The Crypt Keepers

by Lauren Shain-Raque

  I moved like a cat when I was finished reading the page. In less time than it took to read the entry that was laid out before me I was safely tucked away in the study. I hurried to write these words lest I forget them. I know not if this means that he saw me or if he simply imagined some means by which the pages and writing utensils were returned. My hands trembled as I stood inside the door of my study, the sword still heavy at my back. I was prepared for a battle, for a fight, not for a silent declaration such as the one that met me in the hall. The sword still sits to the left of my desk, ready to fight off any demons that may tempt fate and confront me. Rhys and Regelus are somewhere about the castle, moving things about again, I can hear them now shuffling bits of furniture that are nothing more than sticks of what they once were.

  I feel the eyes of the man in the hall watching me, though the windows are held fast and the darkness is quickly falling, I can feel his eyes turned toward the castle, toward the mysteries inside. I’ve yet to examine the pen at great length, I am afraid of what it may mean. The markings if I remember correctly, were deeply gouged as if with a rock or small knife. I hesitate to pull it from my bag for fear that it may hold some powerful connection to him. I’ve pulled it from the depths of my satchel now; the markings that I feared seem far less troublesome in the comfort of my study. The gouges are not as deep as I thought and the markings not so strange. There are words upon it that I cannot read but I suppose they must mean something. The scratches and curves of the script looked like part of a language that I might never learn.

  I hope now as I look at the pen that Dmitry thought so important that I do not once again incite the anger that my initial taking did. Perhaps if he sees that it is gone he will know that I have been there, perhaps he saw me as I left or as I read the entry. I honestly think that it may have been a horrible thing that I did by leaving the hall. Perhaps by keeping it intact I allowed for his survival. The only way that I shall know if he is living is if in the winter, smoke issues from the chimney. It is still too early in summer for the cold of winter to force him inside, now the only time that he spends there is while writing those lonely pages. I thought at first that I might seek him out, that I should find him, that in order to understand the nature of his survival that I must understand his person.

  Now as I sit with my pen in hand wondering over the meaning of the words etched across it, I wonder if I should not let him come to me. Surely with this morning he shall realize that I am indeed alive. If in fact he is human or was as I once was, his curiosity will get the better of him and he will come to find me. I cannot tell if the feeling in my belly is one of fear or of excitement. Certainly another person to spend eternity with that is not one of my brothers would be exciting, but I would not wish the fate that has befallen us on anyone. The sun is setting now, the pinks and oranges of the evening sun are deepening to the purple of night. I’ll be watching tonight, if a fire issues forth from some fixed point in the forest I shall see it. Tomorrow, in the company of my sword, I will go to the forest and find him.

  If luck pursues me I shall find him. Perhaps he can explain to me the markings on my pen or the nature of his survival. There must be something special about his person that has kept him alive. If in fact he is one of the villagers perhaps he found a way to escape the sickness. As the light of the day fades completely I see a spark of light in to the north of the village. It is dangerously close to the catacombs. I wonder now as I write this if he knows our secret or if his course to the catacombs is simply a coincidence. The path to the caves is well trodden, though Rhys and Regelus only use is every hundred years, it seems to stay clear even after years of disuse. The brambles and thorns never grow up around it, the trees shade its course, and the grass never grows across it. The edging stones of the path have been covered by years of dirt and leaves and as such are nearly invisible to the naked eye.

  He no doubt found the path days ago. I wonder why he did not simply follow the path all in one day and discover our secret. I wonder why he did not come to the castle gates and rail till we showed our faces. I suppose he attributed the strange noises to the paranoia that came with this wave of sickness, or perhaps he simply had no desire to know what was going on. Whatever it was he never came to the castle to the best of my knowledge, and had he been to the catacombs I no doubt would have heard his wailing. The day he finally makes it to the caves will be a day of great woe for the both of us. The guilt of having done nothing to prevent the death of so many people will weigh down my heart and the sorrow of such abundant death will vex his.

