Burly Tales

by Steve Berman

  So many keys, one for each lock in the entire house. Huge oval-headed keys, silver keys with crooked teeth, tiny square keys for lock boxes, some of them old, rusted, almost Baroque. He singled each one out to explain its function. There were keys to the front doors, the spare bedrooms, the china cabinets, the keys to his office … the list went on. The final key was smooth and fragile, as if carved from bone. For a moment, he looked ready to remove it from the ring and swallow it whole, but he left it there.

  Amelia observed everything with her keen eye, but did not say a word, so I did it for her.

  “Your Grace, what is the last one for?” I asked.

  The Duke narrowed his eyes. “Nothing to be concerned with.” An oddly-placed smile crept upon his lips as he placed the key ring firmly in Amelia’s hand and helped her fingers envelope it. “That final key is to a room at the end of west-wing gallery, just a private study I keep in an older part of the house. To you, it would be a stuffy bore, but for me, it is my one secret place, the sole chamber I can sit in on my own, for those rare moments a man requires solitude, and can pretend he is not married.”

  “Call it a bachelor’s chamber, if you will,” he said with a chuckle. “We must all be allowed one secret.” He gave me a narrowed-eyed wink.

  Then, he fixed his gaze upon his bride, my sister. “You may use any key in the house. Use, touch, play with anything you like … but that last key, I beg you not to touch. That room is mine alone, and this is all I ask of you.”

  The valet entered like clockwork and announced the carriage was ready. The Duke was leaving already, giving his farewells and within moments we stood outside on the front steps, bundled in our coats, watching his carriage depart down the winding road. But my mind drifted to the keys, or specifically the final key to the final room in the west wing.

  The evening lowered its shroud upon the manor with a cooling touch. Servants appeared in their odd processional to clear our plates and start the library hearth and within moments, they were bidding us goodnight, anxious to be away to their own homes. And still, my mind remained singularly focused on the key. By now, I knew the Duke kept secrets and if we were to survive here with some semblance of happiness, I felt strongly that we should know them.

  In the library, after Maurice had bid us goodnight and we were finally alone, Amelia sipped her whiskey and said, “Thank goodness they’re all gone.”

  I was worried that there would silence, that the week had created a deep wedge that separated us further, but this was not the case. We talked pleasantly for a while, though I knew my sister well enough to know when she was concealing her unhappiness.

  “Why would you marry a man you barely knew?” I finally asked.

  “Because I understand sacrifice,” she said. “Come on. I hate this room—let’s walk.”

  We moved through the darkened manor by candlelight, crossing through the rooms and remarking on how we would repurpose them. Amelia would occasionally remark on some tiny feature that reminded her of home, of the farm, and the yearly fair. But my mind was settled on the locked door as much as the keyring in her hand.

  I led her there, or at least she allowed me to, through the many painted rooms, until we stood in the west-wing gallery with its long rows of family portraits standing sentinel to greet us. Our portrait was now at the end, our morose faces staring in solidarity with those who had come before us.

  I knew I would come here the moment it was possible. As I moved to the back door, Amelia paused. “We should not be here. It was his only rule.”

  “Then let’s break it,” I said. “And maybe he’ll send us home.”

  I took the keys from her hand and strangely enough, she did not resist. The bone key slid into the lock as quick as a hot knife through butter. And I twisted it and turned with the care of a lover as the lock clicked and the heavy door pushed open.

  8

  IT WAS A VESTIBULE THAT opened to a lone staircase, unlit, descending into darkness. I was drawn into its spell, hypnotized by the dark, feeling pulled by invisible strings. I held my candle close and moved downward and the stairs ran deep, deep into the bowels of the manor, further down than the basement kitchens and the larders, until I entered a room of medieval stature. Once my eyes adjusted to the dark, the horror became as clear as mid-day. Instruments of torture, long racks with cords and wheels, shackles fit into the walls, shelves holding vials and metal instruments, the kind that cut and cleave and pierce, surrounded me. My eyes went to the solid image of the metal case, almost a coffin, erect—I recognized it only from old tales—the iron maiden.

  The dim light allowed only one or two details of focus at a time and I was overwhelmed, and uncertain where I stepped and what truly lay within arm’s reach. But the iron maiden captivated me most, almost whispering to me, begging me to investigate it further. With trembling fingers, I pried it open and thrust my candle through the crevice.

  It was the body of a woman, almost perfectly preserved, impaled not by one but a hundred dreaded spikes, having long bled out, her gown stained in rust and blood. Her face was instantly recognizable: the opera singer, the previous wife. I should have screamed or fallen back. I have always been a fragile boy, and though I had witnessed death before, never with such violence. Even in the dulled glossiness of her pale eyes, there was the unrecognizable shock, a sign that she had not believed this could happen to her. My fascination briefly turned clinical. Her skin was spongy and cold to touch. How long did it take to die in such a monstrous contraption? Had she been dressed up in silk in preparation for this act?

  The other wives were not hard to find.

  The second wife lay out on a table, draped in what could only be a withered bedsheet, her body preserved, perhaps embalmed, the red, cauterized slit across her neck stitched back together, one final kindness.

