catch them.
Then Francis had stopped eating, claiming goblins were trying to poison her. It was at this point that her mother finally accepted things were unlikely to ever return to normal. Her daughter was lost.
For Francis, the only calm in the whole storm was Edward, and over the course of the long and exhausting summer, she put aside her thoughts of the cathedral youth and tentatively allowed herself to fall in love with him. Far from the showy cad and bounder she’d once thought him, she now saw him as her only hope of salvation.
What Francis didn’t know was how Edward was conspiring with her ailing father to have her placed in an asylum; a place, he assured her mother, where Francis was bound to recover. So with pledges of guardianship and promises of a future marriage, Edward persuaded Francis’s father to sign over power of attorney to her loving fiancé.
Things moved quicker than any of them could have imagined. Within an hour of the papers being signed, a terrible noise of breaking china and glass filled the house. Only a group of goblins or a lunatic could create such destruction. It was clear to all of them which it was. Francis’ screams filled the room as she found herself fighting against the arms of the man she had grown to love. But far from waking up from her three day drug induced sleep in a nightmare institutions, she found herself waking to the luxury of a country house.
She got up and dressed before wandering around the rambling house. Eventually she found Edward smoking in his library. When she walked in, he offered out his hand and she took it. Away from the spying eyes of the chaperone, he gently pulled her onto his knee. Sitting there in his arms, he informed her that she was to be nursed in the comfort of his own home by a physician and nurse he’d appointed privately. Here she would be safe from the demons which haunted her. Francis turned to him and planted a kiss on Edward’s cheek; she knew her love to be true.
*
Nemo was unaware of these matters,
for Francis’s madness only occurred within the walls of her home.
To the outside world, she appeared, although a little fatigued,
perfectly normal.
Nemo began to hope Edward’s plans were now changed, that perhaps a miracle had happened and she was to be spared. But then, returning home from the bookstore to a gloomy house, the familiar smell of Egyptian cigarette filled his senses and he knew the time had come.
“Evening, Nemo.”
“Sir, how goes it?”
“Well, thank you: Very well indeed.”
Nemo’s heart felt terribly heavy and the rare urge to cry suddenly stole on him. These minor shifts were not missed by Edward, and Nemo felt Edward’s eyes meet his with a hungry curiosity.
“So, it is time?” Nemo asked. His voice wavered.
“Yes, my carriage is waiting. Are you ready to go?”
“Yes – I am ready.”
The ride to Edward’s estate was unbearably long and even though the horses travelled at an unbelievable speed through the woodlands framing the city, it felt like they were travelling all through the night. The tension inside the carriage was palpable. Edward’s eyes barely left Nemo’s face and, acutely aware of this, Nemo exhausted every displacement activity available. In the space of an hour he successfully frayed both of his velvet cuffs and managed to unstring two of his jacket buttons, now he reached the flesh under his thumb nail and tasted the coppery metals of blood filling his mouth.
At last, when he could bare it no more, when he thought something might snap Nemo spoke out into the darkness, “I don’t think I can do this, Sir.”
Edward seemed as surprised by the words as Nemo, “My dear boy, why on earth not?”
Why not? Nemo, reeling from the shock of having spoken the taboo aloud, could not piece together his thoughts enough to answer.
*
Francis heard the wheels of the carriage crunch the gravel and felt the wave of familiar relief which Edward brought with him; her protector, her saviour. He had become her talisman against the evil of the goblins and eclipsed the lunacy she felt every time the image of the boy in the cathedral haunted her thoughts. It was for this she loved him.
The footman jump down and open the door for his master. He was followed by another man, slightly shorter, thinner, and much younger. Her heart jumped, the room swam. The boy!
Francis banged on the glass causing Edward to look up and offer a wave. She signalled violently to him, but he didn’t understand what could be causing her such distress. He turned, looking beyond the carriage and garden, and nodded his head at her. By the time he got to her room, the sheets from the bed covered the mirror and she was cramming the silverware in the cupboard.
“Francis, darling, what in God’s name are you doing?”
“They’re here! They’ve found me!”
“Shh, stuff and nonsense.”
“But I saw him – the goblin boy! I saw him! He followed you here.”
“What boy?”
Francis collapsed on the side of the bed sobbing, “I thought I was getting better. I so thought I was getting better but I’m not, am I?”
Edward went to the decanter and poured a large glass of port for himself and a smaller for her, into which without her seeing, he slipped a blue liquid. He returned to her, handing her the glass, “Drink up, you’ll feel so much better in the morning.”