  The fire burned well into the night, exhausting itself not long before sunrise. I suppose that he kept it stoked to keep away animals, or to keep away the darkness. I watched it most of the night, the flickering light casting shadows against the trees, and shortly before the fire died out I moved back to my desk where I now sit. I’ve been wondering to myself as I called back to my mind the words scrawled on the page in the hall. Though I have them written here I wonder if I included all that was written, if in my haste I forgot some important detail, if the power of my fear was strong enough to cloud my judgment so that I could not see what was indeed in front of me. These thoughts and more have been swimming about my head since before dawn.

  Rhys and Regelus are here in the study with me now. I have yet to tell them about Dmitry, about the journal, and I wonder now if I should tell them before he makes it to the caves. I know that if I do they shall find him and kill him, and if I do not he may kill himself. I’d hoped that with the coming of the morning I would know what should be done, but alas I sit here with my brothers, writing about them without their knowledge, pondering the same questions I was before. I shall have to come to terms with the fact that this phantom may find out our secret without my telling it to him expressly. Rhys and Regelus are about their day now, having explained to me the importance of staying on task and busying oneself until the next sickness. I played the aristocratic female to perfection, stopping every now and then to stoke their egos and make it known that I admired their ability to remain productive in such trying times.

  As I sit here I try not to think of the consequences of the phantom finding the catacombs; I’ve also been thinking that it is most important that I make myself known to the man in the hall below us before he has a chance to make himself known to us. The window that now rests in my study is nothing like the first window that I broke. The mosaic is all wrong and I have since its replacement lost time watching the specks of light move across my papers. I would like to think that as my pen traces the outline of the small triangle cast there by the sun light through the new window, that I am distracted only by the light and not by the fact that someone survived the sickness for the first time in five hundred years. The shapes on my paper are no longer independent of themselves and are quickly forming an inky mass in the center of my work.

  I’ve ruined three sheets of paper thus far. As I filled the margins of one paper after another I was forced to pull them from the stack of my completed pages and cast them aside to be cleaned later. I find myself drifting in and out of understanding, of awareness of my surroundings. I have never been so distracted by anything as much as I am over Dmitry. I wonder now if he is thinking of me, if his thoughts are focused solely on what lies ahead of him in the catacombs, or rather on the forces that put them there to begin with. I am ashamed I must say that I secretly hope he wonders about us. My skill with keeping secrets comes not from practice or need, but rather from the lack of another to tell them to. My brothers listen but only to a certain extent and with time they grew to dislike chatter.

  I’ve kept things from my brothers for certain, but the secret that I wish to tell is already known to them. The day stretches on before me, I’ve nothing left to catalogue and I find that the constant scribbling of my thoughts lends itself to repetition and rambling. I shall sit now for hours I suspect, tracing the outlines of the sun spots on my papers and wondering about the day that I shall meet my phantom. I think that with
the coming of the night, if the fire is still closer to the catacombs, that I shall race to meet him. We as immortals are stronger and faster by nature than mortals. Should I set my mind to finding the man that survived the illness, I know for a fact that I shall be able to make it to the catacombs a dozen times over before he even crests the hill below it.

  I wonder though if he is in fact what we are, and if he is should I be able to detect him. I’ve not been to the hall since yesterday, I fear that if I come back that I shall find another entry that calls me out. The path to the village is as clear as the path to the catacombs. Though the stones are packed tightly into the Earth and the borders of the path are beginning to blur, it is still delineated from the rest of the ground of the forest. I ventured to the hall again today. After I finished outlining the whole of the distorted patterns cast by the window, I snuck out the servant door and stealthily made my way to the hall. The journal was still placed neatly and along with it the pen and ink well. Though things where as I left them, I could tell that they had been painstakingly placed so and that there was a new entry in the journal that now lay open to a fresh page.

