Tenebrae Manor Read online

  "Yes, miss."

  "And my cake will be wondrous, a dream! And - come now you silly, don't brush so hard!"

  "Yes, miss."

  "Nobody does anything right. But my party, my party. It will be perfect, nothing wrong and I - Madlyn, you deplorable ninny, what are you staring at?"

  "Nothing, miss. Sorry, miss. Yes, miss."

  The servant girl's flimsy mind was a noticeable absentee at present; it had run off into the colourful throes of imagination. Madlyn's mental stability, frail as it may have been, had been lured into daydream by the transfixing of her eyes on the brooch sitting on Libra's table. It was the ornament of brilliant black, the ebony rose brooch that could rival any gem in regards to beauty. The petals of the rose twirled and intertwined into each other, spinning into the centre and absorbing conscious thought with its hypnotism.

  Madlyn was infatuated by such a piece of jewelry. She had never owned many jewels herself and this particular brooch captured her lust for the surreal, her thoughts crying out to her. You simply must have it!

  The candle burned weaker by the minute, collapsing into itself in melted tallow. Madlyn's arms turned like gear shafts of an ancient machine, a monotonous repetition, a cycle of brush through hair and brush again. Libra was powdering her face with pomp and circumstance, the sweet aromas of her cosmetics lightening her mood ever still.

  "Where was I, now?" said Libra, "Oh, it has but slipped my mind… Oh yes! The cake! Well..."

  "Yes," came Madlyn's repetitious response “...Miss."

  ****

  In the foyer, another picture was painted. It is a surreal piece of caliginous gloom, the very definition of still life. The mighty oak doors of Tenebrae Manor loomed ominously from their host wall, moonlight stabbing through its pellucid stain glass features and casting demented shadows across the black and white tiles of the marble floor. All around there loomed a sense of warped reality, a charlatan playing tricks with gravity, with perception, so even the most steadfast being would find themselves bewildered in their bearings.

  High in a corner, a spider silently spun silk with its eight emaciated legs. It stood intimidating and triumphant over the foolish fly, which had become numb from poison, immobile in the sticky confines of arachnid rope. Perhaps it could see its own mocking reflection, multiplied by the eight oculi of its captor, cruelly reminding it of an inevitable doom.

  A cockroach scuttled across the tiles and the clicking of its legs sounded off beat with another very similar sound nearby. A grandfather clock swung its pendulum back and forth, a monotonous metronome of cogs turning and hands cycling about face. Through the gloom there came the muted chortle of an owl that had found some ingress into the mansion and lay concealed somewhere within the room. From the doorway, one could observe the eternal staircase of Tenebrae Manor beginning its inclination to the zenith point of the house, the banister adorned with the heads of griffins and busts of harpies. A chandelier hung motionless from the ceiling like a dead man, collecting a foliage of cobwebs and taking on an appearance of an inverted shrubbery.

  The Usher stood vigil. One more figure in a line of armour. How was he any different to the suits of mail and steel that stood in a line next to him? His eyes remained locked in a vacant deadpan, his stance unchanged as the hours drifted by. Through all, he must wait. At any moment there could be a rap on the door and what would become of it if he were not there to respond? Not another thought plagued his mind. No memories of a life been and gone, no yearning for a favourite past time with which to waste his hours. He was the Usher and he must wait.

  The clock struck the hour and bellowed like a gong. The owl started, the spider stirred and the Usher stood unchanged.

  ****

  “And another!” bellowed Arpage. “Louder, I say! Stronger!”

  From below, on the stage, Comets jumped on the spot and stamped his feet down fiercely onto the floorboards. Items lifeless and static hitherto rattled with life given them by the pulsing vibration of Comets’ stomps.

  “Yes!” Arpage boomed.

  He struck the keys of his piano with malevolence, their noise adding to the commotion of the room. Deadsol danced with whimsy through the seats, contorting his limbs extravagantly, tossing feathers and pine needles conjured as if from nowhere.

  Above them, the ceiling was hidden by a supernatural cloud, swirling and raining down strings of spider thread, which grabbed at the feathers greedily and left them permanently suspended mid-flight. Pine needles spun frantically from their cobweb puppet strings as the air grew thick with colours of tawny, silver and emerald.

