“Hashtag Blaze It”
Well, hear we are on this strangest of unofficial holidays; it’s 420, the weed day, and also Adolf Hitler’s birthday, making this simultaneously one of the most mediocre freeform holidays and one of the unholiest days of the year. Or if you don’t like the devil’s lettuce, then this is doubly unholy. If you also have a birthday on this day, I am very, very sorry. But, at any rate, I’m also preparing this weeks in advance, and this will be the Tuesday after I actually do go to Florida, as I’ve mentioned here and there. It isn’t for spring break or a college road trip or anything, but it is for my cousin’s wedding, so that’s very exciting! Though I’ll also be entirely, newly vaccinated (I still can’t believe it! I am very lucky to have gotten it this early) by the time I go to Florida, and I’m sure the wedding will be/has been a safe event, where we’re largely masked up and only masking down outside. Because, like I said, I’m preparing this almost a month in advance.
So plane crash notwithstanding, this is one of the last blog posts I’ll make before I’m an official college graduate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Which is really weird to think about, because it feels like it’s flown by so quickly, and at the same time, it feels like the last year has dragged on forever and that my entire life has been spent inside of this pandemic. Which feeling is true? Which one will I feel after this is all done? Both? Neither? What is perception, anyway? I don’t know, but I’ve had a lot of fun at college. Actually, come to think of it, that could be a whole blog post… But not today! Because I’m not done yet, I’ve still got about a month left until I walk across a mostly-empty stage in a sparsely-filled auditorium in order to receive a $40k piece of paper from someone in a nightgown. And before that, finals. Yikes.
Well, cheers bro, I’ll drink to that. And I’ll drink to the previous chapter, too.
Spectral Crown, by Andy Sima: Chapter Sixteen
The dreams of that night were filled with ludicrous songs and high levels of alcohol, and I slept like a log. So did the others, for no one seemed to notice when something broke into our private quarters later that evening.
The results of that break-in, however, were immediately apparent upon our awakening with raging headaches and a sensitivity to light. We were soon drawn out of that haze, however, when we realized what had occurred.
Some of us were missing.
It wasn’t anyone I had known personally, one of the younger butlers and an older maid, though we were all deeply moved by the experience. There were now three empty beds and three less travelers than we had arrived with.
Despite the best combined efforts of those we had remaining, with even Reinhard rousing himself up enough to assist in the search, we turned up nothing of note save their empty beds and left-behind possessions. They were not in the common room. They were not hiding somewhere in the lavatory. And as far as we could tell, they had not gone into the tunnels in the walls, though we could not bring that up around Reinhard. The door to the rest of the castle was still locked.
“I don’t get it,” Simon said, scrubbing his glasses feverishly. “If they were planning on leaving, wouldn’t they have taken their items along with them?”
“Perhaps they eloped,” someone suggested, though the idea was absurd.
“They still would have left some sign of their flight, though,” my mother said. “There is nothing to indicate any sort of movement. Their beds undisturbed. Their possessions untouched. The door unopened. It is as if they vanished into thin air.”
“Or were taken by very clever individuals,” Kolte muttered. Ema glanced at him warily.
“That seems most reasonable, I suppose,” Freda said, arm placed protectively around Franz. “This castle is mighty strange.”
“What a preposterous idea!” Reinhard said. “Who would take souls as useless as them?” Shifts of eyes between others in the crowd. There was disagreement with the little mayor.
“I am almost inclined to agree with Reinhard, if I may be honest,” spoke Simon. “There must be a more reasonable explanation. Perhaps they were asked to assisted an Uradel court member in another part of the castle.”
“I don’t think the Blestemats would bring us to assist the Uradels. And if they had, one of us attendants would have been asked first,” I said to Simon. Had an Uradel court member indeed needed a servant, I suspected that the Blestemats would have supplied someone more readily, rather than trek across the castle to retrieve one of us. And had it been Prince Maynard or his parents, they would have requested Simon, my mother, or myself. Most of the other court members would have requested Simon, or even Reinhard, simply out of a lack of other names.
Simon had nothing to say in response. Reinhard, however, was full of surprises, and spoke to the group at large.
