#Lower Gardiner Street | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spookyspaghettisundae · 3 years

Text

Only Skins and Bones

Blood from the body had stained the pristine snow around it. A withered husk of what once must have looked human—it looked more like a pile of discarded clothing.

Hollow eye sockets stared back at the witch.

Agnes knelt by the drained corpse. A sweet and sickly smell emanated from it.

What were they dealing with here? She had never seen nor heard of such a thing.

Though common man would have recoiled at the grisly remains, the herbalist-witch had a strong stomach, steeled from treating patients and truly revolting ailments.

Despite what the people of Altmere had described, this could be no work of a wolf-man. What she now studied, scanning carefully with the eyes of a surgeon, was not the work of a feral beast. No feasting had occurred. The way the skin had split suggested thousands of tiny teeth.

With fingers splayed, her own hand hovered above the drained body. Nothing but skin and bones had been left behind by the unnatural culprit. Even the innards were missing entirely, taken without a trace.

And the husk was still warm.

Twigs snapped and snow crunched behind her.

The crunching accompanied heavy boots digging into the heavier blanket of snow as Luca returned to the desolate site, pushing past the barren trees of this forest. The blunderbuss in his hand rested against his shoulder and he peered over the silvery brim of his spectacles to meet her gaze.

He shook his head.

"Like the other one. Tracks just vanish into thin air. Like it went right up into the trees," he said, clicking his tongue and rolling his square jaw.

"But the trees are not disturbed," Agnes added.

He shook his head again and cast a glance around them.

"Any black rose on the remains?" he asked, letting the rest of his breath escape him as a sigh.

"None," she said.

The cold made her digits tingle painfully, even breathing made her throat burn with the freezing wintry air. She rose to her feet and patted at her dark green cloak, rustling it, and ridding it of some of the snow now clinging to the bottom.

"It is worthy of our attention. And not for nothing, but we can help the—"

"Right, that's where I'm struggling a bit to make sense of why we're even bothering. Where I come from, you have to claw your bloody way up and get nothing for free. If some creature is out here, then let the king's men deal with it, I reckon. We need to find more signs of the black rose, not some random creatures of the night. I—I just do not even understand why you are so invested. They ran you out of Crimsonport, for fuck's sake. Burned your house down for—"

"Enough," she cut him off. Frowned at him.

Using a leather-clad thumb, Luca shoved the spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. Stared at her all the while, unblinking. Studying her reactions, as he always did.

One of the most charming and handsome men she had even known, he also happened to be among the most frustrating company she could imagine.

Always stinging like a scorpion and retreating, always keeping people at arm's length. Testing limits. Expecting people to be here one day and gone the next. Just like her fire-red hair led gullible people to expect the worst superstitions of witches to be alive with her, his silver hair paired with his youthful appearance lent—

"Let's move on," he interrupted her thoughts. "The cards said we would meet our quarry out here today, and I'm inclined to believe them. Whether it is this creature or not. I'm also inclined to find a warm hearth as soon as possible." He groaned, then said, "I hate this time o' year. Why do these damned things like this time o' year so much?"

He held out a gloved hand for her to take, offering help to step over the fallen log that obstructed the path between them, behind which the bloodless, gutless body lay.

Agnes grinned at him and ignored his gesture, stepping over the log without taking his hand.

He tilted his head, flashed her one of his typically roguish smirks, and turned, leading the way.

Snow crunched and resisted their tread. Their boots sank deep and kicked up chunks of the hard-packed frosting on the forest grounds.

No birds chirped.

Most unsettling to Agnes, not even the crows cawed. There should have been crows here.

Every time she looked up, the barren and skeletal trees loomed overhead, their pointy fingers and branches running through the gloomy sky like dark veins, pulsating in how the cold breeze caused them to sway and grasp at the two lonesome wanderers.

A forest devoid of all life. That in itself felt unnatural.

Not a single animal walked these grounds. Even having spent most of her life in that big and smoggy city, Agnes always sensed the presence of the forest's own. And out here, for some reason, the wildland's creatures stayed away.

Far away.

After minutes of walking, sometimes looking over her shoulder and feeling watched—followed, even—and nervous glances over Luca's shoulder indicating he shared the same sensations—

More shoes crunched in the snow. A third figure neared.

A large, plump, pot-bellied man, whose cheeks the biting cold had rendered rosy and red; garbed in a heavy coat, hands buried in his pockets. And his hound, a large, dark mastiff, staring at them through dreary-looking eyes with a piercing gaze.

Their nearing and looks impressed upon Agnes. She could not discern why, but they felt out of place, even if they belonged and looked perfectly normal.

She had seen them in the town of Altmere that same morning, in the streets where the frightened villagers had assembled, well before Luca and she had marched all the way out here to investigate the disappearance. Many had introduced themselves—so, too, this man—but she struggled to recall his name, as she would have with so many others. They all blurred and blended.

"Ya find anything?" asked the rotund man. Raspy voice. Curious.

"Unfortunately, yes," replied Luca.

Luca, the card witch, lowered his blunderbuss to his side and nodded his head in the direction of the mysterious body.

"Not a sight for the faint of heart, but eventually, someone should take care of poor Mister Kirkham. Before any animals claim his remains, yeah?"

The rotund man pursed his lips and nodded. His beady eyes darted back and forth between both Luca and Agnes.

The hound growled. Glowered at Luca.

"My, my, Mister Bigglesworth does not seem to like you very much, Mister Vadas," blubbered the man, chuckling and then admonishing his dog. "Easy now, Mister Bigglesworth."

Luca scratched the stubble on his chin and smirked.

"It must be mutual," he muttered.

"You don't like dogs, sir?" asked the man.

"No—I just don't like your dog," he stressed the specificity. Smirking all the while. "Don't particularly like his face. Like I said, must be a mutual sentiment."

The dog growled again, almost as if it understood Luca's insults.

The card witch raised an empty hand and pointed now past Agnes.

"About ten minutes that way, you'll find Mister Kirkham," he said, the smirk finally fading from his lips and making way for another sigh. "But I warn you, again, prepare yourself. It's not a pretty sight."

The rotund man nodded slowly, shuffling his feet. Clicked his tongue twice, walking up to Mister Bigglesworth and snatching the large dog by his collar.

"Some of us saw what remained of Mister Gardiner, myself included. I believe I'll manage. See what needs to be done and let the others know."

The rotund man's chin crinkled.

Finally interrupting them, Agnes asked, "What was your name again, sir?"

The man studied her, looking her up and down. Lingering a bit too long where her figure curved the most, even concealed as it was under layers of cloak and warm winter clothing.

"Percival Teague, at your services."

"And what was it you did again?" she asked.

"Never told you, as short as all our introductions this morning were, I'm afraid," he said, blinking hastily as he pried his gaze away from below her neck to lock eyes with her. Something unsettling about the intensity of his stare.

Smoldering. Uncomfortably lustful. And something else.

"Town's smith and farrier, ma'am. Not a lot to do, this time o' year, save for some minor repairs, here and there."

"Right," Luca grumbled. "You don't happen to know your way around fixing any firearms, yeah?"

"Afraid not, sir."

Luca nodded. "Well then, we should be on our way."

He shot another glance towards Agnes and motioned to leave.

"What exactly do you do?" asked Teague. "I'm not sure I really caught that on the town square. Things went terribly fast."

Luca smiled widely, the same way he smiled whenever he played a game of cards over shillings. Agnes recognized it. A tell that misled his opponents; a gambit that suggested he was either playing a hand that could make the game or bluffing his way with a pitiful hand that could break the game if only his opponent bought the deception.

"Hunter, sir. I hunt. And truth be told, I don't think you're dealing with a wolf here. Let alone a wolf-man," he informed Teague, erupting into a clipped chuckle.

Teague squinted at him.

"What kind of hunter exactly? You don't look like a hunter to me."

Luca shrugged, "I get that a lot. Not my fault that every single one o' my peers looks like some unwashed sourpuss."

"You don't sound like one, either. Well-traveled, yeah?"

Luca shrugged again, maintaining his coy smile. But his eyes and spectacles glinted with something dangerous as he tilted his head.

Teague asked, "And you? What's a woman doing out—hunting? With a hunter? Are you two married?"

Agnes blinked.

"Yes, I like to hunt with my wife," interjected Luca, lying through his teeth. "I'm told I'm a bit eccentric, but she's almost better than me at sussing out where to find the best game." The smile dropped from Luca's face, followed by a scowl. "What about it? Are you going somewhere with this?"

Teague cleared his throat. Shook his head, stepped past them.

"Pardon, sir. Ma'am." He paused again, both in word and stride. "I think I'd seek to keep such a lovely missus close at all times, too."

Eliciting a shudder to shake Agnes' spine, Teague winked at her with a lopsided grin.

Then his face fell, turning as grave as his tone turned serious. What he next said, he breathed in an almost conspiratorial whisper. As if he feared someone else could overhear them.

"If this is what I think it is, then you're looking in the wrong place. You need to walk deeper into the Deithwynd, east of the Iron Marsh. There's an old glade there—"

The dog growled loudly, snarling at Luca. Even as Teague's big, meaty hand gripped the dog's collar with more vigor to hold the hound back, the handsome card witch took a step back from them, shooting the mastiff a dirty look.

Teague pointed in a direction, roughly northwest of where they stood.

"What do you mean?" Luca asked, without looking up from Mister Bigglesworth. "What do you think this—this thing—is?"

Every fiber and muscle in Agnes' body tightened, taut as iron.

"Fair folk, sir," Teague hissed in another hushed murmur. "Me mum and me mum's mum used to tell tall tales about the fair folk out here, and the children of Altmere were always taught not to go to the queer glade beyond the Iron Marsh."

Shivers ran down Agnes' spine again. Such tales were common and often nonsense, but Teague spoke with such earnestness. She hugged herself more closely, struggling to stave off the wintry cold, but the chill of what Teague had said eclipsed the freezing discomfort.

"Circle of mushrooms grows out there. Eerie, like. All year 'round," Teague added, nodding with growing fervor. "I'm not suggesting you go out there, hunter. But if you are willing to truly earn the alderman's coin, you're gonna wanna poke around there. Bet you a whole shilling you'll find your monster out there. Fair folk or mere man, I cannot say."

Luca exchanged a glance with Agnes.

Finally. A concrete lead.

Luca spoke up, "I'd clap you on the shoulder and express my gratitude, but Mister Bigglesworth seems to be a bit of a bitch—and it sounds like we need to take a long hike anyway. Ta."

The dog growled and suddenly snapped at Luca, prompting him to take another reflexive step back.

"Goodbye, Mister Teague," Agnes said with the least amount of vim and honesty.

Teague's nostrils flared as he looked back and forth between the two, beady eyes curiously scanning their faces once more.

"Happy huntin'," he replied. It carried a snide tone.

The hound snarled, but Teague tugged at Mister Bigglesworth's collar, then yanked, almost dragging him along. The man and his hound followed the trails in the snow that Agnes and Luca had left behind.

The card witch and the herbalist witch shot each other another glance. They wordlessly struck out in the direction that Teague had pointed them towards.

They knew what they had to do.

Thoughts of the fair folk circled in her mind—creatures they had never seen since venturing through the Blackwood and the King's Hold all winter, contrary to common lore.

Minutes later, silence rhythmically broken by the constant crunching of snow underfoot, Agnes finally grinned and asked, "Wife, eh?"

"I'll not hear a word of it, woman," Luca said.

Although she only saw the tangle of white hair on the back of his head as Luca continued to guide the way, she could tell that he grinned.

He easily kept her distracted over what amounted to close to an hour of slow and tedious hiking, drudging through the snow, crossing the pristine countryside outside of Altmere. Ever the jester, Luca engaged her jabs and countered them with playful insults of his own, the typical relaxed back-and-forth that marked their relationship.

It would forever amuse Agnes that, for all the womanizing Luca supposedly steeped himself in, he was not interested in women. She had traveled with him long enough to know that his reputation painted a different picture of him, and he made little effort to correct people about it.

Not even when it came to the more spiteful superstitions regarding his heritage; his olive complexion and the pervasive and xenophobic rumors that people spread about him and his people; calling them cutpurses and witches and child-thieves alike.

Like a scorpion he had become to guard his heart, he reveled in the distance every rumor created. When one got too close, he would sting. He hid behind that smokescreen, maneuvering outside of rigid constructs that society imposed, and conventions he cared little for. He even drew power from the fear that some people felt towards him.

Unlike herself, she pondered, thoughts turning darker amid flashes of how she fled a mob wielding pitchforks and torches as they chased her from the city, and her home burnt brightly behind her in her escape. She fell more and more silent, and Luca likely tired from keeping any playful banter rolling.

