Author's Notes: A Gothic story I wrote for English. 2005.

Innocente

Written by Kay

IN THE END, all she knew was either that she was innocent or that she would fall. It all depended on how the world would tilt, whether she would be forced up or left or right or down. It all depended on the soft whisper of wind that would whistle in through the nonexistent cracks in the wood, how that chilling breeze would sway her.

Time all but froze in that November house of giggling flames and dancing shadows. Both passageways called to her -- one boasting vicious salvation, the other whispering sweet damnation.

It all depended on how the copious ghosts of the darkened hall would lead her. Whether their silvery tongues stabbed her with curses or kissed her with solace, she listened, half-asleep yet wide-awake.

(x)

That dream washed over her like a murky wave of a midsummer evening, obscure and disgustingly warm. Though she flailed wildly in the soupy water, she drowned further and further into darkness. The laughter pressed more and more tightly against her ear drums as she sank deeper, choking on the vile water, as if the tightening pressure of the poisoned ocean and that maniacal laughter were synchronized sources of torture.

"Look, the shining."

She opened her eyes blearily, lifting her grimy head from her arms. It was back, that sexless being, with its silver keys chiming quietly between its black-leathered fingers. She could still spot the shades of a feral grin, though the black hood covered most of its face.

"The moon is lovely outside. Almost as bright as your eyes."

She drew her knees closer to her chest, backing herself into the dank stone wall of her prison. "I wish not to speak with you."

Laughter. It bounced off the walls like broken iron bells. The creature swung the keys around the large, thin ring.

Let me out, she thought, sitting brokenly in the corner of the small, dark cell. She closed her eyes, imagining herself in her little rose garden, tending her precious blossoms, laughing sweetly all the while. She missed the sunlight . . . she missed the earth.

Only the faintest hint of moonlight penetrated the paper-thin cracks in the stone wall. Was everything lost to her now?

Open those gates . . .

(x)

When she woke, she knew immediately that she was not in her bed. This mattress, if it was such a thing, was hard and uncompromising, dank and frigid. Her whole body ached. Sharp spasms of exploding ice battered her joints with each breath.

Time slipped by slowly. Yet her blood gradually heated as she regained consciousness. As soon as she felt able, she pushed herself up and blinked rapidly. Constant, hazy dimness clouded the vast room, and until her eyes adjusted accordingly with the darkness, she saw nothing.

"Darling?" she whispered, her voice roughened by the cold.

No answer.

Plop.

Slowly she stood, stumbling slightly as she forced the feeling back into her wooden legs. Darling. Who was this Darling? She felt so odd . . .

Plop.

Dust mottled the very air of this, as she now saw, spacious chamber. White dust glazed the wooden banisters across the hall, frosted the mahogany wood, and draped the curtains like ash. Shades of dark burgundy, mahogany, and deep black painted the luxurious chamber, its bronze walls, and misty chandeliers. This chamber should have been the warmest place, if not physically then visually, if a candle were lit. Even the frosty moonlight revealed streaks of warm gold. But . . . why did she shiver so?

"I'll do it with a rose . . . a pretty, pretty rose."

A moan of pain tore past her lips. Her right hand felt as if it were on fire.

Plop.

Strangled screams struggled past her lips. The veins around her eyes convulsed. Perspiration dripped down her nose. She raised her hand -- a grotesque hand, twisted and pink and shriveled -- and finally relinquished her scream.

(x)

"What?"

Her eyes dulled, and she shifted her head slightly to the side, rocking back and forth in her cell. Little seizures of laughter bubbled in her chest.

"Isn't it funny?" she demanded, her voice high and cracking.

Her jailer did not respond, but she was not fooled by its silence. She noted that subtle, quivering glimmer of the keys as the sound of her giggling tickled its demon ears.

"It's how I will get out," she murmured, subduing her oddly girlish laughter. "It's how I will kill you." She twisted her dirty finger around a curl of slick, oily brown hair. Her hair, once glossy and soft, was now reduced to nothing but a mop of lice and grease. Oh, Jesus.

"Yes. With a rose . . . a pretty, pretty rose."

(x)

Steaming blood dribbled down her shriveled palm and stained the mahogany floor.

Plop. Plop-plop!

Hot tears streamed down her face, more in horror than in pain. It was the hand of a screaming corpse scorching in the fires of hell. Still, as shriveled as the hand was, blood abundantly stained the lacy sleeve of her silk overcoat like rouge. And twisted around her thin arm was a green vine, brittle with thorns, as it curved up from her palm to her forearm. At the zenith of its growth blossomed a deep-red rose with a center as golden as the sun. Yet its petals were flagrantly red as her blood. It revolted her just to look at it. She quelled the urge to vomit, pressing her hand against her dry lips, and stumbled through the darkness, across the hall, until her hip smashed against the wooden banister of the stairwell.

"Someone help me!" she shrieked as she ran up the stairs, tripping over the ruptured edges of her skirt. "Please, someone HELP ME!"

This time, the chill answered. Wind, uncalled by nature, whipped through the hallway, kissing her skin with its soft, frozen lips. Sighs chorused around her, blowing almost seductively into her ear and the skin of her neck, and she wept as she twisted the first brass doorknob she saw.