“There is nothing we can do now that they are gone,” he began. “I say we all move on and do our jobs. And try to forget them.”
“What jobs do you expect us to do?” Franz yelled, jumping up. “We have been sitting here for a day now and have left this room twice since reaching it.”
“Twice?” Reinhard’s eyes narrowed. But Franz barreled on.
“We can’t do anything here! Look!” The fire-haired man, spitting out the pipe that had been haphazardly stuck in his lips, dashed off towards the front door. Freda chased after him, begging him to calm down. “Look at this, you swine!” Franz yelled at Reinhard as he grabbed the door’s handle and pulled with all his might. The door didn’t even give Franz the satisfaction of squeaking; it might as well have been part of the wall.
Reinhard stared coldly at Franz as he yanked on the door and banged his fists against it. A cold sweat broke out on my brow. Reinhard was thinking something, perhaps putting two and two together. But reaching the truth would be a major leap in logic. How could Reinhard, lacking any imagination, possibly connect the dots?
“I think that you, my friend, could lose your head if you continue on as you have.” Reinhard said. And then, breaking into a horrific grin that seemed to split his face, he said, “Though I think I’m too late. It looks like you already have lost your head!” The laughter that erupted from the man at his inane joke was volcanic in nature, and simply served to scald Franz ever more.
Franz spun around, eyes nearly as red as the mop that covered his head. They were wide and sparkled with a maddened light, the light of a man who is broken far too easily. It seemed as if Freda recognized the shimmer that Franz shot at the smirking Reinhard.
“Franz,” she said, stepping between him and the rest of us. “Franz, you need to calm down. Let me get you your pipe, my brother. We can sit and smoke together, ay?”
“Watch it, Freda,” Reinhard said, either totally unaware or completely cognizant of the thin ice on which he tread. “He might take your head off, too!” The comment was meaningless and made little sense, but it was the way that Reinhard spoke that bit at Franz. And bite it did.
“I’ll kill you!” he screamed, and the boulder of a man rocketed past Freda and straight towards Reinhard. To the grisly mayor’s credit, Franz’s charge elicited not so much as a flinch. His jack-o-lantern smile remained plastered. It was then that I first got an up-close and personal experience with the depth of Reinhard’s own private madness, because if Kolte hadn’t stepped in, Franz would actually have throttled him.
Our group jumped out of the way of the missile that was Franz, save Kolte, who jumped in front of him. The stringy old sailor gripped Franz by the shoulders and pushed back against him, taking the charge head-on. It reminded me of a sea monster drawn in the margins of a book somewhere inside the Uradel library.
“Franz, leave him be!” Kolte yelled. “He is not worth the trouble.”
From over Kolte’s shoulder, Franz was still struggling forward. His neck craned out to look at Reinhard. “I’ll squash you, you hear!”
“Loud and clear,” the mayor mocked. And the man, with whatever iron nerve he possessed, sidled up behind Kolte and patted him on the back. “I appreciate your concern, but I can manage myself.”
Something in Kolte’s eyes, as he registered the comment, turned vicious, and for a beautiful second I thought that he was going to turn on Reinhard, too. But cooler heads prevailed and saved us all from an early execution. Freda ran up and pulled Franz off of Kolte.
“Please, brother, calm yourself!” she chided in his ear as she grappled with his heavy arms. He was still struggling to free himself from Kolte.
The rest of us had backed up against the walls, trying to blend in with the shadows and avoid anything that might further incite Franz’s insane fury. Perhaps we should have stepped in to assist the lone souls of Freda and Kolte, maybe even to stand up to Reinhard, but we didn’t. I wonder if it would have made any difference in the end, anyway. Probably not.
Smile never shifting, Reinhard strode back to the male quarters with the air of one who goes out of his way to snub his nose at beggars. Which I had seen Reinhard do on occasion.
“I will be in my quarters if you need me,” he said. The look he gave us all was one of equal parts condescension and glee. “Otherwise, do not bother me further.” He opened the door and passed through and gave us one last look before shutting the threshold. In that last look, all I saw was unadulterated hatred.
