Spectral Crown: Epilogue

“You’re still here? The book’s over! Go home!”

Remember that book I talked about working on last week? Yeah, well, I may or may not have mentioned that it was due April 1st. That was the information I was operating under. I knew there should have been something fishy about it being due on April Fool’s Day, because, joke’s on me, my contract had the incorrect scheduling timeline and the book is actually due February 28th. A whole month sooner than anticipated. So, uh, surprise? 

Lucky me, I had frontloaded a bit of it already, expecting to have the first draft finished by the 28th of February and then have all of March for revisions. Nope, that is no longer the case. I’m trying to get the whole damn thing done by this friday, so that I’ll have reasonable time in February to revise it. Tgat is, if I want the book to publish on the professional timeline that will actually help it sell the best. So, yeah, I wouldn’t be in breach of contract to take extra time, but it would be against my own best interest to take any longer than I have to. This also coincides with my work at the outdoor learning center ramping up as schools start doing field trips again, which means I am going to have a very unhappy February. Sorry, Cheyenne, Valentine’s Day is cancelled. It’s Book Day instead. Every day is Book Day.

So I hope you’ll forgive me for relying on Spectral Crown one last time this week, instead of a real proper post. And, uh, this is the last time I can do that, because… this is the end of the book. Weird, isn’t it? I thought I was going to celebrate the very last post of Spectral Crown by doing something cool with the blog post, but nope, it’s another one of the same. That’s a little disappointing for me and for you, presumably, so I’ll try and make it up for you next time. I have big plans for ways that I can celebrate Spectral Crown being in its entirety on my blog, one of which includes writing custom Python script. We’ll see how long that takes me!

In the meantime, though, this is it. Thanks for sticking around with me for so long. And if you’re just getting here now, if you go to the top of this webpage and hover over the part where it says “From the Vault,” and then click on “Spectral Crown,” it’ll take you to a page where you can scroll all the way to very bottom and get the very first post of Spectral Crown. Neat! You could read the whole thing, from start to finish, in thirty-eight separate tabs on your web browser. Very convenient. Nothing is lost in translation, I promise.

Anyway, here it is. The very last time I’ll write this. Link to the previous chapter here. It’s a little bittersweet, saying goodbye. Though since I still want to get the thing published proper some day (with new edits and better gay sex!), it isn’t really goodbye. Just a sort of “we’ll meet again.” Although I am going to deeply miss the convenience of slapping this up every time I get tired. Oh well. Thanks for reading!

Spectral Crown, By Andy Sima: Epilogue

The electric lights in the tavern around me flicker.  The bartender has long since locked the doors and left his post.  It is now just me and a single other man, whose name I have forgotten.  He is large, pig-like and black-haired.  If his hair had been red, he might have resembled Franz.

            “So now you know my story,” I say.  “And you understand why I do not take curses so lightly.”

            “I understand,” the man says, long since sobered up.  We have been sitting in this dirty pub in the Stalpert valley for a long time.  He looks closely at my old, wrinkled skin, and the locket around my neck.  “That locket…” he says, eyeing it carefully.

            “Yes,” I say.  “It is the one that my mother gave me.  Many, many moons ago.  Before even your grandfather’s grandfather was born.”

            The beefy man’s eyes dart from one end of the room to the other.  He seems unsure of what to say.

            “You do not believe me?” I say.

            “I do not know what to believe,” he says.  “I remember something odd happening, when I sat down here, but I was drunk then.  Very drunk.  It all seems impossible.  How can it be real?”

            “You do not have to believe me, if you do not want to,” I say.  “But just remember what I said.  It may help you one day.”

            “I suppose,” the man says.  And, after a moment or two of silence, he stands up.  “I must be going.  It is very late.”  He looks at my frail arms and legs.  “I will walk you home.”

            “I would appreciate an accompaniment home,” I say.  “I’m not as strong as I used to be.”

            “Right,” he says, and helps me stand up.  We leave the bar through a back door, one the bartender had shown me previously.  We step out into the cool night air, where crickets sing and somewhere the Arch river bubbles tirelessly.  It’s almost like nothing has changed, if I close my eyes.

            “Where do you live?” he says.

            “I will show you,” I say.  And I turn down a side road, passing dark alleys and empty windows.  Automobiles, heavy machines that replaced horses decades ago, line the streets.  We walk for a long time.

            At the edge of town, we stand along the forest, at the foot of an ancient path.  A path that existed in the valley before there was even a dream of automobiles.

            “You live up there?” the man asks, gesturing up the mountainside, where the dirt road weaves between trees and shadows.

            “Yes,” I say.  “I always have.  I always will.  Care to join me?”

            The young man is uneasy.  “I suppose.”  And we turn and walk in silence up the side of the mountain.

            The way is long, and steep, but it is a path I have traversed many times before.  I know every rock and every bump, for in the end, the earth is the only thing that does not change.  Eventually, after the young man is puffing with effort and I have broken a sweat, we stand at the base of my home.  The ruin of Chateau Uradel.

            It is a dilapidated building, nothing like it used to be.  But it is where I live out my sentence.  Doomed to this earth.  Forever and ever.  “This is where I take my leave,” I said.

            “Right.”  The young man said.  His eyes shift warily, and there is a new gleam to them.  I turn to walk away, but I hear something behind me.

            Grabbing the locket around my neck, I twist my fingers and spin around.  Frozen in place behind me, with a rock hefted at my head, the young man is terrified and confused.  Continuing to hold the locket, I step away for a moment.  “Tsk, tsk.  You seek to harm a frail old man?”

            “I- I’m sorry,” the heavy man struggles.  “Your locket.”

            I turn to the young man.  “Do you have any ambitions, beyond ill-gotten wealth?” I say.

            “Sorry?” he struggles.

            “Dreams.  Hopes.  Plans,” I say.

            “No,” he gasps.

            “A shame,” I say.  “When I was your age, I was making plans to travel the world with the one I loved.  But alas, it was not my lot.  Nor is it yours.” 

            I grab the locket around my neck again and twist the fingers on my other hand into intricate shapes.  The black-haired drinker goes stock-still, unable to even speak now, and his eyes display the fear he feels.  My eyes show only an exhaustion of an action repeated countless times.

            “A curse is a powerful thing,” I say.  “But curses can have many forms.”  And I lean in very close to the young man, close enough to feel his breath.  I sniff deeply, inhaling his scent.  My heart lurches with excitement.  And then I consume him.  He turns to dust after I am finished.

            I immediately feel younger.  The skin on my bones tightens, and my muscles strengthen.  It’s almost like I was, in my youth.  But not quite.

            Deep down, inside my heart, a raven wriggles and writhes.  The thing in my heart flutters, and I know it is happy.  Painfully, it begins to feed.

The End

What does it mean? Did the Blestemats survive? Is it their child? Or the progeny of a curse? Who knooOOooOOoowsssss… But, either way, that was a pretty damn short epilogue for all that upfront writing. Uh, oops, I guess? One way to finish prematurely, I suppose. I swear this doesn’t usually happen. But, alas, all good things must come to an end. Though if the crunch I’m feeling on this book for children is any indication of what being a professional author is like, I am not cut out for this. I am stress-pooping at least twice a day, sometimes more. I feel a constant burden of “I should be working on the book right now” looming over my shoulder like a hooded specter. My mind is imploding and sucking my spine right up into my cranial cavity. I am having a very, very bad time, and I’m not even to February yet. Heavens above, I can’t wait until this is over.