“It literally took me two and a half hours to make a soup”
Do you ever get caught up in something and get super carried away with it, and it ends up taking you way, way longer than you meant it to? Do you ever start something, and then you look at the clock and realize it’s been three hours and you just finished? Do you ever feel like this fucking stew is taking too fucking long to cook? Well, that’s how I felt this past weekend. I was genuinely going to write about why Metroid Dread is the Prometheus of the series (in the Alien way, not in the Greek gods kind of way), and (for maybe the first time?) talk at length about one of my favorite media franchises; Alien. But then I had a long vacation with my partner to celebrate our two-year (!!!) anniversary, and it was a ton of fun! But then I had work at my actual job after that, and worked on other writing projects, and went to see Rocky Horror Picture Show live in theaters for the fourth time, and did fuck knows what else, and then I went for a hike and started cooking dinner, and when I got around to checking the time I realized, holy shit, it’s already 9:30 on a Monday and I just finished fucking with this dumbass lentil stew. Mondays, amirite?
If I knew why my celeries refused to soften up in my stew even after boiling for an hour, I might be in a better mood and more willing to write. If I knew why my stew smells like hot cinnamon even though I only added a little bit, I might be more invigorated to churn something out that’s not another chapter of Spectral Crown. And if I knew why my homemade bread is still too moist after adding a metric fuckton of extra flour, maybe I wouldn’t have a dense, wet brick of rye cooling on my counter. But here I am, with a belly full of weird, cinnamon-y lentils and a dishwasher full of way more spoons than I needed to use, and I’m tired. I have work early tomorrow, and I don’t have the mental energy to wrap my head around the narrative gymnastics of the Prometheus movie or why Samus is the best ever. So here’s another chapter of Spectral Crown. Just a few more to go before I run out completely!
As a side note, until I’m out of Spectral Crown, I’ll probably be alternating between that and Photobomb as a way to stretch this thing out for as long as I can. Don’t think I forgot about that one! But regardless, here’s the previous chapter.
Spectral Crown, by Andy Sima: Chapter Thirty-Two
As I cradled my mother’s body in my arms, I noticed an odd weight dangling from my neck. I reached up, brushing my eyes, and grasped at the locket around my neck. It was golden and heart shaped, inscribed with some sort of floral design. I had not been wearing it before.
When I opened the latch, however, I was met with the likeness of my mother, carved into the gold of the watch. She stared out at me, with a grim half-smile and eyes like vipers. On the other side of the locket’s interior were carved the words “Forever and ever.”
Ah, yes. So this was the talisman of my curse. As the Blestemats had their crown, I now had this locket. To remind me, and bind me, forever and ever. I didn’t think I could take it off, even if I tried. Even if I wanted to.
While I had been distracted by my newfound jewelry, I had neglected to notice that my mother’s body was turning to dust before me. When I finally noticed, however, it was too late, and the desiccated corpse was far beyond recognition.
“No!” I yelled, and grappled with the disappearing form, but it only resulted in faster decomposition. The dust and specks of my mother spread away and filled the air. They attached themselves to tears on my face and the bloody stains of the bandage about my head.
Memories flooded through me, of the many times my mother had held me. Of all the times she had cared for me. All the laughs we had shared, all the worries and fears we carried. It was gone now. Blown apart in a fine layer of dust.
I sat there, my back hot from the dying flames behind me. Slowly, the small particles that had once been Josefa Bergmann settled to the floor in heaps. I sat there on my knees and did not move for a while.
Almost everyone was gone now. Franz and Freda were the only two who remained that I could still call my acquaintances, and even they were bound to die sooner or later. But I was not. I could not die. I had been cursed. And now I had levelled the playing field.
There was no one left in this world that I loved. Not truly. And I could never look at Iacob the same way again, knowing what had been done. What I had done. No, what Sorina had done, what she could still do. Sorina did not have her curse’s talisman. But if they got hold of the Uradel talisman, then there would be nothing that could stop them. Nothing except maybe another curse.
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled, leaping up. I took in my surroundings through white-hot rage, noting that the room was a much larger, grander version of the previous rooms. The four-post bed was present and huge, and the vanity covered a space nearly the size of the wall, drawers and dressers littered the edges of the room, and the center was covered with a plush rug made of some animal fur. All of it, no doubt, paid for in blood by someone.
“Damn them all to hell!” I shouted, smashing my fist against the mirror as I ran up to it. Nothing happened except some hairline fractures and a shooting pain in my knuckles. Unthinking, I grabbed the locket from around my neck and, holding it in my fist, repeated slamming the mirror. I felt only a twinge of power, a little extra force, but this time, the glass shattered outward from my fist, hanging crooked from the frame. My fractured face stared back at me, a distorted reflection. But now I was beginning to understand.