  I bent low once more to read the words that were scrawled there. They read as follow: ‘She’s come to my haven once again, the angel that gives and takes from me. I want to love her, to feel as if she is watching over me , but each time that I am given some small token of her, it disappears. I wonder if I dreamed of the gift that I so lovingly received. I came back from the forest, after she left no doubt, to find that the pen with which I had written my message of thanks, was gone. Instead here lies the original crude thing that I was made to use when the last villager died and the buildings burned. I hoped that she would see what it meant to me, that my words of thanks would be enough payment for a gift so fine.

  I know now that I deceived myself, that now in order to reclaim that which I loved so dearly, I must make an offering of something more than thanks. If you read this now angel, as I know you do, I offer not only my thanks, but also my allegiance. I shall forever be in the debt of your service should you return to me the pen that bears the mark of my name. I am no longer the man that I was when the death began in the village. The fear that once held me so tightly that I thought I might burst is gone and in its place is a strength and knowledge of things great that are yet to come. I must be chosen for some thing that means more to the maker than what the others of the village possessed. I shall miss them, but none shall be as important to me as you my angel, my hope.’

  The fear that he mentioned in the words before me then rushed into my body so that my ears were filled with its roaring. I once more ran back to the castle through forest path, and locked myself in the study. Rhys and Regelus must have heard my running for they are now outside the door pounding angrily to gain entry. I’ll not allow them to see me as afraid as I am, they shall stay outside until I gather my thoughts. They’ll try prying the door off next, the both of them vowed that they would tear the castle apart before they lost another sister. I’ve called out to the several times, in the hopes that they will give up. The words from the journal fill my mind and I grow less and less upset with the passing moments. Rhys and Regelus are still yelling and I know that in an hour or so I will be ready to meet them.

  I opened the door several minutes ago, my brothers want now an explanation as to what startled me so that I would lock myself in the study again. I’m thinking of something now as I write, hoping that the delay will give me time to make up a story and to convince them that I am alright. I’ll have to tell them about the servant door in due time, and they will no doubt seal it off. I’ve decided to tell them that I saw an animal that I had no recollection of ever seeing it or knowing of its existence. They’ll go hunting tomorrow and hopefully Dmitry will be gone by them, hopefully he will be in the catacombs by then. It scares me to think that I would rather he come face to face with our horrible secret rather than face my brothers. Though they are gentile with me and with all other delicate matters, I am not yet sure how they would handle another male figure in my life that is equal to them in power.

  The fire again burns bright, and Rhys and Regelus keep watch outside of the study. Though none of us need sleep, they doze waiting for the light of day. They wait there in the hopes of catching me at something. Their senses are acute and with each stroke of my pen they shift positions, worried that I shall do something that will leave them with no one. I’ve not allowed them in the study, they are under the impression that I have found some work to do and that I need privacy. I can hear them muttering to one another, worrying over my condition. I love them both, but I do not know if I can stand to hear their muttering through the night. The servant door beacons me and as I creep silently toward it, I can hear Rhys snoring softly into his shoulder. Regelus is silent as always, the steadfast warrior no matter what the situation, but I am as silent as he and I quietly continue on my way to the servant door.

  I snuck back across the forest path, intent on warning the phantom in the woods that my brothers were coming for him. I cannot recall if I heard the rustling in the leaves before the hand snaked its way around my waist or if it was the other way around. I knew it was Dmitry the moment that he sat me firmly down against a rock that was placed haphazardly near the fire. His face, dark and brooding loomed closely to mine and the rasping of his breath made me wonder if he had been running. The low firelight shone patchily against the dark tan of his skin. His clothes, though most certainly in the style of the time, were dingy and his dark curls tangled wildly about his chin. He looked like a mad man, like someone forgotten by the civilized world, but the wave of splendid joy that washed over him as he saw my face delighted even me.

  He looked as if he were about to cry from the moment he laid eyes on me. I thought for sure that he might kill me then, or at least attempt to, but something in his face betrayed a tender mercy in his eyes. He hugged me tightly as the realization that I was the angel of which he spoke coursed through him. His pale blue eyes shone brightly in the light and he wrung his hands relentlessly. His voice was soft and low and through labored breaths he thanked me for coming to him. I said nothing, my eyes trained intently on his face, he gazed at me as if I was indeed his savior. He watched me, as a child might watch a puppy or kitten in its first night in a new home. I sat completely still, determined to outlast him. His eyes danced and a broad smile stretched across his face as I opened my mouth to speak.