The trees eventually thinned out until they fully opened to the wide horizon of the Iron Marsh. Sunlight cut through the clouds and contrasted the gloomy day with luminescent streaks, painting beautiful and glittering, golden lines, mirrored in the silvery pools of water that littered the wetland's tenacious reeds and treacherous patches of snow.

A breathtaking vista that robbed Agnes of her breath and took her mind off more dismal ponderings.

"Don't think it's much farther from here," Luca said, breaking the silence that had spread between them. He gestured with the muzzle of his blunderbuss to the copses forming a tree line to the east.

Luca changed course, leading her along the edges of the marsh instead of cutting straight through it. He muttered, almost more to himself, "Better take the long way 'round."

Snow cracked and crunched with a subtly faster pace, and Agnes welcomed the change. With it came other thoughts, returning to the matter at hand, turning to the reason for their investigation.

In truth, she cared little for any reward the alderman had offered. Her objective was to eradicate the monstrous creatures that haunted this land. Perhaps, one day, she could lead a normal life again, without people mistaking her for the abominations that haunted dark places.

They all had their individual reasons, but all the "hunters" agreed that sightings of the creatures and the trails of bodies they left behind had been converging both on the city of Crimsonport and the King's Hold. And frequently, they featured a connecting clue: a black rose left with the bodies.

An indicting piece of evidence, as the black rose was central to the heraldry of King Michael III. But even in lieu of its absence whenever they chanced upon the dead and the damned, and stumbled across any victims of awful creatures, they often felt a call to action.

Most folk would rather bleed from their buttocks than wrap their mind around any things unnatural—and struggled to separate sorcery from silly superstition, as well as the mundane from menacing monsters. Most folk never noticed the patterns, never followed the trails, never put together the pieces. They closed their eyes to find a shred of comfort, rather than glimpse the world behind the world.

Only ten people had found each other thus, armed with knowledge that cut through the confusion, and collecting the things they had witnessed to even uncover the pattern of the black rose in the first place.

Ten people who feared the things that lurked in the night. Ten people who dared to fight back. Who dared to hunt evil itself.

And here, Luca and she hunted.

Two victims they knew of already, both identical in how they had horribly perished. A tailor and a woodsman. Drained of all blood, muscle, innards—everything. The creature left only skin and bones behind. A puzzling pattern that stumped the duo, a behavior unheard of.

The villagers of course claimed to have seen a wolf-man, standing tall and hairy and with murder in the eyes, always before or after the bodies had been discovered. Some of the people in town even suspected each other of being such a beast in disguise, striking by night. Mere days and perhaps only one more murder away from demanding king and church to mark a triumphant return to their quaint little town and clamp down on it with an iron fist to restore order and dispel the lasting dread.

Her thoughts had strayed far enough to dull her senses that Agnes only registered with delay how Luca had stopped. She continued until she took to his side.

Both stood still, stunned by what they beheld.

They overlooked a wide glade. Brilliant flowers, almost glowing in a veritable rainbow of garish colors, had sprouted mysteriously from the thick blanket of snow. Defying the order of nature, the flowers blossomed in the face of deepest winter.

In the center of the glade, a small mound rose above the rest, barren of any snow, and shaped by what appeared to be a perfect circle. Vibrantly green grass grew there, outlined by white and yellow and brown dots of varying shape and size, clusters of mushrooms that formed a natural border around the verdant patch.

Luca exchanged a nervous glance with her. They both knew deep down what this meant.

A true fairy ring.

Agnes produced a bright red apple from her satchel. Her fingers trembled ever so slightly from the cold that had seeped into them, the pink of her exposed fingertips jutting out from the fingerless gloves almost as red as the cursed apple in her hand.

She bit into it, and Luca's head jerked around in response to the jarringly loud sound.

She smiled at him as she chewed, imbibing the potion that lurked inside the apple's supple flesh—a magicked poison to fair folk, a swift and violent doom such a creature would bring upon itself should it now feast upon her skin and blood.

Between the beds of anomalous flowers, no tracks marred the pristine patches of snow. All untouched by feet, be they human or fairy.

The cold in the air here cut even sharper than it had all day. It did not sting, but it tasted fresher, somehow. With a hint of honey. Bees even buzzed about the flowers, sharing the otherworldly defiance against winter's merciless grasp.

Mesmerized by the wondrous oasis, Agnes almost took a step onto the glade. Almost. She held herself back.

Strange fetishes, little stick figures, dangled from the branches overhead. As if they had been invisible until they stood directly beneath them.

Agnes took another bite from the apple, then held out the remainder for Luca to take. He nodded in thanks and took the fruit from her, helping himself to a healthy bite. The chunk crunched louder than the snow had during their march, echoing in a way that felt almost transgressive. As if they disturbed the surreal serenity of this place.

She added to the transgression by snatching one of the stick figures from the branches. The brittle twine suspending it snapped under little pressure, and she broke it in half, discarding it behind her, then repeating the process for other such fetishes.

After chewing, swallowing, and having another bite from the cursed apple, Luca handed it back into her palm, then cracked his blunderbuss open, loading one of his iron-shot cartridges into it, and clapping the weapon shut.

They exchanged another glance and a nod, and then stepped onto the glade.

The snow here did not crunch, it rustled like dry leaves in the wind. The breeze here did not whistle, it whispered like a lover breathing sweet nothings past the softest pillow.

Veins of the flower petals nearby caught Agnes' eye: scintillating, throbbing, infinite. Living coils within coils within coils, like a fern that had decided to transmute into a flower. And the bees looked no more like bees up close, but more like a cross between wasp and spider. She tore herself free from the eerie chimeric things that should not be thus, and they neared the fairy ring with cautious steps.

The spider-wasps did not simply buzz about the fern-flowers, they hummed as if they laid down keys for a greater orchestra to join in on. The barren trees surrounding the glade did not loom nor sway, they bowed in reverence and yearned to dance.

Dots and lumps on the mushrooms of the fairy ring wobbled and undulated. Spike protruded from them, like a vampire showing its fangs, or like the thorns of a rose growing before their eyes.

The glade welcomed them. And it warned them in kind.

Luca spun around and trained his gun upon a new presence—or one only now perceived—and Agnes swiveled at the same time. They stared at the thing that hid in the shade. A large silhouette that stood between the skeletal trees, by the edge of the glade.

Unmoving like a rock, but shoulders heaving gently with calm breaths. Taller than any man, with eyes that glowed golden, shedding just enough dim light to cast the outline of fangs protruding from a wide maw. And long, slender claws that emerged from the darkness and gingerly brushed against the bark, careful not to scratch its surface.

The creature kept its distance. Its glowing eyes burned, studying the two humans who had invaded this sacred grove.

With the most melody and inviting kindness she could summon, Agnes simply said, "Hello there."

The spider-wasps buzzed. The wind whispered. The snow and the fern-flowers rustled. All sounds melted together, forming words.

"Please leave," answered the glade. Answered the creature as it stared at them, its fanged maw never moving. The voice arrived on other sounds and echoed in Agnes' mind.

"You speak our tongue? I apologize on behalf of my manservant and myself, my liege," she said, curtsying and hoping her gesture would not take the guise of mockery.

From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Luca's furrowing brow, but he cleverly kept his mouth shut this time and swallowed whatever quip must have been burning on the tip of his tongue.

Whispered the grove in its multitude of voice, "Your kin have long forgotten this doorway, and forsaken the wonders we brought in exchange."

Agnes smiled as sweetly as she could manage, and said, "We seek to do no harm. We sort of stumbled here by accident."

The creature stared. Its coat of fur bristled in the breeze. The sounds of the enchanted glade went silent.

Then swelled to a powerful chorus that hissed, "Lies."

She shivered.

The last fair noble she met had tried to strangle her to death, on the wings of butchering a dozen capable men and putting another to sleep for eternity—merely over a passing fancy.

"You lie," breathed the glade. The ground rumbled.

"Yes, alright," she said, bowing her head in deference. "I am ashamed to admit it, but yes, I lied. It is because I sense how ancient and mighty you are, and understand now what peril we're in."

The creature maintained its stare. Unsettling as it was, it exuded a strange calm. Not hypnotic, but soothing, like exposure to a warm sun on one's skin on a cold wintry day.

"No danger from me must you expect," whispered the grove. "Another thing, wicked thing, beyond the marsh, in thine forests, between the brick walls you call homes—that, you must fear."

Luca's hands trembled. He had been keeping the blunderbuss trained on the fair creature all this while, and the gloved finger curling around the trigger trembled, ever so slightly. Ready to pull and release that iron shot as soon as the creature made the mistake of entering optimal range of the weapon's blast.

Agnes felt sick to her stomach but oddly not threatened by this presence. The unnatural fairy ring's power, the glade thrumming with energies that bled through the thin veil between worlds, the fern-flower petals now rhythmically unfurling and closing like a crowd of enthralled spectators—the whole grove breathing like a single organism. All overwhelming, all mysterious, all demanding investigation and deterring her from it at the same time, making her head swim on an infinite and unfathomably deep sea.

She reached out and gently placed her palm on the barrel of the blunderbuss. Over the brim of his spectacles, Luca glared at her until he gave in and let her hand lower the weapon for him. Helped him combat his own instinct.

"Already two people have been slain in these places you speak of, and you would say it was not your doing?" she asked, addressing the creature.

"Not I. Not even my kind," whispered the grove.

"What are you doing here, then?"

The creature's claws danced down the bark, slithering around it and melting into the shadow of the awesome silhouette.

"I seek means of returning home, for only slow death awaits me here. Or swift death, should your bloodthirsty nature get the best of you."

Now Agnes took her turn to furrow her brow in disbelief. She looked back at the circle of mushrooms, that mysterious fairy ring, a fabled portal between their world and the fairy realm.

"Is this not the doorway you spoke of? Can you not simply leave?"

"No longer. Things have changed," replied the creature. The chorus of sounds solidified, coalescing into a single voice. An old man. "One of our eldest formed a pact, and all of us were summoned to return, lest we face a fate of stranding here, to wither away with your dying world."

"I'm terribly sorry. I—I do not quite understand. Can you explain?"

"No," said the old man. Firm, resolute in his response. "I imparted lessons upon a young woman among your kin, for she had nobody else to win such wisdom from."

"Who?"

"I know not her name and it never mattered. All that matters now is that I took too long in teaching her, and now I missed the grace's period. The doorway is closed, and I cannot open it, even with my infinite age. I have seen some futures, you know? And in most of them, my destiny is grim."

"Oh? Please do share."

"I shall not. Such insights belong only to those who exist in four times at once. For all others, that way lies only madness."

"If it was not you who slew those innocent people—"

"Few of your kind are innocent. Perhaps more, once, but your tales have shaped you to be something that reached beyond purity, shedding every last vestige of innocence to explore the darkness between the stars."

"W-well, f-fair," Agnes stammered, then setting her jaw before continuing with more zest. "Now, that aside, if it was not you who slew those two—"

"Seven."

"It has slain seven?"

"Yes, child. Seven it has claimed already."

This prompted another nervous glance to be exchanged between Agnes and Luca, reassuring each other that they were making the same sense of what the fairy suggested.

Luca asked, "Who? Or what? What did this?"

The silhouette shifted, moving behind the tree trunk, where the darkened bark and layer of snow clinging to the side swallowed the eerie golden glow of those eyes.

From the other side of the trunk emerged a figure. Shorter, haggard, clothed in old robes and hides and furs. Animal teeth and claws and strange poppets and fetishes dangled from a cord around his waist. Hands gnarled like old roots ended in long fingernails.

"Something that belongs neither in your world, nor ours," said the fairy in form of this old man, now moving his mouth to speak, baring yellowed teeth. He spoke with a strange accent that Agnes could not place. An accent that reminded her of ages long gone.

The grove stayed silent, lending him no more voice.

"Something I have evaded thus far, but you have lured here in your search, and opened the path for by invading this sanctuary," the old man added. His voice quaked, and his chin quivered, as if only now the cold affected him, or a sad weariness gripped his heart.

"Would you help us find it? Fight it?" Agnes asked him.

"No. I wish to maintain my immortality. I have so many more tales to share, even if not your ears are to receive them."

She paused and let that sink in, dissipating in a soup of half-formed thoughts.

Finally, she said, "I could help you leave our world. I could help you return to yours."

"Wha'?" Luca muttered in utter disbelief.

"How?" asked the old man, narrowing his eyes. He then took a step towards them and stopped again.

She said, "I know how to open such pathways, and how to close them. I could open the door long enough for you to leave. But I request your aid in return."

