Shadow Over Sea And Sky

by K H Middlemass

  “I’m nobody,” Emily said quietly. “I’m unremarkable. I have nothing. Why do you even care if I finish the painting?”

  “That is mine to know,” Volkov’s arm drifted behind his back. “But I have something for you.”

  When his hand came back into her vision, he was holding her sketchbook in his hand. Emily forced herself not to react, deciding that such illusions were as cheap and unthreatening as a magician trying to entertain a child with sleight of hand. She silently reached out for it, and mercifully he gave it to her. She clutched it to her chest possessively, like it was a shield.

  “Open it,” Volkov commanded.

  The words rang clear and deep as water. Emily opened the book, knowing instinctively what he wanted her to see, rifling through until she came to the right page. She stared fixedly at her last sketch and found that there were now two Volkovs staring back at her. It hadn’t bothered her when she first created it, but now it seemed incredibly unsettling to her. Looking at it now in this strange light she realised that Volkov had been right about her when he’d written that letter and sent her that cheque, she’d just not been able to see it before. Because she’d left the book behind the night she fled the house she had not had time to look over it again with fresh eyes, and what she saw now was almost astonishing to her. The lines seemed unfamiliar, as if a different hand that created it, but it was in her sketchbook and had to have come from her. If she’d had more time, this would have been her masterpiece.

  “What point are you trying to make?” she asked, measuring each word carefully before speaking them.

  “You show such understanding in your work, and such empathy.” Volkov said. “That is why you must finish it.”

  Emily gripped the book tighter in her hand, fingers coming close to tearing the paper. A bitter laugh fell from her lips.

  “Empathy,” she repeated. The disdain was clear in her voice.

  “I know that it obsesses you. I also know that you will not let your own feelings cloud your art, Miss Emily,” Volkov insisted. “Your hands have the power to create truth.”

  Drawing every bit of strength from inside her, Emily closed the book shut and threw it onto the bed, out of her sight.

  “How can it be truth,” she began, “when you twist my mind and make me do it? That’s not truth. It’s nothing more than a lie.”

  Volkov tilted his head curiously, like an inquisitive bird.

  “I drank from you and made you mine,” he said. “If I will you to do it, you shall obey me. Why is my truth any different from yours?”

  Spots appeared across Emily’s vision as cold, hard realisation trickled its way down her spine. “I won’t be your slave.”

  The words came out small and reproachful. Volkov smiled again, and for the first time since she had known him it reached his eyes; they were alight with heat. It was a gleeful, victorious sort of smile.

  “Oh, Miss Emily, you already are.”

  Part 2

  The Sea

  1

  Richard Volkov did not remember how he had come to be a part of the countess’ sexless harem. Like the power of God and the certainty of Hell, it was one of those things that were simply not to be questioned, and the punishment for such insolence was too severe for his young and weak body to withstand. Even though he could barely write his own name, he was an observant and astute boy that learned quickly how to become invisible to the eyes of others, and so for the most part remained untouched. Some of the other boys, mere slips of things with wide and fearful eyes, cried out in the night for their mothers. Like all children they were seeking love and affection, but unlike most children, that love and affection had been forbidden to them and their cries always went unheeded, their hands seeking embraces that would not come. Many of them were careless and stupid in his eyes; the kind of children that never learned their lesson no matter how many bruises and welts were inflicted upon their bodies. Richard knew already that silence was his ally; he only spoke when spoken to. When he wanted to cry – for he was still just a child himself – he did so into the thin cloth of his pillow, where no one else could hear him. In truth, he hated to cry. To cry meant to feel, and feeling led to pain. He had no time for pain.

  He had no friends in the boys around him, a fact which suited him. He suspected that they feared him for his silence, and for the way he hid his feelings beneath a cold, practiced veneer so unusual for a child of his age. They kept their distance from him, and he returned the favour. He preferred his own company, away from their mewling and pathetic wails.

  They were told continually of the importance of humility, to be thankful for everything they were given, and to be eternally grateful to their benefactress. The thin cloth that covered their skinny backs and the scraps of bread left from the banquet table were gifts of providence for which they should express thanks. Young boys that were fed empty promises of lives that would be free from poverty and sickness, young boys snatched from the arms of desperate mothers with no other choice. Richard had long forgotten his own mother’s face. At times, he doubted that he even had a mother; he had instead been conjured from the earth, or perhaps wood and stone. The idea of a mother was but a fairy tale, something that he knew not to believe in because, in his world, it did not exist. He had been at the castle longer than most, and would remain there longer than most as well. Richard could never be sure how many boys the countess kept in her palatial home; they came and went so frequently that it was impossible to tell. Eventually they lost whatever individual characteristics they may have possessed and became little more than a homogenised blur. All he knew was that they, like him, had been plucked from the village that lay below the castle, a small, sorrowful place surrounded by the cruel terrain of the mountain. Sometimes Richard looked down upon it from his cell, staring through the iron bars for hours upon hours. He watched the people, mere smudges to his eyes, shuffle back and forth, their faces invisible but their sorrow palpable. Richard knew that the village was poor, and he knew that no one could leave. Some of the older boys that came to the castle would tell them all about their fathers, intrepid men that dared to scale the mountains in hope of seeking some fortune beyond, only to never return, leaving their mothers with more mouths to feed than they could provide for and no choice but to send their precious sons away to the black castle above them.