  His teeth, perfectly formed for a villager, filled his mouth to the edges. He looked as if he might sing out in his joy to see me comfortable enough to speak to him. I hesitated, reasonably, his eyes showing the uncertainty that his face did not. ‘Are you Dmitry,’ I asked him quietly, hoping that his hearing was good enough that he could understand me without my raising my voice above a whisper. His eyes filled with tears, the mention of his name seemed to be enough to topple him over with joy. ‘Yes,’ he said warily. ‘and you must be my angel, for no other possesses my name.’ He moved closer to me then, to study the line of my jaw in the firelight perhaps. His hand grazed mine ever so slightly and the urge to pull it away quickly nearly took me over. His devotion was that of a child coveting a toy, and I felt as though any sudden move may startle him.

  I kept still though, watching his eyes and the confusion that flooded them when I kept my place. ‘You do not fear me as I thought you might,’ he cooed as he reached his hand up to smooth my hair, ‘I’d hoped you wouldn’t fear me.’ His voice was deep and gravely laced with sweet, syrupy affection. With each word, the serpent of his charm wrapped itself around me. Had I been a maiden un-wizened by years of servitude to death, I would have done anything that sweet voice told me. As I was not, I watched him with steely repose, hoping that my lack of fear was enough to let him know that I was not a force to be reckoned with. He studied me intently beneath hooded eyes, hoping I couldn’t see his scrutinizing glances. He moved quickly, skirting the fire, and rested once again across from me on a rock on the opposite side of the fire.

&
nbsp; Neither of us spoke for several minutes, he was content to watch me closely, to think quietly to himself. I sat quietly, my hands folded neatly in my lap, waiting for Dmitry to make his next move. It wasn’t until the fire burned so low that shadows began to cast themselves across my face that he moved. His hand shot up unnaturally fast, snapping a large branch off from the canopy of a neighboring tree. I knew then that he was one of us. He immediately regretted having snapped the branch off so forcefully, the quick clenching of my eyes as the branch crackled must have worried him. He immediately apologized, worried that he might have scared me when in fact, the only thing I felt was sympathy for him. He came again to my side and grabbed my hands in his.

  ‘I hope you don’t think I’m being improper, but what is your name?’ His eyes twinkled at the prospect of knowing by what name to call me, by possessing that small part of me. His eyes searched mine as I peered deeply into them. His hands flexed involuntarily and as I looked at our hands twined there together in my lap, he released them. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…’ He moved back across the fire, his eyes cast downward, his foot tracing circles in the dirt. I hesitated a moment too long for he began to stammer another apology, ‘I am truly sorry, do not take offence, I meant nothing by it…’ He kept his eyes cast to the ground, occasionally glancing up to see my reaction. ‘Why do you apologize so much,’ I asked a bit too harshly I think when I look back on it now. His voice wavered and for a moment I thought that he was about to apologize again, ‘I don’t know, I just…’ his hands stayed in his lap wrapped around one another and he looked sheepishly at me, ‘I’m nothing like you, I don’t deserve your company.’

  ‘Is that so,’ I jested, ‘is that why you thought it necessary to secret me away here when I was on my way to warn you.’ His brow furrowed at this, his hands wrung against one another even more fiercely now. ‘Come to warn me of what, another plague? I think it would be hard for a village that is as of now nonexistent to be affected by it.’ A smirk crept to the coroner of his mouth at that, he thought for sure that he had bested me, that he had found out the whole purpose for my being there and proven it a sham. ‘Why would I warn you of sickness, did I warn you the first time? Did I come to the village to save the people that you watched die?’ The venom in my words stung him and he looked as if he might cry. ‘You came to taunt me then, to make fun of the fact that I watched every villager die around me and could do nothing? I suppose you watched from the castle on the hill.’