Everything about her turned fierce, and sharp, and as unbending as the veins of the earth; as if the apple's curse had fully taken root in her body, turning her blood to iron and her will to steel.

"Please," she added, ending her request, and bowing her head respectfully.

Whatever this old man represented, it was ancient. Not necessarily evil, not even selfish. And Agnes sensed he had been telling the truth. Contrary to the things she had learned of the fair folk, this creature spoke with sincerity.

And the creature, in the form of an old man, said, "There is little aid I can offer beyond advice. Advice is all I have given thee since the dawn of your empires and the first of thine towers cast shadows upon the fertile earth."

Luca's mouth opened, but Agnes' response cut him off.

"We will take any help we can get."

The old man folded his hands in front of himself. Not like in prayer that humans understood, yet it resembled occult gestures.

"Your weapons will do you no good against it," said the old man. "You must employ your sorcery. Both of you. I can feel it in both of you. A soft song, echoing the gentle breeze, soothing skin, and soul. And a droning chant, a dark pact that smiles devilishly and keeps hungry maws at bay in its rebellion."

"What is it?"

The old man hobbled towards them, a guise that defied the sheer power he radiated. An illusion, betrayed by each footfall, never sinking into snow, never harming those wondrous blooms of unnatural flowers here. The world around them pulsed with each pace of his, the rushing of blood in Agnes' ears thrumming to the tune.

"It has many names, cares for none of them, and answers to all of them," he said. The tremors of old age made way to a more firm and commanding tone, like a rising storm, or the welling of an earthquake. "It feeds upon fear and thoughts, it feeds the dark desires you dream of in its wake, only to take all what belongs to others, and covet more—forever more."

The old man grew, soon reaching the staggering, towering height of the creature they had seen in the shade of the trees, mere moments ago. The golden glow flaring up in his eyes soon swallowed any guise of humanity.

"But what is it?" Agnes breathed, timid as a child. "Please, speak not in riddles any longer."

"You would call it usurper. Invader, devourer. Evil spirit. Your kind has many names for many things, and mistakes one for another. You who is blessed with greater wit, you would call it—demon."

The last word lingered, reverberating in her skull.

"And how do we find it? Where is it now?"

He towered over them, only steps away. The two humans here posed the only thing standing in between the old giant and the fairy ring.

Luca's hand—the one holding the blunderbuss—twitched.

"It is here."

She looked around with haste. But saw nothing else.

"Too close already, I can feel its rotten presence, taste the death staining its avaricious fingers, and smell the stink of deceit befouling the very air it breathes. It nears," said the old giant. Then he crouched. Or shrank. Whatever it was, his face soon leveled with theirs and he whispered, "It followed you. It followed you here."

"Are you are certain you cannot help us?"

"It is as old as I, suffused with an evil to match. I would endanger you in your struggle. If it drinks from my essence or overtakes me completely, it will be unstoppable. You brought it here. To me. To its true quarry. Masked its scent and distracted me from its stalking approach, broke the safeguards in your careless search. You unwittingly did its bidding," said the old man. His voice trembled again.

With fear.

All true. 'Twas no magick that lent Agnes her empathy. Just an old instinct she had honed from childhood on. The old fairy's words all rang true. The realization of what she had done by breaking the stick figures now sank in, sickening her to her stomach.

There were things that devoured and grew stronger as they did. Wraiths, vampires, and—yes, even demons.

Agnes stammered before finding confidence again, "I—never mind. I—I am sorry. Begone, old one, and may you find peace wherever you wander."

Swiftly she turned from the old man, facing the fairy ring. Felt the inquisitive stares of both Luca and the old man resting on her back, observing her every motion.

From her satchel, she produced a tiny pouch, untying it and sprinkling from it a pinch of quartz sand across the threshold of the mushrooms. The dust glittered in the rays of sunlight, dancing as it fluttered to the lush grass grounds.

Agnes whispered the incantations her mother had taught her, calling upon the favor of Bergiddhe and Morrigaine and Velenn. She knelt and her hand quivered, hovering near one of the impossible flowers. Then plucked it with a loud pop.

She cast the fairy flower into the ring and peered beyond. There, she saw an ocean in the sky, where whales drifted and mountains floated upside-down above a sea of thorny vines, from which a giant castle emerged, slowly growing more and more as she gazed upon it, with its silver cages and magnificent beasts, swallowed by the bramble. And eyes—so many eyes—staring back at her, sensing the opening of this doorway, the breach in the veil, a hole that should have stayed closed.

Things, curious, some of them wicked, they all stared. All springing to life, popping from bizarre hidey-holes, all eager to approach and question the little human whose audacity had pierced the intersection between worlds. Some of them very, very hungry.

"Now," she uttered. Repeated it with more force, commanding the old one. "Go, now."

The old man paced past her, striding into the circle of mushrooms without pause.

Some things approached from the other side. As he stood in the center of the circle, he turned, and raised a hand. As if to wave, but without motion, an alien gesture of farewell. His mien displayed no emotion, but she felt a deep gratitude from that wizened face, eyes glowing golden, still.

Before an onset headache could assault her senses and split her skull, she nodded to the old fairy, and focused with all her might, willing the door to close. The wondrous world beyond the ring began to fade with him.

Gone was that sloshing sky, and the clockwork dancers tick-tocking down paths of gilded roads, and the singing pumpkins, and the waters flowing uphill, cascading into the heavens, where bug-eyed things cackled and waved wobbly wands at her. And with the other world's fading, so did the old man, blending in with the weird world around him, vanishing as it all turned translucent.

And then was completely gone.

A deep, baritone growl echoed across the glade. A ferocious snarl.

As the two swiveled again, Luca had, again, trained his blunderbuss on the newly arrived. Pointing the weapon at that rotund man, Percival Teague, and his foul-tempered mastiff.

The large man still clutched the collar of the hound, holding it back. Ready to unleash its wrath at any moment. The creature barked, but it sounded no more like a dog, and more like a bear, or a tiger, or a boar, or all of them combined.

Teague grinned. The grin crept wider, to grotesque proportions that no human face should ever feature. With more teeth than a man's mouth should ever yield.

"Shame, you sent that ripe old morsel off already," said Teague through rows of eerily perfect, gritted teeth. Every syllable he spoke with unsettling enunciation. "Shame to see such a fine vintage go to waste. But no matter, no matter at all."

His raspy voice turned to growls, blending with those of the mastiff. Rising in volume, drowning out all else. Dropping octaves, turning sinister. Thunderous. And infinitely sadistic.

"YOU TWO LITTLE TARTS WILL SERVE AS ADEQUATE APPETIZERS FOR THE GREAT FEAST."

He let go of the collar and playfully wiggled the fingers that held it, spinning on the spot like a dancer performing an elegant pirouette. The beast charged at them, and the thunderclap of the blunderbuss' shot cracked a fearsome echo. The flare from the muzzle illuminated the glade in a bright flash, and the shot ripped the mastiff apart.

Instead of a spray of blood and brains and intestines, pure darkness and writhing tentacles exploded outwards from the hound, continuing with the same velocity as the beast had pounced, and speeding towards Luca. That living shadow engulfed him, and Luca's angry shouts turned pained and panicked in the blink of an eye.

Teague—whatever his true name was—lumbered over towards them, emitting bellowing laughter that no human throat could produce, raspy as the crackle of hellfire, and hungry as the dark flames that it bore. Bright blue embers spilled from his toothy maw as he sauntered towards his next victims, smacking his lips without the monstrous guffaw ever ceasing.

Agnes crammed her numb fingers into her satchel, pawing and digging around in it until she found the thimble and the needle. Over and over again, she whispered the names of Koronos, and Paan, and Roon, and Uana; beseeching old, uncaring gods that favored only strength born from raw passion, and unbridled chaos that reigned supreme.

Whether they listened or not mattered little. Her precision in saying those names and words, not stuttering nor missing any components was all that counted; that perfect recital of the ritual was all that mattered for their survival.

The darkness that swallowed Luca engulfed her next and her skin began to burn, blister, and peel. Madness seeped into her mind. Voices to drown out her own. Urges to undress, to rip the cloak and clothing from her skin, for the heat was so unbearable, burning up from the inside, boiling her innards, demanding release lest it devour her in a flash.

Blinded by waves of fury and envy and a lust for vengeance upon all who had ever wronged her, it was too late for her to notice the hungry mouth of Teague splitting open. Not just where the teeth parted, but down the center of his face, opening to triangular flaps lined with rows upon rows of sharp spikes and throbbing pink flesh.

Instinctively throwing a hand up in self-defense before her, the flaps enveloped her entire arm, and the teeth sank into her skin by the dozen. The pain took its time, starting as a thousand needles piercing flesh and muscles, and then ripping and tearing and something suckling on her forearm, sucking the blood right out by the pint, threatening to suck the skin right off, and eliciting agonized screams to escape from her mouth.

Yet she lunged and retaliated with a single sting. The needle from her satchel—the cursed little sewing needle—repeating the names of those old forgotten gods, and thrusting that needle right into whatever fleshy, toothy mass she could connect with.

And Teague's hideous laughter ceased instantly. High-pitched, deafening shrieks followed, making it impossible for Agnes to even hear her own trembling voice as she chanted and chanted and thrust and thrust, time and time again, hoping to banish this thing, this foul thing.

The pain overwhelmed her, and she fought the urge to vomit; a losing battle that she soon surrendered to as the stench of rotten eggs and decaying carcasses filled her nostrils and those dozens of teeth that felt like a thousand continued to ruthlessly rend her flesh and suck the blood from her tortured arm.

Somewhere in the bedlam, Luca's screams mingled and canonized with her own and the shrieks of the demon.

The living smoke cleared, but the sky had turned into a pool of inky-black darkness.

Teague had split apart, down the middle, ghastly and indescribably inhuman parts flailing about and flapping around, fused with whatever Mister Bigglesworth had reverted into. A mass of too many milky-white eyes and toothy mouths and tentacles and roiling mounds of pink flesh that oozed with pus and plague.

Rays of pure darkness shot out from every orifice of the abomination, wilting the impossible flowers, and rotting the glade's grass wherever they swept over it, caressing it with kisses of death. Then the monstrosity exploded, showering its environs with stinking slime. The inky black of the sky rippled and then broke apart, flakes of it drifting away like ashes, and the gray gloom and clouded sun returning to decorate the heavens in place of the phenomenon.

Agnes shook all over, gripping her mangled and trembling arm, with far too much blood still pumping from it, dripping from torn holes in the skin in rhythmically pulsating rivulets of dark crimson, staining the snow by her knees where she had collapsed. The world spun around her, the nausea fully taking hold.

Luca embraced her, scrambling to tie her arm, or bandage it, or do anything of use to staunch the incessant bleeding. The symmetrical spectacles on his nose were bent and one of the glasses cracked, and half his face painted vermillion from an injury that bled from somewhere underneath his silver hair.

He spoke to her, trembling almost as much as she, but the rushing of blood in her ears, a pounding that must have reached the heavens, deafened her. His speech sounded like it was a million leagues away, muffled through walls or layers of thick fabric; unintelligible and with nothing she could read in it but despair.

Using his teeth, he uncorked a vial of strange, dark purple fluid, and showered her arm with it, following up with another alchemical tincture from his coat pockets.

Agnes expected unconsciousness to descend on the wings of the pain, to rob her of her senses, but no such luck. The taste of vitriolic stomach fluids clung to her tongue, and she simultaneously wanted to vomit while dreading the agony that throbbed in her growingly numb arm to flare up far worse if she spasmed and retched.

She just rocked gently, in a daze, watching Luca frantically work to do whatever he could to save her arm, speaking to her with concern plastered across his chiseled face, and she understood not a single word he said.

They had won against the demon that had called itself Teague.

But she may have lost her arm if Luca's magick refused to help where conventional medicine could not.

A small price to pay, she wagered, dismissing the dizzying thought of its reality. After all, it had worked. Luca's cursed shot and old pact had bought her just enough time to banish Teague and Mister Bigglesworth.

Any longer—any second longer—and others would have only found their skins and bones.

—Submitted by Wratts

11 notes · View notes

fletchphoenix · 4 years

Text

According To Plan

Chapter One of the corpse bride au!!! YAY!

I’m so excited to start this and shall post it on AO3 separate to my oneshots. Hope you all enjoy!