  The years passed in this way: boys came, boys went, and some boys remained. Richard was one of the few remaining from his earlier memories, and in this time, he had mastered the art of invisibility, becoming an entirely anonymous being that remained overlooked time and time again. Over time he had become restless, pacing his cell like a caged animal, wanting something he wasn’t able to put a name to. So, he learned how to conceal himself in the multitude of nooks and crannies the castle had to offer, slipping through the door when the servants brought in their scraps for the day and stealing into the shadows unnoticed. He did not dare go beyond the castle doors, did not dare to try and escape. Even if he survived the treacherous road down to the village, he knew that it would not be long before a guardsman came for him. He was not his own person; he belonged to another. This was something that he had come to accept.

  During these expeditions, Richard listened to whispers in the corridor, stolen conversations behind closed doors, and learned of the countess. By law, he was her ward. She owned him and yet he had never laid eyes on her, had never even heard her voice. She lived on the other side of the castle, a place so great that two people could walk through it and never once meet each other, an edifice that stretched on for days. It was a place of cold and indifferent decadence, but the boys were confined to a single room of iron sprung beds, windows barred and nailed shut. To them, the countess was something akin to a phantom, a ghost in white robes that glided eerily through the castle in the night, waiting to snatch up any wayward children. They had conjured up a collective fantasy of her, formed from the fragments of nightmares and the fevered imagination of youth, but when Richard ventured out into
the corridors at night no such figure passed him by. He felt no chill of a ghostly hand upon his neck and saw no remnants of her spirit ghosting through the halls. Instead, he heard tell of Countess Marika Fenenko, a flesh and blood woman with a name and history of her own and a sickness that cursed her to remain within the castle walls. Servants spoke of her frailty and poor health, discussing remedies and potions to revitalise her, lamenting their failures to cure her. Richard could scarcely believe that the woman they spoke of could have borne such nightmares in his mind and the minds of the other boys. She sounded like little more than a child herself, a weakened spirit kept behind closed doors. He considered telling the boys the truth, later that night, but thought better of it. The boys needed to believe in the phantom countess; it was preferable to the truth of their circumstances.

  Then, one day, he found his way to the countess’ parlour.

  The parlour was a special place, whispered about by the boys with a mix of wonderment and trepidation, for it was the only thing that connected their existence with hers. Once a month, a boy was chosen to visit her in the parlour, and though they were deeply afraid of her, it did not stop them from whispering excitedly about what would happen if they were chosen. No boy selected to step foot into the parlour ever returned to the room of iron-sprung beds and barred up windows. In fact, they were never seen again. Richard would listen in silence as they speculated the reason why amongst themselves in the dark; young children know very little of the world, and these boys knew even less. They dreamed, then, that the countess left them starving and cold as a kind of test of character, and that if you were chosen then it was because she was pleased with your humility and inner strength. Dangerous fancies, but dangerous fancies that gave them a flicker of hope that would propel them from one day to the next.

  Richard had explored many of the castle’s rooms, but the parlour was the first that stirred something inside him. The castle was great and cold, made from impersonal stones that were weak against the harsh winds that continuously beat against them. This room, though, was palatial and warm; soft arm chairs and lounging sofas made of crushed red velvet, thick winter curtains obscuring the high windows, a fireplace where the coals still burned. The air seemed heavier here, thick with a rich perfume that coated Richard’s mouth whenever he took a breath. He had never smelled anything so sweet before, so cloying and lushly fragrant. With each breath he felt more light-headed, almost giddy. He was proud, too, to have stumbled upon this place of hushed whispers and speculations and to find it just another room, just another part of the castle.

  He wandered through it, slowly, daring to brush his fingertips along the smooth, polished surfaces of the tables, teasing the crushed velvet between his finger and thumb, relishing the softness. Luxury was not something that he was accustomed to; it was difficult not to become entranced by it now that it surrounded him so completely. In this one room he had seen more riches and wonder than in the entirety of his young, admittedly inexperienced life. Much of the castle, despite its grandeur, was sparsely furnished in comparison to this haven that he had stumbled upon. He came slowly to a screen in the corner, where his eager fingers traced over the painted lines, intricate patterns that weaved into flowers that blossomed into birds. It amazed him to think that someone had crafted this with their own two hands, and he wondered if he would ever be responsible for such beauty.

  A gown was hanging over the top of the screen as if it had been cast aside, the heavy skirt cascading to the floor. It was made of silk in a fine shade of emerald, layered, almost impossibly fine. Richard bunched the material up in his hands, and, in a moment where he had completely forgotten himself, buried his face into it. He was suddenly surrounded by a warm, close darkness, enveloped in it, and when he inhaled his senses were met with yet more sweetness, more of the perfume that permeated the room but with another scent underlying it that he couldn’t identify. Wrapped up in this dress, he felt comforted for the first time in his life, protected, and wondered if he would have hidden behind the skirts of his mother had he been allowed to remain with her, growing up the way he was supposed to.

