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Random Rants and Other Nonsense


The Orphan’s Secret
a failed NaNoWriMo Novel
by PitchforkPrincess




PROLOGUE


Fate’s dark hand
The witch’s scorn
A death is due
No time to mourn



It was a faint, gentle whisper, a brush of words against her ear that awakened the maid, Marilsa. An enchanting voice, commanding even in its softness, it beckoned the woman to rise, rise and come. There was not an instant of worry or doubt, no thought of betrayal or discovery, just a deep and powerful need to do as she was ordered.

Rising from her bed of soft silks, a very strange and expensive assortment of linens indeed for a lowly castle maid,  Marilsa stepped into her shoes and pulled a cloak about her shoulders. Her room was cold, the fire having died on the hearth hours ago, but she barely noticed the chill. She was hypnotized by the voice that whispered soft words into her head.

As she crossed the room, Marilsa’s hand brushed the hand carved bassinet that had been a gift from her lover and she faltered in her steps. She peered down at her precious child, her six month old daughter, and for a moment the strange spell the voice had cast upon her was shattered. She touched the baby’s face, ran her finger’s along her daughter’s cheek, and marveled at the wonders motherhood could bring. When the child’s eyes opened and she let out a soft sob, Marilsa bent down to take the baby into her arms.

That was when the voice called again, stronger and with more urgency. Hands faltering inches from her child, Marilsa looked about the room, seeking the owner of the enchanting and forceful voice, but no one was there. It all seemed to be in her head. Yet the voice grew more persuasive and beckoned again.

Eyes growing cloudy, Marilsa fell once more under the control of the spell. It was all encompassing, she could hear nothing else but that soft, sharp voice. Even her child’s cries fell on deaf ears. Like moths to a flame, Marilsa went out into the night, searching for the thing which demanded her presence.

“The tower. The tower. Come to the Golden Tower.”

Marilsa came, crossing the gardens where she’d first met her lover, the man who had stolen her heart and left her with child. Her footsteps were soft tap, tap, taps against the cobblestones, her breath sharp gasps that turned to steam on the cold night air. She went ever onward, passing the kitchen where she’d worked long hours preparing banquets for the King and his Court, past the barracks where the guards slept, ever diligent in their posts, past the fountains and the stone corridors where she’d carried on her secret tryst with a man she could never fully have. She passed all these places that held great and special memories, yet she saw none of it.

“The tower. Come to the Golden Tower.”

Marilsa came at last to the Golden Tower, a great stone building that climbed upward toward the stars. It was taller even than the church tower where the bell was rung on the hour every hour to remind the sinful that they were ever forgiven. Its name, the Golden Tower, was given unto it for its glorious glow at dawn and sundown, when the sun first crest the horizon and then later fell away, red and orange and yellow all shining upon the stone which shined as if it burned.

“Come up. Come up, the door is open.”

With a soft hiss and scrape the doors of the tower swung slowly open, revealing a white stone staircase that spiraled upward so far the eye could not trace its final step. Lanterns hung on silver hooks but even the soft light could not pierce the darkness at the top of the tower. The glow of the moon through the windows cast strange shadows on the walls like dancing werewolves and demons.

“Come up, come up. I’m waiting.”

Touching the cold stone, fingers trailing across the walls of the tower, Marilsa began to ascend the staircase, to venture into a place she’d never before gone. Step after step some small part of her tried to rebel, to scream that at the top of this sacred place she’d find a blasphemy, an evil waiting to devour her, body and soul. However, she went ever onward, up and up, around and around, pulled by a power she could not resist. Her heart slammed against her chest, her breath came in sharp gasps and sobs and she continued on, knowing something terrible awaited her but unable to deny its dark power.

“Come up, come up, you’ve almost made it.”

Finally she arrived at the top, soaked to the bone with cold sweat, shivering to the very core, not from the icy wind but from fear and revulsion. For what awaited her there was just as bitter and malevolent as she’d imagined it would be. A demon, a ghost, a witch, she could not tell, but in its eyes she read her fate.

Crouching in the shadows, face obscured by the darkness, it waited, red, pulsating eyes watching her, bony, clawed fingers beckoning her closer. Wrapped in a black cloak, long hair in tangles about its shoulders, the evil thing stepped out of the shadows and into a shaft of light from the moon, and Marilsa knew that hateful face.

“You,” she gasped weakly, eyes brimming with tears, for she knew now that it was not only her fate that rested in the hands of this witch, but her child’s as well. As the tears rolled down her cheeks and her body began to shudder, the evil from the shadows began to laugh.

“Yes, you silly girl,” the witch spat, throwing off her tattered cloak and stepping fully into the light. She was not ugly and malformed as she had first appeared but rather beautiful in a brutal sort of way. Anger and jealousy had given her face a sharp cast, perhaps taken from her the full extent of her beauty, but she remained striking nonetheless. Her hair was black as night, wavy with curls that hung about her shoulders. Her lips were the color of blood and her eyes, her hateful eyes were violet one moment and red the next.

“What do you want with me?” Marilsa asked helplessly, hands clutched in fists at her side. She could feel her nails biting her skin, drawing pools of blood in the crescent wounds. Yet she could not relax her fists, she could not move at all. She stood there paralyzed by fear and magic, and those two things together are powerful indeed.

“Oh, but you know. You know very well what I want,” the witch replied, displaying rows of sharp teeth in a cruel smile. She reached out and brushed her hand against Marilsa’s cheek, capturing the girl’s tears on her fingers and laughing coldly. “You are very beautiful, indeed, with your golden hair and your ivory skin and those blue, blue eyes. I can see what he sees in you. Yet, I cannot accept it.”