----------------------

Nimble fingers maneuvered a pen across parchment paper that was strewn across a creaky wooden desk. The owner of said fingers raised the quill, dipping it generously into the ink pot beside him and continuing his ministrations as the butterfly trapped inside the glass container set under the window. The butterfly’s wings fluttered in its makeshift cage as it periodically thudded against its transparent prison, while the man disregarded this and kept drawing the specimen. Once he determined he was done, the quill was swiftly discarded as he instead moved his hands to raise the glass containing the insect. It fluttered around the room for a few seconds, circling the man before finally making its retreat out of the window. In a way, the man felt like the butterfly, confined in a prison and unable to decide where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do. However, unlike the butterfly, he didn’t have someone to set him free.

The chime of the clock from the monotonous town outside broke the man from his thoughts and, accompanied by the ringing of a newsman outside, bought his thoughts back to the harsh reality he was facing with his betroval. “Ten minutes until Atkinson boy's wedding rehearsal!” it declared, and Hugo felt the dread settle in. Ah yes. He was still due to marry Miss Gardiner tomorrow, wasn’t he? He didn’t know how he’d forgotten. He rose to his feet from his place at the desk and made his way towards the door in a bitter silence, pushing it open and making his way down the stairs with a bitter feeling of anxiety settling in the pit of his stomach.

He knew the wedding was a way for his mother to make money - but that didn’t mean he had to find it fair. Donella had never neglected to tell him that marriage was merely out of necessity and never for affection, however a part of him had always prayed that he would find someone he had genuine feelings for. But, here he was, about to leave for his wedding rehearsal for a marriage to a girl he’d never even spoken to or seen in his life and he had to just smile and accept it. After all, this was the big ‘money maker’ for his mother. Besides, he’d never even spoken to another woman before so..it wasn’t as if he could find a wife himself even if he tried. Nevertheless, he strode out the door and joined his mother in that fateful carriage.

The ride was short, Hugo all the while staring out of the window at the cobbled streets and the different shades of grey that covered the streets. It really was a drab town they lived in wasn’t it? All that covered this tedious town was shades of grey, making it all the more depressing in winter when the ivory snow joined the landscape. It seemed that all color just..ceased to exist in this place. Either way, Hugo desperately tried to distract himself from his upcoming betrothal to the mystery woman, who honestly should be marrying something like a Lord or at least someone of a higher class than him, but who was he to question her family’s decisions at this point.

“You’ve certainly got a good match, Hugo. All you have to do is not mess it up or scare her away. After all, everything must go according to plan.” Donella’s voice shattered the silent atmosphere and Hugo’s thought process. His eyebrow quirked up and a confused smile settled on his face as he looked at his mother in the cramped carriage. Her grey dress matched the general vibe of the town outside and blended in with the satin seats.

“Shouldn’t a Gardiner be marrying a Lord or-or something like that? I haven’t even spoken to her-” he began to question, before Donella rudely interrupted him.

“Nonsense, we are every bit as good as the Gardiners.” she declared before looking at her son, “Well at least we have that, then. No chance you’ve scared her away already.” Donella muttered before leaning back in the seat, making it clear this conversation was over. Hugo let out a frustrated sigh as gazed out the window once again, letting himself get lost again in the depressing nature of their wretched town.

After around ten minutes, the carriage jolted and stopped in its tracks, the footman swinging the door open so he and his mother could exit. Donella gracefully stepped down onto the pavement and Hugo stumbled out after. Stone steps clicked under the heels on his mother’s boots as they ascended them. Once they reached the top, Donella’s hand raised to knock the dark oak door, Hugo looming awkwardly behind her as she and the mystery woman’s parents exchanged formalities in the doorway. The foyer of the house was of a decent size - not as spacious as the one in his mother’s mansion. Black and white checkered tiles covered the floor in a deliberate pattern, with grey curtains to compliment them and a grand, spruce piano to the right towards the hallway the elders were heading towards. A fireplace was on the left wall, the crest of the family carved into the stone above it, a few metres away sat a table along with paintings on the wall. A large staircase that broke into a left and right pathway sat in the middle of the room, Hugo not even daring to try ascending them for fear of what he’d find, or for fear of punishment from the hosts.

Hugo absentmindedly let himself head over to the piano, letting himself be seated on the matching spruce seat, a layer of cotton that was covered by a grey velvet shielding it. His fingers drifted across the ivory keys before trying a few, the sound echoing in the foyer filled with just him. He tested a few more, a rhythm slowly being crafted by his own two hands as he let himself fall victim to the trance of music. His fingers were evidently not only good for sketching and writing, them dancing between the notes of his melody and blocking out any sound other than what was coming from the piano. It distracted him to not even hear the click of a woman’s high heels against that tiled floor as she stood behind him. His head slowly turned, meeting the face of a rather attractive woman before he fell back from the stool, knocking it to the floor and rising to his feet. “Oh my...do forgive me-” He uttered as he stumbled over his words.

“You play beautifully.” she stated, her chestnut hair tied back into a neat bun and a desaturated mauve dress decorating her figure. Brown eyes stared into his blue ones in wonder and joy. He had to admit, she did look rather beautiful.

“I do apologise, miss Gardiner. How rude of me to, well-” he cut off his own words as his eyes glanced down to the stool, still laying on the ground since he knocked it. “Excuse me.” he whispered, reaching down to put the stool upright and his back straightening as he did so. As soon as he was finished, he arched his back, using his left hand to quickly dust off the seat as the woman watched him intently.

“Mother won't let me near the piano.” she stated, still watching Hugo as he continued his avid dusting, “Music is improper for a young lady. Too passionate, she says.” she declared, her eyes focusing on a tile before redirecting themselves back to the man standing across from her. Hugo spent some time examining her face - it being thin and sculpted almost perfectly with freckles strewn across her face that were the same shade as her hair. So she was the woman he was betrothed to, huh? Well, she wasn’t that bad at all.

“So...where’s your chaperone, Miss Gardiner?” he questioned, folding his arms, slightly uncomfortable in the black suit that his mother had purchased him specifically for the wedding tomorrow. Black was probably his least favourite color - his favourite definitely being green. Green reminded him of spring, the only time their town had any semblance of color, with the graveyard no longer looking desolate and having some signs of light and life.

“Well, considering the circumstances, you should call me Odelia.” she commented with a smile, her hands moving behind her back with a wider smile than he’d seen on anyone else in his life. It was strange, really. She reminded him of spring.

“`Well, uh..Odelia. Tomorrow we are to be..uh-” he began, a nervousness in his voice while in the presence of the woman he was about to marry

“Married.”

“Ah, yes. Married.” he chuckled nervously and bit the inside of his cheek, a lingering silence falling between them as they ran out of things to say. Hugo’s hands rose to pick at the threads on the sleeve of his suit jacket, before lowering his hands and opting to wring his cravat with shaky hands in an attempt to calm his nerves. It succeeded, helping to stop the slight quiver in his voice.

“You know...ever since I was a child, I dreamed of my wedding day.” she began, seemingly rambling to herself as she took a seat on the velvet stool and let her fingers ghost across the keys of the piano in front of them. “I always hoped that it would be with someone I deeply loved and someone to spend the rest of my life with.” She let out a little giggle, her lips curling into a gentle smile. “But I guess that’s silly isn’t it?” Odelia sighed, a hint of sadness in her tone as she stared at the floor solemnly.

“Yes, silly.” He whispered, realising his mistake before lunging and yelping. “Wait-wait no! It's not silly at all!” He called out, knocking over a tiny, ivory vase holding a snowdrop and spilling water over the piano. Gasping, he scrambled and accompanied Odelia in trying to clear up the mess he’d created with a haste he’d never had before. “I’m so sorry, Odelia!” He profusely apologised to the woman in front of him.

Odelia simply laughed, a sweet and welcome sound to him that made him more and more happy each and every time he heard it. It sounded like angels singing and reminded him of the joy of the first day of spring. With soft, careful hands, Odelia held out the snowdrop and placed it in his upper pocket, nothing but a soft smile playing on her lips at the intimate moment between them.

“What is this impropriety!” Mrs Gardiner yelled as she turned the corner, jolting Hugo and Odelia out of their intimate moment and back into a state of awkwardness and shock. “ You shouldn’t be alone together! Look, one minute till five and you two haven’t arrived at rehearsal so hurry up! The pastor is waiting!” she yelled. Hugo and Odelia silently shrugged to each other and followed the woman around the corner to the parlour room where everyone was waiting for them.

The parlour room was decorated with plenty of paintings and statues, yet was still just as monotone and depressing as the rest of the house. No matter where they went, nowhere had any colour. In the centre of the room sat three rows of chairs, four in each row with a makeshift aisle separating the pairs of chairs, with their family sat on either side. A table was a metre in front of these chairs, the pastor standing behind it with a lit candle and a golden chalice on top of a white tablecloth. Hugo sucked in a deep breath and sighed.

This was going to be interesting.

--------------------------

“Master Atkinson, go from the beginning. Again.”

An exasperated sigh passed through his lips as the pastor repeated the vows for what felt like the fiftieth time. Three hours. Three hours later and Hugo STILL couldn’t get his vows right. They couldn’t blame him though. He was just...incredibly nervous and didn’t know what to do at all. The candle refused to light and his brain refused to register the words he was being told to repeat.

"With this hand, I will lift your sorrows.” The pastor uttered. Hugo’s eyes met Odelia’s, who gave him a sympathetic smile for his struggles. It’s not that he didn’t want to marry Odelia, he did, but he was just nervous to finally commit his entire life to a girl he’d had exactly one conversation with, which, by the way, was incredibly awkward and one of the only conversations he’d had with a woman in his life.

“Your cup will never empty, for I will be your wine.” His eyes then drifted to the Gardiners, whose faces looked more angry than anything else. He bet they already thought he was a disappointment of a son-in-law, and they’d be 100% right. He wasn’t really good at anything in most people’s eyes.

“With this candle, I will light your way in darkness.” Then he glanced at Donella, her face being covered by an abnormally bony arm as she shook her head in disappointment. Great. He could’ve handled disappointment from his in-laws but not from his own mother. Oh well, he’d be out of her hair soon anyway, married off to Odelia and having to live out his life with her. Oh joy.

“With this ring, I ask you to be mine. Lets try it again, shall we?” The pastor commented, looking at Hugo and, if looks could kill, Hugo would be a corpse husband. The man honestly looked like he was two more messed up vows away from choking him on the altar. Hugo shakily nodded, feigning a smile on his face before he held the waxy, white candle in his right hand and began to try and recite his vows.

“With this candle-” he exclaimed, holding the wick to the flame which, to his dismay and to the frustration of everyone else in the room, didn’t light. He kept trying, repeating the statement again and again. Why the hell wasn’t it lighting? What was even going on? He bit his lip and looked up at the pastor, confused and panicked.

“Nevermind. Go from the steps.” The exasperated and clearly annoyed pastor finally said, seeming already completely fed up with the man in front of him. Hugo pondered for a second, holding out his hand for Odelia to take, which she did graciously. God, her hands were so warm somehow. They were like a weight tethering him into the room and keeping him there. She gave his hand a little reassuring squeeze, a small smile making its way onto his face. She was an absolute oxymoron of everything around them - he could get used to this.

“With this hand, I will-�� He took one, two, three and four steps. Straight into the table. He stumbled forwards, quickly moving his hands to steady the chalice and the candle before they fell over the cloth. Why the hell was he messing up so badly? He wasn’t this nervous earlier so how was he doing so badly at remembering a few little vows?

“Three steps! Three! Stop! Stop! Do you not wish to be married, Mr Atkinson?” The pastor finally bellowed, something inside of his snapping and lunging across the table. A red flush of anger covered his face as he glared at Hugo with murderous intent, the younger man feeling much much smaller and more afraid than he’d ever been in his life.

“No, no!” he yelled out in response , his hands rising to shield his face nervously as he bit his lip gently.

“You do not?” Odelia butted in, a deep frown on her face as she looked into Hugo’s eyes. Shit. That was…certainly not what he meant to say. He didn’t mean to upset her at all.

“No that’s not what I-I meant I don’t..not want to get married. That is..I really, really want to get married.” He gulped, his attention solely on Odelia in front of him, an awkward smile on his face as he bit the inside of his cheek.

“Pay attention! Have you remembered to bring the ring?”

“Yes! Yes, the ring!” Hugo searched his pockets, his fingers finally brushing against the cold metal of the circular object. Swiftly, he brought out the plain band, holding it between his thumb and index finger. He must’ve held it too hard or his hands shook too much, since as soon as he brought out the little object, it flicked out of his fingers and fell to the floor. It rolled and rolled, much to the horror of everyone else. Gasps and screams filled the room as he lunged to get the ring and pick it up.