  Unlike the first wife, less care had been taken with her. I recognized her only by the withered, rat-eaten dress strewn upon what I suspected was her skeleton.

  The first wife, had she been an experiment? Had she been an accident? I asked these questions to no one in particular, because I assumed I was alone in what could only be the hellmouth of the Duke’s estate.

  “We should not be here,” Amelia said.

  I had no idea how long she stood beside me, but there she was.

  She held no sign of fear in her voice, no tremble in her step. Her hands calmly cradled the candleholder, her brow creased in observation. She made a short tour of the room, enough to know what fate had befallen her predecessors, before clutching me by the wrist. “We need to go now.”

  And so we did. We dashed back up the narrow staircase with such speed that our candles flickered and almost extinguished, and soon we had resealed the door, locking it tight behind us. And then, we ran through the halls to the main foyer, Amelia clutching my hand with such a grip that my wrist might have shattered beneath it. But I paused there.

  “Come on, there’s no time to dawdle,” she commanded. “To my room we must go. There are jewels there. Rings, bracelets, necklaces, all heirlooms from the Duke, all gifts that could be sold.”

  “We can leave tonight,” Amelia said, “even if we have to walk the treacherous road until dawn.”

  “I need to get some things, too,” I said as I pulled away from her. “Trust me.” And I rushed off through the house.

  When I returned, I found her in her room, hastily stuffing everything she could into her suitcase with grim determination. “Are you almost ready?” she asked.

  “Almost.”

  But our plotting was interrupted by the loud gong of the dinner bell and we froze in place.

  “Maurice?” I wondered aloud, but knew instantly that we could not be that fortunate. For Maurice was already gone for the night, sleeping snugly in his own home, and besides, for an entire week, the gong had never rung once.

  It sounded again, casting its evil echo throughout the house followed by a hideous laughter.

  The Duke.

  He was alre
ady back, or else he had never left. And then, I wondered if this entire night had been well choreographed, a simply-plotted play with a rushed last act.

  Amelia and I stared at each other morbidly, before the gong rung a third time.

  The Duke was summoning us.

  “I will go,” I said.

  “Of course not. We will face him together.”

  But I knew I was the one who had opened the door, that I had already betrayed my sister in so many ways. And whatever should happen next, I knew that I was the weaker of the two and where I would fall, she might still survive. Perhaps, after such a brief tepid life, I was ready to be brave and that such bravery did not mean great feats, but to simply act in the way that is necessary.

  “I’ll go down first,” I said and thrust my things into her hands. “This will buy you some time. Trust me, please.”

  And with that, I left her standing there and turned down the hall with a solemn determination to meet my fate head-on or off … whatever the Duke intended.

  He waited in the central foyer, still in his traveling clothes, a large saber strapped to his side, his beard a cruel blue in the pale light. He was smiling, a menacing wide-mouthed smile, the kind that showed the whites of his teeth, his eyes lit with demonic jubilance. I knew now that he was a fiend himself, or under the control of one, that there was nothing human left within him.

  “One night between the two of you,” he said. “I’m so pleased with this experiment. The last one took four months to cross the threshold.”

  I had reached the end of the stairs, still in possession of the key ring. “Amelia is innocent,” I said in a whimper.

  “My bride is no more innocent than you and those who came before her.” His smile wide, serpentine. I suspected a forked tongue. “Come here,” he said, and an extended a hand.

  “Are you taking me down to the torture chamber?”

  The Duke’s grin did not bend. “It is usually reserved for the women, but for you, I feel I could make an exception. Would you like that?”

  “If you will it,” I said, my heart racing in my chest.

  I did as I was told. I went to him, the way I would go to anyone, to feel the embrace of a lover and a murderer and to not know the difference between the two.

  He left his saber at his side and took my hand, caressing it sweetly.

  The first tear budded in my eye, and yet I could not wipe it away when he was so tenderly stroking my palm. And for a moment, I wondered if he would actually spare me.

  Such gruff hands fitted so tenderly around my neck.

  “The chamber?” I muttered, and the Duke shook his head. I wondered if he’d do me the courtesy of snapping my neck in one swift motion, or if I would smother there under his blue beard. His smile remained demonic. As his fingers began to tighten, I wondered if that cruel mouth could widen and unhinge and attempt to swallow me whole.

  But the end did not come.

  There was movement in the background and the Duke froze, his eyes tracing the lines of the staircase to the descending figure of Amelia, dressed in her traveler’s coat, her face hard-lined. And the Duke looked back at me with the first trace of fear.

  For it was at this moment when he must have realized that I, too, had a keen eye. An eye for details, an eye for numbers, and wits to remember them. And when you underestimate a person and reduce their worth, you overlook the fact that they move quite undetected, that they observe and remember such things like where you keep a trusted pistol and the combination to the lock. For during that brief time of separation from my sister, I had moved effortlessly through the hidden servant passages, collected our father’s gun, and delivered it to Amelia.

  And he too must have realized that there was time enough to load the chamber.

  Amelia called to the Duke once so that he raised his head in abject horror as she took aim. One shot fired. One shot was all that was needed.