The door, filmed with a gauzy layer of cobwebs, swept open with a squeak of the rusted hinges. And what she saw stole her breath away.

The wind ceased its mindless whispers, the tempest in her mind settled, and all at once unfamiliar warmth enveloped her body. The light was soft and golden, almost romantic, and the room immaculate. The pink marble vanity across the room sparkled charmingly, as if waiting for someone to sit on its satin-covered bench. Candles -- all white, long, and elegant -- were settled upon silver holders elaborated with twisting vines and winning azaleas. She walked slowly, quietly, lest she found that this was but a dream and that she would wake in that dank little prison.

Her gaze touched upon the gold and cream tapestries to her left, and then to the majestic hearth of carved white stone, and finally to the ceiling. It curved upward, like the elaborate domes of Old Byzantium, with the sweet smiles of cherubs painted against dusky silver clouds.

The shock she felt didn't prick her; instead it stuck a thick chord within her so that vibrations of recollection drummed quietly against her heart. The cherubs' smiles remained plastered upon the ceiling, their rosy lips curved almost sensually against pale, creamy skin.

"Darling?"

Again, the endearment slipped from her lips so easily, so fluidly. She blinked lazily. How odd . . . the cherubs seemed to be giggling. With her? No . . . no . . . at her?

She didn't even budge when the ghost's icy fingers sought the nape of her neck; she merely shivered and sighed gently, still staring up at the cherubs that seemed to have moved slightly from their little clouds. With a languid smile, an innocently sinister smile, she closed her eyes, not knowing that the ground below her was beginning to erode away little by little like shards of dirty glass.

"Darling?"

The thorns removed themselves from her skin, one by one, drawing fresh blood with each withdrawal. Except now, the blood was black -- poisoned blood from poisoned thorns. The bright, sun-like core of the rose that once shown so grotesquely darkened into an empty void, a void where monsters of broken dimensions feasted upon dreams and flesh.

"I'll do it with a rose . . . a pretty, pretty rose."

The gleaming books were settled upon rotted shelves -- they were Raphael's books of medicine and chemistry into which she poured her soul for scores of sleepless nights and dreary days. Sometimes, she found herself with a candle trembling in her hand, its flame flickering this way and that so that the shadows of her and her husband's bedroom danced with demonic life. And, when fatigue doped her eyelids into heavy laxness, she would hear her jailer laughing its shrill, androgynous laugh. That metallic creak would follow soon after, as if she tied an iron bow around her brown curls.

"Caged, are we?" the voice would taunt.

The cherubs above her were laughing now, not even bothering to hide their amusement. Knife-like sharpness glittered in their wide, crimson eyes. Then the ghost placed its icy blue lips on her neck, its almost-white hair streaming in the phantom wind, and she, numb to all things but her own mind, stared at the cherubs. How odd . . . their delicate wings were starting to fray right before her eyes, and behind their tender smiles did their once-toothless gums suddenly reveal sharp, uneven teeth.

(x)

Desperation.

She fought at first, mad with fury and denial and fear. No, this was not possible! She was no beast, no skulking dog. How dare anyone cage her, as if she were an animal? She assaulted the damp iron bars with what humanly strength she possessed, vainly trying to budge them, break them, bend them.

Despair.

It was maddening. And surrounded by three clammy walls, one iron gate, and the constant drip, drip! of water somewhere in the shadowy depths, she screamed and thrashed about in her tiny cell.

Sickness.

The hunger struck her stomach. The pains were worse than anything she had ever felt before. Her body was collapsing on itself in its dilapidated state.

Defeat.

Tears, dirty and stained red, drowned her eyes. Crouching against the far right corner of the walls, she drew her knees to her chest and buried her face into her arms. And there, she would pass her life days at a time until, by some miracle, she opened her eyes and found herself in her bed, protected by Raphael's warm arms.

Dreams. Horrible dreams.

But then why did she cry out in hunger, and why did her husband grow pale at the sight of her hollow cheeks?

(x)

Outside, the rain drowned the earth. She couldn't see it (she could see nothing now, except for the foggy visages of shadow and gates) for the windows were nailed shut, the inner glass purposely sooty so that none could look out and none could look in.

She preferred it that way.

"You've gone mad!"

Their gazes remained locked together for that brief moment, but the sparkling horror in his azure eyes forced her to look away soon after.

"I'm lost, not mad," she whispered, clutching her rancid right hand, a hand mutilated beyond repair by strong chemical poisons. The thunder outside had frightened her into knocking her own poison all over her hand. "No . . . not mad . . ."

She slowly lowered her wide eyes, unblinking for minutes at a time. Her honeyed lips corked in a twisted smile as she regarded that shriveled hand. The rose, finally untangled from her arm, lay innocently in her unnaturally deformed palm. It was her weapon, this rose: this was a rose she had grown in her own little garden and one that she tipped with her venom.

"You're brewing poison, a poison sweeter than opium and deadlier than arsenic!"