“Enough! This wedding can’t happen until he is properly prepared!” the pastor exclaimed, shoving his finger against Hugo’s chest, who shuffled back against the door in fear. He sucked in a breath as the pastor stepped even closer. “Young man, learn your vows.” He declared sternly, Hugo shakily nodding before rushing out of the room and running away as fast as he could from the house to the graveyard.

Snow crushed under his feet as he crossed over the stone bridge, sighing and shivering. “It really shouldn’t be that difficult. It’s only a few simple vows.” he murmured under his breath as he trailed along the path to the graveyard, the trees becoming more and more looming over him and the light from the moon more and more obstructed by branches. “With this candle I will...I will…” he let out a tired sigh, “I will set your mother on fire. It’s no use.” he muttered as he took a seat on a fallen tree in a clearing, a hand-like branch sticking out of the ground in the middle, underneath a colossal tree.

A newfound confidence swept through him out of nowhere as he rose to his feet. “With this hand, I shall lift your sorrows!” he declared as he brought the ring out of his pocket, a grin quirking his lips. “Your cup will never empty, for I shall be your wine!” his voice grew in volume as he stepped around the clearing, shaking hands with the spindly branches of the spruce trees surrounding him on every side. “ With this candle, I will light your way in the darkness! And with this ring, I ask you to be mine.” he yelled as he slipped the ring onto one of the branches of the root sticking from the ground.

Wind howled around him for a second and, as he looked up, crows sat on the branches of trees surrounding him. Staring at him and cawing maniacally as soon as he’d slipped the ring onto the root. The root gripped his wrist, pulling it down into the ground with a forceful tug. Crows that were once perched on the winding branches of trees now flew and cawed around the clearing. Frantically, he tried to tug his hand free from the unrelenting grasp, falling back with a skeletal arm now attached to him. Hugo shook it away and the ground in front of him began to break away, a figure rising from the dirt. First its arms, then its head, then its body.

The man who had arisen wore a wedding suit, similar to his, however blue. He had raven hair that fell just to his shoulders, a cyan streak in between the locks that blended in with the light blue tint on his skin. The mystery ghoul seemed part skeletal too - little bits of his flesh and body torn away by decay, his ribcage clearly showing from under the suit he wore. The ghoul raised the veil that was partially covering his head, whispering two fateful words.

“I do.”

Hugo scurried back in shock as the man held a hand out towards him, scrambling to his feet and sprinting away as fast as his legs would carry him. Periodically he’d glance back, the figure always far too close to him. It was as though he couldn’t lose him, no matter how far or fast he’d thought he was running. In his haste, he ran into a tree, his body wracked in pain. This pain was soon to be ignored, however, as he turned his head to see the figure still gaining on him. He frantically pushed himself away and began to run again towards the bridge. Why did it feel so far away? He caught his jacket on various branches, causing rips and tears all over the custom made jacket. Donella was sure to kill him if this man didn’t.

His heart thudded in his chest as his feet made contact with the stone surface of the bridge, it clicking slightly under his shoes. Hugo turned on his heel to check for the figure as a murder of crows flew over his head. The forest, the church...nowhere showed any sign of the mystery man. It must’ve been his imagination. Hopefully.

Hugo let out a breathy chuckle, taking a few steps backwards and turning. Turning to be face to face with the man he was running from. A scream almost passed through his lips as he frantically backed away into the bridge, his chest still heaving as the undead figure stepped towards him. “You may now kiss the bride.” the ghoul whispered, his hands resting on his shoulders and leaning in as crows circled and surrounded them.

Everything faded to black.

#varian tangled #tangled varian #varigo #varian and the seven kingdoms #tangled hugo #varian x hugo #hugo tangled #alchemy boyfriends #varigo corpse bride au

15 notes · View notes

spine-buster · 5 years

Text

Alone, Together | Chapter 22 | Morgan Rielly

A/N: Thanks again for all the positive feedback! We’re already at Chapter 22 and only in February. I would like to say that there isn’t going to be any more drama, but the whole ~incident~ happens in March and, of course, Boston happens in April. So…yeah. For now, at least, happy times ahead! This chapter didn’t end up AT ALL where it was supposed to go, but I’m actually happy about that. Some might call it filler (because it technically doesn’t contain any Morgan/Bee interaction) but I see it as pretty important.

Hockey Night in Canada was quickly becoming favourite night of the week, especially when the Leafs were playing at home. She had never been a hockey fan before Morgan, but now that she was – at least partly – she could feel the energy in Scotiabank Arena pulse through her veins. She could feel it outside on the streets, walking past fellow Torontonians going to watch the game at a bar, at a friend’s place, or anywhere else. She could even feel it within fellow fans, buzzing around the arena and getting close to the glass during open skate.

Tonight, in particular, was a big one – Leafs vs. Canadiens. Morgan had explained to her enough about the historic rivalry between the two teams, and even Aryne pitched in with a “Now they hate us even more because John wouldn’t grant them an interview.” The energy was palpable. And if Bee knew anything about Habs fans, it was that they were everywhere in Canada – even where you least expect it – and that they always travelled to support their team. Even tonight, in prime enemy territory, she spotted a lot of Habs jerseys. It was going to be a great Saturday night.

But right now, all she cared about were babies.

Briony loved babies. She loved them. And she loved one baby in particular: Henry Gardiner. He was the cutest, chubbiest, most perfect baby in all of Toronto and when any opportunity to hold or play with him came up, it excited her to no end. Bee wasn’t going to have babies anytime soon, so when the opportunity arose to do literally anything with babies, she was the first to volunteer. So when Bee saw Lucy had brought him to the game wearing and a cute, custom-made onesie that looked like a Gardiner jersey with hockey pants, she was over the moon.

“He was being really fussy…is being really fussy tonight,” Lucy said as she tried to bounce him in her arms.

“You want me to hold him for a bit? At least while we go down to the ice to say hi to dad?”

“Yeah, that could work,” Lucy agreed, handing her five-month-old over to Bee. “What do you think, Hank? Wanna stay with Auntie Bee?” she cooed.

Bee balanced his chubby body on her hip. He looked up at her with his big blue eyes and she almost melted right then and there. “Hi Henry! Are we gonna be best friends tonight? Are you gonna give Morgan a run for his money?”

“Henry you wanna go see Dada? Wanna go see Dada?” Lucy smiled as Henry smiled at the word ‘Dada’. Lucy slipped on his blue pair of baby headphones to protect his ears from all the noise before setting her diaper bag on the chair.

As the pair slowly made their way down the steps of the lower bowl, they eventually got to the glass in the corner, which was already surrounded by fans taking pictures of the team. They stood back for a while, watching the team skate and shoot pucks as Bee bounced Henry in her arms and pointed out all the players to him. He obviously couldn’t hear a thing, but he followed her points and let out happy noises the more she bounced him. Eventually, some fans noticed them and made way for them to go right against the glass. Bee held Henry close to the window, pointing at Jake.

Jake took a few more shots at the net before he saw them, quickly making his way over. Like clockwork, a cameraman and photographer appeared beside them and started snapping pictures of Henry and Jake smiling at each other. Bee thought it was out-of-this-world adorable, but also thought it was slightly awkward since she was neither Henry’s mom or Jake’s wife. “Maybe you should take him,” she giggled, handing back to Lucy with open arms.

“Yeah, let me hold him until they leave,” she agreed, bringing Henry a bit closer to the glass. Jake continued to smile and wave, and the fans around them practically awed in unison. Morgan came skating behind him, stopping briefly to wave at Henry and smile at what was transpiring. He pulled a silly face to try to get Henry to laugh. Instead, Henry looked at him, his little baby eyebrows furrowing, before he began to fuss and cry slightly. Jake hit Morgan and Morgan made a dramatic ‘oops’ face before winking quickly at Bee. She shook her head at him as he skated away.

“Ooookay, that’s enough of Dada and his friends,” Lucy said, trying to calm him down. “You want to go back to Auntie Bee? Seems like you liked when she held you,” she said, handing him back into Bee’s arms.

Like previously, Henry began to calm down as Bee held him and bounced him on her hip. Lucy began to thank the fans for making room for them, and as she did, Bee noticed a group of three young girls – they couldn’t have been older than 21 – recording them on their iPhones. Bee tried not to look their way or give them any mind, but when she overheard one of them say to the other, “That’s Morgan Rielly’s girlfriend,” her breath couldn’t help but hitch in her throat.

“Let’s get back to our seats before the Zamboni comes out,” Lucy said, unaware of the girls filming. “Hank’s really scared of them and Jake’s still upset about it.”

As they made their way back to their seats, they saw Aryne and waved, Penny following close behind her. They nestled into their seats – Lucy near the aisle, then Bee, then Aryne, then Penny – as Bee turned Henry to face forward to look out onto the ice, bouncing him slightly on her knee.

“Are you girls ready for a shit show?” Penny asked. “I don’t know if you saw, but Max Domi has already been chirping a few of the boys.”

The girls rolled their eyes, but Bee had no idea who Max Domi was. “Who is Max Domi?”

Penny cringed. “Don’t ask.”

Aryne looked over at her. “Max is a player on the Habs. His dad Tie used to play for Toronto from the mid-nineties to the mid-2000s,” she explained. Bee was so grateful that Aryne and the other girls were still patient enough to explain things to her. “He just crawls under people’s skin. He likes to play dirty. And ever since he got traded to Montreal and became a Hab, he’s been shitting on Toronto – literally the city he grew up in – every chance he gets.”

Bee furrowed her brows. “So you’re telling me he’s a dumbass.”

The girls burst out into laughter at Bee’s deadpan delivery. “Exactly,” Penny snorted.

“If he so much as touches one of our guys tonight I’ll go down there and fight him myself,” Lucy warned. “I haven’t slept in two days and I’m surviving on cereal and smoothies. I’m a ball of rage.”

Henry seemed content to stay on Bee’s lap during the first period, despite the constant grimacing, flailing of arms, screaming, and general scowling from the ladies. By the end of the period, the Leafs were down 3-0, and Bee got the gift of seeing first-hand what kind of a player Max Domi was. Though he hadn’t scored any of the goals, he was being an asshole, completely targeting Freddie and riling up Johnsson – of course, the referees called nothing. Bee knew she always had to be mad at the referees.

As Lucy left with Henry to change his diaper, Bee spent the intermission on her phone catching up on the day’s news events. She was pretty busy at work these days, and throughout all the meetings Mark liked to spontaneously plan and the working lunches they’d have, she wasn’t able to catch up on anything during the day like she used to be able to when she was in-between classes. She was nervous for the second period too – a lot of the fans that had made their way out into the concourse were grumbling about the lacklustre period and 3-0 score.

“The boys better make a comeback,” Aryne said almost to herself. “I’m not putting up with any gloating Hab fans, and I’m sure as hell not putting up with a gloating Max Domi.”

Bee snorted at Aryne’s words as she opened Instagram, scrolling through her feed and liking pictures. She had made it private back when Angie called her in Vancouver, but that didn’t stop people from somehow stealing her pictures – like Aryne showed her on Valentine’s Day – or stop them from trying to tag her in videos or send her DMs. The tags were relentless – every picture someone stole from her profile, they’d tag her in it again, as if they wanted her to see that they stole it. And now, there were more tags to sift through. The girls who had recorded them at the glass had of course already uploaded the video to Instagram, and it was making the rounds. She was tagged four times from four different accounts. She watched the video, and obviously it was cute because of Henry, but the girls were in prime position to catch Morgan winking at her before skating away. Perfect position. She could only imagine what people were saying about it, and she didn’t want to read the comments. Instead, she went to her Instagram DMs to clear her inbox.

So what, are you Lucy’s BFF now or something?

LMAOOOO now ur trying to get mo to have a baby with u U R PATHETIC!!!

R u pregnant

I know it’s your man’s jersey and all but it’s really doing your body no favours. Have you gained weight?

“Whatcha reeeeading?” Penny asked.

Bee sighed dramatically. “Well Penny, apparently I’m forcing Morgan to have a baby with me,” her voice was deadpan.

Penny snorted at the delivery. “Oh how I just love Instagram DMs,” she giggled, shaking her head. “Don’t worry, I’m only with Will for his money.”

“Oh, of course! Morgan’s my sugar daddy!” Bee exclaimed, causing Penny to laugh even more. “These girls see one video and think I’m pregnant. It’s so weird,” she focused back on her phone.

Maybe Lucy should give you some yoga lessons so you can lose some weight. She looks better than you do and she’s had a baby.

I told u we’d find pics of u and mo. You’re not sneaky.

You guys looked really cute in Vancouver!!!!! Can’t believe you met his parents already does that mean you’re getting married?????

You and Mo are rly cute

You’d look better with a nose job and some upper lip filler. Just saying.