  “Tawny owl, do not howl!” Deadsol cried. “Shoots of pine will do you just fine!”

  “Spider leg and spider crawl,” added Comets. “Veil of web a spindly shawl!”

  The noise of this auditorium treble had finally found cohesion amongst their individual bellows. The senseless chaos had become a controlled, tense dirge - Comets with his percussion, Arpage’s instruments pounding out a foundation of bass, Deadsol contributing rhythm with his dance and melody with his rhyme.

  The theatre was inundated with decoration and the clean cold air had been replaced with a wilderness of embellishment.

  ****

  High up in his room, Bordeaux had bargained with himself a moment's rest from his duties. From his vantage point on the windowsill, he was able to fully absorb the rays of the moon, which was dripping with a pale yellow sweat.

  Bordeaux's foot dangled from the perch of his window ledge, teasing the abyss as it swung in time to the notes of his flute. He had done all he could, all other facets were now completely beyond his control. These had been weeks of torment, the lofty standards that he applied to his work, combined with the frantic and unusual commotion about the manor had planted a seed of fear in his mind. It was a fear of the inadequate, a fear that he may fail to live up to the expectation of his post. But now, as he sat on the window ledge adrift in reverie, his refined composure had returned.

  Weary of his instrument, he let his hand fall to the side of the wall opposite to his dangling leg, the flute hanging precariously albeit firmly in his grasp.

  Melancholia had overtaken him, the painting on his wall a constant reminder of what had been and what was now so far behind him. The sinuous sea, the taunt of the morning sun peering over the horizon, seemed to mock him with oblivious fancy.

  Beyond the window, the trees stood like soldiers in the moonlight, silent and still, guarding him from escape. He felt as a prisoner, his heart filling with a primal urge to crack the ribs of confinement and disappear into the forest. The great trunks of closely pressed pines stood as bars across any adventure into the world beyond the night. Soon the pangs of his dutiful guilt quenched the callings of the wayfarer and he dropped from the sill to ensconce in his favourite chair and delve into another reality that could be found only between the pages of an old book.

  ****

  The branches jutting from the aforementioned tree trunks, those twisted spearheads jutting into the underbelly of a dark sky, proved more than efficient as footholds in the swift clambering of Edweena. The stealthy vampiress cut through the canopy with the deft precision of some lithe panther. Within her burned a fiery passion, a wild bloodlust that smoldered in her core and clouded her vision from any sightings of contentment.

  It was unknown even to her where she was heading at present; perhaps she merely wished to exhume the overflow of her anger and resentment through her vigorous climb. Edweena had drowned in frustration since Libra's ascension, her ebony haired skull slipping beneath the waves after a mighty struggle. What remained was a bitter grudge, not that of jealousy but of abandonment.

  The forest floor was but a blur beneath her leather boots and Edweena regaled times when she had not been alone in her scouting. As though they had represented the shadow of the other, Edweena and Libra had been inseparable.

  Was her anger justified? Surely, she thought to herself. Why had Libra changed so much?

  Edweena
came to a halt on a branch, lungs gasping profusely from exertion as the sweat poured in streams down her face and body. Her tight grey pants clung to her legs, the black ribbons adorning the top of her black ensemble brushing to a standstill as she sucked in air. The heat only emphasised her sweltering fatigue, pouring down her face in beaded drops. Libra has always been prone to excess, she thought. Perhaps the years of nocturnal escapades had dulled her desire towards physical movement. But that doesn’t explain why she suddenly stopped seeing me. Aren’t friends supposed to converse? It was no doubt possible that Libra did still care for her friendship with Edweena but certainly, her selfish impulses were stronger. And isn’t that exactly the point?

  ****

  Further out in the forest, where Tenebrae Manor stands only as a prominent backdrop rather than an all encompassing surrounding, the hut of the hermit Crow is alight with an orange glow. Its sickly light illuminates the undersides of pine branches, forming an intermingling tartan of orange and black. The shadows expand and retract with each crackle of the fire lit within the outdoor furnace.