I put the locket back around my neck and looked around the room. With a burst of fury, I ran over to a dresser standing in the corner and threw it to the ground. It opened and spilled its contents everywhere, faded undergarments and silk dresses littering the floor. I grabbed a vase from one far corner and threw it, where it exploded with a shriek and the raining of ceramic. I grabbed the sheets off the four-post bed and hauled them to the fireplace, where I cast them into the embers.
I ran from table to chair to desk to drawer throughout the room, causing as much destruction as I could. I threw things at walls, smashed them with the legs of a chair I had forcefully dismantled, threw them into the smoldering pile of bed sheets, cut them up with the broken mirror, and otherwise committed massive levels of destruction. It didn’t occur to me until after I was finished with my rage that the room I was in belonged to Sorina. What could she do to me now? Kill me?
Huffing and sweaty, I stood in the center of the room. It was childish, but I was pleased. I had some faint ideas of a plan, inklings that came as much from my heart as from my head, but I did not know how to start them. I had the necessary materials, now that I was cursed, but no idea how to enact it. There were still too many things that might change, too many problems I could have. I would have to hope that things went the way I wanted them to.
But thinking about the sepulcher beneath the castle, I suspected that they would.
That thought made me angry again. I stalked out of Sorina’s room, throwing open the door and slamming it behind me, so that I found myself in a hallway like any other. However, as I gathered my bearings, I found that I was just past the room where the wedding discussions were held, and therefore just past the entrance to Iacob’s room. I wondered to myself if he was there.
I made my way down the hall, to the room I had grown so used to, and passed into it. It looked just as it always had, though it was now empty of people. Perhaps there was no meeting today. I had forgotten what day it was, anyway, so it could have been a Sunday. A day when there would be no work from the Uradels. Then again, there was no work from them any other day, either.
I passed through the hall, passed through the storeroom, managed to remember the hallways and turns that lead me to the door before Iacob’s room, and knocked lightly. Part of me wanted to force it open, to run in screaming, but I knew that would not make my case. So I knocked, and waited, and when I received no response, I pushed on the door. It opened just a bit, so I pushed a bit more forcefully and squeezed my way inside.
The dining hall was just as it had always been, but I was not here for dining. I walked over to the door to Iacob’s room and knocked there. This time, there was an answer.
“Enter,” Iacob said. “I was not expecting visitors at this hour, so I would hope you have a good reason to…” he stopped talking as I walked in and he realized who had been at his door. His face broke into a comfortable smile when he saw me.
“Saelac!” he said. “Why, this is a wonderful surprise! I didn’t think you would, well, want to seek me out after the debacle with Simon. But I am glad you did!” The prince, standing before the vanity, moved over to his bed and sat down. He patted the bed next to him. “Sit down. I have much to share with you!”
His out-of-place cheery mood did not dissuade me from the mission I had set before myself. I would confront him, and demand justice. But his eyes were so alluring…
I sat down next to him. He kissed me lightly on the cheek, to my surprise. My chest fluttered wearily. I was so tired. “You know what I did was for you, right? I had no choice.”
“I know,” I said.
“I knew you would understand,” Iacob said. And then he smiled and turned to me more directly. “But my exciting news! The wedding plans have been finalized. Not much longer now. Then, once the whole mess is over, Sorina promised that you and I would be free to do as we pleased. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Wonderful,” I answered. I felt Iacob’s smile falter on his face.
“You do not sound excited,” Iacob said. “Now we can be together without hassle. Travel the world, if we wish. We will be free.”
“But what of Sorina?” I asked. “You seemed so worried about her earlier.”
“She is of no matter to us,” he said, leaning in close to me. “I have made a decision of my own and have been all the better for it. I will leave her to her own devices. Therefore, we are free to live in peace.”
“My mother is dead,” I said.
Iacob’s smile stumbled, and his voice cracked. “What?”
“Sorina consumed my mother,” I said.
Iacob’s face portrayed a bruised smile and bewildered eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“My mother,” I said, more forcefully this time, sitting up, “turned to a pile of ash in my arms. After your sister drained her of life.”
Something seemed to click inside Iacob’s brain, and his smile dropped. He rushed to the floor and knelt before me, grabbing my hand in his. “My god, Saelac, I am so sorry.” He was genuinely distraught, whereas I felt a whole lot of nothing. “I had no idea she would cross our bounds so far. Why, this is infuriating! I will go speak with her immediately!” He jumped up, but quickly leaned in close again. “Your mother was a wonderful person, Saelac, and I am deeply hurt by this loss. I will do anything in my power to help you. Whatever you wish, my love.”
“Go to Sorina,” I said. “Demand justice.” There was nothing else much for me to say.
“Of course,” Iacob said, and bowed low. An odd gesture, to have a prince bow to me. “I shall confront her at once. This unacceptable behavior will not stand.” And then he rushed out of the room, cloak trailing behind him.
There was something strange about the way he had acted. A sense of not necessarily distance, but of total detachment, that he perhaps did not entirely understand what I had said to him or what it meant, despite everything. That maybe there were a number of things he did not understand. He had been caring, kind, and generous, and yet, there was something that did not quite fit. But he truly seemed to care. And I had begun to feel the same.