How kind of them to suggest a nose job and lip fillers. Like women around the world weren’t already insecure with themselves. She deleted everything, not bothering to read anymore. She deleted the list of them until she heard a crying baby, bringing her back to reality and what really mattered. When she finally looked up, she saw Lucy coming back with a crying Henry, and more fans filing back into the arena for the start of the second period.

“He is being so incredibly fussy it’s driving me insane,” Lucy’s voice was exasperated as she sat back into her seat. “The entire time he was wailing. Just wouldn’t stop crying.”

“Awww, come here my chubby prince,” Bee cooed as she took Henry from a tired Lucy’s arms. “You gotta let mommy rest. Why’re you being so fussy?”

It took a few moments, but he eventually stopped crying and settled down, again looking up at Bee with his big blue eyes. He even gave her a smile and giggled at her smiling down at him. Lucy put her hands up in dramatic frustration. “You’re like the baby whisperer tonight! Seriously!” she exclaimed in astonishment. “I can’t believe this!” She even took out her phone to snap a quick picture of Henry smiling up at Bee, and Bee smiling down at him. “You’re stuck with him the whole night if he’s going to be like this with you.”

“I’ll hold him the whole game if I have to,” Bee smiled. “I’m not joking. You want me to rock him to sleep? Tuck him into bed? I’ll do it.”

“Don’t tempt me. I might take you up on your offer.”

As the second period started, Lucy fetched Henry’s bottle from her bag, and Bee fed him. Auston scored early in the period, with Morgan getting the primary assist, and Bee hoped that the goal was a kick in the ass for the whole team to start scoring. When Tyler scored a powerplay goal near the end of the period, she was confident they would come back. And as always, Max Domi was being a pest, but because the boys were answering back, he didn’t have that much to say.

Then Willy scored in the third period to tie it and Penny went crazy. Henry fell asleep and was snug in his carrier when Zach tied it and everybody in the arena went crazy. Then the Habs got upset. Four unanswered goals. On the jumbotron, they showed Morgan and Max going back and forth, chirping one another with a body in between them, holding them apart. God, Bee hated fighting, but if Morgan had slapped the smirk off Max’s face, she would have had no problem riding him across the Pacific Ocean. She even fanned herself as the girls pointed it out to her and had a laugh about it. A fifth goal by Johnsson, getting his payback on Max. A sixth goal by Zach, again. Six unanswered goals. One hell of a comeback. Sweet sweet revenge.

This is the hockey Bee could get used to.

As fans began leaving the arena after the 6-3 win, the ladies took their own way to the locker rooms. In the elevator, Bee took out her phone and saw she was tagged in yet another photo – but this one she would definitely keep.

@lucygardiner_: Henry loves his Aunt Bee! <3 Uncle Morgan has to work on his funny face game though…

It was the photo she had taken earlier of Henry looking up at her smiling. With both of them smiling and the sea of blue jerseys behind them, it did make for a very cute picture. Bee liked it immediately and decided to comment.

@brionymctavish: Heart eyes for my chubby prince! Uncle Mo’s baby blues ain’t got nothing on Henry’s

***

“Listen, I know you have work tomorrow but can I please come over? I don’t want to watch this alone.”

Thus began the night of February 28th, the dreaded day – the day John Tavares returned to Long Island. The media had been hyping the return for days, and truth be told, Bee thought they were making a bigger deal than what needed to be made. They kept stressing the fan reaction, the videos they posted online of them burning John’s jerseys, which was absolutely ridiculous. They kept asking John annoying questions about it, and they kept asking players on the Islanders annoying questions about it. Bee wished it could all just end, but they needed to get through the game first.

Aryne showed up to Bee’s apartment with takeout Greek food. They didn’t even bother setting it up in the dining table – they just took their spots on the floor and spread everything out on the coffee table in front of the TV. Coverage was already on, and the guys on Sportsnet were blabbering on about something. Judging by the time, Bee knew the boys would be on the ice soon for the pre-game skate. She didn’t need to wonder what the reception for John would be since she was being told for an entire fucking week that it “wasn’t gonna be good”.

“Are you looking for places?” Aryne asked as she sat down on a pillow, looking at Bee’s laptop screen of apartment listings.

“Oh. Yeah,” Bee nodded her head. “I can’t live off of Naz and Ashley forever.”

“It’s not like they’re going bankrupt,” Aryne quipped.

“Yeah, but I’m earning decent money now. They can at least get the income back from leasing out this place,” she shrugged her shoulders, wanting to drop the subject. “Have you talked to John?”

Aryne nodded her head, opening the takeout container to reveal her gyro. “He’s fine. At least he seems to be. He’s seen some of his old teammates already and they caught up, which was nice.”

“That’s good,” Bee offered gently. “Does it feel weird for him being back there?”

“I don’t think so,” Aryne said. “I mean…he spent nearly ten years of his life there.” She looked at the TV and they both noticed the teams making their way on to the ice. The camera was focused solely on the Leafs. “Can you turn it up?” she asked.

The more Bee turned up the volume, the more boos could be heard. The arena wasn’t even at full capacity but they were deafening. Between keeping the focus on John, the camera also panned to people and signs in the crowd. People who had taped up their Tavares jerseys and re-wrote ‘Traitor’; people who made a sign saying ‘We don’t need you’; people standing and booing and giving the middle finger with one hand while a beer was in another. It was gross.

“How could they be so awful,” Bee said more so to herself than to Aryne. Seeing person after person with toy snakes and throwing them on to the ice was not funny. It was not amusing. This was a person that was their captain, and here they were disrespecting him and treating him like shit when he did so much for their team. Bee looked over at Aryne, who didn’t seem to blink as she watched the clown show in front of her. “We can change the channel if you want.”

“No,” Aryne answered. As much as it pained her to watch, she couldn’t. “I promised John I’d watch the whole thing no matter how bad the fans were. I’m watching it for him, not for them.” She worded it perfectly. This wasn’t about them, no matter how much they wanted to make it about them. Aryne knew that. Bee knew that.

They watched in silence as John made his way back to the tunnel. All of the sudden, something flew across the TV screen heading towards John’s head, narrowly missing him, making both women gasp in fear. They held their breath as the replay occurred, Bee’s hands over her mouth. “It’s a jersey. It’s a jersey,” she said quickly, noticing the colours on the object being thrown. The distinct blue and orange couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.

When she looked over at Aryne, she could see tears welling in her eyes. “Aryne…Aryne it’s okay,” she said, crawling over to her side of the table before giving her a quick hug. “It didn’t even hit him. The guy missed. It didn’t hit him.”

“Why do they hate him so much?” she asked, her voice shaky as she continued to look at the screen. “He was the backbone of that team for years. He moved there alone when he was eighteen years old to play for them and this is how they repay him?”

“Aryne, they’re being dumb. They’ve been amped up by the media and this is just theatrics,” Bee tried to calm her down.

“I don’t get it,” she shook her head. “You just…you spend nine years of your life somewhere, building your life and career, and they just turn on you at the drop of a hat…just because you want to go home. Just because you want to play for your childhood team. Because you want to be close to your family and start a family of your own,” she lamented. “My God. I don’t even know why I’m crying. This…this is definitely pregnancy hormones,” she was embarrassed as she wiped away the tears.

“It’s okay to be emotional about this Aryne,” Bee said softly, rubbing her back.

“He’s just so happy to be home, Bee. Why can’t they see that?”

“They’re blinded by their anger, but that’s not your problem,” Bee said. “He was a UFA Aryne. What was he supposed to do? Stop playing hockey just to make them happy? Play somewhere he wasn’t truly happy? Play for his childhood team when he only had a half a tank of gas left? That’s not far to him and his goals. Even if hockey wasn’t a part of it at all. He made the best decision for himself and for you both and they don’t want to see that.”

Aryne didn’t say anything. She wiped the remaining tears from her cheeks before laying her head on Bee’s shoulder. After a while of silence, she finally said in a soft voice, “I think the reason I like you so much is because you just…you see things outside of hockey. Sometimes I forget what it’s like.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You just have this perspective the rest of us don’t have,” she said without elaborating. “Never lose it, okay?”

The boys played like shit. They didn’t show up for one of the biggest games of the season – there was no other way to put it. They let John down. After Zach opened the scoring and got another goal taken away (because of the “offside” rule, which Bee still thought was a completely made up call), the team was sucker-punched to a 6-1 loss. It was brutal. Every time John touched the puck, the crowd booed so loudly it almost drowned out the announcers. Bee hated it. She never wanted to experience another game like this again.

This was not the hockey she wanted to get used to.

“Are you sure you don’t want to just crash here tonight? You must be exhausted,” Bee asked as Aryne was packed up to leave, taking most of her uneaten gyro with her.

“I’ll be okay, don’t worry. At this time of night the drive is nothing. Plus, John will probably call and want to talk,” she explained, putting her Styrofoam container into a plastic bag.

Bee kept ruminating over what Aryne had said to her earlier. ‘You see things outside of hockey. You have this perspective the rest of us don’t have.’ She wondered what Aryne meant by that. She knew it wasn’t super invested in hockey. She knew that Morgan had only ever played for the Leafs and he had never switched teams, been a UFA, signed an offer sheet, demanded a trade, any of that. She knew she was only getting one perspective, especially since Morgan wanted to stay a Leaf forever. Despite being from Vancouver, they were his childhood team. His dad fist-pumped on camera when the Leafs drafted him. Aryne had been through so much more than she had, yet she was the one telling Bee ‘You have this perspective the rest of us don’t have’. “Hey Aryne…” she began, unsure if she should bring it up.

“Mhmm?”

“You know…you know before…before the game started. How you said I see things outside of hockey and that I have a perspective the rest of you guys don’t have? What did you mean by that?”

Aryne stood still. “I didn’t offend you did I?”

Bee shook her head vehemently. “No no. Not at all. I just want to know what you meant. I’m wracking my brain trying to figure it out.”

“Do you promise not to hate me if I explain it?”

“I could never hate you. The only reason I could hate you is for telling me who Max Domi is.”

Aryne smiled before getting more serious. “A lot has happened to you this year, with the break-in and with your mom dying. A lot has happened to you in your life. And somehow, you’re still…it never seems to phase you. And…I don’t know. It brings me back down to earth a little bit. When I get stressed over John or hockey or whatever else, I just think about all you’ve been through and how you’ve overcome it all with such grace and a good head on your shoulders and I just think ‘Man, this girl’s got it all figured out.’”

“I don’t have it all figured out,” Bee shook her head. “Far from it.”

Aryne bit her lip. “Listen, you just prioritize the right stuff in your life. You prioritize yourself, your relationship with Mo, your job…not a lot of girls your age that we know can say the same thing. That’s why Sydney reacted the way she did when you mentioned having a career and the fact that Morgan liked you having one. A lot of people lose sight of what is supposed to matter and all they end up caring about is their boyfriend or their wedding or how they look on Instagram. But despite all this new stuff around you, all this money and all this privilege, you’ve never lost sight of what truly matters. Even the way you brush off all the DMs you get on Instagram. And I don’t want to patronize you and tell you I’m proud of you, even though I am, and I’m not saying that you’re a saint, but it makes me think about the priorities in my life,” she absent-mindedly put a hand over her baby bump. “Hockey is there but it’s John’s priority more than it is mine. I care about my husband, my family, our growing family, our friends who are like our family. And in the grand scheme of things, stuff like what happened tonight…it doesn’t matter. You get that. Somehow, without having been involved in hockey for years or without being involved in the wag lifestyle that so many girls think is an absolute dream when it’s really not…you get that.”

“I don’t know what to say Aryne.”

Aryne shrugged her shoulders. “I just think we can all learn a little from you, that’s all. Remember where our real priorities are. Because it’s not with the Chanel bags, or the gala events, or the mingling with Toronto socialites, or the Instagram feed showing off your new lip fillers and the picture perfect way your boyfriend has proposed. It’s with each other.”

#morgan rielly #morgan rielly imagine #morgan rielly fic #toronto maple leafs #toronto maple leafs imagine #toronto maple leafs imagines #toronto maple leafs fic #nhl playoffs #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #nhl fic #hockey #hockey imagine #hockey imagines #hockey fic #alone together series

159 notes · View notes

scotianostra · 5 years

Text

New research highlights threats facing Edinburgh’s Royal Mile

New research published today by Edinburgh World Heritage concerning the authenticity of the Royal Mile reveals the threats and opportunities facing the historic thoroughfare in the heart of the Old Town. The research shows that the appeal of the famous succession of five separate streets is due to the historic character of its buildings,architecture, and streets, but that much of its local character is being lost, and that the ubiquitous gift and souvenir shops which line the Royal Mile are undermining its authenticity.