  I felt the spray of blood and brains coat my face, as the split skull of the Duke balked in a silent howl.

  The whole manor was alive with its sound.

  9

  ONCE ALL THE LEGAL MATTERS were finalized and the bodies properly buried, we made plans to leave the manor forever. Amelia inherited all. I will not detail the following weeks for they were tiresome. Extended family and society members appeared in droves with palms out, demanding their share of the fortune and Amelia appeased them as best she could. We kept very little from the manor, for it was difficult to fall in love with treasures that were never yours to begin with, but we managed a few crates and pieces of furniture, and a modest amount of money that would last us the rest of our lives. We sold or donated the rest until we came upon the west-wing gallery one final time and a historian offered to take the portraits for the sake of prosperity. Our own portrait we would have preferred to burn in a magnificent blaze but were content enough with leaving it for academia to add it to the records of history.

  In the end, the manor was closed up and sold and Amelia used the proceeds to let the servants go with full pensions so they could start anew elsewhere, without fear of scandal.

  All except one. Maurice, our wonderful cook, another lost soul among the wreckage. When I informed him that we were leaving, I asked if he wanted to come with us.

  And surprisingly, he did.

  The three of us returned to our small town, able to repurchase our farmhouse and hire the appropriate farmhands to tend our fields. We were welcomed back with open arms and sly looks and plenty of gossip, for Amelia was now a young widow with considerable funds. Suitors arrived with great urgency, coming and going with the yearly cycle of the summer fair. But she never re-married. She was a different creature now, hardened yet still gentle, with her keen eye that could shoot the smirk off a man’s face from a mile away.

  I used some of our assets to open in town a proper tea house, a modest little building that I stocked with ceramics and silver from the old manor. Maurice served as the cook, and happily baked confections that drew in visitors from across the county: happy women who came to admire the golden leaves on the china, who came to eat and gossip while their husbands and children ate their fill. And each night, Maurice and I retired to our little apartment above the shop, eager to forget the horrors that originally brought us together.

  We grew old and plump. We prospered.

  Snow Melt and Rose Bloom

  John T. Fuller

  NOT SO LONG AGO AND in a place not far from here, in a clearing at the edge of the forest stood a cottage. Many people might call it small, but the correct word would be cosy. It nestled in the glade like a pip in an apple, the trees reaching over to shield it from the busy, brutal world outside. Every summer, flowers blossomed in the yellow thatch, and in the rambling front garden that did not need nor desire a fence two rose bushes bloomed—one white, one red.

  The woman who lived in the house should probably have known there was something about those roses, from the way they flowered all year round, no matter the weather. However, Mama Anna was a pragmatic soul, and so accustomed to magic that she never gave it a thought. She tended to her garden and she played her guitar, she baked biscuits for her friends and told stories to the animals of the forest. She painted pictures that she sold at the local market, and she was happy. Sometimes she’d leave the forest to go out into the world travelling, which she enjoyed very much, but she always missed her peaceful little home and liked best when she could return there. “Because missing something makes you grateful to have it back”, Mama Anna would muse. Often, she’d leave the forest for just long enough to see bands in the nearby city, and meet new people there. It was one of those outings that led to the twins.

  “I think his name was Walt, or was it Albert?” She told Delia the fox. “No, it was Walt, I’m sure of it. Like Walt Whitman.” She smiled, broadly and rubbed her round belly. “TreeFlower were playing, it was such a trip. And I came home with this beautiful gift.”

  Delia twitched her tail, and scooted into the blackberry th
icket that hugged the house.

  Mama Anna gave her a little wave goodbye. Beside her, the roses seemed to wave, too. A breeze shook the blushing bushes, petals falling to the ground like confetti.

  Mama Anna said, “I wish for a child as white as snow. I wish for a child as red as blood.”

  The sun shone, bright and leaf-latticed. Birds clamoured in the branches above. And the sleepy heads of the roses nodded, as if they understood.

  With the passing years, Mama Anna’s gold hair turned silver, but she lived on contentedly in her cosy cottage in the forest, with the animals and her music and her sons, Walt and Whit.

  The twins were born only seconds apart, but from the moment that Whit yelled hello to the world, it couldn’t have been clearer how different they were. Whilst both boys were happy and kind, raised that way by their mother, and they got along as well as any brothers could, the resemblance ended there. Walt was slender and delicate like Mama Anna, with blond curls so pale they were almost white: he quickly earned the nickname ‘Snow’. He was quiet and thoughtful and given over to music and poetry, writing odes to the singing woods as soon as he was old enough to speak. Whit, though, looked nothing like his mother or brother. Bold and loud, he could build or break anything with his big, square hands and his laughter echoed always around the house. “You have your father’s colour,” Mama Anna would tell him, smiling. That colour was fiery: pale skin dappled with freckles, and coppery hair that meant his nickname could be nothing but ‘Red’.

  There was never a question that the forest was their home. Fearless and bright, as children, the twins camped outside night after night, wrapped in the knowledge that the animals were their friends and the boys could never come to harm, and that in the morning Mama Anna would have breakfast waiting for them when they wandered home again.

  One winter evening when the twins were twenty one, there came a booming knock at the door.