After we were positive Reinhard was out of earshot, Ema said, “We need to go back into the tunnels.” Franz had calmed down now. “We have to look for our missing comrades.”
“And who will go this time?” Franz said, head now stuck in his hands. After the encounter with Reinhard, he looked drained. Like all the energy had left him.
“I will go,” Ema retaliated.
“I as well,” I suggested. “Of those of us who are in any fit shape to travel, Freda and I have the most experience with this castle.” It was miniscule experience, but it was experience nonetheless.
“I cannot,” Freda said, regret and relief creeping into her voice. “I must attend to my sibling.”
“I can go in Freda’s place,” Kolte grumbled. He did not seem pleased about it.
“That makes three,” Simon said, glancing at my mother and myself. “We should have four, at least. Safety in numbers.” I felt little confidence in that sentiment.
“I will go,” someone spoke up. I turned to look at them, and realizing it was again someone I did not know well, I couldn’t help but link them to George. A shudder went through my body and I concluded they would likely just be more food for the castle.
The individual who spoke up was an older woman by the name of Greta. She could have been someone’s mother in another life, or perhaps even a nun or lady of virtue and knowledge, but there something about her that told me otherwise. She had a kind of aged, graying air that seemed to impart a sense of loneliness and despair, the kind that surrounds those who tried all their life to amount to something greater but in the end never reached anything of note. Of course, the optimistic side of me said that she was not dead yet. The realistic part of me said that she would be soon.
“Good,” Simon said, relieved that it would not have to be him volunteering. “Is there anyone else who wishes to explore the walls?” Silence was his answer.
“Alright,” Kolte said, rubbing his hands together and stretching his watery legs. “Let’s get this over with before I change my mind.”
“Should you not make some sort of preparation first?” Freda said. Kolte merely snorted.
“What could possibly prepare us?” he said. I was inclined to agree with him, though I began collecting extra torches anyway. “What is our goal this time?” Kolte continued as he and Greta made their way to the fireplace’s secret entrance. The rest of the servants watched in silence.
“You imply we had a goal last time,” I said to myself, but Kolte laughed anyway.
“You are going in there,” Simon said, “for the express purpose of retrieving our missing brother and sister in arms. Do not be gone longer than you have to.”
“And since we clearly can’t leave a torch to mark your ingress,” my mother added, “I suggest we leave a brick out of place. And have someone watch the passage, to make sure it is not replaced.”
“But what of Reinhard?” Freda said. Franz seemed to twitch in response to hearing the name.
“Reinhard be damned,” my mother said, staring at me. “He won’t leave his room anyway, and if he does, I expect he won’t look close enough to see anything out of place.” Murmurs of agreement.
“This all seems rather hasty,” someone said. “Shouldn’t we wait? The missing persons may turn up yet.”
“I doubt it,” someone else said under their breath. The message was one that we all shared. My inner urgency told me that the quicker we could get to searching, the better chance we had to find them. Though I doubted we would find them at all.
“Then we should go, and quit making idle chat,” Greta said, forcefully. “I am old, and not getting any younger.”
“I hear ya, sister,” Kolte said, and laughed. Greta did not respond with anything other than a pointed stare.
“Then let us be off,” I said, and lit four of the torches I had collected and handed them to my spelunking companions. The rest I placed in loops around my waist.
We four made our way in silence to the fireplace, where we crouched down to remove the bricks at the back. My mother followed close behind, and as we stepped through the wall for another time, I had an awful sense of deja vu. I had three fresh faces with me, but I might as well have been a fresh face, too, for what little time I had beyond the fireplace.
Behind us, my mother bricked the wall back up, except for one lonely brick, the highest most point, and through that empty space was shed a flickering light, cast from the room on the other side. Other than that and the torches we held, all was dark.
“Take care, please,” my mother called, from through the wall. “And this time, come back with more people, not less,” someone said from the other side. There were no laughs.
There’s a monster in the next bit that I particularly enjoy, but who knows when I’ll actually be posting the next chapter? With the way things have been going, probably in two weeks, but I try to post chapters sparingly… and that hasn’t worked out too well recently. We’ll see though. Thanks for reading.
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