The Crypt Keepers

by Lauren Shain-Raque

  I knew that when they heard me utter those words they would whip into frenzy, but by the time the last syllable slipped off my tongue I was already over the pile of furniture and back on my way up the steps. I am by measure faster than my brothers so by the time they scaled the makeshift wall they had constructed I was nearly to the safety of my study. I sit now behind my desk as they wonder loudly outside my door what has gotten into me and I pretend not to hear them. I shall, in a short while from this moment, open the door and admit them to ask as many questions as they like, depending on how I feel then, I may answer them. The harder they pound on the door the less inclined I am to answer and I think they are now beginning to realize it, they’ve not been pounding for quite some time.

  The door still jiggles from time to time and I think that in a moment or two I will open the door and see my brothers standing there red in the face and confused. The snow is falling at a faster clip than before and I hope that Dmitry is safely inside the hall by now. I’m sure that he is and that gives me some joy. There is no need for me to open the door now as Rhys and Regelus have located the long ago misplaced skeleton key and are unlocking the door as I write this. Hopefully with the smug satisfaction that they will no doubt take in having bested my lock, they will not be so worried at the prospect of a visitor. Perhaps that as they storm in through the newly penetrable door they will soften their expressions and ask me whom I am expecting or at least gloat at the fact that I now have little escape from them.

  9: The Telling

  I thought for sure that with the revelation of the night that Daphene came to me and the warning that I gave them that someone may well come to visit me, that my brothers would take heart in the confidence I placed in them. Sadly they did not and now as I sit in the study they are buzzing about like true aristocrats redecorating and placing their deftly restored pieces about. The castle looks like the life that until just two days ago was waning, is back in full force. They’ve moved the paintings, that they still have no clue how they were hung there, about to suit themselves and have cordoned off the section of the castle that is no longer safe to wander in. I never thought that I would see them in such a fit but apparently they enjoy the spectacle that they are creating.

  The candles have been replaced in the sconces in the halls from my own supplies and the fireplaces are stacked high with firewood ready to be lit at all times. The rugs, or what pathetic tatters are being passed as rugs, have been beaten against walls so that their dust fills the air and Rhys and Regelus are seemingly cleaner than they have been in centuries. The grain of the marble in the hall is actually visible for the first time in decades and the pieces of glass that are normally strewn about have been swept into neat piles and discarded in makeshift trash bins. I think now that I should have told them years ago that some one might stop by. They’ve passed the door nearly a hundred times in the last few hours, hoping I suspect that I will ask them what they are about.

  It’s been nearly a week since I extended the invitation to Dmitry and all I have seen is the occasional curl of smoke from the hall or glow of fire in the late evening hours. I suppose that were I an eager hostess I would go to him and forcefully drag him back to the castle but I suspect that he can find his own way in. The paintings are appearing in an abundance that none of us suspected, dozens more portraits have surfaced and landscapes from before our time are also present in vast numbers. I’ve been sitting here in the study for days and have yet to see the extent to which my brothers have gone to doll up the castle but I suppose that at some point I will have to. I will no doubt either be amazed or appalled at what they have accomplished as they seldom fall in the middle of anything.

  I’ve been about the halls now, they are far too festively done for my liking but it seems to bring joy to my brothers. The furniture is arranged haphazardly and the paintings clutter the walls so that the somber grey is now a sea of immobile faces and landscapes. The windows that were until recently broken and sagging have been replaced with windows from the portion of the castle that Rhys and Regelus have deemed beyond repair and the statues are lined up as they were before the sickness, even though they are missing pieces. Though the castle is done up as it may have looked when we were living, I cannot remember and the images of the castle in its darkest day still hang in my mind and muscle out any pleasant new images that may lodge themselves there.

  Rhys and Regelus are also far more decorated than usual. Their clothes have been washed as well as their bodies and they look as if they might impress anyone likely to visit. They look almost alive as they prance about righting things here and there. I returned to my study after perusing the halls to find another note from Dmitry resting safely against the leg of the sofa. I left the window open when I traveled into the hall and I suppose he threw it in silently while I was away. ‘Sabine, how I love the sound of your name on my lips. I shall come to the castle in due time, I see your brothers cleaning up the yard here and there and the fires they keep burning make the castle look like a lantern. I don’t suppose you’ve told them about me, or their reception would not be so warm. Do not worry, I will do everything I can to keep offense to a minimum. Dmitry.’

  I wonder what Rhys and Regelus will think when Dmitry comes to the castle, I wonder if in their minds they have even begun to ponder whom I am expecting, or rather if in the centuries, they have lost their minds. I shall need to find out before Dmitry comes, for his safety as well as mine. Even as I sit here in my study I can hear them shuffling about. Rhys has taken up singing again and Regelus is content to allow it. Even in life Regelus hated the butchering of music as he called it that Rhys adored so dearly. The forest is quiet and the hall below us is dark. My days are filled now with the waiting for Dmitry, I find myself wishing that he will appear. I fear that if he does not appear soon my brothers will cease their preparations and their musings will turn to skepticism and anger.