Within minutes she was half between sleep and consciousness, a place where the light from the candle flickered as if it were sunlight on the surface of water, and where, for the first time in her memory she felt free of bonds, bones and laces. She stood face to face with the boy, his eyes flamed emerald, shinning out against his crystalline face. Above her, the spring leaves rustled against each other, trembling in the slipstream of time. Never before had she been aware of such beauty or so full of a hunger and desire. Never had she felt so afraid.
*
Nemo stood at the side of Francis’s bed. Her eyes were open but she was somewhere else – lost. He bent low, his eyes levelling with hers, swimming in the grey swirling waters. A faint blush lay in her cheeks, her lips were moist and full like ripe, soft fruit. Edward stood at his side; a heavy presence.
“Glorious isn’t she?” Edward’s velveteen voice came out soft and thick.
“Yes.”
“Almost breaks your heart, doesn’t it, Nemo?”
Like a falling house of cards, everything substantial turned to air. A wail rang in his head, the sound reminded him of a finger circling the top of a crystal glass; it was the sound of a cutting clarity. Nemo now understood he had been meant to fall in love with her; his heart like a hunted animal, caught in the wire trap of love.
Francis moaned luxuriously and Nemo faltered. He was aware that every second was a moment closer to his own death. He wondered if Edward was aware that Nemo had understood it all.
“Yes, it would break your heart if you owned one.” Nemo forced his words out hard and bold, desperately attempting to create an illusion of innocence.
Edward laughed, “Aye if I owned one – but I soon will. Does it pain you to do the things I ask of you? Does it twist your insides to think of Francis’s heart plucked from her body like a full red rose, beating tremulously in the palm of my hand; her face, still as stone, dressed with the mask of fear?”
The air shifted. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Edward’s terrible transformation into goblin. Even if he hadn’t seen it, the awful guttural command of Edward’s voice would have been enough to tell Nemo he was now in the presence of a monster.
“DO IT NOW!”
Nemo raised his hand; his fingers were clawed and ready to strike. Pain and fear tortured his soul. Whichever way this went, he knew was likely to die. His arm surged with energy, coming towards Francis’ sighing breast and then onwards so that his elbow came to be a sharp and fast travelling weapon impacting on soft, leathery flesh. Edward growled through shock and reeled backwards, giving time for Nemo to turn and face his enemy.
Edward clutched his side, laughing, “So you guessed whose heart it was I wanted, after all!”
Half crouching, bracing himself for a running attack, Nemo fixed Edward hard in the eye, “My heart’s not for you, Monster.”
They charged at the same time, colliding and falling into a scraping heap on the floor. Locked together they rolled. Nemo desperately tried to avoid Edward’s deadly, blade like talons which were designed for the ripping flesh and for the removal of hearts.
After several minutes of fierce snarling and wrestling, they split, each getting to their feet and preparing for another clash. Edward didn’t see Nemo reach back into the waistband of his pocket and retrieve the magical dagger. As they charged, it was too late for Edward to swerve and the magical dagger sped towards his eye.
The blade channelled into the soft gelatinous substance of his eye and spread a burning sensation out from the metal epicentre, until at last, the whole of Edward’s body was a ball of flames, whirling around the room in agony, setting light to the curtains and fabrics.
The Goblin King’s screams stirred Francis from her dreams. She woke to find the fire flames dancing across her room and licking the soft furnishings with an almost impossible speed. Nemo was desperately tearing at the locked door, but it held fast; they were going to die!
Hearing her screams, Nemo half ran, half stumbled to the bed, taking the terrified Francis in his arms.
“It’s you – the boy in my dreams.”
“Yes, I’m here.”
Her eyes caught his and despite the slaughtering heat of the room, she felt the cool calm of spring air shiver over her skin. Her wild panic driven heart beat calmed and all at once she felt at peace.
“We’re not getting out of here are we?”
Nemo reached out his hand to her cheek and where it touched her tears, they froze, lacing her face with diamonds.
“Yes we are! YES. WE. ARE!” he said with determination. “Kiss me,” he whispered.
“Kiss you? At a …”
Nemo stopped her protests with his lips, kissing her softly with a touch as light as angel feathers. His lips persuaded her to yield, and she did. Their kisses became deeper; breath poured from each of them into the other, until Francis found herself slipping through into another world.
*
Oren took her hand in his and they danced amongst the wildflowers of the meadow under a starlit night. As they danced they heard the silent song of the moths; a song that only the soul can hear; its rhythm created by the fluttering of wings against moonlight.
As Francis danced she saw that she knew this place; she recognised the cluster of trees and the stone fairy-ring. It was the forbidden place, the meadow beyond the garden gate with its rusty hinges. It was the place where the fairies danced and the goblins played.
She knew she was home.