But Raphael, her dear yet naive husband, did not know how much it pained her to sit in that mysterious corner of her nightmares. He did not know how much she hated that jailer who always laughed at her, taunted her, swung those cursed keys around that thin ring until she thought she would rip her hair out.

The little cherubs detached themselves from the wall, grinning savage grins so that their pointed teeth gleamed. She smiled back in return, body trembling. The ghost's ice-cold tears dripped down her own cheek.

Her charming room shattered before her eyes, and instead she saw iron bars, shooting up like knives all about her. The simple labyrinth of blind hate and madness clouded her eyes, and she knew, she just knew, that Raphael had seen the truth. His azure eyes (angel eyes) had seen the truth. But, gripping the rose in her mutated hand, she no longer cared. The fuming desire for vengeance coursed through her veins like a drug, swaying her mind toward one single purpose: to kill the jailer.

"Oh, poor girl, a prisoner of her own mind . . . "

The white ghosts whirled before her, slashing at her dress and hair, but she continued on, thorns digging so deeply into her already crimson hand so that a thin trail of blood tailed her progress. Where was the jailer? Where was the bastard?

She wandered, guided only by intuition. Pitch-black darkness blinded her. Her eyes ached with strain. But she knew, even before she reached her destination, where she was going. Within seconds (minutes, hours, years?) she approached the little cell, and from far in the obscurity of the black fog, she saw the door to the prison open and desolately swinging back and forth with the misty wind.

"Come, come! Look and wonder, stupid girl, mad girl, prisoner of herself."

She stopped as soon as she reached the gate. There on the floor was her own sprawled form, unmistakable with those curly brown locks and pale, unmarred hands. The rose in her palm trembled. Had she herself died?

"It's you, you stupid girl."

Without another thought, she whipped around and screamed as the endless darkness of the jailer's hooded face loomed mere inches from her face.

Her eyes widened. The jailer giggled a disturbingly familiar giggle and merely swung the keys around the ring.

She narrowed her eyes. Something was wrong.

"How does it feel to be a prisoner of your own mind?" the jailer sneered, its voice gradually becoming lighter and higher . . . almost like that of a woman's. "To trap your mind in this little cell while vengeful spirits possess your mind and drive you to madness?"

Horror gripped her throat so that she could not even scream. Wordlessly, she ran up to her jailer, planning to plunge the big, thick thorns of her rose into its throat.

However, when the hood fell back, she knew she had lost.

"Oh . . ." she whispered, the blood draining from her face. She swayed backward, and the poisoned blossom fell to the ground. Its petals shattered, and the center bled black, oil-like liquid. "No. NO! NO!"

For staring back at her was the reflection of her own face and her own wicked smile.

"Oh, you mad little fool," the reflection snarled as she scrambled backward, her breaths quick and shallow.

She stared down at the dead body behind her, the body that should have been her, only to find it replaced by Raphael's twisted features. In an instant, she spun and threw herself down next to her husband, shrieking like a banshee in her own little limbo, knowing fully well that he would never wake.

"RAPHAEL! RAPHAEL!" she cried over and over again, shaking his body.

Then, her rose, the rose she had poisoned, slipped from his punctured hands.

(x)

"I'm trying to save you! Why can you not see that?!"

She darted about the room, eyes alight and quivering in their sockets. Her curly brown hair cascaded down her shoulders as she pranced about the room, laughing maniacally as he pursued her in their chamber. She held the rose to her chest. The black poison smeared the white silk of her gown.

"Leave me! Leave me! I must kill the jailer! I must KILL the jailer!"

Raphael's usually neat golden hair was a mess of tangles. He pleaded, cried, screamed at her to stop this madness, to stop her crazy talk of jailers and killing, and to PLEASE come down from the balcony railing.

She did not even feel her own tears welling in her eyes as her fingertips grazed her husband's cold face. Oh God, what had she done? She stumbled backward then ran.

"Come down from the railing! You'll slip! You'll SLIP!" he cried over and over again. But her vacant eyes did not see her husband rushing toward her. Actually, she could barely make out the barely discernible face in the black hood. But she knew it was that androgynous little bastard. She knew her jailer.

The castle tower loomed above her like a giant's plaything in a world of children, yet it only took her seconds to reach the highest room.

"Die, you bastard!" she screamed, saliva foaming at the corner of her mouth as she lunged from the balcony railing into Raphael's arms. Then, without a second thought, she dragged the heavy thorns across the flesh of his neck and laughed as he gurgled in pain.

But she had not known. There was no jailer.

(x)

She reached the highest room of the highest tower and peered down at the rocks below. The moon was up this night, a crimson moon boasting evil and cunning.

"What will you do?" the ghost whispered behind her.

And wordlessly, she climbed to the top of ledge, wondering if she was in limbo or playing her part in life.

The mist gathered below in the moors. Deep near the forest would be her rose garden, the one that Raphael had presented to her just after their vows of love were exchanged. What should she do, she wondered as she stood on the top of the balcony railing. And there, her ghost, her angel, spoke to her.

"Fly, angel. Fly, my love."

And trusting that voice, that deep, strong voice of her own angel, a voice stronger than Michael's and wiser than Uriel's, she flew down into the night fog, toward her own bed of roses.

finis