“Please,” Marilsa gasped faintly, shuddering at the very touch of the witch. Her flesh felt like ice everywhere the witch’s hand stroked. “He’s left me. We have not spoken since…” She trailed off weakly, fear keeping her from completing the sentence. She dared not speak of the thing he’d given her, not in the presence of this fiendish woman.

“Since that cursed child was born?” the witch finished for her, scratching Marilsa’s cheek with her sharp nails and drawing a long seam of blood to mingle with the tears. With a strong shove she sent the girl sprawling against the cold stones. She laughed callously and snarled, “Stay there on the floor, in the dirt where you belong, harlot.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Marilsa wept, on her knees at the witch’s feet. She pressed her face to the floor and said, over and over again, “forgive me, forgive me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Shut up!” the witch screamed, kicking the pleading girl in the face and sending her flying. Marilsa hit the wall with a thud and slid to the floor where she crumpled into a ball and pulled her knees to her chest. The witch was on her in seconds, fingers sinking into Marilsa’s hair and yanking her forward. She wore a dagger at her waist and she pulled it from the scabbard. The light from the moon touched the blade and it was red, red with blood, dried and crusted to the metal. She pressed the dagger to Marilsa’s throat and whispered in her ear, “Shall I cut you? Shall I open you from groin to throat and let your innards spill upon the stones?”

Shuddering and crying out in horror, Marilsa raised her hands to her face and wept hard. She coughed and choked, she gasped pleas. She didn’t want to die, not like this, not in this place and this time.

“Be still, pitiful girl,” the witch commanded, releasing Marilsa and violently throwing her to the floor once more. “Be still and be silent or I shall go and gut your child instead!”

With a sharp gasp, Marilsa pressed her hands to her mouth and suppressed a scream. Her heart froze in her chest and her breathing stopped. In an instant she went from terrified peasant girl to wild animal. Her motherly instincts kicked in and she snapped. With an animalistic snarl of rage she threw herself at the witch. Her fingernail sank into the witch’s throat and she dug deeply, spilling blood and rending flesh. She screamed and she clawed, she sobbed and she retched. So much violence, so much rage and hate, it bounded through her, turning her blood to lava and burning her from the inside out.

Then sharp pain. It exploded in Marilsa’s belly and ripped through her spine and she went limp as a rag doll, crashing to the floor and inhaling dirt. She gagged and spit up blood, the dirt on her lips turning to gooey, coppery mud. She trembled and wept, tried to breathe but the blood ran down her throat and into her lungs. She coughed and her stomach clenched, then everything was coming back up, the blood was everywhere and she was growing so faint, the world was dimming and flying away.

Pressing her hands into the dirt, into the mud her own blood had create, Marilsa tried to push herself upward but she couldn’t, the pain was just too much to bare. She rolled onto her back and lifted her head to look at her stomach. The witch’s dagger was there, shoved all the way to the hilt, and it was a long and hateful thing. She could feel the tip, pressed all the way through and when she moved she could hear it scrapping against the stones. And the blood, could one person truly have so much blood?

The witch stood above her, hands pressed to her throat where her own blood ran. She looked at her fingers and pressed them to her mouth. She laughed and stared down at Marilsa, watching as the life ran from the troublesome adulterer. She bent and wrapped her hands around the hilt of the dagger and yanked. Marilsa’s scream was like music to her ears, it filled her with strength and rage. When the dagger finally came free, she slipped it back into its sheath. She did not clean it, she wanted Marilsa’s blood to stain the blade and give it life.

“Get up, get up, you whore!” the witch shouted, kicking Marilsa in the stomach repeatedly, until the girl gasped for breath and spewed more blood from her lips. “Get up now and do as I bid and maybe I’ll spare your wretched whelp!”

Trembling, choking, dying, Marilsa sat up, striving through the agony to rise. She pressed her back to the wall, used it as leverage and slowly, painfully she gained her feet. She stood there a moment, swaying. Her head was spinning, her blood was pulsing from the wound and she feared she did not have the strength to go on. For the sake of her child she found the will to obey.

“Go to the window,” the witch commanded and Marilsa complied. With shaky steps she made her way across the tower to the window. The view might have been beautiful under different circumstances, the far hills and countryside lit up by the light of the moon, the forest all aglow. But Marilsa found it hard to appreciate the beauty while she stood there dying, the witch’s body pressed to her own, horrible orders whispered in her ear. “Throw yourself from the tower.”

“What?” Marilsa asked weakly, sure she had heard the witch incorrectly. It seemed like overkill to ask a dying woman to fall to her doom. What purpose could such a thing have? It seemed somehow symbolic, that she should fall to her death as she had fallen for the man who’s coveted love was the cause of all this madness.

“I said throw yourself from the tower,” the witch reiterated, grasping Marilsa’s shoulder and squeezing until the girl gasped for breath. “Take your own life, give it all to me. Do it now before there’s nothing left to give.”

“And my daughter?” Marilsa asked weakly, tears pouring from her eyes and down her cheeks, which were pale with blood loss and looming death. She licked her lips and tasted copper and thought of the blood that had stained the sheets the night she’d given herself to her lover. She’d never lain with another man, before or after. And she wondered, was it worth it? Was it worth this terrible fate?

“Your daughter will live,” the witch said.

Yes, oh yes, for that it was worth this terrible fate.

As Marilsa fell from the tower she whispered one word: “Alexia.”