In the center of a dark room, Alena
Ranyon stood in front of a mirror. Three
maids moved around, carefully dressing her in an elegant, long, white
dress. She looked at herself in the
mirror, her posture perfect and her face expressionless. Her soft skin was a pale as milk and her
dress hung limply around her slender figure, draped down to the ground and
along the floor behind her. She could
not smile yet she was not frowning either.
It was a pitiful sense of duty that bound her to her fate and she had
vowed to herself that she would not allow the bare desolation she felt within
her to show. Her eyes remained fixed on
her image in the mirror before her and for what seemed like an age, she could
not take her gaze from it.
“Are you ready milady?” one of her
maids asked. Alena looked down at the
maid who stood staring up at her, awaiting an answer. She paused for a while, thinking. She answered, yes, but in truth she was not
ready at all. Her maids led her out of
the small, dank room, her train dragging along behind her.
As she entered the hall, a solitary drum began
to beat. She walked slowly up the isle,
her footsteps in tune to the drum. The
room seemed vast from where she was and barely a quarter full. A small group of people sat on his side,
their faces blank, white and twisted into a solid mass. Their eyes burned upon her has she moved
slowly down towards the front of the room. The walls were black and the sky
outside the windows grey. As she neared
the alter, her fiancé turned his head to look at her.
He was hunched over as though his back was bent
up double. His face was deformed, his
nose twisted in such a way that it looked inhuman. He was dressed all in black, and he wore a long
cloak and hat. His shoes were small and
pointed so his feet looked almost dainty compared to his distorted form. He
opened his mouth as though to smile but his face prevented it and instead, he
scowled at her. His teeth were brown
with rot, misshapen and ugly. Blood
dripped down from his gums, lining them in red and as he scowled, a large
infected swelling was revealed on his upper lip.
Despite all, she did not hesitate but continued
steadily down the isle towards him. In
the pew nearest them sat his wild-cat.
It was as ugly as he, with only one eye that was at least twice the size
it should have been and looked as though it might pop from its socket at any
moment. She feared the cat but the
master more so and yet still she did not turn back. She approached the alter and he reached out a
mangled arm to take her hand. When she
did not give it to him, he lifted it himself and she let her arm hang limply
from his hand as the minister began to speak.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered
together here in the sign of God – and in the face of this company – to join
together this man and this woman in holy matrimony,” the minister spoke in a
drone. His words rang throughout the
empty hall and stuck like daggers in her heart but she did not flinch. She felt cold as ice standing amidst this
crowd of people whom she had never met. The
seats on her side of the hall were empty; the only family she had was her uncle
who had been her guardian for all her life and even he had not the time to
attend. She looked at the minister, his
face worn and blank of any expression at all, “If any person can show just
cause why they may not be joined together,” he was saying, “let them speak now
or forever hold their peace,” no one moved so he continued.
It was all drifting straight
through her mind now; she was taking none of it in. Not the church, nor the people, nor the man
beside her and not even the heavy voice of the minister. She stood seemingly on a cloud as her mind
drifted slowly away from her. She was
almost there, almost free of this life, of this constant suffering. The images around her began to swirl into one
another and she felt as though she might faint.
“Do you Alena Ranyon take Barnan Attelli to be your husband…” She was fading;
she could feel it and she wanted it to come.
The eternal darkness she had longed for as long as she could
remember. Since her parents died in that
awful fire and since she went to life with her uncle who had hated her from the
moment she set foot in his household, “for richer, for poorer, for better, for
worse, in sadness and in joy,” It was too much for her, she wanted to scream,
to cry, to call out, anything!
She felt a sudden pinch on her
hand by her fiancé as the minister finished, and it as her turn to speak. She snapped back into reality, gasped at the
sudden pain in her hand and pulled back.
He had tried to pull her back towards him but she would not allow it,
she shrieked at his rough efforts and kicked at him. The wild-cat leapt from its pew and was upon
her faster that she had time to think.
It had all happened so fast that it was nothing more than a blur in her
memory. Now she was on the floor, her
throat seized in the wild-cat’s teeth and she did not move. There Alena lay, not an inch from death and
happier than she had been her whole life that she could remember.
She lay still for a while in
hopes that her death would come quicker that way. Her fiancé stood at the side staring,
horrified what he saw before him. The
whole assembly had risen and all were gawping at her now and quite a sight she
must have been, but she did not care. A
wave of hysteria overtook her and she broke out laughing and squirming beneath
the wild-cat’s strong hold. It tightened
its grip on her neck and her squirming slowed to a twitch. Its teeth sunk into her throat and she began
to gasp for breath, still laughing with what strength she had left. The walls around her began to seep blood,
the images around her turned red and faded.
***
Finally, she was still and the
wild-cat loosened its grip. The young
man knelt down beside her and gently stroked her soft hair. His mother came to stand beside him, and
placed her hand on his shoulder. A tear
came to his Barnan’s eye as he held his sweet bride close and sobbed. He had been so happy until now, his family so
pleased that they had found their handsome young son a suitable bride. It seemed such a waste of life; the poor girl
had been only 15 years of age. Barnan
tore the silver broach of the wild-cat, his family emblem, from his silk cloak
and threw it to the ground. He then
removed his cloak and wrapped it around the girl’s dead, limp body and carried
her from the church.
Barnan’s father, in his rage, had
slayed the beast that had followed his son since he had found it, as a child so
that it too now lay dead. Her funeral
was as small as the wedding but Barnan made sure that all his family attended
to bid goodbye the woman who would have been his wife. There were murmurs around the streets that
the dead girl’s uncle had abused her and she had gone mad as a result. Some said that she had never been fit to wed,
and they could not understand the Attelli boy’s will to marry her, but whatever
had happened to the girl, it was of no consequence anymore.
Cover Art
