RAVEL. Chapter 5. LADY iN MURK

Livinia had forgotten own little rule, and opened her eyes.

Lying on right side, Li was gazing into the darkness. And, by that moment, silent walls didn’t hide any blight of gloom.

By the bye, two days ago, the lass had been scared by seeing. Li had seen the uncanny face looking at her from the gloom. The moment too long to be a game of her slumberous conscience.

That face from dark duskiness was withered and ghastly, dimmed by time, keeping the vestige of torments and ails.

Through the timeless moment, it had been fused in darkness to leave.

Indeed, Li was scared and excited, feared, and seduced by a thing from beyond.

So, by the moment, Livinia was pondering upon the clues of the weird tale.

Then she napped.

Li sank down into the thoughtless chaos.

Leastwise, it was better than mind’s torments of thinking about the nearing Day of Gramps.

“Livinia!” a short scream surged and fused.

Strange and swift.      

It was an unfamiliar woman’s voice.

Goaded, Li got out of the bed.

The lass didn’t mind wet waves of insolent winter cold.

Fenceless, almost naked, Li opened her room’s door and stepped down gingerly and slowly.   

Stair by stair, Livinia plunged into home darkness.

Long corridors and hallways met her with the lightlessness, once believed to be betrayalless. Nevertheless, they betrayed by the moment.

“I am here… in murk…” quoth the wind.

Li Greenkind turned around. Peeking, the lass found what she was seeking.

There was a dame. And she was as tall as the shell of the first storey.  

That face seemed to be sere and maimed by death. Meanwhile, the marrow’s clothes were weaved of murk.

Livinia could see the dame’s approaching, silent and strange.

As her lust last fluttered with fever, Li approached the end she had both dreamed of and feared.

“What are you?” the young lady asked.

Soaring, bereft of forms, the eldritch lady was not too nearby. Thereby, the corridor looked so small and endless at the same time.

“At least, I am not a blight,” quoth the ghost. 

“But you live here like a…”

“I have been living here since your summer,” the marrow uttered with a riddle.

“You had spoken with me at the lake. I remember.”

Li felt a fire inside. Her passion was rising from the spark.

The ghost didn’t answer, because of patency.

“The place of your abode is not chaste!” quoth the eldritch lady. 

“Since you are here,” Livinia was laughing before the face of ghost.

“Your house, its body, is dead…”

“And?”

“And spoiled by grimdiggers…”

“What do you mean?”

“That dark art took root in macabre eves of the Hidden Road’s cult…”

“Who are you?”

“Our world is a scene for so many roles…”

“Who are you?” Li was dogged like a talking raven.

“You are adventurous and so am I,” ugly ghost’s face looked like a fever raving.

As a blow, the eldritch lady soared inside Livinia’s body.

The lass felt strange as if her feeling was soaped by the purest rum.

Li didn’t rule her limbs. She was taken.

A corridor.

The darker one.

Then, the darkest.

A door, short and hidden.

And kisses of winter air.

Li’s body stepped outside.   

She turned the corner.

Thereat, the girl’s hands opened a small door in the bottom of the veranda.

And Li’s captured body sneaked along the rough timber, down the broad low path walled of better boards.

The young lady couldn’t remember all steps of own legs. And some moments were blackened by the darkness of the ghost’s sway.    

Girl’s consciousness was pulsating like an ebbing light of a lamp.

Li saw Ma and Fa bowing before the old carpet, thick and huge, which was covering the flattest wall built of stone.

That underhall illumed by few candles looked way more poorer than any room above. Wherein, it was an availed volume of their lamented house. By the way, Livinia had never been here.

However, Li focused on the wall rug unleashing out someone or something, as if the carpet’s tracery was a strange womb.

Then, the darkness unlighted Li’s mind again.

The lass fell into the chain of the moments cut by black oblivion.

Through the penumbra, Li saw own hands touching white offal scattered on the underhall’s floor.

“Bones,” quoth the marrow.

Ma and Fa gone. So, Li left alone with the ghost. 

“Old cows,” the young lady wasn’t surprised.

“And even older wolves,” the eldritch lady recited. “And all bones of the folks lost in the forests, and any other bones… Bones for bonefairies.”  

“So… fairies?” Livinia evinced ardence of the sleeping passion.

“Yes.”

“My parents earn gains by selling bones to the fairies… Am I right?”

Li turned to the carpeted wall.

“I see…” quoth the marrow.

“It’s tremendous!”

“You like it. Also, I have a negotiation for you…” 

Livinia didn’t answer, neither agree or deny.

In a nutshell, the eldritch lady had found a lever to steer the young lady.

“We need an item by bonefairies,” the marrow broached.

“Whom are you talking about?”

“You and me… Our interests…” the ghost was coaxing. “If I have what I need, you will obtain one wish.”

“Can I wish for anything I want?”

“Absolutely…”

Ghost’s words were truthful. Li saw that the eerie lady had the power to make it feasible.

“I need a bonefairie’s heartstone,” the ghost uttered and added. “Aging, old fairies have stones growing in chests... It would be wonderful if you could find one…”

The girl’s head was too weary to persist or agree.

“Don’t be hasteful,” quoth the marrow. “We have so much time… Time is our splendor… Yet I want you to remember that I will grant a Wish for you.”     

Livinia nodded.

“So much for so little…” quoth the ghost.

Then, the marrow melted in the murk...

MAXIM VAZANOV, 2024