Research Highlights:

The historic buildings, Scottish architecture, setted streets, wynds and closes, are seen by visitors and residents as authentic, and are at the core of what makes the area so attractive.

However, the Royal Mile is losing its local character. The research shows that visitors associate the area with ‘being surrounded by foreigners’ more than ‘hearing local Scottish accents’.

The retail sector, more specifically the gift and souvenir shops, are not seen as authentic by visitors. Additionally, discussions with shop assistants reveal that shoppers’ desire to purchase high-quality Scottish products is to some extent being frustrated, both by shops selling lower-quality mass produced items, most of which are made outside of Scotland, as well as by misleading sales claims.

Visitors from different countries react in different ways. Italian and Scottish visitors in particular did not find the gift shops authentic. However, Chinese visitors were more troubled by traffic congestion, inappropriate building works and new development in and around the Royal Mile as well as rubbish on the street.

Edinburgh World Heritage conclude the report with a wide-ranging series of recommendations including calls to strengthen efforts to conserve key buildings through grants and expert support. Specifically, the charity calls out the future Transient Visitor Levy as a potential new source of funding to help repair and conserve buildings and streets requiring repair, or those damaged by climate change or other factors.

Other measures recommended include: strengthening and giving a more prominent voice to local communities in deciding the future of the Royal Mile, and introducing a voluntary ‘Made in Scotland’scheme to help support local manufacturers. Clamping down on misleading sales techniques and claims is also recommended, as well as a more proactive approach from the city in shaping the future retail character of the street in the way some other European cities have done.

Adam Wilkinson, Director of Edinburgh World Heritage commented: ‘The Royal Mile is one of the most celebrated urban thoroughfares to be found anywhere in the world. This research has confirmed that the extraordinary historic environment of the area is central to its appeal and must be conserved and enhanced. The findings have also confirmed what many of us have suspected: that the area risks becoming a tourist ghetto, and that the retail environment is to some extent detracting from the appeal of the Royal Mile. We look forward to working with our partners on a range of actions to secure the long-term success and resiliency of the street.’

Simon Cotton, Managing Director of Johnstons of Elgin added: ‘The Royal Mile is a crucial market place for the Scottish textile industry. We welcome the findings of this research, in particular recommendations to better meet the needs of visitors who want to buy high-quality products manufactured in Scotland, and to address misleading sales approaches. It’s in all our interests to ensure that the Royal Mile remains an outstanding visitor attraction’.

Edinburgh’s Planning Convener, Cllr Neil Gardiner, said: “We all share an ambition to protect and enhance the Old Town’s heritage and this timely piece of research underlines the importance of the Royal Mile –both as a distinctive place to visit and a unique area to live or work.

“Healthy high streets need new businesses to open and new residents to move in and, to encourage this, the Council is developing plans to reduce the dominance of car traffic as well as seeking powers to control short-term lets. This should help the Royal Mile to be even more people and environmentally friendly, strengthening residential communities and a further enhanced pedestrian friendly public realm. We would also support a voluntary ‘Made in Scotland’ authentication scheme for businesses selling genuine Scottish products, as well as initiatives to widen the range of goods on offer including links to Edinburgh designers and craftspeople. Edinburgh World Heritage itself leases out a gift shop within the Tron which promotes local producers.

“The built landscape of the Royal Mile is like no other and is of crucial importance to Edinburgh’s identity. Not all of the ideas raised by this report will be immediately feasible but others will and I’m glad to see such a debate being had. It is in all of our interests to see the Royal Mile keep and enhance its authenticity and for the area to meet the needs of current and future residents as well as visitors.”

Read the full report: Perceived authenticity of the Royal Mile.

Image credit: Tom Duffin.

#Scotland #Edinburgh #Old Town #historical

39 notes · View notes

onpoli · 5 years

Link

A pop-up restaurant where diners enjoy three-course meals inside heated glass domes has opened beneath Toronto's Gardiner Expressway less than a month after the city tore down a homeless encampment at another location under the same highway.

Called Dinner With a View, people can pay $149 to rent a life-sized terrarium at the Bentway, a public space under the Gardiner in the city's west end. For an additional $99 per patron, guests get a dinner by Top Chef season 4 winner Rene Rodriguez.

The company bills it as "a luxurious dining experience in a highly unexpected setting." But anti-poverty activist Yogi Acharya calls it "an obscene spectacle."

The installation is two kilometres from where city crews demolished a homeless camp under the Gardiner at Lake Shore Boulevard West and Lower Simcoe Street on March 13. Eviction notices have also been delivered to six other camps at different locations under the expressway.

#canadian politics #canpoli #onpoli #ontario #toronto #homelessness

112 notes · View notes

nunoxaviermoreira · 5 years

Photo

Toronto Railway Museum, by Bernard Spragg Roundhouse Park is a 17 acre (6.9 ha) park in Downtown Toronto in the former Railway Lands. It features the John Street Roundhouse, a preserved locomotive roundhouse which is home to the Toronto Railway Museum, Steam Whistle Brewing, and the restaurant and entertainment complex The Rec Room. The park is also home to a collection of trains, the former Canadian Pacific Railway Don Station, and the Roundhouse Park Miniature Railway. The park is bounded by Bremner Boulevard, Lower Simcoe Street, Lake Shore Boulevard West/Gardiner Expressway and Rees Street. https://flic.kr/p/2hQ4DZ3

#IFTTT #Flickr #torontorailwaymuseum #toronto #trains #railways #lumix #compactcameras

1 note · View note

greenshoesandjam · 5 years

Text

The Birds Under the Bridge

This mural by FATSPATROL was just featured in The Globe and Mail (look for “The artists behind the city’s street murals”. It took her about a week to do it back in 2017 and there is still on-going work on other murals by other artists. It is located under the Gardiner Expressway, just east of Cherry Street and accessible from the Lower Don Trail. It is really lovely and worth a visit.

4 notes · View notes

stairnaheireann · 10 months

Text

#OTD in 1942 – Death of Peadar Kearney, writer of the Irish National Anthem, ‘A Soldier’s Song’.

Peadar Kearney was born at 68 Lower Dorset Street, Dublin in 1883, he often walked along Gardiner Street to the Custom House and along the Quays. His father was from Louth and his mother was originally from Meath. He was educated at the Model School, Schoolhouse Lane and St Joseph’s Christian Brothers School in Fairview, Dublin. He left school at the age of 14, becoming an apprentice house…

View On WordPress

4 notes · View notes

myhouseidea · 5 years

Text

Gardnor Road is a project designed by Brosh Architects. Complete renovation and rear extension for a tired 2 bedroom Maisonette located on lower ground and ground level in a 3 storey terraced Victorian property, within the Hampstead Conservation Area. Photography by Rory Gardiner

#gallery-0-6 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-6 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 25%; } #gallery-0-6 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-6 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

“We believe that every period house has its own story to tell, even if it has been stripped out of its original features and layout; therefore we believe that it is our duty to retell its story. Our Gardnor Road project is a great example of this belief.

Our vision was to restore the old Victorian Hampstead charm and adapt it to modern living.

In the 1970’s, the house was divided into 3 flats, the original staircase was removed and a kitchen was installed in its space. We reverted back to the original layout creating a functional space between living room, kitchen and dining room. The staircase was designed to its original form and location, with new hidden storage space and a WC.

We installed distressed timber boards with an ‘old English’ stain and used a dado rail, cornicing and found a fireplace to match the late-Victorian period.

We were able to salvage, clean-up and re-use the existing Victorian London bricks for the new extension and for the internal brick wall cladding detail, this showcases the original beauty of the bricks. We kept the original Victorian shoot-out extension at the rear of the house and made a feature out of it, incorporating it into the extension.

The dining and living room are linked with the kitchen, its’ white glossy finish reflects natural light in from the rear garden. The dining room is framed with full width heated sliding doors (reducing heat loss whilst acting as a primary form of heating). The garden feels part of the interior, creating the illusion of a bigger space. Sprayfoam insulation in the walls and ceiling of the new extension ensures a tighter seal and reduced energy costs. Radiators were replaced with hydronic underfloor heating and a NEST thermostat system.

Upstairs, we created a master-bedroom and guest bedroom / study with a bathroom in-between them creating a wider landing space. At mid-stair level, the sash window is the original 150 year old timber sash window relocated from the master bedroom. The master bedroom enjoys a balcony view onto a wildflower roof (reducing impact on neighbours, reducing heat loss and surface rainfall run-off and improving sound insulation). The guest bedroom / study faces onto the Victorian terraced beauty of Gardnor Road.

In the front courtyard, we removed the 1970’s street railing and went back to the original style and restored the Victorian part of the handrail back to its formal glory. The ‘crazy paving’ was replaced with 150 year old York stone to complement the street paving of Gardnor Road. The non-original entrance door was replaced with a Victorian-style door adorned with period door furnishings. We fitted a solid brass Victorian lamp to give a Period-look that matched the street lighting. The UPVC windows were replaced with sash windows with a special distorted glass finish to look old and give back some of the original charm.”

Gardnor Road, Hampstead, London NW3 by Brosh Architects Gardnor Road is a project designed by Brosh Architects. Complete renovation and rear extension for a tired 2 bedroom Maisonette located on lower ground and ground level in a 3 storey terraced Victorian property, within the Hampstead Conservation Area.

#bathroom #bedroom #Brosh Architects #Gardnor Road #Hampstead #house #house idea #houseidea #kitchen #living #London NW3 #myhouseidea

2 notes · View notes

isfeed · 2 years

Text

Traffic snarled on southbound DVP due to serious crash on the westbound Gardiner

Traffic is a mess on the southbound DVP due to a serious collision on the westbound Gardiner Expressway near Lower Sherbourne Street. Source: CP24

View On WordPress

#.com

0 notes

spookyspaghettisundae · 5 years

Text

The Scent of Failure

The sun glared on a bright day near the end of a suffocatingly cold winter. The many buildings and streets of the city of Crimsonport teemed with life. A horse-drawn car thundered over the cobblestones. The driver reined the horses in and they neighed as the wagon came to a halt.

From its side door emerged a man in a dark coat, carrying a small black bag. He combed his hair down with a fine hand, but the curly mane popped right back up into the unruly shape his rough night had given it. He placed his hat on top of it and barely straightened the collar of his shirt while giving a curt nod to the driver in parting.

With a pleasant sharpness, the fresh air stung Doctor Theodore Carnaby’s nostrils. He rounded the wagon just before it took off with the crack of a whip and the clopping of hooves. The chatter of passersbys in the vicinity reached his ears but remained unintelligible to him. His head still swam from his recent visit to the opium den.

Approaching the entrance to the house on Miller’s Street, he looked the quaint and narrow row house up and down. Broken thoughts spun around and clouded his mind, distracting him from the task at hand.

Doctor Carnaby waited. A minute or two since he had rapped upon the door for entrance, feeling like eternity, passed. He had filled the time with a haphazard attempt at discerning the smell of his own breath, and reminiscing about his encounter with a curious lady dressed in men’s fashion.

He took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. The fresh air carried a hint of upcoming spring and worked wonders on his spirits. He had work to do.

The door opened by the hand of a short elderly woman in her sixties, by the physician’s estimate. Missus Gillis cracked a smile at Doctor Carnaby, from which a few front teeth were missing. She looked otherwise to be in good health and possess good posture.

“Oh, you are much younger than what I had imagined, Mister Carnaby.”

He removed his hat and returned the smile with a brief introduction.

Missus Gillis allowed him inside, closed the door behind him, and guided him past the narrow stairways leading up.

Something unpleasant hit Carnaby like a slap in the face. His nostrils flared and he could not prevent his face from wrinkling in disgust. A terrible smell lingered in the air here and reminded him of rotten eggs. Or rotten cabbages. The awful combination of different stenches blended together while remaining just faint enough to defy definition.

Carnaby paused and pointed up at the stairs.

“I gather there are other parties living in this building?”

Gillis looked back at him and nodded. When she smiled this time, it did not reach her eyes.

He could sense the awkward air between them—she expected him to pose another question about the smell, but he remained silent about it. He then gestured to the door at the end of the entry hall.

“Shall we?”

They moved on and entered the Gillis residence proper, a simple flat on the ground floor. Carnaby spent the next half hour tending to his patient, William Gillis. The doctor identified two issues plaguing the elderly man—a case of bronchitis and influenza coming together to weather William.

All the while, Missus Gillis watched with hawkish attention, posing questions. Carnaby was used to this and performed his work with the patience of a saint, displaying diligence and professional swiftness that appeared to impress her.