  A sudden noise, the sound of a door opening, pulled him sharply from his reverie, and before he had a chance to think he darted behind the screen, pulling the dress over his body and cowering beneath its folds. He tried to make himself as small as possible, tried desperately not to shake or whimper. He heard the soft murmur of voices approaching,

  He slowly, carefully moved his way out from under the folds of the gown. Richard had long made a habit of wheedling his way through slender gaps and silently darting past the castle guards at night, and he needed to find a way out as soon as possible. The screen was comprised of three panels, offering Richard a slit through which to peer.

  A boy was on his knees before the countess. He was, as they all were, a scrawny wide-eyed thing with a shock of red hair that fell over his eyes. Richard recognised the boy but could not recall his name; knowing names seemed a pointless endeavour in this place. Extending her lily-white hand, the countess brushed the stray locks away from the boy’s eyes with the loving tenderness of a mother. The boy was trapped in the gaze of her midnight blue eyes, but his face no longer held any fear. Now his plump, young mouth hung open the way it does with a starving dog sitting before a plate of meat. His expression grew slack and empty as the countess’ slender fingers traced along the tender flesh of his cheek. Her own face was so soft and beautiful that Richard’s heart tightened to look at it; she looked like a young girl, not much older than him, and yet not. She lowered her head and pressed her lips to the boy’s forehead, her deep red lips leaving no mark upon his skin. The boy lifted his own head in response, extending his neck so tight that Richard could see the veins pulsing beneath the surface of the skin. With a smile, the countess trailed her nose along the length of the boy’s quivering neck, halting at the crook where it met his shoulder. Richard’s body contracted, a silent spasm of fear, as he watched her slowly open her mouth. Her jaw elongated, stretched until what he saw was no longer a mouth but a gaping maw full of jagged, dripping teeth as sharp as the knives he had seen in the castle kitchen. The countess’ face had split in two, become distorted and terrifying, the head of a beast on the body of a frail young woman. Grotesque. This was the nightmare that the boys whispered about in the dark. This was the phantasm, the demon-witch, the monster.

  Richard watched in mute horror as the beast sank her teeth into the boy’s flesh. He listened as he cried out once, watched his body stiffen momentarily before falling limply into her arms as she drank from him. He clasped his hands to his mouth to hold back to scream that was about to burst out from his chest, pressing so hard against his skin that his fingers paled beneath the pressure. His heart was hammering so furiously against his chest that he could scarcely breathe. Sweat began to pour down the back of his neck, dripping into his eyes, cold and clammy against his skin.

  A whimper escaped from his throat, a tiny sound that somehow tore through the air with the strength of a scream.

  The beast reared her head up, teeth violently tearing at the flesh of her victim’s neck as she did so. Shreds of bloodied meat hung from her the tips of her fangs as she released the boy from her grip. The body collapsed in a limp, useless heap at her feet, blood pooling and soaking into the thick carpet. Richard’s fear gripped so hard at his chest that his vision was fading into a hazy white blur around the edges. His body was locked, immovable; his hands still clutched to his mouth, crouched there behind a screen while a monster lurked in the room with a mouth full of blades. It took him some seconds to realise what had happened, what he had done. And then he realised that she was looking at him.

  He watched as her face shifted, seemingly in a single moment, back into the beautiful and fragile face that she wore for the world. But her beauty meant nothing to Richard, not now, not while there was the blood of a boy just like him dripping obscenely from her mouth, smeared over the childlike bosom that now strained tightly against the fabric of
her gown. He stared back, unable to blink. He was deafened by the rushing sound in his ears.

  The countess smiled a slow, dangerous smile and beckoned him forward with a long, white finger. The nails were filed to a point, pretty and pale oval shapes that still threatened to scratch. Richard remained rooted to the ground, but there was something inside him beginning to rise, to dominate. The urge to go to her filled him from the edges of his being to the very centre of his soul, pulling at him and willing him to get to his feet. His mind was screaming at him: “No, no, no!” But he knew that his mind was weak in the presence of the thing that called to him; it did not stop him from standing and moving out from behind the screen, into the full force of her gaze.

  The countess regarded him for a moment, her eyes moving slowly up and down his body. Richard wondered t for a moment if he saw a glimmer of recognition is those bottomless blue eyes of hers, but in the next moment they were masked and impenetrable once again. The only sound to be heard was the slow and steady ticking of the parlour clock. Richard’s head began to feel tight, like the skin was shrinking against his skull. His vision narrowed, blackening around the edges until all he could see was the countess’ face; her cold, awful, beautiful face.

  And then everything he knew disintegrated into nothing.

  2

  He was chosen to live.

  Richard had been sure that death was inevitable, but the countess had seemingly taken a fancy to him after their encounter in the parlour and sought to separate him from the others. He was taken away from the room with the barred-up windows and the sad, iron-sprung beds and given a room of his own, where he slept in a bed so large and soft it threatened to swallow him up in fine threads and goose feathers. He spent the first few nights of his incarceration curled up on the cold floor, preferring the familiar discomfort over such overwhelming luxury.