Sharon hesitated, trying to figure out the best way to extricate her foot from the snarl of undergrowth she had tangled it in without falling on her ass. For the hundredth time she chastised herself for not wearing proper footwear, shoes she could lace tight or boots that went up to her knees or something. Instead she had impulsively headed into the forest wearing Mary Janes that were almost immediately ruined and had been pulled off her feet twice, each time eliciting a string of curses that would have quite scandalized most of Sharon’s real life acquaintances who didn’t know that she swore like a sailor when she was alone or on the internet.
The man in the pub had said Castle Nurgül was just a fifteen minute walk away, and Sharon had imagined a lovely stroll through the woods because she was, she had to admit, totally clueless about nature. Oh sure, she knew in theory that nature was filled with brambles and mud and biting insects but that had all been very abstract an hour ago. An hour. Fifteen minutes was probably the estimate for someone wearing the right sort of shoes, someone who hadn’t spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to find a way up a muddy slope that wouldn’t ruin her dress before not only ruining it but sliding down to the bottom of the hill anyway in a cloud of "fuck"s.
It would be worth it though, she was certain of it. Anyway if it wasn’t she was damn well going to pretend it was, because she couldn’t bear to admit she could waste this much time and energy. But then, how could it not be worth it? The ruins of a cursed castle, abandoned in the woods? Not in the guidebook, known only to the little village nearby? That was the stuff of legends. Literally. Even if it was just a couple of tumbled down stones it would be worth it just to say she had been there.
Giving a decisive yank that somehow didn’t cause her shoe to fly off, Sharon got her foot free. She was psyching herself up again, raising her spirits by their bootstraps - her spirits, at least, had metaphorical boots on apparently. "I’m going to see a cursed motherfucking castle in the woods,complete with the ghost an an old queen," she said out loud to further excite herself, "And also I’m not lost and I’m not going to wander off and die out here." She noted the position of the sun again, and headed onwards. She didn’t need to go far.
It rose up from the woods suddenly, like an optical illusion snapping into focus. The green shapes ahead abruptly resolved into ivy-covered stone, much larger than Sharon had dared to hope for. She pulled out her phone and took some pictures, but reluctantly put it back into her bag rather than starting up a video - the battery wasn’t as full as she would like and the last thing she needed was to get lost on her way back, probably within spitting distance of the village’s cell tower but with no way to call anyone.
Most of the walls were just long mounds, but there was still a bit of the central structure. The man in the pub had been appropriately dramatic about it, telling her "The old queen is there, holding court still. Best to stay away, but if you look just be sure not to enter. And don’t touch her garden," although of course the whole place was practically a garden since the forest har reclaimed it. Not a very good garden - most of the flowers were actually thistles and obviously there was no rhyme or reason beyond the rough borders created by ancient walls.
Sharon stepped into the center of the structure, no ceiling above but with stone steps still visible in the corner leading to nowhere. She could imagine a throne at one end of the room, and felt a sudden urge to curtsy to the old queen. She rolled her eyes at herself instead, and risked her phone battery to take a few more pictures. There was a sound, like a murmur on the air, people talking or humming in the distance - but when she paused to listen there was nothing. As she reached the end of the room she heard it again, and realized it was coming from a small gap in the wall that led out to where something colorful was waving slightly in the late spring air...
Roses. Hundreds of them, on bushes in straight rows. The gnarled roots climbed over everything so that it was actually just as tricky to navigate as the woods outside the ruins, but those rows were still somehow visible. The roses were orange and yellow, spaced out in ones and twos but still in such numbers that Sharon felt almost disoriented. "What the everloving fuck?" she muttered, and for just a moment felt a flash of annoyance. Strange. The sound faded in again for a moment, just long enough for the humming voice to draw her attention to the far end of the courtyard.
She picked her way along the center where the gap between rows was widest, heading to a shaded corner in the back where she could see something moving. There was a stone, long and narrow, propped up at an angle - and some trick of the light was making it look like it was moving. "This had better not be an actual fucking ghost," Sharon said to herself, and felt that flash of annoyance again. It was just like a smell or a taste, but emotion instead. She was sure it was her imagination, but it was unnerving. Still she found herself walking forward.
It was a coffin. No, a... what was the word? Sarcophagus. A human form, so worn by time that the face was gone, was still just barely visible carved into the top. A woman, and some carvings of roses or some other flower around her. The sarcophagus was open slightly, and Sharon could finally see what had been moving. Bees. Hundreds of them were climbing in and out of the sarcophagus - they had turned it into their home. The humming sound returned - not humming, but buzzing. Still, it did seem so much like a voice.
"That explains it," Sharon said as if trying to convince herself, "people hear the buzzing and it sounds like a voice, and they see the sarcophagus, and... yeah. Instant ghost story. Man. I have to get a video. Fuck my battery."
It was stronger this time, and with it came a voice. Not words, not really, but the humming surged in time with a foreign thought in her head that said, essentially "rude". Or... disrespectful. Sharon stumbled back, shocked, and felt her Mary Janes snag on a root. The traitorous shoe popped off and she fell backwards into one of the rose bushes, snapping a dozen stems and scoring her arms with the thorns. "Fucking fucker!" she screamed reflexively as she felt her skin tear, and then the air was filled with bees in a maelstrom around her.
Sharon tried to apologize, for her language and for damaging the roses and for trespassing and for existing at all but her mouth was suddenly bone dry and the weight of the psychic fury around her chased every word from her mind. By the time she caught her breath it was too late, bees swarming into her throat and all along her skin and stinging her. She couldn’t even scream. And inside the sarcophagus, inside the beehive, the old queen went back to sleep.
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