All the while, he tried to ignore that smell. Although its strength in the hall outside the flat proved to be far greater, a faint reminder of it lingered in the air, even in the couple’s flat. Carnaby’s work and dedication distracted him well enough for the time being, taking his mind off of the smell itself.

The clock tower’s famous bell ringing pulled him out of everything and reminded Carnaby that he had more patients to visit that morning. After giving Mister Gillis some instructions and a prescription, Missus Gillis quickly ushered the doctor out the door.

Outside the flat and between it and the building’s front door, the smell hit Carnaby’s nose in full force. It reminded him of something in between the smell of a barn and—now that he thought of it more carefully—a morgue.

Before reaching the front door, he swiveled and asked. He had to ask.

“Excuse me, but what is that—that, you know?”

She stared intently into Carnaby’s eyes. Something about her expression struck the doctor as grim, but he could not quite explain why.

“That smell? Oh, I don’t know,” she said. Then her voice lowered into a whisper before adding, “Our upstairs neighbor, Gregory Gardiner, bless his soul. I am not one to judge personal hygiene, for he has always been a lovely neighbor. Quiet, always keeps to himself.”

Carnaby looked past her, up the stairs. Just shadows. A darkness loomed above the steps. He felt watched and once she had stopped talking, things had turned so quiet inside the building that he could hear Mister Gillis cough through the walls and someone talking outside on the streets.

His chin crinkled and he gave Missus Gillis a feeble smile, wishing her a good day.

Only after leaving and hearing the door click shut behind him did it occur to Carnaby—Missus Gillis’ hands had been balled into fists during their last exchange. Everything added up to leaving an unsettling feeling within the doctor’s stomach.

He walked to his next home visit, hoping that the fresh air would clear his nose and mind of that damned smell.

It lingered far too long for comfort, and wondering what might have caused it continued to resurface and occupy his thoughts for a while.

Doctor Carnaby had forgotten about it come next week when he visited Mister Gillis once more. Upon Missus Gillis admitting him into the entry hall, he paused again.

The smell had not gotten worse, nor had it gotten better. Carnaby reckoned last time that it reminded him of rotten things, but this time it reminded him of raw sewage.

Missus Gillis turned when she noticed he had paused once more in the hallway. She gave him that smile again—the one that never quite reached her eyes. Unlike all the other smiles she gave the good doctor for his work and earnest care, this one puzzled Carnaby. He could not make sense of what she meant to convey with it.

“How long has this been—”

“Just a few weeks,” she replied, cutting into his word.

Ever fiber of her, every limb had stiffened with tension. Carnaby clicked his tongue and nodded. They must have gotten used to the smell by now.

He mustered a feeble smile and gestured to the door to the flat. Missus Gillis led the way once more.

In his peripheral vision, Carnaby saw someone standing in the darkness atop the stairs. Discerning the gaunt, frail figure of the person sent a shiver down his spine, even though he could see little more beyond a silhouette and thin fingers curled around the banister above.

He blinked and looked up, disbelieving that the fingernails he had seen were pitch-black like tar. But the hand had already retracted and the mysterious figure melted into the shadows. This made the doctor shiver again.

Carnaby shook off the eerie sensation, shook his head to match, and followed Missus Gillis. She already stood by the open door to her flat and stared at the doctor. Judging by her eyes, she had noticed that Carnaby witnessed something odd. The tense air about her remained, and she stiffly directed him to enter.

The smell’s potency waned inside the couple’s home, but the doctor could have sworn that it had grown stronger than it was last time he had paid William Gillis a visit.

In a spot above the room in which Mister Gillis rested in his own bed, the ceiling had developed an odd discoloration—a dark spot, like mildew spreading. Carnaby wondered if it had been there last time and he had simply not noticed it, as the sunlight flooding the room shone brighter this day.

For now, he paid little attention to the spot and focused on his patient. He communicated his assessment to both Dorothy and her husband: William was recovering gradually and the doctor had no serious concerns regarding his health. By the time he visited them again next week, William should be fully cured again—hell, he might as well visit Carnaby in his own practice.

On the way to the door, Missus Gillis knocked over a vase and it shattered. Shame about the old relic, Carnaby thought. Not only had it looked like something from the far east and valuable, but quite pretty. The woman scurried to clean it up and Carnaby offered to see himself out, which she greeted with gratitude.

Almost having forgotten about it and gotten used to the smell himself, a foul stench struck him again when he exited the Gillis flat. More powerful than ever before. Carnaby closed the door behind him and gagged upon trying to catch his breath.

Just by the door leading outside, he heard a faint groan from upstairs and stopped dead in his tracks. The cold fingers of dread tickled the back of his neck and skull as he looked back over his shoulder, peering up the stairs. No figure to be seen, he stared into that darkness.

Part of him would have felt a strange sense of relief to see that slender figure there, but no such luck. The absence of any person around unsettled him even more, and some part of him considered leaving to fetch a police constable to investigate.

Something was wrong here.

He weighed his oath to do no harm against the possibility of intruding on someone’s privacy. Meanwhile, the aromas of rotten eggs and feces assaulted his sense of smell. How in the blazes could the Gillis’ ever get used to such a stench? He nearly lept out of his skin when a door upstairs slammed shut.

Taking that as a cue, Carnaby left without further action.

Again, his personal life and work kept him busy enough to push the experiences in that building back into the darkest recesses of his mind. They did creep up on him one night when he whiled away his time in the opium den. In a quiet moment of sobriety, the image of that slender figure and those spindly fingers crossed his mind. He broke out in a cold sweat and pushed the memory back down, as deep and far away as he could.

A week later, Missus Gillis summoned Carnaby back to their home. Contrary to the doctor’s predictions, something was wrong—William was bed-ridden again. Immediately upon reading her letter, a palpable dread overcame the doctor. He remembered that foul smell and the vision of that figure atop the stairs. He had hoped in his heart of hearts to not have to go to that damned house ever again.

Thick clouds hung low in the sky on the day he made his visit to the couple’s home again. A mist rolled through the streets. Tiny needle-pricks of drizzle amidst the cool spring air pelted Carnaby’s exposed skin.

Arriving outside the building, his hand froze before he rapped his knuckles against the door. His stomach knotted and his heart raced. Strange apprehension overcame Doctor Carnaby. He felt like something awful was about to happen.

Instead of knocking, he tried to open the front door.

The lack of resistance meant it was unlocked. The handle turned according to Carnaby’s will and the door swung inside.

And there it was again. That terrible smell. The most powerful it had ever been.

Carnaby covered his mouth and nose with a hand and nearly choked on it. His breathing turned labored because he tried to keep it shallow. In his mind, there was no doubt—he smelled death.

He stood by the entrance, frozen with fear. No figure stood up there, though he expected the silhouette to appear before him. Every single fairy tale and scary story he had ever heard shot through his mind like lightning. But he refused to give those superstitions any quarter.

Just when he closed the door behind him and took his first step towards the Gillis’ flat, he heard a faint groan from upstairs. And then again.

Louder this time.

Just like the awful smell reminded him of the worst his work could offer, he recognized the tone—the dark and bone-chilling melody—of those groans. They reflected pain and suffering. His heart pounded to a mad, deafening beat.

He had to do something.

So he did. He crept up the stairs, careful as not to make a single sound. Midway, one of the steps creaked underneath his shoe and caused all the blood to drain from his face. He broke out into a cold sweat that took him back to that night in the opium den when he remembered the eerie figure from here. He expected the gaunt apparition of Gregory Gardiner to spring up in front of him and stare at him.

Moments dragged on like molasses and he started to feel ridiculous, though not one bit less afraid.

Carnaby continued his ascent, arriving outside the door to a flat on the second floor. The smell was much worse up here and clearly wafted from that door. Around its cracks, the carpet and wood on the floor had developed the same dark discoloration which the doctor had seen on the ceiling in the flat downstairs.

He began to second-guess himself and almost turned around. Almost, had it not been for another groan. It came from behind that door and being this much closer allowed Carnaby to recognize it as a woman’s voice. His concern and courage trumped the dread that kept him from proceeding more decisively.

Gagging again, he stood in front of the door to Gardiner’s flat. He knocked at it.

Instead of someone opening up, another groan erupted inside. Louder. This time, he heard a word in it, though the door muffled it too much for him to understand its meaning.

The doctor gripped the handle with a clammy hand, shivering as he found it deathly cold against his skin—colder than the air outside.

He twisted it and the door opened a crack, light as a feather. He let go, afraid that something might jump out at him. Carnaby stiffened as the door swung open and revealed a ghastly sight. A thin, emaciated body lay on the floor inside, sprawled out. A shirtless, skinny man whose skin had turned a pallid, unnatural gray; and fingernails rendered black with filth. The man lay face down and a tangle of greasy hair concealed his face.

Carnaby hesitated to enter, though part of him felt the urge to check on the man and see if he was alright. The smell of death was omnipresent in here and overpowering and deep down, he knew.

He knew this man was dead.

The next groan startled the doctor and he wondered how many inches he must have jumped off the ground upon hearing it. It came from a room, deeper inside this flat. Despite Carnaby’s expectations, the pallid body on the floor did not spring into motion. It did not budge. It continued to lie there, still, like a corpse.

The doctor crept through the room, giving the dead body—of what he presumed to be Gregory Gardiner—a wide berth. He stared at the corpse, squinting and desperately trying to discern what conditions had eaten away at the man’s skin. Finally, he had rounded it and reached a bedroom.

The smell shook Carnaby to the core and he coughed up bile from his stomach. At first, his mind failed to make sense of what he beheld. The sheer stench dominated everything: excrements, urine, vomit, and rotten flesh.

Something like mildew blackened the walls of this chamber from their bottom edges; but more prominently, strange, arcane symbols marked the walls—painted in dark red or black, drawing all of the doctor’s attention, causing his eyes to dart back and forth over them, unable to make sense of what they meant.

On the center of the bed’s mattress lay a woman—though Carnaby refused to consider this a human being. She looked like a rotten corpse, with weeks of decay having ravaged the remains. Flesh sloughed off of bone like melted cheese.

Milky-white eyes turned, glazed over, and he felt her stare upon him. She groaned at him and lifted a skeletal arm. Chains and shackles held back the wrists of this horrifying thing, tied to the bed’s frame. Feeble fingers pointed at the doctor. Words like sand, like a rasp running over wood, poured out under a groan, in the weakest whisper.

“Kill me.”

Carnaby nearly threw up on the spot. The world spun around him and dizziness nearly made him lose his consciousness. Darkness closed in from the edges of his vision and he braced himself against a wall to prevent himself from falling. But his hand touched something cold and wet and slick and the doctor nearly screamed.

He stumbled into a dresser and his hands came to rest on the damp pages of a thick tome. Splayed open, many of the strange symbols that adorned the walls in blood were mirrored here, littering the pages on display inside this book.

The doctor’s vision blurred and he could not decipher the strange glyphs and between the sketched symbols. He struggled to keep his eyes open. Instead of keeling over, he grabbed that book and clutched it till his knuckles turned white. Later on, Carnaby would have no explanation for why he did that—by taking the tome, he acted upon a strange instinct he would never understand.

“Take me,” whispered the book. He imagined that—Carnaby thought. For it was neither the corpse-woman in the bed, nor was anybody else present who could have uttered those words.

“Kill me,” the corpse-woman said again.

He regretted looking back up at her and staggered back out of the bedroom. He shielded his eyes with a hand as to not have to look at that abomination again. His nose burnt with the horrid stench. Every fiber of his body wanted to escape.

Carnaby slapped the book shut and curled an arm around it as he fled the flat.

The doctor nearly fell down the stairs on the way out, holding on to the banister and sliding down a few steps. He stumbled all the way outside, emerging onto the cobblestone-covered streets, wondering for a second if he had even bothered to shut any doors behind himself.

The stench remained. He cared not for the funny looks that pedestrians gave him while he staggered forth. He just needed to get away from that awful smell. His head throbbed with the sounds of people and life in the city, now louder than ever before in his life. The way to the safety of his practice and home turned into a blurry haze and he could barely recall the rest of that day.

Yet more days later, upon studying the ancient book, Carnaby would learn and understand more. He bathed extensively and burned his clothing to rid himself of the stench, but the memory of it continued to haunt him. He sometimes thought he smelled it when eating or drinking tea.

The book contained instructions for magick rituals. Alchemy. A scholar and scientist at heart, Carnaby figured that Gregory Gardiner had been experimenting with the animation of a corpse. Whose, he had no clue.

Gregory must have done something wrong in the process. The source of that stench was not just death.

It was failure.

—Submitted by Wratts

3 notes · View notes