  My days of waiting are long and the nights fly by with a swiftness that astounds even me. I am beginning to think that his waiting is part of the plan, that he hopes to take more from me when I am eager for his company than he otherwise would in one of our typical situations. A fire burns each night in the hall with some regularity, which brings me more joy than perhaps it should. Rhys and Regelus spend their nights away from the windows and the smell of our own fires masks that of the hall. It is quiet now, even for our remote clearing and as the days pass, the quiet gains substance. The halls are bright even in the dead of the night and Rhys and Regelus are ready to advance on any visitor at all hours of the night, I find myself wishing with each day that I would somehow wake to the morning and things will be as they were before Dmitry survived.

  The servant door to my study creaked slowly open as I worked on the volume that I was completing. My hand fell reflexively to the knife at my side and though I knew in the back of my mind that Dmitry would appear from the other side of the door, I held tight to the hilt. He looked a bit messier than the last times that I had seen him, though his eyes still sparkled when he saw me. ‘Sabine, you look surprised, you didn’t think I would use the front door did you?’ He chuckled at that and turned to close the door and replace the tapestry. I noticed the line of his back as he turned and how the shivering of his spine had all but stopped since our meeting two weeks past. He seemed far more confident, as if he were no longer afraid of what my brothers and I may be.

  He moved to the chair at my right, ignoring the chair in front of the desk, I knew that in his subconscious he was avoiding the subordinate position. His hands no longer twitched and fiddled as he talked to me and his voice stayed sure and even as he followed through with the niceties that one expects when faced with someone that they haven’t seen in a while. Finally, introductions and salutations behind us, he came to what it was that he really came to ask me. ‘I’ve been wondering what you meant when you asked me what I thought you were.’ His voice wavered momentarily and he continued shakily, ‘I’ve been thinking and I have to be honest, I have no answer.
You are not any supernatural being that I have heard tell of but you are also not human.’

  ‘You are perfectly correct when you say that I am neither human or any other thing. In truth I do now know what we are.’ I cast my eyes down and tried to maintain the aristocratic composure that I was so highly trained to practice in my life. ‘I hadn’t thought that you would wonder beyond that day that I asked you to be honest, and I am worried because you did. I have no answer, which makes any suggestion that you may have as good as any that I might present.’ He watched me closely and though I kept my eyes cast down on the pages before me, I could feel his eyes trained on me. ‘How long have you been here?’ He pulled my hand tightly to his chest and leaned close to hear my whispered answer, ‘Five hundred years I think. I can’t be sure anymore.’ I fought the tears that pooled just beneath the surface and turned to face him.

  We sat there silently as he marveled at the aspects of my face. He tilted my chin this way and that, making small clucking sounds as he surveyed me. ‘You wouldn’t pass for a day over eighteen.’ He smiled broadly and leaned in to kiss my cheek. ‘Seventeen actually.’ He pulled my chair close to his by the arms and marveled at me again as he thought to himself. ‘You were seventeen when you… I don’t really know what you did, stopped aging I suppose?’ ‘My demeanor lends itself to believing I was older when I changed. My father always told me how he didn’t worry what would happen to my spirit when I married.’ He stood quickly at the mention of marriage and walked the length of the room. ‘Did you leave someone behind when the first sickness came?’ His hands again began their nervous wringing and his eyes never once met mine.

  ‘A Baron, but it was an amicable parting as he believed me to be dead when communication from the village ceased and my father disappeared.’ He sat back down just as quickly as he stood and began to speak several times without once making a sound. His brows knit together and he seemed as if he might cry out in frustration at his sudden loss for words. Rather than allow him to continue worrying, I interjected and told him about my brothers and myself. Thankfully Rhys and Regelus stayed in the dungeons through the entire exchange. By the time I finished my exposition on the manner of our coming to be in the castle and the waves of sickness that had over the centuries washed up against our castle. He kept silent through my musings and only when a moment of silence had passed between us and the fire demanded attention did he speak.

  His words were calm and quiet and he seemed to pull them from his heart. ‘Sabine, do you think that if it were at all possible you could love someone enough to spend eternity with them?’ He turned away from me at this and held his hands to his forehead as if he regretted what he had just said. ‘I’ve never been expected to love anyone other than my siblings, but I suppose that with time I could come to understand love. I do wonder though how you intend to deal with my brothers, they are quite protective and a wee bit intrusive.’ I laughed unintentionally and a look of sheer confusion warped his features. ‘I didn’t mean… I…’ He blushed so deeply that his face looked as if it had been burned by the sun and he fought a smile. ‘They’ll be coming soon to check on me. I suggest that if you aren’t ready to meet them that you venture back to the village with haste.’

  He moved swiftly, kissing me on the cheek as he bowed on his way to the servant’s door. He was gone just before Rhys burst through the door with some sort of absurd dress draped proudly across his person. ‘I’ve come to present the lady of the house with a new gown.’ He announced as he bowed. He left the dress that is now awkwardly draped across the couch across the room from me. Apparently he and Regelus found it in one of the wardrobes in the dungeon. The colors are nice, with little difference in the many hues that cover it. Though it is all one color, the alternating shades of lace and bunching make it look as though the maker used several too many yards of fabric in the sewing of it. The collar scoops far lower than any of the dresses I own and the hemline is jagged from the moths. Rhys had little explanation of its origins but I know it couldn’t have come from our time.