  As smoke spirals lazily into the night air, a sharp sound can be discerned; Crow is tempering his blade with hammer strokes. The sword has taken shape since the hermit's awkward meeting with Bordeaux, obtaining a fine edge that will soon be honed further into an enviable sharpness. The fire was beginning to die, until Crow threw more kindling to the flames. His firewood, much to his chagrin, was composed of wood golems he had slain recently. His skewbald mare brayed uneasily from its stall. Crow winced at the ever-growing pile of scrap wood and gazed anxiously out into the trees, where the calls of ravens echoed through the dry atmosphere.

  ****

  Flanking the western wall of Tenebrae Manor, a crude trail of sorts rides up alongside, covered by a cold stone roofing formed by the bulging overhang of the auditorium above. A pair of forgotten carriages lay cobwebbed beneath the lot, shielded by rain to an extent, though the muddy ground about their wheels had splashed up to the axles.

  A macabre carriage saunters up the path from the trees as a does a bear crawling from the hibernating mouth of a cave. The clatter and snort of horses quenches the silence and the carriage groans in agony under the weight of its cargo.

  The driver is curious specimen; an impish fellow hunched and frail, spine curved to such extent that he seemed to be coiling towards complete omission from any mind. His eyes balloon forth, locked forever in an expressionless gawk. Pocked with the evidence of removed stitches, his lips protrude - yet the mouth never moves. The imp has clearly lost the ability to speak - perhaps out of fear of punishment of the anonymous tyrant who had stitched his mouth previously, so that he was regarded as completely mute.

  He pulls at the reins of his horses; they come to a stop beneath the canopy of stone, where an enormous pair of doors opened up into the cellars of the manor. And, as though he premeditated the imp's arrival, the doors creaked open and the mute chef shuffled out onto the drive. The chef pushed heavily on the doors, though even with his ample weight they were difficult to budge.

  He then moved to assist the small visitor, who had drawn the cloak from his cargo and revealed the quarterly larder of Tenebrae's supplies. The mute chef pouted, not of disappointment, rather concentration as he counted with his pudgy fingers. Crates of wine, barrels of fish, sacks of grains, hefty cuts of meat, wheels of cheese, assortments of vegetables; it all seemed in order. They nodded silently to each other and proceeded to unload the larder - laborious work for such decrepit souls. And once the last barrel was rolled down into the cellar, the imp man mounted his carriage once again. The reins cracked, the horses brayed and away he went back into the trees from whence he came. The mute chef waved him off and closed the doors; the driveway was still and no words were spoken to give evidence that the scene had ever changed - only the newly imprinted tracks in the mud betrayed as such.

  ****

  The night sky above Tenebrae Manor was still but beneath, the currents were moving. The pull of water streams interwove and stitched together, an ominous foreboding that was stirring something; the atmosphere thick with a sense of forthcoming change. The undertow pulled in all directions, it was only a matter of time before the seams frayed and tore apart into unmitigated anarchy.

  10: Libra’s Birthday

  The doors swung wide open and a gust of air was sucked into the vacuous auditorium, its presence felt only by the leaves and feathers that hung from the ceiling. There was an empty echo, repetitive and solemn, that of fine leather footsteps clicking on the floor.

  Bordeaux glided to the stage where he was able to look out on the arena where Libra's guests would gather in a few hours. The spotlight shone down on him, his fiery hair alight with cherry red curls. Shadows cast by the sharp contours of his face were thrown in a way that accentuated his gauntness. Of streamlined refinement, his coat and trousers clung to his slight body as he moved from the spotlight and continued to pace about the stage. In the umbrageous darkness next to the spotlight, Bordeaux could not shake a sense of impending doom, a cloud of forbearance hung above his shoulders. Were he to turn his head to confirm the storm’s existence, the clouds would shift about their axis, remaining hidden in the umbra, the dark side of the moon, so to say, behind his head. He felt his senses sharpen in the silence; his ears filled with a quiet as encompassing as a roaring ocean, only the soft sound of snores were detectable.