With Iacob out of the room, I steeled my resolve. The plan was coming to me now. If Iacob could not avenge my mother, then I would take matters into my own hands. I gripped the locket around my neck. I could see it now. Damn them all. Damn all these royals. What did it matter anyway, in the end?
I stood up and walked to the mirror at the foot of Iacob’s bed to get a better look at myself. I was still scruffy, still dirty, still with a bandage wrapped around my head. Strange. Iacob had said nothing of that. Perhaps he had not noticed.
I stared at myself, thinking hard about what I was capable of. Was it my place to judge, to decide? Did I even want to do this? I did not know. Nor did it matter. Wheels had been set in motion, wheels that I could not stop. And regardless, my mother had died cursing her only son for this. I could not let that be in vain. Even if it destroyed me, and took the Blestemats with.
The deeper I looked at my reflection, the more my reflection seemed to look back at me. Then, it was that I realized with a start that my reflection was not actually my reflection. Rather, it was a ghostly likeness of myself, similar in every manner except for a few key details. It blinked of its own volition, for one. The apparition in the mirror shimmered and rippled like something seen from far away, perhaps in a dream. I stepped back from the mirror.
I tentatively put my hand out to the mirror and pressed against it. My doppelganger put his hand out as well, and I felt a resistance there. Then the mirror seemed to swirl, and suddenly I was sucked into it, sucked into my hand that was not my hand but rather the hand of that thing on the other side of the mirror, and then there was blackness and then nothing.
And then, suddenly, I was in the rafters of the throne room.
“What? How?” I thought to myself, but when I tried to speak, it came out as a caw. A raven’s caw. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Or rather, a raven’s skin. I jerkily stuck out my hand. There was no hand, but rather a black wing, covered in feathers. I was inside of a raven.
No, I was the raven. I was the raven that sat in the buttresses above the throne room. I had not noticed it before, but it was logical that there was one there. There had to be. I had seen one in almost every other room in the house. So this was how Iacob managed to keep tabs on everyone and everything that went on.
I tried stretching my wings, and fluttered from beam to beam among the rafters, jumping lightly was I went. Below me I vaguely saw the Blestemat royals discussing something. Hopping about was great fun, all things considered, but I was forcefully ripped from my bird body and landed back in Iacob’s private quarters, where I was once again standing before the mirror with my hand outstretched. Iacob’s arm was on my shoulder, and he was smiling sadly.
“Sorry, Saelac. My eyes only. You must understand,” he said.
“I understand,” I answered. Though not really.
“Take a seat,” he said. “You will want to be sitting for this.” I sat on the bed, and Iacob sat next to me. Compelled by his presence, for the first time I rested my head on his shoulder, and he put his arm around me. “Sorina apologizes to you. She said that she is sorry it had to be that way, and hopes that you understand.” He was silent, then, and I waited for him to say more.
When he did not say more, I spoke up. “Is that all?”
“That’s all,” Iacob said.
I felt that anger would have been a validated response. I felt that jumping up and tearing my hair out in frustration would have been legitimate. I felt that I could have run and thrown myself out the window, and in my rage, leapt back up as I hit the ground. I felt that these were all things I could have, should have done. But I did none of them. Instead, I simply said, “Oh.” That was all. Leaning against Iacob, there was nothing more I could say. My heart was so calm. And it felt so right.
“I am so sorry I could not do more,” Iacob said. “Please forgive me.”
“Can you try again?” I asked.
Iacob blanched a little bit. “I would prefer not to. Sorina would not tolerate a second argument from me. But I will if you wish it.”
“No, it is fine,” I lied. But I leaned against Iacob anyway. Despite the stillness in my heart, the locket around my neck began to burn. I began to tear up a little bit, because I knew now what had to be done. And the cost of it.
“Oh, there, there,” he said, visibly uncomfortable now. He put his arm around me, awkward to the touch. “I’m sorry. I’m here for you.”
“I need to sleep,” I said.
“Yes,” Iacob said. “that sounds like a pleasant idea. Would you like to sleep here?”
“That would be preferred,” I responded, and immediately laid back on the bed. I turned over and faced the wall, and continued to sniff. I really was tired but more than anything else I was feeling a bizarre conflict of emotions, raging between the locket around my neck and my heart in my chest. And something else, too. I knew the locket would win.
“I will sleep here with you,” Iacob said, and he laid next to me. He wrapped his arm around me, putting me into an embrace unlike before. “There, there,” he said again. “There, there.”
Man, I just keep pushing everything off, huh? It probably will come as no surprise to you that this blog isn’t exactly my number one priority right now, but once I get things in shape I’ll have a more regular posting regiment! Hah, just kidding, I’ve been saying that shit for like a year and a half now. Life is fun, isn’t it?
However bad your stew was, it must surely be better than the kale-navy bean inedible disaster! Hang in there! 😘