  One reason being that mauve was never a popular color with dress makers when we were living and that any dress from our time is nothing more than moth and mouse droppings now. I shall inspect it in due time but for now I shall sit and gaze at it from across the room. My brothers found it several months ago when I first smashed my window and have been hiding it from me since then awaiting the perfect time to present me with it. Many of the wardrobes and various other pieces of furniture in the dungeons come from the villages when Rhys, Regelus, or myself sees something that is too beautiful to become firewood. To know which wardrobe in particular the gown came from would indeed make it easier to label, easier to place. The dungeon, as I remember it from just days ago, is still lined with furniture from wall to wall.

  If I am not mistaken, they’ve moved paths here and there through the pieces, many of which were manufactured from the trees in the forest around us. I can’t remember any wardrobes in particular that we saved, but the years are not kind to my memory and I cannot be sure. Rhys seemed so proud when he left the gown and though Regelus was not present I could tell from the tone of Rhys’ voice when he told me about the day that they found it that he was equally pleased with his haul. Neither of them asked about our visitor and I am fairly glad that they didn’t because I am not wholly sure that I would have been able to tell them anything without betraying the truth. I found a note after Dmitry left that he no doubt hid in my pocket when he hugged me goodbye.

  I haven’t read it yet as I wait here for darkness to fall and for the familiar curl of smoke to raise itself toward the heavens from the chimney in the hall. It is wrapped in the same familiar ribbon and the paper feels at home in my hand. Rhys is making noise in the halls and Regelus is resolutely checking that the rooms are ready should a guest arrive. ‘Sabine,’ it read, the sound of his voice filled my ears as I read my name, ‘I think about you with each passing day and I marvel at the things that you do. I wonder as I look to the castle with the coming of the night what the lights in the tower of the east wing are and why your brothers insist on keeping the castle lit so. If I watch the castle at just the right moment I can see the light from your window and I can imagine what you are doing. I will come again to the castle in due time to meet your brothers, until then I hope that you will think of me often and wait eagerly for a day in which we will be in one another’s company again.’

  I include in this account the note that he wrote me one so that I may reflect on its contents and two because it is impossible to reach the tower of the east wing because the passage has been blocked beyond repair. The tower of the east wing has been kept apart from the rest of the castle for the past five centuries and the deterioration of the wing has gone beyond even the repair skills of my brothers. The halls that lead to the east tower are dark and close and many of them drop off suddenly to reveal the craggy rocks below. The tower in its day was a shrine to our mother, though she was gone her memory lived on there in the portraits and the trinkets that our father kept preserved there. Rhys and Regelus will no doubt tell me that I am crazy, that some demon has taken hold of my mind, but I shall tell them about the light in the tower.

  Hopefully by the light of day we can make some attempt to venture to the tower, some grand scheme that shall allow us access. With luck the passage will not be so badly crumbled and decayed that with a little assistance from some rope and careful footing we can make our way to the tower. What we shall find when we reach the pinnacle of the east turret is beyond the scope of my imagination. The only explanation that I can begin to form points to some uninvited house guest or Rhys and Regelus about their tricks again, either way I will know soon what it is that keeps the tower lit so brightly at night that Dmitry can see it from the hall in the town.

  10: The Finding

  Rhys and Regelus are as surprised as I that something dwells within the crumbling walls of the east tower and through all their doubt I can still sense a twinge of fear. They’ve both ass
ured me, several times, that should something truly exist in the tower it was there long before the collapse of the corridors and therefore most likely to be something that we’ve missed in all our years of scouting and repairing the castle. Neither of them stopped to wonder how in our extensive searches and repairs of the castle we could have missed a light bright enough to be seen from the village, or what other beings saw it aside from Dmitry. I’ve not seen the light my self but I suppose that it must be quite spectacular since it can be seen from the village and be clearly identified as coming from the east tower.

  Another detail that seemed to have completely slipped their minds is where my information came from, neither of them seemed to care that someone other than us existed to see the light in the tower, their attention was focused more wholly on the denial of the light in the tower. I find it strange that in the length of time that it took me to tell them that there was a light in the tower, not once did they ask how I knew. Their eyes trained on my face and they both feigned belief until the last moment at which they both assured me that there was nothing to worry about. I began to suspect that they may have something to do with the light when Rhys stumbled upon his words and told me that even if someone could get to the tower, what would they find there other than moldy trinkets and treasures that our father had deemed important.

  I wasn’t aware until then that any of us knew what father did in the tower save for myself. Never once did I hear tell of my brothers going to the tower or knowing its significance to our father. I decided then that I would venture there on my own while I set Rhys and Regelus on some absurd task that would take much of the day. I’ve decided now that the study and its adjoining reading rooms needs to be cleaned thoroughly and that I need at least a dozen shelves built into the wall of the study itself to accommodate the stacks of books that accumulate on the coroner of my desk and the nearby chairs and sofa. I made sure that before I moved my things to my temporary workspace on the second floor that I mussed things about a bit to make their work more difficult.