  Up in his loft, Arpage was sleeping. Head down on the desk, his quill smearing ink across a score sheet. The ruff about his neck had ridden up in his slumbers and was now the victim of his dribbling mouth that expanded and retracted with each breath.

  On hearing the composer's gentle snores, the corner of Bordeaux's mouth upturned into a grin. He only hoped that the proceedings would run without hitch and that life could return to its usual lull afterward. Matters were waiting to be acknowledged; too much time had been exhausted in this fickle celebration. Bordeaux gritted his teeth and swallowed back a choke of angst, before flinging his arms in the air and calmly making his exit from the theatre.

  The light sought refuge from the night tide and just as the dull orange glow of a candle brooded in the presence of its own exposure, so too did Edweena lament in her isolated drawing room. Through the mirror, the full-length portal into an opposite reality, she critiqued her profile. She brushed dust from her grey pants, adjusted a ribbon upon her black bodice and ran her arms down the tight black sleeves of her undershirt. Her hair, a crop of onyx, coupled with her practical dress sense could have her mistaken for a figure of masculinity. However, one look at her slim curved frame and there was no doubt she was woman. A woman who, upon staring into her reflection, realised that there was no opposing reality, the glass was merely a cold reminder of what was. And even if this fanciful notion of a happy dreamland were true, the figure staring back at her did not show the signs of such heightened joviality.

  Her inspections were brought to a halt by the emergence of a series of dull thumps, not unlike the sound of scratching on sandpaper. Beyond the sealed windows of silent room, the night wind uttered no breath. It could not be the wind that tapped so impatiently on the panes. She strode to the window and cautiously peered about.

  It took a moment for her vision to focus beyond the reflection of her own haunted face and eventually there came into view a twisted branch. On observing the branch, its undeniable movement in the absence of wind, Edweena was dumbstruck. Before her, this ligneous limb clawed at the outer wall of the manor. It was grasping blindly just as one fumbles for light in a dark room.

  There was then a sharp crack, a piercing through the air that made Edweena jump. From the gap created by the probing arm, a sinewy tendril curled into the room, weaving like a green snake before settling itself close to the floor. The vine clung to the interiors as ivy is wont to do and as Edweena regained her composure, she noticed more sounds, more scratching. All along the windowed wall there crawled ivy vines and skeletal branches attempting to find any ingress to Tene
brae Manor.

  The wall transformed, streaked now in a green hue that bulged its ruffles in shoots of ivy leaves, until one side of the drawing room looked like a forest itself. The glass broke further; the branches that had been tapping so urgently seemed at peace now that they had found entry into the room.

  Edweena stood bewildered, although a steeled resolve prompted her to inspect the verdure phenomenon that had so suddenly intruded upon her musing. Her slender hand reached for the wall, until her white fingers brushed against a vine. It shivered under her touch before returning to stillness. Edweena snatched her hand away stared perplexedly. How long she would have remained there was unknown but her trance was broken when the boom of the foyer's clock came echoing through the halls, its fainted whisper reaching her ears. She was expected in the auditorium. Absorbing one last glance at the green wall, she strode swiftly back out into the halls.

  The clock had indeed blasted out its battle cry and down in the foyer, a mountain stirred and began to move. The very idea of a mountain moving presented a most unusual picture but that was indeed what was happening. A hulking figure that had stood steadfast indefinitely now groaned into life. It is of course, Usher. The hour of Libra's celebration was nigh; his duties were required at another door, namely that of the auditorium.

  There was a twitch in his thumb and a creak in his neck as he slowly lifted his leg to make the first step towards his summons. Usher's limbs ached from disuse and though his face still held fast to its eternal deadpan, a new feature had augmented with it. A faint detection of cripplingly determined focus; he simply must reach the auditorium to welcome the guests. He ambled forward like an invalid, his suited shoulders snow-capped with dust; the light reflecting from atop his scalp, where only a few black reeds lay plastered in slimy grease.

  Reaching the stairs was the easiest part but now as he stood at the foot of the mountain. He sighed perplexedly and attempted to lift his foot high enough to gain elevation. Gripping the banister for balance allowed him to take the first step with minimal struggle but his celebrations of such an effort were snuffed out as a brisk green shadow rushing past him.